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I can't think of anything where have more to infinity is always better. At some point your need is satiated and starts becoming a detriment. You're welcome to
by slver 6y ago
I can't think of anything where have more to infinity is always better. At some point your need is satiated and starts becoming a detriment.
You're welcome to bring examples, but I've found often those examples don't consider the counter-forces as you increase the "goodness" in one direction, you increase the "badness" for another factor.
Case in point team size. Bigger team, better, faster, stronger. But the combinatorial explosion of communications (everyone talks to everyone) in the team actually renders big teams inoperable.
So the solution is to elect a leader/representative, and then form a team of teams only of those representatives.
You solved the combinatorial explosion of communications, but you added indirection (teams talk to each other through the broken phone of their leaders).
And so on and so on. You never can identify a single thing you can do forever "more" of, and get just benefits.
It's like a spring. There's a balance in the middle. The more you stretch, the harder it gets. The more you push, the harder it gets. The trick is finding the middle.
- sokoloff 6y agoGeneral intelligence, excellent judgment, rapport building, and attractiveness all seem like candidates where extremes don’t inevitably bring badness.
- mycologos 6y agoI dunno, being an extremely attractive woman in a male-dominated field seems like it would be a huge hassle.
- giovannibonetti 6y agoGeneral intelligence - if you are too intelligent you might become arrogant and have difficulties putting yourself in other people's shoes. Attractiveness - you might focus so much in your appearance that other parts of your life get left behind. Think on the Hollywood stars that end up with a crappy life somehow. I've also seen women that are too attractive being chased by aggressive men, which becomes very inconvenient for them. Good judgement and rapport building are qualities that usually require avoiding the extremes, so I don't think it applies here.
- bckr 6y agoBeat me to it!
- bckr 6y agoGood point. Counterpoint: these are measurements that can be factorized into dimensions in which you can go too far. In fact, you can't actually keep going to infinity in these measurements because you will hit roadblocks in the underlying factors. General intelligence and excellent judgment will contain neuroticism. Too much of that and you get analysis paralysis. General intelligence and rapport building contain empathy. Too much of that and you become weighed down by feeling everyone else's feelings. Attractiveness might help you in general but there are issues like jealousy or not being taken seriously by technical people, so it's still a trade off.
- slver 6y agoHigh intelligence is not strongly correlated with success, in fact it's unfortunately correlated with things like increased chance of depression and suicide. Very high intelligence often comes as a result of some other deficiency in that person's life, for example they're socially withdrawn, highly reflective, and prefer to be alone with a book. Attractiveness makes people think higher of you, and your intelligence. But excessive attractiveness causes people to think you're superficial and focused on your beauty, rather than your intelligence. They may also objectify you, or be intimidated by you. Every coin has two sides. Every coin. As for categories like "excellent judgment" etc. these only can be identified post-factum from the results. I.e. it's a circular definition to say "this successful person making judgments correlates with his ability to make successful judgments". So I'm not sure that gives is a clue what to do, or what to be to get there. "Just make excellent judgments, damn it!" :-)
- sokoloff 6y agoI frequently hear claims that high intelligence is not correlated strongly positively with success, though that seems to be disputed by longitudinal studies like SMPY. https://today.duke.edu/2016/06/whenlightningstrikestwice https://today.duke.edu/2016/06/whenlightningstrikestwice
- lupire 6y agoPeople say that extremely high intelligence is less correlated with happiness then less extreme high intelligence, not (the topic of your linked article) "the potential to make great contributions to society in adulthood"