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

Re: The Weird Nerd comes with trade-offs

#91

Post by glitchc » Sun, Jun 09, 2024, 5:01 PM UTC

pavel_lishin wrote: post #7

Yossarrian22 wrote: post #5

The author is missing a crucial pressure that pushes against weird nerds, the people that have to work underneath them. I’ve had to answer to a Weird Nerd when I was starting out in my field, it was the worst fucking experience of my life, and I’ve spent the years since warning people away from that person, their career and their contributions to their field have stagnated due to all the people like me that they burn…

Yep. Just because you're a Weird Nerd who's good at something, the world doesn't owe you respect and friendship unless you're willing to do the same.

You conflate two things that are actually quite different. You don't need to be friends with the Weird Nerd, but you do absolutely have to respect their expertise in the subject matter, especially when it exceeds yours. It's in your employer's interest to do so. Not doing so means you're being less than professional and might secretly be jealous of this person for having attained a higher level of technical achievement than your own.

Re: The Weird Nerd comes with trade-offs

#92

Post by _yb2s » Sun, Jun 09, 2024, 5:03 PM UTC

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…

Caring about something deeply above external motivations, especially external validation is by itself neurodivergent. At the very least, you have to be highly introverted, which is rare.

Re: The Weird Nerd comes with trade-offs

#93

Post by croes » Sun, Jun 09, 2024, 5:03 PM UTC

andrefuchs wrote: post #89

While I agree with the notion of the article, please stop calling gifted, driven, and non-conforming people "weird nerds." Both terms have negative connotations.

If you replace words with negative connotations with other words, those new words sooner or later get the same connotations.

Re: The Weird Nerd comes with trade-offs

#94

Post by prof-dr-ir » Sun, Jun 09, 2024, 5:03 PM UTC

doubloon wrote: post #78

i would like to see more hard data on this instead of what amounts to a rant. or does that make me a weird nerd?

There should be word for the fallacy where you conflate a group's average opinion with that of the inevitable subgroup that sends angry tweets about a topic.

Re: The Weird Nerd comes with trade-offs

#95

Post by gavinhoward » Sun, Jun 09, 2024, 5:04 PM UTC

meiraleal wrote: post #85

gavinhoward wrote: post #71

As a Weird Nerd who can't get a job in the industry [1], this resonates. On one hand, I understand that I can't get a job because of my own flaws. After all, who needs a solo-only C-only [2] programmer who can't build theory of mind and thus, can't read code written by others and who refuses to prioritize employer over user? On the other hand, it is hard, and I secretly hope the industry can change so that people lik…

People like you have a lot of places to shine nowadays. Having a job/boss isn't the right way for many (much less a given).

Thank you.

I have also tried to start my own business, but that is not going well.

Re: The Weird Nerd comes with trade-offs

#96

Post by wyldfire » Sun, Jun 09, 2024, 5:04 PM UTC

gavinhoward wrote: post #71

As a Weird Nerd who can't get a job in the industry [1], this resonates. On one hand, I understand that I can't get a job because of my own flaws. After all, who needs a solo-only C-only [2] programmer who can't build theory of mind and thus, can't read code written by others and who refuses to prioritize employer over user? On the other hand, it is hard, and I secretly hope the industry can change so that people lik…

> On the other hand, it is hard, and I secretly hope the industry can change so that people like me can have a place.

In some ways, things are better than ever for folks like you. Starting and running a one-person business making software is feasible now but would've been much harder in decades past.

> Second, I work alone on code that is entirely in my head. ... Rust is great for teams ...

Unfortunately, industry has problems that are big enough that they're not easily solved with one person. So tools that work to bring about a team's success will be valuable. As will individuals who work well in teams.

Re: The Weird Nerd comes with trade-offs

#97

Post by faeriechangling » Sun, Jun 09, 2024, 5:05 PM UTC

belinder wrote: post #68

kristjansson wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

This is not my experience at all. Being diagnosed directly led to immense stigma over and over. You are literally giving people the language they need to stereotype you and put you into a bucket by getting diagnosed and telling people your diagnosis. Stigma is literally an iatrogenic consequence of diagnosis itself, never mind diagnosis stopping stigma! I hear "Autistic" thrown around as an insult maybe 10x more than I heard the same 20 years ago.

People feeling safe because they're not alone does not end stigma whatsoever either.

Re: The Weird Nerd comes with trade-offs

#98

Post by lawn » Sun, Jun 09, 2024, 5:06 PM UTC

idiotsecant wrote: post #19

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"

Tell me honestly that most weird nerds are not on the spectrum and I might be able to work up enough energy to clutch my pearls at this. I say this as a weird nerd who is definitely on the spectrum, like I suspect many HN readers are.

Maybe many and even most are on the spectrum, but not all are.

And even then, its a _spectrum_ meaning every person has a their own unique mix of, lets just call them quirks.

Meaning they (and you) are more than a single word like "autism". In fact in Sweden we've moved away from the "autistic diagnosis" because it's too simplistic. It's dangerous to be too caught up in "being autistic" that we hinder ourselves and others when we can do more.

Signed, a dad with autistic tendencies and a 4-year old child with may quirks that already give us quite a lot of challenges.

Re: The Weird Nerd comes with trade-offs

#99

Post by doug_durham » Sun, Jun 09, 2024, 5:07 PM UTC

andrefuchs wrote: post #89

While I agree with the notion of the article, please stop calling gifted, driven, and non-conforming people "weird nerds." Both terms have negative connotations.

The intent is to de-stigmatize the labels. I consider myself a "weird nerd". I find the use of the label affirming. Perhaps ASD or other symptom descriptive way to describing things would be more "correct". However "weird nerd" is what the other parts of society use to describe these terms. Using the term to describe the positive aspects of these symptoms helps to take the sting out.

Re: The Weird Nerd comes with trade-offs

#100

Post by faeriechangling » Sun, Jun 09, 2024, 5:08 PM UTC

sneed_chucker wrote: post #67

walt_grata wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 h…

I don't really accept the validity of people who are generally more functional and conventionally successful than average being called "disordered" in the first place. It seems like a weird arbitrary insistence of the medical system to simply pathologize anybody who fits into a certain box.