6 ms·

What's success? What does it mean in and of itself? Certainly, they can be successful, but at what? Not likely anything great.

unalone 18y ago
See, but you treat "success" and "great" like objective things. Everybody thinks different things for them. If you're like me and think that greatness is a few-times-in-a-century thing, then look at the people who achieve it, you'll be astonished. Some of my big-list people aren't people you'd expect at all. Bill Watterson, who was by all accounts keep-to-himself in school. Samuel Beckett, who entered college as a cricket fiend and slowly gravitated towards writing. Nobody tries to be great. There's the limit. Few average-minded people will attempt anything extraordinary. Few smart people will, for that matter. And if you don't try, you don't do it. That said, none of the great works I've seen in my life are things I've felt to be beyond me. Do you feel otherwise? Do you look at things and feel like you could not, at birth, have entered a path of life capable of producing those things? The things I think are beyond me are beyond me by choice. I won't ever write virtuoso piano music, because I don't want to spend 20 years learning to play the piano well enough to write that stuff. But if I really, really wanted to, I could, given enough time. The problem is that few people realize that. They see something complex and decide they could never do that, not realizing that the more you know the simpler it seems.
- anovaskulk 18y ago
  So you're saying everyone has the potential to be great? That's just not true. Yes, most people never come near their full potential, but not everyone is born equal, and not everyone can do anything, if they just try hard enough. On second read, maybe that's not what you're saying, and I missunderstood. Forgive me--I haven't slept in 40 hours. :-)
  - unalone 18y ago
    Haha, I was up until 6 in the morning when this thread opened, I know the feeling. (You should get some sleep!) What I said in the other branch of this thread is that you'll never know if you can be great unless you spend your life trying, and that so few people do try that almost all of the people who really strive for it end up succeeding, to at least some degree.
  - lliiffee 18y ago
    "potential" is a dangerous word. What I was trying to say is that what holds most people back isn't IQ. There are huge numbers of people with high IQs who accomplish little. The really rare people who accomplish amazing things are distinguished, I think, more by their passion, interests, and work habits. The threshold to be a Woz is obviously, very high. I just don't think that threshold is mostly measured in terms of "smart".
    - gravitycop 18y ago
      There are huge numbers of people with high IQs who accomplish little. Have you read, or read of, any of these longitudinal studies?: http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/eric/faq/gt-long.html http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/eric/faq/gt-long.html The best known longitudinal studies were conducted by Louis Terman. In 1921 Terman and his colleagues began a longitudinal study of 1,528 gifted youth with IQs greater than 140 who were approximately 12 years old. Over a period of approximately 40 years, the researchers laid the groundwork for our understanding of giftedness and paved the way for efforts to identify and nurture giftedness in school. Terman died in 1959 but the study will continue until 2020, to encompass the entire lives of his original 1528 gifted youth. Results of the study have been published in several volumes http://books.google.com/books?id=KQ4rLiAbHQQC&pg=PA41&vq=terman&dq=terman&source=gbs_search_r&cad=1_1 http://books.google.com/books?id=KQ4rLiAbHQQC&pg=PA41&#3... Intelligence is an important determinant of lifetime achivement. The classical study demonstrating this association was carried out by Lewis Terman and his colleagues. The study began around 1920 by intelligence testing a large number of children in California. From this sample they selected 1,528 (857 boys and 671 girls) with IQs of 135 and above. The minimum IQ of 135 represents approximately the top one percent of the population. The average IQ of the total sample was 151 (Terman, 1925). These children were followed up thirty-five years after their initial identification when they were in their early forties. By this time, the authors of the follow-up concluded that "the superior child, with few exceptions, becomes the able adult, superior in nearly every respect to the generality" (Terman and Oden, 1959, p. 143). Terman and his associated found that 70 percent of their sample had graduated from college; two fifths of the men and three fifths of the women had gone through graduate school. Of the men, 86 percent were in the two highest socioeconomic categories of professions and management. None of these individuals were in the lowest socioeconomic category of unskilled workers, as compared with 13 percent of the male population at that time. Seventy of the men were listed in American Men of Science, and three had been elected to the National Academy of Sciences. Thirty-one were listed in Who's Who in America. Between them, they had produced nearly 2000 scientific papers, some 60 books in the sciences, 230 patents, and 33 novels. Fourteen percent of the men did not fulfill the promise of their high IQs and failed to obtain socioeconomic class one or two occupations. These men were almost all impaired by psychiatric problems or lack of motivation. Among the women, most of them became housewives and mothers and consequently did not have such visible achievements. Nevertheless, seven women were listed in American Men of Science and two in Who's Who in America. Between them they had produced 32 scholarly books, 5 novels, more than 200 scientific papers, and 5 patents.

