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My two biggest counter examples when people say that geniuses are not born are John von Neuman and Srinivasa Ramanujan. These two were surrounded by other peopl

My two biggest counter examples when people say that geniuses are not born are John von Neuman and Srinivasa Ramanujan. These two were surrounded by other people who were regarded as geniuses in their own right, and yet these people viewed von Neuman and Ramanujan as being on a completely different level.

adventured 8y ago
Warren Buffett is an interesting example of specialized genius. He has a gifted memory and based on what has been described about him in several books, from birth he was of a certain emotional tilt that would serve him very well in consistently not making investment decisions based on emotion across decades. Buffett is an investment/financial genius, whose quite abnormal birth traits were a prerequisite to his extreme success in the investment world. I favor the notion that genius potential is a combination of specific narrow traits, such that if you swap any of them out, you're very likely to lose the genius outcome (rather than the pop caricature that genius is mentally broad; ie if someone says: he/she is a genius! - the only proper response is: in what narrow regard?). The popular successful genius outcome then further requires a number of external environmental factors, such as luck (where you were born, who your parents were, who you went to school with, who your friends were, what time in history you were born, all the way down to the tiniest of minutia).
- moate 8y ago
  Like the saying goes "better lucky than good." Being born a white man in America at the time he was to a politically connected, financially stable family were all things that benefited him greatly and which he had 0 control over. The older I get, the more of a fatalist I become. The whole universe is just luck and entropy, and anyone telling you otherwise is probably just trying to sell you something.

adventured 8y ago

Warren Buffett is an interesting example of specialized genius. He has a gifted memory and based on what has been described about him in several books, from birth he was of a certain emotional tilt that would serve him very well in consistently not making investment decisions based on emotion across decades. Buffett is an investment/financial genius, whose quite abnormal birth traits were a prerequisite to his extreme success in the investment world. I favor the notion that genius potential is a combination of specific narrow traits, such that if you swap any of them out, you're very likely to lose the genius outcome (rather than the pop caricature that genius is mentally broad; ie if someone says: he/she is a genius! - the only proper response is: in what narrow regard?). The popular successful genius outcome then further requires a number of external environmental factors, such as luck (where you were born, who your parents were, who you went to school with, who your friends were, what time in history you were born, all the way down to the tiniest of minutia).

moate 8y ago
Like the saying goes "better lucky than good." Being born a white man in America at the time he was to a politically connected, financially stable family were all things that benefited him greatly and which he had 0 control over. The older I get, the more of a fatalist I become. The whole universe is just luck and entropy, and anyone telling you otherwise is probably just trying to sell you something.