polymaths

The idea is striking a balance between specialists and polymaths.

Yes, but it misses the fact that polymaths historically have solved that problem by creating new fields.

The open secret is 'the NSA has a LOT more UberMaths, PolyMaths, CryptoWizards, and sundry than any other organisation'...

Tactical suggestion for technical person with high standards: read biographies of overachieving polymaths and geniuses (e.g.

Many politicians are brilliant polymaths and they all seem to have converged on the same behavior.

In reality, the truly dominant people tend to be polymaths, and the middle to middle-top tier tend to be highly specialized.

What I find truly remarkable about polymaths is that they don't seem to be crippled in other regards.

I feel like that compulsion to dive head-first into something is a feeling that hackers and polymaths must share.

Then, that tiny little subset, some of them, get labeled as polymaths.

I'm sorry if I seemed like I was implying that hackers are polymaths, because I don't think that's the case at all.

There still are some polymaths, but it's hard for them to make as fundamental a contribution in fields that have already existed for a long(ish) time.

It could be based off the same argument for why there are less polymaths now, and that's simply because we know too much.

Polymaths can benefit for society as much as specialists can - as the shared examples of "combining two ideas to invent something new" shows.

The article ended and I paused to ask myself "what did this have to do with polymaths?" - Trying to follow my intuition from "polyglot" to "polymath" failed me here.

I would call most of the mentor figures that I've had in my short career polymaths (expert skills in more than 3 "fields", as evidenced by published books, papers, expertise recognized by peers in that field, etc.), but that's not the word they'd use to describe themselves.

Polymaths don't just read about a lot of topics, they produce in a lot of topics.

Polymaths like Da Vinci and Bacon disagree with you (however rare they may be).

My advice to all generalists is this: Become bonafide Polymaths.