Being born right, number one factor of success.
The Bus Ticket Theory of Genius
211–220 of 500 posts
Re: The Bus Ticket Theory of Genius
#212Earlier quoted context omitted.
You'll come up for air around 3 and minor hobbies will re-emerge around 5. I would recommend finding some deeply informed and interesting podcasts on subjects you expect to be helpful in order to educate yourself passively during the early years.
And many parents we know (ourselves included) give up exercise. If at all possible, try to maintain some semblance of an exercise routine.
Simplest solution: if the traffic situation around you allows it get a bike. And use it for anything under 10 km or when you need to transport something heavy. Cheaper than the gym and far healthier, saves you money on w&t on your car as well.
Re: The Bus Ticket Theory of Genius
#213[deleted]
Re: The Bus Ticket Theory of Genius
#214Competitive 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…
You could take this argument all the way down. Why did valve pick it up? I don't think they saw dota2 as a profit engine necessarily, though there is some argument for that. The company does tend to engage in bus ticket obsessions (VR, dota2). Sometimes it fails (artifact). But I strongly suspect that Gabe Newell bus tickets dota2. I would guess that like myself, he has no real skill at the game, but he just loves it…
When valve picked up dota, league of legends was the most played multiplayer pc game in the world. I think it’s more likely that valve was afraid of exodus of pc gamers from their platform.
Re: The Bus Ticket Theory of Genius
#215Earlier 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…
> I wish there was a better word for this than pg's "disinterested"
"Intrinsic motivation", perhaps?
Re: The Bus Ticket Theory of Genius
#216Earlier 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…
> 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.
It's interest in the sense of "conflict of interest", not in the sense of finding something fascinating.
Re: The Bus Ticket Theory of Genius
#217Going out on a limb - because I have great respect for Paul Graham, I find this wrong headed. People have two kinds of thinking. Linear and Pattern. The problem with Pattern thinking is that it can't talk. Linear thinking can talk (think about it). How do we recognize faces? Do we use linear analysis - not at all, we just know. Is this genius? No. We all can do it, and we do it all the time. So no, this is not genius, this is just something we do and that linear thinking cannot explain. A la flatland.
Lets suppose this is true, that we are of two minds and one can articulate and the other cannot. Can we culture our intuitive mind? We often call Pattern thinking intuition, and Paul Graham raises a good condition for intuition, one that we are beginning to understand from neural networks - that you need lots of data and lots of training with data to have good intuition. Obsession will do it. Another prerequisite, as he points out is disinterest. You can either attempt to find the pattern or you can attempt to prove the pattern.
Personally, I like to think of this as original thinker. We all can be original thinkers, and in fact many startups come from original thinking. We see something around us with a pattern that makes no sense so we attempt to think, we essay, about the matter.
Just a thought.
Re: The Bus Ticket Theory of Genius
#218Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm always amazed when I'm reminded of the genesis of Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity. Whether you think it sprung solely from his mind or not, the thought experiment is so simple a young child can understand but look at the ramifications which follow. Just remarkable.
Which thought experiment?
The one I learned was this:
Person A is on a moving train and tosses a ball into the air of height H. To this person the ball travels a distance of 2H to in a time T to return to his hand.
Person B is beside the tracks and sees the same event. To this person the ball travels 2 * (x^2 + H^2)^1/2, which we'll later call D, in the same time T where x is the distance the train traveled during this time.
Since velocity is a measure distance divided by time the velocity of the ball in Person A's frame of reference is 2H/T (V1). The velocity of the ball in Person B's frame of reference is 2D/T (V2). Obviously V2 is greater because the distance traveled is greater for the same amount of time.
Now suppose instead of tossing a ball into the air of height H, Person A shines a flashlight to a mirror at height H. The new constraint is this; the velocity of light is a constant and cannot be faster for Person B. Now what? Length contraction / time dilation is what.
Re: The Bus Ticket Theory of Genius
#219I 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…
Frankly most people obsess about things like finding a mate, playing video games, collecting comics, politics, reading books, watching & discussing TV shows & movies, social websites (such as this one), sex, porn, fashion, sports, the social politics of work (as opposed to the work itself -- e.g. "The Office") and, of course, their kids. But none of these sorts of obsessions are likely to lead to fame or fortune.
I think it is the rare person who literally has no obsessive interests at all. Sounds rather sad and boring.
Re: The Bus Ticket Theory of Genius
#220Competitive 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+%.
It might be worthwhile to remind ourselves here that making lots of money, acquiring status, and gaining power are obsessive interests that some people have.