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Do Geeks Make Better Adults?
mcgrew writes "What makes people unpopular in the hallways of high school, mainly an unwillingness to conform, tends to translate into success as an adult. Robbins lists several companies—including Yahoo!—that prioritize hiring quirky individuals who shun conventional thinking. She also name-checks historical and current celebrities, including director Steven Spielberg (who was taunted for being Jewish in high school) and Lady Gaga (a self-described former theater 'freak'), whose weirdness led to later fame. (Other now-validated former outsiders she touts: Steve Jobs, Taylor Swift, Bruce Springsteen and Angelina Jolie.)"
ahem.
Correlation != Causation.
ty.
I just pooped your party.
I'll let you know when I grow up. However right now, I believe the original premise is stupid.
"I use a Mac because I'm just better than you are."
What the hell is wrong with whoever wrote this!!?? What the fuck is 'better' about the listed 'celebrities'?
If you're only a class-c geek with an unwillingness to conform but without a layer of pizazz to roll it all together, you end up too unstable for a business to hire you, so you end up at fast food or retail with some gaming at night and weekends and the random day you skipped work to go on a raid/campaign.
That's the life to have ... up to about age 25, then it starts to crash hard.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
If you're weird like me, you can be successful and famous like me. And no worries if you're normal. We can fix that too.
..does being taunted for being jewish qualify you as being a geek? I know more than a few jewish individuals that are not geeks, more just nebbish.
I got here through a series of tubes
I was unpopular in High School, but I question whether that was because I was unwilling to conform, or because I had absolutely no idea how to do so.
Spielberg, I imagine, was in a similar position, unless he discovered a method of magically becoming a goy.
Just because you sold your soul to the devil that needn't make you a teetotaler. --The Devil and Daniel Webster
How many non-geeks are also wildly famous.
How many former geeks are now terrorists or serial killers?
Come to me when you have some numbers.
This is not to say I don't agree with the trend... but don't sell it like someone's done some quantitative research.
Do not meddle in the affairs of sysadmins, for they are subtle, and quick to anger.
Famous people are famous. Film at 11.
People famous in creative fields are sometimes "quirky". Who would have thunk it.
People who do well running tech companies are sometimes "geeks" who like tech. Who would have thunk it.
NEWS ALERT: Chiropractors are quacks.
Geeks think being a geek is better.
Slashdot's "No Shit Week" continues.
He said he does it intentionally to maintain a creative and highly diverse staff.
Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
First, the "process is killing my creativity" whining and now this "I'm not weird I'm special" self-aggrandizement. Here's the deal. Just like process *can* kill creativity doesn't mean that it will, so also the characteristics of a geek can also lead to success. They can also lead to suicide.
as I got older. I figured if I could not actually be a brilliant eccentric then at least I could behave like one and hope someone would fall for my ploy.
Nullius in verba
Where do I sign off from being a geek?
"What makes people unpopular in the hallways of high school, mainly an unwillingness to conform"
Geeks are geeks in high school usually because of a deficiency in social skills.
They don't pick up well on social clues and are slow to learn them.
Look what i can do, *jumps*
Timothy McVeigh: "McVeigh claimed to have been a target of bullying at school and that he took refuge in a fantasy world where he retaliated against those bullies." "While in high school, McVeigh became interested in computers and hacked into government computer systems on his Commodore 64"
David Koresh: "Due to his poor study skills, he was put in special education classes and nicknamed "Vernie" by his fellow students, but by the age of 11, he had memorized the entire New Testament."
Alrighty then!
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
Oh noes, the corporate machines won't hire me.
you end up too free-spirited for a business to hire you,
There, fixed that for you.
Government schools train people to be cogs for the machine (ref: John Taylor Gatto. "The Seven Lesson Schoolteacher" essay is also very good, and is on any number of sites). Some people rebel against being slotted into a position in life (the group you refer to who "crash hard" at age 25), while others recognize the game and make their own rules.
One must "learn the rules" in order to avoid the cog/machine outcome in their life. Gatto's Underground History of American Education (free at the site above) is a good start. :)
Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
www.teslabox.com
I while ago, I realized that at this point in my life, it's not really just an awkward phase anymore; it's just the way I am. I've been going with it ever since and I think it's been working out for me.
www.awkwardengineer.com
The Yahoo! article cited in the Slashdot post that's cited by this post starts off the first paragraph or two talking about the "Geeks make successful adults" idea, then veers off and becomes an observation on the ideas of social conformity telling stories of teacher cliques in schools, peer pressure and social hierarchies; I had to read it twice just to figure out what the point of the article was.
