The Weird Nerd comes with trade-offs • Hacker News Board

Re: The Weird Nerd comes with trade-offs

#61

Post by pyrale » Sun, Jun 09, 2024, 4:36 PM UTC

bee_rider wrote: post #44

Academia is just messed up because the path to the top is to become an absolute expert in some topic, (PhD, postgrad), then become a performer/people manager/grant writer/office politics master (professor). It is really dumb. You are rolling the dice twice for expert level skills, and the second roll comes after huge personal investment. Not really sure what the solution is. Maybe a huge increase in the number of nat…

The alternative would be that public performance/management/grant writing/office politics are handled by someone who has absolutely no clue about what science is.

It doesn't take very long to find corporate examples of this alternative, and why it's not great either.

Re: The Weird Nerd comes with trade-offs

#62

Post by paulcole » Sun, Jun 09, 2024, 4:37 PM UTC

mberning wrote: post #53

There is a similar parallel in the corporate world. Being involved with tech and software has never had less to do with actually being good at those things. I just remarked to my director the other day that the only innovation we have had in the org in the last 5 years was relentless self promotion, marketing, and branding. When did being known as an excellent and reliable engineer stop being “enough”.

> I just remarked to my director the other day that the only innovation we have had in the org in the last 5 years was relentless self promotion, marketing, and branding.

What was your director’s response?

Do you think there’s any chance you’re biased and blind to other innovations because you really dislike self-promotion, marketing, and branding?

Re: The Weird Nerd comes with trade-offs

#63

Post by ghaff » Sun, Jun 09, 2024, 4:37 PM UTC

Michelangelo11 wrote: post #47

FormerBandmate wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Academia pays absolutely terribly for an elite job, it's all status. You could make more than 90% of tenured professors as a manager of Buc-ee's

Yes, good point, thanks. I was thinking of the high end of disciplines with strong ties to industry, mainly STEM and business, but that's actually just a very small, although prominent, part of academia.

The very high end of academia--especially in areas where consulting gigs are readily available--is pretty nice from what I've seen. But, as you say, it's pretty rare and still probably not that lucrative overall especially if you're in some expensive living area.

Re: The Weird Nerd comes with trade-offs

#64

Post by IggleSniggle » Sun, Jun 09, 2024, 4:38 PM UTC

jacobolus wrote: post #22

ianbicking wrote: post #4

There's definitely been a move to demand individuals be good at everything... old stereotypes of the nerd brought a lot of negatives, but they were also apologetic, acknowledging the trade off, that paying attention deeply to one thing does lead to being worse at other things. The exact stereotype differed by domain... the performer who is a diva, the self destructive author, the manic artist... each with a hint of n…

"Performer who is a diva" is not directly about focusing on one thing at the expense of another. Performers are trained to be divas by having no real friends willing to confront them, and by being infantilized by the people around them who lie about their faults, are excessively accommodating of bullshit, and don't ever make them take responsibility for mistakes or reflect on their impact on other people. The result…

I somewhat agree, but I think there's more to it than that. To be a great performer, you have to care about delivering your own "message" as authentically or at least "in totality" more than anything else. Critique may be useful in understanding how your vision is being received, but actually delivering the vision requires believing in your own vision more than the visions of others. The same could be said of CEOs. It's not just that there are adoring fans / sycophants, it's that to be a great success in these areas you need to be able to disregard the criticisms of others when the criticism doesn't really connect with what you are trying to achieve.

Re: The Weird Nerd comes with trade-offs

#65

Post by giantg2 » Sun, Jun 09, 2024, 4:38 PM UTC

makeitdouble wrote: post #37

ianbicking wrote: post #4

There's definitely been a move to demand individuals be good at everything... old stereotypes of the nerd brought a lot of negatives, but they were also apologetic, acknowledging the trade off, that paying attention deeply to one thing does lead to being worse at other things. The exact stereotype differed by domain... the performer who is a diva, the self destructive author, the manic artist... each with a hint of n…

The line you draw between "weirdness" and "neurodivergence" is interesting. Would neurodivergence have to be native (so, not grown "naturally") and at which point does weirdness fit on the spectrum ? Recently I think people are more receptive to lower degrees of neurodivergence. I see it the same way people understand that you have a gradation between having difficulties climbing stairs and not being able to walk. We…

ASD has different levels of diagnosis. I've been told by a therapist specializing in ASD that there are a lot of diagnosed and undiagnosed ASD workers in tech. It's very possible the only reason they are "full blown clinically diagnosed" is because they haven't been tested.

