{"id":14018,"date":"2022-04-12T09:33:00","date_gmt":"2022-04-12T17:33:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.scotthyoung.com\/blog\/?p=14018"},"modified":"2022-05-06T05:33:03","modified_gmt":"2022-05-06T13:33:03","slug":"reader-mailbag","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.scotthyoung.com\/blog\/2022\/04\/12\/reader-mailbag\/","title":{"rendered":"Reader Mailbag: Sustaining Motivation, Judging Experts and the Meanings of Life"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Last week, I asked readers to send me their questions about learning, life, or\u2026 anything really. I got over one hundred replies! Here are a few I\u2019d like to share:<\/p>\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"512\" src=\"https:\/\/www.scotthyoung.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/Reader-mailbag-1024x512.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-14028\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.scotthyoung.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/Reader-mailbag-1024x512.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.scotthyoung.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/Reader-mailbag-300x150.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.scotthyoung.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/Reader-mailbag-768x384.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.scotthyoung.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/Reader-mailbag-1536x768.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/www.scotthyoung.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/Reader-mailbag.jpg 1600w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p><strong>Gary asks:<br \/><\/strong>\u201cWhat are your morning and evening routines?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<div class=\"inline-podcast\">\n<small>Listen to this article<\/small><br \/>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"100%\" height=\"20\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"no\" allow=\"autoplay\" src=\"https:\/\/w.soundcloud.com\/player\/?url=https%3A\/\/api.soundcloud.com\/tracks\/1256080558&#038;color=%23219895&#038;inverse=false&#038;auto_play=false&#038;show_user=true\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p>I don\u2019t have anything fancy in terms of routines.<\/p>\n<p>My mornings, these days, usually start at seven. I have coffee, my wife and I get our son ready for daycare, and I go to the office. My evenings are usually dinner and family time until my son goes to bed, then I watch a television show with my wife and read a bit before going to sleep.<\/p>\n<p>As a meta-point, I\u2019m somewhat against the idea of focusing too much on routines. While good habits are important, they\u2019re not a magic sauce for getting results. People with wildly different habits can reach similar levels of success. In contrast, others who have identical routines can have totally different outcomes.<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps that isn\u2019t the motivation behind your question. Still, it\u2019s worth stating because sometimes people overanalyze things like routines and under analyze more direct contributors to someone\u2019s outcomes (e.g. what projects they work on, what skills and assets they possess, etc.).<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p><strong>Michael asks: <br \/><\/strong>\u201cHow do you balance growth with sustainability? I recently started a full time job, in addition to a rigorous virtual conservatory (16+ hours a week) in addition to part time work and an increasingly busy creative freelance career. After two months of near-burnout I left the virtual conservatory. Did I make the right choice?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Burnout isn\u2019t good. It sounds like you made the right choice to me.<\/p>\n<p>Doing a ton of things and being hyper-busy is one of the most overrated ideas to infect productivity writing. If this is what \u201cproductivity\u201d means, then I\u2019m hardly the person to be offering advice. I take quite a bit of vacation time, and my working hours are pretty reasonable.<\/p>\n<p>To me, the aim of productivity is to get bigger outcomes for fewer inputs, including time. Even when you need to pour tons of time into one pursuit, that\u2019s often best handled by being able to drastically cut other kinds of competing work.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p><strong>Ene asks: <\/strong><br \/>\u201cWhat&#8217;s in your opinion, the best theory so far on how to sustain motivation?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>I believe motivation is a (somewhat) rational signal about the value of your activity. To feel motivated, the project needs to be high value with high certainty.<\/p>\n<p>On top of that there are experiential concerns. A project can be frustrating because there are <a href=\"https:\/\/www.scotthyoung.com\/blog\/2022\/03\/28\/human-problem-solving\/\">problem-solving steps<\/a> with large, unbounded problem spaces that don\u2019t allow tractable progress. Emotional issues arising because of people you need to work with or the intrinsic interestingness (or lack thereof) of the subject can also affect the motivational \u201ccosts\u201d of pursuing it.