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The Weird Nerd comes with trade-offs

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Re: The Weird Nerd comes with trade-offs

#241

Post by TeMPOraL »

sneed_chucker wrote: post #133
sctb wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being married and gainfully employed and able to build and maintain relationships as well as hold conversations with strangers when necessary can come at an exceptionally high cost for neurodivergent people in the form of masking (like a kind of mental tech debt). Instead of overt social difficulty, this might present itself as anxiety, depression, and suicidality—those conditions are worthy of medicalization IMO.

I agree with what you're saying, but also - everyone has problems. Is anyone truly normal or neurotypical? Why do some people's problems get the validation of the medical system and others don't? (These are non-rhetorical questions, I'm really not sure about the answers to them myself)

> Why do some people's problems get the validation of the medical system and others don't?

Because there are effective forms of treatment available, but are gated by diagnosis because of $reasons. Validation of the medical system enables one to access those treatments, perhaps most important of which is being able to tell yourself, as well as others, that you're having an actual problem and are not "just lazy" or need to "just get yourself together", etc.

Re: The Weird Nerd comes with trade-offs

#242

Post by bitwize »

I found Eric S. Raymond's take on this interesting (and most likely false):

https://x.com/esrtweet/status/1795088812944584781

He contends that autism is brain damage that limits your max IQ and that all the smartest people are neurotypical -- the genius brain is almost necessarily a normie brain, but better.

I think that what's closer to the truth is that extremely high intelligence is itself a form of neurodivergence, which is likely to be comorbid with other forms of neurodivergence. Eric himself I believe to be neurodivergent (in some non-autistic way) with 95% confidence: one of the tells is his choice of desktop environment: a minimalist tiling window manager (likely i3) with Emacs full screen on one of his displays -- anything else he deems too distracting and a drag on his brain. This sounds very ADHD and in any case is an almost archetypal Weird Nerd setup. Neurotypicals love their Windows and Mac style UIs, and every NT software engineer I've met has no problem managing -- and mousing through -- multiple windows: Visual Studio Code for coding, Postman for making HTTP calls, DBVisualizer for database interactions, etc.

NTs also love what people like Eric (and I as well sometimes) dismiss as "monkey socio-sexual games"; and if you are smart as well, you tend to get really, really good at these. Having been around extremely intelligent people who otherwise seem neurotypical (in particular, having married one and thus gained two more as in-laws), they tend to get less into hard science fields like math and physics, and more into fields where they can wield their impressive social skills for maximum benefit such as law, psychology, or entertainment. (Great actors, like Orson Welles or Sir Patrick Stewart, fit this profile to a T, though there are some great actors -- like Dan Aykroyd -- with autism!) My in-laws were legal professionals for the entertainment industry; after that long and successful career they retired, went to seminary, and joined the clergy of the Episcopal church!

Eric's observation that all the best scientists are neurotypical-ish may be a result of what's described in TFA: in today's world, being a prominent scientist selects very hard against Weird Nerd traits because at that level, beyond a baseline level raw skill in the discipline doesn't correlate well with success; schmoozing and marketing do. The same has been true of professional software engineering for at least a decade and a half or so.

Re: The Weird Nerd comes with trade-offs

#243

Post by temporarely »

The Manhattan Project was a very successful model of managing big brains or "weird nerds". The key it turns out is having a big brain manage other big brains, while himself managed by a corporate type from the US Army. Another key element is a shared sense of insecurity tied to mission failure. I predict future weird nerds will be herded together in 'safe corporate cities' (like the Googleplex prototype) shielding them from the outside unwashed. They may be weird but they can do the math.

Re: The Weird Nerd comes with trade-offs

#244

Post by bitwize »

jauntywundrkind wrote: post #228

I think the biggest hardest tradeoff is just relating to a world where not only is there a huge dissonance between your strong stirring passions & beliefs & other's, but where most people flat out don't have strong stirring passions. Most people are not absurdly driven into deep shit. Most people don't love their day feeling torn apart by wanting to know or wanting to make the things, most people aren't living in the…

> As the Butthole Surfers song Weird Revolution says, The so-called weirdos in this country stand as completely freaked out by the normal man as the normal man is completely freaked out by the weird masses reaction to him.

