Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Bus Ticket Theory of Genius

paulgraham.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

391–400 of 500 posts

Re: The Bus Ticket Theory of Genius

#391

Post by grappler »

klik99 wrote: post #224

Before I read the article, I thought the “bus ticket” was referencing William Sidis, who in the early 20th century gave a mathematics lecture at MIT at 10, a Harvard student at 11, was expected to revolutionize math but then dropped out of the public eye to write strange books, one being an etymology of train and bus tickets across the US, collecting several thousand unique stubs. I bet that you could learn a lot abo…

I knew I'd heard recently about someone brilliant who had obsessed over bus tickets. Thanks for helping me recall it.

A recent episode of Radiolab, dated August 27, 2019, introduced a large audience (including me) to another podcast, The Memory Palace:

https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radiolab/articles/memor...

With that strong endorsement I began going through the whole back-catalog of The Memory Palace, and Episode 36, dated January 7, 2011, “six scenes from the life of william james sidis, wonderful boy”, talks about Sidis' obsession with bus tickets. Or maybe more precisely, streetcar transfers.

http://thememorypalace.us/2011/01/six-scenes-in-the-life-of-...

I think it said he figured out ways to traverse great distances on a single fare by connecting transfers. That kind of graph traversal thinking strikes me as ahead of its time for the age of streetcars, and could plausibly have led to some interesting places.

Re: The Bus Ticket Theory of Genius

#392

Post by sibeliuss »

pram wrote: post #242
throwaway713 wrote: post #191

I agree with his theory, but what I find particularly interesting is that I think most people do not have an obsessive interest in anything at all. And as someone who has obsessive interests in a lot of things (some “useful”, some not), that seems really odd to me: how can you just be satisfied to go to work, come home, watch TV, and go to bed each day? (Not saying that’s the wrong way to live, just saying it is surp…

It’s not that bad. I just had twin girls and I’m still managing to draw for ~3 hours a day in between feeding and diaper changes. If you like your hobby enough you’ll find the energy and time somewhere ;P

I've got a new one too. My guitar follows me all around the house, and I've planted books in a bunch of different places for the in-between time. I'm curious to see how this evolves as the baby gets older.

Re: The Bus Ticket Theory of Genius

#393

Post by pntnp »

drongoking wrote: post #323

Two reactions to this. I almost believe these: 1. The difference between collecting bus tickets, working on mathematics, and figuring the crystallization patterns of snowflakes is virtually nothing. To the people obsessed with it, it is all-important; to outsiders, all three look indistinguishably pointless. Only in retrospect can anyone say whether the activity led to something society considers important. The truly…

> 2. Genius is overrated.

What?

> But for nearly every invention and idea, history shows that multiple people were working on it at the same time.

Not just "people" - "geniuses". History shows multiple geniuses were working on it at the same time.

I do agree that we give too much credit to a single genius. Had Isaac Newton not lived, we'd still have calculus, physics, etc in some form or another. The same thing with Einstein, Turing, etc. But that doesn't mean genius is overrated. What's overrated is the hero worshiping narrative we build around a single genius due to racial or nationalistic reasons.

But I think we should have as many geniuses working on problems as possible rather than saying that genius is overrated.

Re: The Bus Ticket Theory of Genius

#394

Post by jariel »

I was thinking a lot about this myself recently: those people that have a 'compulsive, arbitrary obsession' with something and the resulting wealth of knowledge they tend to have.

I also don't believe it's really about 'love or passion' per say, it often seems to be more of an obsessive/compulsive attitude, like a behaviour that's in their DNA 'just the way they are'.

Whenever I read about 'some great person' I see how there's 100x more to them than 'what we see'. There's an obsession to the subject, the 'product' is just the tip of the iceberg.

Think about the recently released 'Mr. Robison' biopic and have a gander into his past talks. This man was not just about making some hum-dum kids show. This guy was not a sociologist, he was an ordained Minister, and hugely empathetic guy who was clearly obsessed with understanding the wellbeing of children, and the show was his vehicle for communicating issues and also communicating 'values' as he saw them. He would do a lot of 'research' in terms of interviews, questionnaires, etc. Though we might be smug about this in the sense that it wasn't very formal - I think we should be cautious to dismiss his work - we can learn a lot about any subject by simply inquiring, doing, observing. We definitely do not want to do this with clinical drug trials, and we probably want to still do more formal sociological research, but I don't think anything can replace his deep commitment to the cause.

