95%-ile isn't that good (2020) • Hacker News Board

Re: 95%-ile isn't that good (2020)

#91

Post by namaria » Thu, Dec 07, 2023, 8:56 PM UTC

madamelic wrote: post #56

namaria wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A streamer (...) says that if you are (...) watching streams of the game, that makes you a top 10% player automatically. Sounds like pandering to the audience. Performing better then 90% of people makes you a top 10% player. Self soothing about how what you like to do in your spare time makes you better then others is not making you any favors. It doesn't matter how much effort you put into being effective. In fact…

I knew I should've been an asterisk / joke about that! :) Yeah, I could certainly see that but I disagree with your assessment that it is just pandering or self-soothing. Seeking out any external information in your off-time / outside from that activity gives you the edge against people who just show up and only engage and think about the activity while doing it. If you are watching basketball play-by-plays or even b…

> you will never cross pollinate

See there's the mentality I'm calling self soothing. Your mental model of what makes someone excel seems to build off of what you like to do. One thing is to pursue extra information, another is to believe the sole way to excel is by doing the things you do.

Re: 95%-ile isn't that good (2020)

#92

Post by alistairSH » Thu, Dec 07, 2023, 8:58 PM UTC

303uru wrote: post #27

I'm a pretty consistent top 10 amateur cyclist in Colorado. Some really get wrapped up in it and let it get to their head. The reality though is most people don't ride or race, of those who even race many are there just to participate, now of those who are there to race my percentile has dropped. On the flip side, the truly great riders are overseas and even of them there are just a handful of riders anyone will ever…

...of those who even race many are there just to participate...

Raises hand! I'm a competent, but very average, bicycle racer.

The whole notion of 95 percentile here is super weird. For a large enough pool of people, being 95% is nowhere near elite.

So, I guess I agree with the thesis, but it's not some profound insight into the world.

Re: 95%-ile isn't that good (2020)

#93

Post by mlyle » Thu, Dec 07, 2023, 9:00 PM UTC

antisthenes wrote: post #89

mlyle wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the author's point is really that you can outperform a huge slice of people with just a little bit of careful self-reflection and asking for help, instead of putting even more effort into grinding and hoping you'll improve. Or, even: by throwing some deliberateness in to things we're doing, we can avoid a lot of frustration.

As someone who used to be an avid gamer and reasonably competitive, "a little bit of careful self-reflection" is definitely not enough to get you in the top 5%. Top 20%, sure, because the bottom 50% doesn't even try, and the next 30% tries just enough to learn the basic mechanics. You need a certain time commitment and the ability to learn reasonably complex abstract mental models. Learning curves for many games are…

The author describes people who have >1000 hours but make basic mistakes that are easy to fix and hold down their rating.

The author also describes the experience of people who are stuck, receive a small amount of quality coaching, and then massively increase in rating.

Re: 95%-ile isn't that good (2020)

#94

Post by alistairSH » Thu, Dec 07, 2023, 9:00 PM UTC

thefaux wrote: post #57

303uru wrote: post #27

I'm a pretty consistent top 10 amateur cyclist in Colorado. Some really get wrapped up in it and let it get to their head. The reality though is most people don't ride or race, of those who even race many are there just to participate, now of those who are there to race my percentile has dropped. On the flip side, the truly great riders are overseas and even of them there are just a handful of riders anyone will ever…

Even within bike racing, defining 99% is tricky. The sport generally punishes all-arounders. In road racing, most winners either have great sprints with just enough aerobic capacity to hang on til the finish or have massive aerobic capacity and anemic sprints. I no longer follow the sport, but riders like Peter Sagan and Julian Alaphilippe were more impressive to me than, say, Chris Froome.

Tadej has entered the chat. That guy might be the best all-rounder in several generations. Tour wins and strong in the Classics? That doesn't happen any more.

Re: 95%-ile isn't that good (2020)

#95

Post by dmoy » Thu, Dec 07, 2023, 9:01 PM UTC

tomato-sauce wrote: post #84

The Overwatch example does not really make sense. The author assumes that if people are frustrated by frequently losing, it would be logical to put in effort to improve their skills. But their win rate should remain mostly constant as their skills improve since at the same time they would be moving up the ranking and would face better players. So there is not a strong incentive for the average player to put large eff…

Competitive games is also a weird domain for measuring something like this. Optimal play can be both difficult to achieve, but have an incredible advantage. A 95th percentile player will lose to a 99th percentile player like 10 out of 10 times.

