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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

#21

Post by kiba »

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.

I held a more complex view of Musk and I pretty much devour at least two book on him.

He will probably still be the most influential and the most important entrepreneur in our lifetime, and I mean that mostly in a technological sense. But he's certainly not a kind of person I would emulate and not all his business strategy are advisable or necessarily efficient.

Anyway, to credit Elon Musk almost singularly with SpaceX and other big accomplishment does a discredit to the engineers who work there. What he provide is leadership, which means making final engineering decisions and taking responsibility for these decisions.

We often became complacent, unwilling to take even modicum of risk on a project, or only paying attention narrowly to a certain measure of success. Musk exemplify the lack of complacency better than anyone else.

Re: We Are in Need of Renaissance People

#22

Post by LarsDu88 »

This made me think of Charlie Munger. As he was getting into old age, he told an audience that "to get ahead in life, you should specialize in one thing and get really good at it"

Mr. Munger was really good at stock picking. As he neared his twilight years, he tried to dabble in architecture. To show that he was more than just a rich guy who was good/lucky with picking stocks. He made big donation to UC Santa Barbara conditioned on one clause... that he be allowed to design a dorm.

The dorm he designed was utilitarian to the extreme, maximizing the internal volume of the building. Dorms on the interior received no air, no light... There was so little ventilation that critics accused the building of being "worse than a prison". College administrators worried that the building would increase the suicide rate of this beach side perpetually sunny college campus, by making the students go insane.

So at the very end, Munger was forced to concede he was right...

So how's Elon's takeover of Twitter going right now?

Re: We Are in Need of Renaissance People

#23

Post by from-nibly »

jltsiren wrote: post #18
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 ot…

> A "Renaissance person" is not a self-educated generalist

> an old person who has had diverse interests and the motivation and the opportunities to pursue them.

How is that not the same thing? The only difference is that you added that they had to be old.

Re: We Are in Need of Renaissance People

#26

Post by kiba »

LarsDu88 wrote: post #22

This made me think of Charlie Munger. As he was getting into old age, he told an audience that "to get ahead in life, you should specialize in one thing and get really good at it" Mr. Munger was really good at stock picking. As he neared his twilight years, he tried to dabble in architecture. To show that he was more than just a rich guy who was good/lucky with picking stocks. He made big donation to UC Santa Barbara…

Munger is just one man. His experience isn't everything. Ditto for Musk.

I think of Musk as a specialist. He has glaring weakness in the social realm that he never really done much to resolve. That's why he flailing around with Twitter. It's also holding him back at other companies. If your to-go tool is to yell at subordinates to do nearly impossible or impossible things, that's pretty inefficient. At least that is my impression of Musk's management style.

I don't know about Mr. Munger, but if I were to study architecture, I would maybe consider taking classes, maybe go on trips to see buildings and develop my own taste to augment my own architectural education. Design a few buildings, get some feedback.

Re: We Are in Need of Renaissance People

#27

Post by ndndjdjdn »

from-nibly wrote: post #25
ndndjdjdn wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are.

Who is?

Various average joes. I see lots of polymathism at work. Extreme sports, art, music to go along with coding or whatever.

It it is just not to the genius level that is required to get HN excited.

Many switch to coding from another profession. Examples: real engineers, army, accountants.

Re: We Are in Need of Renaissance People

#28

Post by jltsiren »

from-nibly wrote: post #23
jltsiren wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ot…

> A "Renaissance person" is not a self-educated generalist > an old person who has had diverse interests and the motivation and the opportunities to pursue them. How is that not the same thing? The only difference is that you added that they had to be old.

First, because the "self-educated" part is irrelevant here.

But more importantly, the difference is in the degree. Generalism is a matter of interests and focus. A Renaissance person is an ideal and an outcome. The Renaissance ideal was that elite men should strive to be good at everything they do. In the recent history, the people who have been called Renaissance men were typically at the top of their fields, with significant accomplishments in other fields. And those accomplishments take time.

Re: We Are in Need of Renaissance People

#29

Post by AstralStorm »

kiba wrote: post #21
stanislavb wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I held a more complex view of Musk and I pretty much devour at least two book on him. He will probably still be the most influential and the most important entrepreneur in our lifetime, and I mean that mostly in a technological sense. But he's certainly not a kind of person I would emulate and not all his business strategy are advisable or necessarily efficient. Anyway, to credit Elon Musk almost singularly with Spac…

Musk does everything to serve his dream. Pity it's a broken self-serving dystopia and he cannot see it.

As for success, his skill is con artistry over investors. Also known as venture capitalism. He invented nothing and will continue to invent nothing.

Anyone can decide things that do not actually matter with aides that can make things work. He didn't even pick the aides in case of Tesla and SpaceX so does not get thw credit for that.

The guy is not exactly a good strategist considering how many of ventures needed to fulfill his dystopian vision failed.

Why is it dystopian? It's full of people laboring alone and separated in virtual cellars. Every thing he does is an enclosure: a dome, a car with no driver, a rocket. To compensate you get to sit in a VR helmet and interact with a robot.

Re: We Are in Need of Renaissance People

#30

Post by AstralStorm »

kazinator wrote: post #3
coding123 wrote: post #2

We do need people to be excited about life again.

... and if for some that means being enthusiastic about X and craving bromance with Musk, then so be it. Who are we to judge this blogger.

We can judge them by the consequences of their actions.
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