Why Nerds Are Unpopular 1535
AccordionGuy writes "Paul Graham, who's known for his writings on Lisp and other Lisp-like languages as well as his essays on combatting spam has taken a bit of a detour from his usual topics. His latest essay is one that's a little more personal and that we can all relate to: Why Nerds Are Unpopular . It's a lengthy but engaging writeup of that chamber of horrors we call high school and why being smarter than the average bear is more of a liability than an asset during that stage in life. It's food for thought for those of us who've already been there, done that and been stuffed into lockers by the football team and it should give some hope to those who are going through it right now."
The Simpsons already solved this... (Score:5, Funny)
Zen Thought of the Day (Score:3, Funny)
I didn't know graph theory then .... (Score:3, Interesting)
I was not, however, a nerd in high school. I was a dork, which is like a nerd, but without the good grades.
Re:I think it can be better summed up by.. (Score:5, Funny)
Helpful? (Score:3, Insightful)
And I'm sure its going to do nothing but reinforce lots of negative stereotypes and Katz-style whining.
I'm a nerd - I'm a computer professional - I was an athlete in high school and I'm still active today.
People need to take a little bit of responsibility for their own lives rather than chalking everything up to "well, I'm going to get picked on because everyone else in the world is so much stupider than me."
--saint
Re:Helpful? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Helpful? (Score:4, Insightful)
By my final year of highschool I had mastered the social structure enough to avoid most of the problems but even then a simple thing like playing chess was considered asking for trouble.
I can't count the number of times I had to hunt around the school floors for bits of my magnetic chess board because some idiot couldn't stand the fact that we were doing something they couldn't get and found boring and felt an extreme need to interupt the game by knocking the board over.
I was not arrogent I treated others well, bathed regularly, used deoderant and dressed neatly. I really don't understand why I as the nerd should have to take any of the blame whatsoever.
Re:Helpful? (Score:3, Insightful)
"You're only a victim of something once. After that you're an accomplice".
That's a particularly insightful saying, and it could do a lot of good for many people, such as victims of domestic violence, partners of addicts, etc. But it's not universally applicable.
Sometimes you're forced to adapt to an environment over which you have very little control. Concentration camps are one example. And it is particularly true, too, of younger people in school.
When you get down to it, though, most people I know, not just nerds, had an adolescence they'd rather forget about. The fraction that had it really good is a lot smaller than you might believe based on first hand experience. Cheerleaders, jocks and student council presidents have their own suite of problems - bet on it.
I, for one, spent my time as a social outcast. I remember many days of going to high school where I would never exercise my vocal chords for hours on end, simply because there were only 2 or 3 people in a school of 1000 that I felt comfortable conversing with.
Our Walmart style education system exacerbates the social problems that come into the schools through upbringing (parents are not pre-qualified). Some reform of our school systems, which are the de facto social systems for most adolescents, could go a long way to promoting healthier social interactions.
Re:Helpful? (Score:3, Insightful)
> Few smart kids can spare the attention that popularity requires. Unless they happen to be very good looking, or great natural athletes, or have older siblings who are popular, they'll tend to become nerds.
It doesn't say that you can't be both - however it seems to be the fact that the majority of ners doesn't fall into both.
As for getting picked on. Once it starts it is very hard to stop for as long as you are in that place ( school ). One tends to be branded forever.
Re:Helpful? (Score:5, Insightful)
As far as the "Why Nerds are Unpopular" link goes, I mostly agree.
On the other hand, the "stuffed into lockers" link, goofy though it is, makes a good point. In the adult world, you're liked more or you're liked less. But, if every day when you come home from work, a pack of more socially elevated adults beat you up, gave you a black eye or bloody nose, stole your money and shredded your papers, society doesn't consider that boys will be boys fun. Those people would go to prison.
It's not obvious to me why that's something a seventh grader should be expected to suck up and blamed if he can't deal with it.
Which is why they pick on the friendless (Score:3, Insightful)
Problem is, the strong and the popular don't get picked on, for that very reason. The bullies seek out the weak and the friendless, because they can't do much about it.
Re:Helpful? (Score:5, Insightful)
The essay was wrong in one important aspect. There is an administration imposed heirarchy in high schools. This is based on athletic performance and petty contests of us vs. them. School administrations invest considerably time and energy in promoting the whole athletic bread and circuses.
That said, it doesn't really matter that people end up being cast out. That is not such a bad thing. The problem is the ensuing abuse that often manifests itself in violence.
You should not blame victims for being forced to attend what really is a glorified prison with all of the beatings and occasional killings that implies.
Re:Helpful? (Score:5, Insightful)
In practice, this means the obvious: People shouldn't abuse nerds. But it does also mean the less obvious. Nerds shouldn't belittle stupid people who are bigger than they are.
I actually learned this in college: "Do not get into political arguments with drunk football players." Call it Schwarz's Law. The truth is, it is easy to get along with people. We would all do better if we could just learn to shut up when we want to say or do something hurtful or angry. Yes, "jocks" can be brutes, but there is a smug and confrontational brand of "intellect" that enjoys rubbing other's ignorance in their faces. This is a kind of "nerd brutishness." You can be an intellectual brute. In the mind of the knowledgeable person, all s/he is doing is stating facts. But the superior physical strength of the brute is just a fact as well. How can the brute be blamed and the "nerd" remain blameless?
I'm not saying that any assault is EVER justified. I am just saying that if the "nerd" were a truly smart person, s/he would realize that certain behaviors provoke and that those behaviors can be managed. In fact, it is possible to enlist a mass of people to your own side through the application of skills in human relations.
I remember in adolescence, however, believing that this compromised my "individuality." I remained separate and I had a truly miserable experience. And it is not like my stand helped me in adulthood. In fact, it was not until I began to learn:
1) Not to correct people just because I knew they were wrong.
2) Not to criticize
3) Not to order people around
That I began to succeed. The only way to get someone to do something is to make them want to do it. Does telling people they are wrong, or telling people they are stupid, or telling people to do things make them want to do it? No. It makes them defensive, angry, and resentful.
Now, to anyone struggling with these issues in school now: Yes, you are smart. Yes, you do know things, and you are excited that you know things. I'm not telling you to change anything about yourself. However, if you will just ask yourself a few questions before you speak, I hope you may make your life easier and you might enjoy yourself more.
How would I feel if I were this person?
Is this person going to be better for what I am about to say?
Am I lifting this person up, or am I trying to raise myself by lowering this person?
The brutes should ask themselves these same questions. In fact, we would all be better off if we did. In fact, I should probably have asked myself them before I wrote this! As I said, I'm new to this way of thinking myself. But if you are young and having trouble getting along, please, I ask you to think about this now and not to wait. Of course, everyone else should be thoughtful of your feelings too, but your behavior is the ony one under your direct control. And when you begin to select what you do and say in such a way as to lift other people, you will find that they give you what you want.
Will what I say or do help this person to be their best?
Re:Helpful? (Score:3, Insightful)
However, I will not try to outdrink a fat Scotsman.
I've seen what happens to the people that try, and it's not a very pretty sight.
Alternate subject: (Score:5, Interesting)
"Why people with social problems lean towards academics"
Whether they excel at them or not is an entirely different matter. Enough people on the site have said it... there are plenty of people out there who were dumb and unpopular. I knew of many people who were intelligent and popular too.
I know... imagine that... academnically-smart, creative, athletic and popular people?
I've got a bunch of uber-geeks sitting near me right now. They're fully grown. Wow they're awful. I cringe when they eat their soup with their mouth open. I cringe when they loudly complain on the phone about the arrangement of books in bookstores. Their body-odour wafts over here from time to time. I feel like yelling sometimes, "if you would just stop sputtering spitballs, farting in my cubicle, talking about your superior intellect, RPG characters and fantastic technical skills, you might have a better job and more friends." Unix admins... ugh. These guys don't even like eachother.
They only bug me so much because I don't tell them to f-off and let me get my work done. People in that state get lonely and just want somebody to talk to... so they cling.
It's inhuman for me to tell them go get lost, and it is in poor taste. So I put up with them. Some of them are not too bad, they're just not used to the local culture... others are born-and-raised locals, dumb as bricks, no matter how smart they tell me they are.
What kind of idiot walks into your cubicle, reads your screen, tells you about the latest miniatures they painted, farts, and just stands there?
Re:Helpful? (Score:3, Insightful)
"We have a phrase to describe what happens when rankings have to be created without any meaningful criteria. We say that the situation degenerates into a popularity contest. And that's exactly what happens in most American schools. Since the group has no real purpose, there is no natural measure of performance for status to depend on. Instead of depending on some real test, one's rank ends up depending mostly on one's ability to increase one's rank."
