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

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

#181

Post by TehShrike » Fri, Dec 08, 2023, 6:54 PM UTC

threatofrain wrote: post #117

tester756 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

last 5%? I've been top 1% and slightly below 1% at peak in video games that have milions of gamers and I wouldnt say that top 5% is filled with "truly talented people" Top 5% is just decent people, but they are very, very, very far from top 0.1, 0.5%, etc. At 1% I've been faaaaar from 0.5%, 0.1% people.

The world of video games can't be compared with anything else — except sports — in terms of competitiveness. If you're in the top 32 you're in the A-list of celebrities in that niche, and if you're top 64 you're a second-tier celebrity. Anything after that and it's hard to get paid. Imagine a country where only the top 64 surgeons get paid.

This is a function of the market for a particular skill, not the skill distribution within that market.

The skill distribution for surgeons is ~the same as the skill distribution for baseball. The reason surgeons get paid to work as professionals is because there is demand for people who can perform surgery.

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

#182

Post by saagarjha » Fri, Dec 08, 2023, 8:05 PM UTC

TehShrike wrote: post #143

saagarjha wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Send PRs to open source projects you’re interested in?

Open source projects are flooded by low-quality PRs, they can't afford to give mentor-quality feedback to them. Better to join the project's chat server and have back-and-forth discussions.

Often they will provide good feedback if your PR is legitimate.

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

#183

Post by saagarjha » Fri, Dec 08, 2023, 8:06 PM UTC

allig256 wrote: post #133

saagarjha wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Send PRs to open source projects you’re interested in?

And ask them to review your own projects? That seems a little odd doesn't it? I am wanting feedback specifically for my own work.

Why does it have to be your project? You can make substantial technical decisions for someone else's project and get feedback on it.

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

#184

Post by mewpmewp2 » Fri, Dec 08, 2023, 11:14 PM UTC

lamontcg wrote: post #178

mewpmewp2 wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don't have time to argue then just say that, don't say that it isn't possible for someone to reasonably disagree. I agree with the sentiment that you should consider the arguments, not whether someone is an "authority". I enjoy arguing and I never start by mentioning whether I have relevant experience and if someone assumes I don't, it's clear to me that they are not really considering the arguments themselves…

Actual people rarely argue to some kind of platonic ideal. And the author of the post clearly indicates that he didn't bother to inform this person that he had expertise that he considers relevant. Elsewhere he also kind of shits on using "terms of art". But those "terms of art" are useful shorthand to experts, establishing that both sides are experts and familiar with the field, and more rapidly communicating inform…

If I use the "terms of art" or I say that I'm really, very experienced in this particular subject, this won't allow me to check whether they are the type of person to rather subscribe to authority or whether they would try to understand the arguments themselves.

An intellectually honest person wouldn't need to know that someone is an expert to be able to understand the arguments of a person in the field that they, themselves are an expert in.

If someone is able to come to good conclusions without using terms of art, I could either be impressed, because they come to it on their own, or otherwise they are also the type of person to not subscribe to authority, and would intentionally bring up ideas using uncommon words, without making it obvious.

Overall these as far as I can understand are either internet or social arguments which are not to work on some common business or otherwise goal, but it's more to understand the character and intelligence of the person, to identify whether they are the type of person that can be trusted to have good faith in those arguments.

At work, or if oriented towards some sort of business goal, I'm going to make sure that what I say or argue will be towards a productive goal for everyone in the group. But if it's for the sake of understanding - like I believe many internet arguments - which I think are actually great that we can anonymously argue with people to gain better understanding are, I think it's important to consider arguments, and even better if they use unusual terms to explain the viewpoint from another perspective - it should be interesting if someone sees things with other terms from a completely other viewpoint - but only if you are actually well understood in the field.

If you get frustrated by this, to me it's not about being a dick, it just implies they are not truly passionate or understanding of the area and may be insecure about it. Because you would only be a "dick" if you are insecure, because being a dick could only work out for you in this scenario if you really don't know the subject as well as you might think.

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

#185

Post by kulahan » Sat, Dec 09, 2023, 12:05 AM UTC

karmakaze wrote: post #148

kulahan wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm no good anymore, but in the VERY early days of SC2, I was good enough to occasionally get matched up by the ranking system with players like WhiteRa and Idra. Shocking how much better they were than me. Technically in the same league, but in terms of skill it wasn't even close. The top .1% really are something special in these types of cases. Pretty neat stuff.

I just looked and the top 4% of the SC2 ladder is Master+, which I consider to be quite an accomplishment. At the same time, there's so much range of skill within the master's leagues as well as even in the Grandmaster (top 200 players in each region). Even the difference between the top 5 pros and next 10 are visible in matches. This reminds me of the range of skills in Go (board game), from absolute beginner 30-20k…

It's kinda fascinating, isn't it? Small adjustments make such a massive difference. I had a similar experience in League of Legends. I'm no good at that game, but a streamer who was a backup for cloud9 (a support player; I forget who, but his name was kinda edgy iirc??) played with his viewers sometimes. I was a support main at the time, and I just remember feeling like he was more dangerous than his ADC in terms of pure damage. How? It's not possible. It's so confusing. I never figured out how he was so successful with his extreme aggression in lane, but I was utterly fascinated.

