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We should probably figure out how to hyper-specialize people by the age of five
It’s known that to be the best chess player or instrumentalist you need to start at a young age, with ~5 being a common age to start for the best in the world. If you’re a chess prodigy or world class cellist, you hyperfocus on these skills throughout your childhood, and it’s accepted that you sacrifice normal schooling and extra-curriculars to pursue your skill. But why do we only allow this for the most worthless skills? There’s nothing unique about chess or cello — to be the best at any skill you need to start at around five. The Olympian Yuto Horigome started skateboarding before he could walk; Mark Zuckerberg started making apps before he was a teenager; Noam Chomsky joined political discussions as a child when accompanying his father to the newspaper stand; Linda Ronstadt learned all the genres of music she would later perform before 10; Von Neumann and Mozart had legendary childhood specializations.
But every skill is like this. If we want the best therapists, they need to be practicing conversation and understanding people by five, hours every day. If we want the best philosophers or practical thinkers, they need to be arguing and testing themselves by five, hours every day. Similar for movie directors, novelists, designers. This even applies to skills that are essential but not economical, like being a good mother, or being a good friend. And to skills that are essential for implementing political change, like writers and representatives and propagandists and moralists. Imagine if your teacher in school were a master at motivating, disciplining, and explaining, and had training in these skills like Mozart with music? Imagine if everyone’s gym teacher or exercise trainer had training to be like Jocko Willick and Tony Robbins? How much more accurate would your doctor’s diagnosis be if he had trained in medicine since five, instead of 21? (By five, a child can learn 5 different languages without accent. By 13, Magnus Carlsen’s skill equaled that of a 40yo Garry Kasparov). We all enjoy Scott’s writings — now imagine a version of Scott that is a better writer, specialized in writing, who outputs even more?
I think we are wasting enormous potential for social improvement by corralling every child into the same mandatory (and inefficient) skill-training, instead of specializing them at an early age. Would Mozart be more valuable for knowing biology? What if Caravaggio knew calculus? What if Einstein took a Spanish class for 2000 precious childhood hours? What if George Washington knew what an atom was? We would have just made them worse, and the world worse by consequence. We are raising up a generation of woefully mid professionals — a whole society of sub-perfect workers across every industry. Everyone a jack of trades, master of none.
And this is more serious than just “they aren’t as good”. It’s also that they can’t perform as many work iterations in a day, their working years are shorter, and they are more stressed (which has multigenerational effects). That little kid you see at the Chinese restaurant ringing up the order for his parents hasn’t just learned to perform that specific skill well, he is also able to perform it for more hours in the day, he can start at a younger age, and he incurs less of a stress cost. That means he is happier, which means you get happier, and it also means his stress is reduced, which means his kid is healthier, and so the cycle goes on. There’s no reason why this shouldn’t apply to a number of industries.
Lastly, I wonder if the “wasteful hobby specialization” among Western youth isn’t due to our denial of their specialization instinct. Boys love becoming experts at something, and today they become experts at video games, or their hair, or some entertainment product, or memes. We have excluded them from any useful specialization, and so they specialize in uselessness, forming a perverse “pair-bond” with a hobby instead of a career. This is a grave evil. How many Asmongolds have we brought into the world, experts at a fantasy world because they have been denied real life’s RPG? This element can’t be ignored. A world where everyone you meet is as passionate in their work as a WoW player would be close to perfection.
I don't know as much about other domains, but I know a bit about music. Like a lot of people I started in the school band, took lessons as a kid, was in some ensembles in college, but never thought about actually making a living from it. I have played enough to have met some very skilled players over the years, and am acquainted with even more. All the real maestros I've known in my life yes, started young, but they also had at least one parent who was a professional musician at some level, even if its just a highschool choir director. Many of the musicians mentioned above also are the children of musicians. Just growing up surrounded by that world is a huge advantage, IF it ignites something in the child. This is a big IF. No amount of 'pushing' the child into music can really substitute for that internal experience that only some kids get when they're young and exposed to music through a skilled parent, usually around 4 or so. The best guitarist I know is the son of a professional guitarist father and a singer mother. He became fixated on the guitar at 5 years old and was playing 5-10 hours a day by the time he was 10, absolutely obsessed, and has been playing professionally since he was 15. He has 2 brothers and a sister who were somewhat musical as kids, had the same support system in place, but it just didn't take. They went on to be an engineer, doctor, and career naval officer.
Just having a training or educational program to force young kids into isn't enough. Something has to resonate within the child as well to get the exceptional results as an adult you see in the above examples. I've met a lot of people who were, in their opinion, forced into piano, violin, or other prestige instruments as kids, sometimes for over a decade of constant practice. As soon as they got to college and started on a career track in some other high status domain they abandoned music as fast as they could. They never liked it, it was an affectation of their parents own status seeking. In my estimation it takes three components: first, the formal educational/support system mentioned above. Actual correct instruction. Second, internal motivation that can often be described as obsession, like they become addicted to the pursuit as a child, and finally raw biological/genetic talent/potential. This last one is tougher to capture, can't really be instilled, and people just have it or they don't. In music some people just have an amazing ear, as it were, and a memory for music and ability to create/recreate that exceeds what can realistically be taught. A good example of a professional like this is Tori Amos. She had pianist mother, 6 years of conservatory (5-11, she seems to have lacked the raw discipline to go further as she was expelled at 11 for misbehavior), but her innate talent is insane. I'm not really a fan of her music, but I recognize a truly exceptional born-maestro when I meet one. She could perfectly recreate piano pieces from recordings at 5 years old, before she started conservatory, and can easily demonstrate this ability now in her 60s. I've known many very good pianists with decades of experience who can't even begin to recreate by ear like this. Jacob Collier is another example. (as an aside most of the people I've known like this tended to be personally irritating people, not unlike the portrayal of Mozart in that movie from the 80s. Maybe I'm just envious though)
I feel like professional sports are similar to this, but know less about it. My own innate musical talent is ok, probably above average, but no where close to some of the people I've played with who started as kids, took to it like a fish to water, and had the early support and instruction. They're like a different species.
I think it's genes . Same for athletes. it's not a coincidence that the children of professional sports players also tend to get into sports or have above average ability. however, the apple can still fall far from the tree or roll and there is a lot of regression. Brony James for example is only 6′ 2″ compared to his much bigger and better dad. Freeman Dyson's son , a science writer, is quite a step-down from revolutionizing theoretical physics as his dad had done.
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