Hey, it was only halfway through highschool that I realized that the only thing that I did that gave me personally meaningful results was swimming. Only by focusing on that to a crazy extent did highschool become bearable.
Just my 2 cents. Cheers
Read the damned article, asshat! (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Helpful? (Score:3, Insightful)
Rather than bitching, maybe you should read the article, as the kind of people you are talking about is entirely different group of people than the one Paul Graham is.
His article was actually well-written, thought-provoking and, in my eyes, appeared to be true.
In other words, duh, RTFA!
Justin Dubs
Re:Helpful? (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh, yeah? In my school, disabled kids got picked on. Foriegn kids got picked on. Kids that weren't very athletic, or bright, or rich got picked on. Kids with bad skin, or greasy hair, or a birthmark got picked on. Did these things really not happen at your high school, or are you just pretending they didn't?
Re:Helpful? (Score:3, Interesting)
You're grasping. You can't pick on someone unless you're higher up on the social scale, and using that power to either physically or verbally humiliate them. The fact that you think insulting someone is the same as picking on them indicates that you don't know what the Hell you're talking about. Believe me, if you've been picked on, you know what it is. It's not a "joking banter of insults". Stop trying to bring me down to your level. I am not a bully, you are. If it bothers you so much, go talk to someone about it, but at least own up to being an asshole. It's just insulting to your victims when you don't. I'm sorry, I meant "accomplices".
Re:Helpful? (Score:3, Insightful)
Social scale? What the fuck are you talking about social scale? If a bully is bullying you, it is because you allow them power over you. If you are not strong enough, then be smarter. It's not that hard. Some bullies are smart, very smart, in fact. Outsmart them. If not, survival of the fittest has been lost for ages, and we are now seeing the effects of it. Sorry your genes are weak, boy. It's not my problem.
The fact that you think insulting someone is the same as picking on them indicates that you don't know what the Hell you're talking about.
No, I just believe you can pick on someone and it doesn't have to be some emotionally traumatizing thing. Was your mother Richard Simmons or Oprah?
Believe me, if you've been picked on, you know what it is. It's not a "joking banter of insults".
Sorry, but I've been attacked unprovoked, provoked, picked on, had a broken nose, broken ribs, and I'm still here smiling on and would tell anybody to stand their ground and get picked on but at least stand up for what you believe in. If you don't believe it's right, say so. If not, you are a pussy, so shut the fuck up and go eat some sand.
Stop trying to bring me down to your level. I am not a bully, you are. If it bothers you so much, go talk to someone about it, but at least own up to being an asshole. It's just insulting to your victims when you don't. I'm sorry, I meant "accomplices".
I'm not a bully, I'm a realist. There you go again, trying to exert power over me. "Bring me down to your level", what exactly is my level? The level that blames you for the situations you end up in? I'm not a bully, I'm not picking on you. I'm telling you that you played a part in what happened to you. What I'm not is your fucking therapist. Go cry on someone elses shoulder, because I'm not buying your self-rightous it's-their-fault-and-I'm-a-saint-that-didn't-do-n
You obviously have no clue who I am otherwise you would know exactly how big of an asshole I am, and admit to being. Fucking newbies.
Re:Helpful? (Score:3, Interesting)
How can you claim that you know me well enough to know my morals and where they stand? You disrespect me more than you add to your argument with your attempt at an attack against me. It does matter one bit what one person thinks about another, because while your thoughts hurt the other person their actions physical hurt you. Why is it that people say emotional pain is worse than physical pain, yet the constant knowledge that some smart-ass smug little nerd is always thinking down upon you without knowing you is perfectly ok?
My issue is that too often geeks and nerds try to always make themselves out to be the victims without understanding that they also play a part in the bullying. I saw it happen when I was a kid, and hear about it now. The kids who don't try to be different, and accept that they are part of humanity rarely have any problems outside of the standard kids teasing each other. Those who walk around thinking they are better often get knocked down off their pedestal. Those kids are also the stupid ones, because they're not smart enough to realize it's their own fault they are getting picked on.
This isn't an analogy to rapists saying, "She was wearing a short skirt, she was asking for it." This is more likened to a woman walking around naked saying, "I'm soooooooo FUCKING HOT and you WILL NEVER have sex with me so HA HA HA I DARE You to do something about!!" then getting pissed off that the guy raped and beat her. Was it right? No. Was she innocent? No.
It takes two to tango, and there is always a reason why the bully picks you. I was 5'3 my Freshman year, and never got bullied because I didn't act like I was smarter, or better than anyone else. Yet other kids who were larger than I was got it all the time, and you could always overhear them saying, "At least I'll amount to something in my life."
Well good luck Seymore Q. Fuqs, you aren't amounting to shit other than a 40 year old scared little kid who is still so convinced that the world doesn't understand you. I'm a nerd, and proud of it. People call me pretentious, but I know that people, no matter how smart or stupid, still have value and aren't better than me. No one is better. People are all equally stupid, and all will equally end up as a pile of dust.
The bullies and the "victims" are just too ignorant to drop their attitudes long enough to realize they're just making asses out of them both.
These are people that are children in name only, and you would excuse their actions and exempt them from even a juvenile standard of assault and battery.
You need to grow up. There is a huge difference between a 12 year old beating you and a 22 year old beating you. Fights happen. People are just such pussies now adays, they can't handle getting a bloody nose. Go watch Fight Club a few times, then go get yourself off your mommas tit.
Re:Helpful? (Score:3, Insightful)
She is not innocent to what happened to her. If I wore a shirt that said, "I hate Niggers" and paraded around Harlem, no one would raise an eye as to the Irish guy who gets the shit kicked out of him.
Great advice. You make me laugh. Let's all hope that the mail-order vasectomy kit arrives before the stork.
The advice is that it will change your philosophy that getting a bloody nose and a black eye is some penultimate evil thing in the world. You heal; so fucking what, you cried and lost some respect, deal.
Wait, it's thoughts that hurt people now? What I'm thinking can hurt people? As much as physical violence? Maybe the actions of nerds hurt jocks ("nerds" vs. "jocks" is oversimplifying, but I use the terms for brevity), but their thoughts are their own, and given the antisocial nature of nerds, tend to remain their own. But just in case, are you saying that jocks beat up nerds because they really want to be the nerds' friends, but are afraid of rejection? Think about that for a second. It's idiocy.
Thoughts lead to actions, even subconsciously, if you can't understand and see that in the world, than you are more blind than you will ever understand. You will get your ass kicked. You think that only things you deliberately do have consequences.
Everything that happens to you is a consequence to an action that you took part in, either consciously or subconsciously. If you do not acknowledge or accept this, it does not change the truth. If you die by getting hit by a bus tomorrow, it is the consequence of you walking at that exact moment. If you take a path that is risky, take the responsibility of your choice.
A woman came across a rattlesnake who was freezing to death and nurtured it back to health. When it was finally healthy, the snake turned and bit the woman. As she lay dying, she asks, "Why? After I helped you..." the snake responds, "You knew I was a snake."
Re:Helpful? (Score:3, Insightful)
Because I say that people who think they are better than other people, and get their ass kicked for their smugness, are playing an active role in what happened? How does that speak of my morality? It speaks more of your close-minded nature, which you have exhibited most thoroughly. Do you always think you know more about a person you don't know? If so, thanks, I can use you as a prime example of the type of person most likely to get bullied.
Mere youth should not be an excuse for immoral or illegal behaivor. Mere youth should not be an excuse for being a barbaric animal. This willingess to excuse monsters until they are ready for the adult criminal justice system only encourages more monsters.
Sorry, but a little scuffle between kids is not immoral or illegal. Most of these kids that get bullied do something to provoke the bully. I'm not saying all, but most. You just don't understand that from where the bullies point of view, you are a smug little asswhipe that should be taught a lesson of humility.
I've watched both sides through my days in school, and every time someone tried to bring me in the middle (either to bully me or attempt to get me to bully someone) I put a stop to it very quickly. It's much more fun to watch the two sides. The stereotypical unpopular nerd who will claim "I did nothing to start it!", while slipping 'Fuck you jarhead' out the corner of his mouth, is an active participant in most of the bullying.
But you don't like to acknowledge that because you were one of those kids. You tried to provoke me right off, and it failed, mostly because it was a completely and totally idiotic attempt. If you did that to someone in school, with a bully temperment, you would have gotten your ass kicked. Then you would blame them. You would be wrong, because you played a large part in it.
The solution to "high school" is to dispense with it and allow "children" to begin their aprenticeships as in the past. This would be of considerable benefit to those that require post graduate training or schooling.
