(I think the math thing was… basically fine – it’s still the case that I don’t think math is my comparative advantage and I’m not sure how much it’s worth learning it for the sake of following certain conversations. But it *is* the case that, via a similar pattern, being in the rationality community stunted my strategic growth for 3 years because I kept asking other people to solve strategic problems for me)
Note that this isn’t a necessary problem. Being around people better than you doesn’t mean you’ll do this—doing a math undergrad surrounded by better mathematicians doesn’t tend to cause people to stop learning math.
It sounds like your environment wasn’t encouraging you to work on strategic problems, just get them solved, and we could change that fact if we wanted.
(I think the math thing was… basically fine – it’s still the case that I don’t think math is my comparative advantage and I’m not sure how much it’s worth learning it for the sake of following certain conversations. But it *is* the case that, via a similar pattern, being in the rationality community stunted my strategic growth for 3 years because I kept asking other people to solve strategic problems for me)
Note that this isn’t a necessary problem. Being around people better than you doesn’t mean you’ll do this—doing a math undergrad surrounded by better mathematicians doesn’t tend to cause people to stop learning math.
It sounds like your environment wasn’t encouraging you to work on strategic problems, just get them solved, and we could change that fact if we wanted.