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The Surprising Psychology of Impressiveness

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Re: The Surprising Psychology of Impressiveness

#41

Post by kiba »

nostrademons wrote: post #34
sharms wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a world of 7 billion people, you will find that just about everyone is a dime a dozen. To use your own words, the following is equally as true: there is nothing "impressive" about signing up to lobby the U.N. as an unpaid intern. Show me a student making real money, and that is actually valued by the free market, and I will be impressed.

"Show me a student making real money, and that is actually valued by the free market, and I will be impressed." I think posts like this actually reinforce the article's meta-point, which is that people are impressed by accomplishments that fit with the person's values where it's not obvious how to accomplish them . You (and many other readers of this site) value success in business. Even if you're currently making re…

You (and many other readers of this site) value success in business. Even if you're currently making real money, you probably weren't at age 17, and probably didn't have much of a clue how to at age 17, and so a 17-year-old making real money is impressive.

I suspect the parent poster loath people who enjoy rent-seeking, political jockeying, and anything that scream power for power's sake.

He want to make useful products that benefit the world and make a difference. Business success, per se, is not what he's looking for. Business success is only a measure of how much he was able to make a difference in the world and how much he expand the pies for everybody.

Re: The Surprising Psychology of Impressiveness

#42

Post by jacobolus »

kiba wrote: post #9
melling wrote: post #2

I picked David because his achievements seemed more concrete. The "marketing" and "sustainability" stuff sounded like fluff to me. I didn't read much more of the article after I found out he chose the other guy.

I also choose David over Steve. Maybe it's because I have a disdain for politics. The ability to cause havocs in UN meetings would more impressed me. Competing with the United States Post Office and then crushing them is also an incredibly impressive to me. What I would search for, as a college admission office is people who is likely to defy authorities and be massively right . If I can get that guy into college, th…

You know a lot of high school students with “massively right” unique insights into the world that no one has thought of before? Enough to make up a freshman class at a mid-sized school?

Re: The Surprising Psychology of Impressiveness

#43

Post by jacobolus »

endtime wrote: post #31

This is particularly exaggerated among Stanford undergrads, presumably by intent of the admissions department. I didn't do my undergrad at Stanford, but I've heard many stories from undergrad friends about the guy down the hall who didn't seem particularly outstanding or bright, until he turned out to be e.g. the #2 model airplane builder in the world. This line in particular stood out to me: >Admissions officers wou…

I bet you’d find worse problem sets just about anywhere else. There are all kinds of reasons why 19-year-olds fuck up on problem sets, not all of them to do with lacking “academic” talent.

Re: The Surprising Psychology of Impressiveness

#44

Post by jacobolus »

postfuturist wrote: post #15

The whole concept of highly selective schools is distasteful. I can't imagine myself in the position of choosing between prospective students for one. The selection process is highly arbitrary just like hiring. I wouldn't accept the responsibility of turning away prospective students who actually want to come to a school to learn.

How would you reorganize education? How would you distribute professors among students? Match students to the same courses? Decide which courses each student could take?

The current system has gigantic problems. But fixing it is not trivial, because such a big network is incredibly complex.

Re: The Surprising Psychology of Impressiveness

#45

Post by kiba »

jacobolus wrote: post #42
kiba wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also choose David over Steve. Maybe it's because I have a disdain for politics. The ability to cause havocs in UN meetings would more impressed me. Competing with the United States Post Office and then crushing them is also an incredibly impressive to me. What I would search for, as a college admission office is people who is likely to defy authorities and be massively right . If I can get that guy into college, th…

You know a lot of high school students with “massively right” unique insights into the world that no one has thought of before? Enough to make up a freshman class at a mid-sized school?

You know a lot of high school students with “massively right” unique insights into the world that no one has thought of before? Enough to make up a freshman class at a mid-sized school?

Just one guy/gal in his lifetime is what a college admission officer would hope for in his entire career.

That's all he need to cause a revolution in a field.

The problem is of course, how to find the genuine article in a pool full of candidates sprouting impressive grades and other distracting signals which are probably incidental or have nothing to do with massively right insights generators.

My guesses and your guesses is probably as good as the college admission officers. The chance of scoring a direct hit because the officer was able to correctly reasoned that this guy is what he's looking for is probably incredibly low.