This I actually do agree with. I think that school should be cut back to 16, and you should have to test into specialized high schools at 12 to determine the focus of your education. Whether it be more science or physically based (Tangible vs. Untangible education, so to speak)
Re:Helpful? (Score:3, Insightful)
But why not? Society used to not think a small-scale ass kicking was a bad thing. I still don't think it's a bad thing, but I went through martial arts training and appreciate a good match. I hope my kids will do the same, not because I want them to beat other kids up, but because discipline and strength helps you in all areas of life.
What you advocate is no different than blaming the victim in a rape.
The common bullying that goes on now is not akin to blaming the victim in a rape. It's more akin to blaming a woman for walking around in a ghetto naked screaming, "I dare you stupid fucks to rape me."
When a kid walks around smug, acting like they are better, it's an invitation to knock them down off their pedestal. A comparative black eye, to the rape example I gave scales in severity.
A black eye is not a big deal. Getting raped is a big deal. Walking around smug and intellectually cocky is not a big deal. Walking around naked and screaming taunts in a ghetto is a big deal.
Understand the difference here? Getting your ass kicked is not a big deal.
As for the ancient majority of 13, what the hell are you talking about? How ancient are you thinking here, because at 13 you were not considered an adult. I'm not sure how old you are, but lets say you are older than 22. Look back to when you were 12. Think about the biggest argument you got into when you were 12. How upset it got you. Now think about your current views and life. Do you really think you'd have that same argument now?
Didn't think so. The difference between a 13 year old a thousand years ago and now, is the 13 year olds who are crying about getting a black eye wouldn't have been born due to survival of the fittest still playing a part in humanity.
Re:Helpful? (Score:5, Insightful)
You are really a piece of work.
First, you prejudge the article without reading it [slashdot.org].
You know, where you say:
Now, you blame the victims for being whiny, elitist, "smarter-than-you" types.
I don't know, maybe my experience was odd. When I was in High School, the nerds stayed as far away from the types who might pick on them as possible, but were accosted anyway.
What I seem to recall is that those who inflicted violence on nerds were also those who told sexist jokes, treated women as objects and had the least tolerance for the mentally handicapped. How's that for a generalization? I think it's an honest portrayal, though.
In any case, I fail to see how someone's whiny, elitist, "smarter-than-you" attitude could ever justify physical abuse.
We're not talking about bears or other wild animals here. We're talking about physically abusive people.
In the adult world, someone who responds to perceived slights with violence is not excused away.
Give us an example of what these abusive nerds were doing to provoke these poor jocks? Oh my gosh, did they whine? Did they act smart in Science class? Well then, they had it coming to them!
No wonder we have such trouble with education these days. Anyone who acts 'elite' is targetted for violence.
I suppose when a woman gets beaten by her husband, you would want to check the wife to make sure she wasn't being whiny. She might have it coming to her, right? At least, that's how you remember it? The wives who got beaten usually are asking for it?
Re:Helpful? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm the son of an Air Force colonel which meant that I moved every two years.. so during the most trying social years of my life I move 4 times. This worked out great for me, becaues it meant that I got to re-try the social thing until I got it right.. and when I did, I found that I didn't like the person I had to be.
When I started I was a reader.. avid reader. I built things and really tried to excel in my studies. I jumped out (intellectually) to a really big lead over most of my classmates by the time I reached 7th grade... but socially I was inept and completely miserable.
By my senior year of high school I was a starting point guard, had a large number of friends, and plenty of attention from the girls. To reach that point I had traded reading and math for clothes, a bad attitude, and the occasional bought of bullying. It was funny, but as that senior year came to a close I was more unhappy than I had ever been before.
This climb up the social ladder was really eye opening. The pear analogy used in the article is really good.. When your at the bottom you think everyone but you is popular.. In fact, almost no one is truly popular. Some are just better at stepping on the heads of others. It was always an interesting game to watch. You would see little skirmishes between two kids as they attempted to climb over each other to improve their social rank. It wasn't that one or the other had more (or less) in the way of social skills.. but someone always had to lose and the loser wasn't determined by anything other than someone elses ability to manipulate public opinion. These kids didn't 'bring it on themselves', they where simply victims of someone trying to climb up the social ladder.
The funny thing was, at the top you generally didn't find head-stompers, but people who where genuinely likeable people with some visible skill, look, or something otherwise outstanding about them. It was funny to me when I realized that those people in the middle always jockeying for position could never REACH the top, no matter how much they tried.
It wasn't until college that I found the way out of the stupid game. In college I made a commitment to simply be me.. In the swirl of confusion that is the first few months of college I found that people really liked me.. for being me. I stopped being someone else, found real friendship in a fraternity (1869), met my future wife, and otherwise had a great time...
The one thing I will disagree with in this article is that others around the world don't experience this at all. The Katz pieces about 'the hellmouth' certainly proves otherwise. I spent my 9th grade year in an Italian secondary school in Vicenza. The same social hiearchy (replace Football player with Futbol player and your done) existed with the same trials and tribulations. That only fundamental difference was that kids seemed to spend less time with each other, simply because their families demanded more of their time. When they where together en masse, however, it sure seemed like any other school I went to... everyone just spoke a different language.
Embarressing (Score:5, Funny)
elitism... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:elitism... (Score:5, Insightful)
Some of the smartest people in my high school were NOT nerds. True, they didn't take some of the ridiculous college math courses that we nerds did. However they did get straight-As and took AP courses in the natural sciences, history, calculus, languages, etc. They were usually involved in some kind of varsity sport that had a low jock-factor (like tennis or soccer). While they were popular, they seemed to float above the social hierarchy, never taking part in the beatings or humiliation but never exactly seeking a nerd with whom to hang out. They generally got ridiculous scores on their SATs and went on to the Ivy League.
They were popular because they weren't pretentious, they were self-confident, and they knew how to talk to somebody without scaring or boring the shit out of them. Which none of us geeks quite had a handle on yet . . .
Re:elitism... (Score:3, Insightful)
Don't confuse good grades with intelligence. Many people in my school's top 10% or even top 5% were dumb as bricks. For example, perhaps half the girls I knew in my honors/AP classes got pregnant immediately after starting college and had to drop out.
At the same time, though... I must admit that my high school didn't have near the "if nerd then pariah else jock" aspect to it as some other schools. Many of the genuinely smart people were very social, even if most of the jocks were... well... stereotypical jocks.
Not always unpopular (Score:5, Insightful)
Essentially, merely "being Geeky" was not enough to attract hostility, even from the footballers, but it was poor social skills aggravated by what the "geek" percieved as persecution.
Simply laughing it all off is usually the best way to deal with it.
It's like your parents used to say (shyeah! like
i'm not even trying to be an ass here.... (Score:5, Insightful)
and yes, if you haven't guessed yet, i'm a nerd
Re:i'm not even trying to be an ass here.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Second, why are we (and I mean we) still trying to measure ourselves against these people? I finished High School in 1993. In the past ten years my values have grown up. I am no longer jealous of the cars their parents bought them, or the nice clothes, or how many friends they had.
I don't care that they all sell fucking insurance somewhere in suburbia now. and if they are happy, good for them. If not, too bad. I think I am doing ok, but I compare myself to real peers not my peers from 10+ years ago.
Re:dishwasher? (Score:4, Insightful)
I also disagree with the article about what defines a geek, it's not brains or interests, it's how your rated by the opposite sex. It's not looks it's personality.
In my case, If I'm interested in things that GIRLS think are corney, then I am a geek. Jocks can call you a geek, but only a women can certify your geek status by laughing at your pathetic attempts to hook up with them. This carries over into adult life as well, which is why geeks don't go to clubs(at least I don't).
Looks will not get you geek status either, it is ALL about how you dress and behave. Ugly guys who dress fly and act confident always have chicks, so they cannot be geeks. I'm good looking enough to approach women with confidence, but after about 5 mintues of talking, the women realize I'm a geek and leave...that, and I have no game.
So even though I have been out of school for over 10 years, I am still a geek because I cannot attract the opposite sex because my personality is that of geek.
There is no hope is the point of the article I think.
Re:i'm not even trying to be an ass here.... (Score:3, Interesting)
I think I'm coming off too harshly on the book. She does a very good job of getting across how stressful it is to just live in such a precarious state, where even a small setback can throw everything off. I wish she had talked more about health care and how that can be the whammy that can ruin lives. When me and my partner were both working at the book store (about 10 yrs. ago), she had to go to the emergency due to flu induced dehydration. We didn't have health insurance so that one visit cost us $900. It took many months to pay off but at least for us it only meant not adding money to our safety net and a bit less enterainment. Much more recently she had a more serious condition which put her in the hospital for a week, including some time in ICU. That bill was $24,000 but she had health insurance so we didn't pay a thing. What if the $24,000 incident happened back when the $900 one did?
