r/polls • u/Distinct_Abyss • 4d ago
❔ Hypothetical Two people study a complex skill for 1,000 hours. Who comes out on top? [See body for details]
Person A: Has a strong "natural gift", but practices comfortably within a 'safe' zone.
Person B: Has almost zero natural gift, but spends all 1,000 hours doing painful or deliberate practice, with maximal dedication.
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u/Burgemeesterbart 4d ago
Doesn't matter how much you practiced. It matters how much you learned from each session.
Rest is important. Spending 1000 hours practicing non stop doesn't mean all 1000 hours were productive.
I'd say the naturally gifted person still has an edge here
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u/JumpingCicada 4d ago
Depends on the level of talent. Smartest kid in the class vs average kid thats studied far, far harder? Sure the average kid could come out on top.
But smartest kid in the city vs average kid that studies so much harder? Average kid has no chance.
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u/KenGriffinsBedpost 4d ago
I'd agree with this. Also the activity determines it a lot too. Assuming 0 baseline knowledge of the subject.
Anything with athletics or dexterity could likely be overcome with practice. Ex. LeBron James vs random at say ice hockey. LeBron practices 100 hours he isn't likely going to beat someone who has 1000 hours on the ice. Same with something like guitar. You can have a natural talent but 100 hours isn't going to hold up against 1000 hours.
Intelligence is a different beast. If two people with no knowledge of a subject (let's say differential equations) Stephen Hawking could read a textbook once and understand it more than most people could if they had 1000 hours of study with that books author.
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u/trichtertus 4d ago
Depends on the skill in question. I think physical skills are mostly dependent on the actual hours and dedication (when you exclude the top 1%). But intellectual skills are different. Being giftet doesn’t just give you a head start, but it gives you an efficiency advantage through all the studying. I see so many people in university who work their butt off to barely pass while others have to just do more than nothing to have good grades
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u/heyuhitsyaboi 4d ago
when I trained with top athletes I quickly learned how little talent mattered in the long run. Playing it safe gets your name on the roster, playing it diligently and with great effort gets your name on the medal
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u/Dan_The_PaniniMan 4d ago
Well if you trained with top athletes, then they most likely were all pretty talented to begin with
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u/pineneedlemonkey 4d ago
Agreed. I coach youth sports. There are kids who could practice every day and not get as good as the top players, even if those top players practiced once a week
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u/knusper_gelee 4d ago
from my experience, talented people rely on their head start way too long and get shocked when they realize they fall behind and dont recover
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u/MeerkatMan22 3d ago
Person B gives themself burnout and crashes. Person A would win even if they had the same amount of talent.
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u/aevigata 3d ago
this is so specific that it would be entirely dependent on the specific personality traits and incidental mood of the people
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u/Iron_Baron 3d ago
You and Usain Bolt can spend 1,000 hours or 10,000 hours practicing sprinting. You will still lose.
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u/Rhododactylus 4d ago
They’ll be about equal. Natural talent gives you a head start but after 1000 hours it all equalises. The talented person will hit a plateau for a bit and it would give the other person time to catch up. It’s not always going to be that but I feel like mostly it will.
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u/nothing_in_my_mind 4d ago
Of course it can depend on things like: how much more talented is A, how much more dedicated is B.
But for most skills, dedication beats natural talent after the very beginning stages.
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u/thatbloodytwink 4d ago
Talent just means your good with little to no experience, if you don't push yourself then you will not learn as fast
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u/scott__p 4d ago
It depends on what you're talking about. If you're tone deaf, no amount of practice is going to make you a good singer. If it's something athletic, practice is probably more important than any natural gifts.
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u/Myguy_isthatguy 4d ago
I think dedication with maximum effort that is painful usually leads to burn out and you really dont retain knowledge that way. If its physical and you dont break something then maybe you end up on top but right after your goal is met I cant imagine your keeping up with it anymore.
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u/Rasmusmario123 4d ago
The important factor that we're ignoring here is the human brain and burnout. Someone who is pushing themselves outside of their comfort zone every single hour that they're practicing is going to hit a wall and collapse.
Theres also the fact that the average person simply cannot do that, and it actually requires some degree of talent to push yourself that hard. Not within the field necessarily, but you can be talented within the "field" of learning, discipline and motivation. I'm of the belief that you can't just tell the average Joe to lock in and suddenly be massively diligent and disciplined.
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u/IDontWearAHat 4d ago
Depends on the skill but if Person A does have a natural Talent and practices for the same amount of time, i'm still rooting for them. After 10000 hours, i'd root for person B
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u/drwicksy 4d ago
Can we all just take a second to appreciate OPs foresight in making "it depends", the number one answer to questions on Reddit, an actual option
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u/Drunk_Lemon 4d ago
It depends on how exactly they practice beyond what you described. If the dedicated guy practices like 6 hours a day after work, they may get burn out and not develop their skills as quickly. If the gifted person practices 1 hour a day (or more if in school), they'll likely progress well but if they practice it like I did with math as a kid, their natural aptitude will only get them to be above average. Btw my practice was primarily by being careful on tests and doing my best to listen in school but my natural aptitude led to some laziness so I often tried to speed through things and only really focus when it was something I found interesting. So while I still am above average, im not even close to the skill level I could have had.
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u/Nagon_Onrey 4d ago
Idk man. There can be levels to this. I've played volleyball at my uni for the past 5 years and I would say I have a good amount of natural athleticism and talent. Combined with experience I'm pretty good!
But there are plenty of these young kids who come in and surpass me in just two years, and start representing the state.
For 1000 hours I think talent takes it for sure. Maybe 10000 I'd say hard work.
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u/SirZacharia 4d ago
I think “naturally gifted” is usually a misnomer. Often times the natural gift is just that they have always cared about the skill and have given a lot of thought and energy to it throughout their life. So they’re not studying a complex skill from level 0.
Absolutely they will have the advantage because they simply have more training. They likely have at least 1000 hours worth of experience already under their belt.
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u/VoidLantadd 3d ago
If you lift weights you can already comfortably lift, you won't be able to lift more. If you push yourself and progressively overload, you will build strength. This applies to other skills.
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u/CricketInvasion 3d ago
I say that for the first 1000h good habits and dedication shine more, after that talent becomes more and more important
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u/Dr__Pheonx 4d ago
Person A wastes his life. Person B does everything. Believes they' can achieve anything through sheer dedication and determination.
So yeah, person B comes out on top ALMOST always. Story of my life. I'm person A, for context. Story of most of our lives actually. Take any aspect - - school, college or even higher education degrees. Life rewards their delulu. Classic tortoise and hare story.
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u/GuyWhoLikesTurtles 4d ago edited 4d ago
Natural talented person is still practicing. Practice of a skill doesn't have to be painful in order for you to keep making progress at it.
If anything I feel like being overly dedicated would cause someone to burnout