https://yow.eventer.com/yow-2014-1222/stop-treading-water-le... (~40min)
(slides: http://yowconference.com.au/slides/yow2014/Kmett-StopTreadin...)
One of the topics he touched upon is Richard Feynman's approach to "being a genius":
You have to keep a dozen of your favorite problems
constantly present in your mind, although by and large
they will lay in a dormant state. Every time you hear or
read a new trick or a new result, test it against each of
your twelve problems to see whether it helps. Every once
in a while there will be a hit, and people will say,
“How did he do it? He must be a genius!”What you quoted is probably a genius not aware what limitation is the bottleneck for most people.
While Ed Kmett is in fact a Time Lord, that's largely because he doesn't seem to require sleep the way the rest of us do.
(I know him IRL.)
Speaking from a Texas point of view, there's three big problems: 1) Focusing on athletics. 2)Lack-luster public schools and of course the be-all end-all: 3) Crappy parents.
What are the people who were "gifted" but live a mediocre life supposed to do? Be bitter and drink for 40-60 years?
It is hard to give a brief yet universally applicable answer to "What are _____ supposed to do?", but neither "be bitter" nor "drink" is right.
The best advice I know of is "take well thought out action in pursuit of a worthwhile goal", which of course raises the question of what a worthwhile goal might be. Fortunately, there are many such goals, you don't have to worry about picking the very best goal. Health, fitness and education related goals seem like a good places to start, they will improve the capabilities needed to reach future goals, whatever those might be.
The total untapped human potential is staggering once you take into account the effects of war, racism, sexism, general discrimination, mental illness, physical illness, disincentives, and poverty. At least most of these have improved in the last century.
I hope people realize this is not just about altruism, the economic boost would help everyone.
With one caveat: My guess is intervention probably has to start early.
Malcolm Gladwell pointed out how you will see clusters of geniuses emerge from the same time in the same neighborhoods and I think this supports the above as well.
I don't think it's limited to young people either, though it certainly helps. An established reputation will prevent people from being pushed beyond their limits.
There have been attempts in recent years to roll back and debase the definition of genius to be more compatible with egalitarianism (especially in parts of Europe) and the tenet of homogeneity but this is not what genius originally stood for.
Fabian Tasano writes: "Regarding the version of “genius” that is currently in retreat but still occasionally used: many people seem to have a simplistic idea of what it takes to be one. According to one popular model, all that is required is an increase in the magnitude of certain qualities which everyone already possesses in some measure. Make the particular qualities pronounced enough, and you get to genius. But a better way to understand the concept — assuming we’re applying the word to (say) Gauss or Picasso, rather than John Cleese or Wayne Rooney — may be that a genius has a particular capacity, which on a certain level can seem obvious or unremarkable, but which no one else has. A genius, on this understanding, is a person uniquely capable of making a leap ‘off the path’. With hindsight the leap may seem simple or obvious, but at the time no one else was, apparently, capable of making it. A potential leap of this kind is made possible by preceding leaps. Nevertheless its actual occurrence may go on not happening for decades. During that time there may be clear pointers towards it. Yet it is not until a genius comes along that the leap actually happens."
I could not agree more with this. Alan Kay also outlines an extremely similar point of view:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvmTSpJU-Xc
Also see his blue/red world metaphor.
However my guess is real nootropics won't take another century to get here. We may all be smarter someday.
Interesting enough as that "experiment" may have been, it only proved that certain persons of a certain background that includes genetic history unknown to us, can reach high degrees of competence in one __specialized__ field. Chess is also particularly well-coordinated with years of repetitive practice and dedication, but genius? I think not.
You could replace chess with playing the piano even, and the outcome would be the same.
Other factors seem very important anecdotally, have these been dismissed or just not fully studied yet?
1. Socioeconomic background - they mention it's not as predictive, but how sure are we Microsoft would exist if BG's/PA's parents were illiterate and couldn't afford to give them access to computers?
2. Mental health - Someone could be a 4th standard deviation genius yet be debilitated by anxiety, depression, or some other condition.
