Good advice to the younger folks. You can afford to look stupid. So go ahead and do that thing you wanted to try. There's more acceptance because of your age. You're expected to fail in some ways.

Once you have a mortgage, a reputation to maintain, an image of competence to uphold at work, you pretty much can't afford to look stupid in my opinion.

Max Tegmark, a cosmologist and MIT professor, is known for his "provocative ideas" and has a self-imposed rule regarding his work: "Every time I've written ten mainstream papers, I allow myself to indulge in writing one wacky one". This approach allows him to pursue unconventional, "crazy" theories without jeopardizing his reputation as a serious scientist.

Intelligence and ignorance are two different things. It is a sign of intelligence to be able to acknowledge your ignorance when it exists. Then you use your intelligence to correct that. Even with a mortgage this has never failed me. 20 years, 2 employers due to an ownership change, and several RIFs survived.

The power of saying, "I don't know, but I will find out" is underestimated.

Trump and Elon still afford to look stupid, you can do it your whole life.