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Smart-people traps
- mynameishere 18y agoThe problem is that The Professions are a grind Sounds like someone's never worked much in the non-professions. and higher education (in the US at least) teaches only critical thinking Right. If by "teaches only" you mean, "doesn't teach the least amount of"
- time_management 18y ago"The professions" is a meaningless distinction these days. Investment bankers call themselves "young professionals", even though banking is NOT a profession in the historical sense. Life in most corporations, professional or otherwise, seems to be pretty soul-sucking. Orwell described the "beetle-like" type of person, in 1984, who would, with "swift scuttling movements", tend to "flourish best under the dominion of the Party". Indeed such a type of person is most likely to succeed in large private-sector hierarchies, and the corporate grind involves submitting one's future to the whims of beetle-like masters.
- lg 18y agoI think by "critical thinking" he means the ability to criticize, or point out flaws in someone's work/theory. And I took a good number of classes in the humanities where this is basically what we were expected to do: "Critically analyze Spinoza's theory of X" usually meant "Discuss what you think is stupid about Spinoza's theory of X." You could do otherwise, but you weren't expected to. Apparently coming up with your own theory, and "critically analyzing" THAT, is something special reserved for a senior thesis. But while all science majors did research projects or programming projects, only the really motivated humanities students did a thesis. Many spent four years just smugly putting down the half-formed ideas of long-dead scholars, and probably poorly.
- nostrademons 18y agoConspiracy theories are another huge trap for smart people...I know a bunch of brilliant people, often highly educated, who never accomplish anything because they believe the government is watching their every move and there's about to be a complete societal breakdown as people realize how much the power elite is fucking them over.
- ericwan 18y ago>> people realize how much the power elite is fucking them over. isn't that true though?
- nostrademons 18y agoOf course it's true. Whenever there's a power imbalance, one party is being fucked over, and whenever there's more than one person, there's a power imbalance. It's almost a tautology. But acting like it's true gives you an excuse for not doing anything. And then instead of just having the power elite fuck you over, you're fucking yourself over too.
- gambling8nt 18y agoI don't agree that whenever there is a power imbalance, one side will get "fucked over". Indeed, the whole idea of having a market is that people are mostly equal in terms of power (read Hobbes' Leviathan). It's only when power imbalances are so gross that they're obvious that one side is guaranteed to get "fucked over".
- ericwan 18y agoagree that pawer balance != somebody get fucked over for instance America is a benign hegemony. Though they still fuck over people at times, they did it much less than, say, UK, or Rome, etc. but a counter-point - having a market means people with more money fuck over people with no money.
- ericwan 18y agothank you. this is an awesome post, and makes me recall how many times i've fallen into these traps. I've always wanted to be in politics and finance, and thought that's the best way to maximize my potential. Then i find out politics/finance is more about rent-seeking than doing good. I spent most of my college life just to figure it out. And then I find the start up life, which is really the thing - I got out of the traps. =)
- ericwan 18y agoAnd when you start creating your own thing, you realize how hard it is to build and you criticize less
- scott_s 18y agoAnd given that you’re reading this blog, you’re probably a smart person Presumptuous, condescending, self-aggrandizing and manipulative all at the same time.
- maw 18y agoI don't think the author knows what critical thinking means. Hint: it doesn't mean pointing out the flaws in everything.
- ovi256 18y agoNo, that's QA. Or security engineering. Or software testing?
- soundsop 18y agoSmart people generally get very educated, and higher education (in the US at least) teaches only critical thinking...They leave school thinking that the way to be useful and show your smarts is to point out why things won’t work, rather than using some of those smart to find a way forward. Grad school in engineering, computer science, (and I assume in math and science too) usually requires that you make something, so I don't think there is a sole emphasis on critical thinking. From the point of view of "making something users want", perhaps the missing part is reliable judgment of whether people want it, rather than depending on citation counts.
- akd 18y agoWhat makes these "traps" so bad? I think smart people getting into medicine is a good thing. I think academics make valuable contributions to the world. I think that one of the two US presidential candidates is materially better than the other, and the world will be much better if he is elected. Seriously, is the only worthwhile thing for an intelligent person to start a company that somehow involves blogging, RSS, and AJAX?
- jdale27 18y agoI think that one of the two US presidential candidates... Two? http://www.votesmart.org/election_president.php http://www.votesmart.org/election_president.php
- senthil_rajasek 18y agoHmmm nothing wrong with smart people getting into medicine. I would not have it any other way. The point is one should not get into the "Professions" because they think they have the smarts to do it but for something more, something like "satisfying the soul" or for pure joy...
- orib 18y agoIronic how the criticize "critical thinking" (at least, what they think it means -- they abuse the term) for not providing solutions, only problems. Yet at the same time, they don't suggest any solutions to these traps, they only list them. Fall into your own trap much?
- rtfa 18y agoGay people can't program. News at 11.
- tlrobinson 18y agoDarn. I was hoping for tips on how to actually trap smart people.
- icky 18y agoSet their login shell to /usr/games/nethack
- time_management 18y agoI'd argue that these "traps" stem primarily from risk aversion. While it's best for society that talented people gravitate toward high-risk, high-reward pursuits, the talented individual is still often attracted to a more conservative strategy, having something to lose. Most people are terrified of straying from a well-laid-out career path.