US only phenomenon? (Score:3, Interesting)
Can anyone who grew up outside of the US comment?
Re:US only phenomenon? (Score:5, Informative)
The distinction between "nerds" and "normal people" definitely exists outside the US -- and is perhaps universal. Most people of basic school age don't spend a large portion of their free time in front of their computers coding. I think this intense focus on one particular area is where "nerds" were different from other people in their age groups.
However, and I think this is an important point, in many countries high school is a kind of trade school. In Sweden, compulsory school stops at age 15 or so. Nearly all students then proceed to a volunteer school, gymnasiet, selecting one out of 20 or so three-year education programs which suits their interests. Programs included, among many others:
The vehicle program: students were tought how to repair cars and other vehicles (and sometimes to drive them, with driving lessons and sometimes a license funded by the school).
The nursing program: students were taught skills needed to work jobs at retirement homes and other institutions that care for people.
The individual program: students that lacked motivation and sufficient grades were given a chance to catch up, aiming to apply for a regular program later on.
The electronics program: students were given basic skills in handing electronics, and got jobs such as being electricians or electronics repairmen.
The social sciences program: students received additional heavy education in history, geography and other social sciences, and got jobs that may include working for their local government carrying out investigations or other matters. People in this program sometimes would continue to college to develop additional additional skills.
The natural sciences program: students were given a very solid ground (complementing that which they had received in earlier years) in mathematics, physics, biology, chemistry, material computational skills, electronics skills and computer skills. This program was largely theoretically oriented and was not meant to lead to a job directly, but provided the foundation for students to continue to college and become engineers and scientists.
This particular specialization relatively early also explains why Sweden (and other European) college degrees are shorter in terms of years than equivalent US degreees -- the basics in the profession or study of choice were already taught in high school, so college was even more specialized.
With that said however, I should point out that this specialized programs all included a relatively broad range of subjects -- but with a certain very heavy focus. The natural sciences program for example would include five maths courses, while most other programs would only have one or two. The social sciences program on the other hand would have more history and related issues than other programs. And many programs had courses shared by no other education program.
This early specialization means that nerds separate from their schoolmates aged 15 or 16 and join other people in the natural sciences program (usually) who have the same inclination for programming, maths or science. They find "equals" and the risk of being rejected is significantly reduced, if not entirely eliminated.
I did not find that my early interest in programming (which ignited around 11 or 12 years of age) caused any significant problems. Many classmates at the time were interested in gaming or the occasional programming on the C64, C128 (and later the Amiga) and joined me in technical discussions or to seek assistance. In gymnasiet, everyone around me were interested in science and technology and frequently engaged in more or less serious discussions on the topic.
As someone already pointed out, the concept of "jocks" also is alien to European school systems. People who engaged in sports did so on their own free time, it was not something the school got involved in (other than providing the normal gym classes).
True dat. (Score:5, Funny)
Paul Graham is wrong (Score:5, Funny)
Plenty cool (Score:3, Funny)
You know what you call 'em now? (Score:3, Funny)
You remember those kids in school who you called Nerds?
You know what you call 'em now?
BOSS!
Big assumption (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Big assumption (Score:4, Insightful)
Sometimes, people just decide they don't like you and work to make the six years of junior/senior high hellish.
Just before junior high I moved to a new school. I knew I was smart, but I also knew that I wasn't alone. There were a lot of smart people at my school. It was the other smart kids (girls) who picked on me. I don't think I was any more socially inept than your average 12 year old girl, but I did march to the beat of a different drummer. And that, more than anything else, is what gets you singled out at that age. Oh, and the girls can be so much worse than the boys. Sure, I never got put in a locker, but the psychological tourture is worse.
Fast-forward a decade or so... I'm well-adjusted, well-employed, and most of all, happy. Some how I managed to get through high school without changing to their beat. In fact, I pride my self in my (increasing) geekiness. And they have gone on to live their cookie cutter lives, attending the same colleges as everyone else, finding the same jobs and dating the same kind of men. Not the life I would have wanted.
I guess the moral here, for those of you still trying to get through it, is find a few like mind people to be friends with and stick together. Some day you'll end up in an interesting job, knowing interesting people and that will make the struggle worth it.
Bullying (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Bullying (Score:3, Insightful)
I love the people who say that kids who get bullied "ask" for it; it's the biggest load of bullshit I've ever heard. Let me tell you this, the more you try to keep to yourself and try to avoid trouble, the more it seeks you out. Maybe saying all those kids you taunted over the years deserved it functions as a salve for your conscience, but it doesn't change the fact that all they probably wanted was for everyone to just leave them alone.
Re:Bullying (Score:4, Funny)
It depends on how you define "nerd" (Score:3, Interesting)
Or if you define it as someone who is physically inept, weak, socially maladjusted, and the antithesis of just about everything that makes someone "normal"... why wouldn't nerds be despised and picked on?
I mean, we are all adults here, right? We all know that people are prone to dislike what is significantly different (especially if it proves to not be "better"). And they are willing to take action if that person is weaker than them. Humans have one of the most aggressive social dominance instinct of all animals (psychologists believing because we lack "killing" implements such as claws or rending maws). Life isn't handholding and fairness and rainbows.
Big fish eats small fish. Not a revelation. To try and reorder it as something else (nerds being "feared" for their "super intelligence") is just childish revisionism.
Popular? (Score:3, Funny)
Nerd != Smart (Score:4, Insightful)
Sorry, but I call BS.
1. Being a nerd doesn't mean you are smart. I knew plenty of dumbass nerds.
2. Being smart doesn't mean you are a nerd. I knew straight A students who were all around athletes and in the "cool" crowd.
3. Being a nerd (or smart) doesn't mean you can't be athletic. See #2.
4. High school is a traumatic time for pretty much everyone, not just the smart/nerdy people. And I use "traumatic" lightly, because I realize that high school was not that big of a deal. (I hope everyone else realizes that) It was just another period in my life.
Re:Nerd != Smart (Score:4, Funny)
To all you high-schoolers reading this: use basic grooming standards! (do not use your friends as a standard).
Re:Nerd != Smart (Score:5, Insightful)
The great thing about being a geek/nerd in high school is that you end up being protected from all that. Thankfully the emotional rollercoaster took place for me in my head, and my only real response was to listen to Pinkerton real loud. I could have instead been popular and given the oppurtunity to drink my problems away, to get some random girl pregnant because my chemical addled brain thought I was in love. I could have had the choice to turn a low self esteem compensation into a fatal drunk driving accident instead of just playing the cymbals louder.
I think that nerdiness protected me from myself by keeping me locked in a reletivley pointless and banal experience, that still managed to feel earthshattering at the time. High school is tough. Its is going to be awful for everyone (basically). If you are still in high school I would make your goal to get out alive, don't take things too seriously and try not caring about the popular kids. They are just as stupid as you are. Some of them will end up not growing up and going nowhere. Other might end up actually growing up and being just normal people...or maybe even your friends.
Re:Nerd != Smart (Score:3, Funny)
The lazy version (Score:3, Informative)
1) There is a correlation between being smart and being unpopular.
2) The reason it's hard to be smart AND popular is that being popular takes up mental bandwidth that most smart people would rather use "making great things" (rockets and computers are used as examples). "Few smart kids can spare the attention that popularity requires."
3) The reason "popular" kids persecute "nerds" is that, in general, pushing others down lifts you up and makes you feel better. Also, persecuting nerds is a kind of bonding process for "popular" kids. "...nothing brings people closer than a common enemy".
4) Things are different when you leave high school. In fact "nerds collect in certain places and form their own societies where intelligence is the most important thing." (e.g., university).
That seems to be mainly it. Interesting reading... it matches up with my experience of high school. Certainly the worst time of my life (so far).
grib.
The Nerd Myth (Score:4, Insightful)
Speaking as a former member of the bottom rung of the high school social ladder, here's how things were in my high school:
- The jocks weren't stupid: both of our valedictorians were jocks
- The popular kids weren't all jerks: in fact many of them were popular because they were, gasp, nice people who happened to have mastered the baffling rules of high school social life
- Many of the unpopular kids were jerks: in fact, some of the worst bullies I had the misfortune of knowing were roundly disliked.
- Let's not forget the artsy types: forget the artsy girl in the paint-splattered overalls and square glasses who catches the quarterback's eye. The kids I knew who excelled in the arts also excelled in social life and in other endeavors.
