Grade school didn’t assign me many group projects. In fact, I can only remember one. And on that one I think I tried cooperating for like 15 minutes or something and then told the other two kids, “Go away, I’ll handle this” because it was easier to just do all the work myself.
Sometimes our early life experiences really are that metaphorical.
Similar, possibly relevant anecdote from my own life:
In a recent computer science class I took, we (the entire class as a whole) were assigned a group project. We were split up into about 4 sub-groups of about 6 people each; each sub-group was assigned a part of the project. I was on the team that was responsible for drawing up specifications, coordinating the other groups, testing the parts, and assembling them into a whole.
Like Eliezer, I quickly realized that I could just write the whole thing myself (it was a little toy C++ program). And I did (it took maybe a couple of days). However, the professor was (of course) not willing to simply let me submit a complete project which I had written in its entirety; and since the groups were separated, there was no way for me to submit my work in a way that would plausibly let me claim that any sort of cooperation had taken place.
So I had to spend the rest of the semester trying to get the other groups to independently write the code that I had already written, trying to get them to see that the solutions I’d come up with were in fact working ones, and generally having conversations like the following:
Clueless Classmate: How should we do this? Perhaps ?
SaidAchmiz: Mmm… perhaps we might instead try .
CC: That doesn’t make any sense and will never work!
SA: Sigh.
I’m not quite sure what this could be a metaphor for, but it certainly felt rather metaphorical at the time...
My question is: are there some straightforward heuristics one can apply to find/select a workplace where such things occur as little as possible? At what kinds of places can one expect more of this, and at what kinds less? The effort to find a workplace where you do NOT have to handle such situations seems like it would be more effective in the long run (edit: that is, more effective in achieving happiness/sanity/job satisfaction) than learning to deal with said situations (though of course those things are not mutually exclusive!).
My question is: are there some straightforward heuristics one can apply to find/select a workplace where such things occur as little as possible? At what kinds of places can one expect more of this, and at what kinds less?
Yes, and it is an extremely high expected-value decision to actively seek out people who understand which workplaces are likely to be most suitable according to this and other important metrics.
Grade school didn’t assign me many group projects. In fact, I can only remember one. And on that one I think I tried cooperating for like 15 minutes or something and then told the other two kids, “Go away, I’ll handle this” because it was easier to just do all the work myself.
Sometimes our early life experiences really are that metaphorical.
And sometimes they aren’t. As a ‘grown up’ you outright founded (with assistance) an organisation to help you handle your new project as well as playing a pivotal role in forming a community around a relevant area of interest. Congratulations are in order for learning to transcend the “just do myself” instinct—at least for the big things, when it matters.
It seems to me that “selecting people with whom I can usefully cooperate” is different from “learning to cooperate with arbitrarily assigned people”. Do you think that captures the distinction between Eliezer’s grade school anecdote and his later successes, or is that not a meaningful difference?
It seems to me that “selecting people with whom I can usefully cooperate” is different from “learning to cooperate with arbitrarily assigned people”. Do you think that captures the distinction between Eliezer’s grade school anecdote and his later successes
It is certainly a significant factor. (Not the only one. Eliezer is also wiser as an adult than he was as a child.)
Math over metaphor. This is a common experience. Assume a child 99th percentile of age group by intelligence
Elementary school is assigned by geography, so average intelligence is 50th percentile (or fairly close)
By middle school there may not be general tracking for all students, but very low performers have been tracked off (say 20% of students), so average intelligence is 60th percentile
In high school they often have a high and a low track, split the students 50⁄50 and you get average intelligence is 80th percentile
If the student then goes to a college that rejects 90% of applicants (or gets work in a similar selective profession) average intelligence is 98th percentile
and all of a sudden the student is now well socialized and has learned the important skill of cooperating with their peers.
