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It's because I'm a bad chess player, and most people are bad at reasoning from first principles. Elon Musk is one of may be five people in the world who can act

It's because I'm a bad chess player, and most people are bad at reasoning from first principles. Elon Musk is one of may be five people in the world who can actually pull it off. Hero worship is mistaken. The reason you're bad at chess is because you believe you're bad at chess, so you don't practice. Similarly, most people don't believe they can be Musk, so they don't even try.

enraged_camel 13y ago
Well yes, most people don't make millions of dollars from a successful exit, so they literally don't have the resources to try to build a car company and a space company and run them simultaneously.
- smokeyj 13y ago
  I think everyone can benefit from learning how to reason in principle. Unfortunately it's habit forming and can causes tension with the uninitiated.
ImprovedSilence 13y ago
Bingo. To the millionth degree. Most people are just blind to the pure amount of effort and work that needs to be put into to getting the right answer. They'd rather just stack it up to being "bad/dumb".
nbouscal 13y ago
Spot on. Some research to back you up: http://alumni.stanford.edu/get/page/magazine/article/?article_id=32124 http://alumni.stanford.edu/get/page/magazine/article/?articl...
- mkingston 13y ago
  Do you know what the article means by: "why some become Muhammad Ali and others Mike Tyson"? I think it's contrasting the success of Ali with the (inferred) lack thereof of Tyson. Maybe? But that doesn't make any sense to me; the first paragraph of Tyson's Wikipedia page will tell you why. Unless it's talking about social success. In which case it seems out of context of the article.
  - nbouscal 13y ago
    I know very little about boxing, so I'm really not sure. My thought would be that though both were successful, perhaps Ali was an underdog who became successful where Tyson started successful but hit a plateau? I have no idea whether or not that maps to reality, that's just pattern matching. The other possibility is that the author of the article knows the same amount about boxing as I do, and chose an unfortunate analogy.

enraged_camel 13y ago

Well yes, most people don't make millions of dollars from a successful exit, so they literally don't have the resources to try to build a car company and a space company and run them simultaneously.

smokeyj 13y ago
I think everyone can benefit from learning how to reason in principle. Unfortunately it's habit forming and can causes tension with the uninitiated.

ImprovedSilence 13y ago

Bingo. To the millionth degree. Most people are just blind to the pure amount of effort and work that needs to be put into to getting the right answer. They'd rather just stack it up to being "bad/dumb".

nbouscal 13y ago

Spot on. Some research to back you up: http://alumni.stanford.edu/get/page/magazine/article/?article_id=32124 http://alumni.stanford.edu/get/page/magazine/article/?articl...

mkingston 13y ago
Do you know what the article means by: "why some become Muhammad Ali and others Mike Tyson"? I think it's contrasting the success of Ali with the (inferred) lack thereof of Tyson. Maybe? But that doesn't make any sense to me; the first paragraph of Tyson's Wikipedia page will tell you why. Unless it's talking about social success. In which case it seems out of context of the article.
- nbouscal 13y ago
  I know very little about boxing, so I'm really not sure. My thought would be that though both were successful, perhaps Ali was an underdog who became successful where Tyson started successful but hit a plateau? I have no idea whether or not that maps to reality, that's just pattern matching. The other possibility is that the author of the article knows the same amount about boxing as I do, and chose an unfortunate analogy.