You will, at best, learn a few useful tricks that a lot of other people can learn as well, and that won’t put you anywhere near the delicious high status of the superstar.
(If someone actually does come up with a new teachable supertrick, so that civilization itself is about to take another lurching step forward, then you should expect to have a lot of fellow superstars by the time you’re done learning!)
I realize that there are “supertricks”; and as Eliezer noted, there’s a lot of fellow superstars all around us using these supertricks all the time.
These tricks include things like “written language”, “using tools”, “cooking food”, etc. People who don’t use these supertrick probably see the people who do as superstars (at least relative to them).
We all know and use these supertricks, so we don’t see each other as being superstars, and we don’t see these tricks as being supertricks.
If you define excellence as being unusually good at something—rare by definition—then, supertricks are inherently unteachable. If they were teachable, everyone woudl learn it, and the related skills would no longer be rare, and thus no longer be “excellent” under this definition.
Under this definition, supertricks are only super because they are unteachable.
When I combine the following ideas:
I realize that there are “supertricks”; and as Eliezer noted, there’s a lot of fellow superstars all around us using these supertricks all the time.
These tricks include things like “written language”, “using tools”, “cooking food”, etc. People who don’t use these supertrick probably see the people who do as superstars (at least relative to them).
We all know and use these supertricks, so we don’t see each other as being superstars, and we don’t see these tricks as being supertricks.
If you define excellence as being unusually good at something—rare by definition—then, supertricks are inherently unteachable. If they were teachable, everyone woudl learn it, and the related skills would no longer be rare, and thus no longer be “excellent” under this definition.
Under this definition, supertricks are only super because they are unteachable.