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Where Do the Failed 0.1% Go? (2015) [pdf]

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Re: Where Do the Failed 0.1% Go? (2015) [pdf]

#131

Post by jddjdbdbd3 »

patcheudor wrote: post #43
hunterwerlla wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are taking that quote way out of context the next part of the sentence "but then he never made an effort to improve his grades" is the relevant part. They dislike him because he didn't try to improve not because he was good at picking up information.

I was a "C" student in high-school and the teachers mostly hated me, but so did a lot of the students. It wasn't until my 20 year high-school reunion when the class valedictorian told me this that I understood why there was so much animosity: "You were so smart, far smarter than me, but you refused to apply yourself. You wouldn't do the assignments, didn't pay any attention in class, and generally didn't care about s…

Yeah, took me until early 20s to realise this. I just always thought everyone else had the same contempt for seeking praise from authority that I did. I just thought they were all just really good actors. It simply did not occur to me that anyone would want to recieve praise from a "superior", let alone be annoyed with those who waste the opportunity to gather that praise.

Re: Where Do the Failed 0.1% Go? (2015) [pdf]

#132

Post by mcguire »

I am not sure I buy that this is related to the intelligence of the children involved. To match those two stories, I can probably identify a half dozen others with the same rough trajectory, minus the comments about how bright they are and how they could pass at school without trying. The problem isn't that they're screwed by the system, educational or otherwise. The problem is that they never figured out how to interact with other people, for whatever reason.

I have considerable sympathy because I, too, have difficulties interacting with other people. But there's much more to it than "he's so smart that he's frustrated and bored with everyone and everything."

Then there's this:

"Finally, a platform for those extraordinarily gifted people who failed to find a place in life could be helpful. Of course, high-IQ societies exist, but then most of their members appear to be rather successful and hence limited in their understanding of people who never achieved much, if anything, in life. Of course, sympathy and understanding is also present in many who did better, and exchange with those can also be very helpful."

Successful, intelligent people, particularly those who join "high iq societies", tend, in my experience, to have little empathy with those who they see as less intelligent, which is partially defined as less successful.

Re: Where Do the Failed 0.1% Go? (2015) [pdf]

#133

Post by Mikeb85 »

I can relate somewhat. Good student, got good grades with about zero effort, did good in extracurriculars, but found most academic-related things to be very boring (it was mostly memorization of facts with zero critical thinking). Most of my friends worked menial jobs or sold drugs, and while I did graduate high school and stay out of serious trouble, instead of university I got a restaurant job and partied, abused alcohol and drugs and lived a pretty interesting life. Excelled at work, rising to the top of the local food scene very quick, then got married and went to university at the behest of my wife who didn't like the restaurant lifestyle. Well, married life was boring, got restless, eventually we fell out and split (she wanted the white picket fence and everything, I wanted to just experience life with a fun partner), now I travel, gamble, trade stocks and sometimes will do a stint at restaurants my friends own just because it's fun. Oh, and programming, the wife hated that, she didn't see the point in creating programs and scripts that didn't 'make money' (never mind all the stock-picking and economic-analyzing scripts that kind of did make me money...).

Guess the point is that a 'typical' life isn't for everyone. I can finish my degree rather easily and get a permanent office job, but why? I'd rather be in Paris one day, the Caribbean the next, abusing substances and partying with a bunch of hot girls than slaving away for a boss at a job that is comically easy, where I have to slow down just to avoid the onslaught of extra work there'd be if I were to actually give a shit and try.

And honestly, I have friends who have money and things. I have money, less things, and I don't really feel like I miss out. No house? No stress. My car is a 4 door compact and not a BMW with leather seats? It still drives, is warm in the winter, and has less problems. I didn't finish my degree? Half my friends with degrees are unemployed now anyhow thanks to the shit local economy. With more debt. Speaking of which, I live in a place where, to be honest, all the 'good' jobs which once existed for educated people are never coming back (the degree which I'm a semester away from completing is in Economics fyi).

People need to change their idea of what success is. The robots are coming for all your jobs anyway, we'll need to deal with it. In the future, either we'll all be engaging in intellectual pursuits living on a guaranteed income, or living in dystopian future where the holders of capital lord over the rest of us who scrounge for scraps in an alternative economy (look at Brazil to see how massive inequality manifests itself).

Anyhow, just the musings of someone who others say has under-achieved, but has stopped giving a fuck. We all die, 'success' is overrated. We need to get back to having relationships and living life.

Re: Where Do the Failed 0.1% Go? (2015) [pdf]

#134

Post by psyc »

vinay427 wrote: post #71
narrator wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One fun thing that's an endless and pleasurable time sink for people who like to learn things is reading and analyzing medical studies. Just go to pubmed.com and look up anything. If you don't understand a word, just look it up on Wikipedia, and just keep going. There are millions of papers to read and you can follow those rabbit holes around forever. It's endless entertainment and fun trivia. You shouldn't bother yo…

> You shouldn't bother your doctor with it as it's like talking about digital compression technology with the cable tv installer You might need to find a new doctor. The good ones that I know, including one of my parents, read medical papers all the time to stay up to date on studies which are obviously relevant to their job. There are numerous inventions that have come about because of inventive strategies applied b…

I really don't know what kind of doctor is more common, because I avoid them. But the last time I went to a primary care doc, he googled my symptoms and read excerpts from a Wikipedia article. He diagnosed me with what I'd already internet-diagnosed myself with, and added no additional value. That experience didn't improve my opinion of doctors.