I'd guarantee that 80%+ of subluxations occur in people who sit at a desk all day looking at a computer. People doing NOTHING, in other words, are the ones coming in for critical spinal adjustments.
Way to alienate your entire audience there.
Not saying the headline's claim is true or untrue, but... these are all examples of very rare individuals - the luckiest or the most skilled of all the geeks, that made it big.
If you go by that argument, I can also point out that alot of the jocks from high school are now making many, many millions of dollars as professional athletes (NFL, NBA, etc.)
Disclaimer: Didn't RTFA, but still, dumb argument.
New webcomic updated on Sundays: HERE
I think there's a lot of truth to this.
Sometimes, the harder someone is pushed, the stronger their drive ends up being.
I feel that a lot of people became rich and/or famous just because they were "pushing back" hard, as it were....
Besides which, doesn't the ability to think differently mean success in a lot of cases?
Now, the term "better adults" I might argue with.
The right to offend is central to the right to free speech.
"What makes people unpopular in the hallways of high school, mainly an unwillingness to conform..."
Unwillingness to conform is NOT what makes people unpopular in highschool. In reality people are unpopular in highschool because they are physically unattractive, bad at sports, and have social anxiety problems of various kinds, in no particular order. "Unwillingness to conform" is a way nerds try to spin and justify their social anxiety. They frame it as if they could have chosen to be popular at any time by "conforming", whatever that means. As if it were totally in their control the whole time and they chose not to be popular because it's "shallow" or something like that. This attitude is delusional and self-destructive.
That's basically the crux of the question now, isn't it?
What's a "better adult"?
The whole think just sounds like a big circular reference kind of thing:
- Geeks make "better adults" as per the definition of "better adult" that's most commonly held by geeks.
Somehow I suspect that in the eyes of, say, born again christians, geeks do not make better adults.
Non-conformists show a higher tendency towards doing unique things. No shit. But then again, you have to have some sort of structure. I'm a great sysadmin and a decent programmer, and I'm a high-school dropout, never finished college, all that. But I truly regret not spending more attention to college when I was younger. Sure, I'd read all the books required to get a PhD in CS, but I never spent the time in class working through everything. So I didn't have that experience or grounding in my career, so I often forget things after a while of not working with them. Unemployed for a while, or don't spend enough time staying abreast of a certain technology? Oops, fail on that job interview.
I'd say it's the unorthodox people that apply themselves more that do the best.
PC moderators can suck my White pierced, tattooed dick. If you think pride == hate, s/dick/Aryan meat mallet/g.
So, by your article summary, a "better" adult is one that's in show business?
It's not that lacking the willingness or social skills to get along with people makes you successful, it's that, among all of the other reasons for someone to be disliked, looked down on, or excluded (most of which are due to negative traits), mediocre people will gang up against obviously superior peers in order to compete.
It's a natural social instinct. In a tribal setting, if the large mediocre group manages to marginalize the best and the brightest, they can push them into specialized, subordinated, undercompensated roles and benefit from their talent without having to compete with them in mainstream pursuits for the largest shares of the tribe's resources.
In the modern day real world, where people go their separate ways after high school, there's little to no local benefit for the mediocre group, although it can be collectively beneficial for all of the mediocre people in society. For the most part, this is a sign that the schools and parents are doing a poor job of socializing the student population with modern adult values.
Of course!
Biting the head off of a live chicken is a key component to functioning in society.
Maybe, but we do make better lovers...
...write geekier narcisist headlines?
Many of us non-conformists who were the perfect archetype of geekdom in our youth have turned out to have accomplished nothing of value with our adult lives.
What are the units of conformity and success. I'd like to make a graph. Surely there must be an XKCD for that...
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Behind tie is a red herring. Cliquishness has been around long before that. If anything, the NCLB mentality is a (guilt driven / politically correct) backlash against the previous abusive behaviors of those administrators responsible for conceiving and implementing such programs.
I thought it was interesting about the cliquishness of some teachers, though we have long heard that many who teach are simply those who failed to do anything else, further supporting the author's central thesis. Truly, an unwillingness to conform might prove to be modern society's holly grail.
Bukowski said it. I believe it. That settles it.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The article draws a false dichotomy between geeks and bullies. The most successful adults in today's society combine intellect with emotional intelligence. The successful adult, today, is the one in high school who could make the jocks & cheerleaders and the nerds, alike, feel like a million bucks.
