"And then I started thinking about skill development in general, how it seems like certain things tend to come more naturally for some, while those same people have a harder time with things that are easy for most everyone else ... That thinking led me to a theory about poker chips." - Tom Stocky

Have you read Outliers? I think you'd be interested in it. I'm a believer in that theory of what makes someone a genius/successful. - Benjamin Golub

That's the new Malcolm Galdwell book, right? After reading "Blink" I decided that would be my last Gladwell book, but I could be swayed if you tell me it's worth reading ... - Tom Stocky

Yeah; I haven't read "Blink" so I couldn't tell you for sure if you'd feel the same way about "Outliers" but I enjoyed it. - Benjamin Golub

If Blink angered you, you will hate Outliers as well. It's more of the same: cherry-picked data and charming anecdotes in service of a hopelessly sweeping and arguably misleading narrative about the way the world works. - ⓞnor

I wouldn't say it angered me, but I wish there had been more depth in some spots ... and more original research instead of summarizing other people's work. - Tom Stocky

Based on the Outliers synopsis I just read, it seems like he's pointing to examples where people nurtured certain talents to an unusually great extent. I think that's part of it, but I think you also have to nurture the right talents -- i.e., figuring out your strengths is an important first step. - Tom Stocky

A geekier analogy than poker chips would be applying points towards an RPG character... - Andrew C

Yeah, you're right -- it's similar to the way different character classes have varying capacities for different abilities, and then throughout the game you build up points toward those capacities. - Tom Stocky

I'm glad someone mentioned D&D. It's all I could think about reading through that. :-) - Jeff Eddings

Not that I've ever played a regular (tabletop) RPG, but it might be interesting to have all the char stats be completely opaque to each player, with only the outcomes of each interaction/dice roll known. It'd be more like what Tom's talking about, where you slowly develop awareness of your strengths and weaknesses. - Andrew C

Tom, I think you'll find the Johnson O'Connor Research Foundation very germane to your point of view: http://www.jocrf.org. If you're really interested in genius per se, I highly recommend Dean Simonton's _The Origins of Genius: Darwinian Perspectives on Creativity_. In brief, natural talent or capacity is only one ingredient of genius, and a genius is not necessarily maximal among peers on the scale of field-specific aptitude. - Ruchira S. Datta

Thanks for sharing that link, Ruchira. A friend of mine also pointed me to Howard Gardner's work around types of intelligence: http://skyview.vansd.org/lschmid... - Tom Stocky

I was angered by Blink. My brother recently described Outliers to me, and even the description angered me. I strongly advise against it. - niniane

what made you angry about blink? - j1m

@niniane, I noticed in _Blink_ that Gladwell's writing makes a good first impression but on reflection, it usually turns out that it seemed deeper than it actually is. (Ironically, this contradicts the thesis of that book.) I haven't seen anything about _Outliers_ yet that particularly inspires me to read it. But whence the vehemence? - Ruchira S. Datta