Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Weird Nerd comes with trade-offs

writingruxandrabio.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 505 posts

Re: The Weird Nerd comes with trade-offs

#171

Post by cbozeman »

bradleyjg wrote: post #145
akozak wrote: post #104

I have a lot of experience working with the weird nerd archetype and watching them navigate large orgs. First it's absolutely true that orgs that purport to support weird nerds will revert back to rewarding politicians. I've seen it happen, and typically has to do with who is doling out money. However, in my experience the vast majority of brilliant nerds way overextend themselves, and are much too confident outside…

However, in my experience the vast majority of brilliant nerds way overextend themselves, and are much too confident outside their domain. They're also much more likely to be jerks and will tumble from conflict to conflict until they get their way by attrition or status. Conflicts are strangely more personal because so much ego is tied up into it. They're more likely to assume they're right in every (non-tech/science…

"You're out of your depth."

That's what you do.

A lot of very smart people think because they're very smart they have some kind of exceptional insight into the inner workings of all things. They don't. And they need to be reminded of that. Intelligence allows someone to gain that insight faster than those in the middle of the bell curve of IQ, but it doesn't magically confer it. It still takes time, reading, research, and seeing it in practice.

Or put another way - what I call the "Iceberg Analogy" - every discipline in life is like an iceberg. The average person sees about 10% of what's actually happening, and is able to comprehend that without too much effort, but the other 90% that's below the surface takes a lot to fully make sense of.

Re: The Weird Nerd comes with trade-offs

#172

Post by ianbicking »

dbtc wrote: post #126
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…

The phrase has sounded weird to me for some time but here it strikes me as especially so: "the spectrum" Just one spectrum, 2 dimensions? Is that all we get? It's a linguistic short-cut, I get that, but I wonder how useful it is, how much nuance it conceals.

Yeah, "the spectrum" feels like squeezing lots of things into one diagnosis. Kind of the opposite of neurodiversity.

It also feels a bit tech-centric... probably tech is someplace autistic attributes are particularly helpful, but other subjects are probably most compatible with other kinds of neurodivergence.

Re: The Weird Nerd comes with trade-offs

#173

Post by detourdog »

faeriechangling wrote: post #100
sneed_chucker wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The disorder is how they affect their social surroundings. Everyone is on the spectrum and the disordered are having social problems.

Re: The Weird Nerd comes with trade-offs

#174

Post by andoando »

_yb2s wrote: post #164
andoando wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hate this extrovert vs introvert thing too. People don't fit simiply into these buckets.

It's not a bucket you fit people into, it is one aspect of a persons personality, out of an almost infinite number, and is also a continuum. The idea originally comes from Carl Jung, and his point in coming up with it was for people that personally identify themselves as fitting into a particular bucket, to realize this, and be able to consciously explore the part of yourself that doesn't fit into it, that you might…

How does saying "Im an introvert" not put yourself into a bucket? Youre quite literally using someone elses made up categorization to define who you are, and people tend to speak of this as an innate and overcompassing trait, and moreover using these made up categorizations as a cause of other behaviors. I dont like making small talk with cashiers at this point in my life" essentially becomes "I am an introvert, so I dont like making small talk with strangers and its is never likely to be my thing".

I am perfectly fine describing myself with the actual details of my experiences. Its much richer and nuanced that way rather than simply saying Im not some way because Im an introvert. What Ive seen is the complete opposite of ehst you are saying. People label themselves as something and believe anything thst doesnt fit the label is not them, out of reach, a monumental step for them to do. Talking to a cashier all of a sudden isnt just muttering some words, its a foundational shift from being introverted to extroverted.

I think all of modern psychology/psychaitry suffers in this way: Making up categorizations with the belief that making things easier to conceptualize and making it easier to associate things is scientific and valuable insight. I think its the opposite. Youre losing precious detail and artificially killing complexity and getting simplified, untrue beliefs.

