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It's only a strength if you have a strong base and a way to tie things together. Being interested in a bunch of disparate fields is not in itself useful. In fac

It's only a strength if you have a strong base and a way to tie things together. Being interested in a bunch of disparate fields is not in itself useful. In fact for most people it's probably completely useless, because you're going to suck at everything. Ex: OP wants to read "textbooks to learn basic concepts" and "swim in their ideas". That doesn't equal competence. However, if you have strong expertise in a particular field and can find a way to utilize the ideas/learnings from a different field you're interested in then it might be useful. Big if though.

staticautomatic 5y ago
I find it super helpful in applied social science research.
Llamamoe 5y ago
I find that exposure to a broad range of concepts expands cognitive breadth and the set of things one can quickly comprehend exponentially, even in /complete/ absence of expertise or competence. Single-field people tend to be hilariously bad at diffuse reasoning relative to what you'd expect from a person that competent.
- ZephyrBlu 5y ago
  Ok, but if you want to operationalize "cognitive breadth" and being able to "quickly comprehend" you need to actually be good at something. No one is going to pat you on the head for learning the basics of a field 10x faster than someone else because the basics have very little value by themselves. I say all of this as someone who is very curious and likes learning about new things.
  - sdenton4 5y ago
    A really important step is getting really good at /something/. Once you've done that, it's much easier to hit a similar level of competence in new areas a bit faster. A big part of being good at something is really mastering the fundamentals. I tend to think it's possible to turn 'master the fundamentals' into a kind of transferable skill. Another big part of mastery is pattern recognition, which develops from sheer experience. To some extent, learning to recognize important types of patterns is also a transferable skill.
  - iostream24 5y ago
    No, they won’t pat you on the head, but they may pay you for skillfully managing something that takes cross-trained skills that others, equally competent in the chosen field, lack. A luthier that can play guitar will make a better guitar, most likely.
chaostheory 5y ago
As an example (someone can correct me), I believe Alan Kay’s background in biology helped his contributions towards object oriented programming and UX.
prawn 5y ago
Agree - otherwise it can just justify procrastinating. Edit: Someone else said it better here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30928437 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30928437
smeej 5y ago
I think it's a lot easier to build "competence" than people usually think. Think back to college, to your friends who actually got degrees in various specialties. How many of them actually closely read even five of the books in the curriculum, took detailed notes, and thoroughly understood the material? A motivated autodidact can do that in a couple months (about how long I manage to stay interested in any one topic). Understanding that 20% of the knowledge in the field really does tend to make you 80% "competent." I find that I can have "competent amateur"-level conversations with specialists in a subject after just that much effort. From there, it's all a question of whether you want to move toward expertise. Becoming an expert takes MUCH more time, energy, and effort. What normally happens for me is that, after reaching the level of competence on a broad subject, I may come across a subspecialty or two that inspire me to reach competence on them. That's the layer deeper. That doesn't usually happen right after the broad review. It usually happens a few cycles later, but because I engaged the material and made notes on it, I can refresh what I knew from my overview and be prepared to dive deeper. It opens up interesting conversations (I know something about an incredible variety of things, so can usually engage someone in a conversation about something that matters to them). It allows me to connect ideas that make me seem "creative" in any one particular field. In other words it's a very engaging, fun way to live! And not nearly as daunting a thing as it seems if you mistake building expertise with building competence. Being a polymath is just really good fun if you let it be!
samh748 5y ago
I wrote a general comment in response to this here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30930012 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30930012
gdfgjhs 5y ago
Sometimes it is hard to see how all different things you are doing now connects until at the end. I think it was Steve Jobs who said everything he did made sense only when looked in reverse order.

staticautomatic 5y ago

I find it super helpful in applied social science research.

Llamamoe 5y ago

I find that exposure to a broad range of concepts expands cognitive breadth and the set of things one can quickly comprehend exponentially, even in /complete/ absence of expertise or competence. Single-field people tend to be hilariously bad at diffuse reasoning relative to what you'd expect from a person that competent.

ZephyrBlu 5y ago
Ok, but if you want to operationalize "cognitive breadth" and being able to "quickly comprehend" you need to actually be good at something. No one is going to pat you on the head for learning the basics of a field 10x faster than someone else because the basics have very little value by themselves. I say all of this as someone who is very curious and likes learning about new things.
- sdenton4 5y ago
  A really important step is getting really good at /something/. Once you've done that, it's much easier to hit a similar level of competence in new areas a bit faster. A big part of being good at something is really mastering the fundamentals. I tend to think it's possible to turn 'master the fundamentals' into a kind of transferable skill. Another big part of mastery is pattern recognition, which develops from sheer experience. To some extent, learning to recognize important types of patterns is also a transferable skill.
- iostream24 5y ago
  No, they won’t pat you on the head, but they may pay you for skillfully managing something that takes cross-trained skills that others, equally competent in the chosen field, lack. A luthier that can play guitar will make a better guitar, most likely.

chaostheory 5y ago

As an example (someone can correct me), I believe Alan Kay’s background in biology helped his contributions towards object oriented programming and UX.

prawn 5y ago

Agree - otherwise it can just justify procrastinating. Edit: Someone else said it better here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30928437 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30928437

smeej 5y ago

I think it's a lot easier to build "competence" than people usually think. Think back to college, to your friends who actually got degrees in various specialties. How many of them actually closely read even five of the books in the curriculum, took detailed notes, and thoroughly understood the material? A motivated autodidact can do that in a couple months (about how long I manage to stay interested in any one topic). Understanding that 20% of the knowledge in the field really does tend to make you 80% "competent." I find that I can have "competent amateur"-level conversations with specialists in a subject after just that much effort. From there, it's all a question of whether you want to move toward expertise. Becoming an expert takes MUCH more time, energy, and effort. What normally happens for me is that, after reaching the level of competence on a broad subject, I may come across a subspecialty or two that inspire me to reach competence on them. That's the layer deeper. That doesn't usually happen right after the broad review. It usually happens a few cycles later, but because I engaged the material and made notes on it, I can refresh what I knew from my overview and be prepared to dive deeper. It opens up interesting conversations (I know something about an incredible variety of things, so can usually engage someone in a conversation about something that matters to them). It allows me to connect ideas that make me seem "creative" in any one particular field. In other words it's a very engaging, fun way to live! And not nearly as daunting a thing as it seems if you mistake building expertise with building competence. Being a polymath is just really good fun if you let it be!

samh748 5y ago

I wrote a general comment in response to this here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30930012 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30930012

gdfgjhs 5y ago

Sometimes it is hard to see how all different things you are doing now connects until at the end. I think it was Steve Jobs who said everything he did made sense only when looked in reverse order.