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I wonder how productive Sah would be if he hadn't encountered Sawhney. In my experience, there's something almost mystical about finding a highly compatible par

I wonder how productive Sah would be if he hadn't encountered Sawhney. In my experience, there's something almost mystical about finding a highly compatible partner-in-crime. While I recognize that we (broadly) like to idolize particularly effective individuals, I feel we risk essentially dishonouring the dynamic when we focus so intently and exclusively on just one member of this kind of deeply collaborative union.

lordnacho 6y ago
This is perhaps one of my biggest downside surprises about university. Although there were plenty of fun people to hang out with, there were very few people who had a seriousness about getting work done, along with a collaborative instinct. Maybe I was unlucky, but I'd thought that an Oxbridge college would yield a few people who could keep me focussed on the academics. And yes, in another world I would have brought the motivation myself, but like many people, I am influenced by my environment. If you've ever coded with someone you click with, you might have had this experience of generating way more useful code than 2x people working on their own, or what one person could do in 2x the time.
- runawaybottle 6y ago
  Intellectualism hasn’t matured as Barbarism has (still going through refinement). Your gym partner is never going to even attempt to prove to you they are stronger, and you yourself won’t even care if they are (or vice versa). There’s a natural understanding of the physical, and mostly we as a society realize how futile it is to exert physical dominance on one another. So you are stronger, what are you going to do, beat me up every day? We realize this is a stupid game. Ironically, it’s the intellectual stuff that hasn’t come full circle. So you’re smarter, is your plan to just out smart me everyday? Well actually, yes, that is the plan. I will out smart you, establish dominance, hierarchy, status etc - all of which is systemically quantified via prestige, status, income, life partners (all the stupid shit physical dominance once got us) . It’s hard to find synergy in this realm when we as a society haven’t gotten over ourselves on this front, the same way we got over all that physical beat people up bullshit. We haven’t yet accepted that this too is a waste of time in the context of civilization. We are all more than capable of collaborating intellectually, but as a society we are just too dumb at the moment to do so. Hard to collaborate with barbaric intellectuals. Long story short, you are probably part of the problem, as we all are at this inflection point in humanity.
  - semi-extrinsic 6y ago
    As a follow-up to this line of thought (which I find insightful): if we were to become mature with regards to intellectualism as you say - do you think we would then go on to the next thing to be competitive about? Or maybe we need that next thing to trigger our maturing, as a consequence of competition switching to another domain? Or, is it possible that competition about important matters is not an inherently human trait, and we could actually just all switch to deeply caring about who is best at Trackmania or who follows the best football team or whatever? In some sense a sizeable portion of the human population has already done the latter - perhaps they are actually the enlightened ones? (I'm assuming that competition is important for humans, since this seems to be a well established fact. The question here is whether the competitiveness needs to be about factors related to your intellect and studies/workplace achievements.)
    - runawaybottle 6y ago
      I guess I’ll use the lame saying ‘Bar is closing, you don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here’ as to what will solve it. I get people have underpinnings of nature that enflame instincts. That’s great, but you know, when it impacts people’s lives - it needs to find another place to party. I hope that makes sense. Hitler ad-reductio incoming. Hey, Germany, I get your bullshit pulled you out of the depths of WW1, but look, your nonsense is killing millions of people. Just find another abstract gutter for your nonsense, find another means of self fulfillment, please, and don’t hurt anyone. We don’t have to placate every human instinct and constantly romanticize every aspect of the human struggle. Life is absolutely requires empathy and stability.
  - ZephyrBlu 6y ago
    I've never seen this verbalized before, but it makes a lot of sense. > I will out smart you, establish dominance, hierarchy, status etc - all of which is systemically quantified via prestige, status, income, life partners (all the stupid shit physical dominance once got us) This seems like it will be very hard to get rid of compared to physical dominance. Partly because smarts are far less straightforward than physicality, and partly because it would be a systemic change.
- LeanderK 6y ago
  This is the reason I struggle so much with distance learning during corona. Usually I find partners in my classes to review the lecture with and work on the assignment in parallel. I get so much drive, energy and fun just by not being alone and discussing concepts together. Since I am in my masters, I can freely choose the lectures I want and often don't know anyone in class and rely on making friends in the first week(s). So I am way more on my own during corona and feel like I am fighting alone against the quite demanding lectures. It's not easy and it's just not as fun anymore. I feel like I am only trying to survive the exams without the drive to learn and explore.
scott_s 6y ago
Agreed, and this one of the worst aspects of our PhD system - graduate students need to have a body of work that is theirs. Even amongst a collaboration, they need to carve out sections that are unquestionably theirs so they can defend a dissertation that is also theirs. I am now at IBM Research. In my career here, I have experienced multiple working relationships where I feel we were able to accomplish far, far more than at least I know I could have achieved on my own. Maybe they didn't need me, but I know for certain I needed them to be so productive. That this kind of working relationship is disincentivized for graduate students is, to me, tragic.

