7 ms·

Maybe you really can't measure 'grit' unless you put the student through several orthogonal tests and see how he does for the worst. e.g. to determine whether

Maybe you really can't measure 'grit' unless you put the student through several orthogonal tests and see how he does for the worst. e.g. to determine whether the monkey or the fish has more 'grit', ask the monkey how deep it can dive into the ocean depths, and ask the fish how high a tree can it climb.

Animats 8y ago
You can measure grit. The military routinely does. It takes an ordeal like BUD/S.
- lsc 8y ago
  eh, I would assume (hope) that the 'grit' required to do something physically unpleasant and the grit required to do something mentally unpleasant would be different sorts of things. Some of the best tech workers I've known have been... pretty out of shape.
  - jacobush 8y ago
    I saw a documentary about SAS recruits. (British special forces.) The instructors said that many recruits were in pretty bad shape and that it was still hard to tell who were going to make it. In the end, those who just wouldn't quit made it through.
    - lsc 8y ago
      Yeah, gym teachers love to express the same set of beliefs. I personally think that's a lot like saying anyone who studies hard enough can become a great programmer. I mean, sure, in both cases, someone who doesn't try hard isn't going to make it, but most of us aren't going to become SEALs or Donald Knuth no matter how hard we train. Really "someone who doesn't try hard enough isn't going to make it" is true of both and pretty important. From that perspective, if you know some of it is effort and some of it is innate, but you cant properly measure the innate part, you are best off telling everyone whatever it is that makes them try hardest. (this, of course, is only true if you don't have to pay the cost of failure. Both businesses and sports coaches are really only concerned about picking out the very best. the washouts are on their own. An externality)
      - jacobush 8y ago
        Yeah, it didn't come out in my comment, but I didn't mean it to be "anyone can do it". Just that the doggedness and determination is a big part. The person making it to be a SEAL might never be able to buff up to Arnold levels and vice versa. The motivation might not be there. The physical stamina might not be there.
      - gaius 8y ago
        gym teachers love to express the same set of beliefs I think that’s orthogonal. The SAS aren’t looking for Olympic level athletes in any given sport. They’re looking for people who will keep going in the face of exhaustion beyond anything any athlete will ever experience. That’s a test of will and character more then anything physical. Like, Usain Bolt and Meb Keflezighi are amazing athletes, but neither of them do anything like Test Week or Hell Week in training.
        barry-cotter 8y ago
        > They’re looking for people who will keep going in the face of exhaustion beyond anything any athlete will ever experience. You should talk to some ultramarathon runners. A woman I know did a 100K and slept for seven minutes en route. She didn’t win. The people who do go faster and sleep less.
        joelrunyon 8y ago
        A 100k isn't that long in the scheme of ultra running. Most finish in 12-18 hours - so it's just a long, long day on your feet. The 100 milers are the ones that tend to be 24 hour+ endeavors for non-winning runners (even though some of the elites run it much, much faster). However, ultra runners are insane and now they're launching 200+ mile races where the winers only sleep a few hours. Source: am an ultra runner.
        logfromblammo 8y ago
        Sounds like a research project to see if any humans are capable of the dolphin trick--sleeping with only one half of their brain at a time.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    - mikekchar 8y ago
      If we reverse the logic, though, it's a bit more obvious: Those who quit don't make it through ;-) But the question is, are they actually selecting the best candidates by using that criteria (ability to persevere)? In the case of the SAS it may very well be true, but possibly it's a special case.
      - jacobush 8y ago
        This was what I was after, actually. If you quit, and they tell you to all the time! - you can't make it. :-)
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
  - randomdata 8y ago
    I would assume that grit is dependent on desired outcome, rather than something that is divided on physical and mental lines. Someone who has the grit to become a top Olympic athlete is not necessarily going to fare well in the military.
    - germinalphrase 8y ago
      Which, to extend the BUDS example further, is something commonly referenced for aspiring Navy Seals. Legit Olympic athletes will drop out of BUDS while some less impressive good old boy from Duluth passes through successfully. You can’t tell who will succeed.
  - village-idiot 8y ago
    Being in or out of shape is a lifestyle choice, not a measure of personality. Grit isn’t in doing a workout well, grit is in getting through a workout at all. Grit is pushing through when it’s all going to hell and you think you’re gonna just keel over and die. (I’m about 5 minutes from leaving for my 6am class, can you tell?) I’d argue that fit people have grit, because they can tough it through unpleasant workouts repeatedly. But un-fit people may or may not have grit, you just don’t know. It’s entirely possible for someone with a lot of grit to not value athleticism or health and be out of shape, while showing extreme resiliency in other aspects of their lives.
