I own a copy of the April 1959 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction when this first appeared in print.
Flowers for Algernon (1965) [pdf]
241–250 of 272 posts
Re: Flowers for Algernon (1965) [pdf]
#242Tons of people scared of mental and other forms of decline here. Hey, I got news! It's 2024. We understand a fair deal more of how our biochemistry works. We have more computing power than ever, and it's going to be increasing thanks to the crazy amounts of computing power our latest AIs need. That means that we can understand even more of how our biochemistry works by doing exactly what each drug company is doing: r…
Either way you will certainly decline and eventually die.
Re: Flowers for Algernon (1965) [pdf]
#243Earlier quoted context omitted.
> With old age, we all lose our mental faculties. Citation needed AFAIK it's not remotely true that "we all lose our mental faculties". Plenty of people do not
I thought it was well understood that your mental/physical potential peak when you are young and degrade thereafter? E.G. comparing 26 year old self to 86 year old self. But a saving grace is the degradation can be combated with exercise both mental/physical. I am not sure how much of aging is understood, so I hesitate to mention stuff like DNA damage.
There's a difference between slowing down and losing cognitive abilities. It's one thing to not be able to solve very complex problems anymore and another to not remember how to use a toothbrush. I don't think anyone's really disputing that we're on average more capable in 20s-40s.
Re: Flowers for Algernon (1965) [pdf]
#244This story is part of the reason I'd never want to know about where I land intelligence wise compared to other people. No matter the outcome, I don't think it could be good. I it's below average, I'll feel limited. If it's above average, I'll have added pressure of self expectations and maybe arrogance. That's not the case for everyone, but I'm happy where I am currently. Back to the story - the use of grammar and sp…
> “Alpha children wear grey. They work much harder than we do, because they're so frightfully clever. I'm awfully glad I'm a Beta, because I don't work so hard. And then we are much better than the Gammas and Deltas. Gammas are stupid. They all wear green, and Delta children wear khaki. Oh no, I don't want to play with Delta children. And Epsilons are still worse. They're too stupid to be able to read or write. Besid…
I haven't read Brave New World, but this immediately reminded me of The Gods Themselves with Rationals, Emotionals and Patentals.
Re: Flowers for Algernon (1965) [pdf]
#245Earlier quoted context omitted.
Everyone thinks they are familiar with the Dunning Kruger effect. Probably 95% of people get it wrong. [I am not a psychologist, but here is my summary of how I think the real effect works... Let's say we have a skill we can be assessed on a scale of 1-10. 1 is worst, 10 is best. The popular perception of the Dunning Kruger effect is that people lower on the scale, say 2 or 3, rate themselves highly - say 7 or 8. And…
You can't call out a percentage of people you plucked from thin air on not understanding something, then qualify your understanding as your own interpretation. Are you aware that your whole post just said "Nobody understands the version of this thing in my head?" This us a studied thing. You need sources and conclusions drawn from them, not your own speculation (not that it was horribly off the mark, but come on, man…
But he's correct. The original paper demonstrated an effect that has been widely miscommunicated and misinterpreted.
The exact percentage of people getting it wrong was plucked out of the air, but that's not the important part of his comment.
Re: Flowers for Algernon (1965) [pdf]
#246Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nancy Reagan was a pretty decent president [for Ronnie's 2nd term, probably its entirety]. Not my favorite oligarchy figureheads, but definitely not the worst. May they rest in peace.
was she running things? this is the first i am hearing of it
Popular conspiracy theory.
Re: Flowers for Algernon (1965) [pdf]
#247This is the original short story. I recommend that people read the full book instead or at least read the book first to avoid spoilers. It's at least as good as the short story but expands on the ideas and the story line significantly.
Does the book add significant new ideas or is it just more explicit about the consequences? I generally love scifi for the ideas much more so than for story and am torn between the book and the short story.
I'd recommend picking the story or novel depending on which you can finish in one go. It's gripping and I feel like breaking it up might take away from the experience.
Re: Flowers for Algernon (1965) [pdf]
#248Earlier quoted context omitted.
Having ADHD I've often wondered how I could even do a deadman switch. I'd eventually forget to renew it when I was otherwise perfectly fine.
There was something I was supposed to do today.. huh. Must not have been important. > oh no
Gosh, this made me laugh out loud. Thanks XD
Re: Flowers for Algernon (1965) [pdf]
#249Earlier quoted context omitted.
Just because you think you're the smartest person in the room doesn't make it true. While not the literal morale of the story of Flowers for Algernon, it's one of the big themes, i.e. your beliefs and understanding of your intelligence and the world around you change drastically with your "actual" intelligence.
> Just because you think you're the smartest person in the room doesn't make it true. According to one (or more) of the annual Stack Overflow Developer Surveys, didn't something like over 90% of developers think they were better than the average developer? My point is that I agree with you. What one thinks isn't always the reality.
Perception is just a horrible thing.
The fact that reality is WILDLY different for two people simply based on how they perceived it is exhausting.
Also it actually sums up why I hate managing people. Everyone is the star of their own show, and managing them is about showing them all the other actors. It's exhausting.
Re: Flowers for Algernon (1965) [pdf]
#250Earlier quoted context omitted.
I discovered that intelligence is like height. It helps with the ability to reach but effort matters more. I was lazy for twenty years and put effort behind the wrong energy. If I understood risk, consistent effort, and emotions better, I would have retired in my mid twenties.
Unfortunately my experience disagrees. Past a certain threshold, effort does indeed matter more, but most people don't meet that threshold. If you're here, then there's a good chance you're in a social bubble where you rarely interact with people below that threshold.
I thought it's the inverse. There is a point where effort no longer matters because of talent, but people are rarely even close to that. So mostly people are defined by their effort.