161–170 of 192 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Talent is nowhere near evenly distributed. As this boy shows.
Evenly distributed not in the sense that everyone has an equal amount, but that every way you can cut up demographics (age, race, sex, nationality) will have the same bell curve of talent. But that is not necessarily so with opportunity.
As someone who had the unfortunate label of “prodigy” applied to me in my youth (chess master at age 10), I’d like to offer a perspective. It almost goes without saying, but huge respect to the kid for being able to persevere through massive adversity and achieve such a result. What I want to suggest without hopefully ruining the “feel good” party is that the adversity and the success here aren’t just a striking coin…
I used to play professionally at Marshall chess club in NYC and one of the grandmasters there went rummaging through our bag for something to eat.
A common joke in that club: What's the difference between a Chess Grandmaster and a pizza?
A pizza can feed a family of four.
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The counter-counter argument is that not giving someone your money isn't "punishing" them, it's just retaining consent over your finances which everyone should have a right to do, without shame.
How much of "your" money is an indirect result of previous generations' sacrifice so that you can have a better life?
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I recently read Searching for Bobby Fisher and Joshua Waitzkin's childhood seemed intense, but not broken. Would you consider him an exception or is that level of intensity itself dysfunctional in your view? I do agree that integrity and sportsmanship - along with the game's beauty - should be placed higher than defeating opponents and that it often isn't. At some point this may just be the nature of competing at the…
Don’t forget that Searching for Bobby Fisher was written by Waitzkin’s father and almost certainly is bending the reality to the story he wants to tell/image he wants to project.
Josh seems very balanced, it's a great book as well, highly recommended.
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> How can we, as a society, support our future during its most vulnerable time (childhood)? How is it possible that we still have homeless children in a country with so much wealth? The argument goes like this: > Because why should I care for someone else's child and why should I shell out money because someone decided to have children even though they shouldn't have ?
The counter-argument goes like this: Prudent or not, the deed is done; the child is here now and has real needs now. Get over punishing the child for being born and do the right thing.
As someone who had the unfortunate label of “prodigy” applied to me in my youth (chess master at age 10), I’d like to offer a perspective. It almost goes without saying, but huge respect to the kid for being able to persevere through massive adversity and achieve such a result. What I want to suggest without hopefully ruining the “feel good” party is that the adversity and the success here aren’t just a striking coin…
Not sure about that, but it might have brought him a home if all the attention that led to the gofundme account pans out, and it doesn't get stolen or frittered away.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The counter-counter argument is that not giving someone your money isn't "punishing" them, it's just retaining consent over your finances which everyone should have a right to do, without shame.
How much of "your" money is an indirect result of previous generations' sacrifice so that you can have a better life?
As someone who had the unfortunate label of “prodigy” applied to me in my youth (chess master at age 10), I’d like to offer a perspective. It almost goes without saying, but huge respect to the kid for being able to persevere through massive adversity and achieve such a result. What I want to suggest without hopefully ruining the “feel good” party is that the adversity and the success here aren’t just a striking coin…
But I don't think we should change how we reward these kids, because in a number of cases that reward keeps them alive, and outcomes from adverse childhood experiences that are not obsessive competitiveness and huge success in a specific area are typically much, much worse.
Yes "normal" people often have trouble seeing this (& it's frustrating as a suffering kid, that adults who are very much not suffering are using your story and taking pride in your accomplishment, as though it's theirs also, not knowing what you narrowly escaped to get there), but it may bring worse outcomes if they did (for example I would never tell my child that Little Johnny is better at basketball than they are because they play every night till 10 because that's all they have to do until their mom gets home and on the courts no one beats them up, even if it's true, because I'm not confident that my "normal" kid would use the information in a way that's wise and kind).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Talent is nowhere near evenly distributed. As this boy shows.
Evenly distributed not in the sense that everyone has an equal amount, but that every way you can cut up demographics (age, race, sex, nationality) will have the same bell curve of talent. But that is not necessarily so with opportunity.