One and a Half Cheers for List-Keeping An Essay from Field Notes on Science and Nature by Kenn Kaufman I don't need that birdList-chasingThe maximization method
95%-ile isn't that good An Article by Dan Luu danluu.com Reaching 95Mistakes at the top Waste as little effort as possible on low competence talent
Reaching 95 Reaching 95%-ile isn't very impressive because it's not that hard to do. I think this is one of my most ridiculable ideas. It doesn't help that, when stated nakedly, that sounds elitist. But I think it's just the opposite: most people can become (relatively) good at most things. Note that when I say 95%-ile, I mean 95%-ile among people who participate, not all people (for many activities, just doing it at all makes you 99%-ile or above across all people). I'm also not referring to 95%-ile among people who practice regularly. The "one weird trick" is that, for a lot of activities, being something like 10%-ile among people who practice can make you something like 90%-ile or 99%-ile among people who participate. skillpractice
Mistakes at the top Personally, in every activity I've participated in where it's possible to get a rough percentile ranking, people who are 95%-ile constantly make mistakes that seem like they should be easy to observe and correct. "Real world" activities typically can't be reduced to a percentile rating, but achieving what appears to be a similar level of proficiency seems similarly easy. skillmistakes