I dont need these labels to explore "my more extroverted qualities". Having never labeled myself this way, I had no issues being the complete "opposite"

Re: The Weird Nerd comes with trade-offs

#175

Post by programjames »

lolinder wrote: post #153
programjames wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think "genius" fits the author's meaning and connotation much better than "weird nerd". If the author wants to fight for genius rights, why start from a position of weakness?

Genius would be a much worse term for what the author is describing because it explicitly doesn't come with trade-offs. The term needs to convey both the unique talents and the odd differences. "Nerd" has been the subject of a long and largely successful attempt at reclamation, to the point where people younger than a certain age don't generally consider it to be derogatory and comfortably identify with it. It's been…

Younger than what age? I think every age still generally considers "nerd" derogatory. Also, I think a genius would tell you the trade-offs only exist because most people are wrong. Calling them weird has the connotation that something is "wrong" with them, yet it seems quite the opposite is true. I could agree with the term "outlier" but not "weird".

Re: The Weird Nerd comes with trade-offs

#176

Post by wdh505 »

Loughla wrote: post #87
dukeyukey wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Earning" doesn't necessarily come with a truly elite status job, because you're not relying on a salary to live. Having to live off a salary is lower status.

I don't understand what you're saying here.

If my daddy makes 7 digits per year and set me up in a trust then I don't have to work to live upper middle class. Therefore an "elite" aka prestige only position that pays pennies may be more elite because i don't depend on the pay like the plebians.

A different way to become a low paying professor is to research and earn 7digits+ from patents

Re: The Weird Nerd comes with trade-offs

#177

Post by ModernMech »

65 wrote: post #69
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…

It seems like you're saying autistic people are not deeply emotional or socially aware, or capable of understanding social value. This is not what autism is -- it's a developmental disability that leads to impairment in social situations, not an inability to understand society and emotions.

Re: The Weird Nerd comes with trade-offs

#178

Post by programjames »

dagw wrote: post #147
programjames wrote: post #125

> In 2011, the average age at which a biomedical scientist gets their first R01 grant to establish their independent career as a PI is 42 This is ridiculous! The best researchers won't be much better at 45 than 25, so it's just wasting 20 years getting "experience" and moving up the ladder. But by nature of getting that experience, they're going to give up on actual innovation.

The best researchers won't be much better at 45 than 25 To get great research done you have to be great manager who can prioritise time and resources, balance a budget, forge connections with other researchers, get the most out of the people working for you and know where and how to get even more funding to keep the research going after the initial round of research dries up. Those 20 years might not make you a bette…

Getting other people to do research isn't doing research. You're misattributing who does what.

Re: The Weird Nerd comes with trade-offs

#179

Post by lo_zamoyski »

Status seeking and envy are absolutely at the heart of it all. Status seekers and flatterers are weak people, because their lives are very much about agreeableness and approval seeking. Truth-seeking has always been at odds with "the world". You will know them by what they love.

Dante hated flattery so much, he immersed flatterers in excrement in the 8th circle of hell, below murderers. A fitting image given how full of crap such people are in this life.

In a riff on John Adams, no scientific enterprise will function in the absence of a moral people. You cannot have good scientists without first having virtuous men and women. You are wasting your time, and in fact, probably laying the groundwork for harm.

Re: The Weird Nerd comes with trade-offs

#180

Post by jarjoura »

Speaking from big tech, you get things like rust (mozilla) or React (facebook) when your engineers are given the space to solve industry scale problems. Those are both "weird nerd" contributions since the original creators weren't interested in the celebrity public facing side of it.

In the React case, I'm not sure it would have become the framework it is today unless Dan Abramhov pushed it outside of the company. That took an insane amount of effort and skill to do that, especially at the time when Angular was quickly establishing itself.

Rust required an entire company to organize behind it and Mozilla spent a fortune getting it on its feet. Otherwise, I am not sure it would have been more than an experiment on someone's laptop, long forgotten.

I'm not sure what the solution for that is, or how else you push through all of the noise. Every great discovery and advancement in history is driven by the folks who can sell their hard work or at least have someone else willing to do it for them.

Post reply on HN