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Why Nerds Are Unpopular
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."
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.
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
nerds feel it necessary to lord their supposedly superior intellect over others... they do it in their inner circles as well. This is the reason they get stuffed in lockers... You may have a bigger brain, but they got bigger arms... And don't give me that innocence crap, you KNOW you're guilty of looking down your nose at whomever because you thought you were smarter than they....
It was the cse at our school, like all other schools, that the Geeks were singled out for "special" attention. However, that attention was infrequently hostile, and if you had the wit to deal with it (a decent put-down, offer people help in classes if they asked for it, laugh at their jokes if necessary, etc.) you soon got the respect and the social acceptence that came with it.
/they/ knew) "Ignore them and they'll soon get bored."
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
Smokey, this is not 'Nam, this is bowling. There are rules.
but if i had a quarter for every 'popular' kid from my HS class that later served me my meals at Uno's, Bennigans, etc., I'd be one handspring treo richer.
;) .
and yes, if you haven't guessed yet, i'm a nerd
smd4985
Jocks don't need girlfriends, because beautiful girls will have sex with them without requiring any emotional investment.
Het, when I get out of college, odds are there will be jobs of 50k and up just waiting for me, while the jocks are slaving away at some factory somewhere, or still asking if they want fries with that, they can be as cruel as they would like, just gives me more things to chuckle about when things in my life go right.
And this would be a great example of why people think geeks are a bunch of elitist assholes.
--saint
Who cares? It's been over twenty years since I graduated high school. A couple of years ago, I attended the 20th anniversary.
I learned something... I can go the rest of my entire life without ever seeing any of my classmates again and still be happy.
It's four years... After it's over, forget about them and move on.
Defecation occurs.
Most of us think that the reason we were so unpopular was that we were smarter than everyone else. It's much more likely that we were/are unpopular because we're socially inept. Hint: acting like you're smarter than everyone else is socially inept.
The notion that you were "smarter" is absurd. The reality is that you were dumber. You got picked on because you didn't bathe, brush your teeth, and made fart jokes at every possible occasion. That doesn't make you smart, it makes you digusting, and worthy of contempt.
The smarter bears washed on occasion, and learned to carry on a conversation.
--
You sure got a purty mouth...
And yet they are often socially awkward, irritating, and with little ability to talk on subjects other than computers. Their behavior towards women is much like that of a dog; they lust after them, publicly voicing their desire, and if a woman makes herself know to them on the web, they are surrounded by them like puppies taking turns on a mother's teat.
But remember, nerds are better because they can code.
They cannot see how the world works past their own needs; all the supposed freedom infringements of the DMCA, RIAA, MPAA, STFU, all boil down to "ME WANT IT FREE! ME WANT IT NOW!" like they are more important than everyone else in the world.
But that's OK, because they can code.
In the workplace they demand casual dress. They demand completely relaxed environments, with full control over operating systems, hardware (remind me why a sysadmin needs a GeForce?), software - and they don't see the hypocrisy when whinging about a "mere user" trying to do something their way rather than "the right way".
But that's OK, because they can code. In fact, that's all they can do. And that's why they are universally diliked, bullied, lonely.
we geeks need to conform, sell-out, and fit into mainstream society if linux is to advance beyond the server.
why being smarter than the average bear is more of a liability than an asset
What a load of tripe. Being smarter is never a liability. However, here is a list of real liabilities:
- bad hygene
- bad personality
- boring lifestyle
- funny appearance
Popularity is not about being smart or dumb, it is about being interesting.
Show me someone that claims to know someone that was interesting,smart,good looking, and still jerked around HS and I will show you a liar.
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.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
Don't even pretend that the "nerds" are the people who started this war between classes. We were nerds because we * didn't care * what the other kids thought of us. That's why we were unpopular, we put little effort into being popular. So, if we didn't give a damn what the "popular" kids thought, why would we start shit?
Look on the flipside, the "popular" kids. They were popular because they gave a damn about what other kids thought of them, and worked to make other kids think more of them.
Now ask yourself this, who's more likely to do the looking down? The kids who cared about what other kids thought? Or the kids who didn't?
No one is blaming the people who were the "popular" kids for what they did when they were a teenager. You don't need to get defensive. But to blanketly declare that everyone's personality is only a result of their own doing and not from outside influences is naive.
Overrated Moderation: This posts sucks... because.
