[Letter] Advice for High School #2

post by lsusr · 2021-04-30T08:42:34.511Z · LW · GW · 16 comments

Contents

  Finding someone near your intellect…
  More Book Recommendations
    Autobiographies
    Biographies
    History
    Ethnographies
    Cyber
    Physics
    Biology
    Sociology & Economics
    Psychology
      Altered States of Consciousness
    Modern Art
    Science Fiction
    Fantasy
    Fiction, Other
    Classics
    Oral
    Miscellaneous
    Podcasts
    YouTube
None
16 comments

This [LW · GW] is amazing. Thank you, so, so much. I'll start coding in Hy with Vim [LW · GW]. I'll start doing weekly blogs once my tennis season ends (three weeks from now), and I likely wouldn't have the guts to start if it wasn't for your advice. On the general high school advice; it's invaluable. I look forward to reading the books you've recommended. As a sidenote; I love books, and read as many as I can; any books that you'd recommend, on any subjects? I've started using Anki on a daily basis; the main bottleneck right now is that I'm making too few cards/day, but that can be addressed with more dedicated time, I think. Starting Strength is what my personal strength training needed. Meditation will be a useful intervention; I thank you for the guidance. I read How to... a year or so ago, and my social skills have improved significantly as a result; definitely a good recommendation. Luckily, I don't have any especially angry people in my life, but your Anger post [LW · GW] serves as an excellent life guide. Do you know of any rationality/recommended programs near [redacted]? I've failed to find anyone near my intellect at my school/any other program I've done, and there aren't any rationality meetups nearby other than the [redacted] one, which I plan to go to, whenever possible. Again, thank you so much.

Yours truly,

[redacted]

Dear [redacted],

Don't worry about having too few cards in your Anki. Reviews pile up fast. Sustainability is more important than intensity. If you need more cards you can go to Ankiweb and download a frequency-based vocabulary deck for the foreign language of your choice.

Finding someone near your intellect…

Young people are sorted by geography. The average IQ at a typical high school is 100. Going to college bumps it up by a standard deviation to 115. An MD gets it a little higher to 120.

Enrolling in the hardest college major brings the IQ distribution a full two standard deviations above average to 130 which equals the average IQ of a science PhD. If you have an IQ of at least 145 (three standard deviations above the mean) then no undergraduate degree is sufficient.

College Undergraduate Major IQ
Physics & Astronomy 133
Mathematical Sciences 130
Philosophy 129
Materials Engineering 129
Economics 128
Chemical Engineering 128
Other Engineering 128
Mechanical Engineering 126
Engineering 126
Electrical Engineering 126
Physical Sciences 125
Banking & Finance 125
Other Humanities & Art 124
Chemistry 124
Computer & Information Science 124
Civil Engineering 124
Industrial Engineering 123
Religion & Theory 121
Earth, Atmosphere & Marine Science 121
Biological Sciences 121
English Language & Literature 120
Humanities & Arts 120
Art History, Theory, Critical Theory 120
Political Science 120
Foreign languages & Literature 119
Anthropology & Archaeology 119
History 119
Architecture 118
Library & Archival Sciences 117
Other Natural Sciences 117
Social Sciences 115
Agriculture 115
Arts-Performance & Studio 114
Life Sciences 114
Sociology 114
Business 114
Psychology 113
Communications 111
Curriculum & Instruction 111
Health & Medical Sciences 111
Business Admin & Management 111
Other Social Science 110
Education 110
Accounting 110
Evaluation & Research 109
Public Administration 109
Other Education 109
Elementary Education 108
Administration 107
Home Economics 106
Student Counseling 105
Early Childhood Education 104
Social Work 103

An eminent theoretical physicist is at least 160. An IQ of 160 makes you 1 in 32,000. An IQ of 175 makes you 1 in 1.5 million. There are 200 such people in the entire United States—and that includes adults. If you have an IQ of 175 then there might be three equally-smart teenagers your age in the entire country. How do such people [LW · GW] find each other?

