It’s definitely possible to “get stuck” not doing X because you’ve never tried X in your life, so you don’t know what you’re missing. Sometimes it can take people many years before they try X. And sometimes they just never do, even though they would totally “take to it” if they did.
I feel like you want to say that the never-trying-X failure mode is “the rule” and I want to say that it’s “the exception” … But if so, that might not be a real disagreement, and instead we’re just thinking about different kinds of X.
I definitely agree that it can be a thing, and brought it up in Heritability: Five Battles multiple times. My examples included X = “living in Churubusco, Indiana” (§2.2.2), or X = “becoming a Soil Conservation Technician” (§2.3), or X = “joining a niche online community like rationalism” (§2.2.3).
Yes, I do think something like “X never getting rewarded enough” is closer to a rule than weird exception. Chosen environments is one dynamic. Another dynamic here is kinds I think many things are such that if you’ve specialized, they continue to be worth doing and yield rewards, and if you didn’t, there’s a huge cliff before you’d get such benefits so won’t go down that path. E.g. a child who learned to play instrumental in childhood vs not.
I’ll write my next post which is the main point I’ve been working towards, and I’ll be quite curious for your thoughts on it.
It’s definitely possible to “get stuck” not doing X because you’ve never tried X in your life, so you don’t know what you’re missing. Sometimes it can take people many years before they try X. And sometimes they just never do, even though they would totally “take to it” if they did.
I feel like you want to say that the never-trying-X failure mode is “the rule” and I want to say that it’s “the exception” … But if so, that might not be a real disagreement, and instead we’re just thinking about different kinds of X.
I definitely agree that it can be a thing, and brought it up in Heritability: Five Battles multiple times. My examples included X = “living in Churubusco, Indiana” (§2.2.2), or X = “becoming a Soil Conservation Technician” (§2.3), or X = “joining a niche online community like rationalism” (§2.2.3).
(Or sorry if I’m still missing your point.)
Yes, I do think something like “X never getting rewarded enough” is closer to a rule than weird exception. Chosen environments is one dynamic. Another dynamic here is kinds I think many things are such that if you’ve specialized, they continue to be worth doing and yield rewards, and if you didn’t, there’s a huge cliff before you’d get such benefits so won’t go down that path. E.g. a child who learned to play instrumental in childhood vs not.
I’ll write my next post which is the main point I’ve been working towards, and I’ll be quite curious for your thoughts on it.