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Nerds Still More Likely To Get Bullied
trashbird1240 writes "Reports on a recent meta-analysis of bullies and victims found that bullies and victims have similar personality traits, but that bullies tend to do poorly in school, as opposed to those who get bullied. Both bullies and victims are poor social problem solvers, but they resort to different tactics to handle their social ineptitude. To me this represents a huge leap forward in understanding nerd psychology."
So basically, if you can't develop social skills you do what every other animal does: Become a predator. And if you fail at that, you're dinner.
FTFA:
Victims share much of same, negative attitude, conflict in the family.
It looks as though the victims are the other side of the same coin.
And what's not mentioned in the article is how the ramifications of bullying stick with someone for the rest of their life - there the "mousy ones", the ones without "self confidence", the ones that "don't fit in", etc....
It wouldn't surprise me the least if many of the permanently unemployed are part of this group. So, I think it costs society too.
RIP America
July 4, 1776 - September 11, 2001
Even the most amazing street fighter who has gotten himself into hundreds of fights can still loose an eye against an amateur. Street fights are not a sport. Various environment props and even weapons are more than likely if the opponent is stupid enough to pick a fight in the first place.
The best way to win a fight is by never fighting at all.
You both completely failed at learning jack, and resorted to the threat of violence. NERD FAIL.
Learn social skills. THAT'S the lesson. They aren't hard and a handful of social cues makes all the difference.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I was the typical introverted high school nerd (5'4 at the time), and had a 6'5" upper-class psychopath following me around and finding new ways to harass me.
I talked to my principal over it (God bless you Roger Hood!). He told me next time it happened, kick his ass and he (the principal) wouldn't punish me.
A few days later at PE we were playing soccer, and whenever I had the ball he would "accidentally" kick me in the leg as hard as he could. For days, it felt like a knife every time I put weight on that foot. Hurt so bad it took my breath away.
Two days later I spotted him in the hall. I kicked him in the jewels, and laid him flat on the ground. I proceeded to spend the next 3 minutes kicking and punching him in the balls, the sides, the head, anything I could hit. I didn't feel any pain in my foot at all during this. Eventually he was bawling so loud that the girls in a nearby classroom came out and rescued him (and had the gaul to ask why I was picking on the poor psychopath and being such a mean person).
Two things happened: the psychopath transferred out of the school a week later, and *no one* ever messed with me again.
I wish we could all get along. But some whack jobs only understand the language of violence, and you have to be willing to speak their language to teach them a lesson.
I think the biggest challenge in Aikido is finding a club that offers unrestricted sparring. Without that, you can never learn to actually defend yourself.
I briefly practised Aikido having trained in Sambo and Muay Thai. What shocked me (and caused me to leave every club I joined) was that everything was very slow and everyone always knew what was coming; as a result everyone thought that they were great because they didn't know how little they actually knew. This is in contrast to the other arts I have trained in, where (mostly) free sparring from the very first lesson means that you're acutely conscious of the limitations of what you know.
If you can find an Aikido club that shares premises with other martial artists and lets practitioners of different arts roll together then I can see Aikido being an effective discipline. Unfortunately this sort of practice, which isn't uncommon for judokas (who often spar with BJJ fighters or crosstrain for MMA), seems to be unheard of in Aikido, at least everywhere I've tried. It's similar to the problems in Karate and Taikwondo - if you don't allow any influence from outside the ecosystem then you can easily end up with an art that is useless when the rules of that ecosystem are removed. (That's not to say Karate or TKD are useless by nature, just that in their modern form they are normally taught by someone who has never learnt the weaknesses of the art. )
The problem is that for some people, basic hand to hand to hand fighting or grappling (preferably a bullshit free low fat type such as boxing or jiu jitsu) is preferable because you can pick up the basics quickly and not invest huge amounts of time if you are content with knowing the basics of fighting and self defense but don't find it to be an enjoyable hobby. On the flip side, you can work your entire life to master akido.
parents and teacher don't want to address the issue. That's how they get away with it.
More strictly(at least in my experience), parents and teachers, and admins are actually very interested, with occasional exceptions, in addressing the issue(When I was in school, they were constantly emitting pious anti-bullying PSAs, having observed administrators in an occupational context, their bookshelves and seminar schedules are packed with mentions of the issue, written by assorted well-meaning education Ph.Ds).
The problem, though, is that they generally aren't willing to face the reality of the issue. They cling to the illusion that, with the right magic words and social niceties and apologies and shit, everyone will just be able to get along and be nice to each other. The fact that "X is a bully" implies "X is a sadistic bastard who derives pleasure from inflicting pain on those weaker than him" was just too unpleasant to enter their analysis of the situation. Oh, no, if we just call in one of X's victims and have them talk over their differences(nice way to let X know who squealed on him, assholes, that isn't going to go badly), we can all come together and sing "kumbaya" in joyous harmony. This basic failure made all their well meaning efforts utterly futile, and not infrequently counterproductive.
The trouble is, the sort of well-meaning softies who care the most about bullying are the ones who have the greatest difficulty wrapping their minds around the fact that they are dealing with genuinely crafty, vicious people. A bully/victim dynamic is not a "misunderstanding". There is no "talking over" to be done. It is an application of power and violence, just because they can, and because they enjoy it. The sort of person who is all empathic and becomes a guidance counselor or whatever just isn't very well equipped to understand that. They have such a long(and vicerally immediate) history of caring, and feeling other people's pain, that they have difficulty imagining the inner lives of people who don't care, and who enjoy others' pain. Even if told, the abstract model is so alien to their emotional experience that they just can't take it seriously and grapple with its implications to a useful degree....
The kids that got picked on were the small kids with napoleon complexes and would seek out fights.
I really can't blame the small kids. Size matters in this society. I don't remember if it was Crick or Watson who said this, but when asked if they were for genetic engineering of children, they responded with this (to paraphrase):
Ninety percent of CEOs are over the height of six feet. A man who's five four and a woman who's five foot even may want something a little more for their kids.
His point being that tall people have an edge, of course - not that every parent want's their kids to be CEOs.
I once worked for a guy who insisted that he got where he was by hard work. He was 6' 3", handsome Italian guy who was also a Yale football star who graduated with a degree in Economics - I don't know how well he did. Anyway, business opportunities just came to him - yes, he was a multi-millionaire. I saw his books. He was always telling me that I need to develop some "self-confidence". Easy for him to say.
When Dave Chappelle was on the "Actors Studio", he kind of chewed out a white guy about the opportunities he got because he was white and he probably never even realized what they were.
I understand. People are basically primates. The taller you are the better. The whiter you are the better.
It's not blatant. It's just how folks react towards you on a subconscious level. Blacks do it to other blacks - ever hear of the "brown paper bag" rule?
Here's an example that's a little more conscious: hot chicks. Everybody kisses the ass of the hot chick.
RIP America
July 4, 1776 - September 11, 2001
yes, but bullies are too stupid to learn better.
That's kinda've the point.
That's the part I don't understand, since it appears the ones getting bullied may also be incapable of learning better.
They say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but it's not one half so bad as a lot of ignorance. - Terry Pratchett