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 inMiko O'Sullivan
You go to school, a crowd of football players surround you and stuff you into a locker / your head down the toilet / your bag in the trash. You head to your first class and your teacher tells you that you are an "overacheiver" and that you should "slow down and let the less advantaged people catch up" (the same ones who picked on you only a few minutes ago).
For anyone with an above-average IQ, high school is a very bad place to be.
Dude, bullies at school don't have shit on you. Chances are, you're making double what they're making by the time you're 25. Your skin will clear up (if it hasn't already), your shoulders will fill out, and you'll get cooler glasses or contacts.
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.
If you fall off a building, go real limp, because maybe you'll look like a dummy and people will be like hey, free dummy
Half the replies on here are whining from folks about how "elitist" nerds are. NONE of you even think to ask how that attitude a) may have been adopted by nerds or b) if that's just yet-another social stigma populated by anti-nerds (ya know, like, way back in, like, high school?)
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!
Hi from one of your bullies.
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.
Reading the article.. the man says, "When we were in junior high school, my friend Rich and I made a map of the school lunch tables according to popularity." Maybe nerds are unpopular cause they would take the time to make a stupid map like that.. if you are constantly concerned with popularity maybe that's your biggest problem.
--
WHO ATE MY BREAKFAST PANTS?
I wasn't exactly popular, and in fact was a pretty big-time nerd. However I still picked on the kids 'nerdier' than me because I was too immature and insecure and just plain ignorant to know what I was doing was the same exact thing that all the 'cool' people were doing to me.
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.
MORTAR COMBAT!
No, you were not unpopular because you were smarter than everyone else. If it makes you feel good to think that, then fine, keep lying to yourself. There were many other reasons... Maybe because you didn't try to be social, maybe you smelled funny, maybe you shunned things like physical activity all together, maybe you came to school each day looking like a dork. I don't know but there are thousands of reasons you may have been unpopular.
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.
The reason for the bullying in school as opposed to out in the "real world" has nothing to do with maturity. The reason bullying stops after people leave high school is that high school is the last place where you are actually forced to spend time with people you don't have anything in common with. After you "get out" you no longer have to spend time with people you don't like just because they are geographically nearby and living in the same school district. And it goes both ways - the bullies are no longer forced to spend time with the people they don't like, and so their anger toward these people fades too.
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.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
I'll bite.
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
I should probably post this anon, but I can totally relate to those teenagers. I was picked on all the way from K through 12 for a variety of reasons: being brown in an all-white town, having a stutter, keeping to myself, the list goes on.
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.
I'd suggest you don't use Slashdot as your only news source, or you will suffer permanent brain damage.
On the other hand, maybe the "He hit me first" excuse is bullshit.
Oh, your post is, buddy.
First of all, situations like this hardly scale to the level of comparison you are describing here. If you want to add rationally to the discussion, please do. But to compare a nerd vs. jock rivalry with a life and death struggle which is largely founded on religion and politics is quite a joke.
Man is born free; and everywhere he is in chains.
...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.
Forget the whales - save the babies.
Most everyone would agree that to shoot someone in cold blood is murder. Now, how about if that person had a gun leveled in your direction with an intent to kill you? What about if he shot you in the arm? Would your shooting him be murder now? No, it would be self defense.
You are naive to think that every action should be judged the same regardless of the motivations behind it. Psychology does not work that way; the law doesn't work that way; society as a whole doesn't work that way.
Perhaps you should think the subject through before using cliches to justify your point.
Overrated Moderation: This posts sucks... because.
I can't believe this made Slashdot, I really can't belive it. Well, now that I think about it, I can belive it. I'm just dissapointed.
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.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
I don't think being smart and getting good grades in school are really mutually inclusive. The way the school system works, you can get good grades just by working hard and having a good memory for example, you don't really need to be all that smart. OTOH, smart people don't have to be all that interested in studying or even necessarily good at it. I personally partially lost interest at some point in senior high (the equivalent of it here) and junior high wasn't challenging or interesting at all.
:)
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.
I loved to learn, but I hated school. School seemed to be more about a social pissing contest than about learning anything meaningful. Inspiring teachers were few and far between, and I just didn't see the point of it all.
Now I'm older (and hopefully wiser) and I think I can help out some of my younger brethren. This is the advice I give to anyone who is struggling in school:
Schrödinger's cat is not amused—maybe.
