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The Bus Ticket Theory of Genius

paulgraham.com

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Re: The Bus Ticket Theory of Genius

#201

Post by ruffrey »

throwaway713 wrote: post #191

I agree with his theory, but what I find particularly interesting is that I think most people do not have an obsessive interest in anything at all. And as someone who has obsessive interests in a lot of things (some “useful”, some not), that seems really odd to me: how can you just be satisfied to go to work, come home, watch TV, and go to bed each day? (Not saying that’s the wrong way to live, just saying it is surp…

Millions of people have obsessive interest in their family or in professional sports.

Re: The Bus Ticket Theory of Genius

#202

Post by fuzzfactor »

sjg007 wrote: post #101
fuzzfactor wrote: post #95

>But you can never be sure. In fact, here's an interesting idea that's also rather alarming if it's true: it may be that to do great work, you also have to waste a lot of time. >In many different areas, reward is proportionate to risk. If that rule holds here, then the way to find paths that lead to truly great work is to be willing to expend a lot of effort on things that turn out to be every bit as unpromising as t…

Musicians who are breadth players typically become backing/house band members. You see these folks all the time in awards shows, concerts etc...

Yup, it can be helpful being able to perform in a variety of mainstream opportunities that may arise, whether you are experimental or not.

Re: The Bus Ticket Theory of Genius

#203

Post by kirse »

On a more spiritual note, we're all bus ticket collectors. PG is defining "matters" as "what can make money", which is fine for a business-focused essay, but it does what we all attempt to do - convince ourselves that our domain has significance.

The truth is, whether we're bus ticket collectors or Bill Gates, we're all headed to the grave. Bus tickets or billionaires, we're all getting burned up. Both science and religion hint at the same endgame, best to ponder if there's something beyond that which changes the "what matters" equation in the living short-term.

Somewhat interesting PG cites both Newton and Pasteur in his essay - men who were obsessively pulled by their desire to understand their Creator and the infinitude of His magnificent creation:

Pasteur: "Posterity will one day laugh at the foolishness of modern materialistic philosophers. The more I study nature, the more I stand amazed at the work of the Creator. I pray while I am engaged at my work in the laboratory."

Re: The Bus Ticket Theory of Genius

#204

Post by isodude »

throwaway713 wrote: post #191

I agree with his theory, but what I find particularly interesting is that I think most people do not have an obsessive interest in anything at all. And as someone who has obsessive interests in a lot of things (some “useful”, some not), that seems really odd to me: how can you just be satisfied to go to work, come home, watch TV, and go to bed each day? (Not saying that’s the wrong way to live, just saying it is surp…

Read about and in depth how to raise kids. There is a lot of good books how you can let kids become strong individuals instead of good at following instructions.

You will never be bored :p

Re: The Bus Ticket Theory of Genius

#205

Post by codetrotter »

throwaway713 wrote: post #191

I agree with his theory, but what I find particularly interesting is that I think most people do not have an obsessive interest in anything at all. And as someone who has obsessive interests in a lot of things (some “useful”, some not), that seems really odd to me: how can you just be satisfied to go to work, come home, watch TV, and go to bed each day? (Not saying that’s the wrong way to live, just saying it is surp…

> I agree with his theory, but what I find particularly interesting is that I think most people do not have an obsessive interest in anything at all.

I am not convinced that this is true. I think a lot more people are really interested or passionate about something than you may realize, but not all of them talk about those things to everyone. Alternatively, their passion might be what they do for a living.

So for instance a case of the former might be someone that has a very niche interest, so they have learned that in most cases talking about that thing does not lead to any interesting conversations.

Another possibility is that they might not view themselves as being particularly good at their area of interest (which may or may not be the case), so they don’t like to talk about it.

So for whatever reason, including the above or other reasons, you end up not learning about these interests that those people have when you just talk casually with them.

And as for the people that do it for a living, it could be that they have no interests outside of work, because work fulfills their passion. For example someone who is a really passionate salesperson, if they already truly derive meaning and joy from doing what they do at work, maybe they don’t need anything outside of work other than to relax and recover.

Lastly, another group of people I can think of are those that have interests that are very costly and they don’t have a high paying job. So most of the year they spend a lot of time at work and on the spare time they sit in front of the TV, or the computer and it sounds like they have no passion for anything but really they are spending a lot of time dreaming about the next trip they can afford to go on in the Himalayas or whatever, and when they sit at home they watch programs about skiing, and they read about skiing online and discuss it with others online, and maybe read magazines about it as well.

I’m not saying that everyone has something that they are deeply interested in, but I believe that more people do than one might realize.

Re: The Bus Ticket Theory of Genius

#206

Post by carapace »

ssivark wrote: post #26
_Microft wrote: post #3

What's the topic that just doesn't leave you alone? For me it's an interest in animal consciousness and communication, even though I am a physicist by training.

