Geniuses of the past were aristocratically tutored • Hacker News Board

Re: Geniuses of the past were aristocratically tutored

#471

Post by pier25 » Thu, Mar 17, 2022, 4:29 PM UTC

irae wrote: post #451

pier25 wrote: post #394

I could be totally wrong, but my hunch is that this is more related to the lowest hanging fruit rather than human capacity. Maybe scientific discoveries simply get exponentially harder. In painting, it's very rare for someone to make anything original these days. We won't have any more Picassos, etc, simply because they were the first to explore a new terrain. It's really not a matter of education, genetics, or talen…

I agree the "lowest hanging fruit" is likely a key factor, as well as tuttoring. But I would also guess that being recognized as a genius was easier in past times, especially for aristocrat family members. The same way music artists will never be as huge as the Beatles or Michael Jackson once were because of the long tail effect, we now are exposed to so many bright minds, and not way to pick out an Einstein amongst…

I agree.

Another point is that geniuses might not be recognized as such since we still haven't seen the long terms impacts of their work. Eg: Van Gogh.

Re: Geniuses of the past were aristocratically tutored

#472

Post by sudosysgen » Thu, Mar 17, 2022, 4:51 PM UTC

atemerev wrote: post #461

rurban wrote: post #449

Earlier quoted context omitted.

no, there are not. only in the ex-soviet states. that's why they dominate chess forever. the talentpool is huge, and education is good. nobody else comes close, in infrastructure and level.

Have you lived in an ex-Soviet state? Have you seen the USSR from the inside with your own eyes? I have, and I am so much tired from people glorifying it.

There is glorification, and then there is simple truth. Nothing has to be all bad nor all good.

Re: Geniuses of the past were aristocratically tutored

#473

Post by tynpeddler » Thu, Mar 17, 2022, 5:16 PM UTC

One more possibility to consider. Modern genius is so industrialized and so common that we don't recognize it as genius anymore. Every year we see an incredible number of technical advances that are just taken for granted. There are so many movies, books, short stories and essays that it's almost impossible to really discover all the works of genius.

I'm also not sure if any of the definitions used for genius, or as a proxy for genius, are particularly great. Acclaim is a dubious proxy because because it's more influenced by popular attention than actual technical capability.

Re: Geniuses of the past were aristocratically tutored

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Post by nonrandomstring » Thu, Mar 17, 2022, 5:25 PM UTC

scaramanga wrote: post #391

nonrandomstring wrote: post #16

Giroux is a bit too left for me, but the prognosis and message for hope in this video is spot-on in my opinion. [1] According to this narrative we stopped making Einsteins because it's simply no longer in the interests of the "elites" to have smart people around. Education became a liability to those cheering for cybernetic governance and social control media. Similar explanations are proffered by John Taylor-Gatto,…

In other words "prepare them for adulthood" where those skills will serve them well. It's hardly like those guys have discovered a deep secret. They tell you to develop a deep, spiritually enriching knowledge of a field and faculty for critical thinking that you can use to solve social problems. But none of that is going to help you when you are alone, taking the exam, so you just memorize crap for the exam because y…

> understanding of who is in charge and what they really want and then dedicating yourself to the task is the primary adaptive strategy you can have as an adult.

You are in charge. That is the only thing you need to know about being an adult.

Re: Geniuses of the past were aristocratically tutored

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Post by Iwan-Zotow » Thu, Mar 17, 2022, 5:28 PM UTC

mhh__ wrote: post #234

Iwan-Zotow wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> plenty of very clever people working on hard problems and coming up with clever solutions this is not what this all talk is about Einstein is an (prime) example of conceptualist - man, who introduced revolutionary concept into our understanding of the world. There are a lot of Nobel laureates who are (hard) problem solvers. But in physics looks like we truly need a conceptualist, new Einstein so to speak

Nearly all physicists are conceptualists though. Fundamental physics pretty much relies upon an aggressive pursuit of information density rather than the classification of evidence. Theoretically at least.

Still, there are conceptualists and there are problems solvers. E.g. Bohr and Bohr. While father was conceptualist, son was clearly problem solver. Both got nobel prize

Re: Geniuses of the past were aristocratically tutored

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Post by ascar » Thu, Mar 17, 2022, 5:41 PM UTC

Barrin92 wrote: post #437

morberg wrote: post #434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet Magnus Carlsen is from Norway.

