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Yeah, no, that's just about lousy definitions. The premise suggests that it's easy to become 95%-ile in anything, say, deadlifting among men who deadlift and no

by krick 7y ago

Yeah, no, that's just about lousy definitions. The premise suggests that it's easy to become 95%-ile in anything, say, deadlifting among men who deadlift and not just entire population of the planet Earth. Before I can suggest author to try, he hastily corrects himself, that it doesn't mean "95%-ile among people who practice regularly", so "men who deadlift" is invalid domain after all. Rather, it should be... "people who lifted a thing from the ground at any point of their lives"? Not that impressive. And, sure, just converting yourself from "people who lifted a thing" to "people [of the same sex] who actually go to the gym regularly and deadlift" will get you into 95%-ile of the first, broader domain within a couple of years, because people who regularly deadlift would already be less than 5% of the population. The thing is, it isn't that easy to actually train for deadlifting for a couple of years, it assumes dedication, some health requirements and basically is the difference between people who do some sport and people who don't. This is obviously ridiculous comparision to anyone talking about anything but playing Overwatch. So, sure, this surprising life lesson will turn out to be true if you continue to craft the domains you compare in such way that you match competitive ice skaters vs people who were on the ice rink one or twice, MMA fighters vs guys who were in a streetfight once back at school, etc. And while I don't play Overwatch, I don't think it's actually different than that, it's just that "people, who both can and want to waste significant portions of their life time in a dedicated attempt to become better Overwatch players" are less than 5% of people, who created an account on the Overwatch server (or whatever).

