I think you get the point here that is apparently missed by many (I didn’t realize it was, so thanks for pointing out that it is), and reminds me of an old saying: in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. By being just a little bit better you can achieve amazing things relative to what others can achieve such that your difficiencies don’t matter in a relative sense.
However, I think there is something more. That we can do better than others by doing something rather than nothing is true, but is doing better than others enough? I think there’s a deeper point that the sanity waterline is so low that unfortunately it is possible to do “great” things just by being a little bit sensible. What happens if we measure our sanity not against others but against what is possible? Then doing a little better than others is still better, but it may not be better enough for what you want to achieve.
You want to do better than a Nobel Prize? Not the prize of course, but the contribution to society? I’m intrigued. Could you expand on that?
My intrigue comes from my bar-of-what-is-possible, John von Neumann. He probably has more beliefs-that-pay-rent than me, but he also has a “practically unlimited” capacity for work, tons of “mathematical courage,” and “awe-inspiring” speed[0]. It’d be so great if those things were simply beliefs-that-pay-rent!
So I tell myself, “To do better than I have been doing, I must increase my work ethic, mathematical courage, and speed.” That’s very difficult for me; I’m a lazy, nervous, and slow thinker! I’m not sure what I think (nor do I know what the lesswrong consensus is) about what is and is not a belief-that-pays-rent, and whether changing those beliefs changes your life as much as changing things that aren’t.
What do you have in mind as regards the possibility of doing great things? By the way, I agree with and appreciate your comment.
It of course depends on the Nobel Prize being awarded and for what, but I’m thinking in terms of impact where best of all humanity might not be enough, like even if you do the best work of all humanity to address an existential risk, you might still fail to do enough to mitigate the risk.
I think you get the point here that is apparently missed by many (I didn’t realize it was, so thanks for pointing out that it is), and reminds me of an old saying: in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. By being just a little bit better you can achieve amazing things relative to what others can achieve such that your difficiencies don’t matter in a relative sense.
However, I think there is something more. That we can do better than others by doing something rather than nothing is true, but is doing better than others enough? I think there’s a deeper point that the sanity waterline is so low that unfortunately it is possible to do “great” things just by being a little bit sensible. What happens if we measure our sanity not against others but against what is possible? Then doing a little better than others is still better, but it may not be better enough for what you want to achieve.
You want to do better than a Nobel Prize? Not the prize of course, but the contribution to society? I’m intrigued. Could you expand on that?
My intrigue comes from my bar-of-what-is-possible, John von Neumann. He probably has more beliefs-that-pay-rent than me, but he also has a “practically unlimited” capacity for work, tons of “mathematical courage,” and “awe-inspiring” speed[0]. It’d be so great if those things were simply beliefs-that-pay-rent!
So I tell myself, “To do better than I have been doing, I must increase my work ethic, mathematical courage, and speed.” That’s very difficult for me; I’m a lazy, nervous, and slow thinker! I’m not sure what I think (nor do I know what the lesswrong consensus is) about what is and is not a belief-that-pays-rent, and whether changing those beliefs changes your life as much as changing things that aren’t.
What do you have in mind as regards the possibility of doing great things? By the way, I agree with and appreciate your comment.
[0] http://stepanov.lk.net/mnemo/legende.html?hn
It of course depends on the Nobel Prize being awarded and for what, but I’m thinking in terms of impact where best of all humanity might not be enough, like even if you do the best work of all humanity to address an existential risk, you might still fail to do enough to mitigate the risk.