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10,000 hour rule is a rule of thumb, a saying, and a wonderfully fantastic one at that. It's stunningly simple, I think that's what makes it so compelling. It's

by selmnoo 12y ago

10,000 hour rule is a rule of thumb, a saying, and a wonderfully fantastic one at that. It's stunningly simple, I think that's what makes it so compelling. It's basically the phrase "practice makes perfect" modernized. Of course it's not 100% true, but for most people it's excellent advice. The advice is basically "keep practicing, keep pushing yourself, seek good instruction, try to get feedback from people who know what they're doing". My argument is that 10,000 hour rule has become the "practice makes perfect" of today. Just like a lot of sayings passed down from generation to generation it's not 100% true, but to nitpick it is beyond useless, it's harmful. Why not tell people to try really hard at whatever they'd like to be good at? What's the alternative... don't try hard, because there's a small chance you won't get good at it despite your best efforts? That's senseless. I'm sorry, I think your criticism is harmful. 10,000 hour rule as it is exchanged today between people, in the kind of Gladwell narrative (which may not be scientifically valid 100%), is advice that's easy to internalize, and motivates people to try hard really well. I hate to see it being shot down by this kind of bikeshedding. Because apparently, at least to me, the only other alternative is gutless, feckless defeatist, overly-cautious "be warned that even if you try, you're not going to succeed". Screw that, I'd rather fail after trying really hard than to not having tried at all.

haberman 12y ago
> 10,000 hour rule is a rule of thumb, a saying, and a wonderfully fantastic one at that. It's stunningly simple Yes, but is it true? There are plenty of platitudes that are "fastastic" and "simple," but aren't true. Maybe you get comfort from believing things even if they're not actually true, but I really deeply do not. > Why not tell people to try really hard at whatever they'd like to be good at? What's the alternative... don't try hard, because there's a small chance you won't get good at it despite your best efforts? Did you read my comment? I am arguing that if someone really wants to feel the satisfaction of success, they should become deeply acquainted with their talents, because pursuing things you are talented at gives you by far the best chance of success. I always wished I was better at drawing. I've put in some concerted effort at it multiple times (like not a ton, but enough to realize that I am frustratingly non-talented at it). If my parents had truly made me believe the 10k hour rule, I might still be trying to make that happen instead of following my true talents, which I've achieved a pretty high level of achievement at. I'm not saying you should steer kids away from things they are interested in, or tell them they can't succeed. I'm just saying: help them to know themselves, and don't plant in them the idea that 10k hours will magically make them awesome at anything.
- selmnoo 12y ago
  > Yes, but is it true? As I said, it's probably not 100% true, but that doesn't matter. I care deeply about greater happiness and well-being of a society, I want people to be hopeful and diligent in acquiring skills, and as it happens, the 10,000 hour rule is an effectual guiding maxim to go by. Again, what's the alternative solution to motivate people to try hard? A tentative "go ahead and try, but just be aware you might not succeed" type advice doesn't work. It's not a solution that'll yield good results. 10,000 hour rule probably makes a lot of people try things that they never would have otherwise. I picked up the guitar with the intention of becoming a rockstar a la 10,000 hour rule. Of course I didn't reach rock stardom, but I certainly got good enough to be really happy with the few pieces I was able to play. 10,000 rule is a nice rule to have in our society's canons of unwritten rules. The cultural importance of the rule as it exists today, for the great results it can give, should rightly transcend its minutiae.
  - haberman 12y ago
    > As I said, it's probably not 100% true, but that doesn't matter. It matters to me. If you were my parent and you told me the 10k hour rule even though it wasn't true, I would be really annoyed that I couldn't trust the adults in my life to tell me the truth. I am sure that not everyone feels the way I do about this, but I feel this way very strongly, and you don't seem to acknowledge that anyone could possibly prefer a truth-based approach to this. > Again, what's the alternative solution to motivate people to try hard? Well one way would be: "Everyone who is good at this put in a lot of work. No one started out knowing everything." That, unlike the promise that 10k hours promises anything, would actually be true.
    - selmnoo 12y ago
      If absolute truthfulness matters greatly to you, I would like advice from you about how to live life happily in face of the fact that we live in a deterministic universe that gives us no free will (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_determinism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_determinism), and that we evolved from primates who kill and rape, and it's potentially in our nature to do the same. I'm serious in asking this, because I think you might have a good answer. These are truths (and I presume they are truths to you too) that are hard to reconcile with, at least for me. How do you reconcile with them? I apologize profusely for the digression, I don't think it's a ridiculous one though, as we're basically now talking about epistemological limits of truth anyway.

