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> Blank slate - All humans are of equal ability This is generally true. People can find extreme examples that “disprove” this but they’re generally wrong. Mos

> Blank slate - All humans are of equal ability This is generally true. People can find extreme examples that “disprove” this but they’re generally wrong. Most things people do aren’t that hard and people have the ability to learn to do them — they either choose a different path, have fewer choices, or just don’t care. And yes, before you ask, this includes computer programming.

mirceal 5y ago
yes and no. the old nature vs nurture + not all people are genetically gifted and a small generic advantage can mean a huge difference in capabilities.
hintymad 5y ago
I don't know. Have you observed multiple kids in the same family? Same parents. Same "privilege". Same pressure. Same education down to the same teachers, tutors, books, and parent temperament. And you know what, some of the kids simply beat their siblings who can be years older, in STEM or writing or reading or leadership without even trying. Have you observed your classmates? Some are driven, ambitious, self-disciplined, had access to all the education they needed, and got perfect grades before grade 8 or whatever. Then just one day, he simply couldn't understand maths or physics or chemistry or computer science, and they simply got left behind and couldn't even study STEM in college because they couldn't pass the placement test. In the meantime, their classmates, less privileged, didn't really understand everything taught in elementary school, didn't have nor need tutoring or even challenging text books, simply became the best students at anything STEM in high school and in college, and again, without much trying. Or, do you really think every 2-year old kid can teach their neighbor kids maths and then explained what groups are when he was 7-year old like Terence Tao did? I tried my own kids. Needless to say, I failed, miserably.
- deathanatos 5y ago
  Me & my sister grew up, like you say, in the same family, same parents, same pressure. We largely went to the same schools, even. She probably acceled further, academically, than I did. (She probably went to the more prestigious college, her GPA/SAT/etc. were better, she earned a doctorate, while I got a BS…) Without pointing to a vague notion of "we're different people", I think there's a few key things that were different, despite everything that was the same: * She's the second child, I'm the first: there were some things in my education that my mother literally said "we are fixing that for her". (And I should note that I don't resent this: my mother was clearly doing the best she could with the information she had — and because she loved us. But she had more information during Round 2.) * Education is a finite resource: in my home state, whether I got into a decent school (i.e., a magnet school) was dependent on the literal roll of a dice. (Literally literally. I.e., list of names goes in, gets shuffled, top n go to good school & gets educated, bottom m talent gets wasted.) In the worst case I was 5th? 6th? from the bottom of a several hundred person long wait list. She got in. She got a year in the magnet system that I didn't (I got entry a little over a year later). That missing year was an enormous detriment to my education and growth; it was such a clear detriment my parents were contemplating whether they could afford a Catholic private school (we're not Catholic) or simple home-schooling. Had they had the gift of clairvoyance, I think they would have the moment I was denied. * Almost certainly the gift of a computer got me interested in CS. She didn't get one, and her interests are different. (She's still STEM, likely due to our parents.)
  - hintymad 5y ago
    To digress a bit: good education will be a finite resource as we have finite number of good educators and good schools. I don't think it's possible for everyone to access good education, especially given that we have different definition for "good education". Saying everyone should go to MIT (or any scarce education resource) is like saying living in beach property is human right. Maybe so, but it'll be a different topic.
    - troupe 5y ago
      Books are a finite resource, but not really limited for any practical purposes at least in the US. Used books are inexpensive, libraries are readily available, most things out of copyright are available online, etc. Education is following as similar course. Things like MITs open courseware, edX, etc. are making it increasingly easy to get the educational content from top teachers regardless of how limited these teachers are. (Having access to an education is not the same as actually getting a degree, and getting a degree isn't always the same as getting an education.) But there has probably never been a time in history where more people had free or inexpensive access to the top educational content in the world.
      - hintymad 5y ago
        Education content is definitely ample now, including text books and references. we even have great communities to get answers to our questions. Unfortunately the bottleneck of education just switched to access to good teachers. A good teacher inspires students, identifies exactly why each student has difficulty understanding something, explains intuitions behind the most difficult concepts, designs highly tailored homework, leads engaging seminars, and keeps students in their discomfort zone. As in STEM field in general, lab staff, equipments, chemical agents, lab materials are generally scarce resources too.
        troupe 5y ago
        I understand what you are saying, but I would argue that lack of access to teacher is less of a bottleneck than drive, desire, and motivation. A motivated individual is going to have no trouble finding what they need to learn and places to ask questions for things they don't understand. I see where you are coming from on access to labs, chemicals, and equipment. But someone who has fully availed themselves of everything they can learn from free/inexpensive online classes, books, forums, emailing people, etc. is headed on a path where they have a high probability of getting access to those types of things once that is the only thing blocking their continued education.
causi 5y ago
