“I’m not that smart” • Hacker News Board

Re: “I’m not that smart”

#11

Post by teachersaredumb » Mon, Oct 17, 2022, 4:58 AM UTC

thundergolfer wrote: post #6

DangitBobby wrote: post #5

It became quickly very clear to me in undergrad that some people had this intuitive conceptual understanding of math and physics that I would simply never have, despite the effort (and I did make good grades). Some of these guys just blew me away with how smart they were. The more time I spent around people a lot smarter than me, the more I realized that some people's brains are just operating at a completely differe…

I'd venture that the "guys ... operating at a completely different level" likely gained their intuitive understanding of math and physics from earlier educational training (formal or informal). But this is really besides the point, because Seth says: > The number of tasks in our culture that require someone who was born with off-the-charts talent is small indeed. I think we can carve off advanced theoretical physics…

Not to brag (is it even possible to brag through an anonymous throwaway account?), but throughout my schooling I skipped or skimmed most readings and avoided doing the homework, or copied it off my more diligent classmates. But I still got perfect grades in high school and graduate school, outperforming classmates who worked much harder. In undergrad, I had mediocre grades only because I just didn't do the homework and often turned in term projects many days late, but based on test performances, would have also had near perfect grades. I have a bad work ethic which holds me back in other ways, but I'm still near the top of my field for my age bracket. If I hear something once, I understand it and remember it for life. I don't mean memorizing lists; I mean learning how something works and why and how to apply that knowledge.

Re: “I’m not that smart”

#12

Post by travisjungroth » Mon, Oct 17, 2022, 5:00 AM UTC

teachersaredumb wrote: post #11

thundergolfer wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd venture that the "guys ... operating at a completely different level" likely gained their intuitive understanding of math and physics from earlier educational training (formal or informal). But this is really besides the point, because Seth says: > The number of tasks in our culture that require someone who was born with off-the-charts talent is small indeed. I think we can carve off advanced theoretical physics…

Not to brag (is it even possible to brag through an anonymous throwaway account?), but throughout my schooling I skipped or skimmed most readings and avoided doing the homework, or copied it off my more diligent classmates. But I still got perfect grades in high school and graduate school, outperforming classmates who worked much harder. In undergrad, I had mediocre grades only because I just didn't do the homework a…

If this isn’t to brag, then what is it for?

Re: “I’m not that smart”

#13

Post by senko » Mon, Oct 17, 2022, 5:08 AM UTC

travisjungroth wrote: post #12

teachersaredumb wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to brag (is it even possible to brag through an anonymous throwaway account?), but throughout my schooling I skipped or skimmed most readings and avoided doing the homework, or copied it off my more diligent classmates. But I still got perfect grades in high school and graduate school, outperforming classmates who worked much harder. In undergrad, I had mediocre grades only because I just didn't do the homework a…

If this isn’t to brag, then what is it for?

(not gp) To show that intuitive math understanding is a thing.

Re: “I’m not that smart”

#14

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Oct 17, 2022, 5:09 AM UTC

travisjungroth wrote: post #12

teachersaredumb wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to brag (is it even possible to brag through an anonymous throwaway account?), but throughout my schooling I skipped or skimmed most readings and avoided doing the homework, or copied it off my more diligent classmates. But I still got perfect grades in high school and graduate school, outperforming classmates who worked much harder. In undergrad, I had mediocre grades only because I just didn't do the homework a…

If this isn’t to brag, then what is it for?

[deleted]

Re: “I’m not that smart”

#15

Post by saberience » Mon, Oct 17, 2022, 5:54 AM UTC

teachersaredumb wrote: post #11

thundergolfer wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd venture that the "guys ... operating at a completely different level" likely gained their intuitive understanding of math and physics from earlier educational training (formal or informal). But this is really besides the point, because Seth says: > The number of tasks in our culture that require someone who was born with off-the-charts talent is small indeed. I think we can carve off advanced theoretical physics…

Not to brag (is it even possible to brag through an anonymous throwaway account?), but throughout my schooling I skipped or skimmed most readings and avoided doing the homework, or copied it off my more diligent classmates. But I still got perfect grades in high school and graduate school, outperforming classmates who worked much harder. In undergrad, I had mediocre grades only because I just didn't do the homework a…

So despite your clearly large intellect, it seems like you didn't understand the English verb "to brag."

I would say this in response, what you describe: being good at middle and high and able to get perfect grades there, isn't particularly impressive. Most good students can excel in high school. You note that things got harder for you in college, this is more normal, "smart kids" usually get found out in college when the work becomes harder. I'm not sure if you went on to postgrad education but I'd hazard a guess that if you went on to do a PhD you would have had a big shock.

My point is this, being able to "ace" teenager level work isn't actually all that big of a deal. I went to a private all-boys school where there were many, many boys who aced every piece of homework and tests they took. It didn't mean they were super special, that's just what you get when schools select for the brightest kids. Now, if they went straight from school and then aced their PhD in a year, that would actually be unusual.

