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Cthulhoo comments on If You Were Brilliant When You Were Ten... - Less Wrong Discussion

24 Post author: AspiringKnitter 27 December 2011 02:33AM

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Comment author: Cthulhoo 27 December 2011 01:10:22PM 3 points [-]

Warning, Anecdotal Evidence: In my case there was a noticeable fall in my school results. When I was around 13-15 years old I was so convinced of being extra smart that I thought I didn't need to work hard to achieve results. When my marks started to go down, I didn't immediately think that I needed to study more, but I was instead puzzled and kind of pissed off. It took me a couple of years to realize the obvious truth and correct my behavior. This is the closest to an evidence I can think of.

Comment author: RolfAndreassen 27 December 2011 04:24:06PM 0 points [-]

Since you eventually did recover, how non-optimal was that? Maybe a few years of slacking off generated more utilons than the transient satisfactions of jumping through the hoops we hold up for teenagers.

Comment author: Cthulhoo 28 December 2011 08:50:43AM 0 points [-]

I don't know for sure, of course, but I see many negative effects that appear to be related to the overconfidence I was made to have in that period. It took me a lot of time and effort to get back on track, especially with math, and I probably didn't fully recover until I began my bachelor. Plus, I was being a real dick for some time, and this possibly made me lose some potential good friends. I don't have the counterfactual, of course, but since we don't have 10 000 smart kids to use in an actual experiment, this kind of evidence has to be taken into account. Unless you happen to have a clone army in your secret evil lab of course... ;)