The Generalist's Dilemma

http://hippiesque.com/blog/2009/07/the-generalists-dilemma/

by J3L2404 • 17 years ago

72 29 17 years ago

dasil003• 17 years ago

But what's the dilemma?

etherael4• 17 years ago

Believing that the nature of knowledge is dogmatic; that there exists no pattern behind anything and that anything that is knowable must be memorised by rote and stored wholesale in the mind, rather than guiding principles abstracted from diverse experience refined and applied in multiple contexts.

I humbly submit that this single idea is the root of so much of the mental incompetence in the world today. It encourages the spread of religion and it's comparison with real science, it discourages attempting to comprehend and apply deep unifying principles between all things and a breadth of thought that comes far easier when one isn't afraid of exposing their preconceived ideas and views to the light of critical enquiry.

Last but not least, it encourages the emergence of a political class that at best exists purely to coordinate and rule the "underclass" specialists, and at worst offers no independent value themselves.

jquery3• 17 years ago

That's not a dilemma for generalists, that's a critique of specialization.

foldr4• 17 years ago

Some of that sounds a little dogmatic in itself. It's an interesting historical fact that the idea of there being a deep underlying unity in nature was originally a religious one. In a time before there were any examples of really successful science, the idea that the universe might actually be comprehensible to us on a deep level seemed pretty loopy unless you believed that it was deliberately constructed to be intelligible. After all, the universe isn't all that comprehensible to any other form of life on earth -- why should we be so special if we are not in fact special? So in a sense, the idea that science is possible has its roots in a particular sort of religious belief.

Anyway, that is not intended as an argument in favor of religious belief today. But it's worth asking whether any rational justification could have been given in the 13th century for a belief in the deep underlying unity of the universe, before we had available the fruits of the research based on that assumption. I think it would have been far more sensible in those days to believe that the universe is just a complicated place with a lot of different kinds of stuff in it, and a lot of different kinds of principle governing what happens to that stuff.

Interestingly, this sort of pluralistic conception of reality is coming back into fashion in some circles, under the heading of the "dappled universe". Nancy Cartwright's work on these topics is really interesting. (FTR: She is trained as a physicist and has no religious agenda.) It's actually shocking how little reason there is to believe in a single set of underlying natural laws when you consider these issues with an open mind.

edit: There's a good (somewhat critical) review of one of Cartwright's book's here [doc]: http://personal.lse.ac.uk/CARTWRIG/PDF%20various/Book%20revi...

mtoledo• 17 years ago

Everytime I see a 'generalist' vs 'specialist' post like this, I think its wrong to compare generalists who are very good in a lot of different areas to specialists that are very good in just one of them.

Ideally, you'd have to compare generalists who are mediocre in lots of fields with a specialist whom is very good on a field.

Or, in your case, like you said (being an accomplished practitioner of many different fields), comparing that to being like Marie Curie or Einstein, to quote your examples. That is, if you took all the time and effort from being a writer, orchestra musician, etc, and put it into a single field.

Even if you can say your life's been very fulfilling (and you're probably right), its a hard argument for the generalist to say he's better than the specialist in the specialists' field.

As for 'you can't be good at everything', that really means 'you wont be as good as you can be at something if you keep learning everything'. But putting in lots of work on everything obviously make you good on everything.

But even mozart, being very talented a musician in a young age, had to choose (at age 4?) the violin or the piano (he chose the later)

yungchin• 17 years ago

"Ideally, you'd have to compare generalists who are mediocre in lots of fields with a specialist whom is very good on a field."

Isn't the whole point of the essay to suggest that generalists need not be mediocre at all? It's not obvious that the energy spread over several activities would be as efficiently spent on one specialist activity - if you do (without proof) assume that that's feasible, then that's actually begging the question...

JoachimSchipper• 17 years ago

No, the above argument leaves room for diminishing returns - it only assumes that spending more time learning foo is more efficient at learning foo than spending more time learning bar is at learning foo.

Suppose Alice and Bob have similar levels of talent. Alice spent 10000 hours learning the piano. Bob spent 2000 hours learning the piano, 2000 learning the violin, 2000 learning percussion, 2000 learning to sing and 2000 writing a novel. The above argues that Alice will be better at playing the piano than Bob. Probably not five times better (assuming that could be defined in a sensible fashion) - there are diminishing returns - but still better.

robryan• 17 years ago

This comes up a lot for me with programming, so many different languages, platforms and APIs are flying past us here on HN as well as languages that have been around for a long time.

So many times I see a cool new API and say that would be great to have a play around with if I had the time.

puffythefish• 17 years ago

I do the same, but then realize: by doing this, I'm specializing into programming.

btilly2• 17 years ago

A random observation. Many significant advancements came when someone who knew about one thing learned about a second and realized that the first applied to the second.

Generalists are more likely to do that than specialists. And in my experience they are more fun to hang out with.

However it is true that nobody can be good at everything. Therefore one of the most important skills there are IMO is realizing who is better than you at what. In fact I consider people who can keep track of the skills of people around them to be valuable in their own right. But my experience is that people who gain this ability inevitably learn something about a lot of different things. Therefore people with this key ability tend to be generalists!

Therefore I value specialists, but prefer a good generalist more. Particularly in a small organization where people get varied responsibilities.

Disclaimer: I am a generalist and hence am quite biased. (In case that wasn't obvious.)

marilyn2• 17 years ago

Many significant advancements came when someone who knew about one thing learned about a second and realized that the first applied to the second.

This is the premise to the book "The Medici Effect" by Frans Johansson, which states that innovation is found in the intersections between disciplines. It's a good read.

cloudmike• 17 years ago

Avoid the extremes. Don't do one thing, don't do hundreds of things. Find a distribution that makes you happy.

Go for depth. Go for breadth. Just don't be shallow and narrow.

Scour the earth for things you love, then plumb their depths entirely.

pgbovine• 17 years ago

Go for depth. Go for breadth.

agreed! what's to prevent you from going into depth in 1 (or maybe 2-3) things, and then going for breadth on a dozen more, getting decently at good at them as hobbies but not becoming world-class? seems like a good balance. 1-2 things in which you're an expert, and 6-8 more in which you're a proficient hobbyist

marilyn2• 17 years ago

Scour the earth for things you love, then plumb their depths entirely.

Beautifully articulated!

wallflower• 17 years ago

It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing.

It doesn’t interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive...

-Oriah Mountain Dreamer, "The Invitation"

hugh_3• 17 years ago

I reckon that the best way to become a generalist is a two-step process:

1. Become a specialist

2. Become a generalist

This has two advantages. Firstly, you'll be useful and employable in your youth, since a specialist with a few years' experience is a valuable asset, but a half-baked generalist is pretty useless. Secondly, and more importantly, you'll know what it's like to really understand a subject, which should help you in your quest to partially understand all the others.

btilly2• 17 years ago

If you are the kind of person who will accomplish step 1, you are probably not the kind of person who will be inclined to take step 2.

The Generalist's Dilemma

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