I mean shit, different blizzard game, but I was on a team that was somewhere around 99.9-99.99%, and if we went up against actual pro gamers (99.999%+), we'd lose 10 out of 10 times, and half the time we'd be unaware of why we lost (analogous to dan luu's "basic mistake", from the perspective of optimal play).

But on the flip side, we could literally play 2v3 and win 9.5 times out of 10 vs 97%-ile players. The advantage you get from seemingly small things in the game get amplified. For example if you just intuitively know when every ability comes off cooldown and becomes available again (both your own team and your opponents'), you can do things that seem otherwise impossible.

I don't think this translates all that well into a lot of other domains where it isn't a gamified hyper competitive / meta optimized scenario.

Re: 95%-ile isn't that good (2020)

#96

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Dec 07, 2023, 9:02 PM UTC

zlg_codes wrote: post #42

forrestthewoods wrote: post #7

> Note that when I say 95%-ile, I mean 95%-ile among people who participate, not all people (for many activities, just doing it at all makes you 99%-ile or above across all people). I'm also not referring to 95%-ile among people who practice regularly. The "one weird trick" is that, for a lot of activities, being something like 10%-ile among people who practice can make you something like 90%-ile or 99%-ile among peo…

> They’re genuinely the cream of the crop! More like the most connected and privileged, but okay.

[deleted]

Re: 95%-ile isn't that good (2020)

#97

Post by akerl_ » Thu, Dec 07, 2023, 9:02 PM UTC

gnicholas wrote: post #73

tptacek wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The guidelines are pretty explicit about asking people not to write comments like this. Either way: "@dang" is not a thing. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

I'm curious to know which of those guidelines covers this somewhat-novel situation. @-ing the mods may not officially be a thing, but I have to say whenever there is a comment starting with that handle that rises up in the comments, it gets attention right quick.

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Re: 95%-ile isn't that good (2020)

#98

Post by bitexploder » Thu, Dec 07, 2023, 9:02 PM UTC

ndriscoll wrote: post #86

ch4s3 wrote: post #66

I don't think I agree with this at all. I can see how you would have this impression with something like a video game or I guess public speaking where maybe a lot of people do it un-seriously and you can be better than most with some intentional effort. It's weird to choose a super mass market game like Overwatch to make that point though, if you were in the 95th percentile of Starcraft players, that would truly be s…

I'm not sure what the 352 is supposed to be. strengthlevel.com claims a 352 lb bench is ~95th percentile for a 180 lb male, but I've never seen anyone in a gym that can bench anywhere near that. IME even a 225 lb squat feels like 95th percentile. I don't think I've ever seen someone else do a 100 lb shoulder press (~20th percentile on SL). Usually I see something like 75 lb (doing fixed barbells), and once I saw 95 l…

I can squat 315, DL 425, bench about 230. Done 100-115 strict overhead press. I train Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. Plenty of guys stronger than me that I train with. I also go to a gym once in a while. I am solidly middle of the pack, especially considering I weigh 200 lbs. maybe if you are at planet fitness or something. Otherwise these numbers only take a bit of dedicated work to achieve. You would not look at me and think much based in my build and appearance.

Re: 95%-ile isn't that good (2020)

#99

Post by psunavy03 » Thu, Dec 07, 2023, 9:05 PM UTC

netcan wrote: post #75

I'm 70%-ile online chess player. That is average relative to players active on lichess in a given month. I'm better than most people (maybe top 10% even) that "play a little." I'm (I assume) well below average for adult tournament player. The pool matters. I think if I took lessons and dedicated a serious 100-200 hrs over some period, I might reach 85th in my online pool. 95%-ile is currently ELO 2075... just under w…

Software engineering, much as some people don't like to hear it, is also a team sport unlike weightlifting or chess. Give me a 99th percentile team over a mythical 10x dev every day of the week and twice on Sundays.

Re: 95%-ile isn't that good (2020)

#100

Post by tptacek » Thu, Dec 07, 2023, 9:06 PM UTC

gnicholas wrote: post #73

tptacek wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The guidelines are pretty explicit about asking people not to write comments like this. Either way: "@dang" is not a thing. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

I'm curious to know which of those guidelines covers this somewhat-novel situation. @-ing the mods may not officially be a thing, but I have to say whenever there is a comment starting with that handle that rises up in the comments, it gets attention right quick.

In addition to that 'akerl_ comment, Dan has explicitly said, a bunch of times, that they don't monitor "@dang". It's not a thing, but doing it creates the false impression to others that it should work.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26508945