and maybe you're just that lazy that you have to believe yourself incapable of achieving something instead of actually, you know, trying?

I had lots of enthusiasm when I first started this game, but it's hard not to be pessimistic in the face of continuous lack of improvement. I can remember a time when I tried to compete with various people in pp gains, and I could barely do so despite playing over 6 hours a day fueled by caffeine (compared to their one hour or so). What you people who refuse to believe in natural ability have to say in such large disparities in achievement despite similar effort other than 'you're just lazy'?

Brian OA wrote:

Talent refers to an aptitude, not capacity or potential. It is often cited as an amalgam of internal and external factors (whatever these may be) that end up favoring one's effort to result ratio relative to others.

Asserting that talent does not exist is not a matter of wishful thinking, either. At least, not any more than asserting its existence is a matter of cynicism.

My doubt of it comes from it being the go-to explanation for relative disparities in skill when the issue could easily be lack of data.

You say that talent is one thing, and not another thing, when all the words you're using are synonyms. The most obvious answer to the difference in achievement is the existence of natural talent. Cynicism is going out of your way to look at things in a negative light, it's not forgoing the obvious conclusion and claiming that instead it's the result of a million other variables. It seems apparent that your conclusion is based on the fact that you don't want to believe that people's ability is limited by their talent rather than any logic.

Here it comes again

Grab the popcorn boys

B1rd wrote:

I had lots of enthusiasm when I first started this game, but it's hard not to be pessimistic in the face of continuous lack of improvement. I can remember a time when I tried to compete with various people in pp gains, and I could barely do so despite playing over 6 hours a day fueled by caffeine (compared to their one hour or so). What you people who refuse to believe in natural ability have to say in such large disparities in achievement despite similar effort other than 'you're just lazy'?

That you were doing everything wrong and were incapable of recognizing that you could be doing something wrong. You harbored a mislead belief of somehow doing everything perfect and when you didn't see improvement you arrived at the logical conclusion of somehow your perfect not being perfect enough. That you weren't capable of as much improvement due to things that you couldn't do anything about.

I've been at that point many times and every time I've got past it by realizing that I was doing something very wrong, that I had been pretending, that I wasn't even trying but had myself fooled into thinking that I was. After all, by outward appearances it looked like I was practicing really hard, clicking circles intensely for six hours a day! In actuality I had already given up, I already believed that no matter what I did it wouldn't amount to anything. I only played as much as I did to prove to myself that I had been right all along!

B1rd wrote:

You say that talent is one thing, and not another thing, when all the words you're using are synonyms.

The most obvious answer to the difference in achievement is the existence of natural talent.

Cynicism is going out of your way to look at things in a negative light, it's not forgoing the obvious conclusion and claiming that instead it's the result of a million other variables.

It seems apparent that your conclusion is based on the fact that you don't want to believe that people's ability is limited by their talent rather than any logic.

Sure; I'd rather not get into a back and forth on the definition of terms.

How is it the most obvious answer when you have to assume something exists?

Right; just like how naivete is going out of your way to look at things in a positive light. That was a response to Railey's claim on how arguing otherwise makes you naive. Moreover, I'm claiming that the disparity could be explained had we enough data. I'm talking about unknown variables not available by merely scanning people's profiles. I said nothing of their number.

I mean, yeah, I don't want to believe that talent will define my limits. I'm sure that's as clear as how you feel the other way, but the important thing to take from thhis is that I'm not basing my conclusion on how I feel.

thelewa wrote:

That you were doing everything wrong and were incapable of recognizing that you could be doing something wrong. You harbored a mislead belief of somehow doing everything perfect and when you didn't see improvement you arrived at the logical conclusion of somehow your perfect not being perfect enough. That you weren't capable of as much improvement due to things that you couldn't do anything about.

I've been at that point many times and every time I've got past it by realizing that I was doing something very wrong, that I had been pretending, that I wasn't even trying but had myself fooled into thinking that I was. After all, by outward appearances it looked like I was practicing really hard, clicking circles intensely for six hours a day! In actuality I had already given up, I already believed that no matter what I did it wouldn't amount to anything. I only played as much as I did to prove to myself that I had been right all along!

"You see how big my PP is? You see how small yours is? That's not because of talent or anything, it's entirely 100%, because I tried harder than you. That's right, if only you would stop making excuses and train properly, you would instantly be as good as Cookiezi, who's skill are entirely due to his super unique and special training routine."

Yep, I've heard this argument before, always from some high ranked player (in this case, previous #2 in the world) who will of course go on about how easy it is to improve and claim that any difficulty improve is simply due to some mentality or training problem. What, pray, is this super effective training routine that allows any player to get to 3 digits within a year? If only I knew.

