4 ms·

Yes, but in my opinion, an ability to perform mindful practice is part of what we call talent. The person you described here is exactly someone who has passion

by greyman 16y ago

Yes, but in my opinion, an ability to perform mindful practice is part of what we call talent. The person you described here is exactly someone who has passion for something, but is not that much talented. BTW, I wonder, is this some new Internet trend, trying hard to "prove" that talent doesnt exist? I wonder what the motivation is... trying to convince oneself that one can be good at anything? :-) ... just asking

DannoHung 16y ago
There has been a significant shift in education to emphasize concerted effort as the most important intrinsic factor to be rewarded. That is to say, saying to someone, "Wow, what a great job, you're so smart", only serves to reinforce the notion that the accomplishment was due to innate ability, whereas saying, "Wow, what a great job, you worked so hard", instead reinforces the idea that accomplishment was due to exertion. If it really does take 10,000 hours of practice at something to be good at it, then this isn't necessarily a bad idea for people to have ingrained upon them. Nobody has 10,000 hours of natural talent.
- _delirium 16y ago
  If it's just in terms of what you say to students, I can see that working, especially in K-12 education. I've seen some of the "grade on effort" approach in universities, though, and it produces some pretty perverse incentives. It sends the message that effort is more important than results, so students end up optimizing not for "quality of final project", but "effort the professor thinks I put into the final project". Of course, perhaps that's good training for certain corporate jobs, where the person who stays late every day and works weekends, writing terrible code, often gets promoted ahead of the person who leaves at 5pm every day and actually does most of the work--- because the person who stays late is a "diligent worker". In both settings, it also leads to an incentive to withhold work and parcel it out. If you did something impressive in two hours, some people might reward you for that: wow, great fix, and in only two hours? you're amazing!. But if it's more of an effort-based reward system, you're better off keeping that fix in your pocket for another week or two while you pretend to still be working on it, in order to get: wow thanks for working so hard on this for two weeks, the fix works great!. To generalize broadly, I think startups tend to have more of the "results matter" culture, while large companies more often have an "effort matters" culture. The manager will remember the guy who spent two weeks of long nights working on a problem, while the startup will remember the guy who performed wizardry to fix some seemingly intractable problem in 45 minutes.
- klbarry 16y ago
  There was research in "How We Decide" by Jonah lehrer that in a string of 3 tests, control group students who were told they succeeded on the first test because they worked hard did far better on the last test than students who were told they did well because they were smart.
narag 16y ago
It seems to be a political thing, running during the last hundred years or so. The left likes the tabula rasa approach: if everybody can be a genius, then we need to have a public education system that equalizes the chances. The right prefers the genetic explanation, because it justifies that rich people keep their fortunes in the family: intelligent people's sons are more likely to be intelligent, so it makes sense to offer them a better education to develop their intelligence and means to create companies that they will direct better than anyone else. In my opinion, both models are bullshit. To develop talent you need both genes and environment. I believe that's becoming one of those things that you can't say: http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html The most progressive the environment, the most politically incorrect is to mention that you need some inherited muscle.
- _delirium 16y ago
  I can see how you get that association, especially when discussing education and wealth disparities. But I think there's also a strong association in the reverse direction (I haven't figured out quite how the two interact). To me, the sort of Puritan conservative approach is "keep your head down, work hard, and you'll succeed", and emphasizes practice, paying your dues, being a diligent worker, slowly moving up the ladder, etc. The left often recoils at that, seeing it as a "cog in the machine" mentality, and certain parts of the left at least have a more Romantic view that emphasizes inspiration, creativity, etc. instead (think of, say, the Beat poets).
  - narag 16y ago
    Well, I wouldn't call it an association of mine. It's thoroughly recorded in history, the soviets and all that. Puritans? They're alien to me, except for Quicksilver, that I've read a week ago. I think you're right that they're not in the same axis as european parties. But that doesn't invalidate my point: that this question is ideology (or religion) more than science.
- the_left 16y ago
  Hi, I actually don't think it's politically incorrect to mention inherited intelligence is necessary in some endeavors. Just impolite, if the person you're speaking to needs a higher level of inherited intelligence. The point of public schools is to prevent a calcified aristocracy from emerging. Inheritance isn't deterministic, and recessive genes exist. If we don't give everyone some bare minimum shot to improve their intelligence and move up in society, we'll either stagnate in the best case or have violent revolution in the worst.

