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There are two types of performance domains. Ones in which the best are extremely close to each other in terms of performance, and ones in which the best are a *lot* better than the rest.
Athletics strikes me as closer to the former. Barring a few outliers, top runners, leapers and swimmers often have times that are only seconds apart. Being the best here is about asymptotically approaching a perfect point.
Science, writing, entrepreneurship and many creative domains strike me as more of the latter. That there are often truly few people able to perform at an extreme level, and so if those people were removed from the field, there might truly be nobody who can replace them.
The trigger that provoked this thought was a discussion of J.K. Rowling. My sense is that if she hadn't written Harry Potter, it wasn't inevitable that someone else would have created a cultural zeitgeist that was a close substitute.
Of course, this is all speculative, but I think how close the top performers are in a field are in terms of actual ability has a lot of implications for how we ought to teach, learn and encourage talent in society.
