The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:
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Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.
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Notes -
How often do you end up reading one of your ideas by a public intellectual? I commented along the lines of athletes seem above average intelligence a few days ago. https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2023/08/in-which-sector-are-the-top-performers-stupidest.html
I’d say every 4-6 months I see a person I read say the same idea. A few times I assumed they lifted my thought like if Scott said something I wrote in the Reddit.
For athletes I’d say he left out Kobe Bryant who I believe is above most of the ones he mentioned.
On the meta of reoccurring ideas:
Happens to me occasionally. Often with people that run in the same intellectual circles. It is way more common the other way around, where I think of something that I thought was original and then find someone else already had the idea.
On the object level of stupid top-performers:
I think you'd need a weird combination of circumstances to create stupid top-performers. A few things that might cause it (in order of importance):
Knowing all this. The best real world example I can think of is Michael Phelps. He isn't stupid by any means. But he also isn't some kind of recognized genius like other top athletes. Despite being a swimmer, I think the sport of swimming fulfills all 3 criteria (running probably fills it too, does anyone know how smart Usain Bolt is?).
For swimming and running being able to empty your mind and just do the thing for hours on end is important. As long as you are smart enough to learn good forms, and follow a diet plan no more intelligence is needed. But if you are too smart, cardio sports can be incredibly dull and boring. Which means there is a potentially negative return on intelligence.
For both swimming and running the people who are the best at it are also good athletes in general. And unless you are literally the world's best at those sports you can earn a lot more money as a professional athlete in other sports. So smart athletes can "graduate" from swimming and running into other better paying sports like soccer, baseball, basketball, cricket, or football.
Finally, they are both basic sports with very few barriers to entry. Swimming and running both require minimal equipment for training. The sport of swimming generally requires a lap pool, but those are plentiful in western nations. Elite athletes can also be created in both by the time an adult male is fully grown.
I think (2) is the area most people would cite. Examples like top nurses not being Doctors.
Someday I would like to be credited or just know I created an original thought.
I think for (2) people can quibble a lot about the definition of the field. Like is "nurse" the category or "medical field".
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