My standard advice is “find your aptitude(s) and put most of your efforts into it”. This seems to evade most of the traps you mention. Aptitude/talent is less specific than a dream, and by developing it you get more possibilities open to you. Many people have multiple talents, and would be happier doing something that employs all of them or at least as many as possible.
In my observation, the biggest problem is people never bothering to figure out where there talents lie or never apply any effort into developing them. Many don’t even realize that their perfect pitch, eloquence, noticing patterns, exceptional memory, perseverance, being good with numbers, people skills etc. are exceptional rather than average, because they feel so natural to them.
So, I would not advise one to settle into a guaranteed positive-sum game unless they determine that they don’t have any talents which would give them a fair chance of beating a suitable zero-sum game.
The last sentence of your comment seems to have an implied value judgment, like beating others at a zero-sum game is virtuous, but playing a positive-sum game is “settling”. That’s a popular attitude, but a little strange to see on LW!
I think gwern sells short the argument that older fiction books are produced in different societies and reflect ideas and prejudices from those societies that we might not share. He addresses it in a reply to one of the comments, but the reply is mostly “there are prejudices in older works that don’t matter because the conflicts no longer exist” (for instance, the Pharisees in the New Testament).
I don’t think that reply is on point. While there are some prejudices that are obsolete, there are others which are not—sexism is endemic in older works, for instance. gwern’s reply to that is that the world was sexist back then and it would be worse propaganda to depict the old world with modern values. But that is only relevant insofar as the fiction is about the old world—fiction which is set in modern times can simultaneously depict less sexism than older fiction and be true to the world in which it is set. It also fails to consider that there’s a difference between accurately depicting the world as sexist and writing fiction which approves of this state of affairs.
And some ideas in some media are really new. Quick, how many American TV shows with female action heroes can you name that came out prior to Xena? Heck, forget sexism and any other form of -ism; how many American TV shows that are heavily story arc driven can you name that came out prior to about 20 years ago?
He also didn’t address differences that are not propaganda-based, such as there not being Shakespeare plays about the Internet. Science fiction is especially prone to this due to advances in scientific knowledge.
The last sentence of your comment seems to have an implied value judgment, like beating others at a zero-sum game is virtuous, but playing a positive-sum game is “settling”.
I must have been unclear, this was not a value judgment, but an estimate of how happy one would feel. Plenty of talented people are not ambitious and perfectly happy to not develop their strengths to the max. I implicitly assumed a certain level of ambition, since a low-ambition person would likely not even concern themselves with “following dreams” and just happily go with the flow.
What do you think of Gwern’s argument that we don’t need more fiction books?
I am happy to discuss this question, but I don’t see how it is relevant to the OP.
Wait, are you saying that ambition can only be fulfilled by playing zero-sum games? Creating a successful software company can yield more money than playing in the NBA. To me the question is more about which games you should choose, not how hard you should try to succeed. Or maybe I’m just completely misunderstanding your comments...
Wait, are you saying that ambition can only be fulfilled by playing zero-sum games?
Yeah, seems like a misunderstanding. Not sure where you inferred the “only” part from. Winning in zero-sum games is harder (but the reward is usually bigger), so no point playing them if you don’t care all that much. Anyway, it’s best to invent your own games, then they are positive sum for you.
Winning in zero-sum games is harder (but the reward is usually bigger)
Really? Business is generally positive sum: you win big by being unique, not by competing head to head. Sports is zero sum. Here are figures I came up with from a quick search.
Total of the 100 highest paid CEOs in the world in 2013: 3.028 billion.
Total of the 100 highest paid athletes in the world in 12 months to June 2014: 2.75 billion
I had actually expected the difference to be larger in that direction, but certainly the athletes are not doing better than the businessmen.
One could think of a lot of other possible measures; that was just one it was easy to find figures for.
In positive psychology research there seems to be a big focus on developing your strengths (= what you called aptitudes), so this is pretty standard advice. I usually suggest Gallup’sStrengthbooks, not necessarily because it’s the best way of finding your strengths (I haven’t researched this enough to know one way or the other), but because it gives a solid strengths-based growth perspective and is at least somewhat helpful in identifying specific strengths.
Right. I was simply emphasizing the difference between dreams and strengths. In (a loosely applied) Kahneman’s terminology, use your System 2 to build on your System 1, not to fight it.