The Butthole Surfers' observation was -- only recently -- given scientific support in autism research, where it's called the "double-empathy problem". Previously, the prevailing theory was that autistics suffer from "lack of empathy" or "mind-blindness"; the double-empathy theory posits that it's rather a case of mutual incomprehensibility between autistic and allistic minds. Dogs and cats get into conflict because they have difficulty reading each other's body language, but if you are a dog person (as most people are) you have a tendency to always blame the cat.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_empathy_problem

Re: The Weird Nerd comes with trade-offs

#245

Post by shufflerofrocks »

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…

>So much of talent is just really caring about something specific. Caring about it above other things

This is a really nice statement. Definitely agree with it. I've often seen so many fast-starters in many fields who just taper away, because the subject just isn't interesting to them, and it was the peeps who stayed in the field that ended up becoming really good at it. Definitely holds up the old "Average intelligence and persistence has accomplished much more than genius" quote

Re: The Weird Nerd comes with trade-offs

#246

Post by paulcole »

mberning wrote: post #189
paulcole wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

They agreed, but we have a similar viewpoint on the overall technical excellence of the org, so that part is unsurprising. I am definitely biased, but whether I am blinded to real innovation or progress is something I think about all the time. I think I would not be opposed to the self-promotion, marketing, and branding were it in support of some significant achievement or accomplishment. Unfortunately we have a cult…

It’s obviously not the bare minimum of the job because like you said nobody did it for years. So the bare minimum is just not doing it.

You think you’ll change from this experience or just keep doing stuff the way you like to do it?

Re: The Weird Nerd comes with trade-offs

#247

Post by bjornsing »

bitwize wrote: post #242

I found Eric S. Raymond's take on this interesting (and most likely false): https://x.com/esrtweet/status/1795088812944584781 He contends that autism is brain damage that limits your max IQ and that all the smartest people are neurotypical -- the genius brain is almost necessarily a normie brain, but better. I think that what's closer to the truth is that extremely high intelligence is itself a form of neurodivergenc…

> Eric's observation that all the best scientists are neurotypical-ish may be a result of what's described in TFA: in today's world, being a prominent scientist selects very hard against Weird Nerd traits because at that level, beyond a baseline level raw skill in the discipline doesn't correlate well with success; schmoozing and marketing do.

I definitely think so. If Eric had gone to tea with faculty at the Institute of Advanced Study back when Einstein and Gödel were top dogs he may well have had the opposite impression.

Re: The Weird Nerd comes with trade-offs

#248

Post by wyldfire »

gavinhoward wrote: post #110
wyldfire wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 ha…

> 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. Yes, you are absolutely right. Unfortunately, I have been trying that and failing. I don't blame anyone for that either. > Unfortunately, industry has problems that are big enough that they're not easily solved with one person. So too…

IMO Open Source software communities are where folks like you can really thrive. They're much closer at something like a meritocracy than traditional workplaces.

> I want to make the next-gen version control system

While you certainly could invent one yourself, you could consider contributing to popular ones like git/mercurial. It'd help teach you both the positive and the negative aspects of their design choices. Also you could consider learning from newer approaches like Jujutsu [1] or Pijul [2] on your way to designing the next-gen system. Good luck!

[1] https://github.com/martinvonz/jj

[2] https://pijul.org/

Re: The Weird Nerd comes with trade-offs

#249

Post by fragmede »

kstenerud wrote: post #83
pavel_lishin wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes, yes, we talk to them. But I'm a DM, not their therapist or their dad - I'm not obligated to hand-hold someone through a radical restructuring of their personality. And, it might not surprise you to find out, some people react very badly to being criticized. And I'm not particularly interested in having an argument over my subjective opinion of a person. I just don't want to be around them anymore.

> But I'm a DM, not their therapist or their dad - I'm not obligated to hand-hold someone through a radical restructuring of their personality. Therein lies the crux of the issue. Everyone agrees that this person needs help, but also agrees that they shouldn't feel obligated to provide it. And so they continue on, blissfully unaware of the chafing they cause. Life goes on, and their contribution remains minimal.

Am I my brothers keeper? Culturally, we've just bought into the notion that I'm not your therapist, so as to absolve myself of the responsibility of fixing broken people. But if I don't do it, who will? so I take care of myself first, so that I'm sable to take care of others, but when I encounter broken people, I still try to fix them (as if people are devices like microwave ovens that need fixing) , because we all have to live in a society and hurt people hurt people, so don't over extend yourself, but also do the work that's staring you in the face.

Re: The Weird Nerd comes with trade-offs

#250

Post by detourdog »

faeriechangling wrote: post #220
detourdog wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Yeah but we don't call people disordered for lacking the talents of these gainfully employed autistics, so it seems sort of arbitrary to me.

I think the behavior is called disordered not the person exhibiting them. Many of the disordered behaviors can be transient.
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