- Mix-n-Match: In fact, there were almost no patterns. There were smart/popular/nice people, stupid/popular/nice people, smart/popular/jerks... pick one from each menu and I could probably remember an example. I'll admit there were a few general rules (I never knew an unpopular football player) but generally it all boiled down to how well you could handle yourself in the tough social situations.
It's all just stereotypes, folks. The many complaints we have here inRe:The Nerd Myth (Score:3, Funny)
On second thought, he was a kicker.
You guys are SO missing the point... (Score:5, Insightful)
Nerds weren't just the smart guys who used computers. They were kids in band (yes, I was) or theater. They were ANYone who liked to learn, and not all of them were "unbathed savages" as one particular must-have-been-a-jock pointed out.
So many people on here are JUST like the adults of today: so EAGER to blame the problem on the victim. How many of you actually understand the point? How many of you went through the hell that is 7th, 8th, and 9th grade? No, the blame OBVIOUSLY must be that smart kids don't bathe. That's it.
News. I bathed, I wasn't particularly socially unsmart, I was actually somewhat big (180 in 9th grade, and that wasn't fat). But I got crap too. Sure, after 7th grade no one had any guts to actually fight me (it helps when you're four inches taller than everyone), but the hierarchy was clear. And I wasn't alone.
So, instead of modern day American society, where it must ALWAYS be the minority person's fault, or the woman's fault, etc., why don't we OWN UP to the problem and try to fix it, rather than shove it under the carpet and pretend it doesn't really happen like so many American adults of today?
Ciao!
one of my few regrets from HS (Score:5, Insightful)
That's it. Not missing out on 'prom night', not missing out on beer and sex and all that (which came in the dozens later). The only thing I look back on and regret are the few times when I snapped and put down people who I felt were even 'lower' than me. God, I hope they are kicking ass out in the real world and I hope they don't give me a second thought.
Re:one of my few regrets from HS (Score:3, Interesting)
1. Not beating the crap out of people who pushed me around
2. Not getting laid more
3. Not skipping more
4. Not taking any programming classes, or even any computer classes (hey, I was gonna be an architect).
5. Going to the shittiest school district in central Texas (Del Valle - may you rot in peace...)
What a bunch of BS... (Score:3, Insightful)
Slashdot and some of its readers seem to enjoy to perpetuate the myth that all athletes and popular people in high school are dumb while the unpopular people are for the most part misunderstood and are getting the short end of the stick.
Being liked isn't tough. For the most part if you just follow three rules you aren't going to be shunned.
1) Personal hygene. If you smell like feet, and your greasy hair doesn't look like it's been washed in days, people aren't going to like you. Shower daily. Wear deodorant. Brush your teeth. Comb your hair. Wear clean clothes.
2) At least try to be social. People don't like people who don't talk or won't look them in the eyes. Smile, say hi to people you may not even know. When you talk to someone look at them.
3) Maybe try to have similar intrests... If you shun everything most people like, you aren't going to have anything at all in common with anyone are you? I'm not saying you have to become a rabid sports fan, or become glued to watching whatever TV shows kids these days watched... But a little effort to have some of the same interests of your peers goes a long way.
These three rules not only work in high school they also work in real life.
Nice salve for your conscience (Score:3, Insightful)
I had good hygene, the bullies didn't seem to care. I was a little smaller than average until midway through Jr. High, at which point the physical bullying tapered off and the emotional harassment started up.
2) At least try to be social. People don't like people who don't talk or won't look them in the eyes. Smile, say hi to people you may not even know. When you talk to someone look at them.
I tried that at first, and it worked in elementary school, i had friends and stuff. Then i got into Jr. High. One of my friends "became" popular and started bullying me, maybe to prove his allegience to his new friends, i don't really know. Other's picked on me too to a greater or lesser degree. Do you know what a fairly normal reaction to that is? To _hide_! If talking to someone will get you teased and bullied, then you tend not to speak up. You stay quiet, stay in the corner, try not to attract anyone's attention.
3) Maybe try to have similar intrests... If you shun everything most people like, you aren't going to have anything at all in common with anyone are you? I'm not saying you have to become a rabid sports fan, or become glued to watching whatever TV shows kids these days watched... But a little effort to have some of the same interests of your peers goes a long way.
Some of the people i had similar interests in turned on my and became bullies. By the time i found other people with similar interests, too much damage had been done to my socialness. When i found a group of people who had the same interests as me but didn't seem to get bullied (they were a Trench Coat Mafia type group) i desperatly wanted to belong, but it didn't seem to work. I was _already_ interested in the same things as them, anime, RPGs, computers, computer games. And we got along okay when we were together in class. However after school they would go off on their own and i wasn't invited. I hoped that if i showed enough obvious interest in their activites, that they would notice, decide i was worthy, and invite me to join them. However by that point years of hiding had destroyed almost any ability to try and actively ask them if i could participate, and i never worked up the courage.
Part of what makes the misfits unpopular is stuff they do, but part of it is how others treat them, and social preconceptions in place before they entered the picture, and part of it is psychological damage done to them by previous bullies.
I was rejected by the nerds, how sad is that?
It's a lot simpler than that. (Score:5, Insightful)
I suspect that if you took about 1,000 random adults, and forced them into a program where they have to spend 7 hours a day in the same building, doing the same activities with each other, for four years straight, that even among the "mature" adult population you'd see bullying problems resurface. And NO I'm not talking about working in an office or a factory, because that's not a random sampling of adults.
OH MY GOD (Score:3, Insightful)
I saw the article on another site, metafilter, I think. and I thought it was idiotic. Basically a winy "People didn't like me because I wasn't smart." rant, with absolutely no scientific grounding whatsoever.
Really, it's just excuse making. "nerds" don't want to believe they aren't popular because they lack social skills, but because they are feared for their intelligence.
It's just not true, there are smart people who are social, and *ghasp* there are smart people who play sports, believe it or not. There were also outcasts who were idiots.
I have a simple rule that applies to just about any kind of argument, especially sociological things like this. Show me real data, or shut the fuck up. An anecdote from a biased, self-serving viewpoint is not data.
personal experiences (Score:3, Insightful)
I agree that we shouldn't be so self-centered as to think we are the smart ones and be so quick to classify people as intelligent and dumb. I should know as to a certain degree I used to think that way back in high school but while not everyone who is "smart" is bound to be a nerd and unpopular, I do think that Paul Graham's observations do have some value.
I was unpopular back in high school, a nerd (still am I guess, but definitely not the same kind of nerd). I can think of at least one reason for it.
I didn't really care about what I looked like. I had many interests and used to think it was not important. I just wore what I had and didn't go into shopping sprees to find cool clothes. Nerds usually have glasses too, I don't think it's because they've looked at the screen too much. They just don't look good and that is not good for popularity. Only later did I start to realize that I needed to dress well in order to gain more acceptance but it was too late then. Many nerds and other individuals concerned with everything else but how they look also do this in their adolescence too, of course. But as Graham points out, it isn't really a problem anymore. My father was one of those people, however, and my lack of interest possibly was partly due to him as well.
I've decided that I will try to dress my children better and educate them about it when they reach that part of their life. Probably not the most important thing on your checklist for raising children but something I'd like to get right for my offspring.
Mentoring? (Score:3, Insightful)
It seems to me that what we really need is some sort of nerd mentoring. I'm in college right now, and it'd be ideal for me to go out and find a middle school kid who fits the nerd profile and help them learn to program. That self-confidence that is born from knowing you have valuable life skills is something that any preteen could use.
Nerds need to reroll their character (Score:3, Funny)
Hell, I went to art school and we even had nerds (Score:3, Interesting)
But even better:
I don't think this point can be underemphasized. We think nothing of having a free *intern* in the office. Why couldn't a fourteen-year-old come into the office and hang around and ask questions? In some companies, it would be totally looked down upon. Frankly, in mine, I would consider it to be a boon to a parent's productivity -- and make them feel much better when they can tell the little jerk to go make copies.
I just generally agree with Mr. Graham's views that our education system is generally like a prison system. Kids need to be out in the world exploring. The two main reasons I got through high school unscathed was because I was surrounded by beautiful countryside to play around in and when I went off to art school, I went to a place where my talents were appreciated for what they were. Everyone in my high school had a fairly mutual respect for one another and I think that stemmed from the faculty repeatedly telling us that we were special. Most of my friends thought that the computer skills I had inherited from my nerd Dad were "totally awesome. You know about this internet stuff?" It was practically science fiction to some of them.
I guess I'm just trying to say here that I was really blessed in my experience and I wish all kids could have that. There is something wrong with the system and we all need to focus on that. Really I think that what Paul Graham is saying, what it boils down to, is that children are the only reason society exists.
