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"Ideally, you'd have to compare generalists who are mediocre in lots of fields with a specialist whom is very good on a field." Isn't the whole point of the es
by yungchin 17y ago
"Ideally, you'd have to compare generalists who are mediocre in lots of fields with a specialist whom is very good on a field."
Isn't the whole point of the essay to suggest that generalists need not be mediocre at all? It's not obvious that the energy spread over several activities would be as efficiently spent on one specialist activity - if you do (without proof) assume that that's feasible, then that's actually begging the question...
- JoachimSchipper 17y agoNo, the above argument leaves room for diminishing returns - it only assumes that spending more time learning foo is more efficient at learning foo than spending more time learning bar is at learning foo. Suppose Alice and Bob have similar levels of talent. Alice spent 10000 hours learning the piano. Bob spent 2000 hours learning the piano, 2000 learning the violin, 2000 learning percussion, 2000 learning to sing and 2000 writing a novel. The above argues that Alice will be better at playing the piano than Bob. Probably not five times better (assuming that could be defined in a sensible fashion) - there are diminishing returns - but still better.