lordnacho 6y ago

This is perhaps one of my biggest downside surprises about university. Although there were plenty of fun people to hang out with, there were very few people who had a seriousness about getting work done, along with a collaborative instinct. Maybe I was unlucky, but I'd thought that an Oxbridge college would yield a few people who could keep me focussed on the academics. And yes, in another world I would have brought the motivation myself, but like many people, I am influenced by my environment. If you've ever coded with someone you click with, you might have had this experience of generating way more useful code than 2x people working on their own, or what one person could do in 2x the time.

runawaybottle 6y ago
Intellectualism hasn’t matured as Barbarism has (still going through refinement). Your gym partner is never going to even attempt to prove to you they are stronger, and you yourself won’t even care if they are (or vice versa). There’s a natural understanding of the physical, and mostly we as a society realize how futile it is to exert physical dominance on one another. So you are stronger, what are you going to do, beat me up every day? We realize this is a stupid game. Ironically, it’s the intellectual stuff that hasn’t come full circle. So you’re smarter, is your plan to just out smart me everyday? Well actually, yes, that is the plan. I will out smart you, establish dominance, hierarchy, status etc - all of which is systemically quantified via prestige, status, income, life partners (all the stupid shit physical dominance once got us) . It’s hard to find synergy in this realm when we as a society haven’t gotten over ourselves on this front, the same way we got over all that physical beat people up bullshit. We haven’t yet accepted that this too is a waste of time in the context of civilization. We are all more than capable of collaborating intellectually, but as a society we are just too dumb at the moment to do so. Hard to collaborate with barbaric intellectuals. Long story short, you are probably part of the problem, as we all are at this inflection point in humanity.
- semi-extrinsic 6y ago
  As a follow-up to this line of thought (which I find insightful): if we were to become mature with regards to intellectualism as you say - do you think we would then go on to the next thing to be competitive about? Or maybe we need that next thing to trigger our maturing, as a consequence of competition switching to another domain? Or, is it possible that competition about important matters is not an inherently human trait, and we could actually just all switch to deeply caring about who is best at Trackmania or who follows the best football team or whatever? In some sense a sizeable portion of the human population has already done the latter - perhaps they are actually the enlightened ones? (I'm assuming that competition is important for humans, since this seems to be a well established fact. The question here is whether the competitiveness needs to be about factors related to your intellect and studies/workplace achievements.)
  - runawaybottle 6y ago
    I guess I’ll use the lame saying ‘Bar is closing, you don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here’ as to what will solve it. I get people have underpinnings of nature that enflame instincts. That’s great, but you know, when it impacts people’s lives - it needs to find another place to party. I hope that makes sense. Hitler ad-reductio incoming. Hey, Germany, I get your bullshit pulled you out of the depths of WW1, but look, your nonsense is killing millions of people. Just find another abstract gutter for your nonsense, find another means of self fulfillment, please, and don’t hurt anyone. We don’t have to placate every human instinct and constantly romanticize every aspect of the human struggle. Life is absolutely requires empathy and stability.
- ZephyrBlu 6y ago
  I've never seen this verbalized before, but it makes a lot of sense. > I will out smart you, establish dominance, hierarchy, status etc - all of which is systemically quantified via prestige, status, income, life partners (all the stupid shit physical dominance once got us) This seems like it will be very hard to get rid of compared to physical dominance. Partly because smarts are far less straightforward than physicality, and partly because it would be a systemic change.
LeanderK 6y ago
This is the reason I struggle so much with distance learning during corona. Usually I find partners in my classes to review the lecture with and work on the assignment in parallel. I get so much drive, energy and fun just by not being alone and discussing concepts together. Since I am in my masters, I can freely choose the lectures I want and often don't know anyone in class and rely on making friends in the first week(s). So I am way more on my own during corona and feel like I am fighting alone against the quite demanding lectures. It's not easy and it's just not as fun anymore. I feel like I am only trying to survive the exams without the drive to learn and explore.

scott_s 6y ago

Agreed, and this one of the worst aspects of our PhD system - graduate students need to have a body of work that is theirs. Even amongst a collaboration, they need to carve out sections that are unquestionably theirs so they can defend a dissertation that is also theirs. I am now at IBM Research. In my career here, I have experienced multiple working relationships where I feel we were able to accomplish far, far more than at least I know I could have achieved on my own. Maybe they didn't need me, but I know for certain I needed them to be so productive. That this kind of working relationship is disincentivized for graduate students is, to me, tragic.