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Ask HN: "Dumbing yourself down" around your peers?

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Re: Ask HN: "Dumbing yourself down" around your peers?

#61

Post by spkthed »

pj wrote: post #44
spkthed wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a pretty good response. Intelligence has nothing to do with intellectual abilities. 'Idiot savants' can do brilliant and amazing things. The smartest people in the world have trouble remembering where they put their glasses. Some people can recall every detail of every minute of their lives. People are simply different. The people that feel that they are smarter than others are often way down the line. The rea…

That's a very good point. Perhaps that also adds to the nonviolence of the Engineering Dance. Less intelligent people want to maintain power by being the top dog and more intelligent people want to learn from those above them and therefore be the bottom dog where there is more room to grow and "move up" so to speak.

If you take it a step further, there's always things that people are better at than you. Accordingly, you are constantly learning from everyone around you.

Unless you're always the smartest person in the room.

Re: Ask HN: "Dumbing yourself down" around your peers?

#62

Post by ilitirit »

ChrisXYZ wrote: post #51

My first thought upon reading your problem was, "I have friends who are smart and fun. Why doesn't he get some of those?" It almost sounds like you have two very black and white social circles: dry, boring 'smart' friends, and shallow, ignorant 'fun' friends. Maybe you are too picky and elitist, I can't say, but I've also hung around genuinely empty-headed party types, and it is a little soul destroying. I feel your…

> It almost sounds like you have two very black and white social circles

Actually, I have one social circle. Maintaining two (there were 3, in fact) was too much of a strain on my personal life. I have no doubt that if I had chosen another group, I would have had similar problems adjusting my lifestyle (I've been through this before, so I know).

It seems obvious to say "you should find smart AND fun people", but the big question is "how?". In my experience it takes a while to realize that someone meets the criteria. After all, it's not usually one thing that attracts you to/repels you from people over time - it's patterns of behaviour, or emergent behaviour from certain characteristics. And by the time you've recognized these things about them (and the negatives outweigh the positives), you're probably already friends and then you have to work on distancing yourself depending on their their social proximity. This gets complex the feelings aren't mutual (eg. they consider you a closer friend than you do them, or vice versa). I know it sounds complex, but this is based on my own experiences. I'm sure many people out there have had to deal with distancing themselves from people.

Re: Ask HN: "Dumbing yourself down" around your peers?

#63

Post by ilitirit »

ellyagg wrote: post #60
ilitirit wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If possible, can you explain which parts of my post resonated with you most and how you would have put it in your own words? I'm trying to understand how I should communicate these sort of issues to other people.

Like you, I've put it into words many times with my family. I have my cool friends, but they're turned off and intimidated by intellectual conversations and they don't have anything useful to contribute anyway. On the other hand, my geeky friends consider some of my interests superficial. In my dream world, I'd have friends I could go lift weights with, have a BBQ, get dressed up, go clubbing, and talk continuation/p…

> I don't think you should communicate these issues to other people. Which group wouldn't be offended? It certainly won't help anything.

To an extent I can agree, but I think the internet is great for discussions like these. I'm not particularly afraid of offending strangers, especially if I've put in a lot of effort to avoid it, but the feedback is great in helping me understand how people might react in the real world.

Re: Ask HN: "Dumbing yourself down" around your peers?

#64

Post by adrianwaj »

The problem is you need to find even smarter people than the smart ones you mentioned, ideally geniuses who only hope they can meet smart and socially able people like yourself. In the end everyone has different levels of intelligence in different areas.

As for the engineering dance, I don't do it. If someone's got issues with their intelligence, it's their problem, not mine.

Re: Ask HN: "Dumbing yourself down" around your peers?

#66

Post by Notorious_PWN »

stcredzero wrote: post #49
russell wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I definitely agree on the girlfriend, but from my experience that's even more difficult than learning social graces. It takes a perceptive woman to realize that underneath is a really good guy that just needs some help. Young women are often as dense in their own way as hackers. It took me years and the experience of a bad marriage to become acceptable to a good woman.

Agreed, it took me years of being a jerk to women plus the good fortune of an ex turning into a friend and smacking me with the truth. My solution also involved perception, but on my part. I was able to spot the potential in a quiet, wallflowery girl at a party. Now I am blessed with a a very sweet, patient, intelligent, perceptive, and demurely sexy girlfriend. Another piece of advice -- all you nerdy guys out there…

Agreed, it took me years of being a jerk to women plus the good fortune of an ex turning into a friend and smacking me with the truth.

I think most men go through the thesis-antithesis-synthesis triad with women.

Thesis: "All you have to do is be a nice guy." "Be yourself." "The way to get a girlfriend is to be friends with girls." (All those things mothers tell 10-year-old boys.)

Once a man realizes that these sorts of guys are a fistful of fail when it comes to women, there's a swing over to...

Antithesis: "Women like assholes." "Ignore and mistreat her so she'll be more attracted to you."

This is a great way to scoop quantity but not quality, so any decent guy realizes that this is a shitty way to live as well, leading to:

Synthesis: Treat women well, but don't be a doormat, and quickly dump the ones who play games or are attracted to asshole behaviors.

Another piece of advice -- all you nerdy guys out there who check off all the races except "African American" on dating site preferences --

I thought that was douchebags, not nerds. Generally, nerds are a non-racist crowd.

In any case, I think having those sorts of criteria is incredibly self-defeating, for two reasons. The first is that a lot of people on dating sites turn down anyone with racial criteria at all (I'm white, and I stop reading if I see anything other than "Any"). The second is that great matches with top-quality people are pretty rare and rejecting one on something as trivial skin color borders on self-destruction.

