3 ms·

You're getting some flack for this comment, but others have said similar things: https://www.google.com.au/books/edition/_/__CnDwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PT22 htt

by Gatsky 4y ago

You're getting some flack for this comment, but others have said similar things: https://www.google.com.au/books/edition/_/__CnDwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PT22 https://www.google.com.au/books/edition/_/__CnDwAAQBAJ?hl=en... "I took six undergraduate mathematics courses. Until my junior year I encountered no one who seemed to have a greater aptitude for mathematics than mine. It had always been my easiest subject in high school, and I had been chided there by a classmate for writing my final exam with a fountain pen. Before I discovered physics, trigonometry and differential and integral calculus were my greatest intellectual pleasures. But my final mathematics course as an undergraduate was differential equations and the instructor gave me only a B. I'm sure he recognized that I was competent — I had worked every problem in the book — but he had to give the A's to the obviously brilliant students, who were now closing in on me. If I had decided to become a professional mathematician, as I easily could have, I would have made the traumatic discovery that there were many people my age who were far more talented mathematically than I could ever be. The world of mathematics and theoretical physics is hierarchical. That was my first exposure to it. There's a limit beyond which one cannot progress. The differences between the limiting abilities of those on successively higher steps of the pyramid are enormous. I have not seen described anywhere the shock a talented man experiences when he finds, late in his academic life, that there are others enormously more talented than he. I have personally seen more tears shed by grown men and women over this discovery than I would have believed possible. Most of those men and women shift to fields where they can compete on more equal terms. The few who choose not to face reality have a difficult time." Adventures of a Physicist, Luis W Alvarez

haswell 4y ago
What he’s describing here is quite a departure from “quit as soon as you notice your peers are better than you”. Being intellectually honest with yourself is still important, but if that’s what the parent comment was advocating, it did so poorly.
- xyzzyz 4y ago
  Note that I said “you should probably drop out”, not “you need to drop out as soon as you notice others are better”. This shows that there is hardly a way I could have advocated it better, as people like you, or others in this thread (read their responses to me and mine to them) will misread it anyway, and instead argue against a straw man. Additional reason is that if I hedged my opinion and tried to predict and answer to all possible critiques, the comment would be way too long and nobody would read it anyway, including the pre-written response to the point they made in reply.
  - haswell 4y ago
    The "should probably" is not the issue nor does it exonerate the advice. It's the recommendation with no inkling of acknowledgement that other factors exist beyond a naive comparison of oneself with their peers. The ethos of HN is generally to explore the depths of an issue in favor of making sweeping generalizations. This is one of the key things that separates discussion here from other places that shall not be named. Knowing that many younger students and folks earlier in their careers participate here, that comment wasn't going to remain unanswered for long. I don't think it would be terribly difficult to reframe what was written to provoke thought about intellectual honesty with oneself without unnecessarily leading others astray or losing all nuance in the process.
    - YeGoblynQueenne 4y ago
      >> The ethos of HN is generally to explore the depths of an issue in favor of making sweeping generalizations. Gosh, talk about sweeping generalisations. I mean, come on, it's not like HN users are some cohort of highly educated philosphers or mathematicians, the majority here spend most of their day battling the newest javascript framework and probably come to HN just to clear their mind of the impossible dreariness of modern-day web programming. Our dang wants this place to be all about intellectual curiosity but most users just want to vent and argue a bit, right? I learned a phrase in French recently: "se jeter des fleurs aux fesses". Means throwing flowers onto one's bum. It is very evocative, I believe. Let's refrain from doing that. Think of the flowers. And most people on HN also probably post on reddit anyway so.

by Gatsky 4y ago

haswell 4y ago

What he’s describing here is quite a departure from “quit as soon as you notice your peers are better than you”. Being intellectually honest with yourself is still important, but if that’s what the parent comment was advocating, it did so poorly.

xyzzyz 4y ago
Note that I said “you should probably drop out”, not “you need to drop out as soon as you notice others are better”. This shows that there is hardly a way I could have advocated it better, as people like you, or others in this thread (read their responses to me and mine to them) will misread it anyway, and instead argue against a straw man. Additional reason is that if I hedged my opinion and tried to predict and answer to all possible critiques, the comment would be way too long and nobody would read it anyway, including the pre-written response to the point they made in reply.
- haswell 4y ago
  The "should probably" is not the issue nor does it exonerate the advice. It's the recommendation with no inkling of acknowledgement that other factors exist beyond a naive comparison of oneself with their peers. The ethos of HN is generally to explore the depths of an issue in favor of making sweeping generalizations. This is one of the key things that separates discussion here from other places that shall not be named. Knowing that many younger students and folks earlier in their careers participate here, that comment wasn't going to remain unanswered for long. I don't think it would be terribly difficult to reframe what was written to provoke thought about intellectual honesty with oneself without unnecessarily leading others astray or losing all nuance in the process.
  - YeGoblynQueenne 4y ago
    >> The ethos of HN is generally to explore the depths of an issue in favor of making sweeping generalizations. Gosh, talk about sweeping generalisations. I mean, come on, it's not like HN users are some cohort of highly educated philosphers or mathematicians, the majority here spend most of their day battling the newest javascript framework and probably come to HN just to clear their mind of the impossible dreariness of modern-day web programming. Our dang wants this place to be all about intellectual curiosity but most users just want to vent and argue a bit, right? I learned a phrase in French recently: "se jeter des fleurs aux fesses". Means throwing flowers onto one's bum. It is very evocative, I believe. Let's refrain from doing that. Think of the flowers. And most people on HN also probably post on reddit anyway so.