I found this point interesting, but still somewhat lacking. Certainly popularity can take a lot of work, especially since a lot of it involves conformity -- doing and saying all the "in" things, keeping up with the trends, always being aware of how you appear to others. But I think there's a bit more to it than that. If you think differently, it's a lot more work to conform, since conformity means turning off your natural ideas and just following the trends rather than your own reactions. It's amazing how much effort it takes not to think, or at least to react as though you don't have a mind of your own.
Geeks/nerds are not really outside this. Even among fellow geeks I can be an outcast due to not caring any more about what tech toys or games are "in" now (yet here I am on slashdot, go figure) than I did about what clothes and music were "in" when I was in junior high. I discovered quite early that I was too far out of the loop to even credibly fake interest in the trends of the moment, and that was that.
I do agree with the author's point that kids might not be as involved with popularity if they had something else to do. Though given how much he blamed it on life in the suburbs, I half expected him to start quoting Rush.
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.
One god, one market, one truth, one consumer.
Chances are, you're making double what they're making by the time you're 25
Or, they could be making double what you do, and working a quarter of the hours because they went into management.
To large extent, I think it is. I think it results partially from your obsession on competition. For Average Joe, a smart kid in the class is nothing but a menace. In Poland, where I live, a smart kid is actually an advantage for Average Joe - smart kid is likely to allow him to copy his homework, likely to help him cheat through the tests etc. We tend to help each other in "beating the system", whatever the system means at the moment (from school to road traffic). In Poland it is generally considered rude to talk about yourself the way Americans like to talk - "I am Dexter, the genius-boy, I am the best in my class etc.". You should rather say "Well, I had lot of luck with that test, but let's talk about the weather now". Probably that's why you have better economy and better technology. But maybe - just maybe - we have better childhood?
PS. This is my first slashdot post - please don't push me into locker (or compatible)!
I've been watching the comments fly by, and I notice some common threads, and they fall into behavior that can be categorized by the above article. Some examples are:
1. Nerds deserve to be unpopular because they're socially inept, unwashed, etc..
Here the nerd is defined as someone with less demanding tastes regarding personal hygiene as the accusing group; of course, it is the accusers who gets to set the standards of hygeine.
2. Nerds are unpopular becuase they're elitist.
Some of the people I knew who were unpopular were, some people weren't. I offer up that it may be a symptom, rather than a cause of unpopularity. It's a great shield, telling yourself that you're better than those who would put forth their slings and arrows.
3. "I was good at athletics, and I'm smart/in a tech field, so, since these nerds can't handle it, they deserve it..."
Elitism. Plain and simple, this sort of comment comes either from someone who still exists in the "high school mindset" or was irreparably damaged by it, and now can't escape it.
There's a lot of putting down going on here, and all of it seems to be hypocrisy in the face of this article... I'll put forth a new definition of nerd that tries to steer the conversation to where I think the article wanted: Nerds are those people who were persecuted in the age ranges mentioned in the article, namely from the 11-14 bracket to to the 18-22 range. I think what the author is pointing out is that there is a level of persecution in high school, that usually goes away. This article is about referencing that as a problem, and seeking ways to address that problem. I agree with the author completely, and I plan to better arm my children for what comes ahead, or to keep them out of the school system. In society, ultimately, we are interdependant, and I agree and I say that children should not be isolated from reality.
Author's biographical note:For portions of my schooling career, I was in the unpopular groups, until I finally learned how the game worked. Nowadays, I have diverse groups of friends, some of which would be labelled as "nerds" or "geeks", while others fit into "jock"/"football player"/"cheerleader" stereotypes. They don't mix, because disastrous things happened when forced together, but there is no persecution of any kind going on, as they are able to accept that people live in different ways...
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.
This is my digital signature. 10011011001
"As intelligence goes up, happiness goes down"
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.
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.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
Like i've mentioned before in several posts, i've used several versions (each) of Linux, Windows, and the Mac OS (as well as DOS, BeOS, and several other operating systems), and the only ones that have ever crashed on me are previous versions of Windows, Mac OS 7, and Mac OS 8. Windows XP has never crashed for me, and neither has Linux. Now, i consider myself an intelligent person, but i have very little programming experience (just a little Visual Basic, BASIC, and Java, the former of which will get me labelled as a fool on Slashdot instantly), and i really don't know all that much about internal operating system workings like APIs and junk like that. But i appear to be intelligent enough not to crash my fucking computer, even when i'm running all kinds of alpha-blended windows and third-party theming applications and transparent high-resource mouse cursors and other such "garbage" (as many would call it) that suck up system resources and can result in crashes if you don't know what you're doing.