    - lsc 8y ago
      >Being in or out of shape is a lifestyle choice Are you young? this is all very different when you are young. I know I didn't have any trouble staying fit when I was college aged. For most people, there comes a point in your late 20s or early 30s where being not fat suddenly requires a lot of effort. (I am only now applying that effort in an effective way, a bit more than a decade after I should have.)
      - barry-cotter 8y ago
        There’s a difference between not being fat and being fit. I’m almost 10kg over my ideal weight but I can run a marathon on the flat no problem and squat 80kg for five sets of five without significant strain. I’m unlikely to ever be as thin as I was on my wedding day again but three hours of exercise a week will keep you fit. Even one hour will pay substantial dividends in terms of how you feel though at that level I’d definitely lift weights rather than run.
        lsc 8y ago
        If you think 3 hours a week is enough to make you "fit" - we have very different definitions of that word. Certainly, 3 hours a week is a lot better than nothing, and does make an absolutely huge difference over a sedentary lifestyle, but it's not going to make you what I would call fit, unless those three hours are incredibly intense. (to be clear, I think I'm a long ways away from 'fit' - I do pretty reliably hit your 3 hour a week number.) That, and excess fat is a problem, even if the rest of you is strong Over the last six months, I went from about 100kg to 90kg; (now I'm about as far as you are from my ideal weight, at least with the muscle mass that is historically realistic and a fat content goal that isn't.) We will see if I can keep up my calorie counting and make it to the goal or not. Oddly, I can lift a lot more and run a lot less than you can. Running seems to be a lot harder on my knees than squats are. I could run forever and squat very little when I was young and skinny. I still bicycle, but running, if I really push myself, pretty reliably ends in minor injury, and I always attributed this to the extra weight I wasn't carrying around as a youngster. my problem before calorie counting was that it didn't matter how much I worked out, working out makes me hungry, and I'd put on more fat to go with the new muscle, and... that gets to be a problem. I mean, I wasn't weak, sure, but I was also 30% body fat. That's... a lot more fat than is healthy for a guy. I started developing the medical problems you'd expect from someone who was on the low end of obese. After losing enough weight to put me reliably in the 'just overweight' classification, some of those problems seem to be receding. I mean, I'm losing muscle, too, which is bad; I can't lift what I could three months ago; partly just 'cause I'm eating less and partly 'cause I switched to a new office and there's a lot more contention for the barbells than there was at the old office, so while I'm not doing a lot less cardio, I am doing a lot less lifting. But I have a whole lot of confidence in my ability to build muscle; if I can prove that I can actually lose fat... well, that would be a new thing for me. That, and in spite of my neglect of the gym, I am feeling better, and like I said, objective measures like blood pressure are looking better, so that seems like a datapoint, for me at least, to say that excess fat matters and is a real problem that needs to be dealt with. (on the other hand, those health metrics might be improving because I've treated the obesity-associated problems. Sleep apnea messes you up good, but is fairly straightforward to treat. So maybe that's why I'm doing better rather than the reduced excess fat. But, sleep apnea is very strongly correlated with excess fat. Still, it's possible that just treating the sleep apnea and then working out while continuing to be fat would result in the same sorts of improvement in overall health. If I'm being truthful, vanity is a big driver of me wanting to lose weight. I mean, the health benefits are also really important, but there's vanity in there too.)
- maaark 8y ago
  A process which most recruits survive. Not too useful for university admissions, which are generally expected to have a 100% survival rate...
- jki275 8y ago
  Wasn't smart enough to quit, is an expression I've heard from more than one SEAL. It's not really about grit, BUD/S measures the ability to be an Olympic athlete who doesn't know how to quit and can problem solve effectively and efficiently underwater and out of air. It's really a very niche skillset.
darawk 8y ago
> to determine whether the monkey or the fish has more 'grit', ask the monkey how deep it can dive into the ocean depths, and ask the fish how high a tree can it climb. Except that those things also measure biological variables like lung capacity and grip strength.
- baud147258 8y ago
  Except if you already have that biological variable measured, with a test that do not ask for effort. Then for each candidate, you can measure how they will perform, compared to their expected performance, depending on their lung capacity or grip strength. Reaching their limit (or going beyond them) should be a good indicator of 'grit', since reaching one's physical limits is usually painfull and/or difficult.
  - darawk 8y ago
    But how will you measure those variables independently of grit?

