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The Curse of Genius

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Re: The Curse of Genius

#81

Post by Nasrudith »

geggam wrote: post #77
Nasrudith wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The strong version is trivially disproveable - if they had got eaten by a dingo as an infant you would never seen any success regardless of how smart said poor illfated baby would be. That said talent, genius, and drive certainly are factors even with priviledged upbringing like needing money for education, seed capital and ability to dedicate their timr without side jobs. While self-made men, women and nonbinaries a…

Being eaten by a dingo is a strawman. Given two people in the same place with the same opportunity you will see the difference. Yes chaos can happen and create challenges. Genius rises above it.

It was a point about survivorship bias in the most blunt and literal way. Not all challenges may be risen above. I agree that they can rise above but not always.

Re: The Curse of Genius

#82

Post by geggam »

Nasrudith wrote: post #81
geggam wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being eaten by a dingo is a strawman. Given two people in the same place with the same opportunity you will see the difference. Yes chaos can happen and create challenges. Genius rises above it.

It was a point about survivorship bias in the most blunt and literal way. Not all challenges may be risen above. I agree that they can rise above but not always.

If you want to compare yourself to dead people... so be it ?

Re: The Curse of Genius

#83

Post by jdietrich »

noonespecial wrote: post #66
TeMPOraL wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is the age-old cliche of intelligent people finding 'normal people' dull. That idea starts to fade when you really, truly embed yourself in another person's life, or they manage to embed themselves in yours before you realize that's what's happening. Does it, though? I mean, the part when you're discovering another human's story is interesting, but for me, that was always modulated by the feelings I had that…

"partner, children, family, home, job" I found all of these "ordinary" things in life to be quite extraordinary when they happened to me!

That's rather the point though, isn't it? Your baby is fascinating because it's yours, but babies in the abstract aren't actually very interesting. They pass through the same developmental milestones at roughly the same rate and have the same (very limited) capacity for novelty. I've never met a baby with a unique perspective on the Israel-Palestine problem or a fabulous collection of golden age comic books. It's a bit like following someone else's baseball team - unless you're emotionally invested, it's really rather dull.

Maybe I'm just a cynical misanthrope, but I'm not very interested in the mundane minutiae of other people's lives, nor do I expect them to be very interested in the mundane minutiae of mine. It would be quite weird if all seven billion of us were innately fascinating.

An interesting question is how interestingness is distributed. A normal distribution seems plausible, but while I can think of people who are three-sigma interesting, I'm not sure I could think of someone who is three-sigma dull. Mass media would seem to suggest that a power-law distribution is more likely - most of us are really rather boring, but there's a long tail of exceptionally interesting people.

Re: The Curse of Genius

#85

Post by Fellshard »

jdietrich wrote: post #83
noonespecial wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"partner, children, family, home, job" I found all of these "ordinary" things in life to be quite extraordinary when they happened to me!

That's rather the point though, isn't it? Your baby is fascinating because it's yours, but babies in the abstract aren't actually very interesting. They pass through the same developmental milestones at roughly the same rate and have the same (very limited) capacity for novelty. I've never met a baby with a unique perspective on the Israel-Palestine problem or a fabulous collection of golden age comic books. It's a b…

The fact that it's yours makes it interesting by necessity, but also puts you in a position to discover ways in which all babies are - at least to some extent - interesting. There are minds that are anything but mundane beyond the minutiae.

On the contrary, you seem to have restricted the category of interesting things so tightly that you're not noticing a whole treasure trove of things.

Re: The Curse of Genius

#86

Post by ptah »

dusted wrote: post #59

(disclaimer: not a genious, iq 125) grade 0, first day, found name of classmate interesting as it was the same name as a character in a tale I liked, I remarked this, was told that it was cruel to "call people names", class was encouraged to find a "bad name" for me. grade 1, teacher used to enjoy holding me in front of the class, telling "this is [name], he thinks he's special, he likes attention" and have the other…

yes, i think most of the depression and anguish comes from experiences like this

Re: The Curse of Genius

#87

Post by [deleted] »

Haga wrote: post #37
donecarejustsav wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that's a statement about identifiable early genius but not necessarily mature genius, unknown or otherwise. Anyone can see the same patterns being applied to different problems in repetition with enough time. That gets boring to those who find no value in tangential rewards. Escaping that with idealism for understanding solely demands more, and I think that's the biggest identifier for lasting genius versus t…

For power to emerge there has to be fire. You can't make steam with refined poisonous dirt. 2000 year recorded wisdom told us this much. Any straw to explain away that my attitude could be a problem for society. Only way to progress is shift the nay sayers out of gear in emergencies.

[deleted]

Re: The Curse of Genius

#88

Post by Mikeb85 »

yhoiseth wrote: post #26
Mikeb85 wrote: post #14

The 'curse' of genius is more the fact that society is designed to function for average people. The average person goes to school, gets training in something, works their job at an average pace, etc... 'Genius' goes one of two ways. Either they have a good support system around them (usually meaning money) and advance, then later have chance for entrepreneurship and a career they can advance at their own pace (meanin…

Thanks for sharing. Glad to hear that you're happier today. I'd be interested in hearing what changes to society you think you would have made things better for you. Also, in the absence of any societal changes, do you think your parents should have done anything differently?

I'm not sure society would be better if everything was geared towards people who are outliers or more productive earlier. It might be worse for everyone else. Several Asian societies seem hyper concerned with academic achievement and work productivity, and have a fairly toxic work culture with poor work-life balance as a result.

Re: The Curse of Genius

#89

Post by goodcanadian »

friedegg wrote: post #69

A decade ago, my niece went in for pre-K testing, and the teacher showed her a list of animals, asking her to name them. Picture of a dog, spot. Picture of a cat, whiskers. Picture of a rabbit, hoppy, etc. The teacher tells her parents that she failed that section and needs to work on being able to identify animals. They point out to the teacher that she had asked her to name them, not identify them, and that's exact…

My brother was asked in kindergarten, "What do you put in the barn?" The expected answer was, of course, animals: cows, horses, et cetera. However, we grew up on a grain farm (no livestock). My brother answered, "trucks," as that was literally what was stored in our barn. He was told that was the wrong answer.

Re: The Curse of Genius

#90

Post by sixQuarks »

sus_007 wrote: post #29
sixQuarks wrote: post #2

I remember understanding people talking but not knowing how to speak when I was very little. I guess I’m a genius

you forgot putting "/s" .

I thought it was obvious, but I forgot there are some real geniuses here who can’t tell the difference.
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