> So, whether does the idea that it's "a skill that can easily be improved" come from? Wishful thinking? I don't think the universe works that way. I've come u

> So, whether does the idea that it's "a skill that can easily be improved" come from? Wishful thinking? I don't think the universe works that way. I've come up with two names for this kind of thinking, one a bit grumpier than the other. The less-grumpy one is the "Is From Ought Fallacy": It's well-known in philsophical circles that going from "Is" to "Ought" is wrong; that is, saying "something is this way, therefore, that's the way it ought to be" is a terrible argument. Well, when you flip it, it gets even worse: "Things ought to be this way, therefore, that's the way they are" isn't just a bad argument, it isn't quite sane. Yet look around you, and see how often it's used. (Hint: Abstinence-only sex ed. Hint: Drug prohibition.) My grumpier version is "Arguing With Reality": You can argue with people, whether you define "arguing" to be a screaming match or a logical defense of a thesis. That works. It's sane behavior. Going out and arguing with the rain that it needs to be sunny now... isn't. Rain's gonna rain, people are gonna be bad at time estimates, and making logical arguments about why the real world shouldn't be like that doesn't change the real world one iota. Maybe they're just variants of the "Utopia Fallacy", or the perfect being the enemy of the good: "If the world were perfect, it would be like this, therefore, doing anything else, even if it gets good results, is imperfect and compromising perfection is wrong." Yeah, pull the other one.