When you are older, you will learn that the first and foremost thing which any ordinary person does is nothing.
-- Professor Quirrel, HPMOR
Like, obviously I don’t mean the above straightforwardly, which kind of just dodges the question, but I think the underlying generator of it points towards something real. In particular, I think that most of human behavior is guided by habit and following other people’s examples. Very few humans are motivated by any form of explicit argument when it comes to their major life decisions and are instead primarily trying to stabilize their personal life, compete locally to get access to resources, and follow the example that other people around them have set and were socially rewarded for.
Concretely I think that humanity at large, in its choice of what it works on, should be modeled as an extremely sluggish system that tries to make minimal adjustments to its actions unless very strong forces compel it to (the industrial revolution was one such force, which did indeed reshape humanity’s everyday life much more than basically any event before it*).
So, most of the people I would like to be working on the important things are following deeply entrenched paths that only shift slowly, mostly driven by habits, local satisficing and social precedence.
I also have this model, and think it well-predicts lots of human behavior. But it doesn’t feel obvious to me that it also well-predicts the behavior of this 50, who I would expect to be unusually motivated by explicit arguments, unusually likely to gravitate toward the most interesting explicit arguments, etc.
I’ve been told, by people much smarter than me, and more connected to even smarter people, that the very elite, in terms of IQ have a sense of learned helplessness about the world.
According to this story, the smartest people in the world look around, and see stupidity all around them: the world is populated by, controlled by, such people who regularly make senseless decisions, and can’t even tell that they’re senseless. And it is obvious that trying to get people to understand is hopeless: aside from the fact that most of them basically can’t understand, you are small, and the world is huge.
So these people go and do math, and make a good life for themselves, and don’t worry about the world.
Very few humans are motivated by any form of explicit argument when it comes to their major life decisions
Strictly speaking, I agree with you. However, I want to emphasize that I disagree with the idea that this behavior is innate and that there’s just some people who happen to be non-conformist. In reality, most top mathematicians simply aren’t exposed to arguments for non-conformity and this explains the variance in non-conformity much more than an innate tendency to non-conform.
Like, obviously I don’t mean the above straightforwardly, which kind of just dodges the question, but I think the underlying generator of it points towards something real. In particular, I think that most of human behavior is guided by habit and following other people’s examples. Very few humans are motivated by any form of explicit argument when it comes to their major life decisions and are instead primarily trying to stabilize their personal life, compete locally to get access to resources, and follow the example that other people around them have set and were socially rewarded for.
Concretely I think that humanity at large, in its choice of what it works on, should be modeled as an extremely sluggish system that tries to make minimal adjustments to its actions unless very strong forces compel it to (the industrial revolution was one such force, which did indeed reshape humanity’s everyday life much more than basically any event before it*).
So, most of the people I would like to be working on the important things are following deeply entrenched paths that only shift slowly, mostly driven by habits, local satisficing and social precedence.
I also have this model, and think it well-predicts lots of human behavior. But it doesn’t feel obvious to me that it also well-predicts the behavior of this 50, who I would expect to be unusually motivated by explicit arguments, unusually likely to gravitate toward the most interesting explicit arguments, etc.
I’ve been told, by people much smarter than me, and more connected to even smarter people, that the very elite, in terms of IQ have a sense of learned helplessness about the world.
According to this story, the smartest people in the world look around, and see stupidity all around them: the world is populated by, controlled by, such people who regularly make senseless decisions, and can’t even tell that they’re senseless. And it is obvious that trying to get people to understand is hopeless: aside from the fact that most of them basically can’t understand, you are small, and the world is huge.
So these people go and do math, and make a good life for themselves, and don’t worry about the world.
[I don’t know if this story is true.]
Strictly speaking, I agree with you. However, I want to emphasize that I disagree with the idea that this behavior is innate and that there’s just some people who happen to be non-conformist. In reality, most top mathematicians simply aren’t exposed to arguments for non-conformity and this explains the variance in non-conformity much more than an innate tendency to non-conform.