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Why Are Nerds Unpopular, An Alternative To PG's Essay

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Re: Why Are Nerds Unpopular, An Alternative To PG's Essay

#31

Post by timwiseman »

lukev wrote: post #10

I wonder why people spend so much time deconstructing and perpetuating a classification that has absolutely no meaning outside of highschool.

Its effects are highly concentrated and emphasized in high school do the fact that is a fairly closed off environment with a limited population.

But it remains true outside of high school. At work, I have nothing to contribute when the lunch conversation turns to sports. Our nontechnical people often stare at me glassy eyed if I bring up recent developments in computers(and I don't even think about talking aobut the work on my masters in math). But since we all have social lives outside the office and that we are all mature adults with a real mission to focus on, we get along just fine and get the mission done. But the effect is still there, and it is easy to see how it could be magnified in a more claustrophobic environment.

Re: Why Are Nerds Unpopular, An Alternative To PG's Essay

#32

Post by orangecat »

moultano wrote: post #16
lukev wrote: post #10

I wonder why people spend so much time deconstructing and perpetuating a classification that has absolutely no meaning outside of highschool.

Many people never escape the conception of themselves they developed in childhood. As banal as it is, this stuff is important.

This. See http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/23/this-ones-for-a... . Salaries for men are positively correlated with height, and even more strongly correlated with height in high school.

Re: Why Are Nerds Unpopular, An Alternative To PG's Essay

#33

Post by timwiseman »

douglasputnam wrote: post #7

Considering we're gossiping on PG's dime, are we allowed to describe his Nerd's manifesto as "a steaming pile of stereotypes"?

You are certainly allowed to, but I for one would respectfully disagree.

He certainly discusses stereotypes, but that was the point. Moreover, many stereotypes exist because they reflect a facet of the truth (this is definitely not always true, but it sometimes is). His essay explores why the truth behind a couple of specific stereotypes is there.

Re: Why Are Nerds Unpopular, An Alternative To PG's Essay

#34

Post by lotharbot »

potatolicious wrote: post #28
thribbler wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They lack social skills because they lack emotional intelligence. To take it further: nerds lack emotional intelligence because they have learnt to ignore the relevant emotions. That is why bullies are able to bait nerds; they both feel that the nerds' denial of group emotions makes them culpable.

Note: I consider myself a nerd. But honestly, all of this pointing at other people is kind of annoying. We are just as culpable in our social ostracism as everyone else. Nerds lack emotional intelligence because they have categorized it as pointless - at least seemed to have convinced themselves of that point. I disagree that they've learned to ignore the relevant emotions, it's more like they've convinced themselves…

In terms of "fitting in": many nerds conclude that paying attention to pop culture, sports, and fashion (Brad and Angelina, Eminem, Kobe Bryant) is pointless. We could learn about them if we wanted to "fit in", but we often find them just plain boring. Why would we do something boring just to get the attention of a bunch of kids who like boring stuff? Why not do stuff we find interesting, like math or reading, and be popular with the minority who also find those things interesting?

(Disclaimer: I'm actually quite the sports nut, as well as a huge nerd.)

Re: Why Are Nerds Unpopular, An Alternative To PG's Essay

#35

Post by Avshalom »

njharman wrote: post #3

Is the common perception of "nerds" (as in socially awkward/inept unpopular people) is that they are universally smart? Cause that's not been my experience at all. Some nerdly hobbies require (at least some) intelligence, programming, building robots, etc. Other nerdly activities that I'm part of don't require nearly as much, RPGs(pen and paper), and fandom as in trekkies, browncoats etc. And boy am I here to tell yo…

This has pretty much been my experience too. My high school wasn't enormous, but it was ~2000 kids, big enough for subcultures to form and as many (if not more honestly) of the outcast were dumb as the popular kids.

Heck actually in that school most of the really intelligent ones, the AP/Dual enrollment kids and the like, while not necessarily popular, were treated very well by everyone because a smart peer was always a better resource than a teacher if you needed help, regardless of how much of a social outcast they were.

Re: Why Are Nerds Unpopular, An Alternative To PG's Essay

#36

Post by sophacles »

scott_s wrote: post #25
Qz wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't confuse 'nerds' with 'geeks'.

I find the quibbling over nerds versus geeks or whatever other term one wants to use silly. You may subscribe to that distinction, but most people don't - which makes it hard to communicate meaningfully with those terms.

