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Get Better at Anything
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12 Maxims for Mastery
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Summary of Get Better at Anything by Scott Young: 12 Maxims for Mastery
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Introduction
How Learning Works
Learning is a crucial aspect of life, and it can be either effortless or inconsistent. For instance, Joseph Saelee, an eighteen-year-old player, achieved level 34 in Tetris, a feat that had never been accomplished in the thirty-year history of one of the most popular video games of all time.
The game was invented by Russian computer scientist Alexey Pajitnov in 1984 and spread through the Soviet Union. It was initially thought impossible to play on level 29 due to the rapid drop of bricks, which made it unplayable. The first documented "max-out" occurred two decades after the game's release, when Harry Hong reached the top score. In contrast, over the span of a single tournament in 2020, Saelee maxed out twelve separate times.
Tetris, which feels dated today, caused a sensation when it debuted in 1984. Invented by Russian computer scientist Alexey Pajitnov, the game spread through the Soviet Union and eventually led to a battle for distribution rights in the West. Nintendo emerged victorious, creating the definitive edition for its Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), selling millions of copies and creating a generation of devoted fans.
While most players found Tetris amusing, some became obsessed with the game. Early record holder Ben Mullen kept detailed statistics on his play to optimize his performance. Harry Hong played so much that he had to place a shirt between his thumb and the controller to keep from getting blisters. However, none came close to the performance effortlessly displayed by modern players like Saelee.
The evolution of Tetris players can be traced back to the early days of official records managed by Twin Galaxies, a video game record database. Players submitted their high scores and verification, but the process was cumbersome and unsubmittable. However, the advent of YouTube allowed players to share their world records directly, allowing everyone to see how they did it. This increased transparency but also created temptations to cheat. Older games could be run on emulators, which allowed players to slow down gameplay or undo mistakes. Genuine players started investing in ways to authenticate their performance, recording their hands and playing the game in real time. Livestreaming further increased authenticity, as the best players could be watched playing the game in real time, making cheating nearly impossible. Innovations in button pressing, such as hypertapping, were widely replicated, and livestreaming created an incentive for commentary. Online forums expanded the network of potential players to learn from, allowing new players to find the best strategies even if they take considerable practice. Today, Tetris players are better because their environment enables it. Video hosting allows detailed demonstrations of the best play to be broadcast widely, online forums transform informal conversations into permanent reservoirs of knowledge, and livestreaming encourages extensive practice, including near-instantaneous feedback from an increasingly knowledgeable audience.
The story of Tetris demonstrates that improvement in anything depends on three factors: see, do, and feedback. The ease of learning from others determines how quickly we can improve, while mastery requires practice. Our brains are great effort-saving machines, which can be both an advantage and a curse. Progress requires iterative adjustment, not just the red stroke of a teacher's pen but contact with the reality we're trying to influence.
We learn best through other people, and our ability to learn from each other greatly exceeds our ability to solve problems on our own. The secret of our species' success lies not in our raw, innate intelligence or any specialized mental abilities, but in the ability to learn easily from the innovations of others.
However, the ability to learn from others has its drawbacks. When we lack access to people we can learn from, we struggle to make progress. The early devotees of Tetris were essentially isolated from one another, and techniques for best play couldn't be transmitted. New technologies such as video uploading, livestreaming, and online forums greatly accelerated the dissemination of best practices.
The quality of examples we learn from also matters greatly. The transition to scientific chemistry from its origins in alchemical practice serves as a useful illustration. Early alchemists deliberately obfuscate their findings out of a desire to keep esoteric techniques out of less experienced hands.
In conclusion, the ability to learn from others, practice, and receive feedback is crucial for personal and professional growth.
Knowledge is not evenly distributed, with most of it locked away in the minds of experts. It is often embodied in practices spread over groups, such as building a wooden pencil. As science and technology develop, individual achievements may become increasingly rare, as distributed groups are necessary to bring together all the knowledge required to solve hard problems. Access to the environments where knowledge resides is often a bigger hurdle to mastery than learning itself.
Practice is essential for learning skills, as it reduces mental effort, improves memory retrieval, and helps master aspects of skills that cannot be taught in a book. However, the necessity of action in learning creates its own obstacles, such as being more effortful to actively practice than passively watching a video. Access to the real environment for performing the skill may be limited, and finding the balance between learning from others and doing it for yourself can be tricky.
Research has found that low-ability students benefit from more structured environments, while high-ability students benefit more from less structured environments. This perverse tendency is due to the fact that learning is effortful and we try to conserve effort. High-ability students find the added structure easier and prefer following the recipe rather than generating the right answer on their own. Fine-tuning the difficulty matters greatly for learning, and we don't always get it right.
Feedback is essential for continuous improvement and can be a key factor in achieving success. Psychologists like Edward Thorndike and Anders Ericsson developed the concept of deliberate practice to explain how elite performers achieve peak levels in various fields. However, spotty feedback can also lead to deteriorating performance. To accelerate progress, we can create better systems for feedback, such as the Navy Fighter Weapons School during the Vietnam War. This involved simulated sorties where trainees flew against the best possible pilots, with each decision discussed in an after-action report.
Learning still matters even though technological progress may make it obsolete. The rise of technology has created a demand for new learning and undermined old abilities. For example, the invention of paper led to an explosion of knowledge that no individual could hope to memorize in a single lifetime. Advances in artificial intelligence have resulted in greater demands for learning, not less.
