Marriage turns genius off like a tap. | Hacker News Reader

Marriage turns genius off like a tap.

abc.net.au

54 pointsasciilifeform62 comments

I've always been the type that in order for me to learn something, I adopt a pet project. It brings context to the concepts.

I can remember staying the night at my girlfriend's apartment (she's now my wife). We enjoyed each others company. But when she would fall asleep, I would hop on to her computer and begin working on my own projects.

And she use to complain, in fact, get extremely angry that I was up "typing away" and that I needed to come to bed. My contention is that she's asleep so why should she care? I finally said, "Get over yourself. I have enjoyed working on late projects before I met you and will continue to do so for the rest of my life. Programming is my life. Deal with it."

And after a few fights and with me not backing down, it was no longer an issue.

The point of the story; if something is important to you, grow some balls and stand up for it.

To make a broad generalization, women have a tendency to put the relationship before anything else. But if in your world coding is just as important as cuddling, speak up and stand your ground.

Relationships and intellectual development do not have to be mutually exclusive.

I had a very similar experience. My wife hits the sack at 11-ish, and I'm up until 3 or 4 working on side projects. It has worked out very well for us.

I asked her to read "Hackers and Painters" while we were dating. She did and said that it made her understand why I am the way I am. So, if you're early in a relationship and want her/him to "get it"... I highly recommend the book.

I got to personally thank PG for it a couple years ago... but... thanks again!

Exact same here. Except in my case, she wins more often than not. She has her ways of making me do things....

Many nights I have stayed awake, looking wantingly at my computer across the room while I hold her, asleep in my arms.

No, and there seems to be no reasoning with her on this issue.

Get into the habit of going to sleep with her, but waking up early. Very early. You don't need more than 4-5 hours of sleep, even if you think so. Plus the early hours of the morning (4 o'clock onward) are silent, cool, and your brain is fastest after resting. Best creative hours.

Doesn't seem workable to me. I can't get into the zone as easily when I first wake up.

And yes, I do need more than 4-5 hours when I do it every single day, and I'll be working all day too.

1) Einstein ended up getting divorced over his work. Is it worth it?

2) Sex is exhausting. Having it regularly is the real issue.

I don't think exhausting sex is the issue. But the feeling for no more being competitive for sex reduces the drive to work. And I guess raising children also took away time. Considering the case of Pablo Picasso. He still did great work but he never settled down in any relationship and always looking for a new girl like he was young.

I guess to refute the theory, we need to monitor testosterone levels of creative males for all his life. And after their death and 50 years later to judge the correlation of their testosterone level with achievements.

So shall we wait to see Serge Brin and Larry Page's declined capabilities in running Google? :-)

I feel great for coding after sex, if it's with a partner that I haven't just started with. It's like a cloud has been lifted from my mind. A world of distractions are suddenly gone.

Reminds me of Cryptonomicon

I don't think 2 is right. Not enough sleep, that is often correlated, is the problem.

We had sex yesterday, and today, before breakfast, I swam 1.5 miles (crawl) in a good time.

You may reply, the sex was boring...

My startup cofounder is my wife. Things are going splendidly. Generalizations are pretty useless in making decisions for your own life.

I'm also working on a startup with my wife as cofounder. We haven't launched yet, but her skillset is a fantastic complement to mine. I'm a very strategic thinker, whereas she's a great tactician and good at organization. She's also brilliant (Ph.D. student in I/O psychology), which is one of the reasons I married her. :)

I think that most couples aren't capable of running a business together, but I also think we're particularly pragmatic and don't let emotions get in the way of our goals.

I also have found myself becoming MORE creative now that we've been married. That might just be because I didn't move out from my parents' house until a few months before the wedding, but I can say that the broad generalization of marriage destroying creativity doesn't apply to me.

uhh .. what is I/O psychology? maybe there is some obvious abbreviation that I am missing. but I/O .. well to a programmer that is always input-output and I am having a hard time thinking about what psychology might be involved in reading/writing to disks for instance.

Industrial organisation

Thanks for the fantastically rare anecdotal example.

My point is more about the implications of such exceptions. Don't make decisions in the abstract. You aren't some random variable. You know a great deal about yourself, and conditional probabilities affect the aggregate statistics that caused your stereotypes and perceptions.

