Most endeavors, mental or physical are partly natural talent and partly diligence.

Said otherwise, perhaps 40% of the population could, if they try hard enough, reach the top 5%.

Suppose that there are two groups, green people and purple people, and green people, for whatever reason, are much more diligent.

The top 5% would therefore be comprised of more greens. Those purples in the top 5% would come mainly from the highly talented.

Meanwhile diligence doesn't get you into the top 1%. That is reserved almost exclusively to the highly talented no matter what color you are.

If all the above is true it means that if you randomly pick a green person in the top 5% and a purple person in the top 5% it is, perhaps counterintuitively true, that the purple person is more likely than the green person to be in the top 1%.

Pathological step functions ITT

Doesn't seem counterintuitive to me nor anti-PC either, tbh.

why would your conclusion be counterintuitively true? it seems highly intuitive and logical. you specifically said that purple people are less likely to be diligent, so if they're in the top 5%, it's most likely due solely to talent. green people tend to work hard so they comprise more of the top 5%, population-wise; however, if you're looking to see who would be most likely to end up in the top 1% out of the top 5%, it would be purples since virtually 100% of them (or some big % like 80-90%) are in the top 5% due solely to talent and only talent can really get you to the top 1%. so if that's true, then they're way more likely to be in the top 1% vs. the greens (whose composition in terms of their population distribution in the top 5% is, say, 50% talent and 50% less talent+more diligence).

not sure why this would be politically incorrect either? i don't see how this could relate to any current real-world situation and nothing said in your post would be derogatory or prejudiced against green or purple people.

and if you google green and purple people, only aliens seem to show up:



so i think you're in the clear here

Are they really "people" when placed into categorizations defined by a more limited range of attributes and values than individual people possess?

I'm definitely thinking of something real world. Of course the correlation to my example is fuzzy. (A top one percenter could actually be a top two percenter talentwise who is diligent.) And if someone guesses what I am talking about I won't confirm or deny.

I don't think this is even strictly true. It seems to depend on the attribute distribution you are using.

For a simple distribution, let's say both green and purple populations have on average X talent with stdev m.
Green has Y diligence with stdev m, and purple has Z diligence with stdev m, where Y >> Z.

Success is measured by (talent+diligence).

I haven't gone through the math, but just picturing it in my head the original assertion doesn't seem true. Something like this:


Just to use the picture, consider top 33% instead of top 5%. The purple (left) distribution has a decent amount in the top 33%, but essentially 0 in the top 1%.

Pretty crazy to suggest this would be true:

You cannot say every endeavour is static in terms of where the point of diminishing returns occurs for greens/purples.

i.e. Bodybuilding vs Piano playing.

Bodybuilding, the best are pretty much always going to be purples. Because unless your genetics are very very suited to the sport, you physically cannot reach the top. Piano, however, I feel may be different. If the green player practices 50 hours a week whereas the purple player practices only half that, who's going to be the one in the top 1%? I think it's pretty obvious but I could be wrong (no piano expert).

Point is, your diligence vs talent relation is not static. Different endeavours will be better suited to different colours.

Now whether it's politically correct or not really doesn't matter. The facts are facts. We're told in this society constantly that ANYONE CAN DO ANYTHING IF THEY PUT THEIR MIND TO IT but in actuality, this is probably the more politically incorrect thing to be saying if you're a realist.

The real reason is that the purples just feed off the rest of society and have no ambition to do anything useful. This was widely known in the 50s.

There seems to be a hidden assumption in the OP that being green and purple are mutually exclusive, but I don't think that's true IRL.

There is also the question of how talent is measured. If e.g. academic talent is measured by performance in tests and exams, then it is tautological to say that those who score in the top 1% are the most talented.

I suppose this is (or was) how academic talent is measured:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/parents..._and_talented/

Sorry, I misread the OP and mistook purple for talented rather than non-diligent.

Whether or not it is relevant to the OP, I still think it is an interesting question whether talent and diligence are independent.

Is any process of an organized system ever truly independent from the rest?

Is a value place on one process over another always arbitrary?

Let's say it's based on need. If diligence is enough to fulfill the need, is talent therefore less valuable? But what if another need requires a particular talent, but requires little diligence?

It seems an organized system could fail or fall short due to misplaced values of processes based on misidentified need.

This suggests interdependence. It would take further consideration to explore the qualities of such an interdependence.

Certainly. For example, whether a playing card is an Ace is independent of whether it is a Heart.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indepe...bility_theory)

Right, but you still need aces and hearts to play Texas hold 'em.

I think not wasting your talent is diligence, but after some thought it's not relevant.

I think irl people with a talent for something are more likely willing to work hard at it than people without the talent.

I don't think it's counter intuitive to say that people in a category who got there by talent are more likely to be talented than people who got there some other way.

I'm not sure the OP is well defined but as nothing more than a hypothetical logical exercise I don't see how it could be offensive. However, I anticipate problems of various kinds trying to apply it to real life.


PairTheBoard

Don't think they exist. Every human is an individual. Grouping people to start with is dangerous, crushes individuals.

It's called for example racism.

Don't you think that's blowing it out of proportion? He's merely comparing the characteristics of two otherwise identical types of people.

The use of an appearance-based distinguisher may be related with appearance-based biases. The aspects of racism rooted in prejudice based upon superficial appearances.

might have to do with a new poker book that came out that says that poker talent is a myth, but who knows

In this case, the difference in appearance is completely arbitrary. The actual difference is in physical ability and mental fortitude. The use of colours here is simply to distinguish those with differing amounts of these features.

Well I did say "may"

Still runs the risk of weak conclusions in similar cases like that of "most greens lack talent". Which can be patterned matched to real world weak assumptions that use skin color as a distinguisher.

It does help that neither green nor purple have claimed supremacy.n