Problem being an extremely significant portion of that blank slate is written before the child even enters school, let alone makes it to middle and high school, and even during those times it is impossible for a school to make up for a horrible home life. We single out and spread stories about people who raised themselves up because it's not the norm. The vast majority of people whose parents don't talk to them as infants, don't read to them as toddlers, don't listen to them as children, and don't keep from hitting them as teenagers will radically underperform both as students and as adults. Mucking about with the education of students who haven't been sabotaged by their parents is governmental thumb-twiddling.
mikebenfield 5y ago
This is so obviously false that I'm always amazed there are people who actually believe this. In _every_ activity I've ever participated in where I can observe many people's performance and progression - including powerlifting, bodybuilding, various ball sports, mathematics, chess, theoretical CS, software engineering, etc - it is transparently obvious that people's natural abilities vary dramatically. Although it's not the most common scenario (training and experience do matter), I have seen many situations where someone with, say, 6 months' haphazard and lazy experience will absolutely crush the performance of someone with 3 years of serious and dedicated training. Talent is real.
- paulcole 5y ago
  Thank you. I am quite stupid. Talent is real, but generally speaking, ascribing failure or lack of progress to lack of talent is a mistake.
  - hintymad 5y ago
    I'm not sure what "generally" means here. In professional sports, my failure of not getting into any major league will be due to your lack of talent. In higher-level math, my failure of passing any exam will be due to your lack of talent. In chemistry, my failure of not being able to consistently reach precision of under 0.1% is due to my lack of talent (and trust me, I really tried and followed all kinds of instructions to the greatest details, or so I thought). In mechanical engineering, my failure of not being able to piece out a 3D model from a 2D schematics is due to my lack of talent. In medicine, my failure of not being able to memorize thousands of latin terms for all the bones and organs is due to my lack of talent. In biochemistry, my failure of not being able to internalize the energy cycle in human body is due to my lack of talent. But on the other hand, you didn't even use a computer until switching your major to CS when you were 20 yet you became the best student in every single class in a prestigious university. That's your talent. You studied world history until you were 30 years old, yet you switched to physics and somehow got Fields medal, that's your talent. Not all failures are due to lack of talent, for sure. A blank statement like " ascribing failure or lack of progress to lack of talent is a mistake " in the context of our discussion is nonetheless a mistake as well.
ravi-delia 5y ago
> Most things people do aren’t that hard and people have the ability to learn to do them Have you considered that maybe you're just unusually talented? I know most things people do are very hard for me, and the few things I do are very easy. Learning history is an uphill slog even though I love it, but math doesn't warrant effort. For a while I just figured people that failed math were lazy and people that passed history were geniuses, but it turns out people have different amounts of natural talent. It's not the start, it's the slope
- paulcole 5y ago
  As narcissistic as I am, I don’t think I’m “talented.” I’m just like everybody else — can get pretty decent at a lot of things. But also just like everybody else I like to pretend I’m talented at the things I put work into. And I like to pretend that people who are good at things I haven’t put work into are talented in a way that I’m not.
  - orangecat 5y ago
    As narcissistic as I am, I don’t think I’m “talented.” Huh. To me it seems more narcissistic for someone to say that they have no special talent and that their success is entirely due to their superior work ethic and years of study and sacrifice. I’m just like everybody else — can get pretty decent at a lot of things. That's a very different claim than "innate talent doesn't exist".
    - paulcole 5y ago
      > That's a very different claim than "innate talent doesn't exist". Yes! This is why I never said innate talent doesn’t exist.
  - ravi-delia 5y ago
    I mean, by hours at this point I've definitely put more time in to math than any other subject, but it was easy from the start! Maybe I'm enough of a fuckup that it intensifies differences in ability which would otherwise be too small to notice - like math took close to 0 effort to do and want to do, so anything else is unbearable. Doesn't square with just how much effort I put into history though.
Aunche 5y ago
>Most things people do aren’t that hard and people have the ability to learn to do them That's true, but it's the small minority of tasks that require real intelligence that often matter the most. A regular person can probably be trained to 95% the skill of an anesthesiologist just by following instructions, but then they would kill the patient during edge cases. The same thing applies to programming too. I had an internship at a regular company, and now work at a FAANG. The developers at the regular company are likely better at programming than me, especially when it came to regular tasks, but some of their technical decisions just didn't seem to make any sense.
- paulcole 5y ago
  > A regular person can probably be trained to 95% the skill of an anesthesiologist just by following instructions, but then they would kill the patient during edge cases. You’re making the mistake of assuming anesthesiologists are something other than regular people with training.
  - Aunche 5y ago
    Anyone who makes it through medical school is definitely smart by some standard, especially if they end up in a highly competitive specialty like anesthesiology. Does all that intelligence translate to talent for being an anesthesiologist? Probably not, but I'm sure a lot of it does.
    - paulcole 5y ago
      I think this is where we’ll really disagree. Completing med school is a function of opportunity, determination, and to a much lesser degree intelligence. Doctors are just people and people have roughly the same innate abilities.

