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Comment by pg | Hacker News Reader

It shouldn't be that difficult to imagine. It's a very old tradition to travel long distances in search of specialized knowledge. Practically every famous medieval scholar did. But of course the tradition is way older than that. In the mid 6th century BC Pythagoras went to study in Egypt, and his biographer Porphyry said "It was from his stay among these foreigners that Pythagoras acquired the greater part of his wisdom."

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From wikipedia:

"""It is not easy to determine how far Pythagoras was indebted to the Egyptian priests, or indeed, whether he learnt anything from them. There was nothing in the symbolical mode of representation which the Pythagoreans adopted, which bore the distinct traces of an Egyptian origin."""

And further: """The philosophy and the institutions of Pythagoras exhibit what might easily have been developed by a Greek mind exposed to the ordinary influences of the age."""

Sure, but the world has changed in the several centuries since.

Today travelling across the world to receive information isn't something most people would do - or even think about. After all, the price of information has crashed even more than stocks in Lehrman Brothers.

That's not the point being made. The point is that the concept of travelling for wisdom should be familiar. Like fighting dragons to get princesses.

Actually travelling great distances as part of one's education is more common, not less. I wouldn't be surprised if at least a million people a year move to distant towns to go to college or grad school every year in the US alone.

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