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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

#61

Post by tokenadult »

apsec112 wrote: post #45
tokenadult wrote: post #29

I learned a lot about my cultural assumptions on the meaning of high intelligence when I traveled from the United States to Taiwan to study the Chinese language twenty-eight years ago. Here in the United States, I had imbued the idea that high-IQ people are disliked because they are smart, and that above a certain IQ, a person has no hope of having a friendship relationship with a person of average IQ. (I especially…

I think there's a bit of confusion here. People up to roughly 90th percentile or so intelligence will be able to use their smarts to make more friends, get along better with others, etc. The problem that Paul Graham is talking about is the 10% above the 90th percentile, who are sufficiently different from the average as to make relating to normal people difficult. Not coincidentally, the intelligence of Congressmen a…

10% above the 90th percentile, who are sufficiently different from the average as to make relating to normal people difficult.

[citation needed]

There is no confusion at all on my part. I knew what subset of the population I was writing about (perhaps an even narrower subset than the original Paul Graham article, the first of his I ever read, was about) when I started typing. I specifically disagree with "as to make relating to normal people difficult." If high-IQ people have a social problem, as perhaps they especially do in certain parts of American culture, I invite them to use their high IQ to engage in problem-solving.

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

#62

Post by Retric »

tokenadult wrote: post #61
apsec112 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there's a bit of confusion here. People up to roughly 90th percentile or so intelligence will be able to use their smarts to make more friends, get along better with others, etc. The problem that Paul Graham is talking about is the 10% above the 90th percentile, who are sufficiently different from the average as to make relating to normal people difficult. Not coincidentally, the intelligence of Congressmen a…

10% above the 90th percentile, who are sufficiently different from the average as to make relating to normal people difficult. [citation needed] There is no confusion at all on my part. I knew what subset of the population I was writing about (perhaps an even narrower subset than the original Paul Graham article, the first of his I ever read, was about) when I started typing. I specifically disagree with "as to make…

I am in that 10% of 10% above the 90th percentile of the population. I have zero problems getting people to like me, however I find little of interest in "average" people.

But, being smart only get's you so far. There are plenty of ways people can diverge from the norms of society and intelligence is just one of them. Develop some hobby's more interesting than television and suddenly we have something to talk about.

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

#63

Post by scott_s »

endtime wrote: post #60
scott_s wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't agree. Many people who use the labels on themselves and their friends have conflicting definitions. Further, I see the distinction as a false one. It boils down to "people within my subgroup that I like" and "people within my subgroup that I don't like."

That's not the distinction at all. The distinction is between antisocial people who like sci-fi and fantasy and smart, somewhat obsessive people who like technology. The groups are not disjoint, but they're by no means the same group.

Those aren't the definitions I've heard other people use. And since you've characterized one group as "antisocial," I think you've labeled one of the groups as "people I don't like."

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

#64

Post by endtime »

scott_s wrote: post #63
endtime wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not the distinction at all. The distinction is between antisocial people who like sci-fi and fantasy and smart, somewhat obsessive people who like technology. The groups are not disjoint, but they're by no means the same group.

Those aren't the definitions I've heard other people use. And since you've characterized one group as "antisocial," I think you've labeled one of the groups as "people I don't like."

Sorry, antisocial was too strong a word. What I meant was something more like "socially awkward".

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

#65

Post by bootload »

"... I went to a prep school, and I can tell you that the culture was somewhat flipped – the academically successful kids tended to be more generally popular. There were still subcultures and different groups with different interests and characters – but generally, being smart was considered a virtue. The culture of the school generally respected hard work, integrity, and achievement. ..."

The author might have benefited from reading the redux of of pg's article, "Gateway High School, 1981" ~ http://paulgraham.com/gateway.html to get some context. In the social graph of the described school pg went to I can imagine the half life of the author would be a tenth of Cobolt 56. Try "hard work, integrity, and achievement" on these chums ~ http://ep.yimg.com/ca/I/paulgraham_2102_11802106 Look at the clenched fists and how close they are standing together.

