Paul Graham essay "Why Nerds are Unpopular"

[jennypenny]

I can't believe I'm going to disagree with Plato . Maybe not disagree, but I don't think the statement captures the whole truth. I agree that being pulled upward is a much better feeling than being pulled downward. For a person of average intelligence, I think the statement applies. We weren't comparing average and intelligent though, but people significantly below average. I find it hard to see their lives as filled with opportunities to walk towards the light. At that level, they are more likely walking to an unfulfilling job. Theirs is a life I would never envy.

Regarding elitism, well that's harder. It's not elitist to be sure of oneself and one's abilities. Communicating that (with a touch of tact) is never wrong. I don't think it's arrogant or elitist to be correct when you're an intellectual any more than I think it's arrogant or elitist to be first if you're an athlete. I don't subscribe to the current trend of everyone-gets-a-trophy.

Ranking emotions (like sadness) is tough though. Is it really more sad for the person with lost potential? I would say tragic, not sad. It sounds elitist to me to see your own feelings as more significant.
I also think being an introverted genius is a much different experience than being an extroverted genius. A genius who is also introverted might become so inwardly-focused that they become socially inept or lose touch with reality completely (Howard Hughes?). The extroverted genius will have constant personal interaction to keep them grounded and outwardly-focused (Bill Clinton comes to mind).

side note on coping skills: There are now group therapy sessions for smart kids who struggle with social skills. Sometimes they have structured lessons. One was on how to answer questions and participate in discussions about TV (assuming these kids didn't watch TV). It was suggested that the kids pick at least one show to watch weekly so they'd have something to say. They also meet to go bowling or do other activities where they learn to interact with strangers. I was very dubious of the whole thing when we started--one of the stated goals is to teach them how to appear normal--but it's made a world of difference for my son. He's developed a repertoire of answers to most social questions and he's learned (in his words) to "turn my brain off when I'm trying to have fun."

[Dragline]

Well, Plato is nothing if not elitist. Much of the premise of The Republic is designing the perfect city-state to be ruled by the perfectly selected elites (philosophers, of course).
I sometimes ponder why so many philosophers spend so much time designing perfect societies. Everyone wants to be Plato I guess. Yet most of them seem to require some kind of tyrannical force to implement, which kind of defeats the purpose in most cases.

[Maus]

It is difficult to generalize the emotional states of classes of people (IQ cohorts) from the experiences of particular individuals. On the one hand, we are probably hardwired to have some affective response to external stimuli. So we act on the assumption that others react similarly under similar circumstances. But this hardwiring is so subject to an individual's intellectual re-framing that it ends up like the nature versus nurture debate for a host of other human traits. I would be very leery of thinking that what makes me sad or frustrated makes someone 4 or 3 or 2 standard deviations below me in intelligence react similarly.
Having said that, I am reminded of Henri Nouwen, a priest who was instramental in the early history of L'Arch, an organization devoted to creating homes where volunteers lived with profoundly disable people. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L'Arche
Nouwen observed that almost without exception, those with severe mental disabilities -- provided that their material needs were met -- exhibited a very happy, trusting, joyful and optimistic attitude. He opined that the volunteers, perhaps initially motivated by pity or altruism, frequently remained committed to L'Arche because of the simple joy reflected by their disabled housemates.
So, in some ways, without meaning to be trite, ignorance is bliss.

[sshawnn]

@ dragline. this? http://earlyretirementextreme.com/wiki/ ... e=ERE_City

[diracwinsagain]