Why can't you keep your XP computers running, O Holy Ones? My guess is one of the following: (01) you're wanting it to crash so you can have an excuse to agree with everyone that says "omgz teh lunax si teh best cos teh windoze sux0rz + crashes"; (02) you're trying to make it do something it can't; (03) you're using some outlandish, crazy hardware that is not meant for personal computers or does not have Windows drivers; (04) you had some tiny stupid problem like incorrect/incompatible NVIDIA drivers, and instead of using your extensive knowledge to fix it (which you could have done easily), you fall back on some excuse like "well Red Hat detects my drivers right" or "FreeBSD didn't have this problem". I'm willing to bet probably 80% of you "Windows doesn't work"/"Windows crashes" people have formed your judgements based on one of the above asinine reasons.
PS: I know Linux and BSD are different things, but to save space in this post i have grouped BSD, Darwin, HURD, Linux, UNIX, and whatever other UNIX or UNIX-like systems any of you may be running into "Linux".
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.
Sig: Bad people happen. Try to avoid being one of them.
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.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
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?
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
omg - t0quer and i lived the same life.
.. the... time...
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.
guns kill people like spoons make Rosie O'Donnell fat.
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
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.
http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Towers/9151/educate .html
There have been articles on this in Japanese newspapers, 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 RoyaleAll the creatures will die, And all the things will be broken. That's the law of samurai. (Jubai, 1605)
My worst tormentors in High School were the nerds. The arrogant smarmy nerds, not the nice quiet ones. Why? I think it was cause I'm a girl who was at least as smart as them, and who wouldn't give them the time of day (I was into skater/stoner/goth guys, and a good sense of humor is more attractive than intelligence). Incidentally, I never was a victim of the manipulative social practices girls seem to excel at, but the boy-nerds made every AP class miserable for me. I didn't sweat it much at the time, probably cause none of the kids I wanted to be accepted by cared what the nerds thought. You just have to rise above the situation. A good come-back line is invaluable social currency.
And this would be a great example of why people think geeks are a bunch of elitist assholes.
And this would be a great example of why blanket statements are a bunch of bullshit.
Yes, there are SOME nerds who are elitist, but there are also SOME non-nerds who are as well. Elitism runs rampant in society. If someone thinks they're better at something than someone else, they will invariably use it to bolster their self-esteem, whether someone else hears them or not.
Improvise, adapt, and overcome.
There was only ONE good OS that ever came out of Redmond: ;-)
/sbin/init. (except Irix, can't grok it)
Win2k.
Until you can get the "professional network install" of XP SP1, I've found it isn't worth it.
There will be NT 6.0, and I might get to liking it, but we'll see. In the meantime I can continue my love affair with anything spawned from
Fuck Beta. Fuck Dice
...at least for your kids. Home school. It's safe and legal in all 50 states. No, your kids will not end up "unsocial". They will likely recoil in horror at stories like the ones here, though, becaues they won't believe that people really treat one another like that. They you'll show them how the holocaust, Sri Lanka, passed-down child abuse, and many other examples demonstrate that ordinary people in bad situations often choose to become extremely cruel.
:).
But anyway--yes, your kids will have to be more important to you than the money or "fulfillment" that would theoretically come from both parents working.
And don't assume home schooling is the same all-day affair as regular school. You can cover a regular day in about two hours. If you want to. Unschooling is a very viable option (harder in the more Nazi-esque states, but still doable).
Search on "Growing Without Schooling" at google for more on that. Read "Learning all the time" or "how children fail" by John Holt. Read "The teenage liberation Handbook"
Graham says apprenticing isn't economically viable now, but he certainly doesn't prove it. People do apprentice at a lot of different things. True, it's nt the default, but that doesn't mean you can't or that it's not available.
If you want to save the world, start by saving your own family. Then you have allies to help you save the world later. Well, that's what I'm guessing. But I need to get off this thing and go play with my kids
Liberty uber alles.
The article says "Teenagers now are useless, except as cheap labor in industries like fast food"
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.)
"My mom says I'm cool." - Milhouse
Escape Pod Films: Sketch Comedy and Web Series
I'm from the USA and university is expensive as hell, our government doesnt pay shit unless you dont have a dime and your family doesnt have a dime (like in my case) and even then you have to pay most of the loans back.
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This was a great read. Very interesting, and I think it has more than a kernel of truth to it.
