Ask HN: Starting to get disillusioned and confused as a generalist

6 pointsby samh748about 3 years ago

I don't know if this is just a phase or something, but it's starting to get to me.Not too long ago I asked HN "I'm interested in so many disciplines, but what can I do with that?" [1], and got an overwhelming response (to which I still haven't gone through completely..!). It really got my brain going and got me out of my slump, and I'm more eager than ever to pursue this line of interest. However, more recently, I'm starting to get disillusioned and confused about the social aspects of being a generalist.It's a bit confusing to explain (because it is confusing me): Before that Ask HN, I've only been pursuing these interests privately. Since then, I've met several like-minded individuals through HN and it's all very very exciting. But now my idealistic brain is starting to wonder, where else can I find more generalist intellectuals? Is there some community out there where we all gather around and discuss over-arching themes and ideas?Up to this point, the only places I know with smart nerdy people are all highly specialized. For example, academic spaces for "real/published academics", subreddit for specific interests in philosophy or psychology, etc. There's no place where people with general interests gather, other than maybe clustering around particular individuals (eg substack newsletter followers).I know there are many "learning communities", but those are not really what I'm looking for. (Maybe I'm arrogant but those feel very... uncritical...). The best place so far, is the HN crowd.But, then, with HN, there's no good way to have sustained conversations on particular topics. And for most of the cross- or interdisciplinary problems that I can think of, there's a real need for sustained discussions.Am I dreaming up something that doesn't exist? Are small clusters the best we have?Or maybe (I think this is the "answer"), there are only networks of these people and interests groups, rather than one single centralized community. And because every individual generalist and every individual general interest group are characterized by a unique assemblage of interests, only networks can connect these people together. Am I on the right track here?Come to think of it, spaces like academia isn't one big community either, but networks of individual researchers and research groups, each independently publishing their own line of inquiry. Did I just answer my own question..?Sorry for the stream of confusion. I would love to know what you all think.[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30928105

6 comments

apolloartemisabout 3 years ago

Have you thought about participating in the effective altruism community? People in the E.A. community are kind and creative and love to talk about topics like philosophy (especially applied ethics), economics, A.I., animal welfare, space travel, and more.You could check out the E.A. Forum!<a href="https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/" rel="nofollow">https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/</a>

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f0e4c2f7about 3 years ago

It's interesting you should bring this up I've recently been wondering about this as well.How do you find other people who just love to learn and master things. I agree that the best place I've found so far is hacker news, though it feels more that it just happens to be that way.I would love more spaces like this by the way. Many people seem actively hostile towards learning.Speaking of spaces if you have a local hacker space around that might be a good place to look.

webmavenabout 3 years ago

You've hit on why cross-disciplinary collaboration is difficult to foster (people either need to be pretty good at communicating with folks outside of their discipline, or they need to have an interest or discipline in common, but the people involved ideally need to have deep expertise that is not shared. So often you see pairs where each one's shared interest is the other's deep expertise, which happens a lot with pairs of fields that complement each other in an obvious way (eg. 3D imaging and archeology).Generalists shine when they bridge people who don't have much in common with each other. There are probably ideal ratios of "glue" people to have within a collaboration and within the groups from which collaborations arise, but I don't know what they may be, except at the low end (2-8 specialists need to have at least one generalist if there is nothing else bridging the gaps).Keep in mind that there are generalists and then there are generalists. Some people tend to have a wide array of interests and seemingly manage to be the second best at every one they pick up. Collaborations tend to form around them spontaneously and they are a specific subtype of the 10x practitioner. We can ignore their existence for purposes of this discussion.So, back to your question. Generalists connecting and working with other generalists fail the "deep expertise" requirement, which may not be a problem if there is a lot of low-hanging fruit to be found, but otherwise a concentration of generalists isn't particularly fruitful (except for social or recreational purposes, but we all like our groups to do double duty these days).You would think that a large group of generalists would at least be great for generalists to introduce other generalists into groups that would fit them, but it turns out that having a very small number of hyper-connected individuals (who don't even need to be generalists themselves, really) salted though the social graph serves that purpose more efficiently, as well as introducing people who don't need a bridge builder.My advice is that rather than trying to find or create a large group of generalists, you join a group that has a diverse, even eclectic set of people in it. Some interests tend to collect weirdos from all walks of life that tolerate each other's obsessions that they don't share, and you'll find that you always have something to talk about with everyone (even if it isn't the topic that the group is ostensibly organized around), and you'll also find more than the usual number of generalists or semi-generalists among them who were attracted to the group just like you were.

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ffhhjabout 3 years ago

Hey, I'm a generalist intellectual as well, and I contributed to one of your other posts:<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31061563" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31061563</a>I have a project that could help, let me know if you are interested in participating.

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justcheckinginabout 3 years ago

Hey Sam, hope I'm not overextending, wouldn't want to psychoanalyze someone that I don't know. Based on your post history, it seems like you're having hyperactive thoughts. Would you agree? Do you have access to a professional that you can talk to? Maybe friends, family, or coworkers around you can recommend someone if not?And goes without saying: please do continue posting to HN, I don't think anyone minds the posts.

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lurker137about 3 years ago

It sounds like a HN discord server would fit your needs. Maybe you could start one