Sure, but we don't make judgements on individual data points. The Soviet Union with the short Fischer interlude dominated chess entirely. Today Russia still averages the strongest top 10 players, India and China have risen to become the third and fourth strongest chess nations within a generation or two, and looking at immigrant engineering talent in the US paints a pretty clear picture as well. And the educational d…

> Sure, but we don't make judgements on individual data points.

And yet here you are making a judgement on the effectiveness of a method of education purely based on the single datapoint chess.

But leaving the hypocrisy aside, I don't think chess is a good example to begin with. The reason why Russia dominated chess is because chess was there a lot more popular compared to other countries. That this theroy likely makes sense is supported by the rise of China and India with their massive population compared to other countries. Having a high amount of interest and good education are components that often reinforce eachother. More opportunities to learn and compete with strong players improves ones own skill level.

Why was there a higher interest in chess in Russia? I can only guess, but I would say the long and cold winters that make outside activites impossible most of the year play an important role.

On top of that the world chess rankings are actually quite diverse since the rise of internet chess. Russia only has a single spot in the top 10 strongest players. [1] The rise of video gaming that competes with chess for indoor mental activity has probably something to do with that.

[1] https://ratings.fide.com/top.phtml?list=men

Re: Geniuses of the past were aristocratically tutored

#477

Post by ascar » Thu, Mar 17, 2022, 5:46 PM UTC

rurban wrote: post #449

atemerev wrote: post #444

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is the same in any other country. There are state-sponsored chess clubs everywhere.

no, there are not. only in the ex-soviet states. that's why they dominate chess forever. the talentpool is huge, and education is good. nobody else comes close, in infrastructure and level.

we have chess clubs in pretty much every village here in Germany. My ~10000 people birthplace had one. Doesn't make chess hugely popular tho. It's still a niche activity and I would argue that interest is the dmoniating factor here.

Also Russia isn't dominting chess anymore. They have a single player in the world top10 and 3 in the top20. [1]

[1] https://ratings.fide.com/top.phtml?list=men

Re: Geniuses of the past were aristocratically tutored

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Post by sjg007 » Thu, Mar 17, 2022, 5:48 PM UTC

qiskit wrote: post #468

acenes wrote: post #403

But the reason why so many historical figures were tutored or homeschooled is because there was no adequate public education system. This is confusing correlation for causation. Indeed, Bertrand Russell wrote: > The method of a hereditary leisure class without duties was, however, extraordinarily wasteful. None of the members of the class had been taught to be industrious, and the class as a whole was not exceptional…

> But the reason why so many historical figures were tutored or homeschooled is because there was no adequate public education system. By definition no public school can be as good as anything Russell got. Russell had the privilege of his brother teaching him geometry and hence set him on his path to mathematical greatness. He came from a distinguished family. No public education can replicate the personal 1 to 1 kno…

Darwin and Turing went to school.

Re: Geniuses of the past were aristocratically tutored

#479

Post by jokethrowaway » Thu, Mar 17, 2022, 6:26 PM UTC

It seems obvious that mass produced education wouldn't produce geniuses. A mediocre education for everyone will never make potential geniuses fall in love with education.

This generation's geniuses don't end up contributing to science and end up optimising advertisement click rate or finding the best way for banks and government to scam normies.

On the plus side, they're probably doing better than they would have in the past.

Re: Geniuses of the past were aristocratically tutored

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Post by webmaven » Thu, Mar 17, 2022, 6:58 PM UTC

Barrin92 wrote: post #433

fouc wrote: post #410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a strong suspicion that aristocrat homeschooling would still beat out public education system in many ways.. For example, public education system doesn't particularly touch on social skills, etiquette, rulership/leadership, Machiavellianism, business, investing, property management, etc.

no because that's the skills of a political and economic oligarchy. If you want to see successful education systems look at the Soviet Union, India, China and also France. A boatload of testing, rigorous learning combined with high formal standards, that's to say an actual meritocracy is how you can quite literally churn out geniuses. Chess is a good example.

> A boatload of testing, rigorous learning combined with high formal standards, that's to say an actual meritocracy is how you can quite literally churn out geniuses. Chess is a good example.

Isn't the way chess was taught essentially a system of tutoring? As soon as a 'prodigy' is identified, they started playing against Grand Masters outside of tournaments.