3. Occasionally mental "disability" can seemingly be related to success. So many great scientists have been on the Autistic spectrum, or suffered from severe OCD. Can the success of the person be separated from the disorder? Could "cures" for Autism and OCD actually negatively affect scientific progress? Or could their condition cause them to be incorrectly screened out?
4. How do curiosity, motivation, and ambition affect success? Do high scoring kids automatically have these traits or is it a separate variable?
We can be entirely sure it would not exist. This is not a hard prediction.
What does this mean? I am not familiar with that. Is that related with IQ or some other metrics?
I googled 4th standard deviation, and it pointed me to Wikipedia article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/68%E2%80%9395%E2%80%9399.7_rul... Reading that article, I am still not sure what "4th standard deviation genius" means - does that mean "1 in 15787" of people based on some intelligence metrics?
So a +4SD IQ score would be 160, or about 1 in 15000. Sounds pretty good, but that makes 20,000 just in the US. There are only 450 NBA players and usually less than 20 A-List actresses at a given time as a comparison.
An aside, anyone who throws out their high IQ unsolicited doesn't seem to make for interesting conversation. Maybe it's too hard to keep up. :)
But the belief that humans have "equal capabilities aside from their environment" is held by almost nobody. Most disagreements are about what we should do about both unequal capability and unequal environment. Dogmatism enters when we disagree over why anything should be done.
“Give me a child and I'll shape him into anything.”
In case you're wondering how this plays out in practice:
http://www1.udel.edu/educ/gottfredson/reprints/2009academicf...
Speaking of abstracts ... https://arxiv.org/pdf/1110.2832.pdf
I'd rather take smarts and apply them to have better relationships, discover new and wonderful things, and build things i and other people find useful.
Being labeled as a genius seems like a huge drag.
There were real smart people there. I mean they just took one look at a red black tree and just got it. Not me I sweat all the way through that stuff.
How about nurturing normal people collaborating, respecting the scientific process, loving to discover new things, be curious, etc?
My older siblings are much older and in STEM, which means I was informally schooled by them and spoke three languages before going to school. I used to read Science and Engineering magazines laying around as a child, then you get to school and you're put with kids who are just learning how to actually read the alphabet, and they're using pictures and scenes, and write big chunky letters. They're learning addition and multiplication while you at home write programs. Any idea how fucking miserable this could make anyone? I was excited about disassembling programs as a teenager and couldn't wait to get to college and study Engineering and meet teachers so I could avoid reinventing the wheel, only to be disappointed (if you teach programming and a kid who just turned 18 shows you programs he wrote in a bunch of languages including x86 assembly but you don't care: wake the fuck up and turn him to a colleague who does actually care about this stuff). I'm sure a smarter kid would have figured a way to end up at the right office at the right teacher, but I've sampled many professors to loose faith.
I tried to go study abroad in a very respected college to save my soul because I knew I wouldn't last in my college, received a response, then financing fell through like a Damocles sword. I spent 9 years in college. I resented academia where stupidity and cheating were more acceptable than absenteeism. If you didn't show up and did well, you were a cheat; if you showed up and cheated, you were okay. I was so used to proving I didn't cheat because the work was "too good" to be of a student (and this started in 4th grade with my fucking handwriting on a homework not being a child's handwriting. The teacher had accused me and it was my idea to write in front of her to disculpate me). I resented incompetent fossilized professors with out of date knowledge who'd just crush you for not following exactly their (factually wrong) exact way, and you could do nothing about it because they've been friends for 30 years with the dean or know the Minister or something. A system that reproached you of doing a good job, where doing nice work had bad consequences and of course it wasn't your work, just tell the truth. A system where it'd be so much easier to be mediocre.
I hated every fucking day of school from the day I got in, to the day I got out.
I'm all for increasing the average level of education, but "non-average" kids shouldn't be "tied" to average kids. Many people talk about "osmosis" and what the smart kids could bring when they're in class and these people don't really get osmosis: It's not the average kids who end up smarter, it's the smart kids who end up withering away. This may work for adults, but for kids? I think it's hard.
