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Recent discoveries on the acquisition of the highest levels of human performance

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Re: Recent discoveries on the acquisition of the highest levels of human performance

#21
post #18
post #8

> For example, world top-10 youth chess players and later world top-10 adult chess players are nearly 90% different individuals across time. Top secondary students and later top university students are also nearly 90% different people. Likewise, international-level youth athletes and later international-level adult athletes are nearly 90% different individuals. Motivation if you feel like you're young and failing

from sports i know (hockey), generally the next generational player is identified when they're like 12-13 years old (earlier for Gretzky). You look at the top scorers from the Brick Tournament(9-10 year old kids play in that tournament) from 10 years ago ( https://www.eliteprospects.com/league/brick-invitational/201... ), 3 of the top 5 scorers were drafted in the first round, and the top goalie was Team Canada's goa…

in contrast: the sport i know best, hoops, a common pattern for generational players is for them to be late bloomers because they grow up short, developing skills and competitive toughness, then get lucky and grow a half-foot late in puberty

Re: Recent discoveries on the acquisition of the highest levels of human performance

#22
Exponential growth is the path of longsuffering, and one doesn't always make it. It sucks and looks and feels bad for all involved. This is why advice such as, "Ignore the naysayers." is clutch. And other advice once one starts to rocket shoot like "Stay in your lane." is the absolute worst advice of all time. (IYKYK - Rest in peace Scott Adams)

Another thought - Einstein had reviewed thousands of patents when he worked on the train - that's a hell of data set for an LM to start with.

Re: Recent discoveries on the acquisition of the highest levels of human performance

#23
post #14

This sort of tracks for me. The smartest people I know as adults mostly fucked around a lot and had wide interests that all culminated in them doing a great thing greatly. The smartest people I know as kids spent hours grinding on something and crashed out in college and are mostly average well-to-dos now.

I'm reminded of a meme on Facebook my wife showed me that was a two-dimensional graph of SAT score vs. GPA. The corner with the highest SAT scores but the lowest GPAs was shaded in and labelled "These are the people I want to hang out with."

What does the reverse imply? High GPA, low SAT?

Re: Recent discoveries on the acquisition of the highest levels of human performance

#24
So consider these quotes:

Early exceptional performers and later exceptional performers within a domain are rarely the same individuals but are largely discrete populations over time... and Most top achievers (Nobel laureates and world-class musicians, athletes, and chess players) demonstrated lower performance than many peers during their early years. Together.

A simple explanation: high performance requires quite a bit of specific preparation. But "exceptional" performance is mostly random relative to the larger population of high performers in terms of the underlying training-to-skills-to-achievement "equation". Especially, being at the top tends to get someone more resources than those nearly at the top who don't have visible/certified achievements.

I'd that billing your work "the study of the very best" really gives you strong marketing spin and that makes people tempted to find simplistic markers rather than looking at the often random processes involved in visible success. IE, I haven't touched on reversion to mean (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regression_toward_the_mean).

Re: Recent discoveries on the acquisition of the highest levels of human performance

#26
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm reminded of a meme on Facebook my wife showed me that was a two-dimensional graph of SAT score vs. GPA. The corner with the highest SAT scores but the lowest GPAs was shaded in and labelled "These are the people I want to hang out with."

I'm not sure we should romanticize ADHD, which is what you call that region. If those people could be high SAT and high GPA they would prefer it. Signed, someone in that region.

Who said anything about ADHD?

Re: Recent discoveries on the acquisition of the highest levels of human performance

#27
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

from sports i know (hockey), generally the next generational player is identified when they're like 12-13 years old (earlier for Gretzky). You look at the top scorers from the Brick Tournament(9-10 year old kids play in that tournament) from 10 years ago ( https://www.eliteprospects.com/league/brick-invitational/201... ), 3 of the top 5 scorers were drafted in the first round, and the top goalie was Team Canada's goa…

in contrast: the sport i know best, hoops, a common pattern for generational players is for them to be late bloomers because they grow up short, developing skills and competitive toughness, then get lucky and grow a half-foot late in puberty

who is that? Not Lebron, definitely not Jokic, SGA was 4 star recruit?

Re: Recent discoveries on the acquisition of the highest levels of human performance

#28

Couldn't this be explained by Berkson's Paradox [0]? [0] https://xcancel.com/AlexGDimakis/status/2002848594953732521

It seems the criticism is indeed Berkson's Paradox, but the example is different to the canonical example of Berkson's paradox.

In the canonical example, you have uncorrelated attributes, eg skill and attractiveness in actors, forming a round scatter plot with no correlation. Selecting a subpopulation of top actors who are either skilled or attractive, you get a negative correlation. You can visualize this as chopping the top-right of the round scatter plot off: the chopped off piece is oriented in roughly a line of negative correlation.

In this example, if you look in the linked paper inside the post by Dimakis, there is a positively correlated scatter plot: You can tell the shape is correlated positively between youth and adult performance. But in this case, if you condition on the extremes of performance, you end up selecting a cloud of points that has flat to slight negative correlation.

Re: Recent discoveries on the acquisition of the highest levels of human performance

#29
post #23
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm reminded of a meme on Facebook my wife showed me that was a two-dimensional graph of SAT score vs. GPA. The corner with the highest SAT scores but the lowest GPAs was shaded in and labelled "These are the people I want to hang out with."

What does the reverse imply? High GPA, low SAT?

Probably the stupid-and-diligent bit.

> In 1933, while overseeing the writing of Truppenführung, the manual for leading combined arms formations, Hammerstein-Equord made one of the most historically prescient observations on leadership. During the writing effort, he offered his personal view of officers, classifying them in a way only he could:

> “I divide my officers into four groups. There are clever, diligent, stupid, and lazy officers. Usually two characteristics are combined. Some are clever and diligent — their place is the General Staff. The next lot are stupid and lazy — they make up 90% of every army and are suited to routine duties. Anyone who is both clever and lazy is qualified for the highest leadership duties, because he possesses the intellectual clarity and the composure necessary for difficult decisions. One must beware of anyone who is stupid and diligent — he must not be entrusted with any responsibility because he will always cause only mischief.”

https://news.clearancejobs.com/2019/10/08/the-four-classes-o...

Re: Recent discoveries on the acquisition of the highest levels of human performance

#30
post #10

That could simply be explained by early high achievers being worked hard by their parents or something else while people with innate abilities making progress slower (because most people are not overworked). For the first group they sizzle either because the pressure is removed as they grow up or because they hit their ceiling.

My experience is almost the inverse of what you describe, I never had to work at all until university, I was a top performer until "physique 1: mécanique newtonienne" it was the first time (and the last) I failed at something academic.

That was quite a shock to realize that I had to do the exercises and the homeworks if I wanted to pass. And since I was not use to efforts, I was no longer the top performer in classss where you have to do the exercises to really understand the matter.

I was recognized as extremely clever by teachers and other students but let me assure you that over long enough, discipline (witch I don't really have) and consistent efforts beats cleverness.

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