This wasn’t addressed to me, but we were talking about you going to Harvard or MIT and being well above average among the math majors which you seem to argue for. Our conversations on basic logic would lead me to bet no on that and SAT/GRE scores are not really in the same ballpark to change that like a 70+ Putnam would.

Oh and I missed where you basically said you’d be close to a top 5 HS student in the state of NJ. In that case you should be able to break 30 on a Putnam pretty easily. Just do that and you can stop with the laughable SAT stuff.

You're either specifically looking out for those exceptions for some personal reason, or suffering from a selection bias where people with otherwise elite credentials only enter your orbit if they have compensating faults. It's not like people haven't analyzed this before:

https://qz.com/india/896280/most-uni...chnology-iits/

And before you say those are exceptions or whatever, the whole point of a startup is an exceptional outcome. VC returns are dominated by a very small number of outsized returns - most of the rest don't really matter.

At the risk of sounding like Trump, at some point I have to counterattack. Yet I know that I sound even more like Trump when I claim that there are times that I realize things that experts don't. Except, unlike Trump, I don't mind explaining why I think that. So, in this post I will tell you more about the roulette problem, my simplifying probability problems, and why Icahn, Diaconis, Hofstader and Yass contacted me. To prove I am not just another logic puzzle doing pretty face.

In the case of probability problems here, most of my simplifications involve avoiding using combinations but rather using fractions. But it is important to realize that my way is simpler not just because it is often shorter, but rather more importantly it is much easier to see how those fractions reflect what the question is asking. I will explain further upon request.

The roulette problem is instantly solved if you look at it from the standpoint of a slat that is hoping to be last. That means it is hoping for two things. First that the ball hits it on one side. Then it must immediately turn around and go all the way around the wheel without ever entering it from the original side. until it gets hit on the other side. On the next flip it might enter from that new side, but it need not. It's now guaranteed to be last. Meanwhile all slats are in an identical situation. Being hit on one side is 100%. Turning around and reaching the other side is a 36-1 shot just like a freezout with one player having a dollar and the other player having 36. But this explanation does not require that you even know that.

Icahn flew me out to New York to hear more about an idea I had for bookies. If a customer with $550 comes to him to lay 110-100 on five games while expressing a wish to be able to make ten such bets if he had more money, the bookie should "generously" offer to let him make those bets without risking more. Because even though his downside is $1000 while his upside is $550 his EV INCREASES substantially (25 to 40). The math is simple. But no math major ever thought of it until I did, as far as I know.

Persi Diaconis, Macarthur Prize statistician, had two interactions with me. The first involved his recommendation to MIT that I be admitted to their graduate school with only one year of college. Later he decided to start teaching his class a variation on Bayes Theorem involving whether something is or is not a coincidence that he learned from me and that I believe I was the first to come up with. I'll elaborate if requested.

After attending a lecture by Douglas Hofstadter, I approached him with my thoughts about how some unsolved number theory conjectures might be true, for reasons related to probability. Forty years ago this idea was not examined nearly to the degree it is now. He only seemed mildly interested at the time. But a few months later he called me up to talk more about it.

Billionaire options trader Jeff Yass once offered me ten thousand dollars to fly to Philadelphia so he could persuade me to work for him. He failed because I had to wear a tie. But he didn't waste his money. Because he had a sideline of shooting for Pick Sixes with big carryovers by putting in hundreds of thousands of tickets. Meanwhile highly educated gambling expert Stanford Wong had just written a book where he assured horseplayers that they need not worry about such syndicates because if the mega tickets syndicates bet had an edge, than a subset of their tickets had to have an edge. So smaller betters who knew horses need only find that subset. But I realized that even though that seems self evident, it was wrong. Because often the subset bet was negative EV once those bets were made. EV that went to the syndicate via the bets not part of that subset. The upshot of my realization was that Yass was being too conservative when waiting for the carryover to hit a certain point. He could shoot for them sooner and still have a nice edge. When I explained that to him, he changed his strategy and I believe. made millions.

