Big Pond Effect

Start with example of science experiment with 3 different temperature waters (hot, room temp, cold).

Stick hands in hot and cold and leave them for 20 seconds... Then immediately stick them both in room temp water.

The water will feel both cold and hot at the exact same time (even though its obviously the same temperature).

This is to demonstrate that we are relative beings. All our surmations about reality are really just relative to what others our doing.


Theory of relativity. Smarts. Test scores. Everything.

Where this breaks down though...

THE BIG POND EFFECT aka "relative deprivation"

I like to read and one author I've been following for a while is malcolm gladwell (I think I've read 3 of his books).

You've probably heard of him because of his popularization of the "10,000 Hour Rule". Which is really just the
"long tail of the 80/20".

Well, he's done more cool stuff than that, like his most recent work called David and Goliath.

"Relative deprivation is why Gladwell takes issue with the belief that elite schools are automatically better. 
He cites the example of one student, under the pseudonym "Caroline Sacks," who was determined to go into science 
until attending Brown University. There, she earned mediocre grades and felt generally stupid compared to her
straight-A classmates, though according to Gladwell she was likely still in the 99th percentile worldwide. 
She eventually quit science."

"Gladwell chalks this up to relative deprivation. The worst STEM students at Harvard, he claims, may be as smart as the
top third at a lower ranked college. But Harvard students compare themselves to their Harvard peers, and that's bound
to make those in the bottom third feel stupid and unsuccessful. Better to have gone to a non-elite institution, he 
says — to have been a big fish in a little pond — than have had your dreams and confidence crushed."

Why does this matter?

Well... Turing is a pretty crazy place. Perhaps for the first time in your life you are surrounded by people that are as 
smart/successful or talented as you are.

The problem is that for many people that are surrounded by exceptional people is that they start to feel only average (or
perhaps even inferior?).

Fight that shit. You are exceptional. And just because you are around other exceptional people does not mean that you are
more or less so.