However, I disagree with the premise that the sole reason that some teenagers are popular while other are nerds is the differential focus of these two groups. While it might be true that the nerd contingent puts less effort into dressing right and behaving right than does the popular contingent (I know that was true for me when I was in high school), I think this is as much a function of ability as of desire.
To use the analogy of the soccer player: while it is true that someone who practices more will play better than someone _of similar ability_ who does not practice, it is NOT the case that everyone has the same ability. Shifting sports, while I might make my foul shot better with more practice, there's just no way I'm ever going to play like Michael Jordan - I just don't have the ability. Likewise, after 9 years of piano lessions I was a pretty good piano player _from sheet music_, but I'm still tone deaf and I'll never play by ear.
Similarly, popularity (or charisma, if you prefer that term) is a talent, just like athletic ability, mathematical ability, or musical ability. Some people have it, some don't. Examples: Bill Clinton. Leave aside your politics for a moment. Even those who hated his politics found themselves, after speaking with him directly, mesmerized and enthralled. (There was a fascinating profile of him in Vanity Fair describing this phenomenon shortly after the GWBush inauguration - read it.) Similarly, Steve Jobs and the "reality distortion field."
I've seen this ability in action, once so profoundly that it truly amazed me. I had the opportunity to see a high-ranking US government official in a meeting where data was presented, by experts, in a field that he could not possibly have had any knowledge whatsoever. (I was present as a flunky, and had opportunity to observe the dynamic in the room.) After the data was presented, I watched this individual literaly take charge of the meeting in a split second, and direct all these experts at tasks in their own fields - and these expert (and relatively confident [arrogant]) individuals took this direction like it was the most natural thing in the world for them to do.
Here's the converse: Asperger's Syndrome. Forget the recent (stupid) Law and Order episode where a serial killer turned out to have Asperger's Syndrome, and read the article in Wired (about a year ago) about the very high incident of this disease in (surprise) Silicon Valley. For those who missed it, Asperger's Syndrome is a (possibly mild) form of autism; among the hallmarks of this neuropsychiatric disorder are: obsessional focus on areas of interest and inability to process non-verbal cues, such as the facial and body experssiveness known to convey the majority of content during human interaction. Many such individuals also have superior mathematical ability.
Do the math: you've got an individual highly focussd on areas of special interest, coupled with difficulty at "reading" other people, leading to faulty interpersonal relationships - prescription for a nerd! This syndrome is felt to be more prevalent among, for instance, engineers - highly focused on work to the exlusion of personal relationships - in part because they are so mysterious and hard to understand, because they just don't get what is going on with the other person.
In sum, while I think there's a lot of truth and insight in the original article regarding the social structure in middle school / high school, I think the segregation into "haves" and "have nots" is far more dependent on varying ability in different areas than on conscious or unconscious choices to focus on intellectual vs. other pursuites.
"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.""
:)
:) and I had to say no, I'm happy where I'm at, and you had your chance.
Amen. College is the ultimate sorting machine. Nothing like thinking you're smart, than getting put in a room full of smart people, and having to *really* work for it
I hope she survived too - I knew a few people like that in HS.
The "jocks" and assholes I knew in HS...well, I went to my 15th a while back - not that I wanted to that much - but most of the people who had given me shit in HS were working nowhere jobs, whereas I've been self-employed for more than half a decade, happy with my life, and upbeat. The "ladies" were all over me
Also, most of the "nerds"; the friends I had in HS, the ones I played D&D with, talked computers in my folks' basement with, we had few friends then - but we're great friends now, and have lives that are infinitely more interesting than most of the others.
I know where I'd go, if I had to choose again.
SB
It's old. The more humans I meet, the more I like my cats. At least they are honest.
I wasn't talking about Japanese culture as a whole. My main point was: intelligence isn't as important to American kids. I do understand a little more about Japan than what cartoons tell me, and I understand that Japan isn't utopia, but the basic principle is that the Japanese do place a lot more emphasis on how good your grades are. Japanese students as a whole spend a lot more time studying and Japanese parents put a lot more pressure on kids to get those grades. The simple fact is that being smart doesn't automatically make you a social outcast in that society.
Views of people through the media are often exaggerated, but often a basic reflection of that society. Look at Saved by the Bell. The popular guy with the cute hair always saves the day, and the nerds are all complete ignoramuses. Look at nerds anywhere in American culture. Nerds on TV are always the comic relief or the bad guy. It's not a perfect representation of how they're really treated, but when these shows become popular, it means people aren't insulted by those depiction.
