Slashdot Mirror
Closet Slashdotters: The 'Intellectually Curious'
An anonymous reader writes "Slashdotters are certified geeks, but apparently there's a bunch of other people out there who are very interested in science, technology, politics and culture but they don't want to be known as geeks. A media consulting firm called OMD did a study for the company that owns Space.com and LiveScience. They conclude that 60 million Americans can be called "intellectually curious." Intellectually, I'm curious what that makes the rest of them."
Slashdoter? One who dotes on slash? Cool!
www.sjbaker.org
Intellectually, I'm curious what that makes the rest of them."
MySpace users
Intellectually, I'm curious what that makes the rest of them.
In-duh-viduals.
sig has been sent away for a few small repairs...
i for one welcome our...uhhhhhh
Satanists get good grades too...suspiciously good grades
They didn't intend any sort of innuendo there. "Intellictually Curious"? ...reminds me of that "Most females are secretly bicurious." study a couple years ago.
I am a science fantasy fan
Wow, 60 million, that's impressive! Until you remember that 60 million is less than 25% of the population, at which point you slit your wrists.
So what you are saying is...words can have more than one meaning? Wow! There should be a word for that!
Intellectual curiosity doesn't make you a geek. Intellectual expertise - in any field or discipline, especially technical - makes you a geek. If you've got the rest of the package, like less physicality, fewer friends, insomnia, "microculture", Aspberger's symptoms, you're just a nerd. If you've got none of those, you're just a "normal". In that case, I feel bad for you.
--
make install -not war
No need to hide anymore! Come out of the closet (it's too small for a soldering station anyhow)!
t hing!".
Cast your pretensions! Rise and walk proudly from the dark of the TV room into the bright flouerescent of the computer lab!
No more hiding copies of Make in a cover of Hustler! No more awkward stammering that you were just surfing for gay porn and somehow accidentally stumbled upon perl.org.
Testify! Say it: "I am Geek, hear me Mumblesomethingintelligleaboutapreprocessororsome
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
I study the rhetoric of science and scientism in grad school. I read slashdot to get away from the television and celebrity gossip that my other colleagues seem to dwell on as "sources for cultural research."
Just an observation.
I am curious, but yellow.
>> "Intellectually, I'm curious what that makes the rest of them."
Why not create a MySpace account and ask them...
What is interesting about the article is how it gets this interesting result and then does nothing with it except to speculate. That they do not share the actual poll questions forces the reader to speculate themselves what they asked. So, yes, we know that they asked if people where intellectually curious about the world around them. But what else?
Parsing into what the article reveals is a certain "would you talk about science/etc in Social Situation A" (they keep mentioning cocktail parties) or other habits (e.g. what sort of television they watch).
But the implied conclusion of this article is "more people are geeks; they are just in the closet" which I think is a big leap in logic. And I think this article is very liberal with the terms geek/nerd.
Personally a "geek" isn't just someone "intellectually curious" but also someone who exhibits Nerd Myopia: they follow their geeky passions at the expense of all others. More so they find all other topics inferior (and will demonstrate subtle vitriol to outright belligerence). The article talks about how the Science and Passion [S&P] group will bring up science topics automatically while the other groups (Money/Success/Science [M/S/S] and Style and Science [S&S]) are interested but unlikely to discuss it. All of these groups are unlike the Other People group in that they would approve of a topic of conversation switching to a geek topic.
So what about the inverse? The article mentions "Desperate Housewives" and going out and careers. What if a geek topic switched to one of those? I'd suspect the M/S/S and S&S groups would be fine with those too while the S&P would not and probably get angry or dismissive. S&P geeks like their intellectually curious topics at the expense of everything else. All those other non-geek topics are shit and should be treated as such. For geeks "Desperate Housewives" is for secretaries and HR drones. Going out is mentally numb behavior and a scam by the liquor and clothing industries. Career talk is for PHBs. All of those things are commanded by simple deterministic logic of hard sciences. They're all "soft" and defy the ability to rule lawyer and one-up in the perpetual game of nerd battle-of-wills.
And for all this talk of "in the closet", that's the real barrier keeping people out: rabid intolerance for all things outside geekdom. Geeks, nerds, whatever aren't very big tent in approach. They make their bones by being exclusory. Everyone else is "Other People" and either an enemy or some sheep who can't be trusted to do anything. And attitude like that will keep most of that 40% (and a significant proportion of that 53% of the Science and Passion who are female) at arms reach.
What is music when you despise all sound?
it makes the rest of them sheep.
Lack of intellectual curiosity is the quickest way to piss me off. Admitting you don't know something, or that what you know is wrong, and then *refusing* to do anything about it makes my blood pressure rise so fast that i have to close my eyes to stop the blood from spurting right on out.
filter: +3. Hey, look! all the trolls went away!