I could go on. but I think these examples do enough to show that I can think stuff up that diligent, smart, but not world class, math majors are less likely to.

and some wonder why I dont think DS is an idiot

and @cuepee in particular, if you havn't read Godel Esher Bach by the aforementioned Hofstadter then I strongly recommend it you (I dont recall any rote learning at all being required) . D2 as well if you haven't decided he is an idiot

You asked this twice. And you asked how I thought Jews could stop Trump. And awhile ago you suggested I send Geeking Grifting and Gambling to those two neo book reviewers who are more interested in entertaining. Your next question should be why I was so sure I would score high on the LSAT. As well as some others. I enjoy reading them.

i only have third hand stories I can't really repeat, but I would definitely leave out anecdotes about impressing Carl Icahn if I wanted people to think I was smart.

You really don't seem to have any idea about what math courses are assessing. This false dichotomy between "rote learning" and "implementation skills" is just hopelessly naive. The most common sort of first model of learning is Bloom's Taxonomy:

. In the context of university level math courses, "rote memorization" is just not remotely close to the core of what is being taught or assessed, and the taxonomy will hopefully give you a stronger language to understand how learning works. It isn't that there isn't any low level learning skills like memorizing facts - indeed mastery in a discipline often does mean people will know lots of facts about the discipline - but what we are working on is conceptual understanding, being able to reason with the concepts, being able to analyze and problem solve and so forth.

Consider, basically every math course in the online pandemic has been open book. I always allow formula sheets in my more basic multivariable calculus and differential equations courses. These help reduce the few spots where memorizing "rote" things like a specific formula where it is pedagogically invaluable to understand its derivation or whatever is handy, but whether it is closed or open book doesn't substantially change the nature of the learning outcomes because the learning outcomes never were rote memorization.

Do computer scientists find it useful to be able to remember various syntax? Do laywers find it useful to be able to remember various important case law? Do doctors find it useful to remember anatomy? I mean, they can all just look it up in the book if needed, right?

Lmao at DS trying to still endlessly always stroke his own ego about how smart he thinks he is with anecdote after anecdote. So embarrassing.

But seriously, how do you not know what a differential equation is? If I said y'=y do you really not know the answer despite being a great calculus teacher? Have you really never worked on a problem where the answer ended up being a function who's derivative is equal to some crap times the function itself? That concept probably dates back to Principia Mathematica itself.

So why did you take the GRE?

I don't see how that could have been remotely controversial even 40 (or 100?)years ago. Pi surely has an infinite number of 9s because the chances there are only a finite number is 0 from basic probability. But nobody can prove it.

I guess I didn't accurately convey what I meant regarding differentials, calculus tutoring, or probability and number theory. But its not important and not worth continuing to talk about in this thread.

Kinda seems like you were bullshitting us about being a great calculus tutor.

Well if that was your attempt to get it "right" you get a 'F' grade.

My posts do not say or even suggest what you are saying.

What I am SAYING is due to a heavy underlying reliance on rote learning, even when educators feel they are not, that many ALSO smart people are excluded from these ranks, and in the real world, work force you do not see these high achieving rote necessarily out competing their less achieving rote learning peers.

The problem is that rote learning still remains a bar to proceeding in most cases. So even in a more balanced testing environment if one is not good at rote learning (memorization) and thus does not bring all the tools into the exams (formula's, etc because they could not memorize them) they are stopped from demonstrating their application skills at the gate.

i don't do the "Selecting" generally. This is more of a funnel issue than a selection issue. Most companies I have been involved with have a decent roster and mix of people with different educational strengths in their resumes.

The point i am making is that if you think you can point to a very linear 'the higher the educational achievements the better they are to lead' type mechanism it is not that clear at all.

And again I have already said the best mix is a person with BOTH. Elite rote and elite more 'practical learning'. Those people got it all. The issue I am pointing at is that many people who just are elite rote learners can make it thru with elite educational resume but many of those same people end up being poor performers outside school.

An example I would offer is the stereotype of the Asian super achiever in school. A person who forgoes most other life skills in a singular, possessive pursuit of grades. A person who has built little social skills and less leadership skills but has an elite educational resume. This person in the real world may be able to play a key role in the right box in a company (crunching stats, data analysis, etc) but try to push them beyond that, and they struggle.

