81–90 of 112 posts
I think the only positive feedback along these lines (not that it had any positive consequences) was way back when I was a course assistant and instructor during graduate school in mathematics, and it came in the form of student reviews.
I’ve noticed in myself and anecdotally in others that a lot of stubbornness in conversation simply comes from the desire for validation. Having someone acknowledge what I’m saying is generally enough to get a conversation moving forward, where ignoring or not responding to my input can cause me to fixate until I recognize what I’m doing and break myself out of it. But if I feel mild validation, even if it is conclude…
Just to be contrary, it's possible that you're reading too much into other people's responses if you're actually beating yourself up in the middle of the night about what someone meant or didn't. Check out existential therapy. I'm not saying this to pathologize or minimize what you're saying, just that it's something I used to suffer from before I realized via (said therapy) that everyone else is just a narcissistic…
This is believable right up until they relate to you what someone else said or did last week or even last month. Then you know that they remember things and are willing to share what they remember with others.
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The "mediocre individual" (terminology from the quote above) might still have something valuable to share. If you fight a drunk person throwing random punches, there might be still a probability to get knocked out because within that randomness there is a probability of a perfect punch. Experts are often right but occasionally they can be wrong. Skilled competitors often win but occasionally they can lose, even to be…
Probably not as bad as the mediocre advice you’ll get from yourself as an arrogant narcissist anyway.
Experts can make mistakes just like non-experts can occasionally contribute at an expert level or prove an expert wrong.
Exodus 20:3 (KJV) "thou shalt have no other gods before me". As a Christian I'm forbidden form holding any belief that isn't directly in the bible and not a provable fact. It is amazing how many people claim to believe the bible, but then add a ton of beliefs on top of it that are not from the bible.
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Really bad advice. I have learned a lot from people way less experienced than me. Even if I usually know more than some individual I still find things that he may know and I do not. Let's not talk about classifying an individual as "mediocre". It just seems the old "noble blood" fallacy as if some people is just "better" than others instead of everyone being being complex and with flaws.
Unfortunately this point of view do get to the extreme. "There's no such thing as a gifted child", for example, and schools for gifted children are downgraded or closed. Paths to early math education are closed, math curriculum downgraded. Yes, it happens just now in America.
We should be doing everything we can to embrace and encourage children to excel. Not reduce every student’s education down to bullshit.
Edit: We couldn’t afford to move but we HAD to. We sacrificed, we saved, we went without. It was rough and the living conditions weren’t the best to start but we were forced. We couldn’t sit idly by and watch our son become another statistic.
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Unfortunately this point of view do get to the extreme. "There's no such thing as a gifted child", for example, and schools for gifted children are downgraded or closed. Paths to early math education are closed, math curriculum downgraded. Yes, it happens just now in America.
This terrified my wife and I so much that we packed and moved almost 1k miles away. My son was taking 8th grade classes in 7th grade. That was a fight in itself with the school system we moved away from. He’s now in 8th grade taking all high school AP/Honors classes. He’s set to graduate high school with his associates and if he keeps it up he’ll have a bachelors by 20. The old school system there was nothing of the…
If it’s about filling your sons need for intellectual stimulation there are many great online options (and books!).
This may be my own biases but pushing your offspring to skip a grade or take extra AP classes or graduate from college years early focuses too much on credentialism and external validation (particularly for you the parent) rather than helping the child build a rich, balanced life.
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Very true. I try to stay humble but at work I definitely have lists of people I always listen to and a (longer) list of people I generally never listen to. Maybe they have a good thought from time to time but I don’t have enough time to listen to all bad ideas to maybe find the one good idea.
What if one of the people you never listen to comes up with a good idea? The people you listen to is always right and the ones you don't listen to are always wrong?
"The outcome of too much humility is that you end up listening to the counsel of some mediocre individual." Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406)
As long as you're not immediately acting on that counsel at worst all you've done is wasted time.
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This terrified my wife and I so much that we packed and moved almost 1k miles away. My son was taking 8th grade classes in 7th grade. That was a fight in itself with the school system we moved away from. He’s now in 8th grade taking all high school AP/Honors classes. He’s set to graduate high school with his associates and if he keeps it up he’ll have a bachelors by 20. The old school system there was nothing of the…
I know a handful of individuals who graduated from college at 20. All of them regret it. Starting their careers a few years early in no way made up for missed experiences or the social awkwardness of being significantly less mature than their ‘year’ peers. If it’s about filling your sons need for intellectual stimulation there are many great online options (and books!). This may be my own biases but pushing your offs…
You would tend not to notice except in conversation when you add things up and realise they are unusually accomplished.
Personally I think it's weird making people learn in lock step by age rather than allowing them to progress at their natural rate.
There are a few different underlying assumptions there when you think about it, eg that a) people of the same age have equal "maturity" b) socialising with people older than you is harmful (or less beneficial) compared to socialising with people the same age as you c) socialisation mainly happens in an institutional context d) the purpose of higher education is socialisation as much as learning.
Any or several of those ^ can be false for a particular student. Of course the institution and other students matter too in terms of outcome.
"Pushing" and validation chasing are bad tho, with you on that one.