And then there is the question of what constitutes success. Is it money? Is it number of progeny? Is it spiritual tranquility? Is it lack of hostile interactions? Strangely, the article seems to focus on this last one, whereas in centuries and millenia past, hostile interactions would have been seen as "success", assuming they were directed toward competitors for women and scarce resources.
We do not
would have settled lot of those misconceptions by now...
http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=2079
I detest how America sees becoming rich and famous as the only measure of being successful. I have a good job, wife, and kids, and wouldn't trade them for all the money or fame in the world. In fact, I've had money, but now money and fame would make me miserable, and who knows what it would do to my relationship with my family. It's like how people win the lottery and it destroys their life. I would say you have not become successful in life until you have shed your desire for material things, ego gratification, etc... Money might buy temporary pleasure, but not true happiness.
Geeks tend to make more interesting adults; not necessarily better. For example Unabomber Ted was geeky and interesting but probably not, in most estimations, better than the boring non-geeks he grew up around.
Since when being famous makes you a better adult? That maybe makes you more successfull than others depending on what you're famous for, but not necessarily a better person.
I see about 30% of /. stories somewhere else before they show up here, usually 2 or 3 days before - np with that, it's obviously the result of a deliberate editorial process.
Or not, this story broke "outside" about 2 hours ago...
I guess some topics are on the /. fast track.
Blaming the No Child Left Behind Act for social hierarchies in high school is like blaming GPS systems for road rage. There were bullies and cliques LONG before the NCLBA, and there will be forever. Another leftist liberal attempting to state the obvious and then getting it wrong. Way to totally miss the societal bus.
Well I think that says it ALL. IF Angelina Jolie is a geek, she really has nice tits.
I thought having nice tits only qualified you to be a bimbo. Perhaps I read the
wrong article.
Quirky non-conformity is NOT the same as social retardation. From the way I see it, most "non-conformists" conform quite well to their smaller, alternative cliques.
But what percentage of geeks and those who got picked on *actually* turned out successful? My guess? Not very high.
I think that the article is kinda false, for every weird showbiz star there is a famous high school retard that got into sports. IMHO the down to earth folks make the best adults (adult as a person not job or status). Geeks and Jocks that got over it fail second and there is a large amount of dwebs who never fix their life as well as popular high school guys that have a messed up after high school, i mean just look at the weird uncle stereotype and the "once most popular guy at school", now future less uncle stereotype.
Something I try to explain to my kids -- if your way is actually better, then by all means don't conform. But sometimes conforming isn't following the herd so much as realizing that the way everyone else does something is actually the best way to do something.
William of Ockham had no beard. The most likely explanation is that it was chewed off by squirrels every morning.
Comparing Lady gaga to the average person is like comparing an LED to a goldfish. If you're hiring people based on how big a freak show they are willing to be to get sucess, you're probably in the circus or a bad businessman.
I would say it's hard to find geeks that don't conform to the things that make us geeks.
This reminds me of all my "non-conformist" friends growing up who all skateboarded and wore plaid. All of them. They were so non-conformist that they all dressed the same way, had the same hobbies, and liked the same music.
Is professional success or fame the definition of a "good" adult?
just sayin'.
just a ghost in the machine.
This discussion is not complete without discussing the role of autism. We need to acknowledge that autism is not a disorder in many people, it is a benefit. Unfortunately, one of the side effects for high-performing autistics is geekiness. As was put very well in a Wired article a few years ago, we would have never made it to moon without the autistic engineers working for NASA and its contractors.
Disclaimer: I consider myself to be a high-functioning autistic person, so, yes I have an agenda.
If I used a sig over again, would anyone notice?
Successful adults are the ones who trudged through the school system, despite itself. Who hated it and hated the people and hated the experience and couldn't wait to get out of it so they could get into the real world and start life. (Something I can't stress enough to young people is that no matter how much school sucks and no matter what anyone tells you, it all will be different the day you graduate and nothing from high school -- not your popularity, your clique, your grades, your record -- nothing will count against you like all the adults try to convince you it will, so just fucking hold on until you're out).
On the other hand, you have all the fucking idiots who say things like "they were the best years of our lives". If high school years were the best years of your life, you should just fucking kill yourself *now*. I shouldn't even need to extrapolate on this. Even if you're popular and successful in high school, it is of so little consequence and impact and meaning that it can't possibly be the greatest time of your life and if it is, that means you are planning to become stagnant the moment you leave those supposedly "hallowed halls".
