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Interviews: Ask Malcolm Gladwell a Question

Posted by samzenpus on from the go-ahead-and-ask dept.

Malcolm Gladwell is a speaker, author, and staff writer for The New Yorker since 1996. Gladwell's writing often focuses on research in the social sciences and the unexpected connections or theories made from such research. His books: The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference, Outliers: The Story of Success, and David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants are all New York Times best sellers. Malcolm has agreed to give us some of his time to answer any question you may have. As usual, ask as many as you'd like, but please, one per post.

7 of 111 comments (clear)

  1. Questions for Malcolm Gladwell! by advancecoder · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Ten-thousand hours (~3.4 years if a regular job) is Gladwell's estimate of temporal mastery. With that being said, the Mozarts like Carlsen or Fischer learn faster and become World Champion. What is the difference between the Mozarts and 3.4 years? Is it there some passionate rage to absorb and decipher patterns that magnetizes them to a particular domain or is it their consistent, well-designed regimen for reaching the upper echelons (like Lalzo Polgar's systemic approach with Judith and Susan)? If it is "pure" passion, then will people who find their true calling and invest appropriate time (e.g. have an OCD mentality) always see the unquestionable results? If it is "pure" regimen, then will following the same systematic approach always see the overarching performance? One thing to keep in mind is are these skills transferable to other domains? Is there a way to tackle a number of domains in the same 10,000 hours with an abstract approach? What about the time to create "new" domains rather than to "solve" problems in a particular domain? Is there some sort of estimate for that? Malcolm could possibly use those clues for his sequel to "Outliers" appropriately called "Pioneers". Any thoughts?

  2. Genetics by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Today, your continued belief in the Tabula Rasa myth seems increasingly outdated and contradicted by a wide variety of research from many notable evolutionary psychologists and genetics researchers. How do you continue to believe that intelligence and ability is not significantly genetic despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary?

  3. Sharpshooter fallacy by i+kan+reed · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The areas you work in focus on very small sample sizes: software billionaires, major cultural shifts, and cases where the most improbable result happened.

    Within these areas, you've developed mental frameworks off of shared elements between each. This runs into a problem, the Texas Sharpshoot fallacy. You pick out some characteristics that are shared by the things you're looking at, and then the only available data to confirm your hypothesis is the data you extracted your predictions from.

    How did you address this when researching your books?

  4. Opinion On Basic Income by Scottingham · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I'm curious to know what your take is on a basic income for all US citizens versus our current 'conditional' welfare system. What do you think short term and long term outcome would be? Would the increased tax burden on the upper classes result in a total collapse rendering a basic income useless? My personal opinion is that it is necessary given the increasing rate of job automation coupled with our increasing population size (not to mention aging). Am I delusional? If so, why?

    1. Re:Opinion On Basic Income by ranton · · Score: 4, Interesting

      1) A vibrant middle class is an aberration of history. I don't think we can look to history and find meaningful examples of what exponentially increasing technology will do to our current social structures.

      2) Our society determines what basic income is. Just like we determine our laws.

      3) Living in a society that respects property rights has its costs. Almost the only difference between the relatively peaceful western world and places like the unrest in the middle east is that the vast majority of our population has a lot of opportunities. You take those away and we will have the same unrest here.

      I tend to agree with Thomas Paine, who believed that all citizens have a natural inheritance created by the introduction of the system of landed property. So in return for society recognizing property rights those property holders owe society some of its proceeds. He explicitly stated this should not be considered charity.

      4) He never said he thought there would only be positive results. He did say he thinks it would be a good idea, but plenty of good ideas still have consequences. And he was openly asking for other opinions while merely offering his own; there is no need to jump down his throat.

      5) No one is saying people would be paid not to work. All people would just be told "you don't have to work to meet your basic needs." Once that burden is removed, people would still be free to work to better their lives further. Very few people would just sit around all day doing nothing, and those that do really would be the ones we want removed from the workforce anyway.

      --
      -- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
  5. Long term effects of filter bubbles/silos by An+dochasac · · Score: 4, Interesting

    There is a positive feedback between human confirmation bias and reliance on information sources which increasingly give us what we want (e.g. Google/Facebook "filter bubbles", Amazon "if you like this... you'll like that." Do you expect this to create more social balkanization and extremism or other social effects? Is there anything we can do to stop or slow this process?

  6. Why are you a corporate shill? by SuperBanana · · Score: 5, Interesting

    http://shameproject.com/report...

    Why did you, after college, attend the National Journalism Center, a corporate-funded program created to counter the mediaâ(TM)s alleged âoeanti-business biasâ?

    Why, as someone who is half-Jamaican, have you repeatedly associated yourself (and apparently continue to do so) with the white supremacist organization EPPC, which fights activists for economic justice?

    Why did you write for American Spectator, which churned out anti-Clinton conspiracy theories?

    Why did you recycle tobacco industry propaganda and quote lobbyists for Washington Post articles you "wrote"? Why did Phillip Morris consider you, according to their internal documents, to be a "friend" who could be counted on for pro-tobacco-industry stories?

    Why did you clearly promote drugs for treating ADHD in kids, in which you heavily quoted researchers who were paid heavily by the pharma industry?

    Why did you cite a pharma-industry cited study and defend the industry when it was attacked for high drug costs?

    Why did you blame the victims in the Enron collapse, defending executives who committed gross fraud?

    --
    Please help metamoderate.