<\/p>\n<p>This rationalistic perspective doesn\u2019t suggest a simple \u201chack\u201d you can do to improve your motivation. But I think it does help diagnose why motivation can succeed or fail. The answer is to design projects that have a high expected value, that you have confidence you can achieve, and design them to minimize the friction you experience when pursuing them.<\/p>\n<p>When it comes to projects with low value, low confidence, and lots of friction, I\u2019m not sure there\u2019s a way to motivate yourself to pursue them. In part because without fixing those underlying problems, I\u2019m not sure you should motivate yourself to do them.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p><strong>Cort asks: <\/strong><br \/>\u201cI have a question for you. I am an older student (39 years old) and have encountered a lot of pushback when I tell people I want to get a PhD in quantum physics because I\u2019m told math skills peak in one\u2019s 20s. I know there\u2019s evidence that the age of receiving the Fields Medal has increased, but is there any neuroscience or other evidence that you are aware of disproving this thesis?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Fluid intelligence probably does peak a little younger, but I think the idea that there are massive declines in fluid intelligence <a href=\"https:\/\/www.scotthyoung.com\/blog\/2020\/02\/24\/age-learning\/\">is overstated<\/a>. You\u2019re probably roughly as intelligent as you were at 18 for most of your adult life. Fluid intelligence mostly seems to decline in very old age, and even then, there is considerable variability.<\/p>\n<p>Put another way, I don\u2019t think the difference in intelligence level between yourself at 20, and 39 even reaches the top ten factors that will influence your success in getting a Ph.D.<\/p>\n<p>I suspect the skew to younger success in fields like math is less due to the <em>advantage<\/em> of young people, but their comparative lack of disadvantage. Math doesn\u2019t need the huge knowledge base required in, say, history. Productivity probably declines after one\u2019s youth for non-cognitive reasons. Ambition may be lower, you may have more family\/admin responsibilities, etc.<\/p>\n<p>If you have the energy to pursue a Ph.D., I wouldn\u2019t let age stop you.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p><strong>Michael asks: <\/strong><br \/>\u201cWhat are you most glad that you <em>stopped<\/em> doing?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.scotthyoung.com\/blog\/2021\/04\/19\/off-social-media\/\">Social media<\/a>, particularly Twitter. Every now and then, I get glimpses of it from links in blog posts. I forget how angry and toxic a place it is.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p><strong>Parth asks: <br \/><\/strong>\u201cAre there any tips you have on how Ultralearning&#8217;s methodology can be applied at scale to an organization? I work at a software R&amp;D centre.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>I think it\u2019s up to organizations to give people the means to become better at their work. The major barriers to ultralearning are (a) a lack of good resources and (b) a lack of credible signals that these skills matter within the organization.<\/p>\n<p>People want to invest in learning, but they often aren\u2019t sure which skills are worth investing in, nor whether those investments will be recognized. Employers can solve both of those problems.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p><strong>Adrian asks: <\/strong><br \/>\u201cHow do you judge expertise? It seems like most fake news detection is done on a case-by-case basis. Is there an algorithm for evaluating experts?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Expertise is a social phenomenon.<\/p>\n<p>To be an expert means that other experts of the same \u201ctype\u201d recognize you as such. This is a social mechanism that does pretty well because, relative to the standards of a discipline, other experts are much harder to bs than lay audiences. But it often fails because the standard itself isn\u2019t tied to any objective result. Hence, you can have \u201cexperts\u201d that make pretty bad predictions, like political pundits or many supposed foreign policy experts during the lead-up to the Iraq War.<\/p>\n<p>I think it is useful to measure performance against some kind of real-world benchmark, but it seems clear to me that this isn\u2019t what we generally mean when we say someone is an expert.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p><strong>Sneha asks: <\/strong><br \/>\u201cI have 2 little kids- 3 and 7 years old. I want them to be good learners and develop a passion for learning from childhood. How do I get them to do that?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>My little one is only two, so I don\u2019t have a lot of first-hand experience here.