Re: The Weird Nerd comes with trade-offs

#66

Post by zafka » Sun, Jun 09, 2024, 4:39 PM UTC

I really like this new term! I was working R&D / Development at J&J for about 14 years. I was one of the early members of a group called: "Mental Health Diplomats" When I first got involved, and over the years, I would try to pitch ideas to set up a system/program for neurodivergants who were under utilized.

In retrospect, it is pretty hard for a weird nerd to gain traction with any ideas other than obviously profitable products. Strategic thinking needs to be done by the MBA's /s

Re: The Weird Nerd comes with trade-offs

#67

Post by sneed_chucker » Sun, Jun 09, 2024, 4:39 PM UTC

walt_grata wrote: post #45

ianbicking wrote: post #4

There's definitely been a move to demand individuals be good at everything... old stereotypes of the nerd brought a lot of negatives, but they were also apologetic, acknowledging the trade off, that paying attention deeply to one thing does lead to being worse at other things. The exact stereotype differed by domain... the performer who is a diva, the self destructive author, the manic artist... each with a hint of n…

I duno on some of that. Until I was about 39 I was a "weird nerd" and then my wife (Dr of special education) finally convinced me to talk to a Dr and get get tested for autism. Turns out I'm ASD 1, would have been Asperger's in the past. Autism has a very wide range of ways it shows itself.

Well, to me your comment also speaks to the increasing degree to which we medicalize personality traits.

I'm sure your diagnosis is legitimate, but also I'm inferring from your comment that you are married and gainfully employed; so it sounds like you're able to build and maintain relationships, as well hold conversations with strangers or non-close acquaintances when necessary.

In years past would any professional have bothered to test someone like you for a disorder?

Re: The Weird Nerd comes with trade-offs

#68

Post by belinder » Sun, Jun 09, 2024, 4:40 PM UTC

kristjansson wrote: post #57

makeitdouble wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The line you draw between "weirdness" and "neurodivergence" is interesting. Would neurodivergence have to be native (so, not grown "naturally") and at which point does weirdness fit on the spectrum ? Recently I think people are more receptive to lower degrees of neurodivergence. I see it the same way people understand that you have a gradation between having difficulties climbing stairs and not being able to walk. We…

At some point the question is “why?”. We can keep atomizing human variability into smaller, more graduated buckets of neurodivergence, but what’s the point, esp. for those that don’t really suffer negative impacts, and for which there isn’t really any remedy besides acceptance?

Just a guess here - but to make diagnosed people feel more included and part of a group, the more people get diagnosed even if it's 0.01%, the more safe the others feel because they're not alone, it stops being a stigma

Re: The Weird Nerd comes with trade-offs

#69

Post by 65 » Sun, Jun 09, 2024, 4:40 PM UTC

lainga wrote: post #8

> I still stand by my association of Weird Nerds with autism, but for some reason people really do not like to call Weird Nerds autistic. I'm sorry, what , even if they're preponderant you can't just call all of them that any more than you can collectively call all basketball players "Marfan Syndrome havers"

Yeah, this is a dumb insinuation.

The author is conflating people who are motivated internally by making great contributions to society with autism. Many of the best artists and scientists aren't autistic, and perhaps are quite the opposite: deeply emotional and socially aware. I'd argue you need a deep understanding of social value to even want to make a great contribution to society.

Also, it's not like people with autism are automatically geniuses. Anecdotally I've found autism to not really contribute to original and innovative thinking, more with excessive fixation on a subject. There is a difference.

Re: The Weird Nerd comes with trade-offs

#70

Post by yedava » Sun, Jun 09, 2024, 4:41 PM UTC

I want to say this article describes me, but then I realized that it's just my confirmation bias. Who doesn't like to think that they are the smartest ones around and it's everyone else who is stupid and clueless?

Science ultimately is a collective effort. The collaboration doesn't need to happen in real time, in the same physical place. Ideas can be spread out across time and geographies and finally one person puts them together and given our bias for hero worship, we call that one person a genius and go on a wild goose chase of how can we create more geniuses instead of asking how can we foster a environment for ideas, an environment which sometimes needs to last for decades in order to bear fruit.