Yeah, this is why I never distinguish between jocks and musicians and other forms of "popular kids", quibbling over terms is pointless.

Re: Why Are Nerds Unpopular, An Alternative To PG's Essay

#37

Post by j-g-faustus »

trominos wrote: post #5
zackattack wrote: post #2

Lots of bizarre rationalizing. "Nerds" tend to be unpopular because they lack emotional and social intelligence.

What? I mean, of course, if you define "nerds" to be "people without social intelligence" you're gonna see that nerds are unpopular. The premise beneath PG's essay (and this one, I think) is that if you instead define "nerds" to be "people with a lot of interest in some academic subject, and/or people who are quantifiably 'smart'" you still (seem to) find that nerds are unpopular. So are you saying that that's not ac…

> So are you saying that that's not actually the case, that smart people aren't disproportionately unpopular?

I think they aren't. As an example, we could hypothesize that people have a few simple attributes - say IQ (math), physical skills (sports), looks (hot or not), empathy (good at getting along with others) and political skills (good at influencing others).

I imagine that looks and physical skills are the most important factors for popularity, with empathy and political skill next, while IQ is basically irrelevant - unlike good looks, high IQ in and of itself does not cause popularity.

So let's say that popularity is a function of a weighted average score of looks, physical skills, empathy and political skills.

When we say that someone is "popular" or "smart", we don't mean "average" but more something like "top 10%".

Obviously 10% of the population will be among the 10% most popular, and 10% among the 10% smartest. But if popularity and IQ is statistically independent, only 1% will be among the top 10% in both.

So people that are both smart and popular can indeed be rare even when IQ and popularity are independent, we don't need more than a random distribution to explain that.

If we add the fact that people tend to focus on (and thereby improving) things they are good at and ignore (and thereby fall behind in) areas where they suck, it will only strengthen the trend.

I think nerds and jocks both follow the path of least resistance by putting most of their efforts into areas where they have a natural advantage. But doing so is rational behavior, it's hard to argue against it.

Re: Why Are Nerds Unpopular, An Alternative To PG's Essay

#38

Post by AndrewDucker »

thribbler wrote: post #6
zackattack wrote: post #2

Lots of bizarre rationalizing. "Nerds" tend to be unpopular because they lack emotional and social intelligence.

They lack social skills because they lack emotional intelligence. To take it further: nerds lack emotional intelligence because they have learnt to ignore the relevant emotions. That is why bullies are able to bait nerds; they both feel that the nerds' denial of group emotions makes them culpable.

nerds lack emotional intelligence because they have learnt to ignore the relevant emotions.

I disagree. I never learned to ignore specific emotions - I was simply unaware of them. It took me a long time to learn to understand emotions.

Re: Why Are Nerds Unpopular, An Alternative To PG's Essay

#39

Post by pauldirac137 »

Nerds are unpopular because people don't like to hang out with anyone who is much more intelligent than they are. This transcends any arguments about social ineptness or pursuing popularity. If you're 30+ IQ points above your peers, you would need an awful lot of social skills to make them feel comfortable being around you. Let's say you're a theoretical physicist and you meet someone who has an average intellect. The first thing they ask you is "What do you do?" If you say (truthfully) "I work on supersymmetric string theories in order to unify all the fundamental forces of the universe" (or whatever; I'm not a physicist). You want the other person to say "Wow, that's cool!" What actually goes through their head is "Oh my God! This person's main interest in life is something that I not only do not understand, but _could not_ understand no matter how hard I try!" Then they just want to get away from you as fast as they can, because being around you makes them feel diminished. This is why nerds are unpopular in high school. If you're a nerd in high school, and you're lucky, you'll get shunned. If you're unlucky, you'll get beaten up.

Re: Why Are Nerds Unpopular, An Alternative To PG's Essay

#40

Post by thribbler »

AndrewDucker wrote: post #38
thribbler wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They lack social skills because they lack emotional intelligence. To take it further: nerds lack emotional intelligence because they have learnt to ignore the relevant emotions. That is why bullies are able to bait nerds; they both feel that the nerds' denial of group emotions makes them culpable.

nerds lack emotional intelligence because they have learnt to ignore the relevant emotions. I disagree. I never learned to ignore specific emotions - I was simply unaware of them. It took me a long time to learn to understand emotions.

It is in the nature of denial that one is unaware both of what is denied and of the denial itself. Only when denial is relinquished does one realise that the it was both real and voluntary.
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