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We Are in Need of Renaissance People

victorhanson.com

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Re: We Are in Need of Renaissance People

#11

Post by stanislavb »

kazinator wrote: post #4

> America is increasingly becoming a bifurcated, two-tiered society of a specialized government-corporate-media-political-credentialed class of degreed overseers and managers who attempt to micromanage an increasingly less well-educated, dependent underclass. Fact: people are better educated today. It's more common to have a university degree than half a century ago (yet unlike decades ago, not to have it count for m…

This. The moment I saw Musk being given as an example of a Renaissance figure, the value of the post dropped close to zero. Musk is a pure snake-oil salesperson. A sham.

Re: We Are in Need of Renaissance People

#12

Post by sys64739 »

stanislavb wrote: post #11
kazinator wrote: post #4

> America is increasingly becoming a bifurcated, two-tiered society of a specialized government-corporate-media-political-credentialed class of degreed overseers and managers who attempt to micromanage an increasingly less well-educated, dependent underclass. Fact: people are better educated today. It's more common to have a university degree than half a century ago (yet unlike decades ago, not to have it count for m…

This. The moment I saw Musk being given as an example of a Renaissance figure, the value of the post dropped close to zero. Musk is a pure snake-oil salesperson. A sham.

VDH's career skyrocketed once he became a regular among the RW media, especially when lots of handwringing about Western values under siege is required.

Re: We Are in Need of Renaissance People

#13

Post by kiba »

kazinator wrote: post #4

> America is increasingly becoming a bifurcated, two-tiered society of a specialized government-corporate-media-political-credentialed class of degreed overseers and managers who attempt to micromanage an increasingly less well-educated, dependent underclass. Fact: people are better educated today. It's more common to have a university degree than half a century ago (yet unlike decades ago, not to have it count for m…

At some point you will hit diminishing return. That's a good time to start exploring other endeavors and add to your skillset.

It's not that specialization is junk or good, it is that we get complacent.

For example, I dabbled with programming and computery stuff all my life. I like to think I am pretty good myself. It is not until a few years ago that I started taking improv classes, a form of theater that I began finding something else that I am really good at. Today, I continue to deepen my technical expertise. Not so much in programming, but in electronics, 3D printing, and CAD. However, I will eventually return to programming to expand my skillset there. In the performing art, I am pursuing voice acting.

There's paying works in voiceacting for sure. Even improv has potential for paying work if I bother to teach a class or coach a team. Money isn't why I pursue these disciplines. I found that I am getting stagnant in my acting skill, so I decided to do something new.

Specialization isn't a bad thing, but it pays to continually expand your skill in both breadth and depth. Not just learn the 15th new framework hotness or wahtever. It might even pay to do something that could be the furthest away from your expertise.

Re: We Are in Need of Renaissance People

#14

Post by lotsofpulp »

hzay wrote: post #10
kazinator wrote: post #4

> America is increasingly becoming a bifurcated, two-tiered society of a specialized government-corporate-media-political-credentialed class of degreed overseers and managers who attempt to micromanage an increasingly less well-educated, dependent underclass. Fact: people are better educated today. It's more common to have a university degree than half a century ago (yet unlike decades ago, not to have it count for m…

> Imagine someone being a brain surgeon also interested in the heart, kidneys and urinary tract, nose-throat-ears, ... that's a Renaissance Doc. Do you mean that such a Renaissance doc this is not a good thing? I think this is exactly the sort of doctors we need. Right now, my father has diabetes t2, high bp, a slightly enlarged prostrate gland, a series of UTIs, hernia, skin rashes and probably a few other things. H…

Is he overweight and/or sedentary? If so, I don’t see what a doctor can do other than prescribe a GLP-1.

Re: We Are in Need of Renaissance People

#16

Post by LarsDu88 »

"We need more Renaissance people"

Me: Ok great

"Like Elon Musk"

Me: Sure. He makes rockets and cars, I guess...

"His new X replacement is an unfettered platform for free expression"

Me: HAHAHAHAHAHHA. No. Furiously Google's author's name to confirm this is indeed yet another partisan shill

Re: We Are in Need of Renaissance People

#17

Post by saulpw »

aaronbrethorst wrote: post #7

I wonder if the author of this post—and the linked book in the sidebar, "The Case for Trump (2024 Edition)" would consider Trump a renaissance man.

Elon Musk is his example, including:

> His new X replacement is an unfettered platform for free expression. And the more the left abhors their loss of the monopolistic old Twitter’s ideological clearing house, and vows to flee X and start their own new left-wing, censorious Twitters, the more they stay on X.

So, yeah.

(also, hey!)

Re: We Are in Need of Renaissance People

#18

Post by jltsiren »

CuriouslyC wrote: post #6

We are, but we have incentives against it. Your career as a self-educated generalist is going to be significantly worse than as a credentialed specialist. You're going to get weeded out by HR drones for good positions and the positions that you do get an interview for, they're going to try and put you in a box like a specialist and make you a cog in a machine, so you won't get to even use your full skillset.

A "Renaissance person" is not a self-educated generalist but an old person who has had diverse interests and the motivation and the opportunities to pursue them.

If you work on something full time for five years, deliberately challenging yourself and striving to improve your skills, you will probably become pretty good at the thing. But because a full-time job is only 1/3 of your waking hours, you'll have time for other pursuits. If there are 50 productive years in a human live, you can probably become pretty good at 20 different things.

From this perspective, a college degree is not specialization, but the first few percent of the work of becoming a Renaissance person.

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