Let me preface by saying that this is easily the most offensive thing that I've ever put on the internet, so my apologies in advance. Second, the delay on getting registered is fairly significant. If you consider yourself easily offended--Actually if you consider yourself able to be offended in any way at all ever-- please skip the following.
I'll start off by explaining a little bit about who I am before I start ranting. I was/am a nerd. In high school that would have definitely described me at table D (or E?). I'm a smart fellow, for the purposes of this discussion I'm fairly certain that my IQ falls in the 130-150 range. I'm very nearly certain that its 99th percentile. I really have enjoyed ERE. I don't like this sort of holier-than-though attitude that seems to be pervasive.
Nerds aren't social outcasts because we're smart. Nerds are social outcasts because they lack social skills. The importance of nature here seems to me to be extraordinarily exaggerated. Just as people don't bench press their body weight because they were born naturally strong, the apparent lack of effort (in most cases) probably comes from a very significant amount of time spent focusing on it. This probably supports Graham's conclusion. That being said I'm not happy with the very common dismissal of social skills as somehow being less important. As Graham further points out in his article, among the sciences lack of social skills is somehow seen as a badge of honor. This is not too dissimilar to lack of math skills being adding to social currency. The problem is it seems to me that the former is very present among natural scientists and the latter is largely made up by nerds in high school. I'd bet dollars to donuts that the vast majority of kids in high school would be ashamed of doing poorly on a math test. Some goofballs would no doubt try to make light of their own feelings, the concept that this adds to social currency in the typical high school is probably largely fabricated (from that small subset of goofballs) by nerds as an excuse for why we don't fit in (and also to use it as an excuse to feel smugly superior). "I'm just too good at math to be well liked" Queue eye-roll.

Sometimes we take ourselves into absurd twists to explain why nobody likes us without actually having to take responsibility for the fact that there are skills we don't have that need to be developed. I think the Hollingworth gap is probably a good example. A quick Google search reveals no reference of the gap (except as referenced here). A brief review of Hollingworth's studies does turn up that she thought that people with very high IQ's would have trouble leading. Additionally though I dug up this little gem: "Myths that exceptional children were ... eccentric were dismissed by the findings as well." (From the Wikipedia article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leta_Stetter_Hollingworth). IQ being such a unreliable tool (Anecdote: IQ tests I've taken within a couple years of each other have varied by 20 points, though maybe the standard deviation they were scaled to was just different), and given that the experimentation had a very small sample size (12), and partially consisted of showing that the educational system in 1926 was poor for gifted children, I think that such a finding is unreliable at best and hardly due the weight it gets credited here. More likely any trouble talking to people comes from poor/underdeveloped social skills.

The amount of elitism here about the so called "normal" people is shameful. The Plato quote put into this context (given, maybe that was the original context) takes the cake for me. This is also part of the reason why I think that many respondents to the essay claimed that arrogance was a reason for why nerds were social outcasts. Maybe the football players were arrogant, but they were arrogant because they were good at a sport. The vast majority of people are comfortable with being worse than someone else at football. Our society values intellegence above almost everything else (I think a product of the enlightenment). You may doubt it but it is so steeped in the pop-culture. How many movies can you think of with misunderstood genius protagonists? Intelligence is a universally praised quality. Interestingly almost everyone considers their own intelligence to be above average. This is why people think nerds are arrogant because I can't think of another group that says "normal" the same way most people say "idiot". Also BIG F***ING RED FLAG if your first thought here was: "Well compared to me they are idiots." (Hint: this is why people don't like you.)

I don't know why this elitism seems to be so concentrated in the natural sciences. My guess is that, to paraphrase Robert Jordan (BS in Physics, who'da thunk): You cannot tell a man he's unlocking the secrets of the universe, then expect him to walk small. Too many scientists (I count myself in this category) have decided that they're work is so important that they don't need to bother being able to explain their ideas properly, let alone have a regular conversation with, god forbid, a "normal" person. This attitude that social skills are somehow beneath us is, I think, one of the most damaging to the sciences.
@EGO: First, apt name. Second, suggesting that evolution weeds out high IQ smart people because they're too rational is a complete conjecture and if it were true probably would have stifled its development in the first place. Furthermore complaining that being too smart is "suffering" and is worse than being mentally retarded in some fashion displays a shocking level lack of empathy. I think this <link>comic</link> more aptly describes what I feel my response ought to be. As a twist of the last line I think the appropriate delivery here is: "New theory stupid people are popular with each other, because the alternative is listening to you"
@JACOB: See the linked comic. As a further note on ERE. Comparing it to the red-pill blue-pill thing is exactly the sort of attitude I'm talking about. ERE is a great idea, and it works for me. Its holistic and that's great. But, acting like people are in Plato's cave or the matrix because they like some of the nice things that you or I don't is just f**king rude. It has nothing to do with being to smart and everything to do with considering other peoples interests as being beneath you or unworthy.
tl;dr: Dirac is tired of smart people throwing pity parties over their lack of social skills.

