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Talent

felixstocker.com

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Re: Talent

#41

Post by realprimoh »

vivalahn wrote: post #38
donperignon wrote: post #32

obsessively writing Motivational pieces is the new therapy … what a world…

Yeah and using people who write as inspiration is really weird to me. I’d rather look up to people who are slightly too busy to write 2k words a day because they’re actually doing things.

Why is that weird? The author is obviously impressed by writers, given they have an interesting in writing themselves, so it makes sense to use writers as an example.

And why is writing a less valuable profession than another job? Writing is also "doing a thing" - it just so happens to be a profession for some, a great one for those who are skilled and gifted at it.

Re: Talent

#42

Post by woodruffw »

> In the essay, he’s basically trying to square a circle: to reconcile the ideas that 1. natural talent exists and 2. everyone is morally equivalent.

I don't think this ideas are incompatible, or even unintuitive: most people intuit that it's equally wrong to murder a gas station attendant and a professor of medical ethics, even if the latter is more prestigious and/or talented in some sense than the latter.

(This is a recurrent theme in Scott Alexander's writing: establish a dichotomy and run with it, even if it's facially incorrect.)

Re: Talent

#43

Post by maest »

CaptainOfCoit wrote: post #12
trhway wrote: post #9

one can wonder about the biological nature of the talent: "Like all of Erdös's friends, Graham was concerned about his drug-taking. In 1979, Graham bet Erdös $500 that he couldn't stop taking amphetamines for a month. Erdös accepted the challenge, and went cold turkey for thirty days. After Graham paid up--and wrote the $500 off as a business expense--Erdös said, "You've showed me I'm not an addict. But I didn't get…

Sounds like Erdős might have had ADD/ADHD or something similar, and amphetamines was his medication. Edit: Never read about Erdős before and came across this: "Erdős published around 1,500 mathematical papers during his lifetime, a figure that remains unsurpassed". Maybe he was just a functional addict :)

re his prolificacy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erd%C5%91s_number

Re: Talent

#44

Post by alganet »

I love how Schopenhauer can be succint on the nature of writing:

``` There are, first of all, two kinds of authors: those who write for the subject's sake, and those who write for writing's sake. While the one have had thoughts or experiences which seem to them worth communicating, the others want money; and so they write, for money. Their thinking is part of the business of writing. They may be recognized by the way in which they spin out their thoughts to the greatest possible length; then, too, by the very nature of their thoughts, which are only half-true, perverse, forced, vacillating; again, by the aversion they generally show to saying anything straight out, so that they may seem other than they are. Hence their writing is deficient in clearness and definiteness, and it is not long before they betray that their only object in writing at all is to cover paper. ```

``` As soon as the reader perceives this, let him throw the book away; for time is precious. The truth is that when an author begins to write for the sake of covering paper, he is cheating the reader; because he writes under the pretext that he has something to say. ```

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/10714/10714-h/10714-h.htm

Re: Talent

#45

Post by esafak »

donperignon wrote: post #32

obsessively writing Motivational pieces is the new therapy … what a world…

More like an indulging an obsession than therapy; he seems to keenly want to be like the people he is studying.

Re: Talent

#46

Post by decimalenough »

vivalahn wrote: post #37
omeysalvi wrote: post #18

I was impressed by the writer and glad about reading the article until I found out he works for Palantir

Why did where he works have an impact on what he said, for you?

Palantir is one of the few IT companies out there that out-evil Oracle. Overpriced snake oil for surveillance and assassination, paid with taxpayer money!

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-01-12/palantir-...

Re: Talent

#47

Post by [deleted] »

dzink wrote: post #17

I think it has to do with the Brain’s favorite sources of dopamine. If you steer clear of the hedonistic approaches and focus on finding constructive ways to get your dopamine, those constructive ways may give you a living you enjoy. Physics, math, trading, coding, writing are all self-feedback fields you can iterate on in your own to get as good as you want to be. The fact that you don’t depend on others to make pro…

[deleted]

Re: Talent

#48

Post by akoboldfrying »

iambateman wrote: post #22

I stopped reading after there was a quote about how amphetamines helped improve his math. Like...maybe. But I think it's pretty well understood that taking amphetamines is a net-negative for individuals and society.

While reading the article, you found some evidence contradicting a firmly held belief, and decided to keep the belief and discard the new evidence.

I would have stopped reading your comment after realising this, but I was already at the end.

Re: Talent

#49

Post by j3s »

Paul Erdös once stopped using amphetamines for a single month, and couldn't manage to maintain his interest in math _at all_. and this writer claims that it must have been his talent and natural interest? lol

"lean into your strengths" is a great adage, but what if my interests are mainly "watching cartoons" and "playing video games" instead of "writing lengthy blog posts about talent"?

i dispute that there exists a singular path that everyone should strive to follow - after all, some people follow their interests and go bankrupt as a result. some people take medication to help cope with the realities of their own capabilities. that's life.

Re: Talent

#50

Post by marnett »

vivalahn wrote: post #39

I think as part of my 2026 goals I’ve got to learn how to shitpost half as good as some of the people that make the HN front page. These blog posts have a solid self-fellating energy to them replete with quotes from brand names that’s just too good to pass up on. A complete lack of experience talking about talent with nothing to show for it? Shit sign me up I’m all about that. I’ll have to put a twist on it. Maybe I’…

You should write a satire blog. I’d read it!
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