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The Curse of Genius

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Re: The Curse of Genius

#101

Post by kthejoker2 »

friedegg wrote: post #69

A decade ago, my niece went in for pre-K testing, and the teacher showed her a list of animals, asking her to name them. Picture of a dog, spot. Picture of a cat, whiskers. Picture of a rabbit, hoppy, etc. The teacher tells her parents that she failed that section and needs to work on being able to identify animals. They point out to the teacher that she had asked her to name them, not identify them, and that's exact…

Anecdotes are fun.

In first grade my sister had to write the first letters of pictures. The teacher corrected her: "No, no. Fff.Fff... Flower starts with F."

My sister: "No, no. Tuh ..tuh .. tulip starts with T."

Teacher had the nerve to call my mom and tell her my sister had been disrespectful.

Re: The Curse of Genius

#102

Post by TeMPOraL »

camjohnson26 wrote: post #97
jdietrich wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's rather the point though, isn't it? Your baby is fascinating because it's yours, but babies in the abstract aren't actually very interesting. They pass through the same developmental milestones at roughly the same rate and have the same (very limited) capacity for novelty. I've never met a baby with a unique perspective on the Israel-Palestine problem or a fabulous collection of golden age comic books. It's a b…

Yeah I think any random baby is more interesting than a comic book collection but maybe that’s just me.

Yeah, it's just you. A random baby below 2 y.o. is slightly less interesting (and less mentally developed) than a kitten. Unless you have an interest in medicine/psychology, there's not much to see there. It's also perceived a bit weird/creepy to be overly interested in other people's babies.

Seriously, were I to be given a chance to spent an hour with a random baby (!= my baby, that's a different thing) vs. an hour with a random comic book, I'd pick the comic book every time.

Can we admit that just because we're socially expected to consider something the cutest and most best thing in the world, doesn't mean it's actually all that interesting?

Re: The Curse of Genius

#103

Post by taneq »

kthejoker2 wrote: post #101
friedegg wrote: post #69

A decade ago, my niece went in for pre-K testing, and the teacher showed her a list of animals, asking her to name them. Picture of a dog, spot. Picture of a cat, whiskers. Picture of a rabbit, hoppy, etc. The teacher tells her parents that she failed that section and needs to work on being able to identify animals. They point out to the teacher that she had asked her to name them, not identify them, and that's exact…

Anecdotes are fun. In first grade my sister had to write the first letters of pictures. The teacher corrected her: "No, no. Fff.Fff... Flower starts with F." My sister: "No, no. Tuh ..tuh .. tulip starts with T." Teacher had the nerve to call my mom and tell her my sister had been disrespectful.

Reminds me of a joke I read once.

Teacher: OK, who can start a sentence with "I"?

Student: I is...

Teacher: No, no no, it's "I am..."

Student: I am the ninth letter of the alphabet.

Re: The Curse of Genius

#104

Post by HNLurker2 »

donecarejustsav wrote: post #18
cryptonector wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Feynman didn't have that problem, so it's not universal, but it does seem like most geniuses are afflicted with loneliness.

I don't agree with that given his lifestyle. He wanted to connect but rarely could, hence an abundance of mostly shallow affection beyond his first wife.

Here is a morbid thought, the loneliest thing is that we didn't get to hear his last words.

Re: The Curse of Genius

#105

Post by wazoox »

dusted wrote: post #59

(disclaimer: not a genious, iq 125) grade 0, first day, found name of classmate interesting as it was the same name as a character in a tale I liked, I remarked this, was told that it was cruel to "call people names", class was encouraged to find a "bad name" for me. grade 1, teacher used to enjoy holding me in front of the class, telling "this is [name], he thinks he's special, he likes attention" and have the other…

Ah yeah. In pre-school the teacher told a story about some nasty blue whale that was about to eat some poor castaway with "its big teeth" and I said "but Teacher, blue whales have no teeth, they have baleen hair". She became more and more hostile after that. After some more drama, I skipped a class directly to first grade.

Fortunately the teacher wasn't stupid, and as I could perfectly read and write and knew everything I was supposed to learn before Christmas, I spent the rest of the year reading books in the back of the classroom.

My main problem always was that I never, ever needed a single effort and never learned anything at school, up until University. So I never worked and just passed because it was all so easy and boring. So I never learned to work and every teacher (and parents) always enraged because I could have had so much better grades but why bother?

Re: The Curse of Genius

#106

Post by dTal »

jason_slack wrote: post #99

A kindergarten screening question that was given to my child: What is a pair? Most kids say either “socks” or “a fruit” (because hearing pair in this sentence is indeed ambiguous...) The answer they really wanted was “two of something”.

I wonder how many adults would give the desired answer, with no context. I don't think I would.

Re: The Curse of Genius

#108

Post by Haga »

taneq wrote: post #21
Haga wrote: post #6

The curse of the genius is that when you are hyper recombinativeinventive every problem looks like a need for a new hammer and that your first success silences all opposition permanently. The other extrem is that cooperations beloved mediocrity, produced by systemic processes, risk avoidance and intrigant politics today prevent game changers from even reaching entry level.

So wait, do these cursed geniuses "silence all opposition permanently" or are they "prevented from even reaching entry level"?

The successful ones silence opposition until they fail big time. Then they become ammunition to prevent hiring their kind at entrance level?
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