Earlier quoted context omitted.
who is that? Not Lebron, definitely not Jokic, SGA was 4 star recruit?
Denis Rodman started very late.
Hakeem Olajuwon famously started playing basketball in college. He had some … other gifts tho.
Recent discoveries on the acquisition of the highest levels of human performance
61–70 of 79 posts
Re: Recent discoveries on the acquisition of the highest levels of human performance
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
That is a very idealistic perspective. There are certainly fast learners due to the fact they are faster at cross domain synthesis.
In my experience when I am able to pick something up quickly it's because I can exploit cross domain knowledge. I have ready-made analogies to things I understand, or I understand the domain which informs the fundamentals of the new domain.
I was surprised in college that the math for electronics circuits, mass-spring-damper systems, stress of materials, etc., was all the same.
Re: Recent discoveries on the acquisition of the highest levels of human performance
#63That 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…
I was similar except it happened a bit earlier. In the UK the last compulsory school exam, GCSE, seemed like a memory test to me. I could often just figure out stuff in the actual exam even if I'd only briefly overheard something mentioned in a lesson. I didn't do a single piece of homework once I realised there were no real consequences and messed around in lessons. Got top marks in all the subjects I cared about and median in everything else (like art, where I didn't even bother to hang up my final piece).
A-level is like the stepping stone to university. It's optional and you only do subjects you like. Suddenly you had to actually understand the stuff. It wasn't just a memory test. The first exams I got B all around. I wasn't happy with this so I started doing homework etc and actually understanding things.
Coincidentally, my breakthrough also came with Newtownian mechanics. I was quite good at integration, but I didn't understand why I was doing it. Suddenly the whole thing started to make sense when I realised it was about rates of change etc.
Re: Recent discoveries on the acquisition of the highest levels of human performance
#64Seems very Taleb's Ugly Surgeon / Berkson's Paradox to me. It's like how software engineers who are at Google are worse if they're better competitive programmers. e.g. https://viz.roshangeorge.dev/taleb-surgeon/
> It's like how software engineers who are at Google are worse if they're better competitive programmers.
That's not true. It didn't replicate and Norvig has said as much somewhere on HN, IIRC.
(I also agree with the other criticisms that this 'old vs young' setup in OP is obviously at least partially, and perhaps entirely, regression to the mean and Berkson.)
Re: Recent discoveries on the acquisition of the highest levels of human performance
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
That is a very idealistic perspective. There are certainly fast learners due to the fact they are faster at cross domain synthesis.
This does not match my observations. Also, what I've heard from experts is that 'intelligent' people are more suggestible. The way society measures intelligence is thinking speed; which tends to correlate with learning speed. Some people learn surface-level information quickly without deep integration; what educational researchers sometimes call "shallow learning." And specialization can create blind spots.
I've seen very often people with good memory will be regarded as intelligent. They integrate "knowledge" by just recording verbatim phrases. That takes them a very long way... But when the time comes to analyze something, they break down. I've fallen in that myself, people I regarded as intelligent, because they "knew" so much things, could not keep up with the most basic syllogism, they were just stupid.
Re: Recent discoveries on the acquisition of the highest levels of human performance
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hyperfocus is not about "focusing intensely on your job until you perform it at world-class level". The hyperfocus of ADHD is essentially random and driven by the very same inattentive "monkey mind" that's the defining feature of ADHD itself: it's not necessarily targeted to a productive task. Those who face this issue can of course try to "gamify" their upcoming tasks to themselves in a way that will hopefully steer…
Its not random. The neurodivergent brain lacks the ability to perceive (some aspects of) the virtual social reality as something real and to focus on that. In a startup, where the problems at hand are objectively real, the ADHD hyperfocus can excel. In a typical corporation, where the situation is the opposite, it struggles. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9541695/
It's obviously true that making outcomes more immediately tangible helps make them more appealing to the ADHD brain (that's a very clear kind of "gamification") but I'm not sure how that disagrees with what I said.
Re: Recent discoveries on the acquisition of the highest levels of human performance
#67The abstract seems already highly tendentious. It acts like 90% nonoverlap (whatever that means precisely) between sets A and B is very small overlap, when at a population level it is huge overlap. If the set of yough high performers and the set of adult high performers have 10% overlap, it means that youth high performance is a tremendously good indicator for adult high performance.
Re: Recent discoveries on the acquisition of the highest levels of human performance
#68This 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.
For most people the set "the smartest people I know as adults" inludes no elite performers in any area.
Re: Recent discoveries on the acquisition of the highest levels of human performance
#69Seems very Taleb's Ugly Surgeon / Berkson's Paradox to me. It's like how software engineers who are at Google are worse if they're better competitive programmers. e.g. https://viz.roshangeorge.dev/taleb-surgeon/
> It's like how software engineers who are at Google are worse if they're better competitive programmers. That's not true. It didn't replicate and Norvig has said as much somewhere on HN, IIRC. (I also agree with the other criticisms that this 'old vs young' setup in OP is obviously at least partially, and perhaps entirely, regression to the mean and Berkson.)
Thanks for sharing. I didn't know that.
Re: Recent discoveries on the acquisition of the highest levels of human performance
#70Earlier 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…
> from sports i know (hockey), generally the next generational player is identified when they're like 12-13 years old (earlier for Gretzky). Yeah, I'm really unconvinced by the paper. 1) Adult chess GMs all come from super advanced kids, now. Period. GM Ben Finegold talks about this at length. 2) We know that, for example, hockey success is correlated with birth month. This means that juniors who happen to be slightl…
Yeah, top 10 chess players all spent their teen years constantly playing or practicing chess. Most of them quit school and/or don’t go to college.
Top 10 player who started the latest is probably Yasser Seirawan at 12 years old but most start between 6-10 years old.