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

#186

Post by netcan » Sat, Dec 09, 2023, 1:17 AM UTC

qsort wrote: post #116

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…

Lichess is an incredible project and a true gem of open source, but an accurate source of ELO rating it is not. As we speak I am rated 2227. I am unspeakably horrendous at chess. Online chess is more like a video game; my competitive mindset and nerdy minimax tendencies are single-handedly carrying me.

I meant that 2100 on lichess is about where tournament CMs tend to be... roughly. It happens to converge about there, but that's coincidence.

Online is a different game, sure. But relative strength is not that variable between games.

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

#187

Post by lamontcg » Sat, Dec 09, 2023, 6:38 AM UTC

mewpmewp2 wrote: post #184

lamontcg wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actual people rarely argue to some kind of platonic ideal. And the author of the post clearly indicates that he didn't bother to inform this person that he had expertise that he considers relevant. Elsewhere he also kind of shits on using "terms of art". But those "terms of art" are useful shorthand to experts, establishing that both sides are experts and familiar with the field, and more rapidly communicating inform…

If I use the "terms of art" or I say that I'm really, very experienced in this particular subject, this won't allow me to check whether they are the type of person to rather subscribe to authority or whether they would try to understand the arguments themselves. An intellectually honest person wouldn't need to know that someone is an expert to be able to understand the arguments of a person in the field that they, th…

> If you get frustrated by this, to me it's not about being a dick, it just implies they are not truly passionate or understanding of the area and may be insecure about it.

Or they may just not have the patience for 99% of the people who aren't part of their field and want to comment on it. For example, a climate scientist is generally better off aggressively ignoring the 1000th person they've run into who wants to have an argument about if variability of the sun is responsible for climate change or something like that. Unless they're actually a science educator it isn't a good use of their time.

And this very article -- on how easy it is to get to 95th percentile in anything -- is a good example of this. The >99.99th percentile Overwatch player shouldn't be spending their time explaining to people that "you should stand on the objective". That is a waste of their time. People in the 95th percentile should be doing that explaining because that's a 1:20 ratio instead of a 1:1000 ratio.

So experts have heuristics to stop the millions of people out there from wasting their time, because to them they don't owe you anything. Without some kind of contractual relationship they're triaging their time based on the fact that you've paid them nothing and they owe you nothing. You have to in some way be significantly worthwhile to them.

That isn't an indication of being "not truly passionate" or being "insecure". That's just the inherent problem of having expertise and being at the 99.99th percentile of something, which is that lots of There are some people out there with the patience of saints who will explain to absolutely everyone, at their level, and always have time for others. But they're going to probably be passionate about education, and likely retired or nearing the end of their career. For most people, it is entirely normal for people to not give you their time BECAUSE they're passionate about what they're not and just not passionate about YOU. You can change that by establishing that you're really one of the >95 percentilers (again as we've seen in this article that can just be the engaged amateur), which makes you much more worth their time and they'll get more out of it as you'll probably get more out of it. Hiding the fact that you have expertise hides that information from the expert and that isn't helping their heuristics, and you can't really blame them for that.

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

#188

Post by Dylan16807 » Sat, Dec 09, 2023, 9:54 AM UTC

topaz0 wrote: post #136

6gvONxR4sf7o wrote: post #127

The argument seems like a cheat, because it rules out people who don't participate, but doesn't limit itself to people who practice regularly. For video games, an analogy could be limiting to people who bought the game on steam, but not limiting to people who ever installed and played it. Or maybe a better analogy is website users, limiting to people who visited, but still including all the people who immediately bou…

On the contrary I think that's the main point: that a fairly trivial amount of practice is enough to surpass almost everyone who you'll encounter in the activity. Obviously (tautologically) the average person who practices regularly will be average among the people who practice regularly -- you'd have to practice exceptionally well (or perhaps start out with exceptional talent) for practice to make you exceptional in…

> everyone who you'll encounter in the activity

You have a far smaller chance of encountering the person who puts in 3 hours and then quits. The average encountered participator is much more skilled than the average participator.

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

#189

Post by Dylan16807 » Sat, Dec 09, 2023, 10:04 AM UTC

namaria wrote: post #91

madamelic wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There is plenty of evidence that just practicing is a bad way to learn things.

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

#190

Post by Dylan16807 » Sat, Dec 09, 2023, 10:09 AM UTC

no1pcjfan wrote: post #118

antisthenes wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Got any sources on this? I'm interested in the stats.

I personally don’t. Pick-Up has shifted over the years not many people do it the old school way. If you Google up Red Quest, he moved to Substack you can probably find the article. “Most guys just don’t care” or something like that. And it’s true. People would rather get baited into online nonsensical outrage and neuter themselves by playing video games.

> neuter themselves by playing video games.

What does that mean?

Does trying hard at dating mean not playing video games...?