Robbins followed seven self-described outsiders at public and private high schools for a year and concluded that what makes kids popular—conformity, aggression, visibility, and influence—won't make them happy or successful after they graduate.
What!?!? I'll present a similar argument. See if you can spot the flaw: I observe that white bread gets moldy after I open the package. Therefore I conclude that wheat bread doesn't get moldy after I open the package. She followed the outsiders (self-described, no less ["Yeah I'm a nonconformist, nbd"]) to determine the fate of the non-outsiders. Wow.
So Jewish = Geek, and being taunted for your race/religion is equated to being teased for being smart/nerdy/geeky? I'm guessing this was only published to get a lot of (negative) attention. It's ludicrous.
I just yelled up the basement stairs and ask my mom if I was a good adult. She assured me I am.
sure, I can find 5 celebritys or super succesful people with any character trait you can name.
but what about the 99% who are not successful ? (unlike lake wobegon, most people are not above avg, much less above the 99th percentile)
The way to do this experiment is to measure say 1,000,000 million people for various character traits in High School, and then follow them for 40years
you could also do it retrospectively, going back 40 years in time, ifyou could measure people from historical data
I tend to discount many attractive female celebrities' description of "being bullied" growing up. I have know a few attractive women IRL who perceive every single slight as a "bullying" or "being mean" (I was at the story with one once, and she thought the cashier VERY mean based on inflection and tone, etc). Sorry Taylor, a few girls growing up were jealous and said some nasty things about you behind your back. That's not bullying.
(I don't mean for this to sound sexist - I just noticed a handful of female celebs are saying this now. I think guys, for whatever reason, are able to distinguish people talking crap about them and actual bullying)
Girls should certainly be married off at puberty. The Bible has no "age of concent" nor is concent ever required from the girl. Geeks oppose such things. THey are throuughly feminist belivers. No they do not make better adults. THey ruin the world by exporting feminism and kissing women's asses for nothing.
"Behind tie is a red herring" -- spads
You dress funny.
---
ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
The examples given include "Yahoo!, historical and current celebrities, Steven Spielberg, Lady Gaga, Steve Jobs, Taylor Swift, Bruce Springsteen and Angelina Jolie." In one case you have a tech company where the culture is to bring in geeks and in the other cases listed, they can be defined as creators of their own product (entrepreneurs). What is missing is the standard business model - starting in the mail room and working your way to the top. I find that the popular kids still kick butt in the standard business world. In addition to high intelligence and drive, one needs a keen set of social skills to understand management at the highest level. Most geeks do not, as per the popular Venn Diagram
As far as making them "good" adults, obsessing about your kids is a good thing.
ceci n'est pas un sig
What usually makes someone a 'geek' is their lack of social skills. This hardly translates into a recipe for success for the vast majority of people...
The subject line says "Do geeks make better adults", but the summary talks about successful adults.
I've known a number of successful people (financial, political and/or celebrity), but very few of those are what I would call a "better adult". And many of them seem to be generally unhappy despite their "success".
On the other hand, I've known some weird, quirky people in high school that grew up to be weird, quirky, unsuccessful people in adult life. Being weird doesn't guarantee success.
I noticed that some of the females listed would also have been described as exceptionally hot. Being really attractive tends to help the whole social thing.
Fist off, you assume all those people are better adults because they are famous.
That's just stupid.
Second of all, there are millions of successful people who where just average kids.
Is the high school nerd who takes out his repression anger on his children a better adult?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
"Success", on a human scale, is defined by reproduction. Passing your genes onto progeny, and increasing their chances of survival. /. itself is proof that geekiness does not translate into an increase the chance you will reproduce. In fact, it's usually the opposite.
Ergo, no.
-Styopa
See, thats what I love about /. - I read the article and am outraged at the obvious causation / correlation fail, but when I come to rant about it I find that the very first comment has done it already.
This is what really happens to non-conformist geeks from high school; we just eventually find the places where we do fit in...
I don't know of any careful objective study of this phenomenon, but from my casual layman's reading of history and watching PBS programs, it seems that a lot of progress has been made by non-conformist groups. In England the Puritans were excluded from the ruling elite and their schools and so started their own schools. They made a large contribution to, among other things, the Industrial Revolution, Abraham Darby being the poster child. The Jews, a marginalized group, have a lot of achievements to their credit in science, the arts, and philosophy. It would seem that in many cases, Baruch Spinoza being an example, they caught a lot of flack from their own people by crossing over with their ideas and thinking. Many immigrant groups to the USA have revitalized American culture.