Animats 8y ago

You can measure grit. The military routinely does. It takes an ordeal like BUD/S.

lsc 8y ago
eh, I would assume (hope) that the 'grit' required to do something physically unpleasant and the grit required to do something mentally unpleasant would be different sorts of things. Some of the best tech workers I've known have been... pretty out of shape.
- jacobush 8y ago
  I saw a documentary about SAS recruits. (British special forces.) The instructors said that many recruits were in pretty bad shape and that it was still hard to tell who were going to make it. In the end, those who just wouldn't quit made it through.
  - lsc 8y ago
    Yeah, gym teachers love to express the same set of beliefs. I personally think that's a lot like saying anyone who studies hard enough can become a great programmer. I mean, sure, in both cases, someone who doesn't try hard isn't going to make it, but most of us aren't going to become SEALs or Donald Knuth no matter how hard we train. Really "someone who doesn't try hard enough isn't going to make it" is true of both and pretty important. From that perspective, if you know some of it is effort and some of it is innate, but you cant properly measure the innate part, you are best off telling everyone whatever it is that makes them try hardest. (this, of course, is only true if you don't have to pay the cost of failure. Both businesses and sports coaches are really only concerned about picking out the very best. the washouts are on their own. An externality)
    - jacobush 8y ago
      Yeah, it didn't come out in my comment, but I didn't mean it to be "anyone can do it". Just that the doggedness and determination is a big part. The person making it to be a SEAL might never be able to buff up to Arnold levels and vice versa. The motivation might not be there. The physical stamina might not be there.
    - gaius 8y ago
      gym teachers love to express the same set of beliefs I think that’s orthogonal. The SAS aren’t looking for Olympic level athletes in any given sport. They’re looking for people who will keep going in the face of exhaustion beyond anything any athlete will ever experience. That’s a test of will and character more then anything physical. Like, Usain Bolt and Meb Keflezighi are amazing athletes, but neither of them do anything like Test Week or Hell Week in training.
      - barry-cotter 8y ago
        > They’re looking for people who will keep going in the face of exhaustion beyond anything any athlete will ever experience. You should talk to some ultramarathon runners. A woman I know did a 100K and slept for seven minutes en route. She didn’t win. The people who do go faster and sleep less.
        joelrunyon 8y ago
        A 100k isn't that long in the scheme of ultra running. Most finish in 12-18 hours - so it's just a long, long day on your feet. The 100 milers are the ones that tend to be 24 hour+ endeavors for non-winning runners (even though some of the elites run it much, much faster). However, ultra runners are insane and now they're launching 200+ mile races where the winers only sleep a few hours. Source: am an ultra runner.
        logfromblammo 8y ago
        Sounds like a research project to see if any humans are capable of the dolphin trick--sleeping with only one half of their brain at a time.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - mikekchar 8y ago
    If we reverse the logic, though, it's a bit more obvious: Those who quit don't make it through ;-) But the question is, are they actually selecting the best candidates by using that criteria (ability to persevere)? In the case of the SAS it may very well be true, but possibly it's a special case.
    - jacobush 8y ago
      This was what I was after, actually. If you quit, and they tell you to all the time! - you can't make it. :-)
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
- randomdata 8y ago
  I would assume that grit is dependent on desired outcome, rather than something that is divided on physical and mental lines. Someone who has the grit to become a top Olympic athlete is not necessarily going to fare well in the military.
  - germinalphrase 8y ago
    Which, to extend the BUDS example further, is something commonly referenced for aspiring Navy Seals. Legit Olympic athletes will drop out of BUDS while some less impressive good old boy from Duluth passes through successfully. You can’t tell who will succeed.
- village-idiot 8y ago
  Being in or out of shape is a lifestyle choice, not a measure of personality. Grit isn’t in doing a workout well, grit is in getting through a workout at all. Grit is pushing through when it’s all going to hell and you think you’re gonna just keel over and die. (I’m about 5 minutes from leaving for my 6am class, can you tell?) I’d argue that fit people have grit, because they can tough it through unpleasant workouts repeatedly. But un-fit people may or may not have grit, you just don’t know. It’s entirely possible for someone with a lot of grit to not value athleticism or health and be out of shape, while showing extreme resiliency in other aspects of their lives.
  - lsc 8y ago
