Background
On CF I think you can tend to see people attributing good rating to IQ. This is often associated with hopelessness when people are stuck in gray/green.
I think it's the perfect cope — it's the easiest thing to say that completely explains why you're 1100 and your friend is orange, and, bonus, if anyone tries to prove you wrong, you can just claim that they are privileged and intelligent.
You may think I am 2000 and thus out of touch to be able to comment on this topic, which may be true. However, I was also once a noob who got 28/1000 on a USACO silver round. And I was pretty overweight as a kid and sucked at sports and always thought of myself as not having the genetics to be an athlete, but I now hold the squat, bench, and deadlift 18-and-under state records in my powerlifting federation. (Probably not for long though lol)
A lot of this is inspired by my powerlifting coach, Matt Vena. He's big on psychology in sport and I think that has greatly improved my progress in both powerlifting and CP. Also that's why a lot of my examples are lifting related
Self-limiting beliefs influence results
Your beliefs can improve or harm your progress. Simply being told that you have good IQ for CP or good genetics for powerlifting can impact your abilities.
- Male varsity athletes were given placebo steroids. On bench and squat, placebo steroids resulted in significantly higher strength gains (p < 0.05 on an F-test), while on the other two exercises the difference was not significant. (Ariel & Saville, 1972)
- Nationally ranked powerlifters were given fake steroids and improved their totals by around 70 pounds instantly when told they were given steroids. For reference, I would be super happy with a 70 pound increase in my total in 4 months. (Maganaris, 2000; analysis by Greg Nuckols from Stronger by Science) The funniest part is that when they told half of the lifters that the steroids were fake, they immediately lost the "fake strength" they had gained!
- They measured a gene associated with aerobic capacity (how fast you can run), and told half the participants the truth and lied to the other half. Being told that one had the good gene had a greater effect size than actually having the good gene! (Turnwald et al., 2019; analysis by Greg Nuckols from Stronger by Science)
- In the famous "Mind over Milkshake" study, hormonal hunger responses to food were affected by whether the milkshake was labeled low or high calories, even though all of them actually had the same amount. (Crum et al., 2011)
Bonus resource: another Stronger by Science article.
The bottom line is, if your expectations can so greatly influence inherently physiological things like strength, mile time, or hunger horomone levels, how greatly can they influence a mind sport like CP?
Worry about what you can control
Let's abstractly model
where $$$\text{Work}$$$ is a combination of good coaching, effort put into practice every day, and additionally for powerlifting things like sleep, nutrition, etc.
I won't pretend like I have data to support this, but for most people the $$$\text{Work}$$$ value will quickly outpace the $$$\text{IQ}$$$ value. Low effort practice for not a long time may be something like 1000 if your genetics/IQ is unlucky to 1700 if it is. With lots of high effort over a long period of time, even if you are unlucky, I think you can reach 2200 or 2300 eventually, and if you are lucky then you will become tourist.
Anecdotally, I also have noticed that a lot of powerlifting champions come from the same area. (For those into powerlifting, take for example Dillon Johnson and Chase Gravitt being from the same gym, lots of people at PWRBLD, Will Ball literally training in Evan Hawk's living room, etc.) If genetics mattered a lot more than effort, we should expect high-level lifters randomly distributed across the country. Instead, we see a boost in results that is probably caused by a boost in effort from having multiple high-level lifters motivating each other.
Again, I'm not going to pretend that this is scientifically supported data, but whenever I'm at the gym, I tend to notice that the people with the biggest muscles are also the ones that show up every day and hit the workouts that they have planned. Also among my friends I can pretty easily see who will improve and who won't depending on how seriously they take the sport.
IQ is a shit metric anyway
If you're still not convinced that IQ and genetics are cope, an IQ test is a horrifically bad indicator of intelligence. It only really captures how good you are at something at the very moment, not how good you can get over time.
They can't even measure intelligence. Some guy DMed me a few weeks ago asking me to take a CORE IQ test, and they have you do:
If there are some other ones you want to see me debunk, let me know.
