Comment by ChrisMarshallNY
17 hours ago
> a number of people could have done it--but no one ever did
My personal definition of "genius," is someone who sees things from a different angle, and can express it in terms we can implement.
It's not doing well on IQ tests; It's that ability to think "outside the box," and, crucially, to express that vision in terms that us normies can use.
I remember Damien Hirst's response to people saying that anyone could have created his "The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living"[1].
He'd simply respond with "But you didn't, did you?".
I think that Hirst had a point.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Physical_Impossibility_of_...
It's not like sharks haven't been preserved for display before, they just didn't call it art (barring counting taxidermy as an art form).
Then again, I'm also one of those people who thinks duct taping a banana to a wall is also not art.
There are all types of geniuses. By confining its definition to selected variants of "outside the box", you've defined a new box in a different coordinate system.
I somewhat agree that this isn't the only definition of genius, but this is a pretty important one. If you look back at the most successful scientists, they were not just mad scientists with grand ideas, they were also able to explain their ideas in ways that other people could understand and believe it's correct science.
Turning that back to HN. You may have an amazing startup idea, but you can't do it alone. You need to convince people to join your team, investors to give you funding and customers to buy your product. Yes, even scientists need to be good in sales.
Well … I’m not a genius.
I always did well in IQ tests, but I tend to look at things the way most folks do.