Comments on: Praise Polymaths

By: Barkley Rosser

Barkley Rosser — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 20:54:50 +0000

This is a reply to Aaron Denney.

Not at all obvious. There is much competition between OZ and NZ. The former is more like the US, rambunctious and rough and so on, the successor to Georgia as a penal colony, whereas NZ is more like Canada, more Anglophile, especially Christchurch, which competes with Victoria, B.C., for being “more English than England.”

I can think of plenty of countries more like each other than either of these pairs, although many of them are not all that prominent, such as Qatar and Bahrain or Mali and Niger.

By: Barkley Rosser

Barkley Rosser — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 20:49:03 +0000

And this is why polymaths are a disappearing species.

By: Stuart Armstrong

Stuart Armstrong — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 11:42:08 +0000

Stuart, how do you know you have the right values, if you know your values would have been different?

I don’t see any way in which there could be an objective standard of what makes a “right” value (beyond consistency), so I don’t think this question makes any sense.

By: pdf23ds

pdf23ds — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 09:20:31 +0000

Wait, do you mean that your trip was superficial, or his? Granted, partying yourself into unconsciousness for a week isn’t going to gain you any insight, but less extreme forms of mundane activities (especially if you speak the local language) can give you a much more useful and broad sense of the local culture than going to look at 1000 year old artifacts can give you of ancient cultures.

By: Recomendaciones « intelib

Recomendaciones « intelib — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 20:47:20 +0000

[...] Praise Polymaths, by Robin [...]

By: Robin Hanson

Robin Hanson — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 14:20:47 +0000

I just added to the post.

By: CannibalSmith

CannibalSmith — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 08:17:12 +0000

Is there such a thing as “right values”?

By: TVH

TVH — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 07:55:00 +0000

I think an historical comparison is appropriate: what I understand from art and literature in 18th century France and 19th century Britain, polymath cross-cultural experience was valued differently.
Both societies at the time were more outward-looking and engaged in the world in an exploratory, if you will ‘jihadist’ manner.

I’ve considered this problem before, and my guess is that, today in the US, it’s a function of two current cultural trends: (1.) a much higher valuation on self-actualization, which process tends to be both very local and culturally specific; and (2.) economic insecurity

By: Aaron Denney

Aaron Denney — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 07:37:15 +0000

I’d consider Australia and New Zealand to be closer together.

By: Ben Albahari

Ben Albahari — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 23:34:38 +0000

Intelligent Life magazine had an article on the challenges of being a polymath:

http://www.moreintelligentlife.com/content/edward-carr/last-days-polymath