Libertarians somehow believe that private businesses should be stronger than governments but weaker than individuals.
Yeah...I wasn't the most handsome, well-dressed, social person. I liked D&D, Sci-fi, computers, Broadway musicals, Heavy Metal and books. I didn't care about fashion (once I got out of the 8th grade - parachute pants, camo, etc...
I started to think about the different groups of people and who I didn't get along with, etc... From what comes to mind there were
jocks - got along with them for the most part. Was on track and x-country for a year. Sure...there were insults, but nothing worse than what my office mate and I exchange in good humor. Not the kinda people I'd normally hang out with, but not advesaries
burnouts/dirtbags - The people who wore flannel, smoked, drove old cars that were always being worked on, pissed off at the world, long hair, short skirts, etc... Didn't know that many of them, of the ones I knew, didn't have a problem with them...I liked metal and Led Zeppelin, so I had some common ground. Not to sound condescending, but seems more of them had severe family issues at home - I did not (we lived in a mountain town about an hour out of NYC) so their issues were not mine.
Freaks - (thinking of Freaks and Geeks) Here are the people that liked the Cure and Depeche Mode before it was cool to. The early adopters of piercings, punk haircuts, etc. Different - usually the more artsy type. Knew quite abit of them (hell...small mountain town - not many to begin with - half were on the fencing team) Cool smart people - just sometimes tried too had to be different just to be different.
Preps - These were usually the more popular ones, and as another post mentioned, there was a reason...they tended to try to be nice to other people. Sure...they didn't call you on a friday night to come hang out with them, but they were at least nice enough. Usually the ones more involved with things like yearbooks and stuff. Knew my fair share of them - no problems there.
"The Others" - I don't know what to call these. They are the people who weren't quite gone enough or whatever to be a burnout. They weren't quite ambitious enough to be a prep and be involved. They weren't unique enough to be a freak and geek. These are the ones that were full of themselves...usually didn't do that good in class, didn't play sports, didn't do anything extracurricular, seemed to almost be the ones that couldn't be placed into any other group. Always talking about who was gonna kick whose ass, one of the ones I know in this group kept stealling the neighboors car to go joyriding. Grown up bullies? Rotten apples? I don't know quite how to describe them.
:
This is the only group I can think back that gave me grief in high school The ones as others mentioned would be the first to try and tear you down if you knew the answer to something in class, if they gave you a smart ass remark and you responded they would then launch into more "oh yeah..fucking dork." as their most advanced retort.
These are the ones that as best as I can tell are some still working the same jobs they had in high school or in management positions at a fast food chain, etc... Basically out of the limited sampling of people from all the groups that I know what they are doing now, this is usually the group that has done the least with their life.
To summarize
As a geek there was only a small subset of the students in the various groups that made my life somewhat of a hell...and it wasn't that bad now that I think of it (depressing back then though!) I'm sure others have had it better or worse, but as someone else said, it's what you make of it. After high school, all that bullshit didn't matter - I think that's what seperated the freaks and geeks from the rest - they kinda knew that even though they may take some crap, all the stuff the others worry over doesn't matter. Get to college and there are small cliques like high school - but most of them seemed to be those trying to hang on to their glory days and by the end of freshmen year, most of them are gone anyway.
Now I'm married, own a house, have two kids, friends with all the neighboors from all walks of life, make a shitload of money and people sometimes envy the fact that I work with computers...go figure.
And out of all those years, I have just one regret - that one girl I was good friends with that I never asked out. Talking to her years later, turns out I should have, etc... Cest la vie.
To understand the majority of motivations of a secondary student we must look at primitive man. What are the goals of primitive man:
1. Survival
2. Procreation
3. Control over their environment and peers (promotes survival)
All people strive towards these goals every day to varying degree. The majority of students in secondary school are interested in the shortest path to these goals. They go to school to socialize in an attempt to better position themselves for 2 and 3. This could be termed popularity.
Thus, every student at the school is seen as competition for societal control and procreation. Everyone faces the same hostility that so-called nerds face, however nerds make no attempt to mitigate it. Nerds are people see all the posturing as futile. They don't want in on the contest to be the top primate. I hate to say it but there is a definite intellect barrier. Asking why a nerd doesn't get involved in social circles is like asking why Jeffrey Daughmer didn't feel remorse when cutting people up. They just don't see the point. Nerds have an "i'll win later when I have the advantage" attitude.
