What game are you playing?

Im guilty of being rather judgmental of others who performed worse than me in academics. I don’t really want to go into the reasons but, yes its very unhealthy to think that way. People have their reasons for why they choose to focus on some things and not others. Perhaps the most important goal of a good society is to be able to assign people to things they’re most suited for.

Fwiw, I gain nothing from sharing it.

how much of his judging was actually coming from within? And how much was because the society (school system mostly) around him telling academics/science was the right thing to be doing, and since he was good at those, he was somehow better and allowed to judge others...

I don't even know if the society around him had the best intentions for him as an individual. Else he would have been taught better.

> Your take on this however, seems to be some kind of idea that no one else can gauge or judge the depths of your contributions, etc.

I do think we all have ways we want to be perceieved, things about ourselves we want to be recognized, strengths, and that there is a huge massive range of how visible/over/obvious and esoteric/exoteric and other dimensioms that goverm how visible these attributes/behaviors/characteristics/accomishmemts are.

> In fact I'm not completely sure what you're saying, but it appears to be almost the opposite of the original article.

I agree with the article. The article is telling nerds to recognize & acknowledge other people on their grounds, to look generally for good, in many forms.

> I've had my time of thinking what I do is especially valuable and unique. Then I grew up and realized we all (well, many of us) contribute to this world in our own way.

Picking up where I left off, my point is that some games are easier to understand than others. Im not trying to make any value judgement. I havent said being esoteric made anyone better.

I am trying to communicate how isolating & alienating the experice can be when it feels like others done understand your games. When other people perpetually see the score differently.

This post is communicating among other things some straightforward & overt things we can look for in others. Nerds can present as incredible, powerful, respectable people sometimes, they can be appreciated for their game, sometimes. But it can also be readily apparent & hard when it becomes clear people dont really know the score. It can be isolating seeing only superficial respect, or seeing what feels like uncomprehending or undeserved respect given to ourselves or others. Finding real peers, who are fit to judge & assess, is a real life challenge. For everyone. And especially for those a little more outside the mainstream, for the nerds. My posts here are just an attempt at fair warning, about what we can expect, about how hard it all too likely will be to find people who can appreciate your game. You very good excellent people's game especially.

If anything I think what Im saying amplifies the need for humility & mutual respect, & yes, some camraderie among technical peers.

There was a comment on HN about a year ago by somebody that grew up in India, and being Pakistani i relate to it a lot as well.

Specifically, it mentioned that these 'games' and people choosing one or two games out of a great number of games available out there seems like a uniquely North American thing (as far as we can tell from our own limited exposure to other societies).

So while you folks had the jock, the nerd, the artist etc. , we had schools, teachers and parents that taught us we should strive to excel at everything, i.e. play every game and try to play it well.

Its a little disappointing to be put into a bucket by North American folks because they assume everyone is good at just one or two games. Not trying to be disrespectful, but i personally also think a little less of people that take so long to come to the realization that the author did in the article. A little ironic, if you think about it.