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> Marc: I think there’s a real argument, and this is the most uncomfortable form of argument, there is a real argument that there are just a certain number of s

> Marc: I think there’s a real argument, and this is the most uncomfortable form of argument, there is a real argument that there are just a certain number of super-elite people. I really enjoy it when people say exactly what they think.

abvdasker 5y ago
I can't tell whether these types of guys are totally ignorant of concepts like the Nietzschean Übermensch or whether they're just careful to avoid referring to it too directly.
- thewarrior 5y ago
  They are totally aware and believe that they are the Übermensch while funding and working on the Clubhouse app and sneering at all the people in broken institutions delivering things like healthcare or education. "Imagine you're an expert in only one thing and it's computer programming. Books are a waste of time except as quick references; you can achieve full expertise just by teaching yourself through internet searches, discussion forums, and maybe the occasional blog post if you're really keen. When you have to solve a problem, you strip away as much of the context as possible, until you can isolate it down to a single phrase of logic. As soon as you solve that one isolated microproblem, the results blow up exponentially to satisfy all kinds of needs and desires you haven't even thought of. Now imagine that even though you're doing journeyman skilled labor like a plumber or electrician (except it doesn't even require professional certification), you earn a salary well into the six figures - or even equity that grows to the millions or billions - in a Wall Street-like testosterone bubble where you and your colleagues unabashedly believe you're the smartest people in the room, the beneficiaries of a pure meritocracy, and you're Changing The World as much as you can when unimpeded by the hordes of fuzzies who just don't know how to think. Of course you come to believe that anyone who claims to be a credentialed expert, and says this or that issue is actually much more complicated and contextual than you appreciate, is probably just a big faker whose whole field of study could be solved elegantly if a smart person like you just spent some hobby time stripping away the context to isolate that one neat trick of logic." Not sure who wrote this originally found it here - https://www.reddit.com/r/SneerClub/comments/i7a24j/tech_brain_is_a_sort_of_constant_willful/g10x2hr/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3 https://www.reddit.com/r/SneerClub/comments/i7a24j/tech_brai...
  - achillesheels 5y ago
    I mean, look at the monuments ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ It’s myopic to judge the tech world around mobile apps instead of the decades long capitalizations that can bring mass market super computers into the palm of our hands. Now compare that to the research interests over the same time-horizon. We still have psychology departments not educating basic cellular biology as a graduation requirement!
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
jstx1 5y ago
How is that saying anything meaningful though? The only way the statement could be false would be for everyone to be at the same level of skill/knowledge/aptitude/etc. but there's clearly some non-uniform distribution and regardless of where you draw the line to define super-elite, some people will fall in that group.
- colinmhayes 5y ago
  He's saying it's an intrinsic quality. The implication being that we spend too many resources educating people.
  - majormajor 5y ago
    He doesn't appear to be saying that. He's talking in those paragraphs about systems, and arguing that by building systems that scale, we're creating bureaucracy that de-motivates the most elite people even though it was originally intended to allow the excellent performers to rise. But he doesn't present much evidence for this beyond a speculative "If someone’s truly a member of the elite, are able to generate elite-level results, if you wanted to demotivate them and draw them out of the field, what would you do? You would surround them with mediocrity and drown them in bullshit" that's extrapolated from what the founders he's talking to are telling him. One potential blind spot seems to be "maybe weeding through tedium is a good quality in many researchers, since much of research is more tedious than founding a startup." After all, he's basing this on talking to people who left the system, not talking to today's top researchers. I think a bigger one is that he says even in his system, most (50%+) of the companies he funds fail to do anything interesting. So this is still, from the same sort of standard of efficiency applied to researchers here, woefully wasteful. I'm also not really clear on how he thinks it should be changed.
david927 5y ago
It's not a brave or iconoclastic thought; it's actually incredibly common: Throughout history the wealthy have thought of themselves as superior. If they got lucky, it was because they were "super-elite." No one's going to win a nurture-or-nature argument but there's a clear self-interest in these situations to call nature what was, at least in part, nurture.
- jdminhbg 5y ago
  He's not talking about the wealthy, he's talking about scientists, most of whom are not rich, or at least not "super-elite" level rich.
  - david927 5y ago
    Oh, he's talking about himself and his friends too, make no mistake. In nurture-vs-nature, those who struggle to achieve something understand how large a role nurture plays, and those who win the "circumstance lottery" tend to insist that it was bestowed on them directly from God. It's like talking about how there are "just a certain number of super-elite" players of pickle ball. It's conflating datasets of those who have been given access to the entire spectrum of attributes necessary to know and be good at pickle ball, with the vast seas of those who haven't. How can you say it's rare based on such a small data sample? If you were a pickle ball champion, would you really brag about how, "Let's face it, there are only a couple of us; we're just that good."
    - jdminhbg 5y ago
      This seems like it's going beyond a simple uncharitable reading and straight into psychoanalysis-from-a-distance.
      - david927 5y ago
        Could it be that he phrased it poorly? Of course. But if you're unfamiliar with the hubris and elitism that runs wildly unfettered in the Bay Area -- well, lucky you.