by greyman 16y ago

DannoHung 16y ago

There has been a significant shift in education to emphasize concerted effort as the most important intrinsic factor to be rewarded. That is to say, saying to someone, "Wow, what a great job, you're so smart", only serves to reinforce the notion that the accomplishment was due to innate ability, whereas saying, "Wow, what a great job, you worked so hard", instead reinforces the idea that accomplishment was due to exertion. If it really does take 10,000 hours of practice at something to be good at it, then this isn't necessarily a bad idea for people to have ingrained upon them. Nobody has 10,000 hours of natural talent.

_delirium 16y ago
If it's just in terms of what you say to students, I can see that working, especially in K-12 education. I've seen some of the "grade on effort" approach in universities, though, and it produces some pretty perverse incentives. It sends the message that effort is more important than results, so students end up optimizing not for "quality of final project", but "effort the professor thinks I put into the final project". Of course, perhaps that's good training for certain corporate jobs, where the person who stays late every day and works weekends, writing terrible code, often gets promoted ahead of the person who leaves at 5pm every day and actually does most of the work--- because the person who stays late is a "diligent worker". In both settings, it also leads to an incentive to withhold work and parcel it out. If you did something impressive in two hours, some people might reward you for that: wow, great fix, and in only two hours? you're amazing!. But if it's more of an effort-based reward system, you're better off keeping that fix in your pocket for another week or two while you pretend to still be working on it, in order to get: wow thanks for working so hard on this for two weeks, the fix works great!. To generalize broadly, I think startups tend to have more of the "results matter" culture, while large companies more often have an "effort matters" culture. The manager will remember the guy who spent two weeks of long nights working on a problem, while the startup will remember the guy who performed wizardry to fix some seemingly intractable problem in 45 minutes.
klbarry 16y ago
There was research in "How We Decide" by Jonah lehrer that in a string of 3 tests, control group students who were told they succeeded on the first test because they worked hard did far better on the last test than students who were told they did well because they were smart.

narag 16y ago

It seems to be a political thing, running during the last hundred years or so. The left likes the tabula rasa approach: if everybody can be a genius, then we need to have a public education system that equalizes the chances. The right prefers the genetic explanation, because it justifies that rich people keep their fortunes in the family: intelligent people's sons are more likely to be intelligent, so it makes sense to offer them a better education to develop their intelligence and means to create companies that they will direct better than anyone else. In my opinion, both models are bullshit. To develop talent you need both genes and environment. I believe that's becoming one of those things that you can't say: http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html The most progressive the environment, the most politically incorrect is to mention that you need some inherited muscle.

_delirium 16y ago
I can see how you get that association, especially when discussing education and wealth disparities. But I think there's also a strong association in the reverse direction (I haven't figured out quite how the two interact). To me, the sort of Puritan conservative approach is "keep your head down, work hard, and you'll succeed", and emphasizes practice, paying your dues, being a diligent worker, slowly moving up the ladder, etc. The left often recoils at that, seeing it as a "cog in the machine" mentality, and certain parts of the left at least have a more Romantic view that emphasizes inspiration, creativity, etc. instead (think of, say, the Beat poets).
- narag 16y ago
  Well, I wouldn't call it an association of mine. It's thoroughly recorded in history, the soviets and all that. Puritans? They're alien to me, except for Quicksilver, that I've read a week ago. I think you're right that they're not in the same axis as european parties. But that doesn't invalidate my point: that this question is ideology (or religion) more than science.
the_left 16y ago
Hi, I actually don't think it's politically incorrect to mention inherited intelligence is necessary in some endeavors. Just impolite, if the person you're speaking to needs a higher level of inherited intelligence. The point of public schools is to prevent a calcified aristocracy from emerging. Inheritance isn't deterministic, and recessive genes exist. If we don't give everyone some bare minimum shot to improve their intelligence and move up in society, we'll either stagnate in the best case or have violent revolution in the worst.