While I recognize that we (broadly) like to idolize particularly effective individuals, I feel we risk essentially dishonouring the dynamic when we focus so intently and exclusively on just one member of this kind of deeply collaborative union.
Although there were plenty of fun people to hang out with, there were very few people who had a seriousness about getting work done, along with a collaborative instinct. Maybe I was unlucky, but I'd thought that an Oxbridge college would yield a few people who could keep me focussed on the academics. And yes, in another world I would have brought the motivation myself, but like many people, I am influenced by my environment.
If you've ever coded with someone you click with, you might have had this experience of generating way more useful code than 2x people working on their own, or what one person could do in 2x the time.
Ironically, it’s the intellectual stuff that hasn’t come full circle. So you’re smarter, is your plan to just out smart me everyday? Well actually, yes, that is the plan. I will out smart you, establish dominance, hierarchy, status etc - all of which is systemically quantified via prestige, status, income, life partners (all the stupid shit physical dominance once got us) . It’s hard to find synergy in this realm when we as a society haven’t gotten over ourselves on this front, the same way we got over all that physical beat people up bullshit. We haven’t yet accepted that this too is a waste of time in the context of civilization.
We are all more than capable of collaborating intellectually, but as a society we are just too dumb at the moment to do so. Hard to collaborate with barbaric intellectuals.
Long story short, you are probably part of the problem, as we all are at this inflection point in humanity.
Or, is it possible that competition about important matters is not an inherently human trait, and we could actually just all switch to deeply caring about who is best at Trackmania or who follows the best football team or whatever?
In some sense a sizeable portion of the human population has already done the latter - perhaps they are actually the enlightened ones?
(I'm assuming that competition is important for humans, since this seems to be a well established fact. The question here is whether the competitiveness needs to be about factors related to your intellect and studies/workplace achievements.)
I get people have underpinnings of nature that enflame instincts. That’s great, but you know, when it impacts people’s lives - it needs to find another place to party.
I hope that makes sense. Hitler ad-reductio incoming. Hey, Germany, I get your bullshit pulled you out of the depths of WW1, but look, your nonsense is killing millions of people.
Just find another abstract gutter for your nonsense, find another means of self fulfillment, please, and don’t hurt anyone.
We don’t have to placate every human instinct and constantly romanticize every aspect of the human struggle. Life is absolutely requires empathy and stability.
> I will out smart you, establish dominance, hierarchy, status etc - all of which is systemically quantified via prestige, status, income, life partners (all the stupid shit physical dominance once got us)
This seems like it will be very hard to get rid of compared to physical dominance. Partly because smarts are far less straightforward than physicality, and partly because it would be a systemic change.
A more cynical explanation may say it only disappeared was because we discovered the more /effective/ way to exert dominance on others was mentally, not physically. It wasn't due to any collective enlightenment about the sociological futility of domination -- it was merely a desire to achieve better logistics.
Seeing the same lack of collaboration in university was really disappointing. Friendly people listened passively, less friendly people liked to listen and contradict. The willingness to actually share knowledge seemed to be almost non-existent.
I haven't solved the puzzle yet why sharing knowledge is so hard. Some people don't have knowledge to share, some want to keep an advantage, and the barbaric instincts to reject unfamiliar ideas tramples the remaining few sparks.
Noticing my own barbaric instincts in action was enlightening.
It’s why the paradise birds dance.
Being physically fit used to be the main factor and while it still helps today, it’s only one smaller component of status.
I don’t see the physical fitness and intellectual posturing as two distinct areas that have separately matured.
It’s one sexual selection continuum - only the environment and what’s adaptive for attracting mates has changed.
There’s a new dance to learn.
I don’t think this is something we can easily overcome.
The Roman identity was literally built on conquering. It took a long time until we were able to say ‘yeah, why can’t this small little land mass be it’s own country?’. Why would a country have to fight for independence? Can you imagine that in today’s society? It’s absurd. Yet, many of our countries had to ... fight for independence. What kind of world was that? A world where dominance wasn’t an undercurrent?
Intellectual dominance hasn’t found socially acceptable gutters, it literally pays in society. Esports and video games is a band aid. The underlying trait is dominance. I can’t prove my thesis in two paragraphs I suppose, but you’ll have to forgive me for that.
Dominant behavior is dysfunctional, and since it is an underlying human trait, it reincarnates itself constantly. Racism and classism are all forms of it, under the umbrella of elitism.
Why can’t my unfit brother go to the same gym I worked hard to get into? Sounds crazy right? Well he’s fat, he didn’t earn it, etc. We don’t even contemplate this anymore physically. Yet, why can’t someone also work at Google because they aren’t the best? Intellectualism at the moment rejects ‘it takes a village’, and it rejects ‘the hand cannot say I am not of the body’.
So be it, it’s just the dark ages. One day we’ll figure it out, as we did with the other manifestation of dominance.
My most serious point is this - the nonsense cannot and should not affect people’s livelihoods. Find the abstract gutter for the nonsense already, and do not fuck with people with your meta game.
The sadness is that I know it must play out before we can come to the table and solve it.
In other words, there’s no shortcuts, and we have to see it through to the end to prove it, no inductive step. No theory in this.
Except you get to see it without any of the rationalizations that we make. You get the raw distillation of this behavior.
It'll never change.
I am now at IBM Research. In my career here, I have experienced multiple working relationships where I feel we were able to accomplish far, far more than at least I know I could have achieved on my own. Maybe they didn't need me, but I know for certain I needed them to be so productive. That this kind of working relationship is disincentivized for graduate students is, to me, tragic.