My own theory is that being outside the mainstream forces one to think outside the box, and to see the inconsistencies and hypocrisy of the conventional and conformist thinkers.
In theory, theory and practice are the same; in practice they're different. (Yogi Berra & A. Einstein)
Taking risks can mean bigger success or bigger failure. Focusing on the stand out successes doesn't tell the whole story. Winning big always requires taking big risks. But that doesn't mean that everyone would benefit from such behavior. There is a reason why conformity is in our genes. On average, it a better strategy. You might not become the tribal leader but, with help of your buddies, you are less likely to be eaten by a bear. In this age, you might not make CEO, but you are less likely to be laid off and more likely to get help finding a new job if you are.
Can we get a definition of what makes one adult better than another? I would argue that people who are rich and famous may not be "better adults" than those that are poor nobodies.
As far as quality is concerned, I think that a Geek's attention to detail does allow them to produce the best quality Adults.
However, if sheer quantity is your aim, you can get a much better deal by lowering your standards a bit -- After all, even low quality humans taste pretty much the same (so long as they have functional kidneys). So I'd say whether you should get your adults from a Geek or just a run of the mill cultivator depends on what you're using the adults for: Entertainment or Food.
Oh, you mean the humans themselves? Absolutely not, no, the "geeks" don't turn out to be good as Adults. You may be able to keep them distracted and complacent as children, but the "geek" variety are hard to integrate properly into a conformant (and fast breeding) populous.
Geeks themselves tend to stand out and draw attention to the logical flaws in the environments we've built to contain them (especially the breeding program). The mere possibility that they'll reveal these truths to others and lead a revolt is enough to opt for the less intelligent variety when it comes to Adults.
TL;DR: Geeks, while entertaining as children, are too cumbersome to keep as adults; They're too smart for their own good.
Wait, so being Jewish is now considered "non-conformist?"
So if your a geek youll grow up to be steven spieldberg? So, does that mean the millions and millions of geeks in this country right now will grow up and be millionares just because spieldberg and lady gaga were once geeks?
And who exactly thinks that because your rich and famous your a better adult? This countries preoccupation with celebrities and money is disgusting. We deify someone because they are famouse or have millions of dollars. Sorry but being rich doesnt make a good person.
Besides if geeks became the normal then all the highschool jocks would then become the more promising adults simply because they are outnumbered?
This article makes no sense is based purely off an idle observation by a bored journalist trying desperately to get something done today.
"...She also name-checks historical and current celebrities, including director Steven Spielberg (who was taunted for being Jewish in high school) and Lady Gaga (a self-described former theater 'freak'), whose weirdness led to later fame. (Other now-validated former outsiders she touts: Steve Jobs, Taylor Swift, Bruce Springsteen and Angelina Jolie.)"
Anybody can be "weird". Not everyone can pull it off and cash in on it. And quite frankly, find me someone successful in Hollywood that isn't "weird" in some way. How many of these people are weird or "eccentric" because of their fame? It's doubtful that Angelina would be able to afford to be the global spokesperson she tries to be if she was still a starving actress.
And..uh...Taylor Swift? Is there something deep and dark we should know about her deep-as-a-thimble personality that would put her within the freak-show ranks of Angelina Jolie and Lady Gaga? Unless a porn video is hiding somewhere, I seriously doubt it.
nothing geeks love more than talking about how special geeks are.
especially when they pride themselves on being so unique and different and quirky from all the other geeks.
cue the jello biafra...
https://www.accountkiller.com/removal-requested
Quack quack quack QUACK!
What Robbins doesn't mention is that those same quirky people are a complete pain in the ass to deal with in real life.
They complain constantly when having to do hard, manual labor,
They can't tolerate any kind of inconvenience,
They can't tolerate any kind of irritation, sometimes threatening to sue if it doesn't do away,
They are self-centered, and think the world owes them something,
They think people are obligated to listen to whatever they have to say, and don't like being told they are wrong when they are wrong,
They think that people should give them respect, rather than have to earn it,
When a problem occurs that is outside their area of technical expertise, they are completely helpless. (Such as the tax genius who knows everything about taxes and accounting, but can't understand why the gas pump suddenly clicked off after 15 gallons and wouldn't let him put any more gas in his car. HINT: It's full. Actually had this one, and I still had to explain what I meant by 'Full').
When something doesn't go the way they want, they complain constantly, e.g. FML, Life Hates Me (sort of true), My boss/neighbor/etc. is a complete retard.....ad nauseum.
