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Being OK with not being extraordinary

tiffanymatthe.com

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Re: Being OK with not being extraordinary

#241

Post by ZephyrBlu »

qrybam wrote: post #142

Personal anecdote - I became very good at one activity early on in life. This was at the expense of other things such as education and a social life. The dedication required to reach a high level of skill, and the journey overall was great fun and taught me a lot about what it takes to reach the top. What impact has this had on me? It opened a lot of doors for me early on. Ultimately I faced a decision, do I pursue a…

I think there is something to be said about being a master in something _before_ becoming a jack of all trades.

It seems to me that like you said, dedicating yourself to something can open a lot of doors. More than if you had become above average at multiple things.

Re: Being OK with not being extraordinary

#242

Post by MaximumYComb »

ck425 wrote: post #231
MaximumYComb wrote: post #212

I feel there is a common trait of extraordinary people that anyone can develop and it pays dividends. That trait is industriousness. When you listen to interviews from successful people like Elon Musk all the way through to Arnold Schwarzenegger, they all talk about working hard. Terry Toa almost failed the general exams at Princeton due to slacking off, and it was a valuable lesson for him. I don't care how gifted y…

I call bullshit on the idea that industriousness is entirely learned. You can definitely improve it but research shows a significant part of it is genetic.

I guess my argument is that most people can learn to do a lot more work than they are. Not everyone can sustain 100+ hours per week but someone working 40 can probably get a 50% improvement. The most significant change in my life occured through simply working more hour and developing habits to make those hours efficient.

Re: Being OK with not being extraordinary

#243

Post by popinman322 »

MaximumYComb wrote: post #210
georgeecollins wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that were true, everyone with a very high IQ would be a great poker player, a great negotiator, a great writer, a great leader, a great investor.. etc. IQ is as proxy for problem solving if the problems look like a standardized test. The problems people face in the real world require more specialization and a more complex combination of skills and traits.

IQ is one of the strongest predictors we have for many life outcomes, such as career success, wealth, lower risk of death. This doesn't mean "everyone with a very high IQ will blah blah blah" but it does mean that those with high IQs are more likely to achieve certain things.

Strongest predictor taken from a pool of weak predictors is still a weak predictor.

Re: Being OK with not being extraordinary

#244

Post by ZephyrBlu »

gojomo wrote: post #178

10y ago, I posted some similar thoughts about how reading HN risks demotivation via a memetic mechanism similar to the 'negative allelopathy' in biological systems: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1537692 Reproduced here, as it's just as relevant, or moreso, today: I fear that what you're feeling is a dark side of the net's otherwise positive aspects. (It's not just HN.) The net lets us see all the great output…

The Matthew Effect is equal parts frustrating and fascinating.

Re: Being OK with not being extraordinary

#245

Post by mywittyname »

phkahler wrote: post #81
borroka wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. It is one those things that are said once, repeated enough and make enough sense to be believed, although I suspect they are not true. If you combine an average programmer with an average statistician, you get a profile that is not particularly attractive. If the comment that follows is: but is it not what data scientist are? the answer is that good data scientist have good (or great) programming for what…

>> If you combine an average programmer with an average statistician, you get a profile that is not particularly attractive. Nobody said being average at both was enough. The parent post specifically said if you know more than average in both areas. You still need to be good, but the combination of good in multiple areas is claimed to be sort of like being extraordinary in one. I think there's some truth in that.

I still think the parent has a strong point though. Stats and CS are correlated skill sets. Almost all CS people learn a good bit of statistics as part of their education process, and I suspect that most statisticians are passable programmers. The fact that we have a term for the combination of both skills suggests that being great in both is not unique, it just makes you a great data scientist.

The crux behind the idea of being better than average at two things makes you individually extraordinary is that the two skills are not correlated. An above average singer is probably an above average player of one or more instruments, but I'm sure there aren't many who are also great ice cream makers.

Re: Being OK with not being extraordinary

#246

Post by ZephyrBlu »

pgcj_poster wrote: post #154

If you're a 1 in 100 type, you've likely had feeling that because you're more capable than literally almost everyone, you should be achieving things more like the people you read about in books or online. But unless you've read 80 million biographies, those people are not 1 in a 100. They're more like 1 in million. And once you reach the truly great, like Einstein, then it's 1 in a billion (or more). You are not 1 in…

> You may very well be 1 in 100, though. And that's still pretty incredible

Is it though? There are 7 billion people on the planet, 1/100 is means you're 1 of 70,000,000 people in that group.

It's odd. Being 1/100 in your day to day life means people probably think you're quite smart, but on a global scale it's quite depressing.

Re: Being OK with not being extraordinary

#247

Post by rimjongun »

entropicdrifter wrote: post #152
cpursley wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm take a gander that your view about his blog is based on your pre-existing political leanings.

I mean... https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Scott_Adams#Views_on_science_a... The guy has a ton of crank views

So a link to rational wiki, a massively biased website with a far left agenda... As your response to somebody bringing up Scott’s reasoning on things.

Weak sauce. That’s added nothing to the discussion of Scott Adam’s talents, hubris, ego, or cold logic skills.

Re: Being OK with not being extraordinary

#248

Post by tmatthe »

brettinternet wrote: post #239
tmatthe wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HostPapa. I contacted them and they said it was a problem with their server, so I can't do anything about it sadly.

Since it looks like it's just GatsbyJS client, may I suggest GitHub Pages?

That's a good idea, in the beginning I had no idea how hosting works so I just went with HostPapa, but now I am considering switching.

Re: Being OK with not being extraordinary

#249

Post by mattbillenstein »

tmatthe wrote: post #223
mattbillenstein wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How are you hosting this?

HostPapa. I contacted them and they said it was a problem with their server, so I can't do anything about it sadly.

Yeah, imho, make something that generates static pages and then you have any host of options with (nearly) infinite scale -- s3/cloudfront, etc. And it's still pretty simple.

Re: Being OK with not being extraordinary

#250

Post by rimjongun »

Delk wrote: post #227
_v7gu wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As if RationalWiki has any business calling people cranks

Has it always been that way? I seem to remember RationalWiki (or perhaps some other similar site?) as an occasionally snarky but generally high-quality wiki on rationality, fallacies, science vs. pseudoscience, the logical or other mistakes in arguments that have been given for quackery, etc. Nowadays it seems like a lot of the content is just about bashing people who have expressed less-than-greatly argued opinions,…

The problem is that sticky issues are so rarely aligned on party lines. Like science vs pseudo science. Where are that line? The scientific method? Because as we’ve seen in recent years, our poor incentive structure for scientific advancement has given rise to bullshit study’s that grab headlines, but are flawed in major ways.

Like everything in life, complex issues that have many facets are difficult to shoehorn into a right/left box. Sites like rational wiki excel at warping issues to make them simple binary choices. Life is hard, thinking is harder, you can’t outsource your judgments of the world and expect to have a clear picture of reality.

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