unalone 18y ago

See, but you treat "success" and "great" like objective things. Everybody thinks different things for them. If you're like me and think that greatness is a few-times-in-a-century thing, then look at the people who achieve it, you'll be astonished. Some of my big-list people aren't people you'd expect at all. Bill Watterson, who was by all accounts keep-to-himself in school. Samuel Beckett, who entered college as a cricket fiend and slowly gravitated towards writing. Nobody tries to be great. There's the limit. Few average-minded people will attempt anything extraordinary. Few smart people will, for that matter. And if you don't try, you don't do it. That said, none of the great works I've seen in my life are things I've felt to be beyond me. Do you feel otherwise? Do you look at things and feel like you could not, at birth, have entered a path of life capable of producing those things? The things I think are beyond me are beyond me by choice. I won't ever write virtuoso piano music, because I don't want to spend 20 years learning to play the piano well enough to write that stuff. But if I really, really wanted to, I could, given enough time. The problem is that few people realize that. They see something complex and decide they could never do that, not realizing that the more you know the simpler it seems.

anovaskulk 18y ago
So you're saying everyone has the potential to be great? That's just not true. Yes, most people never come near their full potential, but not everyone is born equal, and not everyone can do anything, if they just try hard enough. On second read, maybe that's not what you're saying, and I missunderstood. Forgive me--I haven't slept in 40 hours. :-)
- unalone 18y ago
  Haha, I was up until 6 in the morning when this thread opened, I know the feeling. (You should get some sleep!) What I said in the other branch of this thread is that you'll never know if you can be great unless you spend your life trying, and that so few people do try that almost all of the people who really strive for it end up succeeding, to at least some degree.
- lliiffee 18y ago
  "potential" is a dangerous word. What I was trying to say is that what holds most people back isn't IQ. There are huge numbers of people with high IQs who accomplish little. The really rare people who accomplish amazing things are distinguished, I think, more by their passion, interests, and work habits. The threshold to be a Woz is obviously, very high. I just don't think that threshold is mostly measured in terms of "smart".
  - gravitycop 18y ago
    There are huge numbers of people with high IQs who accomplish little. Have you read, or read of, any of these longitudinal studies?: http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/eric/faq/gt-long.html http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/eric/faq/gt-long.html The best known longitudinal studies were conducted by Louis Terman. In 1921 Terman and his colleagues began a longitudinal study of 1,528 gifted youth with IQs greater than 140 who were approximately 12 years old. Over a period of approximately 40 years, the researchers laid the groundwork for our understanding of giftedness and paved the way for efforts to identify and nurture giftedness in school. Terman died in 1959 but the study will continue until 2020, to encompass the entire lives of his original 1528 gifted youth. Results of the study have been published in several volumes http://books.google.com/books?id=KQ4rLiAbHQQC&pg=PA41&vq=terman&dq=terman&source=gbs_search_r&cad=1_1 http://books.google.com/books?id=KQ4rLiAbHQQC&pg=PA41&#3... Intelligence is an important determinant of lifetime achivement. The classical study demonstrating this association was carried out by Lewis Terman and his colleagues. The study began around 1920 by intelligence testing a large number of children in California. From this sample they selected 1,528 (857 boys and 671 girls) with IQs of 135 and above. The minimum IQ of 135 represents approximately the top one percent of the population. The average IQ of the total sample was 151 (Terman, 1925). These children were followed up thirty-five years after their initial identification when they were in their early forties. By this time, the authors of the follow-up concluded that "the superior child, with few exceptions, becomes the able adult, superior in nearly every respect to the generality" (Terman and Oden, 1959, p. 143). Terman and his associated found that 70 percent of their sample had graduated from college; two fifths of the men and three fifths of the women had gone through graduate school. Of the men, 86 percent were in the two highest socioeconomic categories of professions and management. None of these individuals were in the lowest socioeconomic category of unskilled workers, as compared with 13 percent of the male population at that time. Seventy of the men were listed in American Men of Science, and three had been elected to the National Academy of Sciences. Thirty-one were listed in Who's Who in America. Between them, they had produced nearly 2000 scientific papers, some 60 books in the sciences, 230 patents, and 33 novels. Fourteen percent of the men did not fulfill the promise of their high IQs and failed to obtain socioeconomic class one or two occupations. These men were almost all impaired by psychiatric problems or lack of motivation. Among the women, most of them became housewives and mothers and consequently did not have such visible achievements. Nevertheless, seven women were listed in American Men of Science and two in Who's Who in America. Between them they had produced 32 scholarly books, 5 novels, more than 200 scientific papers, and 5 patents.