________________________________________
There is not even an honest need for school (Score:4, Insightful)
but:
- if there weren't a minimum wage law making low-employables merely unemployable
- if there weren't age related employment bans and/or social-services snooping
- if there weren't irreducible minimum red tape and tax burden making every employee cost, even if they are a volunteer
- if young people were not forced en masse into "education" whether they were willing to learn or not
...then would teenagers still be useless? All these things were not present so recently as the earlier half of the 20th century, and there was no "teenaged hormone madness" back then.
How many jobs REALLY NEED a college degree to actually DO the job? (Rather than merely as a "is more intelligent than a goldfish" checklist item, to winnow the resume pile.) How many of those could not be instead learned apprentice-style, working up from office coffee-maker and gofer?
Not vastly many. As demonstrated by the fact that many college dropouts go on to become successful earners, once they've conned their way into their first job.
Truly, school is not merely a prison, but the very need for it to be there in the first place is a socially (and governmentally) constructed fiction.
Oh, and as to the badness of letting teenagers run around at liberty: observe the ruin and havoc created by homeschoolers. (What, there isn't any? How surprising.)
Re:Laughing Last (Score:5, Insightful)
And this would be a great example of why people think geeks are a bunch of elitist assholes.
--saint
Ummmm no... (Score:5, Interesting)
the market is FIERCE now with out of work software engineers.. What makes you think your odds are so good Mr. No-Professional-Experience?
I sadly think you're in for a rude awakening once you hit the market.
Re:Laughing Last (Score:5, Funny)
Het, when I get out of college, odds are there will be jobs of 50k and up just waiting for me
Looks like you'll be doing Graduate level work at Hard Knocks U.
Re:Not as Smart as You Think You Are (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the problem is that "smart" the way it is mostly defined is "booksmart" and that is nothing that really just happens, anybody can be booksmart if they just put their mind to it.
I guess the big problem still is that people never really defined intelligence in the first place and this "The more intelligent people like us" makes me wanna puke mainly because this elitist thinking is why people do despise us as well, heck who wants to feel dumb? No one, and who wants to feel weak? Exactly no one again.
A little bit less telling yourself how great you are and a bit more admitting that even YOU are not perfect (despite your high IQ) would go a long way I would guess.
Of course that's all academic my HS time was hell as well.
Re:Jealousy (Score:5, Interesting)
A few weeks ago, I went to a new-year's party with my wife. One of her cooworkers happend to be married to one of those indviduals. I recognized him immediately and had to stifle thoughts of beating him senseless.
We got to chatting. He 'knew' me from somewhere but couldn't place me. I eventually led him around to where he remembered me. Then he asked what I did for a living. I'm a computer professional for a large financial company with my title on a placard. I explained the nature of my company's business and exactly what my job responsibilities were.
He cut glass for a living.
I smiled, and laughed. I told him that sounded like interesting work.
What do you do for fun? he asked me. I write, draw, paint [furinkan.net] and play the occaisional computer game. Geeky stuff. Nerdy stuff.
He coached a YMCA football team. He couldn't play football anymore himself since he tore a tendon his last year of high school.
"You must really like kids," I said.
"Not really."
It was petty and cruel, but I grinned like a jackal the rest of the evening. Payback is best served 10 years later.
Re:Jealousy (Score:3, Insightful)
However, where I had problems with was the medium to lower popularity people: Stoners, general malcontents, etc. I had a great time in my higher level classes that were populated with more intelligent popular people, but I had a more difficult time in other classes such as PE, which had more medium to low popularity people. I was made fun of quite a bit and such in PE especially, despite the fact that I was actually pretty athletic.
In my school, there was very little derision among the popular. Popular people felt safe and secure with their social standing. The less popular, less mature people constantly had to try to bring others down to try to claw their way up.
Re:Jealousy (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Jealousy (Score:3, Insightful)
Conspiracy theory - why it happens (Score:3, Insightful)
Why does it continue? The purpose of TV shows (and, to a lesser extent, movies) is to sell products via commercials & placement. It's far easier to advertise (and lie) to an audience of idiots than scientists. The corporations would prefer it if you'd remain stupid, and the government doesn't mind much either (do you think it's easier to supervise a pen full of sheep or chimpanzees?). Stupid people are easier to govern and sell to, and that's why being smart is so often shown as something undesirable.
Don't believe it? Look where the ads for psychic hotlines, ambulance chasers, check-cashing places, etc. are found on TV - right up against idiot magnets like Jerry Springer. Watch the Discovery channel & see how many ads like that appear.
Re:What ??? Impopular, me ???? No way.... linux ro (Score:5, Insightful)
Just do yourself a favor, and talk to a counsellor (or "shrink" if you want to call it that) about your experiences in high school. That way, it won't bother you, and the bullies will have truly lost.
Re:What ??? Impopular, me ???? No way.... linux ro (Score:3, Insightful)
Or, they could be making double what you do, and working a quarter of the hours because they went into management.
Re:What ??? Impopular, me ???? No way.... linux ro (Score:3, Insightful)
From the article:
There are many questionable conclusions drawn in the essay, but I find this one to be the most questionable. I believe that most tech-geeks that are working for some of the very largest techno companies/corps would tell you that the Peter Principle is very shockingly real. This isn't necessarily a bad thing for geeks working in non-tech firms (I imagine their geekiness is probably great job security) but when the revenues of a company directly relate to technology and innovation...the results can be devastating. (I mean, look at the tech sector in the US today. *shrug*)
--K.
Re:What ??? Impopular, me ???? No way.... linux ro (Score:4, Insightful)
Your self-delusion and arrogance are what cause people to beat up on you.
it's their fault for not being as smart as me - in a way I felt sorry for them;
I hope people continue beating you up for being such a prick.
It's not us nerds who have the problem - we use Linux because it's better.
Oh? You speak for all nerds. Right... I use FreeBSD, and I'm a nerd. I have never been beat up at school, because I'm not an arrogant asshole like you. I do have a girlfriend, and guess what? I didn't meet her at a LUG, she isn't even into computers. Maybe because I don't make my whole life revolve around my computer. There's nothing wrong with having a desire to learn about computers, but the second you start saying "I feel sorry for others who aren't as smart as me", you have ventured into what psychologists call "state of mind", which is the disconnect from reality that most geeks sadly live in.
Get in touch with reality, linux is not the end-all be-all of operating systems. It does some things well, some things poorly. The same is true for all operating systems. I know I'm coming off as a troll, but seriously. Read this through and think about it. No one likes an arrogant asshole.
I've never done this but... (Score:3, Insightful)
...please MOD this parent up.
Being smart doesn't make you unpopular in school. I knew plenty of popular smart kids in high school. What makes you unpopular is not wearing the in-clothes, looking akward or having no social skills. It's about being obsessed with computers or Star Trek. It has nothing to do with intelligence.
"Nerds" like to make themselves feel better by telling themselves that they are just smarter than everyone else and that's why they can't get a girl or everyone hates them. You know what? Get over yourself.
Re:I've never done this but... (Score:3, Insightful)
That really depends on what school you go to, what type of town/city you live in. Bravo for you that you seem to have been lucky and come from one of the good ones. But don't assume all schools are like the one you went to.
Some schools have a higher average of smart kids, and somehow managed to infuse the philosophy that being smart is a good thing. Other schools completely tank at this, even today.
Nerds picked on ME (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Well, where to begin (Score:5, Insightful)
The real geeks were not the extremely bright, but rather the extremely akward. The punk rockers, the goth kids, the vampires (who were usually also homosexual), the over-excited white guy that acted black but had no black friends, the "only thing I'm good at is sports" guy, the group of fat girls that tried to dress provactively, the surfer wannabes, the skater wannabes, et cetera. Most of the geeks weren't very bright at all, and certaingly weren't elitist.
Re:Well, where to begin (Score:3, Funny)
I don't quite agree: the school DOES matter (Score:5, Interesting)
I think his point in the article was pretty accurate.
Summary for those who haven't read it: American public schools tend to be little more than prisons, with large classes and indifferent teachers, where the kids are more or less left alone to create their own sub-societies (with all the "Lord of the Flies" cruelty that ensues). The nerdy types aren't totally expending their efforts on popularity (unlike most others), so they end up on the bottom of the heap.
This describes the public junior high school I went to perfectly. Education was really a joke there; the main thing was to keep us little darlings under lock and key for some hours while our parents worked, and if we learned something, so much the better (if we didn't, oh well). I got pretty badly picked on, partly for nerdiness (I was taking college-level math at the time) and partly for just being very different (I had just moved from rural Virginia to urban Minnesota).
