17 KiB
The Olympics create Geniuses. Can we use this Template for something better?
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Author: u/ianstlawrence *
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URL: https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/2moy55/the_olympics_create_geniuses_can_we_use_this/
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Score: 6
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Created: 2014-11-18T19:27:59
Post:
The TL;DR of this is that because of the competition, prestige, and money involved in the Olympics and sports in general, we are continually producing "geniuses" in those areas.
I wanted to first talk about whether or not this is true (I think it is), and then, maybe more importantly, talk about whether or not Video Games could create challenges and games that would allow for us to create the same kind of prestige, competition, and money for more intellectual challenges.
If an example might help: Starcraft 2 has been looked at numerous times so far for providing insight into the ability to cognitively multi-task. Here is an article on it: http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/2011/12/01/how-a-computer-game-is-reinventing-the-science-of-expertise-video/
So, yeah, I want a smarter society, but humans don't seem particularly good, as a group, in just doing good, helpful things unless there is a lot of incentive, and things like the NFL, ESPN, and the World Cup are really, really great example of organizations motivating people really, really well to spend their time, attention, and money on something.
Thoughts?
Comments:
u/alexanderwales [+8] Time flies like an arrow (an hour later)
There have certainly been attempts at creating competitions for intelligence-based pursuits. In high school I was in academic decathlon, debate, mock trial, chess club, and every recreational mathematics program (not bragging here - the barrier for entry in most of those is very low, and many of them I wasn't terribly good at). In college, I did programming competitions and robotics competitions, and I have on occasion helped out with the current high school programs for the same thing.
I think you're right that adding incentives on top of the already fairly high incentives for academics would increase interest. However, I also think that there are two big problems:
Specialization is a killer. If you look at chess, Scrabble, trivia shows, etc. the biggest thing that you can do to increase your ability is not to get smarter, but to - for example - memorize the common openings, or memorize the two letter word list. There's a lot of cognitive effort involved, but also a lot of stuff that just doesn't transfer to other domains. This is going to be the case with almost any game you invent for people to play, and represents a problem if you want to push people towards a general increase in intelligence.
Money. The Olympics are, so far as I know, revenue positive, in that it makes money for people (hosting the Olympics doesn't always work out for the host country, since it can leave a lot of dead stadiums and other problems, but that's a fixable problem). If you want a cognitive sport, you need to make sure that it too is revenue positive (or at least neutral). You could fund it with tax dollars or private donations, but that's a losing proposition unless you have a lot of support - and that money can probably be spent in better ways. The whole reason to do a sport is that the sport can make money and pour that money back into itself.
So essentially, all you need to do is create a game that:
- Increases general intelligence when played/practiced
- Is entertaining to watch
And if you can do that, then you can create your own Olympics organically. However, there have been attempts to do this, and none of them have been terribly successful, if only because cognitive effort is almost always internal, and cognitive sports mostly involve people thinking quietly to themselves with a furrowed brow.
u/None [+1] (3 hours later)
Note: Chess isn't all about memorizing openings, though that is something most players do, rather than it is about just playing a lot and getting better at pattern-matching situations to other times you've played the position. Though, you were correct that it isn't about being more intelligent, and that it isn't quite useful for other cognitive tasks.
u/ianstlawrence [+1] (a day later)
First, love your fanfictions.
Second, I think one of the things that is becoming more clear, is that Video Games are going to be able to do some pretty neat stuff, especially with the advent of Procedurally Generated content.
I feel like Video Games might be the way to get people to buy into the competition, and I think Starcraft might be the smallest, newly birthed example of what it could one day be.
But it would be extremely difficult. I was more just wondering: is this a good idea? If we had the resources, ability, right game, etc would it be worth implementing.
I do, however, think your first point is a little lacking. I don't see how the inability for the "sport" or "esport" to transfer to other areas is such a problem. Certainly it isn't a problem for any other sport, where their abilities (namely putting a ball of some sort into a certain place) are pretty much useless in any other given context.
And the idea isn't to have a game that teaches geography, instead it would be something more akin to teaching creative or critical thinking, good utilization of resources, performing under pressure, and more, with the main thrust to be that the physical aspects of such challenges are downplayed in subservience to the mental acrobatics.
