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The 10,000-hour rule is wrong and perpetuates a cruel myth

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Re: The 10,000-hour rule is wrong and perpetuates a cruel myth

#51

Post by davidmr »

chpmrc wrote: post #18

This assumption that you either excel at something or you should just do something else is as dumb as saying that you either become a billionaire or you might as well live on the streets. Just because marketing the top 1% is easier doesn't mean the rest is crap. Just because you won't be the next Bill Gates doesn't mean you shouldn't start (and enjoy building) your own software company. Even the 10k hours theory does…

I agree up to a point. Certainly the implication you should not continue doing something if a) you think it's fun and/or b) you think it's important seems wrongheaded to me and not a very fun way to go through life. I'm never going to be as smart as Andrew Ng, but I still have fun building ML systems and pipelines.

That said, there are times when I've given up and felt like it was the right thing to do. I went to a pretty good school for Physics because I was sure that was what I wanted to do with my life. After 2-3 years, through no lack of effort on my part, it was just super clear I wasn't going to make the cut--I just didn't have it. I worked hard and got okay grades, but as the material got harder, it was just plain to see who was separating from the pack and those kids just had something I never would, and hard work wasn't going to do it. If I didn't put in 10k hours, I came damned close.

I dropped Physics as a major, switched to Math, dropped the idea of academia as a career and have never looked back. An honest look at one's talents relative to peers and competitors is still important.

Re: The 10,000-hour rule is wrong and perpetuates a cruel myth

#52

Post by davidmr »

chpmrc wrote: post #18

This assumption that you either excel at something or you should just do something else is as dumb as saying that you either become a billionaire or you might as well live on the streets. Just because marketing the top 1% is easier doesn't mean the rest is crap. Just because you won't be the next Bill Gates doesn't mean you shouldn't start (and enjoy building) your own software company. Even the 10k hours theory does…

I agree up to a point. Certainly the implication you should continue doing something if a) you think it's fun and/or b) you think it's important seems wrongheaded to me and not a very fun way to go through life.

That said, there are times when I've given up and felt like it was the right thing to do. I went to a pretty good school for Physics because I was sure that was what I wanted to do with my life. After 2-3 years, through no lack of effort on my part, it was just super clear I wasn't going to make the cut--I just didn't have it. I worked hard and got okay grades, but as the material got harder, it was just plain to see who was separating from the pack and those kids just had something I never would, and hard work was going to do it. If I didn't put in 10k hours, I came damned close. I dropped Physics as a major, switched to Math, dropped the idea of academia as a career and have never looked back. An honest look at one's talents relative to peers and competitors is still important.

Re: The 10,000-hour rule is wrong and perpetuates a cruel myth

#53

Post by comboy »

paulpauper wrote: post #28

Gladwell did a bait and switch, in his book first ignoring the role of talent, and then when pressed for more details, clarifying that the 10,000 hour rule applies to those who already have talent but then practiced 10,00 hours to hone such talent. http://greyenlightenment.com/malcolm-gladwell-bait-and-switc... I think the amended version of '10,000 hours' is closer to being correct, and probably not the one the publ…

I think the most part of the talent is that your brain likes doing given thing. You enjoy it. That is, unless somebody is forced to, she's unlikely to spend 10K hours on something she doesn't like.

"Talent is a pursued interest. Anything that you're willing to practice, you can do." - Bob Ross

But it doesn't mean that anybody can achieve anything. Just that one can become a master in a field in which he's happy to put these 10K hours.

I'm yet to meet a great coder who wouldn't enjoy coding.

Re: The 10,000-hour rule is wrong and perpetuates a cruel myth

#54

Post by mtrimpe »

rapsey wrote: post #32
paulpauper wrote: post #28

Gladwell did a bait and switch, in his book first ignoring the role of talent, and then when pressed for more details, clarifying that the 10,000 hour rule applies to those who already have talent but then practiced 10,00 hours to hone such talent. http://greyenlightenment.com/malcolm-gladwell-bait-and-switc... I think the amended version of '10,000 hours' is closer to being correct, and probably not the one the publ…

As with anything in the real world there is always a "yes but" and "it depends". 10k hours succeeded because it is generally the right idea. It's not a mathematical rule. Some common sense is still required. You can't stop people interpreting it to hear only what they want to hear.

If people would actual read the book Peak they'd understand that it isn't even about those 10k hours.

What Ericsson says is that what creates peak performance is studying just beyond the edge of your comfort zone with (as much) personal feedback (as possible) from an experienced mentor; so not just playing around a bit by yourself.

For quite a few fields 'expert' levels happen to come down to about 10k hours of such practice, which is where the number comes from, but he also warns that you will need increasingly more than that to rise to the top as more people put in more hours.

Re: The 10,000-hour rule is wrong and perpetuates a cruel myth

#55

Post by ralux »

ktRolster wrote: post #13

I think this paper should be linked to on every story like this: http://cogprints.org/656/1/innate.htm The worst is when people give themselves excuses and say, "I don't have natural talent, I can't learn math." Well sure, if you don't have natural talent you might not be Paul Erdős, but you can still get through calculus.

Something that strikes out in the BI article is the separation of children on schools given their profile. Major advancements happened at the crossing of domains. Interesting perspectives were brought to a domain by people from other fields, thinking differently. User interfaces for instance, use cases for technology.

Re: The 10,000-hour rule is wrong and perpetuates a cruel myth

#57

Post by Lxr »

comboy wrote: post #53
paulpauper wrote: post #28

Gladwell did a bait and switch, in his book first ignoring the role of talent, and then when pressed for more details, clarifying that the 10,000 hour rule applies to those who already have talent but then practiced 10,00 hours to hone such talent. http://greyenlightenment.com/malcolm-gladwell-bait-and-switc... I think the amended version of '10,000 hours' is closer to being correct, and probably not the one the publ…

I think the most part of the talent is that your brain likes doing given thing. You enjoy it. That is, unless somebody is forced to, she's unlikely to spend 10K hours on something she doesn't like. "Talent is a pursued interest. Anything that you're willing to practice, you can do." - Bob Ross But it doesn't mean that anybody can achieve anything. Just that one can become a master in a field in which he's happy to pu…

> I'm yet to meet a great coder who wouldn't enjoy coding.

Maybe great coders like it so much because they are good at it. It would be reasonable from an evolutionary point of view to focus on what we are better than others at. At university I have seen people get into a field on the basis of an unexpected excellent grade and conclude they love it, and reject whole fields as stupid and uninteresting after failing - where the directly of causality is clearly result first and love/hate second.

Re: The 10,000-hour rule is wrong and perpetuates a cruel myth

#58

Post by bryanlarsen »

Swizec wrote: post #38
paulpauper wrote: post #28

Gladwell did a bait and switch, in his book first ignoring the role of talent, and then when pressed for more details, clarifying that the 10,000 hour rule applies to those who already have talent but then practiced 10,00 hours to hone such talent. http://greyenlightenment.com/malcolm-gladwell-bait-and-switc... I think the amended version of '10,000 hours' is closer to being correct, and probably not the one the publ…

I'm sure you can attain mastery in anything by practicing for 10,000 hours. Hard work beats talent when talent fails to work hard. The caveat is that you will not be the best. You might not even be world class. Or even national class. But you are going to be better than somebody who practiced only 1,000 hours no matter how talented they are. What people forget is that at the very high levels of achievement in any fie…

From the article, "For example, the number of hours of deliberate practice to first reach "master" ranged from 728 hours to 16,120 hours." And given that this excludes everybody who gives up before reaching master, I believe the real gap is much wider.
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