[quietthrow]

Genuine curiosity: if you are gifted with a certain “wiring” (genes, brain chemistry etc) why is that considered an accomplishment? Also - We, as a society, tend to celebrate people with “natural didn’t really need to work for” type gifts quite inconsistently - eg A supermodel who is gifted with the gift of looks, beauty etc is also in the same category of “natural” talent but sure doesn’t get the same celebration as a prodigy in maths or science. In both cases the people are fundamentally bestowed with abilities they didn’t really have to work extremely hard to acquire but are perhaps looked at differently. What’s kind of psychology is at play here? Would love to understand how we tend to interpret such things and then form beliefs.

I realize and acknowledge both sets had talents and the spent thier time doing something with it to produce something extraordinary but we seem to tend to overlook the massive head start they also had. Why so?

(Totally understandable if you feel like downvoting but I would ask you to articulate and share the cord it struck with you if you down vote)

[LudwigNagasena]

Why for you is innate grit any more commendable than innate intelligence?

[rhubarbtree]

Can’t speak for others but I think I learnt grit. Didn’t really show it very young but by 16 I was just able to grind through anything.

[krzat]

Do you celebrate people who persevere despite despite their hardships?

Ability to persevere is also wired in.

If you pull this thread to it's conclusion, then nothing is worth celebrating. Just law of physics doing their thing.

[jacquesm]

Roughly for the same reason that we put Olympians on a pedestal. Sure, there is a lot of grit involved. But it starts off with good genes and while you won't find anybody that didn't put in the work you also won't find people with bad genes because they will never make it to the entry point, and even if somehow magically they did they'd never stand a chance.

Case in point, that dance...

Society rewards 'good genes'. Which is interesting because it is effectively the club of good genes rewarding themselves by co-opting the ones without, either by amassing actual gold or by amassing gold medals. And we all let them because we recognize that they really do have good genes and they put in the hard work.

The problems arrive when the ones that are good at amassing actual gold and that are intelligent do not have a similar endowment in the ethics department. And weirdly enough we don't have a backstop for that unless they act in a limited number of ways that we consider 'criminal', usually reserved for the ones with 'bad genes'. So as long as they stay away from those we just look at the grit and the money and go 'that's ok then'.

And if you have amassed enough shiny rocks even those criminal laws seems to no longer matter and you can do whatever the hell you want and expect to get away with it.

[rkomorn]

There are people wired like Tao (or superstar athletes, supermodels, or other remarkable people) that don't achieve the same results.

Even among the people who have similar "luck" in that respect, some still stand out. The people we think of as elite performers aren't just elite relative to the 99% of us. They're also elite within the top 1% that makes up their field: they're dominant even among the people who should be their peers.

[weatherlite]

There are very very few people wired like Tao; how many child prodigies like that are there ? He seems to be one in a million but its pretty much impossible to assess IQ at those levels. Sure, it's not enough. YOu need the obsession for math, but lets not trivialize his intellectual ability - he's definitely not only top 1% that would just put him in the smartest 2-3 kids in his class. No, he was probably among the smartest 10-20 kids of his age group in the whole United States.

[rkomorn]

I was speaking generally, and wrote that people like him (not him specifically) are elite within the top 1%. So basically 1% of the 1%.

Not that I mean the percentages factually, more like an order of magnitude.

But my point is, in terms of "natural ability", I don't believe there is that much of a gap among top performers, but that things like work ethic and determination, and also some luck in environments, is what ends up setting them apart.

That's why I think they're worth praising: it's not just a spin of genetic roulette (unless one believes every single attribute about us is genetic, I guess).

[weatherlite]

> But my point is, in terms of "natural ability", I don't believe there is that much of a gap among top performers, but that things like work ethic and determination, and also some luck in environments, is what ends up setting them apart.

You could be right; I tend to disagree but its all speculation. My 2 cents is that the vast majority of researches/professors are motivated and driven people; you can't reach those levels if you don't know how to sit on your butt and concentrate. They all have good work ethic. I tend to think what separates Tao from the rest of the smart researchers is not that he works 15 hours a day while the rest work only 9 but rather his very very rare genius. But yeah, speculation of talent vs work ethic.