Does that make sense?
u/nerdguy1138 [+1] GNU Terry Pratchett (2 days later)
OP writes fanfic? Link please!
u/ianstlawrence [+2] (3 days later)
I think you actually meant the guy named Alexander, but in case you didn't here is my farthest along fanfic: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8658792/1/Steel-and-Gold
And if you wanted Alexander's, who is really great, here is one of his: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10360716/1/The-Metropolitan-Man
He has several, and they are all great and wonderful.
u/firstgunman [+4] (an hour later)
The number of Olympiads (~thousands/occurrence), compared to the general populace (~billions), is vanishingly small. In comparison, the number of PhD (~ten thousands/year) compared to the general populace is relatively small, but still much larger than the number of Olympiads.
By that metric, the human race is doing much better on its +int than its +str.
However, if we only count Gold medalist (~hundreds/occurence) as geniuses, then compared to Nobel Prizes winners (~tens/year), academics have much catching up to do.
u/None [+2] (7 hours later)
This is only true if a PhD is equivalent to a Olympian, which doesn't make much sense. I could create a competition for, say, flying then accept each applicant, but that didn't mean people are better at flying than at getting PhDs, just that the qualifications are different.
u/firstgunman [+3] (10 hours later)
Ah, the crux of trying to compare dissimilar categories against each other. What do we mean by genius anyways - what's the membership test to be counted as one?
If by genius, we mean people whose ability in some field is so many standard deviations above the average practitioner, then I think Olympians and PhD are comparable. Thankfully, this excludes flying - since I don't think any human will do much better than the average flying animal. (Unless we have some other criterion for this camp, in which case why call it flying?)
But the point OP brought up is that, given enough incentive (a la the Olymics), can we foster a culture where intellectuals is a widely popular aspiration? (through video games, or otherwise)
If we ask whether incentivizing video gaming will produce geniuses at video games, the answer is trivial; but if we ask whether incentivizing video gaming will produce geniuses in the more traditional sense, I must admit my reservations. Sure, some skills might be transferable (e.g. heightened awareness, better object manipulation), but why not just incentivize those skills directly? A good marksman will still be a much better shot than a great FPS player; so marksmanship itself is a much more direct thing to promote if you want people to be crack-shots. We're certainly not training the next George Patton by making them play Starcraft.
(No disrespect to video-gaming. The point is equally valid if I substitute topics such as meditation, good nutrition, or getting enough sleep.)
So how do we incentivize being smart? I argue that the incentive to be smart is there already. People with PhDs (and MDs, JDs, etc) are more likely to have better financial security and job satisfaction than those who don't. There's also a good deal of prestige - some people consider adding to the sum-total knowledge of mankind a more impressive feat than swimming really fast. In fact, if you consider how many PhDs there are compared to Olympiads, I'd say our incentives for 'smarts' are working quite well. On an absolute scale over the lifetime of our race, the average man today is the smartest he has ever been.
u/None [+2] (a day later)
Fair enough. Your civility is appreciated :-)
u/ianstlawrence [+1] (a day later)
As to what genius means, I think your definition of "people whose ability in some field many standard deviations above the average" is a good one.
I would like to point out that the subject is more on whether or not producing a video game that did actually focus on transferrable skills is a good idea, like the multi-tasking boost you get from playing Starcraft, not whether or not one right now exists. Specifically I was thinking along the lines of critical thinking, performing under pressure, and creative solving of simple problems.
I don't think incentivizing the skills directly works very well in the society we are in. Because of the capitalistic nature of our government, economics, and culture, being good at something just for the sake of it is not widely considered to be a "good" idea. Deciding to spend all your time drawing beautiful portraits without the accompanying thought of how to sell, market, and make a profit off those portraits is, sadly, something considered to be "stupid".
Hence, the idea of taking the Olympics and other Sports template and creating something that deviously turns people into smarty-pants. Now, what kind of smarts is definitely up to debate, but I think your proposal regarding the economic incentives of being a PHD holder gets a bit crushed when you consider that if you asked 100 kids, age 6-12, what they wanted to be when they grew up, you would probably get a lot more "Basketball Player" than "PHD holder in Physics".
In part, the reasoning for this thought is to try and get them young! With something flashy, that grabs immediate attention, is broadcasted on Television or the Internet, and that seems feasible for making money.
Also, to add to that last thought, you end with "how many PhDs there are compared to Olympiads", but that number starts to really look a lot worse when you consider the number of PhDs in comparison to every professional athlete, especially if you are conflating PhD as a professional in their field to a Professional Athlete being a professional in their field. In that sense, I feel like "jocks" are winning the number game, and much more importantly, are winning the cultural "cool" game.
u/Sparkwitch [+6] (2 hours later)
What intellectual exercises are easy to watch?