renjimen 7y ago
"Waste" is a bit harsh for a hobby that trains for high levels of coordination, reaction times, communication, teamwork and tactics. In fact, the benefits of competitive video games are wide ranging and often surprising. See https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/freedom-learn/201502/cognitive-benefits-playing-video-games https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/freedom-learn/201502...
Misdicorl 7y ago
On the other hand, I think its absurd to construct your comparison group as > significant portions of their life time in a dedicated attempt to become better [at X]
macd 7y ago
If you look at the deadlifting example a little differently: you can get to the 95th percentile of 'people who go to the gym and actually deadlift' in terms of form and being able to lift relative to your height/weight/size/sex/muscle mass/etc. All of the examples in this post perfectly apply to this situation: people don't record themselves and check form, don't upload those videos to the internet and get feedback, and don't get help from a personal trainer (one who actually knows something about form). This is why you see people in the gym all the time making basic mistakes: rounded back, non-vertical bar path, bending over too much/not enough. They have more injuries, don't make progress, or don't get the results they want. Yes, you're not going to get to the top 5% in terms of weight lifted without a lot of dedication and time. But that's more of achievement over time/a career than your ability to execute the skill.
0027 7y ago
Agreed. 95th percentile of Olympic pole vaulter's? 95th percentile of horse jockey's? If you limit your scope the scope of what you are trying to achieve it gets much more competitive.
j-c-hewitt 7y ago
95th percentile of the Overwatch ladder is also not the same thing as 95th percentile of competitive tournament players. This entire article is just full of category fallacies to try to support a vague subjective assertion. Gaming ladders with automated ELO systems are also not run like tournament ELO systems in more controlled environments like competitive chess. Games like Overwatch, WoW, Starcraft, Hearthstone, etc. will not dynamically update when the player is inactive in order to not discourage players. You have to lose games to lose your ELO category rank, although obviously you can go up and down the leaderboard without playing games. There are some gaming rank systems like CSGO that have some rank decay for inactivity but it is just at a flat rate. So, "95th percentile" in these systems is not actually indicative of that unless it is based on the precise rank on the leaderboard. In many of these seasonal games rank inflation happens towards the end of the season because of this lack of passive decay. It means that at the beginning of the season, the top rank is very competitive, but as people become less active as the season goes on, it becomes easier to attain rank. In a lot of domains, if you are 95th percentile, you are extremely competitive. You may be noncompetitive with the 99%ile cohort and the bottom of the 99%ile may be noncompetitive with the 0.1%ile, but to argue that that's not "very good" is just goofy perfectionism. The fact that the author is using goofy noncontrolled systems as an example to support his weakly-defined subjective argument only undermines his own case.
- rjsw 7y ago
  There was a recent example of one player at the top of one ELO system becoming the top ranked player of another [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnus_Carlsen#Personal_life https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnus_Carlsen#Personal_life
- nebulous1 7y ago
  > [Unlike chess] Games like Overwatch, WoW, Starcraft, Hearthstone, etc. will not dynamically update when the player is inactive in order to not discourage players Elo (as used in chess) does not update if you aren't playing games. It's a common criticism of it.
- bigbadgoose 7y ago
  Ranked and unranked already exist to address your insight
orasis 7y ago
Top 5% deadlifting normalized by body weight is not hard at all. It just requires consistency.
bonoboTP 7y ago
> Rather, it should be... "people who lifted a thing from the ground at any point of their lives"? Not that impressive. And, sure, just converting yourself from "people who lifted a thing" to "people [of the same sex] who actually go to the gym regularly and deadlift" will get you into 95%-ile of the first, broader domain within a couple of years, because people who regularly deadlift would already be less than 5% of the population. I deeply disagree. Taking the whole population is the only sensible interpretation. Answering like "duh, you actually go to the gym, of course you're better than 95% of guys on Earth, that's so unimpressive, anyone could do it if they did it." entirely misses the point. The point is precisely that you actually did it, while 95% did NOT do it and now you are ahead of 95% of people in this thing. If you always had to be 95th percentile in your current peer group (general couch potatoes, high school championship participants, world championship participants, Olympians, Olympic medalists, Olympic champions, Olympic champions twice in a row), then the 95 just doesn't mean anything. Then you just have to be the single very best according to your logic. The point is not about "impressive" or not. It's about 95th percentile or not.
- timerol 7y ago
  > Note that when I say 95%-ile, I mean 95%-ile among people who participate, not all people (for many activities, just doing it at all makes you 99%-ile or above across all people). This is the start of the second paragraph of the article, so it sounds like you disagree with the premise of what we're discussing
  - bonoboTP 7y ago
    Depends on how interpret participation. Unless someone participates, you cannot know their score, so I guess a bare minimum participation is indeed required to be able to make comparisons. Theoretically there may be a guy who can already deadlift more than you, he just never tried.
    - Gene_Parmesan 7y ago
      He gave another example which I think is more illustrative -- Overwatch. There it's clear he's referring to 95%ile of people who play Overwatch, not any video games, and even less so everyone on Earth. My guess is, though, that he would include the people who play the casual modes in Overwatch, not just the competitive modes.
JamesBarney 7y ago
I think this is a deliberate misreading of what Dan wrote. I think it's obvious he's not talking about physical characteristics, or activities where learned skill has little influence on the outcome.(reaction speed, IQ, deadlifting, sprinting speed, endurance) And it seems like most of the activities we care about rely on learned skills more than physical traits. Now also his explanation also relies on how dedicated and competitive the average player is. But the overall point of the piece is that we probably don't try to systematically improve on nearly as many life skills as we should which I think is a valuable and true insight.

by krick 7y ago

renjimen 7y ago

"Waste" is a bit harsh for a hobby that trains for high levels of coordination, reaction times, communication, teamwork and tactics. In fact, the benefits of competitive video games are wide ranging and often surprising. See https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/freedom-learn/201502/cognitive-benefits-playing-video-games https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/freedom-learn/201502...

Misdicorl 7y ago

On the other hand, I think its absurd to construct your comparison group as > significant portions of their life time in a dedicated attempt to become better [at X]

macd 7y ago

If you look at the deadlifting example a little differently: you can get to the 95th percentile of 'people who go to the gym and actually deadlift' in terms of form and being able to lift relative to your height/weight/size/sex/muscle mass/etc. All of the examples in this post perfectly apply to this situation: people don't record themselves and check form, don't upload those videos to the internet and get feedback, and don't get help from a personal trainer (one who actually knows something about form). This is why you see people in the gym all the time making basic mistakes: rounded back, non-vertical bar path, bending over too much/not enough. They have more injuries, don't make progress, or don't get the results they want. Yes, you're not going to get to the top 5% in terms of weight lifted without a lot of dedication and time. But that's more of achievement over time/a career than your ability to execute the skill.

