Author: Lengdung Tungchamma

Every generation has always had an interpretation of the world. In the age of Socrates, knowledge was everything. In the age of Alexander, conquest was everything. In the days of colonialism, school was everything. Towards the end of colonialism, being a freedom fighter was everything. Each generation had a way it viewed the world. This conviction about the world is often the product of experience. For instance, in the US, there is a generation that defined their lives by the fall of Vietnam. There are others who define their lives by the 9/11 attack. In the same vein, there are those who define their lives by the Presidency of Barrack Obama. For each of these groups, their worldview was defined by events that were large-scale unusual events. Nicholas Taleb Nassim calls these “black swan” events.

The famed Israeli historian, Prof. Yuval Harari wrote that “The greatest scientific discovery is the discovery of our ignorance”. The moment mankind discovered the things he doesn’t know, that changed the game of history. By knowing what we do not know, we started our journey towards knowing those unknowns. That has been the story of humanity since the scientific age began. All the socio-economic progress that we have witnessed is built on the power of knowledge. Despite this progress, there have been countries and regions that have not enjoyed this progress. Nearly all of it can be connected to ignorance.