So you're saying that one should never heed general warnings but instead discover all potential risks through first-hand, irreversible, unprepared-for personal disaster?

The critical aspect here is that you do not entirely control the temperament of your partner. That is up to her and your luck. Best to not throw away this advice and make use of this knowledge while you can.

Of course, congratulations on your awesome luck.

No, take general warnings as a guide, and add the context of your specific situation.

For example, wingsuit diving is essentially suicidal. http://youtube.com/watch?v=JHlOvhlKPvs

But if you happen to be an extremely talented wingsuit diver, such broad declarations don't mean as much.

Certainly heed advice if you are in no way exception with respect to the matters that influence the issue.

Also, about temperament... I've probably thought about the long term implications of temperament and interaction about starting the business far more than average. So if you shouldn't have gotten married, you sure as hell shouldn't start a company together. If you made a good decision (which sadly isn't too common), you can probably work together really well. Goes back to the main point: context matters over generalizations.

come to think of it, today is our anniversary :)

Doesn't jive with my experience. A wife and family increaased my drive tremendously.

When i was single, I was a slacker mostly interested in partying. I would work just enough for rent and pot.

After our first son arrived 5 years ago (unplanned), I realized I had to make up for lost time, and have been extremely productive ever since, finishing my engineering degree, finally getting a "real" job in the industry, and then leaving that for my startup.

However, my wife constantly says I dont give enough time to the family. If I gave as much time as she wished, I doubt I would be successful.

Women lurv engineers, there has always been great engineering by married men. The great discoverys come 'out of the blue' by someone essentially sitting around for five or six years thinking about some crazy assed idea like time slowing down the faster you run, that no one would ever think worth while. Until it changes the world.

> After our first son arrived 5 years ago (unplanned)

Sounds like you should hire a project manager! ;-)

If you are married then you will know, she is clearly the manager.

A few more anecdotal data points:

I had a philosophy teacher who was known for being something of a terror. However, he became a lot more placid after getting married.

A fellow student was very driven, he was on track to becoming a SEAL at one point (changed his mind due to the psychological effects of being a SEAL). However, he too became much more laid back after getting married. He told me that he noticed married people lose their drive.

On the other hand, I had a classics professor who is married with 4 kids, and he is very prolific.

Besides the biological aspects of getting married, I think marriage makes life more emotionally comfortable for people. So, if a person's drive doesn't come from a lack of emotional stability, then they'll remain productive even after becoming married.

Here is the original paper [PDF]: http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/MES/pdf/JRP2003.pdf

A very important article for any aspiring young man.

Interestingly, the female genius stay fairly consistent across their life spans. It does not exhibit the sharp peak in the of their male counterparts. Unfortunately, the paper does not address the impact of marriage on women's productivity, only on mens.

It's all about time, time, time. I'm not suggesting there aren't extremes at both ends of the intelligence spectrum. But for the bulk of us in the middle of the curve, it all comes down to time. The problem is society pulls for our time on one end and family pulls for our time on the other. Unless your independently wealthy you can't be uber effective at both. I've actually known a number of men who have tried to advance there careers or get advanced degrees after they were married and had children only to end up getting divorced. I'm not advocating one path as superior to the other but having a family myself I know something has to give. Over time I've learned to value my accomplishments as a husband and father over those of intellect and career.

Ditto. You couldn't develop much of a career in a couple hours a day, so why expect to be successful at a family with the same minimal contribution? It's about balance.

PG, any thoughts on this? Are you married? And dare I ask, are you celibate? ...No pressure, of course. It's a touchy subject to some.

I ask because you're more successful than most of us here, and I know of many people who claim that celibacy is crucial to doing anything great with your life, for whatever your definition of great is. Scientific evidence is hard to come by though, and even still, most people don't seem to accept it.

I'm not married yet. Engaged though.

I wonder if this study controlled for children. From what I've seen, having kids affects people's lives a lot more than getting married.

remember that most of the scientists surveyed lived before effective birth control, when marriage usually led to children.

Funny that no one's asked "to whom?".

I have a guess, though.

at which age will the little-uns be inspired towards ycombinator, Paul? :D

Will divorce restore the genius, or is it irreversible?