And how do you make sure an IQ test is measuring intelligence, which I'm defining here as similar to genetics, which is something that you're born with? And not something that is practiceable, like shapes-on-scales algebra, pattern recognition in competitive programming, or digit memorizing? If you're going to give up after seeing a test result, it should be seeing the rating you can reach, not what is essentially a heavily confounded measurement of your rating right now.
You're more average than you think
What if I told you that you could be the a GM with some practice?
You'd probably say, nah, I'm not lucky enough to be one of those people.
Then why do you think you're unlucky enough to be stuck in newbie forever?
The population average is the average for a reason. You're probably there.
So why aren't you improving?
Proper methods
"Just practice more" is not optimal advice in my opinion. If you're doing English problems to practice CP, that's obviously not going to get you very far.
Read up on how a bunch of accomplished people like to practice, and also be introspective about your own practice. Try to identify weaknesses to work on, what things you do that seem to work well, etc.
Remember that there are multiple optimal approaches to training; as long as you're following the general principles, you will be okay.
Self-deception
It's easy to think you are putting a very high amount of effort when you are actually half-assing it every day. Refer to https://codeforces.me/blog/entry/98621 .
Time
If you think you can go from 1400 to 2000 in a month practicing an hour per day, then that would imply that I could go from 2000 to something like 2900 in a year practicing 3 hours per day.
Once you get out of the beginner stage, the amount of time it takes to notice improvement will start to be measured in months. In powerlifting, I do a 4-month training cycle and then compete at the end. On a good training cycle, I'll be able to add something like 17.5 kilos to my squat. That's less than 10 pounds per month, and that's with powerlifting taking up a significant chunk of my life (I spend about 13 hours per week in the gym, another like 2 hours of cardio now every week, and nutrition and sleep).
Okay, but what if I'm actually stupid?
If you can:
- Understand the tutorials and most (like 80-90%) of the editorials of easy/normal problems and some of the hard problems on USACO Guide silver section, and maybe also the gold section if you want to get beyond ~1800ish(?) (very rough estimate and my opinion only)
- Notice yourself applying a technique you learned from a past problem every so often. (It does not have to be every problem, I'll only think "oh hey this problem uses a strat I have kind of used before" maybe once every like 15 problems.)
- If you get stuck on a problem that's like within 300 points above your rating and read the editorial, you should be able to understand the editorial solution most of the time. (It is ok to spend a while to digest the editorial, or not understand it entirely every so often.)
Then you're at where I am and you're probably smart enough. Put in some hours — genuine hours, but also intelligently allocated hours — and I'm sure you'll improve.
Also read Zhtluo's blog on being Russian. "I think I'm stupid and low IQ, the trick looks obvious" may be the emotion you feel when it's actually "I haven't done enough CP to be good at the 'Russianness' ability to spot tricks/strategies". The trick for most 1400-1700 problems, even into the 2000s, are always obvious in hindsight; try your best to not feel too bad if you fail to see what you think should have been obvious (obviously it is ok to be disappointed... I feel it too) (but now you will never make that mistake ever again!)
To recap:
- Expectations matter. Your overstressing about IQ hurts you more than having an allegedly bad IQ.
- Effort outperforms IQ/genetics. (Anecdotally)
- IQ tests aren't good statistical tools.
- Your IQ/genetics are probably average.
So yeah, that's my rant for the day. More technical posts will be back $$$\text{Soon}^\text{TM}$$$.
If you want to argue with me in the comments (and/or increase the absolute value of my contribution by turning it negative), please do (actually please don't turn my contribution negative); I'll try to keep an open mind.
Nice blog!! But if IQ is just cope, how did you hit CM with only 300 solves? Do you practice on another handle or on some other site, or did you have prior experience?
I am genuinely asking.
I’m going to try to answer this as best I can without sounding like a cheater...
I’ve done essentially all the easy/normal/hards on usaco.guide silver and gold. Also until recently I did not implement at all, so probably there’s another 100 or so 2100/2200/2300s that aren’t on the profile that I’ve mindsolved. And then the last thing is 300 is not trivial in my opinion, if those problems are at an appropriate difficulty (I did spam a bunch of 1700/1800) the full workflow may be like 30-45 minutes on average.