mirceal 5y ago

yes and no. the old nature vs nurture + not all people are genetically gifted and a small generic advantage can mean a huge difference in capabilities.

hintymad 5y ago

I don't know. Have you observed multiple kids in the same family? Same parents. Same "privilege". Same pressure. Same education down to the same teachers, tutors, books, and parent temperament. And you know what, some of the kids simply beat their siblings who can be years older, in STEM or writing or reading or leadership without even trying. Have you observed your classmates? Some are driven, ambitious, self-disciplined, had access to all the education they needed, and got perfect grades before grade 8 or whatever. Then just one day, he simply couldn't understand maths or physics or chemistry or computer science, and they simply got left behind and couldn't even study STEM in college because they couldn't pass the placement test. In the meantime, their classmates, less privileged, didn't really understand everything taught in elementary school, didn't have nor need tutoring or even challenging text books, simply became the best students at anything STEM in high school and in college, and again, without much trying. Or, do you really think every 2-year old kid can teach their neighbor kids maths and then explained what groups are when he was 7-year old like Terence Tao did? I tried my own kids. Needless to say, I failed, miserably.

deathanatos 5y ago
Me & my sister grew up, like you say, in the same family, same parents, same pressure. We largely went to the same schools, even. She probably acceled further, academically, than I did. (She probably went to the more prestigious college, her GPA/SAT/etc. were better, she earned a doctorate, while I got a BS…) Without pointing to a vague notion of "we're different people", I think there's a few key things that were different, despite everything that was the same: * She's the second child, I'm the first: there were some things in my education that my mother literally said "we are fixing that for her". (And I should note that I don't resent this: my mother was clearly doing the best she could with the information she had — and because she loved us. But she had more information during Round 2.) * Education is a finite resource: in my home state, whether I got into a decent school (i.e., a magnet school) was dependent on the literal roll of a dice. (Literally literally. I.e., list of names goes in, gets shuffled, top n go to good school & gets educated, bottom m talent gets wasted.) In the worst case I was 5th? 6th? from the bottom of a several hundred person long wait list. She got in. She got a year in the magnet system that I didn't (I got entry a little over a year later). That missing year was an enormous detriment to my education and growth; it was such a clear detriment my parents were contemplating whether they could afford a Catholic private school (we're not Catholic) or simple home-schooling. Had they had the gift of clairvoyance, I think they would have the moment I was denied. * Almost certainly the gift of a computer got me interested in CS. She didn't get one, and her interests are different. (She's still STEM, likely due to our parents.)
- hintymad 5y ago
  To digress a bit: good education will be a finite resource as we have finite number of good educators and good schools. I don't think it's possible for everyone to access good education, especially given that we have different definition for "good education". Saying everyone should go to MIT (or any scarce education resource) is like saying living in beach property is human right. Maybe so, but it'll be a different topic.
  - troupe 5y ago
    Books are a finite resource, but not really limited for any practical purposes at least in the US. Used books are inexpensive, libraries are readily available, most things out of copyright are available online, etc. Education is following as similar course. Things like MITs open courseware, edX, etc. are making it increasingly easy to get the educational content from top teachers regardless of how limited these teachers are. (Having access to an education is not the same as actually getting a degree, and getting a degree isn't always the same as getting an education.) But there has probably never been a time in history where more people had free or inexpensive access to the top educational content in the world.
    - hintymad 5y ago
      Education content is definitely ample now, including text books and references. we even have great communities to get answers to our questions. Unfortunately the bottleneck of education just switched to access to good teachers. A good teacher inspires students, identifies exactly why each student has difficulty understanding something, explains intuitions behind the most difficult concepts, designs highly tailored homework, leads engaging seminars, and keeps students in their discomfort zone. As in STEM field in general, lab staff, equipments, chemical agents, lab materials are generally scarce resources too.
      - troupe 5y ago
        I understand what you are saying, but I would argue that lack of access to teacher is less of a bottleneck than drive, desire, and motivation. A motivated individual is going to have no trouble finding what they need to learn and places to ask questions for things they don't understand. I see where you are coming from on access to labs, chemicals, and equipment. But someone who has fully availed themselves of everything they can learn from free/inexpensive online classes, books, forums, emailing people, etc. is headed on a path where they have a high probability of getting access to those types of things once that is the only thing blocking their continued education.

