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Work Hard (2007)

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Re: Work Hard (2007)

#181

Post by hycaria »

ZephyrBlu wrote: post #97
cushychicken wrote: post #19

If there's anyone I'll listen respectfully to about the value of hard, diligent work, it's Terence Tao. Reminds me of Richard Hamming talking about his professional envy of John Tukey: One day about three or four years after I joined, I discovered that John Tukey was slightly younger than I was. John was a genius and I clearly was not. Well I went storming into Bode's office and said, ``How can anybody my age know as…

> If there's anyone I'll listen respectfully to about the value of hard, diligent work, it's Terence Tao. Why? He is a genius, and most of us aren't geniuses.

He wrote eloquently about one of his failures in grad school iirc because he simply didn’t work enough nor seriously enough. Even though he is a genius there is quite a lot of work required.

Re: Work Hard (2007)

#182

Post by ramraj07 »

giantg2 wrote: post #25

It's probably good advice, and maybe my dissent is just due to my burn out, but... I'm tired of hearing "work hard". Very often, working hard does not lead to success. It sure as shit didn't work out that way for me. There are many people who do not work hard and make tons of money in things like NFT, crypto, securities, office politics, scams, etc. It seems like luck is the shared variable... of which I have none.

Working hard for money, or even recognition, doesn’t always end well. The generalization of what he said from my perspective is that one should work hard to better themselves and do things they want to do, well.

It can be math, biology, coding, music, woodworking, anything. If you’re convinced that you’re quite good at what you’re doing and you only work 9-5 on your skills and projects, then it means you’re either developing crud apps, or you’re ignorant of what you actually don’t know. Again both are perfectly fine if that’s all you want from your career or hobby, but if it comes to questioning working hard in a generalized sense at the least you should preface it with your choices in this regard.

Re: Work Hard (2007)

#183

Post by ramraj07 »

keithalewis wrote: post #131

I work hard to be lazy. Put in the effort once and keep leveraging off of it.

That’s exactly what Terry advices against. Not because you owe the company or anyone else that, but it’s possible you might regret not doing so yourself. My advisor described it as “being too smart for your own good.”

Re: Work Hard (2007)

#184

Post by ramraj07 »

courtf wrote: post #135
brailsafe wrote: post #79

So if you are already a child prodigy, born into a family of prodigies, specifically within Mathematics, and you want that PHD, gotta keep grinding.

It's also a lot easier to work hard when you are handed access to every academic resource on the planet before you hit puberty. His life story is the most blatant counterexample to this article imaginable. Sounds like a case of deep denial.

No ones saying anyone here has had the privilege of being born with a mind comparable to Terry’s, but a charitable (at the least) reading of his thoughts would be about working hard to better yourself, wherever you are today. If you’re just a programmer writing good code, you can work hard (not necessarily for your boss) to get better at it. Or not. Your choice. But given the day and age we live in you cannot keep insisting about the lack of opportunity if all you’re talking about is getting better yourself.

Re: Work Hard (2007)

#186

Post by courtf »

ramraj07 wrote: post #184
courtf wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also a lot easier to work hard when you are handed access to every academic resource on the planet before you hit puberty. His life story is the most blatant counterexample to this article imaginable. Sounds like a case of deep denial.

No ones saying anyone here has had the privilege of being born with a mind comparable to Terry’s, but a charitable (at the least) reading of his thoughts would be about working hard to better yourself, wherever you are today. If you’re just a programmer writing good code, you can work hard (not necessarily for your boss) to get better at it. Or not. Your choice. But given the day and age we live in you cannot keep in…

I don't really think you or Terry knows what hard work even looks like. We hold this conversation about personal advancement from positions of extreme privilege while billions live without running water. If you want to limit your view to only those of us with access to all the delights of modern society (and none of its externalities) I'm sure you can find plenty of evidence for the meritocracy.

You can personally thank my grandparents, all four laying dead in their graves before the age of 60, for your opportunity to "work hard" in America.