No. There is nothing super complicated about training, it is simply constantly challenging yourself to do better by playing slightly harder stuff. Of course, mentality, training methods do play a role, but definitely not the only role. I know myself, and I talk about my experiences in which I know I was trying my best. I trained hard, I got better, and I outdid myself with a lot of plays. The problem was, the maps that I tried so hard to get good scores on were casually set my other people without a whole lot of work. The fact is, I could improve, but my rate of improvement was slow and entirely eclipsed by people who had more natural talent than me.

Not that your post has no truth to it, I know when you play and get cynical about the lack of results, and there is no improvement to be had then. But I'm aware of that, and I know it's not the only reason for my lack of skill. I'm sure that I could get better if I went of some super duper training schedule, but not as good as a lot of other people.

Brian OA wrote:

Sure; I'd rather not get into a back and forth on the definition of terms.

How is it the most obvious answer when you have to assume something exists?

Right; just like how naivete is going out of your way to look at things in a positive light. That was a response to Railey's claim on how arguing otherwise makes you naive. Moreover, I'm claiming that the disparity could be explained had we enough data. I'm talking about unknown variables not available by merely scanning people's profiles. I said nothing of their number.

I mean, yeah, I don't want to believe that talent will define my limits. I'm sure that's as clear as how you feel the other way, but the important thing to take from thhis is that I'm not basing my conclusion on how I feel.

Please do not butcher my posts into paragraphs like that.

Obviously, you have to assume reasons exists for things that take place. Why does things fall to the earth when you drop them? There's a reason for that. Now, I don't believe the argument was ever based upon a claim based off of evidence solely from looking at people's profiles. I can talk from my own experience, from looking at friends, from looking at various other people, and conclude that that people put in the same amount of effort and get different results. There are two possibilities: you conclude it's entirely due to their training methods, their mentality, etc. and that we are all 'blank slates' that have the same potential as each other. Or you conclude that some people simply have more natural talent. And really, I don't know how you can do all the mental gymnastics to conclude the first option is right, when you have examples from every competitive institution of humankind that some people, athletes, mathematicians, gamers, etc., some people will natural excel over others, even when both are both on the same intensive training program.

This cultural marxist 'blank slate theory' is something that is deeply rooted in our society today, but it's easy to debunk when you look at things with just a little bit of objectivity.

this thread reminded me of ye olde OT when somewhat intelligent exchange of opinions used to take place more often

thelewa wrote:

this thread reminded me of ye olde OT when somewhat intelligent exchange of opinions used to take place more often

it's all because of you you know

B1rd wrote:

"You see how big my PP is? You see how small yours is? That's not because of talent or anything, it's entirely 100%, because I tried harder than you. That's right, if only you would stop making excuses and train properly, you would instantly be as good as Cookiezi, who's skill are entirely due to his super unique and special training routine."

Yep, I've heard this argument before, always from some high ranked player (in this case, previous #2 in the world) who will of course go on about how easy it is to improve and claim that any difficulty improve is simply due to some mentality or training problem. What, pray, is this super effective training routine that allows any player to get to 3 digits within a year? If only I knew.

No. There is nothing super complicated about training, it is simply constantly challenging yourself to do better by playing slightly harder stuff. Of course, mentality, training methods do play a role, but definitely not the only role. I know myself, and I talk about my experiences in which I know I was trying my best. I trained hard, I got better, and I outdid myself with a lot of plays. The problem was, the maps that I tried so hard to get good scores on were casually set my other people without a whole lot of work. The fact is, I could improve, but my rate of improvement was slow and entirely eclipsed by people who had more natural talent than me.

Not that your post has no truth to it, I know when you play and get cynical about the lack of results, and there is no improvement to be had then. But I'm aware of that, and I know it's not the only reason for my lack of skill. I'm sure that I could get better if I went of some super duper training schedule, but not as good as a lot of other people.

Amusing. That is exactly what I used to say.
ADDENDUM: How do you know that the best you tried is the best you're capable of?

Now then, the opening paragraph of your post is very wrong, I haven't implied any kind of special training routine at all. That's your invention and if that's how you've been trying to get better at this game then no wonder you didn't get anywhere.

Sigh. Let me just become better than Cookiezi then. Even though you'll just say that I'm more talented than he was in that case.

thelewa wrote:

Sigh. Let me just become better than Cookiezi then. Even though you'll just say that I'm more talented than he was in that case.

You do that

I heard the larger your chin the more likely you will become #1 in osu

thelewa wrote:

You truly lead a sad existence believing that

You don't know enough about me to take a guess like that.