This doesn't mean the nerd is intentionally avoiding socializing. Their minds are just running programs in the background just like everyone else. Thus once the "win" threshold is crossed in the nerd's mind, they immediately go into overdrive mode. Get them out of the school society, give them lots of attention and suddenly the become King Caesar. The opportunity for societal gain is too good to pass up. The advantage has been gained.
Basically in nerdese:
non-nerd is to zerg rush as nerd is to battlecruiser
No, it's not.
It's an observation of the intellectual prowess of the majority of the "popular" social group.
And most folks here aren't calling the popular kids "stupid", but rather noting that in general they are significantly less intelligent than most of the nerd/geek clique. As has been noted by others; high grades are not a good measure of intelligence. Most of Junior High and High School is focused around rote memorization. If you could stand the boredom and memorize facts long enough to vomit them back up at the appropriate time you would be a straight A student. I know individuals that made it all the way through High School and College with a 4.0 GPA that are barely above "average" intelligence.
Popular kids are popular for having one or more of the following attributes:
1) They are physically attractive.
2) They are active in "acceptable" sports. (acceptable varies with gender)
3) Their families have significant amounts of money and are willing to spend this money on them and their friends.
"Anti-social" in secondary school means being different from the above "ideal" attributes. The further distanced from the above attributes you are the more ostracized and abused you are.
Intelligence is a part of the equation because kids tend to make physical ability and mental ability exculsive of one another. Athleticism and physical attractiveness are held to such a high degree that even those athletic kids capable of being very intelligent would neglect their intellect (and sometimes do everything they could to appear less intelligent) for the sake of spending time at the popularity game. Feeling self conscious about this lack of knowledge/ability (and being encouraged by adults to believe that athleticism and beauty are the most important things)these kids tend to lash out at the groups displaying prowess in an area that the popular/atheltic crowd does not have (or has neglected to exercise).
And it works in the reverse as well. Smart kids tend to look down on less mentally adept individuals within their own group.
The difference is that one group is capable of inflicting physical harm (and mental harm through intimidation)while the other has only their wit and perceptive abilities to fight with.
Once more unto the breach dear friends...
After testing, Sensei took a bunch of us out for beer and wings. Nice guy. Very loud, very smart in a Buddha-meets-Jim-Belushi kind of way. One of the junior students, who is kind of a sanctimonious, attention-seeking little guy, said something to the effect of "I don't think I should go to the advanced classes. I feel like I'm holding everyone back. I... I... I..." Sensei put down his beer, and said, "You think you're being humble, you think you're making yourself more worthy of attention by saying this. Fact is, this is your ego talking. You become so concerned with how inferior you are that your training suffers as a result. In fact, you become inferior because you think you are. So go to the advanced classes. Feel stupid. Screw up. Transcend your ego, and get down to business. Forget about 'you'. Think about what needs to be done and do it."
And this, friends, is how we all must be. We need to stop martyring ourselves to the lions of popularity and public opinion. We shouldn't "apply our intellects to playing the game." If we do that, we become the calculating, soulless PUA's and PHB's. We need to learn that the people who seem to cross social boundaries effortlessly do so beacuse they act as if those bounds do not exist.
Think about the last time someone, say, bumped you in the hallway. Did you brush it off, thinking, "maybe they were in a hurry"? Or did your ego take over, spinning the incident into a larger tapestry of us-vs-them, nerds-vs-jocks social conspiracy, all directed at keeping YOU down? If it was the latter, you need to reexamine how you relate to the world, and find a healthier way to do it.
'Be always mindful, even when ditch-digging.' --D. T. Suzuki
> This carries over into adult life as well, which is why geeks don't go to clubs
:) I don't go to clubs because clubs suck; overpriced alcohol, cheezy (ghetto) women and of course, the complete inability to have a decent conversation over the 16" subwoofer pounding next to your ear :)
:) And of course, be urself.
:P )
Bullshit
Really, you're not missing out on anything - clubs are heavily over-rated.
anyway, re: ur comment about certifying status of women; I would agree to the extent that most (ignorant) men depend on a woman's opinion of another man to judge him a man. Coming from a society that is heavily run this way, I can tell you completely it is a crock of shit; my only judge on whether or not a man's a man is by how he conducts himself, certified either by observation or other (trusted/authenticated) men.