[Ego]

Evolution weeds out ultra-high-IQs because they can be unable to communicate with anyone else and are shunned from the group. This shunning makes them suffer. That suffering, in my opinion, is similar to the suffering of an ultra-low-IQ person. But the high-IQ have an additional cause of suffering. Awareness allows them to anticipate suffering which can be a form of suffering itself.
For the record... my IQ is average and I don't consider myself a nerd.

[Spartan_Warrior]

@Dirac:
Your linked comic isn't working. Also,

I'm not usually one to post net memes, but this seems appropriate. Welcome to the forum btw.

[sshawnn]

>>But, acting like people are in Plato's cave or the matrix because they like some of the nice things that you or I don't is just f**king rude. It has nothing to do with being to smart and everything to do with considering other peoples interests as being beneath you or unworthy.
If you try and use a blanket statement such as above the to try and describe a typical ERE view of the cave dwellers....I think your missing a big part of the point. Consumerism is just one piece of the pie that makes up the pill choice.
It sounds like you have been reading/following the forums for a while. It is interesting that your first post is such a furious, well worded argument.

[jennypenny]

@Dirac

“I can't think of another group that says "normal" the same way most people say ‘idiot’”
Ok, that was really funny. I can’t speak for everyone, but I know when I use “normal” that way I’m not referring to someone’s intelligence. My derogatory use of the word normal is for the members of my larger social circle for whom looking youthful, appearing wealthy, and acting more pious than the next person is paramount. They are the majority where I live so that behavior is considered normal. I guess I do consider them less intelligent if they value those things above all others or just follow the crowd instead of thinking for themselves.
And there is definitely a bias on the board toward the presumption that extroverted is the norm, and therefore extroverts tend to define the social parameters that we (introverts) have to learn to navigate. Introverts can be resentful of the social skills they must learn because the skills needed are defined by extroverts. When someone tells me “it’s not normal to spend so much time alone” or “it’s not normal not to want those [consumer] things” the next words out of my mouth are usually not kind and do not improve my social standing. I think that was the appeal of the ERE city for me—that I would live somewhere that my behavior was considered normal for a change.
Your post ranks up there with Dragline’s for best first post. Welcome.

[jacob]

@Dirac - Interestingly, even though I don't agree with you, I didn't think what you wrote was offensive at all. Maybe I'm lacking in so-called "social adjustment skills"... I would say that Plato's cave has to do with something else entirely than an affinity for nice things or that those who like nice things are somehow blinded and those who don't are enlightened. I like nice things too. But I also know why I like them. That's the difference. It has to do with thinking-about-thinking or questioning why things are the way they are AND through that process seeing them for what they really are thus making a deliberate choice.
Many people don't do that. They take the default choice. That's not me being arrogant or elitist. That's simply a fact.
Indeed, "Hollingworth gap" seems to be coined by me (or at least I have the highest google page-rank because I think I got the term from somewhere else). The keyword you're really looking for is "communications barrier" and how it affects the "gifted". It's unfortunately not something that has received a lot of attention---likely because few people have cared about this problem.
(If something only affects 1% of the population and they seem to do okay, why bother to study it? When I grew up the prevailing pedagogical idea was that gifted kids should use their ability to act as teaching assistants for "slower students" as a way to remain challenged.)
Two observations:
The more difficult it gets to establish hard facts, the more politics matters. For instance, it is hard to establish facts about the economy and its working which is why this problem is argued politically. Conversed, nobody has a political position on the law of gravity. What goes on inside other people's heads (theory of mind) is perhaps the hardest thing of all to get objective facts about. It's therefore highly political.
Also, the smaller the part something plays in one's life the easier it is to ignore AND/OR accept differences. For most people football is just a game. Yeah, sure I might not be good at football (I doubt I can catch a ball) but I don't care about my skill because it's hardly relevant to my life. If you're really good at football, I don't feel envy; I don't feel threatened, I don't question my self-worth. However, if football was the way everything was done it becomes materially important. Imagine

