from Hacker News

Both geniuses and madmen pay attention to what others ignore

by lingben on 3/12/17, 2:01 AM with 193 comments

• by sverige on 3/12/17, 4:00 AM

  Every time I read one of these articles about genius and madness, I become smug for a little while, then I get depressed because I realize that I haven't accomplished anything noteworthy, then I'm mildly reassured because occasionally my wife will spontaneously aver (contrary to all expectation) that I am a genius, then I get distracted and start chasing some ideas, then I get depressed again because, well, shit, I still haven't accomplished anything that anyone but my wife knows about, and anyway these ideas I chase are very interesting but once I've figured it out, I am satisfied and don't share it with anyone, because I don't really give a shit about becoming known as a genius, if I even am (which I doubt seriously).

  Then, as a general rule, I start drinking if I have no obligations for the evening. Thankfully this evening I started drinking before I read this, so I can skip all the other stuff and just enjoy this awful feeling as I contemplate several of my friends who have accomplished things, and one of whom is actually a genius, unlike me.

  Edit: Thank goodness for whisky. (Did I mention that I predicted Trump's victory back in August 2015? I'm pretty good at political predictions.) (No, I don't vote, and my predictions don't imply endorsement. All politicians suck, even those who aren't (or weren't) politicians.)

  Also, if I ever accomplish anything noteworthy, I will let you poor HN comment readers know immediately.

• by Psychthowaway on 3/12/17, 4:07 AM

  As a public figure, it wasn't worth burning my reputation to type this out, but I think that speaks to the state of discourse around mental health today.

  The article is uses the word "psychopathology" which is a general term for the study of mental disorders. However I want to talk specifically about Psychopathy as a disorder, because I recently came to understand that I am a psychopath. My guess is that there are probably a bunch of psychopaths reading this too that don't even realize what they are.

  I also scored in the "Genius" level on IQ tests in middle school (whatever the hell those are worth), and have made a non-trivial creative dent in the world.

  The challenge is that, for the average person, if you hear "psychopath" or "sociopath" all you think is murderers and rapists. While most institutionalized (ie. caught) murderers and rapists do fit that profile, 90% of sociopaths are out there in the world and struggling to fit in. In fact almost half of CEOs would fit the diagnosis: Lack of empathy, remorse or guilt. Because that's all it is, it's not based on behavior (even though that is usually part of a formal diagnosis).

  I have gone through my whole life with what in retrospect feels like a handicap that I have to make up for in every way. Not being able to feel empathy, remorse, guilt etc... means that every movie that the whole crowd is in tears at, every funeral of a family member, you are basically saying to yourself "What is with all these emotional people?" When relationships deteriorate because the best way you know how to deal with people is to act like you care, to manipulate them to thinking you care and then when the "mask of sanity" slips temporarily it blows your whole life apart.

  Therein lies the rub, cause there is no sympathy there, and you know if you reveal who you are you won't get any breaks, because you are seen as a predator. So you spend your whole life studying people to see how they respond in certain situations so that, like a robot, you can try and emulate them - and because you're so smart you can actually pull it off. Genius level sociopaths/psychopaths look like the best of us because it takes that level of intellect to play a character 24 hours a day without taking a break.

  And you don't reveal yourself - because what would the benefit be? You don't get a chance to be yourself because who you are is broken and ugly. So you continue to play the game and get into higher and higher stakes. You start to run a company, maybe even a big one with thousands of employees, you get married, have children etc...and your ability to manipulate and control just get wider and wider. And you see that your contemporaries are also psychopaths, so you think, well I guess that's what it takes to make a big impact. So your goals and ambitions, those "delusions" get bigger as you accomplish the "delusions" you previously had and see that you can accomplish a lot that others can't.

  This is something that needs to be discussed because from where I stand, it's pretty clear that psychopaths like me "rule the world." It's not from a place of malice or hate though, but adaptation and if we can have that conversation and we can start to recognize and cope with psychopathy then I think everyone would be better off. It's tiring as hell to live this life.

• by vxxzy on 3/12/17, 3:30 AM

  I'm surprised Hemmingway was used as an example in this piece. He did believe he was being monitored or 'stalked' by the FBI. His wife/family did have him subjected to electro-shock therapy. Wasn't it later proven that Hemmingway was followed and 'harrassed' by the FBI?

• by CuriouslyC on 3/12/17, 3:54 AM

  Truthfully, I've found that the real difference in intelligence between people isn't so large as many people think it is. People don't generally come along and solve "intractable" problems because they're so much smarter than all the people who've tacked the problem prior to them. Instead, they approach the problem in a way that is fundamentally different. This is why outsiders are so frequently the people who make major breakthroughs in a field, and "genius" is correlated with eccentricity.

• by Pica_soO on 3/12/17, 8:41 AM

  The pattern-matching gone haywire visible in schizophrenia, applied in mild dosages on principles not related is in my opinion the secrect ingredient that allowed in the early days of science for the "genius" myth to occur.

  So madmen might be usefull- but not all the time, and not in all situations. The true art in project managment is to keep the madmen around against all resistence ("That guy is constantly reinventing the wheel"), prevent the usual specialization silos from walling off against this and get a stuck project to "shift gears" as in, temporarily withdraw the usual project-management ("We need fast, easy solutions- not something custom made") - and get the recombined stuff at least discussed.

• by taneq on 3/12/17, 3:31 AM

  Well, they do say that the only way to distinguish genius from madness is by observing the results.

