Valuable advice from great people, 1: On the importance of living in a Boring Place, decrease external dimensionality.

Descartes could not live in Paris because he had too many interesting friends. He moved to Belgium and Sweden then very very poor and rural so he could reduce noise of ideas. And he also did turn down a university position as too distracting.

One can enumerate accounts: Jules Vernes also left Paris for Nantes, partly for family reasons, mainly because it was boring enough… but his argument was “good for a day trip to Paris”

via Valuable advice from great people, 1: On the… – Nassim Nicholas Taleb.