if wedding ceremonies involved tossing footballs, kicking field goals and making plays. That buying groceries involved a kick and a punt. That watching TV required a quarterback sack. That all work involved doing various plays. That hanging out with friends meant a football game. That even talking or all forms of communication with other people somehow involved a football THEN your skill in football would become really important.
Now how and what one thinks about is a large part of life. It can not be easily dismissed.
So combine something which is very important with something that's hard to establish hard facts about and we have a major problem.
I think what we're seeing is just an unfortunate dynamic that occur whenever there are two groups and 1) The first group is significantly larger than the second group.

2) The second group is sui generis to ('can not be described by the language of', 'can not be comprehended by') the first group. And maybe vice versa, see (3).

3) Sometimes the first group can be described by the language of the second group. (There's an asymmetry!)
In such a situation, the second group will feel alienated from the first group. Conversely, the first group doesn't care because of its size and status as the majority. The first group may even be oblivious to the existence of the second group. Lots of finger pointing also results.
In particular, the first group will refer to itself as normal and phrase all values in terms of its own values. The second group will be seen as "unadjusted" or lacking important adjustment skills or even as psychological disorders to be cured. Majority behavior will be associated with positive adjectives and vice versa. This is run of the course in many areas: extroversion & introversion, gifted & normal, ERE & consumerism.
For example is the word "fun" more likely to be associated with

"outgoing" or "contemplative"; how about "fun and quiet" or "fun and exciting"? Fun means "enjoying", but it's associated with what the majority values to the point of being part of the grammar. If you say "outgoing" you almost gotta say "fun" in the same sentence.
If the second group begins to define its own values (rather than accept its difference as some disorder), the first group will see the second group as arrogant: "How dare they think different thoughts?!" Also, if the second group somehow finds a way to be independent of the first group (especially if the first group holds dependence as a positive value---this holds for all of the above: extroverted need other people, normal people need smart people (I have a collection of statements telling me it's irresponsible to waste my brain on being retired), consumers need workers for the economy), that's a problem too. Like if the nerds find out they don't need to be popular to be successful.
It is always expected [by the majority] that the minority group is the one who must spend the time and effort to accommodate the majority group. Why is that?
A person belonging in the minority can either 1) Spend time to conform. 2) Keep hidden. 3) Take social damage in the hope of finding other minority members to connect with.
If (3) holds, the outlash becomes worse. In that case, the smaller group essentially states that "not only do I understand your values, I also implicitly reject them in favor of mine" which goes beyond (2) "I don't understand your values, but I like mine". This is tremendously objectionable to the first group. It is particularly objectionable to any group where "fitting into the majority group" is a core value.
I think (3) holds for ERE vs consumerism (many of us, including me, are reformed consumers and perhaps engage ERE with religious fervor). I don't think it easily holds for extroversion vs introversion (I can not fathom what it's like to be extroverted ... is it like being high on vodka and red bull all the time?) ... I also can not fathom what it's like being like the average or anyone else for that matter in terms of intellect. I can just observe that I communicate easily with people who are on the same page and hardly at all with people who are several pages over and that it seems to be correlated with IQ and personality temperament.)
As a result, belonging to the minority group (or several of them as it may be) can be pretty damn annoying and frustrating. There's a great attraction in finding one's fellow minority group members and occasionally venting. This is essentially what you're seeing here...
It's quite clear that both groups somehow offends each other either intentionally or unintentionally (for example, while you considered your own post offensive, I didn't) through lack of comprehension or shared concepts/language. However, I don't think one group is holier than thou at all or that this forum is a particularly offensive group. We may use "normal" in the same way other people say "idiot", but on the other hand we wouldn't use "shy" the way other people say "introvert" or "nerd" the way other people say "lacking in social skills" or "ERE" the way other people say "sacrifice". It's really hard to tell if anyone means anything offensive or mean about it or it's simply a question of a lack of mutual understanding.

