Hey… You forgot to tell us how to get the most out of this guy | Hacker News Reader

Hey… You forgot to tell us how to get the most out of this guy

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8 pointsjonmc126 comments

The genius thing. Ok, so this INTP class is capable of tackling intractable problems through wild abstraction. Independent of raw intelligence, when these abstractions come together in a structured and relevant form, solving problems that were previously impossible, or maybe even did not exist - we view it as genius.

But, this same individual is capable of of abstraction in the wrong way too, they are not super-human, just really different than the norm.

Darwin, Newton, Einstein, etc - beautiful ideas, but also ludicrous ideas sprinkled throughout their careers. Would they be considered geniuses if they were living today, in this age of information and knowledge explosion? Maybe.

More important than the label of the individual is knowing that these ideas can manifest. More important than calling someone a genius is realizing that someone may be capable of brilliant ideas. The INTP class, is perhaps more capable of generating these genius ideas just because of the uniqueness in thought. However, they are also more capable of generating ideas that fail miserably.

It went from "genius" to "worst team member evz"!

It seemed like such a promising train of thought before it finally tanked. Argh.

There's a thesis in here somewhere....

I'm not so sure. It seems more like astrology, in that it's vague enough to apply to someone who wants to think of themselves as an absent-minded genius, than thesis material. Apply the context of programming and you've got a sure hit, albeit lacking real content.

You could extract a list of traits from these posts and make a survey (agree, strongly agree, etc.), then score it. That would give a clear scale and quantfy the fortune-teller aspect. Psych is harder than math, after all, since the answers are never clear/simple. :)

That is not much of a change, really. The Manhattan Project should be as legendary for the genius wrangling as the results. As seen over previous years, the Dream Team formula for olympics basketball is not just 'put all the superstars together' -- and that's a team sport, where a superstar is inherently a team player. The genius is held up as an individual's ideal, but they are generally identified... because they're standing alone.

Why does everyone assume the genius label is a positive? (Because it also gets applied to people who pulled ahead of the pack). Objectively applied, though, it is as often a curse. Watch Errol Morris' 'First Person' biographies (or at least read the wikipedia bios of) Christopher Langan and Rick Rosner. These are 'geniuses' who I wouldn't want to work with or be.

Heck, post-Enron, the phrase 'smartest guy in the room' often sounds like an insult or a character smear.

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