Top all-time · #6821
David Epstein
Personal blog · davidepstein.comsciencehealth
David Epstein's personal blog at davidepstein.com covers science and health. Since 2019, 11 different Hacker News readers have linked it 13 times. The last post was in 2021, but the archive is still widely read.
Too few sampled comments (10) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link David Epstein's site for his book Range, which argues that generalists and varied learning can beat early specialisation and the 10,000-hour rule, using 'kind' and 'unkind' learning environments.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 10 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized world and The Sports Gene is composed by David Epstein. Sports Gene has been translated in 21 languages.
Most-linked posts?
- /the-range/7 people · 8 mentions · first linked 2020-03-08
What Hacker News says?
Here's a good argument why the dots will connect eventually as long as you keep doing interesting things. One of my favorite books: https://davidepstein.com/the-range/
Comment linking /the-range/
on “What I Worked On”Submitted Getting over Gold: Athletes and Mental Health as a story · 93 points
HN discussionRange by David Epstein [0]. It's a good middle point on the understanding of 'mastery' that Gladwell started in the late oughts and whose meme of '10k hours' kinda infected a lot of pop-psych and MBAs. Epstein argues that there are areas where 10k hours work, but limits very much exist. His thesis is that you have to know your environment and that most environments are too chaotic for just grinding out hours. A larg…
Comment linking /the-range/
on “Ask HN: Best books you read in the past decade?”Submitted If a Covid-19 finding grabs your attention, wait to see if it gets contradicted as a story · 2 points
HN discussionNot always true. One of the girls at one of the schools near us didn't have any of that (most likely). I think they shared their pool with a few teams though. I know they didn't have their own coach, and I know that she was the stand-out star of the team. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melissa_Seidemann Their demographics are white, but not majority, with ~30% hispanic. I don't know the demo in 2006 though: https://w…
Comment linking /the-range/
on “UC Berkeley inappropriately admitted students as favors to donors”Submitted Remembering the "Father of the 10k-hours rule" (p.s. he hated that title) as a story · 1 points
HN discussionThis is quite simplified, particularly the part that generalists can't hit a home run. For example, David Epstein in his book ( https://davidepstein.com/the-range/ ) talks about outsider advantage. Sometimes all specialists in the field have similar ideas, but an outsider can think about an interesting analogy to other problems that seem unrelated and come up with many novel solutions to difficult problems that seem…
Comment linking /the-range/
on “On Being a Generalist”David Epstein's Range [0] is a great look into this seeming paradox of broad v. deep. The intro chapters of Tiger Woods with golf versus Roger Federer with tennis are the thesis: There are 'kind' learning environments and 'unkind' learning environments. 'Kind' learning environments are golf, chess, SAT prep, etc. Here, you just need to grind out the hours. The feedback is fairly quick and the objective is clear. You…
Comment linking /the-range/
on “On Being a Generalist”There's a good recent book about being a generalist https://davidepstein.com/the-range/
Comment linking /the-range/
on “On Being a Generalist”If you're interested, David Epstein wrote a book called "Range" that provides an alternate viewpoint to the 10,000 hour rule. I found Epstein's model resonated more for me than the 10k rule. https://davidepstein.com/the-range/
Comment linking /the-range/
on “The Mental Benefits of Being Terrible at Something”Seems like someone just read https://davidepstein.com/inside-the-box/
Comment linking /inside-the-box/
on “The Importance of Limitations for Creativity and Learning (2023)”For those interested in an alternative view, check out Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World by David Epstein > Plenty of experts argue that anyone who wants to develop a skill, play an instrument, or lead their field should start early, focus intensely, and rack up as many hours of deliberate practice as possible. If you dabble or delay, you’ll never catch up to the people who got a head start. But…
Comment linking /the-range/
on “The Deliberate Practice Guide”The book by David Epstein: “Range - Why generalists triumph in a specialized world” might be an interesting read for you. https://davidepstein.com/the-range/
Comment linking /the-range/
on “Ask HN: How to find a niche? Do you think being a generalist is not good?”