When I worked at a particle physics laboratory it was the first time I felt like I was interacting with my own species. But the physicists didn't feel alive [LW · GW]. My colleagues weren't Albert Einstein and Richard Feynman. The first time I felt like I was talking to cognitive equals was at the Y-Combinator interview pool when I met a pair of Nigerians (this is not a joke) who were attempting to monopolize the entire African financial system.

The second time was when I met someone on Less Wrong who runs his own hedge fund.

If you are four or more standard deviations above average then you won't find equals at your high school. You won't find them at teenage chess tournaments or teenage music tournaments either because success there is driven by parents—training outweighs innate talent. Maybe try math or debate tournaments?

I don't live near you so I can't recommend anything specific to your region. I have never been to an IRL rationality event. Here is general advice for meeting smart people. Try it out to discover what works for you. Discard strategies that don't work.

The best way to live among the monkeys is to assume a leadership role for yourself. Organize events. Get groups of people to do novel things. Make stuff happen. You may be surprised by how much it is possible to accomplish out of sheer nerve [LW · GW]. Especially when your competition is the ordinary high school students who happen to live in [redacted].

The most important thing for you right now is to try all sorts of different things. Don't wait until you feel ready to live your life. You never will. Just do it. Failure is fine, as long as you recover. Don't hurt other people. Don't cause significant financial damage. Don't injure yourself. Don't throw away years of your life. Mere embarrassment doesn't matter. It is best you decondition yourself ASAP.

More Book Recommendations

I have excluded all books mentioned in the previous letter. I have excluded math, science and engineering textbooks too along with drawing manuals. Nothing has prerequisites. Listening instead of reading is fine.

Books with extraordinary claims I have not verified are marked with a dagger †. Books I have not read cover-to-cover at the time of writing this letter are marked with a double dagger ‡.

Autobiographies

Biographies

History

Ethnographies

Cyber

Physics

Biology

Sociology & Economics

Psychology

Altered States of Consciousness

Modern Art

Science Fiction [LW · GW]

Fantasy

Fiction, Other

Classics

Oral

Miscellaneous

Podcasts

YouTube

Lastly, check out Code Geass.

Yours truly,

Lsusr

16 comments

Comments sorted by top scores.

comment by theme_arrow · 2021-04-30T22:39:23.928Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

As I read this post, I couldn't help but feel like it crossed over from reasonable advice into elitism. I wouldn't argue with the basic idea of surrounding yourself with smart, interesting people who will help stimulate you intellectually and push you to grow. But spending your time worrying about how many standard deviations above the mean everyone's IQ is seems like it's crossing a line from reasonable to excessive, particularly when you describe normal life as "living among the monkeys." 

So what I'd say to this is that yes, finding and befriending people who are smart is great. Same with people who are kind, people who are sincere, people who have a deep understanding of their emotions, people who make art, people who can build things with their hands, people who care for others, people who support their communities...

If you're a smart kid in high school it can be especially frustrating to not feel like you have intellectual peers. I absolutely get that, but I want to caution against advice that deemphasizes all the other worthwhile things about people in response. People are good and valuable and can teach you in myriad ways.  

Replies from: lsusr
↑ comment by lsusr · 2021-04-30T23:12:21.697Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

What, precisely, do you mean when you use the word "smart"?

Replies from: theme_arrow
↑ comment by theme_arrow · 2021-04-30T23:23:08.740Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

I think of "smart" as (at least approximately) referring to g. 

Replies from: lsusr
↑ comment by lsusr · 2021-04-30T23:32:53.041Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

When you say "a smart kid in high school", what threshold or range of are you referring to? (Insofar as "smart" refers to .) A kid with a two standard deviations below the mean isn't smart. A kid four standard deviations above the mean is smart. Where do you draw the cutoff?