Most Olympic events are some form of race, either literally or in the form of a score. Which player is in front, and how close they are to one another is immediately apparent with even the most rudimentary understanding of what sport is. The events which aren't races are typically based on distance or accuracy, relatively easy to explain the goal and then grade without much explanation.
A tiny, but popular remainder are graded on difficulty and mastery. These are usually aesthetically pleasing in their own right, and who happens to win is secondary to the enjoyment of just watching experts play.
In short, anybody can sit down and watch the Olympics and basically understand what the Olympians are trying to do. Ditto the vast majority of sports out there. That low barrier to entry inspires people to devote their attention long enough to start asking questions about specific rules, techniques, scoring conventions, and whatever else is required to understand a sport well.
Unless these intellectual competitions are immediately, understandably fun to watch, they're not going to attract the sort or size of audience that supports the money and prestige of conventional sport.
u/alexanderwales [+3] Time flies like an arrow (2 hours later)
I've been watching Hearthstone (an online collectible card game) lately, and I think that it does a lot right in terms of being understandable to the layman. It's filled with lots of neat animations that make it clear what's going on, and the tournaments feature commentators that discuss the possible plays (and the reasoning behind the plays). And when some brilliant play is made, it's fairly easy for the viewer to see it after the fact, even if they didn't get there on their own. Other than the random elements involved, I think it offers a very good model for how an intellectual game can/should be designed.
u/None [+2] (13 hours later)
On the other hand, Hearthstone is really easy to be decent at for someone reasonably intelligent. The difference between an average player and a top-player isn't going to be that big. (Unless they changed a lot since I last played.)
u/JackStargazer [+2] Primordial Apologist (3 hours later)
Esports in general have some really good professional commentary and strategy now.
u/ianstlawrence [+1] (a day later)
Hearthstone is pretty sweet. I play it as well, and well, one of the reasons I am hung up on this whole game thing is because I am the technical director for a company that broadcasts Esports competitions, including Hearthstone.
But if you really want to get into a deep, competitive card game, you gotta go to Magic the Gathering, at least until they add more cards/abilities/mechanics to Hearthstone.
u/None [+1] (6 hours later)
Yep, this is why chess will never be popular no matter how much they try to speed up the time control or add exciting commentary and big prizes. You can only understand what's happening on the board to the extent that you're an expert on chess yourself.
u/qznc [+0] Chaos Legion (a day later)
The problem with chess is that it most certainly can be solved optimally. We don't have the compute power yet, though. You can observe that it is increasingly about memorizing openings and endings. Instead we should look for mixed solution games.
u/ianstlawrence [+1] (a day later)
I think, again, you can look to Starcraft for a glimmer of what could be. Starcraft, ultimately, is about raising an army to crush your foe, and that, is very easy for the layman to grasp. The first part of explaining Starcraft is very simple and just about everyone grasps it: Destroy your opponent with your army.
Unfortunately or fortunately, depending on your perspective, the game is set in the far future with alien races, and stops being super intuitive, although Blizzard, I will say, did a great job of making it so the more powerful a unit gets (mostly in terms of cost / amount of damage it does per minute) the bigger and more impressive it looks.
Obviously, there isn't a game out there right now that does the things that would make it an "Olympian" sport, but I do feel like the potential could be there.
u/qznc [+2] Chaos Legion (a day later)
Poker is interesting. It is rational if not rationalist. It got quite popular in the last decade. Money and competition is there, but prestige in the general population is not that big.
At least it is a nice starting point. There are quite a lot of things to improve, especially with Texas Hold'em the most popular variant. Pandante is an interesting descendant.
u/qznc [+2] Chaos Legion (a day later)
I think our world has enough incentive to be intelligent (better jobs in general). The general assumptions about intelligence need to change.
People believe intelligence is genetically determined. In terms of IQ it seems to be correct. However, being smart is something you can learn and train.
u/ianstlawrence [+1] (a day later)
I think I disagree with you on the idea that our world has enough incentive to be intelligent.
I feel like if that was true, less people would be inclined to think Global Warming is a hoax, or that vaccinations cause autism, or any number of other things. I feel like people think intelligence is good, but very few people define intelligence well.
And regardless, even if we hit the minimum of "liking to be intelligent" I'd still like to walk up to kids, ask them what they want to be, and receive an overwhelming chorus of things like: "astrophysicists, neuroscientist, artist, writer, astronaut, molecular biologist" rather than, "Play for the Packers, get into the NBA, Pop sensation, etc".
Yah dig?