causi 5y ago

Problem being an extremely significant portion of that blank slate is written before the child even enters school, let alone makes it to middle and high school, and even during those times it is impossible for a school to make up for a horrible home life. We single out and spread stories about people who raised themselves up because it's not the norm. The vast majority of people whose parents don't talk to them as infants, don't read to them as toddlers, don't listen to them as children, and don't keep from hitting them as teenagers will radically underperform both as students and as adults. Mucking about with the education of students who haven't been sabotaged by their parents is governmental thumb-twiddling.

mikebenfield 5y ago

This is so obviously false that I'm always amazed there are people who actually believe this. In _every_ activity I've ever participated in where I can observe many people's performance and progression - including powerlifting, bodybuilding, various ball sports, mathematics, chess, theoretical CS, software engineering, etc - it is transparently obvious that people's natural abilities vary dramatically. Although it's not the most common scenario (training and experience do matter), I have seen many situations where someone with, say, 6 months' haphazard and lazy experience will absolutely crush the performance of someone with 3 years of serious and dedicated training. Talent is real.

paulcole 5y ago
Thank you. I am quite stupid. Talent is real, but generally speaking, ascribing failure or lack of progress to lack of talent is a mistake.
- hintymad 5y ago
  I'm not sure what "generally" means here. In professional sports, my failure of not getting into any major league will be due to your lack of talent. In higher-level math, my failure of passing any exam will be due to your lack of talent. In chemistry, my failure of not being able to consistently reach precision of under 0.1% is due to my lack of talent (and trust me, I really tried and followed all kinds of instructions to the greatest details, or so I thought). In mechanical engineering, my failure of not being able to piece out a 3D model from a 2D schematics is due to my lack of talent. In medicine, my failure of not being able to memorize thousands of latin terms for all the bones and organs is due to my lack of talent. In biochemistry, my failure of not being able to internalize the energy cycle in human body is due to my lack of talent. But on the other hand, you didn't even use a computer until switching your major to CS when you were 20 yet you became the best student in every single class in a prestigious university. That's your talent. You studied world history until you were 30 years old, yet you switched to physics and somehow got Fields medal, that's your talent. Not all failures are due to lack of talent, for sure. A blank statement like " ascribing failure or lack of progress to lack of talent is a mistake " in the context of our discussion is nonetheless a mistake as well.

ravi-delia 5y ago

> Most things people do aren’t that hard and people have the ability to learn to do them Have you considered that maybe you're just unusually talented? I know most things people do are very hard for me, and the few things I do are very easy. Learning history is an uphill slog even though I love it, but math doesn't warrant effort. For a while I just figured people that failed math were lazy and people that passed history were geniuses, but it turns out people have different amounts of natural talent. It's not the start, it's the slope

paulcole 5y ago
As narcissistic as I am, I don’t think I’m “talented.” I’m just like everybody else — can get pretty decent at a lot of things. But also just like everybody else I like to pretend I’m talented at the things I put work into. And I like to pretend that people who are good at things I haven’t put work into are talented in a way that I’m not.
- orangecat 5y ago
  As narcissistic as I am, I don’t think I’m “talented.” Huh. To me it seems more narcissistic for someone to say that they have no special talent and that their success is entirely due to their superior work ethic and years of study and sacrifice. I’m just like everybody else — can get pretty decent at a lot of things. That's a very different claim than "innate talent doesn't exist".
  - paulcole 5y ago
    > That's a very different claim than "innate talent doesn't exist". Yes! This is why I never said innate talent doesn’t exist.
- ravi-delia 5y ago
  I mean, by hours at this point I've definitely put more time in to math than any other subject, but it was easy from the start! Maybe I'm enough of a fuckup that it intensifies differences in ability which would otherwise be too small to notice - like math took close to 0 effort to do and want to do, so anything else is unbearable. Doesn't square with just how much effort I put into history though.

Aunche 5y ago

>Most things people do aren’t that hard and people have the ability to learn to do them That's true, but it's the small minority of tasks that require real intelligence that often matter the most. A regular person can probably be trained to 95% the skill of an anesthesiologist just by following instructions, but then they would kill the patient during edge cases. The same thing applies to programming too. I had an internship at a regular company, and now work at a FAANG. The developers at the regular company are likely better at programming than me, especially when it came to regular tasks, but some of their technical decisions just didn't seem to make any sense.

paulcole 5y ago
> A regular person can probably be trained to 95% the skill of an anesthesiologist just by following instructions, but then they would kill the patient during edge cases. You’re making the mistake of assuming anesthesiologists are something other than regular people with training.
- Aunche 5y ago
  Anyone who makes it through medical school is definitely smart by some standard, especially if they end up in a highly competitive specialty like anesthesiology. Does all that intelligence translate to talent for being an anesthesiologist? Probably not, but I'm sure a lot of it does.
  - paulcole 5y ago
    I think this is where we’ll really disagree. Completing med school is a function of opportunity, determination, and to a much lesser degree intelligence. Doctors are just people and people have roughly the same innate abilities.