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Why People Don't Like Nerds or Programmers (In School)

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Re: Why People Don't Like Nerds or Programmers (In School)

#91

Post by rorymarinich »

chairface wrote: post #75
rorymarinich wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the risk for nerds? When I developed the attitude I've got now, the one that accepts my faults and doesn't immediately get nasty, the change in people was almost immediate. Most people really would rather like you than dislike you, and the instant you start accepting them, they start liking you back. The people who are real jerks and tormentors drop it after it stops affecting you - and that doesn't mean your…

> What's the risk for nerds? The risk, of course, is that they'll screw something up and the tormentors will continue to torment. These are generally socially awkward people we're talking about. You're being rather silly to suggest that someone who isn't at home in social situations to begin with and has been ostracized for pretty much their entire life is not at risk of real failure in a social environment. I'm glad…

It's a false dichotomy, because people don't care if you're socially awkward. I personally love shy people. Lots of people do. So I know the fear exists, but it's a false fear. The risk is nonexistent because social failure doesn't mean what nerds think it does.

Can you not see that the captain of the football team is way less likely to be harassed than the math dweeb?

I'm saying that if math was cool and football wasn't, the captain of the modern football team would probably still be really popular. He might be really into math. I know the sorts of people who were football captains, and they're inherently likable partly because they're not obnoxious assholes in the same way. They're the sorts of assholes people like.

As I said earlier: when a football player joined a group of nerds he'd start talking to us and we'd all start to really like him. If I joined a group of football players I would turn quiet and snappy. If I was willing to risk being more social, I have no doubts that I'd have been accepted.

Everybody who attempts to climb the social ladder succeeds, because people above you really would prefer you climb up.

Re: Why People Don't Like Nerds or Programmers (In School)

#92

Post by rorymarinich »

yef wrote: post #85
rorymarinich wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that what HTWFAIP is about? I've never read it. (Also: is it a good read, or is it overrated?) (Also also: I agree. This should not be here.)

I'd recommend it as a general life-skills sort of book, which can also be applied toward career success in sales or management. If you don't want to read it, just find the summary online, apply it, and see if your life changes. It's harder to implement than it sounds, at least in my experience.

Heh. That's usually how it is. If you actually follow the advice, it works, but it's hard.

I forget who said this but it's true: "The secret to success is no secret."

Re: Why People Don't Like Nerds or Programmers (In School)

#93

Post by rorymarinich »

jimbokun wrote: post #81
rorymarinich wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the risk for nerds? When I developed the attitude I've got now, the one that accepts my faults and doesn't immediately get nasty, the change in people was almost immediate. Most people really would rather like you than dislike you, and the instant you start accepting them, they start liking you back. The people who are real jerks and tormentors drop it after it stops affecting you - and that doesn't mean your…

Here is the terrible, unvarnished secret behind much of my nerdy outcast existence in high school: I generally found many of my peers boring as hell. I tried going to a "get hammered in the middle of the woods" party (yes, it was that kind of high school), but I didn't drink, and no one was doing anything especially interesting, or saying anything especially interesting, and it was boring as hell, but everyone else b…

I was in the same boat as you. I still find most people boring. Yesterday I wrote a post about misanthropy that I think was a lot better than this one.

I'm still at the point where I just don't like most people, especially in groups. It's a problem that I struggle with. I hope to figure out how to make things better - some people I know can find interesting parts of anybody - but I won't pretend like I know the solution to this problem.

Re: Why People Don't Like Nerds or Programmers (In School)

#94

Post by TheAmazingIdiot »

rorymarinich wrote: post #49
jgoosdh wrote: post #14

what a sad, angry little man...

Perhaps it's not my place to say this, since this is an attack on me, but it's sad that something like this got 4 points on Hacker News. It adds nothing to the conversation and is roundly negative. Now that you've insulted me and called me both angry and sad, I'd like you to explain yourself further so I can respond in kind.

I cannot vouch for the "angry little man" comment, but you've run aground with massive sweeping generalizations that do not hold very true with many geeks.

We all wern't made fun of in high school. Some of us even had plenty of jock friends and stayed away from the "introvert hate everybody clueless programmers group".

And there's one really cool thing about being a "nerd": You learn a lot about a multitude of subjects. Because of that, you can learn of the interconnectedness between subjects. It's what I did, and I was able to help, say, a few cheerleaders on their advanced chemistry course, or watch a film while "critiquing" it.

I also taught a few of these students biology... no no no, not sex (no, that would be a bit later). Winemaking. I mean, if you want to be popular, you stand out. Even if it is a 'little bit', you make yourself memorable. People of all sorts will look past general quirkiness if you're a cool guy.

The toughest group to join was that nerd group, at least in my HS. I assume it was a mixture of not trusting or they thought I was too stupid. My SO however had a completely difference experience, in which there was really no real cliques (there were, in name usually).