by selmnoo 12y ago

haberman 12y ago

> 10,000 hour rule is a rule of thumb, a saying, and a wonderfully fantastic one at that. It's stunningly simple Yes, but is it true? There are plenty of platitudes that are "fastastic" and "simple," but aren't true. Maybe you get comfort from believing things even if they're not actually true, but I really deeply do not. > Why not tell people to try really hard at whatever they'd like to be good at? What's the alternative... don't try hard, because there's a small chance you won't get good at it despite your best efforts? Did you read my comment? I am arguing that if someone really wants to feel the satisfaction of success, they should become deeply acquainted with their talents, because pursuing things you are talented at gives you by far the best chance of success. I always wished I was better at drawing. I've put in some concerted effort at it multiple times (like not a ton, but enough to realize that I am frustratingly non-talented at it). If my parents had truly made me believe the 10k hour rule, I might still be trying to make that happen instead of following my true talents, which I've achieved a pretty high level of achievement at. I'm not saying you should steer kids away from things they are interested in, or tell them they can't succeed. I'm just saying: help them to know themselves, and don't plant in them the idea that 10k hours will magically make them awesome at anything.

selmnoo 12y ago
> Yes, but is it true? As I said, it's probably not 100% true, but that doesn't matter. I care deeply about greater happiness and well-being of a society, I want people to be hopeful and diligent in acquiring skills, and as it happens, the 10,000 hour rule is an effectual guiding maxim to go by. Again, what's the alternative solution to motivate people to try hard? A tentative "go ahead and try, but just be aware you might not succeed" type advice doesn't work. It's not a solution that'll yield good results. 10,000 hour rule probably makes a lot of people try things that they never would have otherwise. I picked up the guitar with the intention of becoming a rockstar a la 10,000 hour rule. Of course I didn't reach rock stardom, but I certainly got good enough to be really happy with the few pieces I was able to play. 10,000 rule is a nice rule to have in our society's canons of unwritten rules. The cultural importance of the rule as it exists today, for the great results it can give, should rightly transcend its minutiae.
- haberman 12y ago
  > As I said, it's probably not 100% true, but that doesn't matter. It matters to me. If you were my parent and you told me the 10k hour rule even though it wasn't true, I would be really annoyed that I couldn't trust the adults in my life to tell me the truth. I am sure that not everyone feels the way I do about this, but I feel this way very strongly, and you don't seem to acknowledge that anyone could possibly prefer a truth-based approach to this. > Again, what's the alternative solution to motivate people to try hard? Well one way would be: "Everyone who is good at this put in a lot of work. No one started out knowing everything." That, unlike the promise that 10k hours promises anything, would actually be true.
  - selmnoo 12y ago
    If absolute truthfulness matters greatly to you, I would like advice from you about how to live life happily in face of the fact that we live in a deterministic universe that gives us no free will (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_determinism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_determinism), and that we evolved from primates who kill and rape, and it's potentially in our nature to do the same. I'm serious in asking this, because I think you might have a good answer. These are truths (and I presume they are truths to you too) that are hard to reconcile with, at least for me. How do you reconcile with them? I apologize profusely for the digression, I don't think it's a ridiculous one though, as we're basically now talking about epistemological limits of truth anyway.