3 ms·

The problem is that the assumption of being in the top 2% is just above average is wrong. If you are in the top 2% of anything in life you are quite exceptiona

The problem is that the assumption of being in the top 2% is just above average is wrong. If you are in the top 2% of anything in life you are quite exceptional. For comparison being in the top 2% of any Olympic sport would land you a spot in most Olympic teams. And to be clear this isn’t about if IQ is a good indicator of performance or not but rather about how people evaluate themselves. If placing yourself in the top single digit percentiles is considered modest than I think we need to redefine modesty.

notahacker 8y ago
Oh yeah, I disagree completely with the "above average" characterization, but it's how they framed the question.
rifung 8y ago
> For comparison being in the top 2% of any Olympic sport would land you a spot in most Olympic teams. I think this is off by multiple factors of 10? 2% is really not THAT high.. In any sufficiently large city you can probably find 98 other players you are better than..
- dogma1138 8y ago
  Getting into an Olympic team and even passing the qualifiers isn’t the same as winning gold or even any medal. 2% of top performers in their sports can qualify for an Olympic (summer games) team spot. And no we’re not even talking about extreme cases like those that happen in the winter games from time to time. Also remember your selection pool if you think the top 2% of professional competitive swimmers in say 100M can’t get into the olympics again check their scores vs the Olympic qualifiers. We are already discussing a relatively very small pool of subjects here.
  - jerrre 8y ago
    "the top 2% of professional competitive swimmers" is very different from the top 2% of the general public....
    - dogma1138 8y ago
      >For comparison being in the top 2% of any Olympic sport would land you a spot in most Olympic teams. Being in the top 2% of performers in a given sport qualifies you national and even international achievements, if you chose to follow that or not it’s up to you. But in any case top 2% of any group is by definition exceptional.
fleetingmoments 8y ago
| For comparison being in the top 2% of any Olympic sport would land you a spot in most Olympic teams. This is just nowhere near true.

notahacker 8y ago

Oh yeah, I disagree completely with the "above average" characterization, but it's how they framed the question.

rifung 8y ago

> For comparison being in the top 2% of any Olympic sport would land you a spot in most Olympic teams. I think this is off by multiple factors of 10? 2% is really not THAT high.. In any sufficiently large city you can probably find 98 other players you are better than..

dogma1138 8y ago
Getting into an Olympic team and even passing the qualifiers isn’t the same as winning gold or even any medal. 2% of top performers in their sports can qualify for an Olympic (summer games) team spot. And no we’re not even talking about extreme cases like those that happen in the winter games from time to time. Also remember your selection pool if you think the top 2% of professional competitive swimmers in say 100M can’t get into the olympics again check their scores vs the Olympic qualifiers. We are already discussing a relatively very small pool of subjects here.
- jerrre 8y ago
  "the top 2% of professional competitive swimmers" is very different from the top 2% of the general public....
  - dogma1138 8y ago
    >For comparison being in the top 2% of any Olympic sport would land you a spot in most Olympic teams. Being in the top 2% of performers in a given sport qualifies you national and even international achievements, if you chose to follow that or not it’s up to you. But in any case top 2% of any group is by definition exceptional.

fleetingmoments 8y ago

| For comparison being in the top 2% of any Olympic sport would land you a spot in most Olympic teams. This is just nowhere near true.