I don’t think spamming 800s is the answer; I believe more in quality practice over quantity. I’ll keep a journal of every problem and a few bullets of the lesson I’m supposed to learn from it.
Another thing in my opinion is meta-skills, things like accepting that progress is nonlinear, dealing with pressure, etc., which are trainable, but some may have more of it from doing other things
I am kind of curious. How many total competitive programming problems you would have solved as of now?
Can you give a rough estimate?
Maybe something like 600-750 area?
i'm not doubting you but if you have solved all silver/gold usaco guide problem you would have more than 335 problems on cf and more than 750 problem in total , and you said that quality is better than quantity however my problems' quality and quantity are better than yours (i've also solved lotta problems on usaco guide silver/gold and qoj consequently , i have solved approximately 1600-1700 problems (half of them are really hard)) so you can't say IQ isn't real nevertheless that people are taking it as a cope .
also circumstances is the most significant factor here because definitely participating in contests from syria isn't the same as participating from the US.
Short addendum: I think it’s also worth mentioning that work may not fully be in your control either — it’s harder to allocate time if you’re juggling work, family, friends, etc. vs being an unemployed 18-year-old like me. So if this applies to you, then unfortunately hitting the goals that you want will be harder.
PHYSICAL ACTIVITY AND LIFTING MENTIONED!!!!!!!!!!!! (im not a powerlifter but heavily respect it, im just a pullup athlete, think I hold the record in my country for pullup reps)
In general I do feel like codeforces is more trainable (upto a certain level) than things like Maths Olympiad because patterns repeat more often. The IQ component probably doesn't matter as much on codeforces and can be compensated by practice to some extent. That said, there is definitely some "talent" component that lets one person become master in one year while managing college grades, job search, other hobbies while another person cannot become expert even when completely locked in. I mean, there is a limit to which someone can grind CF while maintaining a balanced/healthy life. Since the effort is bounded, the results do depend on natural talent too. Good point regarding mindset though — I have observed sometimes even 2000-2100 rated problems in contests aren't as hard but I get blocked by seeing the relatively low number of solves.
Yeah talent definitely matters, but I try to argue that it can be compensated.
Another point is that the person who becomes master in a year is probably doing a lot of things you don't notice. Some people who are really dedicated can also just allocate all their time to getting good at WXYZ. This summer my weekday is go to work (and doomscroll CF during my breaks lmao) and then go to gym and I'll get home at like probably 8 or 9pm, to the average person that may sound like torture, but for me I almost always look forward to the gym session. Like in lifting proper sleep and nutrition makes a huge difference and it takes a lot of effort to sleep 8 hours every night but you don't really see people talking about how much they sleep in conversation.
Okay, but what did you actually get on the CORE test you were sent?
130 on memorizing digits lol
"Money doesn't matter" — rich people
"Looks don't matter" — attractive people
"IQ doesn't matter" — high iq people
I mean I guess that means I am good at memorizing digits? Does that necessarily make me good at CP?
Someone "stupid" can learn mnemonic major and be much better than me at memorizing digits with some effort.
Edit: ofc talent does absolutely matter and I am not trying to claim otherwise. BUT I am specifically claiming that IQ tests themselves are stupid, and in general if you are using talent/genetics as an excuse then that's not good.
Alright you've motivated me I'm going to try learning how to do mnemonic major and see if I can get like 150 the second time
*Iff I actually find this fun
For a blog that seeks to prove that a certain narrative is a cope, it has some of the purest cope I've seen on here.
Here's how your argument goes:
I feel like there are two reasons for this post coming into existence:
You first reveal that you hold some record for lifting heavy pieces of metal, and have also scored 28/1000 on a USACO silver round. Okay, sure, that's expected.
Why that's expected?
You then admit that you have no data and your intuition for this is sourced from your interactions with people lifting heavy pieces of metal. Okay.
Fine.
1: You then say "CF Rating=IQ+Work", which is just straightforwardly false.