[swathorne]

Thanks for articulating a counter argument Jacob. Good read and I agree on all points. I remember when I first started reading the ERE forums my first reaction was to wish that I had a group of co-workers or friends who could have these types of discussions because it would be a lot easier to cope. The forum is definitely a venting mecahnism to some degree. I don't believe myself to be "gifted" and have no idea what my IQ is....but I find that people here are very often able to articulate experiences/thoughts in ways that resonate with my core.

[anomie]

Hi new here, hate to interrupt the great conversation, but from the essay originally mentioned:
"Why do people move to suburbia? To have kids! So no wonder it seemed boring and sterile. The whole place was a giant nursery, an artificial town created explicitly for the purpose of breeding children."
Just thought that was very funny!

[Dragline]

I assure you -- there is nothing sterile about children, wherever you might breed them. Especially if they are boys.

[Chad]

As I have already stated Graham gets a lot right, but also a lot wrong. This article about Asian Americans hits on a lot of what Graham doesn't want to admit.
http://nymag.com/print/?/news/features/ ... ns-2011-5/

[Ego]

Excellent article Chad.
Students measure success with 'A's. Once school is over people usually measure it with accomplishments. Often the most accomplished are not those who actually do things themselves but those who are able to coerce, encourage, prod and work with others to do them. It takes an entirely different skill set than the one required for a perfect report card.

[Chad]

Thanks, Ego. I thought it was one of the better ones I have read recently. It all kind of ties to a study I read a long time ago comparing the success of students with 4.0's to ones with 3.8's. The 3.8's had more success. The theory being that the massive extra work for those last .2 GPA points wasn't worth losing out on social skills that could be learned in that time.

[2handband]

Nothing that happens in public schools is the fault of the kids, it is the fault of a system that was designed not to benefit children but to benefit the economic system by breaking them to the habits of the workforce. BTW, that's not just me blabbing; the public education system as we understand it today came together under the Wilson administration. The system was designed to specifically combat the labor problems that had come with industrialization up to that point; politicians and captains of industry had very quickly discovered that humans don't take naturally to factory or office conditions! So they designed a system in which children learned, from a very young age, to sit quietly and do boring, repetitive tasks for long periods of time, to promptly follow a carved-in-stone schedule, and to obey a managerial class that they vastly outnumber. I'll find a link if anyone wants to see it, but in a speech given to a group of high-level politicians and industry leaders, an ivy league college professor who was amongst the architects of this amazing new system told his audience that they were going to turn out a superior product (workers), and the specifications would come from government and industry. Yes, that's your kids they're talking about. This is why I turn off my ears when people start talking about "reforming" our educational system: the system works. Just like our political system works, and a bunch of the others that we'd like to reform. They work with nearly 100% efficiency; we're just in denial about their purpose. Look at it this way: last night 10 million kids went to bed hoping for a snowstorm to close the schools... and it's late May! Can this really be the fault of the kids?

[fiby41]

Plus, Jacob found out through the blog that the Lord of the Flies mentality still applies even when you avoid direct contact with people.

The lack of direct involvement of 'authority' into the social structures created in schools, prisons and on the internet is a common threads connecting the three.