The system judges outliers with the same mindset it judges the average. They're just not the same. Special needs kids are not just on the left side of the Gaussian.
EDIT - To put things in context: I grew up in the midst of a civil war that made 200,000+ victims; son of a father with a job that made him a target; belonging to an ethnicity that is the prime target, and survived a bunch of explosions. Great childhood.
When I say education is the worst thing that's happened to me and that's left the bitterest of tastes in my mouth, I hope I'm able to fully convey to which extent it has traumatized me.
I feel like every bit of will to submit to education has been beaten out of me, and I'm done grinding my teeth. Feeling my energy draining away day by day. I was having symptoms similar to seasonal depression, except they didn't match the seasons but the academic year. The safety net a diploma offers is just. not. worth it.
.
It's a load off my mind and I'm feeling very good about my decision. It's been a week, and I haven't found any good reasons to revert it. I'm getting my website up and running again, setting up backups worthy of a professional and practicing my coding. I've always been interested in the work people around me do, and because of that (and my previous programming experience) I'm meeting my first client right after the holiday.
It's not exactly what I want to do for the rest of my life, but I think it's a great start (developing integration tests for an Angular-based EFQM/project management tool on a fixed-price + costs basis), and I'm considering subcontracting it to freelancers.
(Advice and comments are more than welcome. I'm 21 and HAVE to earn money for the first time, I want to build products as an entrepeneur but plan to do contracting to keep me afloat in the meantime. I'm located in the Netherlands.)
> I hope I'm able to fully convey to which extent it has traumatized me.
I always feel bad about thinking these two things, because to be honest my life was mostly privileged and because many people would feel lucky just to have access to some form of education, but I truly feel the same way.
I went through the public school system in the US and hated every moment of it, despite being socially adept and not subject to bullying from other students. I was just so incredibly bored. That's not to say that my teachers were necessarily bad, or that every subject was too easy / not worth learning (though some were), it was just that sitting still and silent in a classroom of 30+ kids for 8 hours a day ran contrary to my ideal learning environment in every possible way. It is not natural for most children to be silent, and then be yelled at for giving in to the massive urge to socialize. It is not natural to have almost no physical stimulation throughout the day. Now even as an adult I need to exercise 1.5 - 2 hours a day to keep my mind calm. I was so overstimulated by my environment that paying attention in school was hopeless. I cannot focus when I am around other people (especially at the time the opposite sex). Past 6th grade or so I was daydreaming nearly every minute of the day. I learned literally nothing in junior high and high school. I asked to drop out and home school myself on a routine basis but it wasn't an option. It took a long time after to break certain negative associations and rekindle the love of learning that I always knew that I had.
Based on the number ("200,000") and timing, I can't think of another conflict that fits the profile.
I'm telling you, the Chinese were onto something with the imperial examinations.
What we do is set up a test focusing on IQ and aptitude taken at, say 10 years. Based on that, we segregate everyone into castes; say, manual laborers, blue collar workers, white collar workers, and professionals. Then we focus subsequent instruction for the particular caste: professionals and white collars get pre-college material, blue collars get trade schools and the rest get baby-sat to keep them out of trouble. Further tests can provide finer gradations, particularly important for the higher castes, to identify that 1% that will become the leaders. Those are given all the advantages they need to reach their potential without having resources sapped by sheer wastage.
Careers and such are determined properly, by aptitude and intelligence, and not by stupid crap like which class the hot girl is taking.
The system has a number of other advantages: we can ditch the goofy democracy for everyone thing, since the majority aren't going to have valid opinions anyway. The result is less stress and more happiness for everyone.
[Edit] It just occurred to me that Plato would probably think that this is his Republic. Except that we could make this actually work.
Unfortunately, this kind of caste system already exists as a de facto result of socioeconomic background, and I think it would be better to acknowledge and counteract the effects of background, than to make an explicit division based on early age testing.