And sometimes what people see as innuendo is more telling about the observer than the observed.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Intellectually, I'm curious what that makes the rest of them
Worthless meat. (You can't even sell it!)
I think the answer you were looking for was, "elitists".
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Ah, the naivete of youth.
Did you notice that the group that commissioned the study was a marketing group? Ever hear of the expression "astroturf"? Do you really think that those people who are like that are of concern to us?
Even your contention belies inexperience. Anything that requires interaction with other human beings, whether its promotion, acceptance in social niches, or management of subordinates, requires cultivation of "image". One first has to understand what is important to them, and then adapt their behavior to what best leads them to their objectives.
There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM and AT&T and DuPont, Dow, General Electric, and Exxon
"i-curious."
I'm sure that was meant as a joke (atleast I hope it was), but that's taking it too far.
The Republicans have some very smart people in their party, just look at Rove. When you take away your bias towards him, he's a great political strategist. He'd have to be to get Bush elected.
Just because you don't agree with someone's views, doesn't make them unintelligent.
Would you kindly mod me +1 insightful?
This is no surprise to me. ANU teaches a course in science journalism on the understanding that more people would like to read about science than sports in the newspaper, if only someone knew how to write about science. With so many interesting new discoveries and new technologies, it's interesting to find out what is going on. Not everyone thinks the science news is the most important news to read, but I've never met anyone who wasn't at least interested to know about the most glamourous or practical news items.
So why are the numbers so low? Maybe because the people who are most interested in science might not be very bookish, prefer to get their news from the telly and might not even have a computer. The person who most liked to talk about science news to me as a teenager was my school's bus driver and part-time gardener. Many farmers are illiterate and innumerate and resent other people using their brains while they toil like peasants, but generally they love technology even if they hate pure science. The people who are least interested are office workers, public servants and history teachers, whose work is less tangible and feel less connection to science and tech - but they are more likely to be the ones able to seek out internet news sources on their internet appliances.
Obviously this is just generalisation of my own personal experience, and probably very harsh, but I think it's valid to maybe 70% - I think it explains a lot of those numbers.
It also occurs to me that you need a certain density of people with a particular interest, otherwise the message doesn't get through that certain websites and communities exist or what jargon to use in order to find them. I didn't find slashdot or even google until I got to university because there was no starting point in the countryside. We got told the "best way" to search, "most respected" websites, etc. at high school, and that was all we had. And since I was the only "odd one out" I had nobody to compare notes with, except maybe my dad, and he lived in a different town 150km away. At that time, the 2nd most popular internet search was music, so I found some wonderful new cultural influences from mp3.com (back when it was relatively free and indie) which was easy, but it was really hard to learn about computers and technology on the internet - I didn't even know what to look for and unless it's related to something I have learnt, I still don't.
*#*#*#*#*#******* I love peanut butter sandwiches!
Intellectually, I'm curious what that makes the rest of them.
vi users
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
There are many things out there to learn about besides computers, networks, and hard science
True, but then there are many more things that would still allow you to be "intellectually curious" apart from these. Examples might include literature, art, philosophy, music, to name just a few "big" topics. I doubt that creative people could be counted as among the non-intellectually curious, usually you have to be in that bracket to be creative. Sitting in front of a TV set isn't creative, though nor is reading a book - though the latter is more likely to make you think.
What's so tragic about these figures is that most people are born intellectually curious, and the system that is their parents, their school, their peers and their environment bleed them dry of it, often by the time they are only 7 or 8 years old. Something is very, very wrong with this.
But, only an intelecutally curious man wants to learn how to fish.
...
Boy, did I just mangle that or what?
Obligatory Soundbite Catchphrase
"They conclude that 60 million Americans can be called "intellectually curious.""
;)
Wow, I didn't know that there were that many atheists in the United States.
I'm not sure you could find a better article for bringing out latent feelings of superiority among Slashdotters. This is just what we need, another excuse to talk about the differences between "us" and "them." We are smart and inqusitive. They are stupid and lacking imagination. I'm a geek, not a nerd. Geeks are cool, nerds are dorks. Jocks are stupid. NASCAR lovers are stupid. Americans are stupid. The label I apply to my in-group is superior to the label I apply to those outside my group.
The fact that there are a lot of "intellectually curious" people out there, even if the term is ill-defined, should come as a surprise to nobody. Geeks, nerds, gamers, programmers, hackers, brains, smart kids, rocket scientists, and Slashdot readers are not the only people in the world who are smart, curious, and interesting. Think of it this way, how many non-Slashdot reading people do you know who truly interest you? How many of those people are intellectually curious, imaginative, and full of insight? I know a lot of people who have never even heard of Slashdot and would never imagine themselves as "geeks" but are nonetheless very curious about the world and very stimulating to be around.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
you got it all wrong:
http://web.vee.net/stuff/geek-vs-nerd.html
http://twilightuniverse.com/2003/09/geek-vs-nerd/
I think you may be wasting your time with forums like slashdot....I know I am, but that's kind of the point....