Another standard point is “use it or lose it”. If you don’t develop your strengths/talents early, they fade with age. It’s most obvious in sports and music, but applies to almost anything.
My standard advice is “find your aptitude(s) and put most of your efforts into it”. This seems to evade most of the traps you mention. Aptitude/talent is less specific than a dream, and by developing it you get more possibilities open to you. Many people have multiple talents, and would be happier doing something that employs all of them or at least as many as possible.
In my observation, the biggest problem is people never bothering to figure out where there talents lie or never apply any effort into developing them. Many don’t even realize that their perfect pitch, eloquence, noticing patterns, exceptional memory, perseverance, being good with numbers, people skills etc. are exceptional rather than average, because they feel so natural to them.
So, I would not advise one to settle into a guaranteed positive-sum game unless they determine that they don’t have any talents which would give them a fair chance of beating a suitable zero-sum game.
The last sentence of your comment seems to have an implied value judgment, like beating others at a zero-sum game is virtuous, but playing a positive-sum game is “settling”. That’s a popular attitude, but a little strange to see on LW!
What do you think of Gwern’s argument that we don’t need more fiction books?
I think gwern sells short the argument that older fiction books are produced in different societies and reflect ideas and prejudices from those societies that we might not share. He addresses it in a reply to one of the comments, but the reply is mostly “there are prejudices in older works that don’t matter because the conflicts no longer exist” (for instance, the Pharisees in the New Testament).
I don’t think that reply is on point. While there are some prejudices that are obsolete, there are others which are not—sexism is endemic in older works, for instance. gwern’s reply to that is that the world was sexist back then and it would be worse propaganda to depict the old world with modern values. But that is only relevant insofar as the fiction is about the old world—fiction which is set in modern times can simultaneously depict less sexism than older fiction and be true to the world in which it is set. It also fails to consider that there’s a difference between accurately depicting the world as sexist and writing fiction which approves of this state of affairs.
And some ideas in some media are really new. Quick, how many American TV shows with female action heroes can you name that came out prior to Xena? Heck, forget sexism and any other form of -ism; how many American TV shows that are heavily story arc driven can you name that came out prior to about 20 years ago?
He also didn’t address differences that are not propaganda-based, such as there not being Shakespeare plays about the Internet. Science fiction is especially prone to this due to advances in scientific knowledge.
I must have been unclear, this was not a value judgment, but an estimate of how happy one would feel. Plenty of talented people are not ambitious and perfectly happy to not develop their strengths to the max. I implicitly assumed a certain level of ambition, since a low-ambition person would likely not even concern themselves with “following dreams” and just happily go with the flow.
I am happy to discuss this question, but I don’t see how it is relevant to the OP.
Wait, are you saying that ambition can only be fulfilled by playing zero-sum games? Creating a successful software company can yield more money than playing in the NBA. To me the question is more about which games you should choose, not how hard you should try to succeed. Or maybe I’m just completely misunderstanding your comments...
Yeah, seems like a misunderstanding. Not sure where you inferred the “only” part from. Winning in zero-sum games is harder (but the reward is usually bigger), so no point playing them if you don’t care all that much. Anyway, it’s best to invent your own games, then they are positive sum for you.
Really? Business is generally positive sum: you win big by being unique, not by competing head to head. Sports is zero sum. Here are figures I came up with from a quick search.
Total of the 100 highest paid CEOs in the world in 2013: 3.028 billion.
Total of the 100 highest paid athletes in the world in 12 months to June 2014: 2.75 billion
I had actually expected the difference to be larger in that direction, but certainly the athletes are not doing better than the businessmen.
One could think of a lot of other possible measures; that was just one it was easy to find figures for.
In positive psychology research there seems to be a big focus on developing your strengths (= what you called aptitudes), so this is pretty standard advice. I usually suggest Gallup’s Strength books, not necessarily because it’s the best way of finding your strengths (I haven’t researched this enough to know one way or the other), but because it gives a solid strengths-based growth perspective and is at least somewhat helpful in identifying specific strengths.
Right. I was simply emphasizing the difference between dreams and strengths. In (a loosely applied) Kahneman’s terminology, use your System 2 to build on your System 1, not to fight it.
Another standard point is “use it or lose it”. If you don’t develop your strengths/talents early, they fade with age. It’s most obvious in sports and music, but applies to almost anything.