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Comment by abbiya | Hacker News Reader

erik is the prof.

He is awesome,a s student in third world country (which universities sucks) I watched to all his online lectures and I learned more than I learned in my 4 year of college,I always wander how person as young as he can achieve so much success.

I don't care about financial success, I am curious about scientific success.

God I wish there was mind recorder. I would listen to his (and people like he) mind all day, how they think, what they think , how they manage their time, everything.

Scientists should study these guys, imagine a world filled with people like Erik (in all careers) how beautiful that world would be.

So you're saying that we should clone him ? Or clone top(10) maths/psychs/brain-surgeon/etc ?

Of course not, you are so obsessed with your perspective, you didn't see what I said. I told we should study these guys , how they think , how they improve their performance, to achieve their success formula.

I cannot understand how in earth you infer from that to cloning them.

Damn you got so offended! I'm sorry.

Anyway, haven't we/they studied them ? That's what's missing ?

I refer to cloning, cause you can't take `normies` and tell them what to do and they'll become a science-guy. Cause they don't want to, don't enjoy the process, don't have the mental capacity (pick any of them or all of them).

So you need good genes (be able to learn, wanting/enjoying to learn), good enough life (don't get born in war-torn country), a good program on how to do them (what you say), a little guidance/mentoring.

You can't divide people into 2 categories: `normies` (you probably meant mediocre) and top(10). Leaving philosophy aside, there are a lot of people who do want to know what makes the top(10) tick, people who enjoy learning and who have the mental capacity. And I would argue their number is significant.

I know I can't. But to do:

>>imagine a world filled with people like Erik (in all careers) how beautiful that world would be

You have to also include `normies`, right ?

>>imagine a world filled with people like Erik (in all careers) how beautiful that world would be

Do you think this will happen without cloning or messing with genetic code ?

Thank you for posting this! I love the perspective that your comment brings to course material being available online. It really helps to understand the power of educational material being abundantly available!

If I want to be honest I worship teachers and instructors I have watched their course. I have been in sucky university, I know how it feels to waste your time. The first moment I find my first course (Erik all algorithm course) it was revolution in my life.

I literally worship people like Douglas Schmidt, Erik Demanine, Tim Roughgarden, Robert Sedgwick ...

They literally changed my life.

Can you imagine third world universities? I am sure not. After 4 year , you end up knowing nothing , literally nothing,not even writing hello world.

Thanks to these guys I am reading a book every month. For past two months I was reading Silberchats database books.

Honestly this is why I find the recent decision by the Dept of Education to sue universities for not captioning their lecture videos very, very selfish.

Erik Demaine is such a great guy, I met him at a conference once, where he gave an invited talk on self-assembling robots. Fascinating stuff, we had a very interesting discussion with him afterwards and his intricate knowledge of even the smallest details was quite impressive. If his talk is anything to go by, this lecture should be very worthwhile.

Completely agree. Haven't met him in person. I was taking a graduate algorithms course, a few years ago, and was searching online to gain better understanding. That's when I found Erik Demaine's lecture videos online. He does a great job of explaining the material. Loved how the concepts were broken down so that they were easy to understand. Learning from someone so good and fluent with the material was also very inspiring. It motivated me to strive for solid understanding of the course. I had a good professor, but I don't think I would have understood the subject as well, had I not watched Erik Demaine's lecture videos.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erik_Demaine

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