What you are pointing to in that article I have already spoke to and yes they are exceptions. The Silicon Valley example does not fit the 'rest of the world model' anymore than the average Silicon Valley pay of workers reflects the rest of the world work force.

The VC's are applying a very specific formula in these instances. That is to select for Elite Resume Executives (as Rococo points out being a drop out might be better) and then throwing so much money at their concepts that it makes it hard(er) for the to fail.

Anyone in business with Startups will tell you 'Access to Cash' is the king. IT is more important than the idea or the Founders. Can't get the necessary Cash nothing else flows. Once you remove the Cash burden everything else becomes more manageable. Even bad ideas can be overcome with acquisitions and pivots.

So these "exceptions" you want to point at remove that cash constraint right up front. They super fund their Start Ups. A higher percent succeed. And you then say 'see elite resume Founder'.

Those are manufactured outcomes and self fulfilling. Does that mean no elite resume Founder would have that success? No. I have already laid out the 'best' mix for success. But what it does mean is you cannot use that outcomes in a comparison versus the rest of the world outside those bubbles where cash constraint is almost always the biggest singular issue.

I would bet if from amongst the Executive Ranks you could select for 'very successful entrepreneurs' and you picked an equal number from those who grew up only in that hyper funded Silicon Valley model, and the rest from the typical Start up world outside that environment and put them all randomly into existing companies that needed to be turned around and fixed, with all the normal challenges of that, that the Silicon Valley type Exec would struggle significantly more.

Few teachings are better for an entrepreneur than dealing with scarcity and the challenges they pose and yet making it to success anyway. Those learnings in their road would see them better positioned than many Silicon Valley exec's who always had excess cash to brute force most problems out of the way.

Dammit CP, can you take your word-vomit elsewhere? We’re all having fun watching Dave beclown himself.

This forum is far more about 'sides' so it would be a very good EV bet that most here will hand wave that CV away and nitpick as mostly meaningless, if they have already not. I will read on in the thread, and hope to be surprised but doubt it.

Flip that script and have some one like e_d offer a resume like that and some one like me hand wave it away and the ranks of revulsion and claims of unreasonableness would ring out so loudly as to drown the forum. First among them likely to be Bobo Fett, a man of few words, but who suddenly finds his words when he needs to establish what 'side' he is on. He is not alone on that, but is one of the more visible cases.

Thanks for the read recommendation, I will look it up.

You are missing my point, as always.

Even if rote learning only involves the first 5% and everything else is about application, that REQUIREMENT that a person be able to memorize the needed material (formula's etc) TO THEN be able to apply it becomes a bar for the rote learning deficient.


For the most basic of imperfect example, if I gave you 10 complex equations to solve and said the core of them is using X = Pi to 5 decimal places and you could not remember Pi to one decimal place let alone 5 without looking it up, the people who can simply recall what Pi is to 5 decimal places and then work with and solve the equations are not necessarily smarter than the one who does not have those memory skills and if you simply provided them the Pi, with the 5 decimals, they then outperform the others.

Education has largely recognized the prior (and still existing, if you google scholarly articles on the Problems of Rote Learning) issues with Rote learning and many do try and address it by balancing the course material. But all that said, simply ADDING in more specific applied learning DOES NOT fix the issue if you are excluded at the start, before you can get to the applied learning, because you could not memorize the needed material to get started.

In an attempt to avoid the usual derail with you where you realize you have nothing to counter my arguments and thus make them up and strawman and then argue against to get me to reply, I will answer this one but avoid it going on.

I have NEVER said or SUGGESTED it is not useful. It is enormously useful to have great rote learning. What that DOES NOT mean is that the person with great rote learning will outperform a person in a test of job situation where a person with poor rote learning has easy access to look up the things they need. Just because someone can memorize Pi to 15 digits does not mean they can out perform in application someone who could not memorize it to 3 digits.

If I am in a plane crash and on a deserted island with no educational resources then I want someone who was a great rote learner and memorized all the survival skills such as which berries are edible and not. But if I am in society and someone has access to the internet and all the materials they need to inform me I am good with that. The person who was the great rote learner is not necessarily better in applying that info then the person looking it up.