Re: “I’m not that smart”

#16

Post by Beltalowda » Mon, Oct 17, 2022, 5:58 AM UTC

I'm not that smart, but for a lot of things I put in a bit of effort and care, seemingly more than average. So in a programming context if I have to add some feature, for example, I won't just do the first thing that works, but try to think ahead on the long term a bit, think about good API design, maybe UX, write decent docs, etc. Plus I tend to be fairly pro-active in many things.

It always surprises me when people don't do that kind of stuff; which happens surprisingly often IMO. People add stuff with the shittiest of APIs, without thinking more than a week ahead, or write documentation that barely even qualifies as English (from native or very proficient speakers).

As a result, people have often considered me "very smart". But I'm not. I'm not dumb either, but certainly not some sort of programming whizkid.

Point being: attitude counts for quite a bit.

I think everyone knows a few people who are not necessarily "dumb" in the sense that their brains aren't computing well enough, but are nonetheless "dumb" because of their attitude towards certain things. If you never take an interest in anything, or just always go for the simple explanations and solutions you will forever stay dumb, no matter how smart you are.

Innate ability and education also counts. I have no idea how much share each have, although lack of innate ability can certainly be a ceiling to what you can achieve, even with the best attitude. But as the post says: for most things that doesn't actually matter all that much.

Re: “I’m not that smart”

#17

Post by klipt » Mon, Oct 17, 2022, 6:00 AM UTC

teachersaredumb wrote: post #10

DangitBobby wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, people do tend to think that differences like these are environmental (such as formal training early from early on), likely because their moral system insists on it. We like to believe meritocracy is a fair system driven primarily by your own decisions. But if you don't come by your merits with hard work, meritocracy stops sounding like a just way of deciding who gets to have a good life and who doesn't. It's cl…

The entire modern dialectic around intelligence is emotionally driven. Dumb/unsuccessful people want to believe that smart/successful people just got an unfair leg up in life. And smart/successful people want to believe that anyone can achieve what they did if society helped them enough. We don't want to accept that some people are born with what it takes to become elite and some are born without it and will never ha…

But the fact that most people aren't geniuses shows that being a genius doesn't confer that much of an evolutionary advantage. In fact it might even be evolutionarily negative - in general, more years of academic education correlates with having fewer children.

Re: “I’m not that smart”

#18

Post by klipt » Mon, Oct 17, 2022, 6:05 AM UTC

teachersaredumb wrote: post #8

thundergolfer wrote: post #4

Treating “intelligence” as a synonym for “training” is a more effective and positive approach than thinking certain people have some from-birth advantage over others. So many people walk around thinking they’re stupid when they’re not. They just were not trained well in things society considers the core competencies of smart people (math, literature, physics, etc) You can read perspectives on intelligence from people…

> but the major aspect of being smart is about wealth and educational inequality No, this is flat out wrong. There has been so much research on this, and intelligence is both highly predictive of life outcomes (controlling for wealth) and extremely heritable. If you take the biological kids of smart people and raise them in poor households, they still turn out very smart, much smarter than the biological kids of dumb…

> extremely heritable

But still with regression to the mean, no? The child of two great geniuses is likely to be a somewhat lesser genius. Above average, but below their parents. A few generations of such regression to the mean and there might not be that much extra intelligence in the descendants of great geniuses.

Re: “I’m not that smart”

#19

Post by m463 » Mon, Oct 17, 2022, 6:24 AM UTC

thundergolfer wrote: post #6

DangitBobby wrote: post #5

It became quickly very clear to me in undergrad that some people had this intuitive conceptual understanding of math and physics that I would simply never have, despite the effort (and I did make good grades). Some of these guys just blew me away with how smart they were. The more time I spent around people a lot smarter than me, the more I realized that some people's brains are just operating at a completely differe…

I'd venture that the "guys ... operating at a completely different level" likely gained their intuitive understanding of math and physics from earlier educational training (formal or informal). But this is really besides the point, because Seth says: > The number of tasks in our culture that require someone who was born with off-the-charts talent is small indeed. I think we can carve off advanced theoretical physics…

> gained their intuitive understanding ... from earlier educational training ...

I wonder if at one point or likely one age you will never be able to gain an intuitive grasp on some subjects.

I think not only of subjects like higher-level math and physics, but also language skills, like chinese or japanese for a lifelong western speaker.

on the other hand, I wonder if some subjects might be easier without baggage, like having a lifetime of newtonian physics, then learning relativity or quantum physics.

Re: “I’m not that smart”

#20

Post by MisterBastahrd » Mon, Oct 17, 2022, 6:26 AM UTC

Maybe.

But sometimes "the reading" means doing research during personal hours in order to solve work problems. And while the me of 20 years ago would have been perfectly fine doing work that I wasn't going to be compensated for, that shit doesn't fly with the me of today and if it got weeded entirely out of corporate culture, especially software development, we'd all be better off for it.

Raise your hand if you've never had any real formal workplace training in your supposed area of expertise.

Raise your hand if you've watched the same managers who can't find a budget for your personal training go to training seminars and / or conferences.

Raise your hand if your employer decides to adopt some new bit of technology that nobody on your team has familiarity with and then give an incredibly aggressive timeframe to integrate it into your current systems.

Most developers don't have enough hands to raise.