Tiger Woods, Michael Jackson, Serena Williams, Justin Timberlake, Enrique Eglisias - these people were 'trained from birth' for their roles and each have vast wealth and knowledge of their disciplines. Clearly instituted into the trades by their parents, and probably a little bit forcibly on occasions, they will have nevertheless had to encompass that kind of 'arbitrary conviction'.

Re: The Bus Ticket Theory of Genius

#395

Post by amykyta »

So it’s a feedback loop between ability and interest. With the two combined and progress registering people continue on. But what’s the wellspring of interest and is ability largely a gift or can it be cultivated?

Re: The Bus Ticket Theory of Genius

#396

Post by GuiA »

t34543 wrote: post #373
klik99 wrote: post #224

Before I read the article, I thought the “bus ticket” was referencing William Sidis, who in the early 20th century gave a mathematics lecture at MIT at 10, a Harvard student at 11, was expected to revolutionize math but then dropped out of the public eye to write strange books, one being an etymology of train and bus tickets across the US, collecting several thousand unique stubs. I bet that you could learn a lot abo…

Does anyone have a hypothesis on why William Sidis made such a interesting pivot?

Somewhat similar stories with eg Grothendieck and Kaczynski. As the article points out, one of the properties of genius is that it can’t really be deliberately focused.

Re: The Bus Ticket Theory of Genius

#398

Post by prirun »

pm90 wrote: post #289
semiotagonal wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why having a social safety net is so important. If society can put a floor under how badly people can lose, they'll feel more free to try low-probability high-payoff endeavors.

This is possibly the greatest argument for social safety nets ever made, really. The economy of today is so efficient and supply chains are so effective at moving things to people who need them, that it seems incredibly stupid to not use it to provide some kind of basic necessities to every human being, no questions asked. If the US were to do this today, there would be more innovation, less misery, a supercharged ec…

So if you spend 14 hours a day for 5 years on a computer project that becomes useful, and a lot of people want it and pay you for it, you are willing to fork over most of that to the government since they provided you with the basic allowance that let you pursue this project, and your success is how they fund a basic allowance for everyone - you included.

While your friend, who did nothing for 5 years, maintains the same standard of living that you do.

I guess this could work, but to me, the level of "disinterest" required to be okay with this result is even more rare than genius.

Re: The Bus Ticket Theory of Genius

#399

Post by ip26 »

codetrotter wrote: post #205
throwaway713 wrote: post #191

I agree with his theory, but what I find particularly interesting is that I think most people do not have an obsessive interest in anything at all. And as someone who has obsessive interests in a lot of things (some “useful”, some not), that seems really odd to me: how can you just be satisfied to go to work, come home, watch TV, and go to bed each day? (Not saying that’s the wrong way to live, just saying it is surp…

> I agree with his theory, but what I find particularly interesting is that I think most people do not have an obsessive interest in anything at all. I am not convinced that this is true. I think a lot more people are really interested or passionate about something than you may realize, but not all of them talk about those things to everyone. Alternatively, their passion might be what they do for a living. So for ins…

I can vouch for the "do it for a living" route. Spent almost ten years obsessively tinkering with electronics. Started a career in electronics. Pretty much abandoned hobby electronics; I do it all day at work, get my enjoyment, and pursue more casual interests for fun. Although life still gets empty if it's just work/eat/sleep.

Re: The Bus Ticket Theory of Genius

#400

Post by ip26 »

throwaway713 wrote: post #191

I agree with his theory, but what I find particularly interesting is that I think most people do not have an obsessive interest in anything at all. And as someone who has obsessive interests in a lot of things (some “useful”, some not), that seems really odd to me: how can you just be satisfied to go to work, come home, watch TV, and go to bed each day? (Not saying that’s the wrong way to live, just saying it is surp…

1) Your kid will determine how much free time you have. Some infants sleep 22 hours a day. Some sleep 4 hours a day. You can't know which you'll get.

2) Ruthless economizing & prioritizing of what's important to you. Combine activities, e.g. biking to work is commute, exercise, and possibly shower all-in-one.

Post reply on HN