June 23rd, 2024

First we shape our social graph, then it shapes us (2022)

Our social milieu shapes us, emphasizing curating cultural influences for talent and growth. Historical geniuses thrived in competent environments. Directed graphs illustrate input-output flow. John Frusciante curates influences for music evolution. Mindful content consumption shapes identities.

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First we shape our social graph, then it shapes us (2022)

The article discusses how our social environment, or "milieu," shapes us and how we, in turn, shape it. It emphasizes the importance of curating our cultural influences to foster exceptional talent and personal growth. The author explores how historical geniuses were raised in environments surrounded by highly competent individuals, highlighting the impact of one's milieu on personal development. The concept of a directed graph is used to visualize the flow of input and output from our surroundings, including people, ideas, and objects. The text delves into the example of musician John Frusciante, who meticulously curates his influences to evolve his music style. It stresses the significance of being deliberate about what we allow into our senses and the importance of considering both the input we receive and the output we generate in shaping our identities. The article concludes by encouraging readers to be mindful of the content they consume and the influences they surround themselves with, as these factors play a crucial role in shaping their thoughts and behaviors.

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Link Icon 10 comments
By @nico - 4 months
> Most who grew up to become geniuses, pre-1900, were kept apart from same age peers and raised at home, by tutors or parents

Pretty much all kids are a lot smarter than we acknowledge

Lazlo Polgar believed geniuses are made, not born, and raised his daughters to become chess grandmasters https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%A1szl%C3%B3_Polg%C3%A1r

The school system is more of an industrial childcare operation for working parents, than an actual education system for the kids

It’s also easy to criticize, and it is very hard for parents to provide good resources and enough attention for the kids to fully develop their potential

By @ramesh31 - 4 months
>"Most who grew up to become geniuses, pre-1900, were kept apart from same age peers and raised at home, by tutors or parents. Michel Montaigne’s father employed only servants who were fluent in Latin, curating a classical culture, so Montaigne would read the classics in his mother tongue. J.S. Mill spent his childhood at his father’s desk, helping his father write a treatise on economics"

I've noticed this as well, but took a different lesson from it: they were rich. They were all rich. Of course there's the odd rags to riches story here and there. But almost uniformly as a rule, anyone you've ever read about or heard of who was notable in any way as an intellectual in history was born and raised rich. There was nothing genetic or cultural about it. They were just afforded a thousand opportunities at every turn that the rest of us never were. That's really all there is to it.

By @rustcleaner - 4 months
I was incessantly mobbed, physically and psychologically, throughout early school with no escape and all cries for rescue rendered impotent... and all I got was this lousy +4 z-score IQ!

I didn't choose the genius life, the genius life chose me. *sob*

By @walterbell - 4 months
> What you want to create is a distributed apprenticeship in the art of being you. You want to assemble a set of influences you can observe and imitate, and peers and mentors that can give you feedback on how well you converge with that model of yourself.

Not limited to the living, i.e. we have centuries of potential human influencers whose contributions have been tested by time.

By @Veuxdo - 4 months
> And after a handful of years of hanging about with people more skilled than themselves, our babies—these tiny, soft-skulled creatures—can out-compete chimpanzees in all but close combat.

I don't even want to ask

By @JohnKemeny - 4 months
Previous submission, no comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38776434
By @JohnKemeny - 4 months
> The milieu around you—which shapes you, and which you shape in turn—we can model as a directed graph. The nodes are people and objects and ideas connected to each other. And the graph is directed because you have nodes that send you input and nodes you send output to.

Then shows a figure of a weirdly symmetric undirected graph that looks nothing like a social or complex network!

By @Xeyz0r - 4 months
"Your culture shapes who you become". Agree. Culture molds individuals' identities, influences their values and behaviors in so many ways
By @mediumsmart - 4 months
the great merit of society is to make one appreciate solitude
By @lukas099 - 4 months
It's yin and yang. We forever shape each other.