Very similar to all of you in high scholl and college. I.e. smart plus lazy.
Last year i started my masters in energy stuff. Got pretty heavy in engineering, maths, thermodynamics etc. I did humanities in uni, so haven’t got background in most of this.
Im definitely a bit slower at 38, but im now structured, conscientious and spend time learning how to learn as well as filling in all the background knowledge and theory. Its a completely different experience.
If i have kids, will definitely encourage them down this later path, its a much better approach.
I had trig first period my senior year and I had a gf I was trying to bang late nights and experimenting with weed so slept through class most of the time or fought to stay awake. I got a high B or low A on the final and to this day I have no idea how that happened. 6 years later in college Pre-Calculus was a bitch for me. I’d get through the problems but like the answer would be 7 and I’d get -7 or dumb shit like that.
It also works for history. Once you develop a framework for facts, you can interpolate facts that you have forgotten.
I have a lot of theories about how memory works. I’m very aware that I remember past events through recreations of what happened rather than as if I have a camera in head.
I don’t have visual flashbacks to past traumatic events, but I can relive the emotions I felt in those events and from those feelings create a mental picture of what those events must have been like.
Smart plus lazy isn’t really a bad combo if done right. If you plan it properly, you can parlay that into a good bit of success while putting a bare minimum of effort. There are a couple of caveats.
Lazy is ok, but you can’t do literally nothing. That doesn’t work.
You actually have to have a solid plan for what paths allow for laziness. Most people are too lazy to come up with that plan. But a bit of time spent on this will allow for plenty of laziness to follow.
I guess, but I think developing that framework still requires some memory. At least more than Math.
For example, I’m could name all of the US presidents in order. But I don’t have it memorized. My technique is to just kind of think about what was happening at the time and who the president was just makes sense in context. But to pull it off, I still have to have a memory of what was going on at the time. In my case, that is deteriorating. For example, mid 1800s except around the time of the civil war is getting fuzzy for me, so remembering those presidents is harder.
All of the math that l learned at the same time is stuff that I have no problems accessing (yet), because the memory required for the framework is less.
Yeah. Lazy is relative. I studied hard in bursts when needed, but nothing compared to now, where im actually planning my term and studying hard from start to finish.
I’m pretty sure he mentioned he sold them off when price was still below $100 or something like that, which must have felt like that stratosphere back then.
I remember following along with that thread, and back then I think someone was actually dishing out free bitcoin.
I was always good at IQ tests and standardized tests and used to think I would become some top intellectual. Then I went to an elite graduate school program and spent a lot of time with people who I realized are way smarter than I’ll ever be. Was a humbling experience, but probably helped make me a little more grounded.
Don’t need to read that to know that IQ tests test how good people are at taking IQ tests. And I say this as someone who is very good at taking IQ tests.
Three years ago, when I was 54, I went to London to watch the London Chess Classic as well as to play in the open tournament. During my third game (it was one game per day), I was well into the 4th hour and needed to find the correct path to hold the draw with Black in a minor piece and pawn ending. I was pretty mentally tired, and I couldn’t reliably hold the images in my head beyond the 3rd move on the various move tree branches. I made a “safe move” rather than plunge into a forcing path I couldn’t clearly see, and I ended up being lost in just a few moves.
Although I smoke daily at home, I was on day 5 of this trip with no cannabis or alcohol, and walking 5+ miles per day, so my brain was probably as clear as it could be.
Consequently, I realized that I’m probably too old to be playing 4+ hour chess games.