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95%-ile isn't that good.* * The caveat of course being that you dedicate all your available waking hours (not occupied with life-sustaining activities) to trai

95%-ile isn't that good.* * The caveat of course being that you dedicate all your available waking hours (not occupied with life-sustaining activities) to training and deliberately practicing a single particular skill/game and also trying to do your best every single time, which is incredibly mentally taxing. It's even more mentally taxing as you get older, since your fluid intelligence diminishes. Also, another author's mistake is diminishing the role of talent. While we know that with deliberate practice most people can achieve a 95%-ile, the real advantage of talent is how fast you can get there. Because if it takes you half as long to get there, you are able to start reaping the rewards earlier, and getting first-mover advantage.

mlyle 3y ago
I think the author's point is really that you can outperform a huge slice of people with just a little bit of careful self-reflection and asking for help, instead of putting even more effort into grinding and hoping you'll improve. Or, even: by throwing some deliberateness in to things we're doing, we can avoid a lot of frustration.
- antisthenes 3y ago
  As someone who used to be an avid gamer and reasonably competitive, "a little bit of careful self-reflection" is definitely not enough to get you in the top 5%. Top 20%, sure, because the bottom 50% doesn't even try, and the next 30% tries just enough to learn the basic mechanics. You need a certain time commitment and the ability to learn reasonably complex abstract mental models. Learning curves for many games are in the 1000s of hours. It's just not easy to fit into a busy work schedule.
  - mlyle 3y ago
    The author describes people who have >1000 hours but make basic mistakes that are easy to fix and hold down their rating. The author also describes the experience of people who are stuck, receive a small amount of quality coaching, and then massively increase in rating.
    - antisthenes 3y ago
      Yes, both of these exist. I just disagree that these 2 phenomena are conclusive proof of the title/hypothesis of the article.

mlyle 3y ago

I think the author's point is really that you can outperform a huge slice of people with just a little bit of careful self-reflection and asking for help, instead of putting even more effort into grinding and hoping you'll improve. Or, even: by throwing some deliberateness in to things we're doing, we can avoid a lot of frustration.

antisthenes 3y ago
As someone who used to be an avid gamer and reasonably competitive, "a little bit of careful self-reflection" is definitely not enough to get you in the top 5%. Top 20%, sure, because the bottom 50% doesn't even try, and the next 30% tries just enough to learn the basic mechanics. You need a certain time commitment and the ability to learn reasonably complex abstract mental models. Learning curves for many games are in the 1000s of hours. It's just not easy to fit into a busy work schedule.
- mlyle 3y ago
  The author describes people who have >1000 hours but make basic mistakes that are easy to fix and hold down their rating. The author also describes the experience of people who are stuck, receive a small amount of quality coaching, and then massively increase in rating.
  - antisthenes 3y ago
    Yes, both of these exist. I just disagree that these 2 phenomena are conclusive proof of the title/hypothesis of the article.