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Talent

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Re: Talent

#61

Post by ItsHarper »

Animats wrote: post #60

I've known some people with serious artistic talent. Even if they didn't like it. It seems to be inherited. A friend who was a good graphics artist (drawings in Smithsonian) has a son and a daughter. The daughter can draw well, but doesn't use the skill much. The son grew up drawing cars, and now he draws car designs for a major car company. For both of them, it wasn't all that hard. One unusual skill is the military…

I wonder how much of it is inheritance, and how much of it is the parent giving their child lots of opportunity to explore their interest with them

Re: Talent

#62

Post by unclad5968 »

akoboldfrying wrote: post #48
iambateman wrote: post #22

I stopped reading after there was a quote about how amphetamines helped improve his math. Like...maybe. But I think it's pretty well understood that taking amphetamines is a net-negative for individuals and society.

While reading the article, you found some evidence contradicting a firmly held belief, and decided to keep the belief and discard the new evidence. I would have stopped reading your comment after realising this, but I was already at the end.

A single anecdote about having ideas while taking amphetamines is hardly evidence.

Re: Talent

#63

Post by 3eb7988a1663 »

geerlingguy wrote: post #53
matheusmoreira wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Playing video games apparently prints money these days. People stream it to audiences and get paid ad money. Some random anime facts YouTube channel can also print money if enough people watch it. Cartoons? Make some Tom and Jerry memes and enjoy. People print money by making videos reacting to stuff , basically professional HN commentators posting hot takes in video form. Totally absurd if you ask me but that's the…

Very, very few of the people who do those things make enough money to earn an income (proportional to how many try). But the streaming platforms and game developers love that so many people do try.

There was an interesting (hearbreaking?) piece about some of the numerous people who have spent years streaming without any viewers[0]. I suppose it is no different from any other novelist/artist/musician who never gains traction, but feels materially different when you have instant feedback that nobody cares about what you are putting into the world.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17541600

Re: Talent

#64

Post by ipaddr »

kaladin-jasnah wrote: post #59
hiAndrewQuinn wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> [S]ometimes the things I have the most passion and interest for are not the things that are [natural] strengths. Whic implies that most of the time, they are. And that's a good thing. If it took you years to grasp assembly and C, whereas e.g. asynchronous TypeScript is bequem for you the same way polynomials were bequem for David Hilbert in grade school, you would probably make more money, contribute more to the ec…

This seems to place interest and talent as equivalent. The issue is that while I might be talented at TypeScript, I have zero interest in it. I know this because I got paid an unreasonbly high amount of money as an undergrad to write async TypeScript code and do full-stack development. The conclusion is that I would not be an "overall happier person" from this, even if I could be great at it. Besides, long-term, I wo…

Obsession beats all. Being interested or talented help in different ways but obsession is the drive that shines talent.

Re: Talent

#65

Post by BinaryIgor »

ItsHarper wrote: post #61
Animats wrote: post #60

I've known some people with serious artistic talent. Even if they didn't like it. It seems to be inherited. A friend who was a good graphics artist (drawings in Smithsonian) has a son and a daughter. The daughter can draw well, but doesn't use the skill much. The son grew up drawing cars, and now he draws car designs for a major car company. For both of them, it wasn't all that hard. One unusual skill is the military…

I wonder how much of it is inheritance, and how much of it is the parent giving their child lots of opportunity to explore their interest with them

Most likely both :)

Re: Talent

#66

Post by sjamaan »

kaladin-jasnah wrote: post #7
BinaryIgor wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, the absolutely best-case scenarios is when you both have an innate talent for something and deep interest/obsession about it; I think that the article encourages you to find exactly that and then focus on it, because once you combine innate talent + obsession, you do have unfair advantage over the others

I also think it's not super easy to evaluate whether you have an innate talent for something. The example of Ramanujan reading math textbooks when he was twelve is definitely an exceptional case, but I also think it's not clear to a lot of twelve year olds that such deep resources in a subject even exist. I was lucky that my county's library system had a literal treasure trove of computer science related books that I…

> If your parents present you with your first computer when you're five years old, and it drops you to a bash prompt, and that's all you have, then you'll probably know considerably more than everyone else just from that being your only choice for a computing environment.

Only if you have the interest and aptitude to dig in. Compare this with OP's story about trying to learn music instruments at an early age, and his brother. Like others have mentioned, it's a combination of things - you have to have the innate interest (or, if you're unlucky, really overbearing parents who force you to learn it, like Tiger Woods IIRC).

Re: Talent

#67

Post by donperignon »

esafak wrote: post #45
donperignon wrote: post #32

obsessively writing Motivational pieces is the new therapy … what a world…

More like an indulging an obsession than therapy; he seems to keenly want to be like the people he is studying.

Writing as therapy is great, but I doubt he enjoys writing, seems more worried about outcome, about epic and fame. Productivitymania is messing up with our brains…

Re: Talent

#69

Post by [deleted] »

codersfocus wrote: post #57
vivalahn wrote: post #39

I think as part of my 2026 goals I’ve got to learn how to shitpost half as good as some of the people that make the HN front page. These blog posts have a solid self-fellating energy to them replete with quotes from brand names that’s just too good to pass up on. A complete lack of experience talking about talent with nothing to show for it? Shit sign me up I’m all about that. I’ll have to put a twist on it. Maybe I’…

If there's a one word takeaway of the article it's attitude , and I'm curious if someone with as foul a one as yours can compete as well. Let me know if you write something!

[deleted]

Re: Talent

#70

Post by matheusmoreira »

geerlingguy wrote: post #53
matheusmoreira wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Playing video games apparently prints money these days. People stream it to audiences and get paid ad money. Some random anime facts YouTube channel can also print money if enough people watch it. Cartoons? Make some Tom and Jerry memes and enjoy. People print money by making videos reacting to stuff , basically professional HN commentators posting hot takes in video form. Totally absurd if you ask me but that's the…

Very, very few of the people who do those things make enough money to earn an income (proportional to how many try). But the streaming platforms and game developers love that so many people do try.

Luck is a big factor but still... Rolling the dice does not present much of an opportunity cost. I've seen people make a hobby out of gaming these platforms and algorithms with the most random things imaginable until they found something that sticked. They had nothing, then suddenly they had significant amounts of money. It doesn't matter what it is, it just needs to grab attention for long enough for the advertisers to push their products. It's not like the guy had to go to school for 10 years to do it.
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