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Make an Extraordinary Effort

overcomingbias.com

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Re: Make an Extraordinary Effort

#21

Post by randomwalker »

ph0rque wrote: post #20
randomwalker wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it's not just a family thing. I'm not going to argue about abstract cultural values and philosophical systems. I'm just pointing out what actually happens. I went to one of the IIT's. Unless you've been through the system, it's hard to imagine the level of parental and peer pressure the kids who train for the entrance exam face and the kind of work ethic it fosters in you. How many countries in the world do you t…

> How many countries in the world do you think there are where it is common to go to boarding school for two years and forgo any kind of social life and a normal childhood just to have a shot at getting into a specific college? Pretty much just Japan, Korea and India. China as well, iirc.

Quite possibly. At any rate, it's an "Eastern" thing :-)

Re: Make an Extraordinary Effort

#22

Post by DougBTX »

arockwell wrote: post #4
MicahWedemeyer wrote: post #3

Could this be summed up as Work smarter, not harder ?

Work smarter and harder.

The "Trying to Try"[1] post linked to early in this article has an answer to that: The slightest effort suffices to convince ourselves that we have done our best.

    Work smarter and harder.
Couldn't you, in your head, convince yourself that you are working "harder", simply by imagining that you could work less hard than you currently are? Couldn't you do that, regardless of you current level of work? So does "work harder" even mean anything?

[1] http://www.overcomingbias.com/2008/10/trying-to-try.html

Re: Make an Extraordinary Effort

#24

Post by ChaitanyaSai »

randomwalker wrote: post #19
ChaitanyaSai wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"...making a desperate all-out effort as if your own life were at stake..." This may be specific to your (extended) family. While it is foolhardy to speak of any unified cultural milieu for India, I think it is fair to say that predestination has largely been accepted and reveals itself in the way our culture gave rise to rigid class stratification. And predestination, almost by definition, discourages risk-taking. W…

No, it's not just a family thing. I'm not going to argue about abstract cultural values and philosophical systems. I'm just pointing out what actually happens. I went to one of the IIT's. Unless you've been through the system, it's hard to imagine the level of parental and peer pressure the kids who train for the entrance exam face and the kind of work ethic it fosters in you. How many countries in the world do you t…

Ah, well, I studied at an IIT too, (Madras [Ganga] 98-02 shoutout! :) ) and I do agree that the pressure to jump examination hurdles is rather intense, but this again is a case of striving for very conventional goals, and for a limited period of time.

How many have kept up the effort, after getting through (or not)?

As I said before, a conventional trajectory passing through a marriage in the mid-twenties, is also one that makes the uptake of risk (and consequently effort) much harder in life. I keep bringing up risk because effort without the possibility of significant success is rather pointless. And without risky opportunities that afford that kind of success, people reach for the cruise control after just-enough.

Malthusian scarcity should reward and select for effort, ( and also voluntary birth control and later marriage) as it did in the period right before Industrial England (([1] ; descriptive review: [2])), but, in India, it strangely doesn't! Predestiny, passivity, and fatalism, all predate socialist India. Our mythology reflects this.

I do agree that we are turning a new chapter and we are host to a whole new set of cultural ideas, but the numbers aren't, unfortunately, high enough. Yes, while about 300 million people, are (or were in 2001) technically urban, 50 million are slum dwellers; I'd wager that only a tiny slice is literate enough to accept cultural transmissions.

Still, I hope that this tiny slice of a humongous pie proves to be big enough....

[1] http://www.amazon.com/Farewell-Alms-Economic-History-Princet...

[2] http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/07/science/07indu.html?pagewa...

Re: Make an Extraordinary Effort

#25

Post by randomwalker »

ChaitanyaSai wrote: post #24
randomwalker wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it's not just a family thing. I'm not going to argue about abstract cultural values and philosophical systems. I'm just pointing out what actually happens. I went to one of the IIT's. Unless you've been through the system, it's hard to imagine the level of parental and peer pressure the kids who train for the entrance exam face and the kind of work ethic it fosters in you. How many countries in the world do you t…

Ah, well, I studied at an IIT too, (Madras [Ganga] 98-02 shoutout! :) ) and I do agree that the pressure to jump examination hurdles is rather intense, but this again is a case of striving for very conventional goals, and for a limited period of time. How many have kept up the effort, after getting through (or not)? As I said before, a conventional trajectory passing through a marriage in the mid-twenties, is also on…

i think i've seen you around :)

Re: Make an Extraordinary Effort

#26

Post by MaysonL »

Eliezer wrote: post #9
MicahWedemeyer wrote: post #3

Could this be summed up as Work smarter, not harder ?

There's a difference between the notion of "working smarter", and the notion of being willing to leave your comfortable zone and do things outside your usual boundaries, when the ordinary result (or desperate result) isn't good enough. What does "work smarter" mean operationally? If there were a little switch you could throw in your head, we wouldn't need the Overcoming Bias blog.

One of the things "work smarter" should mean is: work on something worth working on. Something important enough to you to call out your "extraordinary effort".

Re: Make an Extraordinary Effort

#27

Post by MaysonL »

Alex3917 wrote: post #14

"It is essential for a man to strive with all his heart, and to understand that it is difficult even to reach the average if he does not have the intention of surpassing others in whatever he does." Only a wretch would aspire to surpass others. This guy's epitaph pegs him as shallow and insecure, and the rest of the post only further showcases his ignorance.

"It is not a sin to be second-rate. The only sin is not to try to be first-rate."

Only a wretch would aspire to be mediocre.

Re: Make an Extraordinary Effort

#28

Post by ChaitanyaSai »

randomwalker wrote: post #25
ChaitanyaSai wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, well, I studied at an IIT too, (Madras [Ganga] 98-02 shoutout! :) ) and I do agree that the pressure to jump examination hurdles is rather intense, but this again is a case of striving for very conventional goals, and for a limited period of time. How many have kept up the effort, after getting through (or not)? As I said before, a conventional trajectory passing through a marriage in the mid-twenties, is also on…

i think i've seen you around :)

good to see a co-alum here!, even if such an occurrence should be entire predictable :) ...

Re: Make an Extraordinary Effort

#30

Post by yters »

I think it is necessary in some cases to work extraordinarily hard, or perhaps even over a long period of time. But that in itself shouldn't really be a criteria for anything, IMHO, b/c it can lead to tunnel vision. At the very least, I keep seeing this mistake in my own approach to things.

Another thing I've noticed is that it also matters how much I like whatever it is I'm working on. If I like it a lot, I will naturally remember thing about it well, have better insight, and learn more about it. However, I may also be less productive because of this, i.e. going off on tangents.

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