I consider myself to be pretty talented at most things that aren't pertaining to artistic skills or got something to do with any sort of spatial thinking (such as measuring distances or thinking about 3 dimensional bodies etc.). The only thing i try to do is stay realistic. But most things i do that i find fun don't require me to work very hard or to really make my talent count, and since the same is true for my work at the time, no part of my life is particularly affected by my beliefs about talent - and even if it was.. why do you think that i'd be particularly sad about it? Doesn't make sense to me.

in other words, you're talking out of your ass.

Brian OA wrote:

Talent refers to an aptitude, not capacity or potential. It is often cited as an amalgam of internal and external factors (whatever these may be) that end up favoring one's effort to result ratio relative to others.

Asserting that talent does not exist is not a matter of wishful thinking, either. At least, not any more than asserting its existence is a matter of cynicism.

My doubt of it comes from it being the go-to explanation for relative disparities in skill when the issue could easily be lack of data.

Semantic nitpickery.
if you see talent as the ability to improve faster than others (better effort to result ratio), it also becomes the potential to reach greater heights if we assume that the skill ceiling is sufficiently high for all players - which it probably is, for osu.
in other words, your talent is your potential as an osu player.


As for you demanding more data..

more data can always change your perspective on things, but this is one case where enough we do have enough data. Not for this particular case maybe, but there's been a lot of analysis on other games and composite skills in general.

The fact stands: if you have a situation where you add a lot of sufficiently independent factors to get your end result, all end results will end up showing as a bell curve. This phenomenon is known as the Central limit theorem (CLT) in statistics.

if you want to make a case for this being different for osu, YOU are the one who needs to come forward with more data points, because the claim that osu-skill is NOT normally distributed, is far more outlandish and improbable than the claim that it is. Your default assumption should be that there is a bell-curve, and that is not a matter of cynicism.
There is a clear difference between being cynical and being realistic.

And no, am not in the least emotional or wishful about it, it just is how it is.

thelewa wrote:

Sigh. Let me just become better than Cookiezi then. Even though you'll just say that I'm more talented than he was in that case.

and if someone doesn't reach your level, you'll say that he just didn't try hard enough? See the dilemma? Maybe try to come up with smarter arguments, lewa.

B1rd wrote:

This cultural marxist 'blank slate theory' is something that is deeply rooted in our society today, but it's easy to debunk when you look at things with just a little bit of objectivity.

i know i've given you a lot of shit in the past, and i still think that many of your views on economic ideals are delusional (and i'm sure you think the same of mine), but i've got to give you credit here because you're on point. Cheers mate

hey

Internet Arguments:

Wasting 10 minutes of your life to make yourself more angry when they reply

Railey2 wrote:

thelewa wrote:

Sigh. Let me just become better than Cookiezi then. Even though you'll just say that I'm more talented than he was in that case.

and if someone doesn't reach your level, you'll say that he just didn't try hard enough? See the dilemma? Maybe try to come up with smarter arguments, lewa.

Nah, I'd acknowledge the effort they've put in, but the problem is that you can channel that effort inefficiently by focusing on the wrong things and having an entitled attitude when it comes to learning. Someone who puts in less effort but manages to focus on just the right things can improve faster than someone who puts in more effort. The willingness to try new things to find out what works and the patience for it are things that can be learned. For some they may come more naturally but by no means are they locked away from people. I used to think similarly when it came to the rate of improvement, but after having experienced drastic inreases in my rate of improvement due to various epiphanies, I realized that man is a very organic thing capable of improvement on so many fronts. You can even learn to learn better.

Just keep bashing your heads on that wall and cry about not having as much "natural ability" when any sensible person would just walk around it. I suppose it is a kind of "natural ability", the will to search for a better, easier way. I'm not going to try and change your opinion on this because you clearly derive your identity and a kind of path from your perceived talents. Instead of trying to find what my aptitude is, I've always striven to improve myself. If I find a thing that I have absolutely no aptitude for, I just get all fired up to try and excel at it. Just focusing on the things I'm good at is boring, although easy. Isn't it better to increase the amount of things you're good at? Although lately I have been very lazy...

osu! is one of the things I consider myself to have no aptitude for. For a long time I thought that I was "talented" and as such somehow better than the rest because of being able to click circles accurately. Looking back at the path I took to reach where I got back when I was one of the very best players, I realize that anyone could have done it better than me. If my "natural ability" is not giving up in the long run, then so be it.

I'm obviously also very proud of myself for not giving up, which is why I go on long tirades about myself.