According to the findings in the paper: Yes, it will to at least some degree. Testosterone increases after a divorce and therefore so does competitive effort and overall productivity (Genius + Effort = Productivity)

I think it does. I am divorced, therefore I still have to compete for the babes. As a result, I am in better shape than most guys my age. I also must be (somewhat) successful. The most successful you are the better babes you can get. I know is a somewhat cynical position but I think sex is an important motivator.

What about steroids and HGH?

Marriage doesn't only stop scientific genius. It also stops musical genius. A good example would be The Beatles. Consider them like a start-up. They had a phenomenally productive phase but it stopped after they got married. This could be because the number of decision makers grew and the number of relationships grew even more.

According to Wikipedia, John was married to Cynthia from 1962-68; then to Yoko. Ringo married in '65; George in '66.

Stunning counterexample.

I know this is an old thread, but Bach, Mozart, Debussy, Wagner, Rachmaninov, and Richard Strauss (off the top of my head) were all married.

Bach also fathered 20 children.

It depends. Yoko either influenced John's creativity or his relationship with her reflected his shifting values. Either way, it wasn't a lack of creativity that broke up the Beatles, it was a rift between what they wanted to express in terms of art.

I think some portion of "genius" is the ability to recognize and run with ideas, some of which come from others. Geniuses not only need to actually have an idea, they need the freedom to pursue it and get recognized.

Getting settled in to a family need not diminish the capacity for ideas, but following the established social conventions of ordinary people will reduce the chances to pursue them. Settling down may also make geniuses less social and as a result they may not pick up as many new ideas from others and they will limit their chances to be recognized.

Seems like a good material of the Divorce Magazine (www.divorcemag.com)... Now what the hell is that... The other I walk in the BestBuy and see this free magazine, fuckin divorce lawyers and shit...

And fuck the geniuses life! My wife born me a beautiful son, he's already 45 days, the hell with geniuses and their lives...

Why the downmodes? malkia is just so happy about his new son that everything else (including being a genius) seems unimportant.

Agreed, being a genius doesn't matter in a vacuum (a point RMS apparently doesn't get).

you do know what site this is, right?

obviously...not! ;)

The article doesn't say that marriage turns genius off, it says that marriage and _children_ turn it off. BFD

My bet is that children alone absolutely destroy productivity and further, that marriage without children would (at least initially) enhance productivity.

Strange as its increased my productivity. Kids do take up a load of time, but its been THE most focusing effect of my life :- 1. Any spare time I have, I work immensely hard - no creativity suites with bean bags for inspiration; no procrastination on which direction I take or how elegant/short my code can be. If it works, its in. 2. My product (or subsequent ones) HAS to succeed. I'm simply working to keep a roof over our heads and now have another mouth to feed. "Necessity is the mother of all invention" a smart chap from across the pond once said. In short - I do not suffer from motivational problems.

I know that counterexamples will not disprove the trend, but... What about the Curies? Or Thelonious Monk. Without Nellie to make his lunch and get him dressed in the morning, he would never have achieved the things he did.

It seems to me like this result would be true for anything a person tries to do that requires a significant amount of time investment.

For instance, I'd like to see this same study on people who have discovered Warcraft or the like.

That's really not that surprising. If I feel that nagging 'it would be unhealthy to stay up any later' feeling, staying up and putting in those extra hours just seems less appealing if the alternative is a bed with the warm body of someone who loves you. Guess it's a matter of motivations/priorities.

Alternatively, maybe it just means that, once you have a family, you're less likely to take the risks that are sometimes necessary to produce those genius contributions.

Note the differential between discovery and engineering. OMG, Paul, think long engagment, at least until the crazy creative part of Arc is wrapped up... ;-)

i know something else it turns off: freedom

depends who you marry

The tap leaked extensively in the case of J. S. Bach: two wives and 21 children.

Is this desirable? Maybe it helps you give more attention to your family.

Marriage turns other things off like a tap ;)

Maybe that contributes? 0.o

Personally, my productivity went up after me and my wife separated. No kids involved. It was a focus issue with me. I simply could not manage to fully focus on what I was doing when having to deal with another person's constant issues, whether it be this or that. Constantly having to pay attention to someone, having to go along with weekend activities I was not in the least interested in. Now, I love the woman, and we are still husband and wife, but I personally can't handle living with someone and therefore having my life intertwined with another person's life.

the past != the future

statistical "facts" != your own experience

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