Before my 9th grade year, I toured the public high school that I was supposed to go to, and immediately my radar told me that I would probably not make it out of that place alive (or at least with all my bones intact). Football stuff everywhere, with glassy-eyed teachers who really didn't give a damn. The other school I could have gone to had just become the first in Minnesota with metal detectors and had a rep for open gang warfare.
I begged my parents to pay for a private school. Somehow, they scraped the money together through loands and so on. (Thank God for my parents.) The first I went to, a boarding school near my parents' home, was a disaster (buncha spoiled rich kids whose parents had dumped them there and never visited them -- Lord of the Flies, Mercedes Edition).
The next year I went to a small, recently founded K-12 private school, where my class was all of 25 students, and where the teachers were all basically rebels from another private school who where determined to make a better school. The kinds of things described in the article just didn't happen there -- the teachers actually gave a sh*t about us, and we didn't feel like we were in some kind of penal colony.
A lot of the reason the school was better was the small class size (harder to have a crushing pyramid hierarchy when you've only got a small number of students) and the teachers actually got involved like *teachers* and not *wardens*.
Another reason is we didn't have jocks. We didn't have a football team, though we did have soccer. And the school's pride and joy was its Quiz Bowl team (hey! I was on it! State Champs in 1989!). Those who had high SAT, PSAT and ACH scores were also publicly praised by the school director (who, by the way, spent lunchtime serving the students corn so he could personally chat with each and every one). So knowledge and nerdiness was actually rewarded, and there was actually positive contact between staff and students.
Sadly, since then the school has grown dramatically (their reputation spread like wildfire, and soon they had huge demand for the school), and the director retired, so I tend to wonder if it has fallen to the same problems as other large schools. But it can be done -- a school in America where nerds are actually valued. I just am very grateful my parents scraped together the money for the place -- otherwise I probably would have spent more time in lockers than in classrooms...
The school, by the way, was Mounds Park Academy [moundsparkacademy.org], if anyone's interested.
At any rate, even though I tend to be leftish politically, I think the above is a pretty good argument for school vouchers. The public school system in America is so screwed that the only solution is to nuke it flat with vouchers, and let the parents and students sort it out through the market.
Cheers,
Ethelred [grantham.de]
Re:People like to be ignorant (Score:5, Insightful)
People like knowing things. They love aqcuiring new knowledge, and learning about things. I've explained many things to 'bev' from accounting, and she understands them ok as long as I explain in terms she can understand. If you tell her "Your TCP/IP protocol couldn't interface with the samba server, But I found out that you mis-configured your network settings, so I set up DHCP to connect to the correct DNS server and now everything works ok". Of course she's gonna gloss over.
Everyone has their area of expertise. I'm sure bev could go off about the Financial reports and tax law so fast I would be flat on my ass, but she still takes the time to slowly explain things to me so I can understand them. Do the same for them. You'd be surprised. Just because we have knowledge 3 levels above someone, doesn't mean we have to speak to them 3 levels above their understanding.
sheesh
Re:Ill tell you. (Score:5, Interesting)
It's a hard concept to communicate, too - that you don't want to be popular, because you don't see "popularity" as anything worth having.
I was a nerd/geek at the "D" table. My most fucked-up high school memory was when a girl from the "C" table who demonstrated she was deliberately faking wrong answers on the tests to lower her grades, lest she end up at the "D" table) confided suicidal thoughts to me.
As I recall, my response (what the fuck, any statute of limitations has long since past, it was long ago that it probably was legally OK for students to just deal with shit like this amongst themselves, and hey, I was a minor and therefore too dumb to know what I was doing :) was something like this:
I have no idea what happened to her; other than that she kept her end of the bargain. I didn't know her that well to begin with and we never really spoke after that; all I know is that she didn't off herself in the remaining four years of high school and graduated with "B+" grades just sufficient to get her into university, though she was probably capable of "A"s.
On my darker days, I like to think I did something good. It's reasonable to presume that if she survived high school, she survived university, and found her way to cubicle-bound conformity along with the rest of us.
On my lighter days, I reflect back on the "better" part of the rant and realize that that going to university is a wonderful cure for nerd megalomania. Nothing like sitting in a room with 130 people and being told "Most of you were A+ students in high school. That ends here. You're still just as smart as you were six months ago, but you're in a room of people, all of whom who are also just as smart as you were six months ago, or they wouldn't be here." in your first Calculus class, and then having the prof prove it to (all of) you, over and over and over and over again :)
Re:Ill tell you. (Score:5, Insightful)
This has always been far too common in young girls - it is un-cool to be smart/look smart/act smart. Schools have struggled with this for years, and have improved greatly in some areas like more sports for girls, and special programs to get them involved in technology. Unfortunately a lot of parents still don't get it though, and the trend for the most part continues.
I don't care who likes me and who doesn't.
It seems everybody says that in high school. But as much as the need to talk themselves out of caring what others think, deep down they always do. It's possible your family support was much greater than hers. All too often, the parents again, it is not too important that the girl gets educated properly, hey she's just going to marry someone who is.
If being what they are means being like them, I wanna be as much unlike them as I can be.
Good for you, to think that way in high school. I myself tried, but I think I was 25 before I actually got it.. On a side note, I raised a daughter, and watched her tank through high school, even though I knew better. But I spent a lot of time reminding her of her strengths, and that she would leave all of these so-called friends in the dust. It does help - the family support. She is all A's now, and very career driven. She is indeed, leaving her friends in the dust.
I like to think I did something good.
I'm thinking you did something very good. If only every high school girl - and boy for that matter - could be given that lecture by a peer - there would be a lot less confused teenagers mulling about.
Re:Ill tell you. (Score:4, Interesting)
I was a geek, I spent from 2:30pm until 12am on my computer doing stupid shit everyday. I was in the honors classes because the standard classes were too easy, however I never did my homework because of the computer and my grades suffered. In high school I wrote various Windows programs, became a consultant for a reputable web hosting company, and had more friends than my older sister had when she was in HS. She was head of the cheerleading squad, student body president, all AP courses girl that everyone wanted to get with. I never used the 'I am her brother' method to gain popularity.
The fact that I was a geek was what made me popular in my school. Freshman year, yea I used to get teased (but held my own if anyone tried to bully me). Sophomore year I bought a blazing fast 2x CD burner right after we got our trial cable modem (I was able to pull 10mbit with that thing.. those were the days) and proceeded to hit IRC for the latest music albums. I figured I didn't get to go to the mall often enough to buy music so I'd download the CD off of IRC and make my own cover using cdnow.com's cd cover and various artist images on the internet. The next day I walked in with Mase's new cd a day before it was supposed to come out. Everyone was shocked when I said I made the cd myself. For my sophomore and junior year of high school I sold bootleg cds to e-v-e-r-y-o-n-e.. even my principal. When Nas came out with I Am, I had a bookbag full of 40 bootlegged copies and sold them all in one day... in essence I bought my friends.
Senior year I realized how stupid it was to steal music (I was the only kid in my school that argued against napster) and used my free time to write games and programs. I didn't expect to really talk to many people that year, but everyone still hung out and partied with me. Everyone, including the high class snobs and thugged out football players told me that they expect me to do something or be somewhere big after college.
The day I left high school will probably be the saddest day of my life because so many people liked me for who I was. A geek.
-dk
Re:Ill tell you. (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, I dont know if i agree that you get stronger by being hurt. I think it damages you, and weakens you while making you appear stronger. By being numb it weakens you in other ways which you wont understand until you grow older, by numb i'm saying emotionally numb.
"flattener"—no (Score:3, Interesting)
The university is not a flattener of hierarchy, it's a decisive, irrevocable split, the beginning of a lifelong segregation. A "top" and a "bottom" are sheared off, left aside forever.
The bottom--I use the hierarchical terms loosely here, just for illustration--is an "underclass" of people who can't continue their educations for reasons of economic or other deprivation, or infirmity, or youthful error, or simple misfortune. They just aren't there to be disdained anymore. If they were around, they would be.
The top is the rough equivalent of the "nerds" and "stoners" of the linked article, people whose lives simply take a different course because their skills and talents lie outside the set "professional"--like certain kinds of artists or technicians, who have their own, separate schools, or simply mavericks who strike their own paths outside the hierarchy--and/or who view college as merely a continuation of secondary school's horrors, but populated wholly by the priveleged (the "popular" and "nerds" of the article).
The members of your group no longer interact personally with the members of either of these groups, so, in your minds, they don't exist. Sometimes, they deliver you a pizza or make a movie or record you like, but they're essentially non-persons to you...
...judging by the blithe sanctimony your comment, that is.
Re:Ill tell you. (Score:4, Insightful)
What point has life without friendship and social relations? I know I won't give a flying fuck about all the software I've written when I'm sixty and retired - or when I'm 85 and dead!