Put another way, women are famous for their ability to overlook obvious severe character flaws in men, and ergo, cannot be trusted as
a judge of character regarding men. Certes, I certainly would never trust a man to do whats right if he continiously (in the face of obviously correct behavior) kowtows to the wishes of the women in his life. I prefer men who have the integrity to tell a woman off when she is wrong, rather than suck up to her for a bit of pussy.
The reverse is also true; I prefer women who are confident enough to speak their mind regardless of what others think. Those are the women that are worth their weight in gold....
Guess what, you're *not* going to find them hanging out in any clubs.
So my luckless friend, I say to you this:
Decide what you want in a woman, then go where they congregate
Given enough thoroughput, you're bound to be successful (if nothing else, statistically speaking
I am, by no stretch of the imagination, a lady's man, but I imagine lumping the three billion members of "opposite sex" under one stereotype is counter productive.
I'm beginning to suspect that "they" are as diverse as "we" are.
Unfortunately, I am not Wil Wheaton
We often falsely assume that, throughout history, all change equals progress.
Maybe by recognizing that social conditions for fulltime mothers, highschool kids and prisoners are very similair, and leading to these destructive popularity contests, that we can go about make some real improvements.
It might be my imagination, but I remember computer programmer being a really nerdy and looked down upon profession until Bill Gates was named the richest man on the planet. Since then it appeared to me that it then got grudging respect from even Joe Bloggs in the street.
Phillip.
Property for sale in Nice, France
What I noticed about nerds in high school (I was a stoner, almost as bad) was the incessant need to show how smart they were. Always correcting others in conversation, especially on obscure points. And with that Comic Book Guy tone of voice. It's not really about how smart, it's about social interaction.
>>As the parent of a first grader and a kindergartener I dread the day I'm must do this. I'm as clueless about how to handle it now as I was then. Have you any ideas?
number one, and everything else will be automatic......
LISTEN and believe your KID! let the kid cry his/her freaking eyes out, let them let out the anger that they have welling inside them - let them let it out. If thye don't - they'll go Columbine. But more than that - they'll know that you love them
My parents did this, but even back then, the litigious society we have now wasn't around then.. if it was, they probably could have gottena lawyer to harass the school. My parents did the best that they could.
2 - Go to the school in real life and face the administration. Bring names, bring times (as in number of). As much as it sucks - document what's going on... ask the administration "would you like it if you smacked you in the head 4 times a day between classes? If not, then why are you letting Kid X do it to my kid") Threaten to go and talk to the bully in one of his classes *that he's not in the same class as your kid*. They won't let you... but the threat of doing something yourself could be the most effective way to get the overpaid useless school administrators off their asses to do something.
3 - if you can find the parents - simply send them a letter informing them that your gathering evidence to seek criminal charges of assault against their kid.
bear in mind - this is not evey kid. Not even every little kid. It must really be a case, like mine, where i was just way beyond small, and was an easy target because i was a nerd with thick glasses. If your kid actually has the ability to defend themselves - you should start with that route first.
Having your kid fight off the bullies will be MUCH more effective than getting litigious.. but if the fights would end up like Andy Dick vs. The Rock - then don't bother.. your kid will only be more humiliated.
be sure to let you kid know that if they do fight back, and get supended:***let your kid know that they won't be in trouble with you.***
you'll probably do something like take them to Disneyland or something the day that they are suspended (don't tell them that ahead of time). But let them know that if they have to defend themselves, and the school can't see that, and they mindlessly punish your little kid for standing up for him/herself, they are okay.. its just a lame government system that doesn't know how to effectively run their own business because they don't have to.
the school is (more than likely) a government institution.. never forget that. Middle school and high schools are run by people that are also run the DMV.... do don't expect a whole lot of brains going on there (i'm not talking about teachers) [/gets off of political soapbox]
guns kill people like spoons make Rosie O'Donnell fat.
I think, reading this thread, it seems that people are using it to victimize themselves. Its been 4 years since high school for me, and i'm not going to tell a success story worthy of springer, but I can tell you, i've stopped holding grudges, and I think some people on this thread havent. That's what college is supposed to be, people, a time to expand your abilities, not hide out and write shell code for linux. You can do that when you're 40. What you CAN"T do when you're 40 is be viewed as a potential sex partner but a ditzy blonde with a push up bra. So go to the gym, roll up your sleeves, and say stupid things that make people laugh. Then go home and write code. Or only spend your time doing one thing, and judge people by how they perform on the one thing that you actually excel at, because that's what it seems alot of people are doing lately.