
Smart-people traps - senthil_rajasek
http://www.tinygigantic.com/2008/07/31/smart-people-traps/
======
nostrademons
Conspiracy theories are another huge trap for smart people...I know a bunch of
brilliant people, often highly educated, who never accomplish anything because
they believe the government is watching their every move and there's about to
be a complete societal breakdown as people realize how much the power elite is
fucking them over.

~~~
ericwan
>> people realize how much the power elite is fucking them over.

isn't that true though?

~~~
nostrademons
Of course it's true. Whenever there's a power imbalance, one party is being
fucked over, and whenever there's more than one person, there's a power
imbalance. It's almost a tautology.

But _acting_ like it's true gives you an excuse for not doing anything. And
then instead of just having the power elite fuck you over, you're fucking
yourself over too.

~~~
hugh
This is a silly attitude. Ultimately everybody is fucking everybody else over
simultaneously. You fuck your boss over as your boss fucks you over. You fuck
your employees over, and they fuck you over too. Occasionally you'll get
fucked over by someone you can't fuck over, like the phone company, but the
chances are that they're being fucked over by somebody who's being fucked over
by somebody you're fucking over, so it all evens out in the end.

~~~
icky
> This is a silly attitude. Ultimately everybody is fucking everybody else
> over simultaneously. You fuck your boss over as your boss fucks you over.
> You fuck your employees over, and they fuck you over too. Occasionally
> you'll get fucked over by someone you can't fuck over, like the phone
> company, but the chances are that they're being fucked over by somebody
> who's being fucked over by somebody you're fucking over, so it all evens out
> in the end.

You wouldn't be working in the porn industry, perchance?

------
scott_s
_And given that you’re reading this blog, you’re probably a smart person_

Presumptuous, condescending, self-aggrandizing and manipulative all at the
same time.

~~~
jordyhoyt
Or perhaps, an attempt at humor?

------
mynameishere
_The problem is that The Professions are a grind_

Sounds like someone's never worked much in the non-professions.

 _and higher education (in the US at least) teaches only critical thinking_

Right. If by "teaches only" you mean, "doesn't teach the least amount of"

~~~
lg
I think by "critical thinking" he means the ability to criticize, or point out
flaws in someone's work/theory. And I took a good number of classes in the
humanities where this is basically what we were expected to do: "Critically
analyze Spinoza's theory of X" usually meant "Discuss what you think is stupid
about Spinoza's theory of X." You could do otherwise, but you weren't expected
to. Apparently coming up with your own theory, and "critically analyzing"
THAT, is something special reserved for a senior thesis. But while all science
majors did research projects or programming projects, only the really
motivated humanities students did a thesis. Many spent four years just smugly
putting down the half-formed ideas of long-dead scholars, and probably poorly.

------
soundsop
_Smart people generally get very educated, and higher education (in the US at
least) teaches only critical thinking...They leave school thinking that the
way to be useful and show your smarts is to point out why things won’t work,
rather than using some of those smart to find a way forward._

Grad school in engineering, computer science, (and I assume in math and
science too) usually requires that you make something, so I don't think there
is a sole emphasis on critical thinking. From the point of view of "making
something users want", perhaps the missing part is reliable judgment of
whether people want it, rather than depending on citation counts.

------
akd
What makes these "traps" so bad? I think smart people getting into medicine is
a good thing. I think academics make valuable contributions to the world. I
think that one of the two US presidential candidates is materially better than
the other, and the world will be much better if he is elected.

Seriously, is the only worthwhile thing for an intelligent person to start a
company that somehow involves blogging, RSS, and AJAX?

~~~
jdale27
_I think that one of the two US presidential candidates..._

Two?

<http://www.votesmart.org/election_president.php>

------
maw
I don't think the author knows what critical thinking means. Hint: it doesn't
mean pointing out the flaws in everything.

~~~
ovi256
No, that's QA. Or security engineering. Or software testing?

------
tlrobinson
Darn. I was hoping for tips on how to actually trap smart people.

~~~
icky
Set their login shell to /usr/games/nethack

------
orib
Ironic how the criticize "critical thinking" (at least, what they think it
means -- they abuse the term) for not providing solutions, only problems. Yet
at the same time, they don't suggest any solutions to these traps, they only
list them.

Fall into your own trap much?

------
ericwan
thank you. this is an awesome post, and makes me recall how many times i've
fallen into these traps. I've always wanted to be in politics and finance, and
thought that's the best way to maximize my potential. Then i find out
politics/finance is more about rent-seeking than doing good. I spent most of
my college life just to figure it out. And then I find the start up life,
which is really the thing - I got out of the traps. =)

~~~
ericwan
And when you start creating your own thing, you realize how hard it is to
build and you criticize less

------
time_management
I'd argue that these "traps" stem primarily from risk aversion. While it's
best for society that talented people gravitate toward high-risk, high-reward
pursuits, the talented individual is still often attracted to a more
conservative strategy, having something to lose. Most people are terrified of
straying from a well-laid-out career path.