Fellow physicist-by-training. Got interested in "machine learning" and "artificial intelligence" a few years ago. As I delve into the roots of the field, I increasingly feel that many interesting ideas seem to have been discarded without justification other than the field switching en masse to a different fad at some instant. Of late, I'm particularly fascinated by ideas in Cybernetics, but I don't see anyone else be…

In re: cybernetics and psychology, Gregory Bateson said that the Neurolinguistic Programming folks achieved what he had been working towards, a cybernetic psychology. If you're interested, start with the very first books "Structure of Magic" vol I and II https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/964154.The_Structure_of_... https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/821993.The_Structure_of_...

Essentially, by modelling therapists' verbal patterns using Transformational Grammar a formal theory of mind was evolved that has lead to sophisticated algorithms for various kinds of psychological change.

Unfortunately, a lot of pseudo-science and "woo" has grown up around it, but please don't let that distract you, don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.

- - - -

In re: creating simple machines with intelligence, IMO cybernetics (i.e. what's in "Introduction to Cybernetics" by Ashby; I'm also not interested in fluff) is pretty obviously the way to go. Even the simple centrifugal governor "seems alive" in the words of early witnesses. Purposive behaviour is the domain of living systems, at least according to instinct and experience, eh?

I think one could use cybernetics to inform the design of robotic systems using e.g. the kind of simple controllers David Wyland talks about at the HomeBrew Robotics Club in this video: https://archive.org/details/HBRobotics_Forth

He's not explicitly talking about cybernetics, of course, but I think he's got the right idea and cybernetics shows the way forward.

Re: The Bus Ticket Theory of Genius

#207

Post by Jarwain »

panarky wrote: post #194
Alex3917 wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Competitive gaming is a particularly good example of this. Anything competitive is emphatically not a good example of this. If you're in a competition, then by definition you're doing the exact same thing as everyone else. That's a guaranteed recipe for not accomplishing anything meaningful in life. Competition can be great for cultivating positive character traits and developing certain skills, but at some point y…

The key ingredient in the obsession is that you're not seeking personal advantage. I wish there was a better word for this than pg's "disinterested" because it sounds strange to have an intense, all-consuming interest in which you're disinterested (see his footnote about choosing this word). Because you're not pursuing personal advantage, this kind of obsession is incompatible with competition. You're obsessively int…

Yeah, I'm not a fan of the word "disinterested" either. "dis-self-interested" might be more accurate, but also not good.

Maybe "impersonal"? Still weirdly contradictory but closer to the meaning maybe.

"detached" or "impartial"?

The limitations of English are weird.

Re: The Bus Ticket Theory of Genius

#208

Post by ncmncm »

naveen99 wrote: post #35
MarkMMullin wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 'problem' with modern science is that a large finite amount of stuff has been discovered, and new discoveries are most often built on that stuff. I splash around in the backwaters of machine learning, however I have to pick my targets carefully and maintain a very tight focus - the defined knowledge base has already grown to more than anyone can ingest in detail. Given the amount of knowledge that has to be absor…

The number of unanswered questions grows even faster as more questions are answered.

Good questions are even harder to find than good answers.

When you come up with a good question, make sure lots of people hear it.

Re: The Bus Ticket Theory of Genius

#209

Post by Jarwain »

jancsika wrote: post #178

> For example, it's more promising if you're creating something, rather than just consuming something someone else creates. That heuristic leads to bikeshedding. Try talking to an old white person for whom rap "doesn't sound like music to me." Inevitably they'll bring out the big guns-- that rap "just" takes the music that someone else wrote and talks over it. Besides, there's no cost to dropping that heuristic. Nobo…

Taking something and talking over it is still creating. It still takes an active effort that results in something New, independent of how "easy" or "hard" someone might perceive it to be. Remixing is still creation & creative.

Consuming something someone else creates is more along the lines of Just listening, or Just reading, or Just observing some sort of art

Re: The Bus Ticket Theory of Genius

#210

Post by dragonwriter »

sgentle wrote: post #72

Competitive gaming is a particularly good example of this. I followed most of the rise of Dota from trashy Warcraft 3 mod to Valve's multi-million-dollar-prize-pool juggernaut. The first few crops of Dota millionaires all had the same backstory: "I played this game 14 hours a day. If there were tournaments at all they didn't really pay anything. My parents said I was wasting my life. I never had a girlfriend. Everyon…

> Perhaps the message is just that millions are delivered to those with a combination of luck and the freedom to pursue rationally unjustifiable interests

Nah, millions are delivered to those who already have millions, everything else is noise that is overemphasized to distract the bottom 80+%.

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