But coming out of a Naturopath University course, the person who was the elite rote learner and who got the great grades, would appear to be the 'better' one by that typical very limited measure. The real world however has a way to correct for that, as in many instances the lesser rote learner ends up advancing higher, in many instances.

All i see is you trying to troll, as always, an otherwise interesting thread.

You have zero interest in what DS is saying other to try and find nitpick troll points and he is smart to simply not engage, as there is no answer he could give that would not lead to more trolling.

The template is 'suggest, tease, provoke, that he has no bonafides in this area' and act as if that is a proven assertion.

When he then steps up and provides substantial bonafides that should be of value to the discussions he participates in hand wave them away as the 'wrong kind' and troll him for being boastful.


In all honesty Trolly the only one who should be banned from threads like this is you. You are generally a complete empty poster, who seems to think he is witty, when most times is not.

You may not like or agree with my lengthy posts but they are genuine attempts to engage the discussion. Your posting would have been banned on Rotten Tomatoes forums as it almost never engages and is just trolling them.

But you are self aware, thus your chosen user name. You really only created the account to troll others.

****ing hell man, CP can you take this to another thread?

This is the problem with not "memorizing" things - "selection bias" is a statistical concept and has nothing to do with whether you're the one doing the "selecting" or not. The point is that most people with "elite resumes" primarily enter your orbit as a result of some type of failure. You yourself went on about how SV throws $$$ at people with elite credentials and your world is very different - so who, among those with elite credentials, do you think ends up in your world? That process is not random, hence a selection bias. This is like some lawyer at some non-prestigious firm in a non-prestigious area saying hey, I've worked with lawyers from Top-14 and they're smart but they're bad at some other stuff and overall no better than anyone else. Well, top-14 grads are disproportionately going to go to top law firms and/or similarly prestigious positions, so top-14 grads that person has experience with are disproportionately going to be those that somehow managed to drop out of these more standard paths.

No one is arguing that educational achievements are perfectly correlated with real world achievements - the point is that the correlation is positive whereas you're insinuating that it's negative. Again, this is another instance where you seem to have trouble with understanding mathematical concepts, even though you may have brushed aside these when you're in school as instances of you simply not bein good at rote memorization. If you're now agreeing with me that these are positively correlated, but the correlation isn't perfect, that's an entirely trivial point.

I'm familiar with a lot of people with stellar academic resumes that weren't very successful in the real world. It has nothing to do with elite rote learning - it's always some combination of mental/emotional issues. Virtually no one who was good enough to get into a top school based on their academic achievement is going to perform "poorly" because they lack some "practical learning" skills or whatever it is that you seem to be talking about.

This casual bit of racism aside, people (of all races) that (other people think) fit this archetype tend to be successful in the real world. In fact one of the most successful people in my college class (who's more successful than anyone in this thread and is a well-known figure in tech) pretty much fit this archetype in school.

This is also nonsense. Microsoft was bootstrapped and was profitable before they went to VC. Amazon was founded with 1M that Bezos managed to put together from his acquaintances (including his parents). Apple raised 250K to start with, most of it as a loan. Google founders published the algorithm for a search engine in a paper and had a working prototype before raising $100K. And so on. More recently, VCs have been more open to large seed rounds (because people are so much more expensive) but that's a very recent development. And no one throws large amounts of money at companies that aren't already showing extremely promising signs - that's not the point where founders' resumes matter.

It's amazing that you have these conspiratorial views around everything, even in areas you're allegedly familiar with. Sure, credentials (as with connections) may help you raise $$$ more easily at the beginning. But that doesn't mean all of the biggest successes in tech are manufactured by VCs throwing money and ensuring that they don't fail. That's so absurd that it invalidates your entire claim to expertise in this area.

Yeah this derail should be split into a separate thread. Cuepee's capacity for being verbosely and aggressively wrong about everything is just too much for a thread on rationality.

lol. Says the guy who just posted the tome above and is now suggesting 'only my tomes are acceptable' while trying to get me to reply.

I will respect Trolly's request and not reply to your drivel above which completely misses the mark.

And feel free to explain how the attack on David's bonafides by Trolly and others is 'on topic' and belongs in this thread while you are at it? Or expose yourself as a hack who just wants to be on the right 'side' of this?