<\/p>\n<p>My overall philosophy is that the best thing you can do is embody what you try to teach. It\u2019s hard to encourage kids to be lifelong learners if you aren\u2019t one yourself. So my focus would be on improving my own self-education and then trying to share that with my kids.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p><strong>Calvin asks: <\/strong><br \/>\u201cI would like to know your opinion on when you should build a skill versus when you should delegate it and focus on someone else doing it.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>I don\u2019t think there\u2019s a general answer. My model of the situation is that whenever the skill you\u2019re learning is highly integrated with the main value you provide through an activity, learning is better than delegation. However, delegation usually works better when the new skill is decoupled from your performance.<\/p>\n<p>For me, research is an example of an integrated activity. I experimented with having a researcher help with essays. While he did a great job, the knowledge wasn\u2019t <em>my<\/em> knowledge. I couldn\u2019t assimilate it easily it to come up with new ideas or better advice.<\/p>\n<p>This is additionally complicated by the opportunity cost of time investment and the level of expertise you need to acquire to recoup that cost. Learning everything myself made more sense when I started out because my effective wage rate was low. The opportunity cost of, say, learning programming to the $25\/hour level of expertise was low. But if I wanted to get my skills to a $200\/hour level, then the costs of difficulty and time needed to learn the skill become much steeper, and it\u2019s less worthwhile.<\/p>\n<p>All of this economic analysis omits the intrinsic dimension of things. I like learning Chinese, but it patently fails this cost-benefit calculation, so I\u2019m forced to admit it\u2019s just a hobby. The same is probably true of my doodling.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p><strong>Jeremy asks: <\/strong><br \/>\u201cWhat are your thoughts about spirituality and the meaning of life?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>I tend to think there is no meaning of life, only meanings in life. I think the idea that you can stand outside of life and ask what it is \u201cfor\u201d is a category error. Instead of a meaning for life, as a whole, there are meanings in life\u2014good relationships, work that helps people, creative accomplishment, novel experiences and intellectual understandings.<\/p>\n<p>Don\u2019t get me wrong, I\u2019m not making the claim that life is pointless or that there are no meanings greater than ourselves. I think it\u2019s a mistake to imagine some vantage point that stands above our lives and evaluates them. But such a vantage point is not actually possible to experience. The most we can do is reflect back on our memories and assign them meaning, which isn\u2019t exactly the same question.<\/p>\n<p>Thus, I tend to think the \u201cmeaning of life\u201d is a problematic philosophical question owing to this cognitive illusion. I think a better question is how you can have more plentiful meanings in your life. It may seem less profound because the answer tends to be less surprising: help people, have good relationships, fulfill creative and intellectual ambitions, be a good person, etc.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p><strong>Sam asks: <\/strong><br \/>\u201cHow has your relationship with productivity changed over time?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Theoretically, I think I\u2019m less interested in systems than I used to be. Part of this is simply because my work has shifted from checking off a lot of relatively easy tasks that nonetheless need to be done, to mostly working on really hard things (all the straightforward work got delegated away).<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p><strong>Kalpana asks: <\/strong><br \/>\u201cIf you could design an education system, what would it look like?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>My thoughts on the education system have bounced around a lot.<\/p>\n<p>I like academic topics. I think the world would be a better place if people knew more of them.<\/p>\n<p>Yet I also think our current system is enormously wasteful. People invest enormous energy and cost into acquiring academic skills that have minimal relevance to their eventual work. They do so for the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Case-against-Education-System-Waste-ebook\/dp\/B07T3QRNLC\/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1HAREUGTZRUPW&amp;keywords=case+against+education&amp;qid=1570486576&amp;s=digital-text&amp;sprefix=case+against+educat,digital-text,-1&amp;sr=1-1\">near-mandatory signals<\/a> of intellectual ability and work ethic. This vocationalism also tends to undercut genuine interest as students grind through coursework to pass courses and exams that they don\u2019t care about.