2: The relation is somewhat multiplicative (at least until you stagnate because of bottlenecks like working memory), and not additive.
Where is the data for these 2 claims? i guess the burden of giving data is only on them.
All empirically observed correlations between cognitive metrics and real world outcomes are then dismissed by you in what seems like an attempt at sarcasm.
Well, such correlations are not the proof either.
No amount of practice will ever make a hardstuck green stronger than tourist, or able to learn more efficiently than tourist.
That's not they are trying to claim though.
For a blog that seeks to prove that a certain narrative is a cope, it has some of the purest cope I've seen on here.
I love your style, responding to cope with cope.
I'll try to respond to a few of these points:
This is a bit pedantic. If you really care, we can change it to log(rating) = log(IQ) + log(work)
Of course talent matters, tourist has incredibly high talent and incredibly high work.
Again, anecdotal, but the reason is probably just because they haven't trained genuinely and correctly and for a long enough period of time. I fully believe that 95%+ of the people here can eventually (it may take 10 years — my coach is on year like 14 of powerlifting and he still makes progress) can get to 2200-2300, and my coach also believes that most people can hit a high 400 dots even with bad genetics. (A high 400 dots would maybe be equivalent to me squatting like 270-280kg. My best currently is 230.)
The point here is that regardless of whether talent matters or not (it does), coping about it causes a greater negative effect.
My point here was to show that caring solely about correlation leads to a contradiction.
You will be capped to the average of the distribution $$$\text{Rating}$$$ conditional on $$$\text{Work = high}$$$, which, anecdotally in my opinion, is a lot.
I have not seen many of them; I would love to though
This is a valid point but this is also reminiscient of that meme with the two people and the horse.
If I post IQ is cope, I'm a narcissist; if I post IQ is real, I've never worked hard for anything in my life.
I've tried to keep as objective as I can and cite research wherever I can. Of course, as with all anecdotal evidence, it is subject to selective memory, confirmation bias, etc.
Being told you have high or low IQ/genetics affects you more than actually having them. It is possible that if these IQ studies are not double-blind, placebo fully explains the results.
I have more examples in powerlifting because I've accumulated almost 4 years of experience there while I have yet to finish my first year of CP grinding.
The parallels should more or less still apply. And if anything, the placebo point is stronger in CP where mental is literally the name of game.
"Put in some hours — genuine hours, but also intelligently allocated hours"- I liked it.
I think its worth pointing out that as a sport, powerlifting is a particularly poor comparison. The talent pool is very small (as all of the most athletic people have gone into more traditional sports), so of course an average person working hard can achieve great results. Ask the coach of any traditional sport (basketball, football, etc), and I'm sure that they will tell you that talent matters, and a lot at that.
I will admit that I have not read any studies on IQ, so I will not comment on its use as a predictor of CF skill.
Great blog! I've just found out an algorithm that helps me find out the relationship between IQ and Work.
This is the website I've just created to test.
hahahahahahaahaahaahaaaaahaahahaa you werent expecting to get rickrolled twice in one comment were you
Solve the problem then big bro
Should have expected that the website isn't real lol
Yeah this time unfortunately I'm gonna have to disagree with you
(well IQ is a somewhat mid metric to determine talent, but "talent" is still an innate ability to do something. What is that something? idk exactly, I don't spend my entire day yapping about this stuff unlike some people... cough cough $$$IQ$$$ (yes the latex was intentional), point is that its innate, and many things, including how good you are at cp is dictated by talent such that there are "talent gaps" where no matter what you change in effort and strategy will not make up for it, but that's just my 2 cents ig)
But who cares, if its fun why stop, if I only cared about talent I wouldn't be on this platform by now
also the true link pops up when you hover over that link yk
And if you still disagree with this, then comment below when you are a GM
Also i have 79 IQ idk about average LOL
Latex IQ symbol is crazy. But yeah the IQ/genetics/talent does make a difference, but I try to argue that coping about it hurts you more, and you and I are statistically likely to be in the middle of the distribution, not the ends
Another thing I have anecdotally noticed is that people who self-purport "low IQ" or "bad powerlifting genetics" tend to quit before they even start, like "nah I'll never try locking in because it's not going to work anyway" type mindset, and that's definitely not good.
awesome blog , upvote from my side lol
I have learnt CP for 2 years and recently I felt that I'm training for hours everyday but I can't improve much what can I do to solve problem without looking at the solution:((. Thank you very much (please forgive me for my bad english)
IQ is just a random ID assigned to every person, with a lot of collisions
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27217246
"Deliberate practice accounted for 18% of the variance in sports performance. However, the contribution differed depending on skill level. Most important, deliberate practice accounted for only 1% of the variance in performance among elite-level performers."
