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

Re: The Weird Nerd comes with trade-offs

#501

Post by hyperadvanced » Tue, Jun 18, 2024, 3:00 AM UTC

AmericanChopper wrote: post #428

bradleyjg wrote: post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Congrats, the university you run just lost out on a Nobel Prize. The donors are going to love that.

I’m sure this is the threat that the brilliant asshole types would want you to believe. But there’s no limit to the amount of talent that one single toxically anti-social team member can deter from joining an institution, or that they can chase out of one for that matter. Especially if they’re a senior team member. There’s also essentially no limit to the amount of damage they can do in companies. Even if you put asi…

You’re profoundly correct, and I’m amazed by the amount of ignorance on display in this thread and in this article. The conflation of “weird nerd” with “person who thinks they are above what the perceive as politics”, or “smart asshole” or “antisocial genius” is really at odds with the usual case. Real “weird nerds” might have innocuous flaws like a tendency for extreme grandiloquence or terrible body language, but frequently the Weirdest Nerds I have interacted with are kind over and above any other quality. It’s not “weird” to hate workplace politics or think that you’re the smartest guy in the room - both of those are extremely common. Many organizations operate on these basic components, it’s kind of a sad default for business. The weirdest nerd of all is the one who can calmly explain something complex to a new hire or do the hard work of documenting and explaining their position rather than trying to belittle others. I’ve seen toxic employees do far more damage than I have seen geniuses who single-handedly save the day. The latter are largely a hallucination brought on by repeated exposure to myths like the 10x engineer.

Re: The Weird Nerd comes with trade-offs

#502

Post by hyperadvanced » Tue, Jun 18, 2024, 3:06 AM UTC

rustyboy wrote: post #482

fragmede wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> assuming emotional intelligence isn't an innate skill it's a skill like any other, so if you put in dedication and practice, you can get better at it, just like practicing leetcode. whether or not an individual wants to do so is on them.

Do you have any tips for practicing this? I feel like I often "take the oxygen out of the room" when I offer suggestions or get talking. Conversely when I bite my tongue (or just unplug my mic) most people don't talk or offer very weak tacit agreement with the last thing that was said. edit: I wish I had more skill at building coalitions and/or pushing an organization in a direction without saying "we need to do X".

I think a great way to get better at this is to ask more questions than provide answers. If you really hone in on what people are discussing, if you figure out what they want, what they’re afraid of, what they’re unsure of, etc. your suggestion will mean a lot more than if you’re perceived as “barging in and ordering people around”. I’ve practiced the Socratic method a lot with a lot of people, and it can really help to give your arguments some extra punch. Remember than people usually don’t want to be told “we need to do X” - they want to believe that they had a part in discovering and advocating for that, even if the whole thing was your idea all along.

Re: The Weird Nerd comes with trade-offs

#503

Post by AbstractH24 » Tue, Jun 18, 2024, 2:59 PM UTC

CalRobert wrote: post #343

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…

This bizarre romanticization of autism is frustrating for those who are or have loved ones who are nonverbal, stim all day, etc.. I almost wonder if nerfing autism to the point where it's a fun thing to talk about having on tiktok is a way to demonize effective interventions so insurance companies won't have to pay for them.

I've never understood this.

Even assuming that someone is a high-functioning autistic person - now what? As far as I know, there is no course of treatment that can cure it.

Is it just about wanting a label for one of many reasons (to find a tribe, evade responsibility, get accommodations of one form or another, etc)

Don't know anything about the topic and am kind of curious.

Re: The Weird Nerd comes with trade-offs

#504

Post by mrcartmeneses » Thu, Jun 20, 2024, 2:04 PM UTC

derbOac wrote: post #451

mrcartmeneses wrote: post #332

It’s really harsh that Katalin Karikó got such a backlash for calling academia like it is in her book. Academics are as much courtiers these days as they are researchers.

I agree, I think it's victim blaming or a diversion tactic or something. I think the real problem isn't so much the skillsets of the researcher involved as much as is what is implied about the environments and the vagaries thereof. The argument this piece is referring to and the way it is responding to it seem to deflect attention from the real problems, or rather, recasts it in the wrong way. My focusing on whether…

For real. I was talking to an academic friend who claims that she doesn’t do politics then I had to remind her about the 5 steps she uses when she wants to get someone fired (starts with creating negative narratives then gets worse from there)

Re: The Weird Nerd comes with trade-offs

#505

Post by ModernMech » Thu, Jun 20, 2024, 11:34 PM UTC

normie3000 wrote: post #499

ModernMech wrote: post #410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reframing your entire life. It’s like a book where the main character who thought he was a doctor in the asylum finds out he was actually a patient the whole time. A mental health diagnosis forces you to go back and relive every moment with a different perspective. Many people go through a prolonged period of skill loss/regression. I lost the ability to code for over a year. Took a long time to get to a mental place…

Wow, this is fascinating! What stopped you coding? My assumption is that the reframing would mostly be positive. I can see how it would help to reframe some bad experiences with more understanding for both yourself and the other parties.

My ability to code is predicated on my ability to feel safe mentally and physically. What finding out I'm autistic did was kick out my legs from under me. Every time I sat down to code I couldn't. Like, I felt it was in me, but I couldn't get it out.

I used to code and commit to Github almost every day. My commit log is almost all green since 2018 when I started using Github, but if you look at the last year or so you can see where I just stopped and it goes dark.

Thankfully within the last 4 weeks or so I'm back to my normal self, so it was temporary, but I don't know what I would have done if my job had depended on my ability to code.