[weatherlite]

> Genuine curiosity: if you are gifted with a certain “wiring” (genes, brain chemistry etc) why is that considered an accomplishment?

It's complex; first of all society has an interest for exceptional people to be respected and well compensated; if there was absolutely no prestige or compensation in being a math genius it's quite possible Terrence Tao would have become a schoolteacher. So a well functioning capitalist society has both monetary and prestige tools to incentivize extreme accomplishment.

Second, I think it's human nature to like and want hierarchy. Admiring figures for their looks, charisma or intellectual accomplishments could very will be in our wiring - 20 thousand years ago we would admire the shaman, the great hunter or the storyteller.

But ultimately I totally agree with you - not only were these people born into the unique genetic and envrionmental circumstances that made the accomplishment possible , I also don't believe they had any say after being born in becoming what they had become; e.g I don't believe there's a "free will" and that Terrence Tao "chose" to become a math genius. He was born into that reality in a fluke.

[317070]

> Second, I think it's human nature to like and want hierarchy.

I just want to point out that this is most likely not true, and that this is cultural. The long argument you can find in the book "The Dawn of Everything".

In short, when the West came into contact with other civilizations, one of the most striking features of our culture from their point of view was how hierarchical we are.

[jdthedisciple]

> A supermodel who is gifted with the gift of looks, beauty etc is also in the same category of “natural” talent but sure doesn’t get the same celebration as a prodigy in maths or science

We living on the same planet?

Pretty sure the supermodel gets infinitely more attention and certainly makes orders of magnitudes more money than some math prodigy, at least on mine.

[globular-toast]

There is an inequality between the sexes here. A female model does indeed get more attention and money based purely on the genes they didn't have to work for. It's not the case for men, though. Men also have to actually deliver something, whether it's being a performer like an actor, singer, footballer etc, or winning the Field's medal which you don't just get for being quite good at maths when you're 8. Trying to think of men who are famous just for genetics is quite hard. I guess like Orlando Bloom or the members of K-pop bands and whatnot, but they still have to perform and can't just prance around in fancy clothes and call it a day. In the case of Tao, if he had just decided to do something else or not accomplished anything you'd never have heard of him. Men always have to work for it. Women often don't, and if they try it doesn't work. It's the source of a lot of disgruntlement between the sexes, but probably a "grass is always greener" thing.

[rkomorn]

> based purely on the genes they didn't have to work for

Modeling is notorious for its negative impact on models' health.

They absolutely work for it, and in one of the most toxic work environments.

[jdthedisciple]

All I can say is before you assess the inequality of outcomes across the sexes, perhaps consider the differences in their inherent qualities to begin with.

[masfuerte]

David Gandy merely lolls in his pants.

[sleepyams]

I think Terrence Tao makes at least 600k at UCLA. Not too bad if you ask me.

[itemize123]

he would make 10 times more if he's a supermodel of same caliber.

[jatari]

Real answer, none of us can do anything more than what you are given by your parents. You get the brain you get and that's it. You can either work hard and improve and become a genius or you become a drug addict and die in a gutter. Determinism and the laws of physics rules us all.

We might as well chose to praise those of us who were gifted with abilities that we aspire to.

[squigz]

I wonder how Tao - or a supermodel - might feel about the idea that they don't have to work for their "gifts"

[defrost]

Not a mystery, Tao has written about how, child prodigy aside, he has to work at math on a regular basis with grit and perseverance.

[azan_]

There's story of how Tao almost failed at university due to playing so much Civilization

[DeathArrow]

The two types of talents can be judged by the impact they have. A scientific gifted individual can produce value while a good looking individual has mostly entertainment value.

That being said, supermodels are more famous, have a much larger following and earn much more money than math geniuses. That says we, humans, care more about entertainment than value.

[fuzzfactor]

>A scientific gifted individual can produce value

They can also produce a lot of damage unless they refrain to an extent.

[fuzzfactor]

I like a massive head start.

There may not be many other things which can contribute the same advantage.

[EugeneOZ]

It depends on how much value their talents can bring to humankind, I guess.

[fuzzfactor]

Very good guess, right on the money

Too bad humankind is almost never paying attention.