0027 7y ago

Agreed. 95th percentile of Olympic pole vaulter's? 95th percentile of horse jockey's? If you limit your scope the scope of what you are trying to achieve it gets much more competitive.

j-c-hewitt 7y ago

95th percentile of the Overwatch ladder is also not the same thing as 95th percentile of competitive tournament players. This entire article is just full of category fallacies to try to support a vague subjective assertion. Gaming ladders with automated ELO systems are also not run like tournament ELO systems in more controlled environments like competitive chess. Games like Overwatch, WoW, Starcraft, Hearthstone, etc. will not dynamically update when the player is inactive in order to not discourage players. You have to lose games to lose your ELO category rank, although obviously you can go up and down the leaderboard without playing games. There are some gaming rank systems like CSGO that have some rank decay for inactivity but it is just at a flat rate. So, "95th percentile" in these systems is not actually indicative of that unless it is based on the precise rank on the leaderboard. In many of these seasonal games rank inflation happens towards the end of the season because of this lack of passive decay. It means that at the beginning of the season, the top rank is very competitive, but as people become less active as the season goes on, it becomes easier to attain rank. In a lot of domains, if you are 95th percentile, you are extremely competitive. You may be noncompetitive with the 99%ile cohort and the bottom of the 99%ile may be noncompetitive with the 0.1%ile, but to argue that that's not "very good" is just goofy perfectionism. The fact that the author is using goofy noncontrolled systems as an example to support his weakly-defined subjective argument only undermines his own case.

rjsw 7y ago
There was a recent example of one player at the top of one ELO system becoming the top ranked player of another [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnus_Carlsen#Personal_life https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnus_Carlsen#Personal_life
nebulous1 7y ago
> [Unlike chess] Games like Overwatch, WoW, Starcraft, Hearthstone, etc. will not dynamically update when the player is inactive in order to not discourage players Elo (as used in chess) does not update if you aren't playing games. It's a common criticism of it.
bigbadgoose 7y ago
Ranked and unranked already exist to address your insight

orasis 7y ago

Top 5% deadlifting normalized by body weight is not hard at all. It just requires consistency.

bonoboTP 7y ago

> Rather, it should be... "people who lifted a thing from the ground at any point of their lives"? Not that impressive. And, sure, just converting yourself from "people who lifted a thing" to "people [of the same sex] who actually go to the gym regularly and deadlift" will get you into 95%-ile of the first, broader domain within a couple of years, because people who regularly deadlift would already be less than 5% of the population. I deeply disagree. Taking the whole population is the only sensible interpretation. Answering like "duh, you actually go to the gym, of course you're better than 95% of guys on Earth, that's so unimpressive, anyone could do it if they did it." entirely misses the point. The point is precisely that you actually did it, while 95% did NOT do it and now you are ahead of 95% of people in this thing. If you always had to be 95th percentile in your current peer group (general couch potatoes, high school championship participants, world championship participants, Olympians, Olympic medalists, Olympic champions, Olympic champions twice in a row), then the 95 just doesn't mean anything. Then you just have to be the single very best according to your logic. The point is not about "impressive" or not. It's about 95th percentile or not.

timerol 7y ago
> Note that when I say 95%-ile, I mean 95%-ile among people who participate, not all people (for many activities, just doing it at all makes you 99%-ile or above across all people). This is the start of the second paragraph of the article, so it sounds like you disagree with the premise of what we're discussing
- bonoboTP 7y ago
  Depends on how interpret participation. Unless someone participates, you cannot know their score, so I guess a bare minimum participation is indeed required to be able to make comparisons. Theoretically there may be a guy who can already deadlift more than you, he just never tried.
  - Gene_Parmesan 7y ago
    He gave another example which I think is more illustrative -- Overwatch. There it's clear he's referring to 95%ile of people who play Overwatch, not any video games, and even less so everyone on Earth. My guess is, though, that he would include the people who play the casual modes in Overwatch, not just the competitive modes.

JamesBarney 7y ago

I think this is a deliberate misreading of what Dan wrote. I think it's obvious he's not talking about physical characteristics, or activities where learned skill has little influence on the outcome.(reaction speed, IQ, deadlifting, sprinting speed, endurance) And it seems like most of the activities we care about rely on learned skills more than physical traits. Now also his explanation also relies on how dedicated and competitive the average player is. But the overall point of the piece is that we probably don't try to systematically improve on nearly as many life skills as we should which I think is a valuable and true insight.