Re: Where Do the Failed 0.1% Go? (2015) [pdf]

#135

Post by astrange »

throwaway942 wrote: post #60
_yosefk wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honest question: if you're so smart, why not make a few tens of millions, then fill your day with whatever suits you, instead of making enough to get by and contemplating suicide?

I'm sure some people do that. That's business acumen, however, not my personal forte. Not many brilliant people ever become rich. To become rich takes not just cleverness or even genius, but the ability to convince others to invest in it and not simply fuck you over. For myself, I'm just not interested in inventions. I'm far more interested in math and geology, so I spend most of my free time just being amazed by the…

You sound ADHD symptomatic, it might be worth looking into that. That includes both regularly doing three things at once and occasionally focusing on inappropriate things for hours.

Re: Where Do the Failed 0.1% Go? (2015) [pdf]

#136

Post by Hyperborian »

ryandrake wrote: post #53
japhyr wrote: post #15

Teachers disliked him, because they knew how easily he picked up information. I'm a teacher, and this is one of the things that frustrates me deeply about our education system. I welcome students like this; they're so much fun to work with. But I usually have to make them feel accepted before I can begin to work with them. I teach in a small alternative high school, and by the time bright students get to me, they're…

It's not that the teachers _dislike_ him, it's that they are frustrated that he is not following the curriculum and conforming to the lesson sequence and timeframe planned for. I found US public school education was not about learning and mastery. It's about conformity and obedience. Learning the subject matter is secondary--the key to succeeding at this institution is to do things in the expected way, at the expecte…

> I found US public school education was not about learning and mastery. It's about conformity and obedience.

Bingo.

There has been much improvement in curriculum over the years, certainly, but the structure of the American school system is still basically the same one that was originally designed expressly to produce a body of conforming and obedient factory workers with a consistent and predicable level of skills.

Re: Where Do the Failed 0.1% Go? (2015) [pdf]

#137

Post by vinay427 »

psyc wrote: post #134
vinay427 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You shouldn't bother your doctor with it as it's like talking about digital compression technology with the cable tv installer You might need to find a new doctor. The good ones that I know, including one of my parents, read medical papers all the time to stay up to date on studies which are obviously relevant to their job. There are numerous inventions that have come about because of inventive strategies applied b…

I really don't know what kind of doctor is more common, because I avoid them. But the last time I went to a primary care doc, he googled my symptoms and read excerpts from a Wikipedia article. He diagnosed me with what I'd already internet-diagnosed myself with, and added no additional value. That experience didn't improve my opinion of doctors.

My experience has usually been with specialists, so that may explain some of the difference.

Re: Where Do the Failed 0.1% Go? (2015) [pdf]

#138

Post by teilo »

I am in this category, but have a completely different experience. For one I did not get tested until late in life (and discovered I had an IQ of ~150 according to the Mensa standard admissions test), and for another I was in private school all the way through high school.

So I believe what made the difference for me was a combination of not growing up with that ultra-gifted stigma, attending a school with very small classes (sometimes I was the only student in a given class), and having a great deal of socialization with intelligent adults. I still had a lot of difficulty relating to others my age, and thus made few lasting friends.

I also did my best to shy away from any attempt to classify me as a genius. I didn't feel like a genius (whatever that means), and didn't want to be considered one. This, in part, is why I didn't bother to get tested until into my 40s.

Re: Where Do the Failed 0.1% Go? (2015) [pdf]

#139

Post by chetanahuja »

I'm currently facing this problem as a volunteer. I'm teaching coding to my son's 4th grade classroom and there are about 5 or so kids out of 30 who finish everything assigned really fast and have to wait for the others to catchup. On the other end of the spectrum, there are aoubt 4-5 kids who need some extra help while the rest of the class has moved on.

I'm not a teacher by profession but this little volunteer effort has given me a lot of appreciation for how hard the teacher's job is (and also what a insufferable little snot I must have been as a kid)

Re: Where Do the Failed 0.1% Go? (2015) [pdf]

#140

Post by teilo »

tobyjsullivan wrote: post #116

I'm trying to figure out how realistic the mentioned concept of a "window of comprehension" actually is. This [paper? article? post?] only has one external reference - to another document from the same group[1]. That short document, in turn, makes unsupported claims that "Studies have shown that there is a “window of comprehension” of about 30 IQ points." A quick Google search didn't provide anything further in suppo…

I am highly skeptical of this as well. It is certainly not my experience. I sometimes catch myself getting impatient and irritable when I am attempting to communicate with some one of low-to-average intelligence (I'm around 150), but if anything my ability to engage in abstract and metaphorical thinking helps me paint pictures to explain complex things to people.

Part of the problem, I think, is that this may well be true for people who have certain personality profiles, in particular if they have poor emotional intelligence. But I do not believe this speaks to some intrinsic "impossibility" but rather social barriers to effective communication, barriers that can, with effort, be overcome.

If one is self-reflective enough to be able to recognize how arrogant they sound to to others, learns humility, patience, and the value of human life other than one's own, communication is not a problem. It just takes more effort.

But I will say this: I constantly have to ask the question, "I know what they literally said, but what did they actually mean?" Because if I don't I come off like a prick.

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