>Most things people do aren’t that hard and people have the ability to learn to do them
That's true, but it's the small minority of tasks that require real intelligence that often matter the most. A regular person can probably be trained to 95% the skill of an anesthesiologist just by following instructions, but then they would kill the patient during edge cases.
The same thing applies to programming too. I had an internship at a regular company, and now work at a FAANG. The developers at the regular company are likely better at programming than me, especially when it came to regular tasks, but some of their technical decisions just didn't seem to make any sense.
> A regular person can probably be trained to 95% the skill of an anesthesiologist just by following instructions, but then they would kill the patient during edge cases.
You’re making the mistake of assuming anesthesiologists are something other than regular people with training.
Anyone who makes it through medical school is definitely smart by some standard, especially if they end up in a highly competitive specialty like anesthesiology. Does all that intelligence translate to talent for being an anesthesiologist? Probably not, but I'm sure a lot of it does.
I think this is where we’ll really disagree. Completing med school is a function of opportunity, determination, and to a much lesser degree intelligence. Doctors are just people and people have roughly the same innate abilities.
That's true, but it's the small minority of tasks that require real intelligence that often matter the most. A regular person can probably be trained to 95% the skill of an anesthesiologist just by following instructions, but then they would kill the patient during edge cases.
The same thing applies to programming too. I had an internship at a regular company, and now work at a FAANG. The developers at the regular company are likely better at programming than me, especially when it came to regular tasks, but some of their technical decisions just didn't seem to make any sense.