Re: Why People Don't Like Nerds or Programmers (In School)

#95

Post by jimbokun »

rorymarinich wrote: post #83
jimbokun wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just want to know how you can hold up the "Rails community" as a positive example of socially well adjusted people, when their acknowledged leader just explicitly approved of a presentation that would obviously result in complaints of sexual harassment in any normal workplace setting (and did result in such a complaint, although given in an almost apologetic tone because she knew that her complaints would not be we…

Because the Rails community understands that they are not a community for any other reason other than Rails. Do I approve of nudity in a presentation? No. But at the same time, even if I found it offensive, I wouldn't turn it into a huge argument and the focal point of a rant against a community. I'm really, really in the minority with this statement, but I find it very easy to deal with intolerant people. I have fri…

That was actually a pretty good response. :)

I would say, though, while you are deliberately choosing not to ostracize the Rails community, they are deliberately ostracizing people who don't like porn, or at least people who don't like porn at their tech conferences.

Is this any better than a nerd insulting a cheerleader for asking an unsophisticated programming question? Implicitly, they are saying if you aren't cool or hip enough to not be offended by a pornographic presentation, stay away from our conferences.

A little elitist, no?

Re: Why People Don't Like Nerds or Programmers (In School)

#96

Post by rorymarinich »

jimbokun wrote: post #88
rorymarinich wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You wrote about the world that everyone experiences, and essentially told a bunch of other people that they are wrong about their own experiences. Is it wrong to say that when they are? I don't know everything. I only know my specific narrow field. But I do know that everybody I know who is actually unpopular - that is to say, not somebody who lacks friends due to lack of social skills, but somebody who people active…

"Paul Graham does that in his essays." Paul writes brilliant essays, but I find that if he has a weakness as an essayist, it is probably in over generalization. Many of his essays have pretty sweeping generalizations, but a dearth of data justifying them. His brilliance is that he usually overcomes this by appealing to his reader's intuitions, and it usually works. But there are times when I find myself wondering if…

In his Why Nerds Are Unpopular essay, I think he absolutely is extrapolating. I've read that essay many times. I guess in some ways this could be called a response, but it wasn't directly inspired by his writing.

Re: Why People Don't Like Nerds or Programmers (In School)

#97

Post by dkarl »

chairface wrote: post #66
endlessvoid94 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought that was the point of the essay. We're all old (and hopefully mature enough) now to accept that maybe it wasn't completely the jock's (or whomever's) fault that the nerds were unpopular. An outside perspective is almost always useful in figuring things out. I found this essay hit home. I was definitely in the nerd group, and if I had read this in high school, it would've helped.

> maybe it wasn't completely the jock's (or whomever's) fault that the nerds were unpopular. I can agree with this to a point - by the time high school rolls around, yeah, the unpopular kids probably have adopted a set of behaviors that contributes to them being unpopular. However, those behaviors are probably defenses developed against some early damaging experiences. And who is responsible for those experiences? In…

For fairness' sake you should also focus on what the unpopular do to other people: how they bring down a conversation, unwittingly sabotage their friends' efforts at looking sane and approachable, pick the wrong moments for racy jokes, and hijack conversations towards topics they find interesting but nobody else does. In hindsight, I can see that I wasn't always a pleasant person to be around. High school kids don't feel like they have a lot of social capital to blow on dorks.

Re: Why People Don't Like Nerds or Programmers (In School)

#98

Post by chairface »

rorymarinich wrote: post #91
chairface wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What's the risk for nerds? The risk, of course, is that they'll screw something up and the tormentors will continue to torment. These are generally socially awkward people we're talking about. You're being rather silly to suggest that someone who isn't at home in social situations to begin with and has been ostracized for pretty much their entire life is not at risk of real failure in a social environment. I'm glad…

It's a false dichotomy, because people don't care if you're socially awkward. I personally love shy people. Lots of people do. So I know the fear exists, but it's a false fear. The risk is nonexistent because social failure doesn't mean what nerds think it does. Can you not see that the captain of the football team is way less likely to be harassed than the math dweeb? I'm saying that if math was cool and football wa…

You've got a lot of living to do if you believe all that, pal. Particularly that last sentence.

Re: Why People Don't Like Nerds or Programmers (In School)

#99

Post by jibiki »

chairface wrote: post #56
rorymarinich wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the world that I know. I write about it. Very often I find that I'm wrong about something, and when I do I write about that as well. Are you saying that a young, bright 18-year-old shouldn't write at all because he knows that most of what he says is wrong? Because that sounds kind of stupid. I'd rather more people my age write and be entirely wrong and start talking back and forth amongst one another, so they…

> This is the world that I know. I write about it. Except you didn't limit yourself to that. You wrote about the world that everyone experiences, and essentially told a bunch of other people that they are wrong about their own experiences. > Are you saying that a young, bright 18-year-old shouldn't write at all because he knows that most of what he says is wrong? I'm saying that anyone, regardless of age or intellige…

> I'm saying that anyone, regardless of age or intelligence, should try to avoid generalizing from their almost certainly narrow experience.

The correct response to such a generalization is just to present counterexamples. Your comments seem to express the idea that it's wrong to present a generalization in public. That's just silly.

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