<\/p>\n<p>I think, in a perfect world, education would be nearly free. It would be delivered online and allow participation via voluntary communities of those interested in the subjects. Work skills would be mainly learned via apprenticeship processes. Necessary book learning could be provided through cheap testing\/certification methods. In such a world, anyone could learn any skill they want to free of charge, only paying when they need tutoring or testing certification.<\/p>\n<p>Yet I\u2019m also pessimistic about such a world coming about. It\u2019s not that this is economically or pedagogically impossible. It\u2019s that we\u2019ve gotten into a bad signaling equilibrium where doing well in a traditional, four-year academic program is considered the only way to get started professionally. Most professional licensing organizations exacerbate the problem by also requiring those credentials.<\/p>\n<p>Given that my vision is somewhat utopian, I\u2019m happy to settle for self-directed learning of the kind I espouse in Ultralearning for now. It\u2019s harder than it should be due to a lack of institutional support. Still, it\u2019s definitely doable for someone who actually cares about educating themselves.<\/p>\n<p>===<\/p>\n<p>Thanks to everyone who asked a question. Hopefully, we can do it again sometime!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Last week, I asked readers to send me their questions about learning, life, or\u2026 anything really. I got over one hundred replies! Here are a few I\u2019d like to share: Gary asks:\u201cWhat are your morning and evening routines?\u201d Listen to this article I don\u2019t have anything fancy in terms of routines. My mornings, these days, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-14018","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-personal-development","7":"entry"},"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Reader Mailbag: Sustaining Motivation, Judging Experts and the Meanings of Life - Scott H Young<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I answer some interesting questions from readers on redesigning the educational system, deciding when to delegate and the purpose of life.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.scotthyoung.com\/blog\/2022\/04\/12\/reader-mailbag\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Reader Mailbag: Sustaining Motivation, Judging Experts and the Meanings of Life - Scott H Young\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I answer some interesting questions from readers on redesigning the educational system, deciding when to delegate and the purpose of life.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.scotthyoung.com\/blog\/2022\/04\/12\/reader-mailbag\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Scott H Young\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AuthorScottYoung\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2022-04-12T17:33:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2022-05-06T13:33:03+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.scotthyoung.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/Reader-mailbag-1024x512.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Scott Young\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@scotthyoung\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@scotthyoung\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Scott Young\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"10 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.scotthyoung.com\\\/blog\\\/2022\\\/04\\\/12\\\/reader-mailbag\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.scotthyoung.com\\\/blog\\\/2022\\\/04\\\/12\\\/reader-mailbag\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Scott Young\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.scotthyoung.com\\\/blog\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/2f58ab6c4a36422c78416e5b7a79604c\"},\"headline\":\"Reader Mailbag: Sustaining Motivation, Judging Experts and the Meanings of Life\",\"datePublished\":\"2022-04-12T17:33:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2022-05-06T13:33:03+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.scotthyoung.com\\\/blog\\\/2022\\\/04\\\/12\\\/reader-mailbag\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":2077,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.scotthyoung.com\\\/blog\\\/2022\\\/04\\\/12\\\/reader-mailbag\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.scotthyoung.com\\\/blog\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2022\\\/04\\\/Reader-mailbag-1024x512.jpg\",\"articleSection\":[\"General\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/www.scotthyoung.com\\\/blog\\\/2022\\\/04\\\/12\\\/reader-mailbag\\\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.scotthyoung.com\\\/blog\\\/2022\\\/04\\\/12\\\/reader-mailbag\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.scotthyoung.com\\\/blog\\\/2022\\\/04\\\/12\\\/reader-mailbag\\\/\",\"name\":\"Reader Mailbag: Sustaining Motivation, Judging Experts and the Meanings of Life - 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