I don't care what youre doing so much as the idiotic way you're doing it.
I think the Neocons are probably wrong about a lot of important stuff, but they certainly argue for their ideas well. And the Realists like Kissinger and (maybe) Rice are certainly smart, even if they have a somewhat pessimistic world view. Economically, ideas like school vouchers and tax cuts are not a bad idea in themselves.
In fact, the Republican party reminds me a bit of the Tories in England when Thatcher was in power. They're not short of ideas, but that might not be a good thing for them in the long run, since tax cuts and a project to democratise the middle east are not mutually compatible if you want a stable economy.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
I know I'm going OT, splitting hairs, and am in fact technically incorrect (at least according to dictionary.com), but I'm still going to point out that in common usage ethical and moral have different meanings. Morality functions in regards to your personal behavior. Ethics relates your behavior towardsothers, particularly in regards to a proffesional setting.
One can be an immoral person, to use your example say they are a homosexual, but still behave ethically (i.e operating a buisness honestly, informing people of conflicts of interest). I would argue that Rove is ethically stupid because his behavior is damaging his industry, politics, by damaging the ability of the parties to work together in the government. The whole point of a democracy is to create a system in which everyone has a voice, not just the 51% of the population which supports the leading party right now. Rove is creating a tyranny of the majority.
I think Rove plays his game very well, but it's not the same game everyone else is playing, and thats the stupid part.
Having read a classic comics adaptation of Machivelli's The Prince does not constitute intelligence. But seriously, Rove's sucesses have largely derived from his complete disregard for conventioal limits of political discourse. For example, his strategy for pushing bills through congress is to ignore the dissent within his own party and achieve a bare minimum of votes. Effective initially, but the long term implications are horrific for the party if their majority is diminished or eliminated. In the same fashion Iraq seemed to be ruthless brilliance until the shit hit the fan. Lysenko was smart this way.
It's just like Enron, if you are sufficently ruthless, and cook the books with no thought to tommorow you can look like a genius.
As for initellectual curiousity, this is the administration who had a college dropout overriding world class experts in NASA. This was the administration who put a VC in charge of the NSF. Rove has stated in the past that "If they have a doctorate they are a democrat" (I have to paraphrase this one no tabbed browsing on this hotel connection).
Just check out the number of cable/satellite channels that are Geek oriented: Discover, National Geographic, Science, etc.
Have you noticed the decline in quality of those channels in recent years? Less science, more sensaitionalism, outright fantasy, melodramatic accompanying scores, the list goes on.
A program about dinosaurs nowadays is going to be 95% CG animation with little basis in reality, and 5% actualy real dionsaur bones with real information about how and where they were found. It's a kids CG cartoon show.
Engineering shows are just as bad. Programs on communications systems or aircraft are now about the wars these systems were used in, rather than about the systems themselves. When was the last time a documentary really went into depth about the technical systems and not about the personal stories of harrier pilots in the Falklands war? And when all those flashy 3d swooping animations are actually used to display technical specs, they're far inferior to the professional, clear and focused static animations of the past.
Geek shows aren't made by geeks anymore. They're made by reject B-movie directors, and it shows.
May the Maths Be with you!
"Just because you don't agree with someone's views, doesn't make them unintelligent."
Here at Slashdot, not following the group think will get you branded as a fool or a religious nut. Trying to explain to these sycophantic, narrowminded people that someone with a different view on a subject has considered their position with intelligence is a pointless effort.
e.g.
Think that unborn children should be afforded the same rights as newborn children not only a minute old? Religious nut.
Think that the very idea of the Big Bang and the subsequent formation of the universe and all it's complexity is ridiculous at best and easily disproven with any number of astrological phenomina and physcial laws? Religious nut and/or fool.
Think that the religious crusade on human caused Global Warming is entirely politically motivated and backed by some of the most dubious science to have surfaced in modern history? Fool, ugly oil guzzling American.
Individuality is only accepted here as long as you toe the line on all issues of science, politic and hatred of religion, Bush, Republicans, Conservatives and Microsoft.
religions insist you take things on faith rather than science and hard facts
I would urge you to consider taking a course in philosophy. The kinds of knowledge that you take to be "hard facts" are in fact neither hard nor nessicarily facts.
No scientist can reason from first principles, he can only assume certain things and attempt to show that they hold in a given setting. This is not a deductive proof, but an inductive one. In other words, even if gravity works for all time, it is possible that gravity was different at some point in time and space for a particular observer. Science can only ignore this evidence or attempt to integrate it into a new story about the world.
Placing all your faith in such an institution is like asking a blind man to tell you about how the world appears.