Without being able to read the study I can't comment too much on it, and I also don't want to sound too anti-science, so here are my thoughts:
I can suggest an equation that has the potential to impact the future:
This equation combines your famous equation CF Rating=IQ+Work, which relates the Codeforces Rating (CF Rating) to the Intelligence Coefficient (IQ) and the work done in the field (Work), with the addition of Al (Artificial Intelligence). By including Al in the equation, it symbolizes the increasing role of artificial intelligence in shaping and transforming our future. This equation highlights the potential for Al to unlock new forms of energy, enhance scientific discoveries, and revolutionize various fields such as healthcare, transportation, and technology
All the cheaters be like
no its a reference to a mystical linken post, truly revolutionary stuff
Yeah I know lol
I'm sorry for ratioing you blog, I didn't read or maybe agree with it in absolute full it but it seems to come from a nice place and I appreciate that
Nah your comment hella funny and deserved it lol i got about what i could have expected from posting something controversial
E=MC^2 + AI
elite ball.
i love how this is an actually true eqn tho, unlike the linkedin one
What do you mean? The linkedin one is real
The famous quote by Arthur Schopenhauer:
"Talent hits a target no one else can hit; genius hits a target no one else can see."
Felt incomplete to me. For me:
"Hard work hits a target by being blind and approximating it until the target is finally hit."
Yes, this sounds inefficient and worse, but once the target is hit, its trajectory is revealed. From then on, the strike can be repeated, even if the target remains invisible
Talent certainly helps on many targets, but hard work is universal. A talented pianist isn't automatically a talented mathematician. But disciplined practice exists in both fields.
IQ is highly overrated in cp and olympiads i think, it does not limit your rating/final stage potential, but it can help in achieving a certain rating faster, this is what i believe...
a lot of people reached IGM just by sheer hardwork...
and a lot of previous training of something that is mentally exhausting helps too like olympiads, ioi and stuff...
and tbh i believe iq is just pseudo science and is equivalent to how much do u have trained ur brain from the childhood (like the way you talk, what u do and how you think shapes your thinking), and it is pretty evident that IQ scores can also be increased by doing some logical puzzles and all
ah yes, i like it when high iq people post ai slop about how iq is cope. my perfect blogs on codeforces (downvoted)
Youtube add saved me from rickroll
rip (register instruction pointer? is this a leaked preview of useless cp #6?)
Two things to add: 1) I think IQ likely has some amount of correlation to Codeforces, but using it to justify quitting when you have plateau is probably not a good idea.
2) You state: With lots of high effort over a long period of time, even if you are unlucky, I think you can reach 2200 or 2300 eventually, and if you are lucky then you will become tourist.
If you accept that IQ has any correlation with CF skill, I heavily disagree, as at the top, the importance of being genetically lucky will be much higher. I don't think it is reasonable to say that the average person can become the best in the world, in general.
If your point is that an average person can become 2200-2300 eventually, this is more realistic. If tourist has 0.5% genetics and became the top 0.0001% (obviously the numbers are a guess, no idea how smart tourist is), its not inconceivable that an average person of 50% could reach top 1%.
It is worth noting that CF already self-filters. I'm sure that people that do Codeforces with some amount of passion are likely smarter than the population mean. I don't think this affects your points though.
Heavily agree on the first one
(This is opinion) I don't think 2200-2300 is "top", it's only like a percentile equivalent to +2.5$\sigma$ if you project to a normal distribution.
