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"In today's world, one that changes so rapidly, it's very hard to become an expert in something and have the value of that expertise remain valuable." In my ex

"In today's world, one that changes so rapidly, it's very hard to become an expert in something and have the value of that expertise remain valuable." In my experience, a world that rapidly changes makes it very easy to become an expert. There are so few in whatever is new, and all it takes is 1 year of effort to become an expert in that field. Having the expertise remain valuable is more about luck and intuition, but I don't really care one way or the other if what I spend my time on remains valuable. The valuable part is being able to learn something, and developing the skill to learn tasks. If you repeat this with a different thing for every year of your life, you will become an expert at becoming an expert, a skill that far exceeds knowing any one domain. I don't, and have never desired what you seem to desire, learning an expertise that lasts generations. Which means, learning a domain that lasts for generations. The very act of being an expert at becoming an expert makes you impossibly valuable to any corporation that exists. The actual details of the domains is completely irrelevant.

bane 12y ago
> all it takes is 1 year of effort to become an expert in that field. I think we may have a deep disagreement of what constitutes expertise. 1 year of effort in anything is at least an order of magnitude less effort than what I'm talking about. I would consider a smart person with a year of solid effort "functional" but not even capable of sniffing what it takes to become an expert. That level of grokkiness is simply not attainable in that short of a period of time. But maybe you bring up a good point. Maybe the word has simply been redefined these days to a much weaker definition. Maybe a year of practice, in this sound-byte, short attention-span laden world, is good enough and our collective standards have fallen. After all I see job listings for "senior this or that" job all the time requiring 5-7 years experience in the field. > The very act of being an expert at becoming an expert makes you impossibly valuable to any corporation that exists. The actual details of the domains is completely irrelevant. I agree, and I think this meta-expertise really is a new thing. A new kind of paradigm of thinking that really had little analog in the past. Even the idea of a Renaissance Man, being an expert in multiple fields simultaneously, isn't quite the same thing.
- AndyNemmity 12y ago
  From PG's article "In practice "sufficiently expert" doesn't require one to be recognized as an expert—which is a trailing indicator in any case. In many fields a year of focused work plus caring a lot would be enough."
- AndyNemmity 12y ago
  "... I think this meta-expertise really is a new thing. A new kind of paradigm of thinking that really had little analog in the past. Even the idea of a Renaissance Man, being an expert in multiple fields simultaneously, isn't quite the same thing." I think it's existed as long as there has been a large hierarchy. I know people inside every corporation I work with that do this job, including myself. At some level, every executive needs someone like this. The new paradigm is how much this person can be expected to possibly know. That's what's changed. Learning has been accelerated so much that you can become fairly adept at most topics in a week or 2.

bane 12y ago

> all it takes is 1 year of effort to become an expert in that field. I think we may have a deep disagreement of what constitutes expertise. 1 year of effort in anything is at least an order of magnitude less effort than what I'm talking about. I would consider a smart person with a year of solid effort "functional" but not even capable of sniffing what it takes to become an expert. That level of grokkiness is simply not attainable in that short of a period of time. But maybe you bring up a good point. Maybe the word has simply been redefined these days to a much weaker definition. Maybe a year of practice, in this sound-byte, short attention-span laden world, is good enough and our collective standards have fallen. After all I see job listings for "senior this or that" job all the time requiring 5-7 years experience in the field. > The very act of being an expert at becoming an expert makes you impossibly valuable to any corporation that exists. The actual details of the domains is completely irrelevant. I agree, and I think this meta-expertise really is a new thing. A new kind of paradigm of thinking that really had little analog in the past. Even the idea of a Renaissance Man, being an expert in multiple fields simultaneously, isn't quite the same thing.

AndyNemmity 12y ago
From PG's article "In practice "sufficiently expert" doesn't require one to be recognized as an expert—which is a trailing indicator in any case. In many fields a year of focused work plus caring a lot would be enough."
AndyNemmity 12y ago
"... I think this meta-expertise really is a new thing. A new kind of paradigm of thinking that really had little analog in the past. Even the idea of a Renaissance Man, being an expert in multiple fields simultaneously, isn't quite the same thing." I think it's existed as long as there has been a large hierarchy. I know people inside every corporation I work with that do this job, including myself. At some level, every executive needs someone like this. The new paradigm is how much this person can be expected to possibly know. That's what's changed. Learning has been accelerated so much that you can become fairly adept at most topics in a week or 2.