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

#66

Post by AndrewDucker »

thribbler wrote: post #40
AndrewDucker wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

And?

Just because a person in denial wouldn't know it doesn't prove that I was in denial, it just means that you have a theory that's unprovable because you've set yourself up so that any evidence at all, both positive and negative, makes you believe that you're right.

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

#67

Post by winter_blue »

apsec112 wrote: post #45
tokenadult wrote: post #29

I learned a lot about my cultural assumptions on the meaning of high intelligence when I traveled from the United States to Taiwan to study the Chinese language twenty-eight years ago. Here in the United States, I had imbued the idea that high-IQ people are disliked because they are smart, and that above a certain IQ, a person has no hope of having a friendship relationship with a person of average IQ. (I especially…

I think there's a bit of confusion here. People up to roughly 90th percentile or so intelligence will be able to use their smarts to make more friends, get along better with others, etc. The problem that Paul Graham is talking about is the 10% above the 90th percentile, who are sufficiently different from the average as to make relating to normal people difficult. Not coincidentally, the intelligence of Congressmen a…

Actually the people between the 90th and 95th percentile are the ones who have difficulty getting along. Those above the 95th percentile understand how society works and are as Confucius described, "the ones that lead society (by example) so that all of society is harmonious."

I've met people from both categories.

The smartest geeks I know have no trouble fitting into society, one of them is leading a startup that has received over a million dollars in VC funding. They work on serious, possibly disruptive and hard project. (double emphasis on hard)

On the other hand, the rather large group of geeks I know who have trouble fitting into society work on not-so-important projects, usually things like flash games, simple web apps, etc. Some of these geeks (the ones who outwardly call themselves smart) suffer from illusory superiority (some even intentionally complicate their code so that others find it hard to understand, as a show of intellectual superiority; see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusory_superiority)

The fact, is these socially-challenged geeks aren't so smart after all; they don't put much effort socializing with people, and then they whine and complain how they don't fit it.

The reason why this doesn't happen in Asia as often, is because the culture doesn't permit it. In America, you can sort of get away by denoting yourself as a geek and refraining from social activity. In Asia, since that is seen very badly (much worse than the comical portrayal of geeks we have here); these kids are forced to go out and socialize.

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

#68

Post by dagw »

lotharbot wrote: post #54
potatolicious wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> " Why would we do something boring" Because, surprise, that's what people do. Do you really think all those "normals" really like Brangelina, Eminem, and Kobe Bryant? Hell no. In the "real" world everyone learns about things, and talks about things that do not interest them for the sake of socialization. Nerds seem to think they're the only ones who find these things dull and pointless - but here's the trick: so do…

> "normal people are willing to suck it up for the sake of staying in the social graph, while nerds don't." I think much of the problem for nerd kids in particular is that they're both unwilling to learn truly boring stuff (like celeb gossip), and not socially adept enough to steer conversation to interesting common ground with others (that's hard work for introverts.) This leads to the social ostracism you noted pre…

Your last line is the crux of the whole argument. There is nothing inherently wrong with not fitting in. There is something wrong with making no effort to fit in and then blaming the world that you feel left out, refusing to accept any responsibility yourself..

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

#69

Post by dagw »

pauldirac137 wrote: post #39

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. Th…

You don't need a lot of social skills to know that when people ask you what you do, they probably don't want to hear the abstract from your latest paper, but will be quite content with "oh I work at the university". The only reason any one will feel diminished around you is because you go out of your way to make them feel that way.

I know several very smart people with PhDs in very complicated things, working on very hard cutting edge research problems, and they don't have a problem hanging out with people from a wide variety of backgrounds.

The whole "no one likes me because I'm too smart" smacks of lies mothers make up to make their anti-social kids feel better about being bullied at school

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