There's lots of really cute nerdy gals out there who just happen to have a bit more melanin.

FTW.

Re: Ask HN: "Dumbing yourself down" around your peers?

#67

Post by DenisM »

ilitirit wrote: post #36
DenisM wrote: post #30

It's funny how a simple "I find most people intellectually boring, what to do?" got a lot of highly up-voted "get off of your high horse, smarty-pants" replies. I suppose the first lesson here is not to let people know you think lowly of them. Otherwise they get angry and stuff, silly bipedals. You would have had much different replies if you rephrased your question to "Hey, HN is full of great people with interests…

> I suppose the first lesson here is not to let people know you think lowly of them. You are absolutely correct, at least from my perspective (although I don't think lowly of other people in the way you might mean). If possible, I'll edit my original post with my thoughts on this matter. > You would have had much different replies if you rephrased your question I know. The problem is that HN represents a small part o…

>> be mindful of how you address them.

Yep, that's what I was getting at. I have a pet interest in "what makes a good presentation" and made an observation that good presentation is the one that makes audience feel good about themsleves. This especially jumps at me when watching TED videos. Funny how that works.

I think you did a good job describing what you do not want. The next step for you is to put at least as much effort into writing down what is it that you DO want. Start with a taxonomy of your interests and see if you can find patterns and groups within. For example here's my list: 1) macro economics & history 1a) corporate governance 2) relational and near-relational databases 3) ultra scale-out systems 3a) synchronization problems 4) mobile devices 5) maps and navigation 6) fine dining 7) psychology of irrational behavior 8) computer hardware 9) style (clothing, interior, articulation) 10) study of sleep 11) study of excersize 12) science of making a good presentation 13) demogrpahics & behavior of groups 14) runnign my own business 15) web technologies (webkit, jscript etc) 16) functional languages 17) epistemology

With interests like these there is no way I will find anyone who is into the same stuff as me. But grouping things together I can address some of my interests at my day job (MS SQL Server), some at my startup project and some at various online communities. There are some topics where I am all by myself. It gets really tough at the overlap areas, e.g. I am deeply convinced that source control problem, sync problem, database problems and ultra scale-out systems are of the same field and need to be studied in concert but I have a hard time getting heard with it. So does it work for me overall? Mostly. The people I hang out with are sharing at least some of my interests so it's never as bad for me as it is for you. However few times a year I have some outlnadish idea, interpretation or a vision that I have no one to discuss with. Generally people shrug it off or get a friendly laugh at my expense. :-) It does feel kinda lonely when that happens. I don't have an answer here, either.

Re: Ask HN: "Dumbing yourself down" around your peers?

#68

Post by ilitirit »

cromulent wrote: post #34

I believe that I can relate. I have a deep interest in various permanent and ephemeral topics that I simply have no idea who I would discuss them with. I am far more interested in these than most front pages of the newspaper, but the wonderful people who are my friends wouldn't sit still for the hour or so it would take them to get up to speed on the issue. That's not to say I am particularly smart or anything, I'm j…

> The funny thing is, I blame RSS.

Yeah, I can relate. I've always wondered if I would still have this problem if my thirst for knowledge wasn't so big. I've tried introducing some of my friends to things like StumbleUpon and reddit etc (they are somewhat intimidated when confronted with IT terms like RSS though). Only one of them has taken an interest, and he loves it and regularly crawls the web to learn more about the world. Strangely enough, it is when I did this that the problem in my original post started growing. I think my frustrations were being suppressed subconsciously and when I realized this shared some of my interests, it dawned on me how I missed real-world intellectual stimulation. Like an ex crack-addict who just took another hit after years of being clean.

I am of course a realist. I don't expect to "convert" all my friends, so in the meantime I'll just try to find ways in which to cope.

Re: Ask HN: "Dumbing yourself down" around your peers?

#69

Post by Notorious_PWN »

russell wrote: post #40
stcredzero wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me say: I think that getting a girlfriend who will up and tell you when you are being an ass (later on, in private) is one of the best things you can do! "Engineering Dance" -- Guilty as charged! Brilliant name for it.

I definitely agree on the girlfriend, but from my experience that's even more difficult than learning social graces. It takes a perceptive woman to realize that underneath is a really good guy that just needs some help. Young women are often as dense in their own way as hackers. It took me years and the experience of a bad marriage to become acceptable to a good woman.

It took me years and the experience of a bad marriage to become acceptable to a good woman.

I don't think it takes monumental effort to "become acceptable to a good woman."

It takes a lot of luck to find one, especially in the US.

I had a really good relationship with a great person for 2 years. I don't know how I did it.

Re: Ask HN: "Dumbing yourself down" around your peers?

#70

Post by stcredzero »

pradocchia wrote: post #47
stcredzero wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me say: I think that getting a girlfriend who will up and tell you when you are being an ass (later on, in private) is one of the best things you can do! "Engineering Dance" -- Guilty as charged! Brilliant name for it.

the engineering dance is hugely annoying. my preferred mode is socratic--ask a lot of questions, stake out a minimal position--but with engineer types this is usually misinterpreted as accepting the other person's superior expertise. whereupon said expert proceeds to shut his ears down and hold court. over a period of several weeks i can steer the mode of conversation around, but for casual encounters i have more or…

Maybe we all need captions?

[Closed Captioned for the Socially Impaired.]

[Engineering Dance in Progress]

[Esoteric Knowledge Shown]

[Minimal Position Staked Out]

[Monologing]

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