• by dkarapetyan on 3/12/17, 4:26 AM

  Evolution is probably the worst way to design anything and yet all of biology is driven by it. It is basically a random walk that just flips bits and every so often it is inevitable that some of those flipped bits will have something to do with the brain's default networks and modes of operation. But I think genius is an unstable optimum and things inevitably slide downhill. There is no such thing as heritable genius, crazy or otherwise.

• by rhizome on 3/12/17, 3:35 AM

  This seems quite all over the place and I'm not sure what the point was. Was it that sometimes mental illness and creativity are coincident? Everything else seemed like a bunch of worldbuilding.

• by fritzw on 3/12/17, 3:56 AM

  The article attacks the idea that genius is normal, and it maybe suggests that it would be hard to be normal and genius.

  Taking the title at face value, Your not a genius if you think you are. I will say that dealing with people who don't have basic math, science, logic, physics, chemistry and philosophy understanding it's pretty easy to convince yourself that your both genius and crazy.

• by known on 3/12/17, 6:12 AM

  "We act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements of life, when all that we need to make us happy is something to be enthusiastic about." -Einstein

• by dredmorbius on 3/12/17, 10:04 AM

  Creativity, a component of genius, and problem solving (likewise) are of themselves both in part skills and not necessarily some innate talent.

  I've been poking around the Skills and Creativity pages on Wikipedia for the past few days, as well as their references, looking at the state of art and understanding of these topics.

  Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's five-phase model of creativity seems pretty accurate: preparation, incubation, insight, evaluation, elaboration. (Creativity: Flow and the psychology of discovery and invention).

  I'm also quite captivated by Liane Gabora's "honing theory", which ... gets into a whole mess of areas: world models, systems theory, epistemology, evolution, communications theory, and more. I've only just run across it but it's quite exciting, as is much the rest of her work (bio page with links below).

  Another element I'm finding useful is to have a useful concepts and interests capture system, for which I've gone retro: 4x6 index cards and a series of file boxes. The immediacy, free-form nature, adaptability, and physicality of the system make it hugely useful (my HN user submissions history includes a link to a POIC, "pile of index cards", data management system). And the list of people who've relied on index cards, starting with Carl Linneaus who invented the damned idea, is pretty impressive. (I particularly recommend John McPhee's essay, "Structure".)

  I've known researchers myself who've used the method and am coming to understand its merits. And yes, search and grep are challenges, but the review such attempts trigger seems to be a more-than-ofsetting advantage.

  https://www.worldcat.org/title/creativity-the-psychology-of-...

  https://people.ok.ubc.ca/lgabora/

  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creativity

  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skill

• by epalmer on 3/12/17, 1:01 PM

  > Instances such as these have led many to suppose that creativity and psychopathology are intimately related.

  I wonder if this is true is that why some think that using psychedelics have helped them see the world from different perspectives and be creative in their work world?

• by geoka9 on 3/12/17, 3:44 AM

  I think the fact that this submission is on the first page is pretty damning of the community ;)

• by Mendenhall on 3/12/17, 1:43 PM

  When I pondered if I was a genius I realized the list of things I will not know will always be vastly larger than that which I do. Anyone swathed in that much ignorance cant be a genius IMO. To me its a battle to be less ignorant.

• by baron816 on 3/12/17, 4:33 AM

  Is the rate of mental illness really any higher among those deemed genius than in the general population? I doubt it. Lots of people have mental illness, it's bound that some of those will do great things.

• by mkempe on 3/12/17, 5:17 AM

  Only a madman would see fundamental commonality between genius and insanity. This mis-integration is on a par with a theory grouping cigars, the aura of saints, and the moon -- they're all round.

• by funthree on 3/12/17, 7:23 AM

  Please quit judging upward. How many thousands of years have geniuses been hounded by those with smaller brains? How many great sorcerers, magicians, electricians and plumbers have been lost because of this thing where people think they have the right to speak confidently and negatively of men who are of higher caliber?

  Maybe geniuses are kooky because of how outnumbered they are by irrational people? Or something else like that.

• by dennis_jeeves on 3/12/17, 6:51 PM

  A corollary to this is that the regular masses have somewhat collectively the same delusions.

• by erikbye on 3/12/17, 4:12 PM

  There was never a genius without a tincture of madness -Aristotle

• by zghst on 3/12/17, 3:35 AM

  I believe I'm crazy but far from a genius...

• by koolba on 3/12/17, 3:22 AM

  While not every crazy person I know is a genius, every genius that I know is crazy.

  Pretty sure people that know me would place me in at least one of those categories as well.

• by charles-salvia on 3/12/17, 2:55 PM

  As much as some of us might feel some misguided excitement over the idea of being some kind of tech savvy Hannibal Lecter, the reality is that there is no real correlation between psychopathy and intelligence (perhaps even a negative correlation.)

  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16178679

  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23551975

  http://www.soc.iastate.edu/staff/delisi/Hannibal%20Lecter%20...

  In other words, psychopathic people aren't necessarily smarter. In fact, contrary to the Hollywood idea of the "super-intelligent serial killer", most actual serial killers were basically kind of idiots who got caught in stupid ways, with a few notable exceptions.

  It's also hard to read anything Einstein (an actual genius) wrote and conclude the man was bereft of warmth and empathy.

• by ikeboy on 3/12/17, 3:34 AM

  It is sad that the state of statistical knowledge is so low that the third and forth paragraphs are necessary.