Re: Work Hard (2007)

#187

Post by TameAntelope »

ZephyrBlu wrote: post #159
TameAntelope wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's probably a limit to how much "work hard" can make someone competent/successful in any field, and it'd guess it's around 85, or 1 standard deviation lower than average. If IQ is important to you, I think you'd be quite alarmed by the number of successful doctors and lawyers who don't meet the 100 IQ bar you're setting here.

IQ range by occupation: https://www.iqcomparisonsite.com/Occupations.aspx The 10th percentile of MDs is still above 100. The 10th percent of legal occupations is 100. Also: https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-average-IQ-of-a-medical-do... Sources + people's estimates place the average IQ of a doctor well above 100. You seem very out of touch if you think that there's a large proportion of doctors and lawyers who have a…

Who said anything about 10th percentile?

There is no universal ranking of doctors, you can't really claim "percentile of success" for doctors or lawyers, and it's weird you're trying to do so.

Why is it so important to you that you have to be "smart" to be a doctor/lawyer?

Re: Work Hard (2007)

#188

Post by mindentropy »

didibus wrote: post #62
giantg2 wrote: post #25

It's probably good advice, and maybe my dissent is just due to my burn out, but... I'm tired of hearing "work hard". Very often, working hard does not lead to success. It sure as shit didn't work out that way for me. There are many people who do not work hard and make tons of money in things like NFT, crypto, securities, office politics, scams, etc. It seems like luck is the shared variable... of which I have none.

Bingo! It's been a while since I looked into it, but last time I checked, I couldn't find any evidence behind "hard work". This article kind of sums it up: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/does-success-come... > If you wake up in the morning full of vim and vigor, bounding out the door and into the world to take your shot, you didn't choose to be that way Your coworkers that come into work early ready to cr…

> And that is the result of having family and friends, setting long-range goals, meeting challenges with courage and conviction, and being true to yourself.

You need luck to not have broken families and friends. Sustaining a family is so fragile these days.

Re: Work Hard (2007)

#189

Post by mym1990 »

didibus wrote: post #126
mym1990 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would disagree with this. Many professional athletes love their work, but that doesn't make training, recovery, and competition a walk in the park...professional athletes are the pinnacle of hard work because many of them have to utilize the 24 hours in near perfection to stay at the top. Also, often the reason that someone enjoys their work is directly because it IS difficult. And the payoff from solving hard prob…

I feel in general by "hard work" people imply "putting in the time and effort". And I still contend, people who do put the time and effort into something probably find it easier to do so than those who don't. Let's say that "putting in time and effort" is the key to success, aka, "hard work" is the key to success. Alright, now what if you're finding it hard to "put in the time and effort"? I would say if you find it…

I get that. I think the definition of success obviously varies a lot as well, but if we talk about the upper echelon of anything, eventually everyone is putting in the time and effort, but there are people who are still above and beyond everyone else in that upper echelon. So the question becomes, whats the difference?

Re: Work Hard (2007)

#190

Post by tstrimple »

courtf wrote: post #186
ramraj07 wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No ones saying anyone here has had the privilege of being born with a mind comparable to Terry’s, but a charitable (at the least) reading of his thoughts would be about working hard to better yourself, wherever you are today. If you’re just a programmer writing good code, you can work hard (not necessarily for your boss) to get better at it. Or not. Your choice. But given the day and age we live in you cannot keep in…

I don't really think you or Terry knows what hard work even looks like. We hold this conversation about personal advancement from positions of extreme privilege while billions live without running water. If you want to limit your view to only those of us with access to all the delights of modern society (and none of its externalities) I'm sure you can find plenty of evidence for the meritocracy. You can personally th…

I've got a friend who is in industrial maintenance. I just can't understand how they put up with the working conditions. 12 hour shifts working around furnaces and covered in grease all day, forced overtime on a regular basis. This guy works harder than I ever have and makes a fraction of the income that I do. He has been injured multiple times at jobs. He's in his early 30's and has a more difficult time walking than many senior citizens due to a back injury. To your point he's still better off than many folks in similar situations in less developed nations. There's a lot of detail left out of the "work hard" narrative.
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