Malcolm Gladwell versus Ayn Rand: Who is right? • Hacker News Board

Re: Malcolm Gladwell versus Ayn Rand: Who is right?

#71

Post by thomasmallen » Mon, Nov 10, 2008, 11:03 PM UTC

unalone wrote: post #69

thomasmallen wrote: post #59

Gladwell has a few racist bones in his body: "And then there are the math geniuses who, as anyone can’t help noticing, are disproportionately Asian. Citing the work of an educational researcher at the University of Pennsylvania, Gladwell attributes this phenomenon not to some innate mathematical ability that Asians possess but to the fact that children in Asian countries are willing to work longer and harder than the…

My good-at-math friend is Asian, and her parents instilled a very powerful work ethic in her. That's not racism. It's a cultural difference.

What you've said is 100% correct. Notice how you didn't attribute it to a history of rice farming, but rather to academic prowess and diligence.

Re: Malcolm Gladwell versus Ayn Rand: Who is right?

#72

Post by azharcs » Mon, Nov 10, 2008, 11:03 PM UTC

unalone wrote: post #62

ScottHanson wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You first!

Can I jump in and say "It's most likely a mix of the two?" Steve Jobs was not and is not a huge computer hacker. Not like Bill Gates. But still, he was able to conceive of the idea of a personal computer, before anybody else had the idea. How did he get 10,000 hours working into that? From his own words, he got the idea by dropping acid and deciding that people weren't using this new technology in a way that could ch…

There were way too many people responsible for Steve Jobs success. Steve Woznaik, Jonathan Ive, John Lasseter, Gil Amelio and many many others. Steve Jobs didn't have to put in 10000 hours because someone else did it for him.

Re: Malcolm Gladwell versus Ayn Rand: Who is right?

#73

Post by unalone » Mon, Nov 10, 2008, 11:06 PM UTC

thomasmallen wrote: post #71

unalone wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My good-at-math friend is Asian, and her parents instilled a very powerful work ethic in her. That's not racism. It's a cultural difference.

What you've said is 100% correct. Notice how you didn't attribute it to a history of rice farming, but rather to academic prowess and diligence.

I think you're associating two things that Gladwell didn't. He brings up rice farming for the anecdote about fallow-fields versus 360-days-of-work.

Re: Malcolm Gladwell versus Ayn Rand: Who is right?

#74

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Nov 10, 2008, 11:09 PM UTC

unalone wrote: post #56

ScottHanson wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rand's vilification of people who disagree with her is irritating, but what's more troublesome is the victim mentality that goes along with it. Inevitably the protagonist (who is handsome, smart, determined, and surprisingly domineering in the bedroom) is held back by the mediocrity of the masses. If only circumstances were different, the books tell us over and over again, our hero could achieve his true potential. -…

I think Atlas Shrugged assumes a fantastic future in which the amount of people who CAN step up to the plate have dwindled immensely, and in which many of the ones who COULD are already broken. In real life as it stands today, Atlas Shrugged is not a plausible scenario. The trick to reading it without casting it aside in horror is realizing that Rand knows that, and that she's drawing things to their extremes to make…

[deleted]

Re: Malcolm Gladwell versus Ayn Rand: Who is right?

#75

Post by thomasmallen » Mon, Nov 10, 2008, 11:09 PM UTC

unalone wrote: post #73

thomasmallen wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you've said is 100% correct. Notice how you didn't attribute it to a history of rice farming, but rather to academic prowess and diligence.

I think you're associating two things that Gladwell didn't. He brings up rice farming for the anecdote about fallow-fields versus 360-days-of-work.

In that case I was wrong to trust the article linked here.

Re: Malcolm Gladwell versus Ayn Rand: Who is right?

#76

Post by unalone » Mon, Nov 10, 2008, 11:10 PM UTC

azharcs wrote: post #72

unalone wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can I jump in and say "It's most likely a mix of the two?" Steve Jobs was not and is not a huge computer hacker. Not like Bill Gates. But still, he was able to conceive of the idea of a personal computer, before anybody else had the idea. How did he get 10,000 hours working into that? From his own words, he got the idea by dropping acid and deciding that people weren't using this new technology in a way that could ch…

There were way too many people responsible for Steve Jobs success. Steve Woznaik, Jonathan Ive, John Lasseter, Gil Amelio and many many others. Steve Jobs didn't have to put in 10000 hours because someone else did it for him.

But that's too easy an association. Jobs has the ability to get rid of excess. While he doesn't make every single thing by hand, he's usually the final arbiter in most cases. And from most stories, he's the one who usually demands that people remove everything but the essentials. And that's absolutely a talent - not everybody can do it - and it's one that isn't explained by the sorts of work Jobs does.

One of his abilities, absolutely, is the ability to spot which people are incredible at what they do, and to put them in a situation in which they can do it. In Pixar, he created the central hub that got people interacting with one another. (I forget the article that talks about this - anybody have the link?) He has a genius ability to fix things, to make them better.

I argued once that if Jobs hadn't found Woz, he'd have found somebody else capable of doing what he needed done. And I think the end result would be largely the same. Woz was a programmer. Jobs was the visionary and the designer.

Re: Malcolm Gladwell versus Ayn Rand: Who is right?

#77

Post by unalone » Mon, Nov 10, 2008, 11:10 PM UTC

thomasmallen wrote: post #75

unalone wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're associating two things that Gladwell didn't. He brings up rice farming for the anecdote about fallow-fields versus 360-days-of-work.

In that case I was wrong to trust the article linked here.

Yeah. It's a pretty bad one.

Re: Malcolm Gladwell versus Ayn Rand: Who is right?

#78

Post by walterk » Mon, Nov 10, 2008, 11:11 PM UTC

unalone wrote: post #60

walterk wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article misses that Rand's books are romantic, whereas Gladwell is a journalist. Rand writes fiction; Gladwell writes theories based on anecdotes and statistics. For an analogy, that'd be a lot like saying "Pablo Piccasso, or xyz modern photographer: Who is right?" Not sure what profession has to do with a comparison of beliefs.

They each have different aims with their writing. Gladwell wants to illustrate things as they are. Rand wants to illustrate things as they could be.

Gladwell's writings undermine Rand's beliefs justifying her vision of what could/should be.

Re: Malcolm Gladwell versus Ayn Rand: Who is right?

#79

Post by HugotheMongoose » Mon, Nov 10, 2008, 11:11 PM UTC

unalone wrote: post #21

KeshRivya wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OMG! Which part of "putting two ideas together in order to stimulate thinking" is so difficult for you to grasp? It's done all the time.

But he didn't put two ideas together. He brings up Rand, says that she appalls him, and then talks about Gladwell separately. There's a very loose attempt to tie them together, which falls flat (the Beatles having to play long sets doesn't do away with the explanation that each member of the Beatles was incredibly talented). The article is spam overall. Gladwell and Rand don't contradict each other. They barely overl…

unalone, get over it. Sheesh!

Re: Malcolm Gladwell versus Ayn Rand: Who is right?

#80

Post by thomasmallen » Mon, Nov 10, 2008, 11:14 PM UTC

unalone wrote: post #77

thomasmallen wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In that case I was wrong to trust the article linked here.

Yeah. It's a pretty bad one.

I just remembered that I read "Tipping Point" years ago and didn't detect any prejudice or really any negativity. I just didn't put two and two together (Gladwell's name doesn't stand out to me).