Cypher is an underappreciated gem in my view, and mainly about the ability to trust your own memory.
I think Serpico makes a point very relevant to here—that to be a hero you essentially have to be a bit of a crank.
I enjoyed The Prestige; the plot shows the importance of questioning one’s basic assumptions, though the narrative is about becoming great at something but sacrificing a lot to do so—I’m not sure how true that is.
The Other Guys was fun as an antidote to a certain kind of action movie.
And FWIW I hated Primer, as someone who very much enjoyed Memento.
though the narrative is about becoming great at something but sacrificing a lot to do so—I’m not sure how true that is.
Every person who is notable for being the best at what they do who I’ve heard talk about this emphasizes the importance of focus, specifically not doing other things so that they can do the thing they’re the best at. I get the sense that’s a very true lesson which is very hard for people to accept.
The contradiction isn’t clear to me. Given two people with formidable intellects, the one who focuses all their attention on X will go much further at X than the person who dabbles among twenty things.
Significantly diminishing returns in terms of, say, “piano skill per hour invested,” but “dollars earned per piano skill” can be such that “dollars earned per hour invested” has increasing returns, rather than decreasing returns, especially when considering world-class abilities.
Cypher is an underappreciated gem in my view, and mainly about the ability to trust your own memory.
I think Serpico makes a point very relevant to here—that to be a hero you essentially have to be a bit of a crank.
I enjoyed The Prestige; the plot shows the importance of questioning one’s basic assumptions, though the narrative is about becoming great at something but sacrificing a lot to do so—I’m not sure how true that is.
The Other Guys was fun as an antidote to a certain kind of action movie.
And FWIW I hated Primer, as someone who very much enjoyed Memento.
Every person who is notable for being the best at what they do who I’ve heard talk about this emphasizes the importance of focus, specifically not doing other things so that they can do the thing they’re the best at. I get the sense that’s a very true lesson which is very hard for people to accept.
That’s my experience too, but it seems to be contradicted by e.g. http://lesswrong.com/lw/ub/competent_elites/
The contradiction isn’t clear to me. Given two people with formidable intellects, the one who focuses all their attention on X will go much further at X than the person who dabbles among twenty things.
If X has significantly diminishing returns at the high end, the pure-Xer will have improved only slightly, at the expense of the twenty other things.
Significantly diminishing returns in terms of, say, “piano skill per hour invested,” but “dollars earned per piano skill” can be such that “dollars earned per hour invested” has increasing returns, rather than decreasing returns, especially when considering world-class abilities.