Blitzfrog wrote:

Internet Arguments:

Wasting 10 minutes of your life to make yourself more angry when they reply

That's not the case at all! If replies made me angry then I wouldn't bother trying to provoke replies

thelewa wrote:

That's not the case at all! If replies made me angry then I wouldn't bother trying to provoke replies

But you know people have pride and all that you know

Seriously though, I play competitive badminton.
And I've seen dudes who train their ass off, 2 hours each day 6 days a week for 5 years get trashed by a newbie who plays like twice a week for fun for 3 years. In any case you can't blame them and say they didn't try hard enough, blood swear tears are poured into something just to get rekt by someone who doesn't even take it seriously. Tien Ming Yuan is a classic example where he made it into the top 10 in the world in badminton without ever having to train once, he basically just got in there because he observed how people play and quickly got the hang of it. Of course he trains now to get the stamina but the foundation was all talent.

Either way, when it comes to motor skills, talent and age does play a significant amount.

Just sharing my experience as a coach

well, shit

I always thought that everyone who couldn't get good at something was just a pathetic loser. Somehow not being able to excel at something you want to just doesn't sit well with me, I can't even comprehend the concept of such limitations in a human. Are humans really that bad at everything? And if they are, how do you not despair over the unfairness of it all? Like, what's the point of competing at all if you have no chance of being the best? Why even live?

thelewa wrote:

well, shit

I always thought that everyone who couldn't get good at something was just a pathetic loser. Somehow not being able to excel at something you want to just doesn't sit well with me, I can't even comprehend the concept of such limitations in a human. Are humans really that bad at everything? And if they are, how do you not despair over the unfairness of it all? Like, what's the point of competing at all if you have no chance of being the best? Why even live?

Every bad thing there some good thing to balance out . Just like ying and yang. If you bad at certain thing that doesnt mean that you are bad at everything . There defenately something special for in everyone. Even by talent or just personality alone.

Easy Full mods

Everyone just needs to git gud it seems

Exactly, just that gitting gud is easier and faster for some people than it is for others.

I really like Railey's G&R post: you simply can't be as good as the best people at things you're not naturally good at. Back when I used to play Call of Duty very frequently, I always always got my ass kicked by this one dude that started around the same time as me. We both played around the same hours, if not I had more time playing, but no matter how hard I tried I would never beat him 1v1 (on a team is a different story, he would never play the objective. He would still win in TDM).

Some people are good at some things, others are good at other things.

thelewa wrote:

well, shit

I always thought that everyone who couldn't get good at something was just a pathetic loser. Somehow not being able to excel at something you want to just doesn't sit well with me, I can't even comprehend the concept of such limitations in a human. Are humans really that bad at everything? And if they are, how do you not despair over the unfairness of it all? Like, what's the point of competing at all if you have no chance of being the best? Why even live?

Life is not fair, but what's even more unfair is blaming the people who weren't well equipped from the beginning for their lack of success. Like telling someone with an iq of 70 to just try harder in school so he could get all the A-grades. That's not only unfair it's actually very cruel.



Life doesn't have to be about being the best. To me, for example, being happy is more important than being the best. And the good thing is: i don't even need talent to be the happiest person ever!

Personal happiness doesn't depend on how good you are in an absolute sense, but how good you are in relation to the people that you compare yourself to.
There is plenty of research on this topic, but to just give you two starting points (if you want to look into it)

the idea that gave rise to various studies about the topic of relative happiness is known as the Easterlin paradox

Here is a paper on how happiness and income are related
(full pdf - includes various links to other papers, so if you're interested...)


Even though many psychological papers are cited, this paper is of economical nature, so it might be hard or impossible to understand if you aren't used to similar things (aka lots of variables and equations). You might want to skip straight to the conclusion on page 55.


To sum up the important points: Your satisfaction with what you currently have (be it income, your number of facebook friends, pp, or something as abstract as perceived talent) affects your happiness based on who you compare yourself to. You can compare yourself to other people (social comparison), or to a past version of yourself (habituation).

People that always compare themselves to the top tend to feel unsatisfied and unhappy. People that compare themselves to everyone below them tend to be satisfied and happy.
You've made it pretty clear that you are the former type of person. You even went as far as to not acknowledge the amount of talent you had at all, which sucks for you because i bet it took away quite a fair chunk from your happiness.


i am more the latter sort of person. Even if i don't have talent or money or whatever, i can still be quite confident and happy as long as i find the right group to compare myself to.

i might have never had a chance to be the best at osu, but just thinking about the immense improvement i made (habituation - comparing myself to past self), and thinking about how there were so many people that i already passed in rank (social comparison with the right reference group), i was able to be very comfortable with my skill for the longest time, even though i only have moderate talent.