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Comment by MartinCron | Hacker News Reader

How exactly do you know a child's means are, especially in the face of science that the brain's ability is malleable?

There's a huge difference between saying "You don't seem to be very good at math, why don't you stop trying and do something easy instead" and "This seems to be hard for you, keep working hard at it and it will get easier over time. A brain is like a muscle, it gets stronger when you use it"

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"... Encouraging children to aim beyond their means is a very bad idea. They will have very ambitious goals and will not settle for what they consider beneath them. This is a recipe for unemployment in the vast majority of cases. ..."

This idea recognises ability can be tempered by circumstance ~ http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1025431

What is the extent of this malleability? It's probably quite small compared to innate intelligence.

In either case since you don't know what it is how much should you assume the child is not capable of?

It's all about risk.

There is no scientific consensus that the brain is malleable in any significant way.

Aiming within one's apparent means will likely result in employment.

It's the tepid nature of this statement that I am most against. Despite the fact it's also just downright wrong - the malleability of the brain is close to miraculous and studied heavily in many areas of science.

Rats that are kept in cages devoid of adornment have smaller, less dense, brains than rats that have toys and varied sonsory stimulation. It's simple, the more things we have with which to think, the better and more complex our thinking can be.

Think Orwell's Newspeak and Herman Hesse's Glass bead games.

What is awful here is that you seem to be convinced that mediocrity is a worthwhile tactic for people and for children... and I think this rips the heart from the very idea of what it means to be alive and better oneself.

Mediocrity is a worthwhile tactic if you're not optimizing for money or status, but, say, happiness. Ambition can cause a lot of pain, particularly in feelings that you have not lived up to your potential (I've seen plenty of that happening).

YC readers are understandably strongly biased against such values of take-it-easy life. I don't subscribe to such values either, but they can not be straightforwardly discounted as inferior just like that. I would argue that understanding your limitations is just as important as developing your abilities.

The point is not about money or status, or pain and joy, but about the willingness to confidently feel into[1] these things. Mediocrity robs you of your passion. The point is not that failure teaches, or that children should not be built up by an overbearing, over-parental, society, but that all beings should seek to FEEL. It's a curious state that foreshadows knowing, and to be content with mediocrity would greatly reduce the variety of sensations that a moral, considered life can hope to expect in this world. It's existential suicide. And it grieves me dearly, so I get all righteous and pontificate.

[1:Einfuhlung, Johann Gottfried Herder, Isaiah Berlin]

Even if this were true (which I doubt, but I am no expert) is it not better to use any and all malleability to improve yourself than to simply give up and achieve nothing?

There is a fuzzy line between intelligence and functional knowledge. I see that you are a programmer. How much of that know-how where you born with, and how much have you had to learn? If you had to learn a new programming language could you? Is learning your third language easier than learning your first?

Do you have any links or other references to back up that statement?

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