Daniel Gross: belief

Transcript context

…I don’t think that the food or the air matters that much as long as you’re in a livable situation. What I put really a lot of weight on are, who are the really smart, energetic people or role models you were exposed to in something like ages 12 through 16? That, I put a great deal of weight on. And I put a great deal of weight on how old you were when you first started to try to do something in some area. You don’t even have to have succeeded, but you tried at something. If you tried at something at 14, to me, that’s a big plus. If you first tried at something later on, again, it would depend on the context, but at least, I want to start thinking about why it took the person so long. What you’ve inherited, quality of parenting, but I don’t think it ends at six. I think those years, 12 to 16, give or take, I really put a great deal of stress on. I don’t know that we disagree on that, but that would be my answer. I think if we were to define the buckets a bit more simply — nature, nurture broadly and who you’re around or whatever, and then just physical environment — what I’m hearing from you is, between those last two categories you’d stack rank, effectively, the nurture effect. I’d probably put the environment effect ahead of that. I really think, and this theory is definitely not mine — there are all sorts of researchers on Twitter that are expert at this — but I think a lot of what is driving American mood today or conversation today is a byproduct of lithium we put in the water or plastics we consumed from when we were children. I think that might be one aspect of it where we might swap, not that it really matters that much, but it is a difference. Here’s a way I would put it. I would say, I look for signs that the person, at an early age, tried to get nature and nurture working together in some multiplicative fashion. That brings the question a bit away from nature versus nurture. If they made a decision at age 13 to get nature and nurture compounding each other, then I’m very impressed. Does that make sense to you?…

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