EDIT: the above holds if you track “effectiveness” which is some combination of conscientiousness and intelligence instead of intelligence. In practice I expect most tracking systems capture quite a bit of conscientiousness, but the above reads more cleanly with intelligence in each line than “some combination of conscientiousness and intelligence”
This is a bit off-topic, but I think that the word “competence” effectively conveys the meaning of, “some combination of conscientiousness and intelligence”.
Grade school didn’t assign me many group projects. In fact, I can only remember one. And on that one I think I tried cooperating for like 15 minutes or something and then told the other two kids, “Go away, I’ll handle this” because it was easier to just do all the work myself.
Sometimes our early life experiences really are that metaphorical.
Similar, possibly relevant anecdote from my own life:
In a recent computer science class I took, we (the entire class as a whole) were assigned a group project. We were split up into about 4 sub-groups of about 6 people each; each sub-group was assigned a part of the project. I was on the team that was responsible for drawing up specifications, coordinating the other groups, testing the parts, and assembling them into a whole.
Like Eliezer, I quickly realized that I could just write the whole thing myself (it was a little toy C++ program). And I did (it took maybe a couple of days). However, the professor was (of course) not willing to simply let me submit a complete project which I had written in its entirety; and since the groups were separated, there was no way for me to submit my work in a way that would plausibly let me claim that any sort of cooperation had taken place.
So I had to spend the rest of the semester trying to get the other groups to independently write the code that I had already written, trying to get them to see that the solutions I’d come up with were in fact working ones, and generally having conversations like the following:
Clueless Classmate: How should we do this? Perhaps ?
SaidAchmiz: Mmm… perhaps we might instead try .
CC: That doesn’t make any sense and will never work!
SA: Sigh.
I’m not quite sure what this could be a metaphor for, but it certainly felt rather metaphorical at the time...
It sounds like a metaphor for “what you need to learn to handle effectively in order to succeed in a typical workplace”. Good luck!
My question is: are there some straightforward heuristics one can apply to find/select a workplace where such things occur as little as possible? At what kinds of places can one expect more of this, and at what kinds less? The effort to find a workplace where you do NOT have to handle such situations seems like it would be more effective in the long run (edit: that is, more effective in achieving happiness/sanity/job satisfaction) than learning to deal with said situations (though of course those things are not mutually exclusive!).
Yes, and it is an extremely high expected-value decision to actively seek out people who understand which workplaces are likely to be most suitable according to this and other important metrics.
And sometimes they aren’t. As a ‘grown up’ you outright founded (with assistance) an organisation to help you handle your new project as well as playing a pivotal role in forming a community around a relevant area of interest. Congratulations are in order for learning to transcend the “just do myself” instinct—at least for the big things, when it matters.
It seems to me that “selecting people with whom I can usefully cooperate” is different from “learning to cooperate with arbitrarily assigned people”. Do you think that captures the distinction between Eliezer’s grade school anecdote and his later successes, or is that not a meaningful difference?
It is certainly a significant factor. (Not the only one. Eliezer is also wiser as an adult than he was as a child.)
Math over metaphor. This is a common experience. Assume a child 99th percentile of age group by intelligence
Elementary school is assigned by geography, so average intelligence is 50th percentile (or fairly close)
By middle school there may not be general tracking for all students, but very low performers have been tracked off (say 20% of students), so average intelligence is 60th percentile
In high school they often have a high and a low track, split the students 50⁄50 and you get average intelligence is 80th percentile
If the student then goes to a college that rejects 90% of applicants (or gets work in a similar selective profession) average intelligence is 98th percentile
and all of a sudden the student is now well socialized and has learned the important skill of cooperating with their peers.
EDIT: the above holds if you track “effectiveness” which is some combination of conscientiousness and intelligence instead of intelligence. In practice I expect most tracking systems capture quite a bit of conscientiousness, but the above reads more cleanly with intelligence in each line than “some combination of conscientiousness and intelligence”
This is a bit off-topic, but I think that the word “competence” effectively conveys the meaning of, “some combination of conscientiousness and intelligence”.