Replies from: theme_arrow
↑ comment by theme_arrow · 2021-05-01T02:18:55.899Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

I don't want to get too into the weeds here. But I think that someone in the top few percent of their school would be smart. The kind of kid who might be feeling without intellectual peers and posting here about it could be the smartest in their school or their town (or they could not). But I don't think that really changes the conclusions. 

Replies from: lsusr
↑ comment by lsusr · 2021-05-01T03:13:46.974Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

You have used the word "feel(ing)" twice. The core question isn't whether he feels he has intellectual peers he can talk to. It is whether he genuinely does or doesn't have intellectual peers of his caliber. I believe this high school student when he implies he doesn't have anyone near his intellect at his school and at other programs he has tried out. You do not. I think this is the crux of our disagreement.

I put so much effort into standard deviations because "smart" papers over a broad range of intelligences. Someone with an IQ of 115 is "smart". Someone with an IQ of 175 is "smart". The difference between someone with an IQ of 115 and someone with an IQ of 175 is four standard deviations. Four standard deviations is huge. It is equal to the difference between a PhD in science and someone hovering on the edge of an intellectual disability. It would be absurd for a PhD in science to look for intellectual peers in the same place as someone bordering on the edge of intellectual disability. The same goes for someone with an IQ of 115 verses someone with an IQ of 175.

Replies from: alexgieg
↑ comment by alexgieg · 2021-05-13T13:38:11.876Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

The difference between someone with an IQ of 115 and someone with an IQ of 175 is four standard deviations. Four standard deviations is huge. It is equal to the difference between a PhD in science and someone hovering on the edge of an intellectual disability.

I'd be careful with this kind of comparison. IQ numbers and SDs may look like cardinal measurements, but they're actually an ordinal hierarchical system. What one can say is that someone with IQ n+1 is "smarter than" someone with IQ n, who in turn is "smarter than" someone with IQ n-1. But there's no way, for now, to convert that in a cardinality.

Hence, in an absolute sense of literal, actual intelligence, the difference in between an IQ 175 and an IQ 115 may be either greater or smaller than the difference in intelligence between an IQ 115 and an IQ 55. My personal hunch is that it's much smaller, although, evidently, I have no way to back that up.

comment by ACrackedPot · 2021-04-30T14:33:05.252Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

Personally, the thing I find people constantly lacking in isn't raw mental horsepower, or pattern recognition, or any of the things IQ generally maps to.

It's just being willing to think.

When I was younger, I wanted to meet the smart people.  I've met the smart people since then, and they're not any more willing to think than anyone else; if anything, smart people are more frustrating to interact with.

My username, and my posts, may hint at a particular interpretation of the above statements.  I'm not talking about that, although those kinds of interactions are no more immune to the phenomenon than anything else.  I'm talking about the user, who is fully capable of writing their own SQL, who routinely sends said SQL to me for editing after running into efficiency issues with it - and who, when I send back the edited SQL with explanations of why each change was made, will then, a week later, send me SQL containing the exact same mistakes.

The thing you want is not somebody who is very smart; in fact, I think selecting for "very smart" is likely to select away from actually interesting thinkers.  The thing you want is somebody who is willing to be wrong, over and over and over again, in different ways.  The people who go into fields where the very smart people are, I think, tend to be the sort of people who want to find out the right answer so they don't have to think anymore [? · GW].  You want people who aren't afraid to look foolish.

If you're looking for interesting thinkers, and you spend your time looking for smart people, you're going to look right past all the genuinely interesting thinkers, because interesting thinkers spend most of their time thinking being horribly wrong.  People who want to be right can't afford to think interesting thoughts - because most interesting thoughts are, when you get down to it, incorrect.  Being at the edge of the map of truth means spending most of your time being wrong; once you start being right, it's time to move on, because there's nothing left to explore.

