Personal Question From Jared L

[David Sklansky]

"David,

I would like for you to estimate the probability that, if you tried and were fully dedicated to it and got a Ph.D, you would end up a fully tenured professor at a top 5 University in the following fields:
Mathematics
Economics
A hard science
Psychology
Sociology
Philosophy

What odds would you give that you would win a Nobel prize/Fields Medal etc. in the above fields?

A follow up, if you spent a year or two studying the game(s) do you think that you could become a top coach or manager of any of the major sports (football, baseball, basketball, soccer, hockey)?

Finally, do you think you would do any of the following jobs at a very high level relative to those that are currently doing them:
Chief of Police of a large city
Mayor of a major city (NY, Chicago, Miami, LA, SF etc.)
Governor of a large state (CA, NY, FL)
A high level general of the armed forces
President of the United States "

Look. Bottom line is that when I was 14 I was in the top 100 or so fourteen year olds in the US in math, science, and logic. From that point on I went a little crazy but that craziness, and going away from the academic path hurt in some ways but helped in others. Because I mingled more than typical prodigies with average folks.

In spite of my burnout though the typical run of the mill Harvard math major would have been no match for me if I dusted off my cobwebs just a little. I owe that solely to my father's genes. So I am sure I could have become a professor at any university if I had tried. I would have been out of my element a little bit in Sociology or Psychology but not to the point that I couldn't have made up for it with sheer thinking ability. Art or even Literature is a different story.

A Fields Medal would have been a giant underdog. My specialty has always been coming up with clever shortcuts to relatively easy problems. Not the stuff of Fields Medals. If I won a Nobel Prize, it would almost certainly be in Economics. Even now I would take 25,000 to one that I'll get one and bet up to $1000. Back then it was 100-1.

Up until the last few years I could easily have been a better baseball manager than anyone who had ever managed. Too much mathematical stupidity going on. I'd be a good football manager if I was allowed to delegate a lot of stuff. Not sure about the other sports.

As for the political jobs I'm sure you could do any of them better than the morons who do them now.

[Yeti]

[ QUOTE ]

Up until the last few years I could easily have been a better baseball manager than anyone who had ever managed.

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Wow.

[David Sklansky]

So could 5 million other people

[southerndog]

David, what do you think of Sheldon Ross? He's pretty much "the man" in probability.

[shemp]

DS. I'm often amazed at what you can do and how you frame questions (a most fundamental component of genius). Your chances of understanding the work of a Fields winner are grim, and your chances of winning are 0. Whatever you think your potential as a 14 year old meant are mistaken.

[pete fabrizio]

David I think you're very very smart, but I'm pretty sure you're both overestimating your own intelligence and underestimating the intelligence of others. I think being an expert in a field that, until recently, has not attracted the attention of many very intelligent people has contributed to your error.

[wooly_chicken]

Becoming a tenured math professor at a "top 5" school is incredibly difficult and requires much more than just intelligence (and certainly much more than being one of the "top 100" 14 year olds in math, science, and logic whatever that means).

[David Sklansky]

I'm assuming that there are at least 2000 such people. Plus another 10,000 who are essentially equal but chose another path. If that's true, I stick to my statement.

Many of you don't realize that I have met several people of that ilk. And when the conversation sticks to subjects that I know about, they have been at least as likely to learn from me as the other way around. Nesbit Ankeny from MIT and Persi Diaconis from Stanford are two examples. Diaconis now teaches my "coincidence" concept in Poker Gaming and Life in some of his classes.

[adios]

First of all I'm not disagreeing with your self assessment of your academic potential.

[ QUOTE ]
Up until the last few years I could easily have been a better baseball manager than anyone who had ever managed. Too much mathematical stupidity going on. I'd be a good football manager if I was allowed to delegate a lot of stuff. Not sure about the other sports.

[/ QUOTE ]

I assume that you'd delegate responsibilities in managing practices in football. In my opinion the value of "coaching' in baseball where technique and various skils are honed in practices is often underestimated. So methinks you would have to do a fair amount of delegation in baseball as well. In a nutshell I believe there's alot more that goes into managing a baseball team than game time decisions.

[ QUOTE ]
As for the political jobs I'm sure you could do any of them better than the morons who do them now.

[/ QUOTE ]

Part of being an elected politician is acknowledging other politicians agendas and points of view and thus meeting somewhere in the middle, at least in western style democracies. Skill in managing the media also comes to mind. Are you inferring that you could re-do political science theory as well?

[David Sklansky]

"Part of being an elected politician is acknowledging other politicians agendas and points of view and thus meeting somewhere in the middle, at least in western style democracies. Skill in managing the media also comes to mind. Are you inferring that you could re-do political science theory as well?"

No. I am saying that like sports, there is enough of a math/logic/probability component to their jobs that my advantage there would more than make up for my disadvantages elsewhere. Contrast that to the president of General Electric. I'm sure I'm smarter than him too but not to he point where I could do a better job.