Fierce Nerds

I enjoy reading Paul Graham's musings on nerds / nerdiness, but I can't help but have difficulty relating.

Maybe it's a generational thing (born in '92), but Graham often seems to paint a picture of nerds similar to what you might see in movies and TV shows depicting the 80s, like the kids in Stranger Things.

Even this article, while I can certainly conjure which of my friends growing up were the "fierce nerd", it still feels a little disconnected from my reality.

For example, Graham begins by explaining that the concept of a fierce nerd is one unknown to the general public. But I'm not sure I agree. In the era I grew up, there was not so much social distinction between who is a nerd, but there was a lot of social distinction for those who were argumentative, or "fierce". In my experience, everyone knew who the "fierce nerds" were (although not by that name), because they were known for their awkwardness and combativeness - not for their nerdiness. Indeed, my own nerdy friend circle in high school spanned a wide range of popularities and I would say "fierceness" (or rather, lack thereof) was probably the best indicator of popularity.

I see these themes spanning Graham's other musings on nerds, typically trying to characterize a class of kids who are hated for their interests and passions, but that's just never been my experience. I think it's a generational thing.

I intentionally avoid SV/Tech/VC on Twitter. It’s a parody at this point.

When you have to justify to yourself why you're a millionaire or a billionaire and "dumb luck, some modicum of skill, and being first" isn't a satisfying reason, you have to rationalize to yourself that you deserve it because you've got something that those ivory-tower eggheads and non-nerdy simpletons don't. And that thing is fierceness.

I've never seen a blog post more worthy of a good old fashioned fisking. I mean come on - "confidence is a self-fullfilling prophecy" - are we being serious here? It's only self-fulfilling because of survivorship bias. Maybe he's running with a crew of super successful founders and that's true, but from my point of view, I remember the dudes at my place of work that could very confidently talk my ear off about something that they half-understood (or very confidently describe an unworkable solution to a problem) and then got fired a month later because they weren't productive enough to meet even the super-low requirements of software development at a car insurance company. It's easy to spin narratives about confidence and restlessness and intelligence when you've surrounded yourself with the winners. Less visible are the people who go all-in on a fintech startup and end up broke a year later. Those people have all the same traits and end up in the same boat as all the other un-fierce nerds.

> The bad news is that if it's not exercised, your fierceness will turn to bitterness, and you will become an intellectual playground bully: the grumpy sysadmin, the forum troll, the hater, the shooter down of new ideas.

Can’t stress this enough. Some reach for what others have. Others reach for what they need but get trolled into thinking they have nothing and start reaching for what others have.

This is the equation for misery. And the opposite is the equation for success. But I admit this is just one dimension and datum on the look of life.

This article reminds me of the Simpsons episode where Homer goes to college and expects it to be exactly like Animal House and Revenge of the Nerds.