Replies from: niplav
↑ comment by niplav · 2021-04-30T14:58:01.248Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

I think your perspective on Intelligence vs. Willingness to Think is interesting, but wrong – my model is that how willing you are to think is strongly correlated with how easy thinking is for you, and how easy thinking is for you is pretty directly just what intelligence is (yes, correlation isn't transitive, and tails come apart [LW · GW], but I think both hold in general for non-weird cases).

Replies from: ACrackedPot, Pattern
↑ comment by ACrackedPot · 2021-04-30T15:14:42.392Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

I think that's a somewhat more literal interpretation than I was aiming for; what I'm gesturing at is also partially conveyed in the final paragraph, where I talk about willingness to be wrong.

If what you're thinking about is easy, what this translates to, I think, is that it's easy to be right.   If you're wrong most of the time, then it's not actually very easy.

This is not to say you should think with the intent to be wrong - that's just another way of doing things the easy way, and is also, I suppose, another way of taking what I'm saying more literally than I intend it.  This is a difficult set of concepts to convey, but - if you're unwilling to struggle, you're unwilling to think, in the sense that I mean.

Replies from: niplav
↑ comment by niplav · 2021-04-30T20:04:35.811Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

Yeah, that clears things up. Thanks!

↑ comment by Pattern · 2021-05-01T02:00:33.174Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

How do tail come apart - on intelligence versus easy to think?

Replies from: niplav
↑ comment by niplav · 2021-05-01T13:10:25.160Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

I guess both stages, but more willingness to think & easiness to think.

comment by Zac Hatfield-Dodds (zac-hatfield-dodds) · 2021-04-30T13:21:06.015Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

Nonfiction

For tech history - it's worth knowing how modern industrial civilisation arose! - I'd recommend

Why read old books to understand technology? Because they come for a different world-view and make very different assumptions about the direction that things are going - because they have only the context of their past, and can't fit it to the usual narratives about WWII and post-war economic and industrial history. "The books of the future would be just as good a corrective as the books of the past, but unfortunately we cannot get at them."

The Code Book: The Science of Secrecy From Ancient Egypt to Quantum Cryptography by Simon Singh

I haven't re-read it in years, but this is the book that got me interested in computer science (and later reading The Art of Unix Programming on a hike got me into software engineering).

I'd also recommend Quantum Computing Since Democritus by Scott Aaronson as the single best introduction to quantum computing from someone who actually knows how it works and what it can't do.

Seeing Like A State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed by James C. Scott

Disagree - it's a good book, but you're better off reading the linked review and then James C. Scott's Two Cheers for Anarchism instead.

The Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

A colorful author, but there's plenty to learn from his books. If you can read more than one, I'd suggest Fooled by Randomness and then Antifragile instead (the preceeding and following books; between them they cover almost all of The Black Swan).

On the mathematical end it's also worth skimming through his Statistical Consequences of Fat Tails. Pair with Gwern's statistical notes, and if you're going to do it properly Judea Pearl's Causality and E.T. Jaynes' Probability Theory: The Logic of Science.

Fiction

Replies from: lsusr
↑ comment by lsusr · 2021-04-30T17:13:46.189Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

The Art of Unix Programming helped me get into software engineering too—especially Chapter 2. Jason Crawford has written up his highlights from the Carnegie book [LW · GW]. I replaced The Black Swan with your recommendations.

You are right about Seeing Like A State. I have removed Seeing Like A State from the list. The Secret of Our Success belongs with Seeing Like A State.

Why read old books to understand technology? Because they come for a different world-view and make very different assumptions about the direction that things are going - because they have only the context of their past, and can't fit it to the usual narratives about WWII and post-war economic and industrial history.

Yep!

comment by Ulisse Mini (ulisse-mini) · 2023-03-04T02:32:23.666Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

I'd be happy to talk to [redacted] and put them in touch with other smart young people. I know a lot from Atlas, ESPR and related networks. You can pass my contact info on to them.