Schools pecking order: Principal, teachers, non-teaching staff, parents are the authority; students create their own social structure in order of popularity or grade

Prison: Head warden, warden, guards, are the authority; inmates create their own social structures by, for example, the gangs they were part of before being imprisoned

Internet: Whatever government organization is approved to be the competent authority for censorship in your country; website owners, admins, moderators, and finally the user.

All authorities mentioned before the semi-colon impose their rule in a top-down fashion; while those after the semi-colon get their power from the other members of that group bottom-up. So the latter social structures are lose as they require the buy-ins of the people who are going to use them. Example, there need to be users/members for the moderators to have something to do.

Since there are no real consequences of the actions to keep people in check, the positive feedback loop people unconsciously use to make sure they are still well liked by the tribe to prevent being ostracized is made numb on the internet.

This applies, not despite indirect contact, but especially because of it.

ie. due to the contact being indirect and lacks direct consequences.

[oldbeyond]

Very interesting thread! I would agree that there is a majority/minority dynamic at play here. The labels are interesting to discuss and define, but I think the really interesting thing is what strategy(-ies) the minority should employ. A few typical ones:

(1) Assimilation - learning to behave like majority, to the best of their abilities. Playing the majority's game, and thus being always at a disadvantage, but perhaps to a lesser degree than if chosing another tactic.
(2) Emancipation - appealing to external actors(the school system, parents, the public) for symapthy followed by cultural, legal and social accommodation of the interests of the minority. Can improve the groups standing in some ways, while most likely angering some part of the majority. If the strategy doesn't work(no sympathy) the situation might simply become worse than before.
(3) Isolation - distancing itself from the majority, closing ranks. Can foster cohesion, strength through unity, identity. Risks hostility from the majority and denies the minority the majority's resources/ideas/connections entirely.
(4) Domination - striving to wield power over the majority against it's will. The obvious risk is that failure could be catastrophic. An initial success could lead to failure through rebellion. In the long run often leads to assimilation.

I guess most nerds applied 1 and 3 in different situations and possibly 2.

For me, what I found was that certain parts of the majority culture was superior to my own. I didn't like a lot of the social interaction with other nerds, as there was a lot of narcissism, insecurity and bitterness present in the exchanges. These were not the only characteristics of nerd-dom, but they became badges of honour for the nerds as it clearly set them apart from the minority(a classic trap for a minority to fall into). The way I see it, innate differences between nerds and "normal people" create the divide, which is then made wider by group dynamics(imitation of people you can identify with, contempt/hostility for the other group, sour grapes, pride in dysfunctional traits out of identification with the group, etc). I used http://www.succeedsocially.com/ as a sort of assimilation manual, in areas were I felt I had something to learn.

[7Wannabe5]

Different nerds have different experiences. My closest sister (infp) and I were persecuted intermittently for being nerds when we were children. My sister was skinnier, had thick glasses and was even shyer, so she suffered more. I defended myself by mastering the skill of composing mean-spirited limericks. But when I was 13, I shot up to 5'9" and puberty was otherwise mostly kind. Same thing happened to my sister a year later and she got contacts. Then we both got into pretty much all the kinds of trouble that you might imagine the typical immature-yet-precocious teen nerd, who was reading adult literature by age 10, would get into if suddenly encased in attractive, fully-developed female body (attempted seduction of married high school teacher, causing 3 car collision while hitch-hiking, solicitation for prostitution (not accepted!) , etc. etc.) While I was setting the curve in AP Chem in 11th grade, I was also dating a man in his 20s who drove a potato chip truck just because he looked like Hutch, and I was also receiving regular anonymous obscene phone calls from one of my nerdy classmates with whom I actually attempted to make friendly, rational conversation, mostly along the lines of challenging the physical possibility of performing the various acts he suggested during the course of the school day.

Flash forward 20 years and my sister and I are at a high school reunion and one of our former nerdy classmates, now much more man-sized and attractive, breaks away from his group of former nerds and approaches me and says (actually comes right up and talks to me!!) "We were all wondering if the __________ sisters would show up." and hugs me just a bit longer and stronger than appropriate.