But yes, I think in general, talent does make a huge difference at the top, especially because for the LGMs they already have their effort basically maxed out (or almost maxed out; also the response from effort is nonlinear, the practical difference between 90% effort and 99% effort is likely small. Like for lifting or CP I think as long as you are doing the basics right and getting a respectable amount of time in there is no need to practice 67 hours per day or something)
1-don't put music and girls' photos and respect Muslims
I summon 123gjweq2!
What do you think an IQ test is ?
Some random quiz made by navel-gazing psychologists who put no thought into it ?
It's a test made to answer a simple question : How smart is this person, as best as we can measure, in a simple, easily administered, 1-2 hour test, which doesn't require background knowledge and works across cultural and linguistic boundaries. That's it.
And, people have found it to be pretty correlated with performance in tests, academic competitions, life success, wealth, etc., as well as it having a strong genetic component. Obviously, "intelligence" is hard to pin down in such a short amount of time, and obviously there isn't a 1-to-1 correlation between IQ and success or whatever, but it is a real metric.
Could you please a photo of your physique?
skull
I feel very weird with this blog, because the literal meaning is likely defensible, but all of the soft implications are wrong. If you ignore all the soft implications, the blog said literally nothing (IQ is not that big of a factor, sure, I can easily name lots of factors that are equally or more important)
Implications I don't like
(1) You cannot cope.
Let A = Things you cannot control B = Things you can control C = work
Then I will use the following model: Codeforces Rating = A + B + C + $$$\lambda$$$ ABC
IQ is just one of the many things inside A. Somethings, not called IQ, but have effects very similar to IQ on codeforces -- rational backgrounds, scientific methods, statistical methods, planing and decisions making, time management, ability to focus, resources to focus, emotional control, good memory, general state of mind and health, inherent randomness by relying of experiences in past successes, inherent randomness by resources you read or problems you practice on. Some of these are inside A and some are inside B. The general idea that IQ is a cope could be defensible, but can you say that to all of these factors? If someone may have ok IQ, but bad at some or lots of these (things that are in A), they might be able to correctly conclude that they will be bad at Codeforces. The exact attribution can be wrong, but they do have something that is genuinely out of their control and prevents them from doing well on Codeforces. Then, why is it an issue that they just call them IQ? Does it matter that I cope without being semantically accurate?
(2) Just put in more work bruh
Softly implied from "Time /self-deception" and your model.
No one maximize their Codeforces rating unconditionally.
Given your (totally not what I would use, but same conclusion) model
Codeforces Rating = IQ + work
If your objective is to maximize your Codeforces rating, yes, you can ignore the IQ component.
But that is not how sensible people think. People think in utility, for this amount of work, you get higher Codeforces rating, how beneficial is that to you? You don't maximize Codeforces rating just because you can. If you are doing Codeforces for fun, you don't need to maximize it this hard.
Depends on your social situations and where you live, the same Codeforces ratings can range for having absolutely no practical utility (for fun/self accomplishments) to some fun (get to go to competitions, ICPC, meet great people) and sometimes genuinely life changing (lands you very good jobs, gets you into great universities, or just give you enough experiences to excel in other parts of life).
Even in your (wrong) model, the same amount of work would have very different utility outcome, depending on your IQ. Putting in more work has a cost, you cannot assume the work factor is something that you can fully tune to infinity.
Feel free to comment if you think (1) and (2) is not what a reasonable person might take away from reading this blog.
Oh god I started beef with an LGM I'm scared now
Anyway to address your point I think everything you said is very accurate.
Yes. I think I should have made my post a bit more segmented into the two parts because it's currently implicitly divided into two parts: (1) that the umbrella of talent in general is used as a scapegoat when you don't progress, and (2) IQ tests specifically are stupid in my opinion.
Also yeah I think the point about there being multiple "hyper-skills" isn't talked about enough in my opinion. I partially attribute my moderate amount of success in CP to some of the mental things I learned from doing powerlifting.
