David,

Dont you think that this statement ignores the fact that your players might not have full confidence in a manager who has no major league experience whatsoever and tries to manage a game based on logic/mathematics over many morale'ish factors of the game? As far as im aware, baseball management by "outsiders" is kind of shunned at this point. I must assume youve considered these factors in your own self assessment, i just wonder how you think you would so easily be able to overcome them?

Am I the only one who thinks DS is being overly modest here?

Being better than 95% of PhDs of any field at math is trivial, and being better at math than 95% of PhDs in math/physics is really not hard for a guy with his genes.

Moreover, I would put his chances at being the top 5 rather than only 16th as much higher, well, I know this would be true for me anyhow. (I insist I will forever hold the record as the world's greatest underachiever, so don't bug me.)

I think most natively talented kids who have to suffer through the typical inefficiencies of public/high school
do not easily progress unless they have a 'fan' such as a parent in academia or a position of political power (one of my mediocre classmate's dad was a diplomat).

My buddy who finished 2nd in the Canadian Math Olympiad was so poor that their household couldn't afford a black and white TV, his dad was a short order cook. He taught himself calculus WITHOUT A SHRED of direction...maybe when he was eleven. Funny side note, he complained to me how idiotic the culture of California was, and how silly the engineers were at CalTech, especially when he'd present better more elegant solutions to their problem sets.

Three out of the five of us were from single parent families, and at least two of us had a parent with severe mental illness.

When we repeatedly won national high school (albeit merely Canadian) math contests we received no encouragement, but I did notice that our talents were distinct and oft times they didn't overlap. We had a nucleus of five guys... other schools would have 80-100, we never got printed up in the local paper even though we'd do better...

I remember with great enjoyment having one of my teammates approach me when we were 17 about a Putnam Exam question (for undergrad math students) that he worked weeks on. Before he could finish reading the question to me I solved it. You should have seen the look on his face! (It was one of the easy first questions they give, something about a circle and a line segment, pre-1980.)

In contrast to DS, I've probably had an upbringing (intellectually and otherwise) by guardians/caretakers in the lowest 5 percentile of the general population (just omit alcoholism, and severe abuse, and I've been through it all, no exaggeration). My parents, when they were around, spoke English as a fifth language.

The type of tests that our hotshot highschool teacher gave us measured our ability to calculate, which is too specific and somewhat self-defeating, given what the qualities are that make up a good mathematician. I'm talking about several integrals with 60-80 terms each, five or ten of them, within an hour--contrasted to some other schools' questions (Cobourg ON): The integral of cos x = ?

There are no advanced books on math in your typical high school. So you are left vegetating for about 15 years--akin to being in prison.

I used read the odd puzzle books as a kid but I had no coaching or positive influence while scoring two 800s in the GRE with 30 minutes to spare (Quantitative and Analytical). A perfect score just means you've exceeded 3 standard deviations for the test population (viz. Grad students who are required to take the test mostly within North America). I guessed that this result combined with my verbal scores means maybe once a year someone scores that high in North America. However, an earlier poster correctly pointed out the context and purpose of such results.

I don't believe these scores are nearly as important as motivation, hard work and being in the right place at the right time. The latter aspect is the biggest factor against DS making the top five.

Certain positions are more likely to open up, for instance if you are a world beating medical researcher, some university might throw $50 million at you to open up an institute. In contrast, mathematics (though requiring computing resources) may not have similar situations (hey, I'm no expert, just speculating).

For all its faults, I think upward mobility in academia is much easier in a 'communist' country like China.

I completely agree with DS about his opinion about getting a Nobel prize in Economics. I would further guess that he believes so because he's seen ideas that he's thought of before win these prizes. I have. Black-Scholes, big deal!

I only shared with you all this personal stuff to put into context why I think DS is being modest and reasonably objective. (I'm lying, I love bragging.)

P.S. I remember his ancient post about the Sklansky name being notable on the publishing arena.

I chucked because I thought of the several brag records I hold.

I think I'd make a reasonable politician, but the key would be acceptance by the masses. My second cousin retired a few years ago as the Premier of 1.2 billion people. An uncle of mine used to be either the premier or president of Taiwan (I don't care so I don't know which).

On my mom's side, two of my relatives are married into the family of the richest (self-made, to boot) Asian on the planet. So we almost have the commies and the capitalists covered.

Meanwhile, my social status in the society that I live in is a marginal 'invisible janitor' foreigner (sic) status, undateable...

Mr. Sklansky, please tell us how to score chicks!
We promise we won't come to Vegas unless we bring company...

(P.S. If you think I'm insane or even more arrogant than DS, just humor me, maybe I won't run out of material and it's good for a laugh. Lighten up, this is more fun than cable TV...)

re baseball coach, I'm not qualified to answer that but I don't doubt Sklansky too much.

A buddy of mine has a brother who played in the NHL.
He commented that the easiest job to penetrate in the world was NHL coach (provided that there was efficient mobility).

He ridiculed the league's practice of recycling proven losers (okay, that doesn't prove the point ... I know).

yes, DS, sure, you are the greatest. But you still have ugly glasses.

There is no Nobel Prize for Economics. Lit, Physics, Medicine, Chemistry, Peace.

DUCY?

You are such a donk!

Hey David, you should start selling your sperm on the forum. That way all of us could somehow implant it in our girlfriends (maybe lace the condoms). Then in a few years we would have the most elite sports and the most functioning government in history and perhaps spread the DS sperm to other nations!

Ill start the bidding at $100,000 for a half pint.

you still answering questions?