Re: The Surprising Psychology of Impressiveness

#46

Post by jacobolus »

sliverstorm wrote: post #10
_delirium wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's just not a lot to go on. The SAT score is one of the few nationally comparable objective measures, and obviously measures only a specific kind of aptitude. High-school GPA is objective but hard to compare across schools, and measures only specific things as well (ability to do well in high-school classes). Essays might give you more information, but might be written by someone other than the student. You end…

Also, in the case where you have a 2 students with perfect 4.0 (or better) GPA's, both got perfect SAT scores, etc- i.e., match eachother blow for blow, the only way groupthink people have thought of to get ahead is to have extracurriculars. Ideally GPA and SAT scores would make the distinction for us. The top X% of students would range from 3.5-4 in their GPA, or something like that. Unfortunately, grade inflation a…

> Ideally GPA and SAT scores would make the distinction for us.

You think these are good measurements of student ability? For myself, I couldn’t complain about such a system, because (probably like many/most here) I did exceedingly well by such metrics. But to be honest, I think they are absolutely terrible.

Re: The Surprising Psychology of Impressiveness

#47

Post by [deleted] »

alexgartrell wrote: post #39
jacobolus wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In all likelihood, "Steve" isn't as mentally tough as "David" How can you possibly make this kind of speculative judgment on the basis of no further information? “All likelihood”? Give me a break. I know football players who are mentally tough. I also know football players who are lazy dipshit assholes. The kids in the band, or the theater, or the debate team, or the math club, are no less “mentally tough” than the…

On one hand I have evidence that "David" can force himself to train (which, for track athletes, involves running miles in all kinds of terrible weather, often until they throw up). Alternatively, "Steve" sent some emails, did some networking, and ended up in a couple sweet positions. What I meant by "All likelihood" is that, given the information provided, I would wager more on David's mental toughness than on Steve.…

[deleted]

Re: The Surprising Psychology of Impressiveness

#48

Post by jacobolus »

alexgartrell wrote: post #39
jacobolus wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In all likelihood, "Steve" isn't as mentally tough as "David" How can you possibly make this kind of speculative judgment on the basis of no further information? “All likelihood”? Give me a break. I know football players who are mentally tough. I also know football players who are lazy dipshit assholes. The kids in the band, or the theater, or the debate team, or the math club, are no less “mentally tough” than the…

On one hand I have evidence that "David" can force himself to train (which, for track athletes, involves running miles in all kinds of terrible weather, often until they throw up). Alternatively, "Steve" sent some emails, did some networking, and ended up in a couple sweet positions. What I meant by "All likelihood" is that, given the information provided, I would wager more on David's mental toughness than on Steve.…

> I have evidence that "David" can force himself to train

From the information given, no you really don’t.

> What I meant by "All likelihood" is that, given the information provided, I would wager more

Okay, glad you clarified. That’s not what “all likelihood” means to anyone else.

Re: The Surprising Psychology of Impressiveness

#49

Post by nostrademons »

jacobolus wrote: post #40
nostrademons wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect that Hacker News has a bit of selection bias, in that most of the people here are driven, success-oriented individuals who'd like to believe that hard work makes a difference. We've already read all the articles about how success comes from diligence and practice, and that feats that seem superhuman are just the result of focused effort over time. In my personal experience, the majority of people do not thi…

> passed 8 AP tests without taking a single AP class Passing AP tests is impressive? Whoa.

That was my thought too, but a surprisingly large number of people were impressed. Which was the article's point. There's no accounting for taste, I guess. (Well, actually there is an accounting for taste, and that's what the article was about. People can be irrational and yet have perfectly rational explanations for their irrationality.)

Re: The Surprising Psychology of Impressiveness

#50

Post by jaytee_clone »

In the mind of a typical high school student, being a team captain is a known path with many known examples. Being a part of UN is not so obvious thus it's a risky path and it may take many failures before stumbling upon the right path.

Sure, the right path may be simple. But so are many successful start-ups ideas. Yet you can't just discredit the skills of the founders just because the ideas were simple. Because simple ideas usually came many iterations of bad ones

If I am an investor I'd invest in Steve because, he is, as PG once said, relentlessly resourceful.

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