abvdasker 5y ago

I can't tell whether these types of guys are totally ignorant of concepts like the Nietzschean Übermensch or whether they're just careful to avoid referring to it too directly.

thewarrior 5y ago
They are totally aware and believe that they are the Übermensch while funding and working on the Clubhouse app and sneering at all the people in broken institutions delivering things like healthcare or education. "Imagine you're an expert in only one thing and it's computer programming. Books are a waste of time except as quick references; you can achieve full expertise just by teaching yourself through internet searches, discussion forums, and maybe the occasional blog post if you're really keen. When you have to solve a problem, you strip away as much of the context as possible, until you can isolate it down to a single phrase of logic. As soon as you solve that one isolated microproblem, the results blow up exponentially to satisfy all kinds of needs and desires you haven't even thought of. Now imagine that even though you're doing journeyman skilled labor like a plumber or electrician (except it doesn't even require professional certification), you earn a salary well into the six figures - or even equity that grows to the millions or billions - in a Wall Street-like testosterone bubble where you and your colleagues unabashedly believe you're the smartest people in the room, the beneficiaries of a pure meritocracy, and you're Changing The World as much as you can when unimpeded by the hordes of fuzzies who just don't know how to think. Of course you come to believe that anyone who claims to be a credentialed expert, and says this or that issue is actually much more complicated and contextual than you appreciate, is probably just a big faker whose whole field of study could be solved elegantly if a smart person like you just spent some hobby time stripping away the context to isolate that one neat trick of logic." Not sure who wrote this originally found it here - https://www.reddit.com/r/SneerClub/comments/i7a24j/tech_brain_is_a_sort_of_constant_willful/g10x2hr/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3 https://www.reddit.com/r/SneerClub/comments/i7a24j/tech_brai...
- achillesheels 5y ago
  I mean, look at the monuments ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ It’s myopic to judge the tech world around mobile apps instead of the decades long capitalizations that can bring mass market super computers into the palm of our hands. Now compare that to the research interests over the same time-horizon. We still have psychology departments not educating basic cellular biology as a graduation requirement!
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

jstx1 5y ago

How is that saying anything meaningful though? The only way the statement could be false would be for everyone to be at the same level of skill/knowledge/aptitude/etc. but there's clearly some non-uniform distribution and regardless of where you draw the line to define super-elite, some people will fall in that group.

colinmhayes 5y ago
He's saying it's an intrinsic quality. The implication being that we spend too many resources educating people.
- majormajor 5y ago
  He doesn't appear to be saying that. He's talking in those paragraphs about systems, and arguing that by building systems that scale, we're creating bureaucracy that de-motivates the most elite people even though it was originally intended to allow the excellent performers to rise. But he doesn't present much evidence for this beyond a speculative "If someone’s truly a member of the elite, are able to generate elite-level results, if you wanted to demotivate them and draw them out of the field, what would you do? You would surround them with mediocrity and drown them in bullshit" that's extrapolated from what the founders he's talking to are telling him. One potential blind spot seems to be "maybe weeding through tedium is a good quality in many researchers, since much of research is more tedious than founding a startup." After all, he's basing this on talking to people who left the system, not talking to today's top researchers. I think a bigger one is that he says even in his system, most (50%+) of the companies he funds fail to do anything interesting. So this is still, from the same sort of standard of efficiency applied to researchers here, woefully wasteful. I'm also not really clear on how he thinks it should be changed.

david927 5y ago

It's not a brave or iconoclastic thought; it's actually incredibly common: Throughout history the wealthy have thought of themselves as superior. If they got lucky, it was because they were "super-elite." No one's going to win a nurture-or-nature argument but there's a clear self-interest in these situations to call nature what was, at least in part, nurture.

jdminhbg 5y ago
He's not talking about the wealthy, he's talking about scientists, most of whom are not rich, or at least not "super-elite" level rich.
- david927 5y ago
  Oh, he's talking about himself and his friends too, make no mistake. In nurture-vs-nature, those who struggle to achieve something understand how large a role nurture plays, and those who win the "circumstance lottery" tend to insist that it was bestowed on them directly from God. It's like talking about how there are "just a certain number of super-elite" players of pickle ball. It's conflating datasets of those who have been given access to the entire spectrum of attributes necessary to know and be good at pickle ball, with the vast seas of those who haven't. How can you say it's rare based on such a small data sample? If you were a pickle ball champion, would you really brag about how, "Let's face it, there are only a couple of us; we're just that good."
  - jdminhbg 5y ago
    This seems like it's going beyond a simple uncharitable reading and straight into psychoanalysis-from-a-distance.
    - david927 5y ago
      Could it be that he phrased it poorly? Of course. But if you're unfamiliar with the hubris and elitism that runs wildly unfettered in the Bay Area -- well, lucky you.