I hope it didn't come off as too harsh. I would try to defend this by saying in my experience very few people at the gym actually seem to know what they are doing. Like they will hit 3 random machines and do like 2 sets of 35 reps to mild discomfort and then leave. I do not want to judge anyone's character though, and extra definitely not without actually seeing their practice routine.
Yeah, this is something that I should've mentioned.
With that being said though, I mean cope in more of a sense that people will attribute everything to it. I don't think you should conclude that your career is over the moment you hit a roadblock. If so, I probably would have quit powerlifting at least 10 times by now (including a period of 1.5 years when I got absolutely zero improvement at all on squats and deadlifts; my coach had a similar experience that lasted 38 months) and CP 2 or 3 times by now.
Yes, I definitely agree with you that the unfortunate reality is that it may take more work for one person to reach XYZ rating than someone else. In general, I think we can disagree on the relative weights of the talent and work variables; I have my anecdotes but am not going to pretend like they're scientific evidence. And at the end of the day, to a layperson or even a seasoned competitive programmer or powerlifter, nobody really cares if you are 2000 or 2300 or if you can squat 450 or 500 (actually this may be cope on my end lmfao). I also do want to re-emphasize the placebo point — worrying less and just being the best version of yourself that you can leads to better results.
Actually, with the way you put it in the latest comment, I probably agree with more things than disagree.
I agree, in the sense that among the things I believed to be somewhat related to Codeforces rating as a factor, actually not much are conventionally attributed as "talents" (even though I would call them talents). I feel in general that reasons you hit a roadblock isn't that "you are bad at something", but rather "you have not done enough good things", so in that sense any scapegoat is probably wrong.
I think this is a fundamental difference of how I view things. For me, it is totally ok to quit. If the utility calculation doesn't line up, quitting is correct. There are frequently more important things to take care in life. But for me this never means I will quit forever. Life situation and utility calculations always change. Besides, every time I return to CP, I usually carry a fresh perspectives. The previous roadblock are generally not an issue anymore ( or rather, a big reason why I return is I believed I have found a solution to my previous roadblock). I quitted probably 3 times before LGM, and at least 3 more times after, but I am still active now.
That could be one way, but I will share my personal view of how I handle this. I always view myself and long accepted myself as not having the best (conventional) talents. I may be reasonably talented, but likely not the "average amount of talent" you would expect at the top of the Codeforces leaderboard. It doesn't worry me, but rather, it just ends up being knowing my own strengths and weaknesses correctly.
orz
(Also the thing you said about the utility calculation is a really good point)
in your $$$IQ$$$ is shit section, I can't help but feel like you could've found explanations for a lot of your points in just $$$5$$$ or $$$10$$$ minutes of talking with chat $$$GPT$$$ or something. the things you have said:
the primary goal of an $$$IQ$$$ test is not to measure how good you are at finding patterns in shapes or doing algebra in your head, it is to measure general intelligence. and since nothing can measure general intelligence perfectly, you are going to get some noise like people with more experience in those things overperforming on those subtests. but the many, many subtests on a professional $$$IQ$$$ test (so it's incredibly unlikely someone got good at all $$$10$$$ subtests, for example) and the fact that you aren't supposed to study for it (and it was normed on a sample that didn't) accounts for a lot of this.
Your $$$API$$$ call would not have significant correlations with income, longevity, academic achievement, lack of mental illness, health, and many other things (actually it might due to its correlation with general intelligence, but that's besides the point), while a score on a good $$$IQ$$$ test would. But yes, your $$$API$$$ call would perfectly correlate with itself.
Okay, tbf this is something we haven't discussed I think, and if you are really interested, I can share some studies that will clear this one up.
I think that this post is a bit disappointing since we had a chat about this a week or two ago, and I felt like I explained things pretty well, well well enough for you to have enough information about the subject to try to answer some of these ones by yourself before making a post "debunking" them like this. But I am open to the possibility that my explanation wasn't that great, so I highly suggest you prompt chat $$$GPT$$$ or something about general intelligence. ask it to explain it to you concisely, spend an hour doing research about it, and I believe that you will find the answers to most of the questions you have. And I'd also be happy to answer anything you might be unsure of ($$$IQ$$$ related ofc).