    >Being in or out of shape is a lifestyle choice Are you young? this is all very different when you are young. I know I didn't have any trouble staying fit when I was college aged. For most people, there comes a point in your late 20s or early 30s where being not fat suddenly requires a lot of effort. (I am only now applying that effort in an effective way, a bit more than a decade after I should have.)
    - barry-cotter 8y ago
      There’s a difference between not being fat and being fit. I’m almost 10kg over my ideal weight but I can run a marathon on the flat no problem and squat 80kg for five sets of five without significant strain. I’m unlikely to ever be as thin as I was on my wedding day again but three hours of exercise a week will keep you fit. Even one hour will pay substantial dividends in terms of how you feel though at that level I’d definitely lift weights rather than run.
      - lsc 8y ago
        If you think 3 hours a week is enough to make you "fit" - we have very different definitions of that word. Certainly, 3 hours a week is a lot better than nothing, and does make an absolutely huge difference over a sedentary lifestyle, but it's not going to make you what I would call fit, unless those three hours are incredibly intense. (to be clear, I think I'm a long ways away from 'fit' - I do pretty reliably hit your 3 hour a week number.) That, and excess fat is a problem, even if the rest of you is strong Over the last six months, I went from about 100kg to 90kg; (now I'm about as far as you are from my ideal weight, at least with the muscle mass that is historically realistic and a fat content goal that isn't.) We will see if I can keep up my calorie counting and make it to the goal or not. Oddly, I can lift a lot more and run a lot less than you can. Running seems to be a lot harder on my knees than squats are. I could run forever and squat very little when I was young and skinny. I still bicycle, but running, if I really push myself, pretty reliably ends in minor injury, and I always attributed this to the extra weight I wasn't carrying around as a youngster. my problem before calorie counting was that it didn't matter how much I worked out, working out makes me hungry, and I'd put on more fat to go with the new muscle, and... that gets to be a problem. I mean, I wasn't weak, sure, but I was also 30% body fat. That's... a lot more fat than is healthy for a guy. I started developing the medical problems you'd expect from someone who was on the low end of obese. After losing enough weight to put me reliably in the 'just overweight' classification, some of those problems seem to be receding. I mean, I'm losing muscle, too, which is bad; I can't lift what I could three months ago; partly just 'cause I'm eating less and partly 'cause I switched to a new office and there's a lot more contention for the barbells than there was at the old office, so while I'm not doing a lot less cardio, I am doing a lot less lifting. But I have a whole lot of confidence in my ability to build muscle; if I can prove that I can actually lose fat... well, that would be a new thing for me. That, and in spite of my neglect of the gym, I am feeling better, and like I said, objective measures like blood pressure are looking better, so that seems like a datapoint, for me at least, to say that excess fat matters and is a real problem that needs to be dealt with. (on the other hand, those health metrics might be improving because I've treated the obesity-associated problems. Sleep apnea messes you up good, but is fairly straightforward to treat. So maybe that's why I'm doing better rather than the reduced excess fat. But, sleep apnea is very strongly correlated with excess fat. Still, it's possible that just treating the sleep apnea and then working out while continuing to be fat would result in the same sorts of improvement in overall health. If I'm being truthful, vanity is a big driver of me wanting to lose weight. I mean, the health benefits are also really important, but there's vanity in there too.)
maaark 8y ago
A process which most recruits survive. Not too useful for university admissions, which are generally expected to have a 100% survival rate...
jki275 8y ago
Wasn't smart enough to quit, is an expression I've heard from more than one SEAL. It's not really about grit, BUD/S measures the ability to be an Olympic athlete who doesn't know how to quit and can problem solve effectively and efficiently underwater and out of air. It's really a very niche skillset.

darawk 8y ago

> to determine whether the monkey or the fish has more 'grit', ask the monkey how deep it can dive into the ocean depths, and ask the fish how high a tree can it climb. Except that those things also measure biological variables like lung capacity and grip strength.

baud147258 8y ago
Except if you already have that biological variable measured, with a test that do not ask for effort. Then for each candidate, you can measure how they will perform, compared to their expected performance, depending on their lung capacity or grip strength. Reaching their limit (or going beyond them) should be a good indicator of 'grit', since reaching one's physical limits is usually painfull and/or difficult.
- darawk 8y ago
  But how will you measure those variables independently of grit?