I would much rather be out on the town partying with friends than sitting in a darkened room figuring out why libDV is miscompiling - don't you people understand? When you are gone, none of this will matter, and the best you can hope for is that you will have left some happy memories for those that survive you.
Please, for your own sake, try and enjoy your lives before they are over, and before the best years of your lives fly past. Of course, if you do prefer debugging programs to the stuff people do together in the flesh, the laughter and socialising and romance, then go for it. It's not for me, or anyone else to tell you otherwise.
But don't refuse to see the value of popularity, and never think it's beyond your grasp - I would say that 90% of 'nerds' could become paragons of friendliness and popularity if they just came out of their shells! Don't change your clothes, don't take up a sport, don't join a gang, just be yourself, smile at people and learn to listen!
I will stop ranting here, but I should point out that the essential lack of intrinsic value in most computing work these days outside of the research and some OSS community projects is what has lent me to switching from an IT career to a teaching one ( including teaching IT at university ). Computing is just a means to a result. Don't forget that.
Just some thoughts.
Re:Ill tell you. (Score:5, Interesting)
The other kind of popular is what you get in high school, which is exemplified by the other 5-rated comment in this thread. The one where social interaction is turned into some sort of twisted game whose players value "winning" higher than their self-esteem, their health, and their future. That is what geeks refuse to be part of, and I don't blame them at all.
It does hurt. (Score:4, Insightful)
When I was popular, I had people wanting to kick my ass, people who were jealous of me and I didnt even know who they are, I had rumors being spread about me for no reason, I had people talking behind my back constantly. Whats the point of all this political bullshit?
The more popular you become the harder it is to determine who your friends are.
There is no correspondence between intelligence and social ineptitude. I've known as many popular smart people as I've known unpopular smart people. Infact, most of the unpopular smart people I knew scored lower on their SAT than the popular. I realize that this is a rough estimate and that SAT scores do not directly relate to intelligence; perhaps it was just coincidence, but still an interesting statistic, none the less.
I judge intelligence not just by how well you do on tests in school, but how you live your life. If you are getting into trouble, and you are doing stupid things outside the classroom I dont give a damn if you get all As, you are stupid. IF you are doing good in life, if you dont get all As so what? You make up for it by how you live.
Alot of smart people are smart but dont know how to be social, thats because they focused too much on academics, then you have people who dont focus on academics enough, but most people focus on neither, they do a half assed job at academics and at living, these are your average people in school, you know the popular ones.
Its easy to be popular, just try to be as average as possible, but have a unique sense of humor. Dress like everyone else, act like everyone else, be stupid like everyone else, and dont have a personality, instead change your personality based on who you are around, be a nerd with the nerds, be a thug with the thugs, be an athelete with the atheletes, this is how you become popular.
But being popular only makes you hated, everyone knows you, including ignorant people who may get jealous of you, this is the downside to being popular, the other downside is no one in any of these groups actually knows you and none of them gives a damn about you, you are just a person who walks around from group to group talking to different people every day, you have no real friends.
This sucks because when you are upset, sad, or need someone to talk to about personal stuff no one is there for you, none of them will want to hear what you have to say, in fact they will most likely share it with the world if you do tell them just so they can get a laugh.
Re: Obligatory Simpsons reference (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Pfft (Score:4, Funny)
Ah yes, the Star Wars nerd heh. I'm impressed he could make a 'figurine' sized scuplture of anybody with kneadable eraser. It's very hard to scuplt with that stuff, it's not like clay.
My class had the little brother nerd. When I was a senior, one of my classmates had a little brother that was a freshmen. He was this wirey little guy with glasses. We rode the same bus to school. I remember that because one day he pissed off somebody on the bus. I didn't catch what happend, other than they cornered him after getting to school.
I should probably explain here that I went to a college-prep magnet school. It was invite only. Fighting was instant expulsion, and you were sent to a public school. Nobody wanted any part of that. That probably saved him from getting beaten.
I was a friend of this little dude's sister, so I followed the group to make sure he was okay. I knew they weren't going to thump him, but I wanted to make sure nothing real serious happened. Unfortunately, this kid wasn't very bright. Whatever it was they were mad about, he was stupid enough to argue with them about it instead of just apologizing and moving on. (he wasn't protesting his innocence, just his right to do whatever he did or some bs) He actually got them riled up enough that the leader yanked his glasses right off his face and started to twist them. The expression on that guy's face after he bent the glasses was priceless.
It wasn't long before this incident that Lens Crafters was running a special on a type of glasses made from 'memory metal' that would spring back into place after being bent. Heh this kid was one of the first to have that! So when they twisted his glasses they sprang right back into shape! Oh man, that was so funny to watch, the look on this guy's face when the glasses just sprung right back. There were people in the group, mad at him, that found that funny. (Most of them wore glasses..) I believe that actually defused the situation. A conversation was sparked about what kind of glasses those were, and the group dispersed.
Damn that kid was lucky.
Re:It happens for more reasons than just nerdiness (Score:4, Insightful)
Most of the time, when i was under 5 foot tall thru my freshman year of HS, but even worse in Jr High (7-8th grades) i was mercilessly picked on.
The most typical things for the normal kids to do to me - the kid in the highest math and science clases - as well as in the band were...
-pushing me into the uniral while using it.. and i don't mean a shove on the shoulder - i mean pushed in full force as i pissed on myself with my feet off the ground
-throwing wet toilet paper (dirty, sometimes) at me when using the urinal
-flattening my tires on my bike
-stealing my bike and putting it in a tree or on top of a storage shed
-p.e., as you can imagine, was the best. generally pushing me into trees, down hills (lot oa hills on the runs) and i would have to do my best to outrun the jocks when we'd do the long runs in the "hidden" areas - where the teacher couldn't see us from where he was.
but the most common were name calling and slapping me on the back of the head... all
teachers didn't care. Even when i finally got permission to keep my bike in the school's office, they still didn't listen when i told them.
In high school, it wasn't AS bad... but it was still there, but that was mostly because i holed up in the band room every minute i wasn't in class.... that really helped a lot.
but there were the times that big guys would come to band practice on the field, waiting for a break and the teacher gone... i had to hit one guy once with my trumpet to get him away from me.
but i can honestly say that i OFTEN thought about shooting the bullies. I wanted to, but didn't, because i knew i'd be in trouble. I spent a lot of time daydreaming in easy classes about it, though.
Like t0quer, i am now married to a wondeful woman, who's not only hot, but very athletic (but 5'2"... so she never got too far in sports seriously) and really wonderful.
i no longer dream of shooting them... i do wish that there was a way i could help these kids out tho, today... i'm concidering setting up a free service for kids like this to give them hidden cameras, hidden mikes... and then setting them up with lawyers to sue the fucking losers that do this to kids like i was... and have the proof...
if you weren't one of these kids - you have no fscking idea what its like to be one.. the daily mental. but oftentimes, the constant physical beatings or abuse (almost never enough to cause serious injury, unfortunately) is something to really behold.
I also feel for and i really really do understand and don't blame kids like Kip Kinkle... that shot the kids that were constantly harassing him, both physically and mentally. I don't blame him even a little because i can see his life.. i lived it...
no one helps you
no one believes you
everyone gives you fucking useless advice like "just ignore them" or "just avoid them"
if that's all the help you give a kid like this - then no shit - of COURSE he's going to go around shooting his bullies! He SHOULD! He has no other recourse.
if you've ever told a kid this about a bully - you're part of the fucking problem... because YOU didn't help... these kids don't need advice.. they need to know that they aren't going to get their asses kicked at school by the inbred loser kids tomorrow. They need to know that school isn't just where they get beat up every day.
If you're an adult - you have to DO... ACT... PERFORM MECHANICAL action to fix the hell that this little geek is living in.
i do know that my life duing those 4-5 years really did shape me.. i joined the military because i wanted to help people that couldn't help themselves, even though i'm not big enough to do it as a soldier - i did it as a nerd (engineer on classified space programs).
Now, i'm hoping to help kids like me.. by actually helping them. Today... where they are now.
don't EVER take lightly what a small kid tells you about what's going on in school. You really really don't understand unless you've been one.
No, no, 1000 times no! (Score:3, Insightful)
http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Towers/9151/educate .html [geocities.com]
There have been articles on this in Japanese newspapers [japantimes.co.jp], the prime minister even hamfistedly addressed the issue. Everything I've ever read about Japanese schools makes me tend to believe they are real hellholes, worse than American schools. (Well, not the worst of American schools.) There is even a dystopian movie about them called Battle Royale [teleport-city.com]