Robbins' study is so flawed in so many ways, it shouldn't have even been published. The term "quirky" varies widely, and she also uses self-claims of quirkyness in validating quirky people. If a student had done this as a research project in my Psych classes, there wouldn't be a student or Professor around who wouldn't be able tear this to shreds. I could go on and on about the crappy research, methods, and conclusion, it would just be a rant.
Technical Analysis:
10% Junk Journalism
20% Poorly Defined Variables
20% Poor Statistical Analysis
50% Bad Data Collection Methodology
Knowing Google's lust for data collection, the Soviet Union is still alive and well inside the psyche of Sergey Brin....
If "better" means "famous" and "geek" means "different", then yes this is true. It's also completely obvious. If you are not different, then you clearly are not more famous. You're the same.
Being different is necessary, but not sufficient to being famous.
Of course, as we all know, geeks really are better people in every aspect. :D
see subject
My karma ran over your dogma
The plural of anecdote is not evidence.
I wasn't one of the cool, beautiful people in high school. I was physically and socially awkward, quiet, kept to myself, and tended to live in my own little world.
Fashions change. At the time (1970s) I was just viewed as weird. Now I would be viewed as having Asperger's. Whatever fits, I suppose. I'm still quiet, still keep to myself, still have a skewed view of the world, but have long since lost the awkwardness, since I stopped pretending to be somebody I wasn't and started to just be myself.
I sometimes wonder what happened to some of the people I knew in high school. I hope some of them turned out well. I hope some of the got what they deserved. I got what I wanted, and am happy with my life.
...geeks are better people.
Intelligence is a virtue. Thoughtless people are dangerous to themselves and others. And so on.
Is Lady Gaga what people aspire to become? Really? Count me out.
I never understood people who are conformists. If you want to be like the others, then why should you be chosen for... anything ? Isn't the other conformist just the same as you and just as likely to be chosen ? Conformity seems so stupid to me. All I want to do is things that nobody or hardly anybody else has done or has the guts to do. Fuck sheeples, they are useless waste of meat.
Non-Linux Penguins ?
By Ralph Keyes - A classic study of how success in life correlates with status in (American) high school?
In that book, success in later tended to correlate well with your status in high school - the characteristics that make you popular in high school do not translate well to success later in life. It's the outcasts and the nerds who vow to make something of themselves so that they can come back and enjoy a belated revenge.
I can just imagine all the teasing that Taylor Swift and Angelina Jolie had to endure. Oh the humanity.
I was a non-conformist in HS. Hated the jocks (even though I played football, nothing more conformist than football players at a Catholic school), but hated the little overachieving geeks as well, many of whom were even more aloof and self-satisfied than the jocks.
Ironic that a geek Website can only see in binary terms: conformist or geek. There are other categories, and BTW, Wozniak was the geek. Jobs was a visionary who couldn't code "hello world!". Apple needed both to succeed.
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
"including director Steven Spielberg (who was taunted for being Jewish in high school) "
Of course he was! Weren't all the poor Jews 'taunted' by their evil cattle - sorry - 'goyim'?
I'm sure Spielberg can make a film all about his endless suffering at the hands of people who he CHOSE TO LIVE AROUND, AND WON'T MOVE AWAY FROM...
with your health workers that would make their private lives any of your business?
It's a shame I don't encounter more geeks like Angelina Jolie on a regular basis
Interesting question about geeks as successful adults, but the whole notion is so subjective and arbitrary it's rather hard to quantify in any logical or meaningful way really.
'The unexamined life is not worth living' - Socrates
It always puzzled me why people tried so hard to conform. I had too much real stuff to do. Still do. Am I a better adult? I'm independent. The government probably doesn't think I'm better as they like conformers. On the other hand, I am one of those who has innovated so the government tolerates us.
I don't think anyone can define a better person.
And more so, I don't understand why everyone here complains about bullying--don't get me wrong, bullying is horrible. I have friends who were severely affected by bullying and I feel great sympathy for them, and on encountering such situations I'll stand up for the victim. But reading comments here, you'd think that only geeks were bullied, and think that all geeks were bullied.
It's not as if there isn't bullying at my school, last year this poor kid killed himself after being pushed to hard by a bully. He wasn't a geek, he had a sex change. I'm a geek, I've never been picked on neither have many of my geek friends--some have some haven't. There just isn't much correlation between my friends who get bullied and my friends who are geeks. Sure people will make fun of that, but that's not why they're making fun.
I hate how "geek" and "nerd" has been appropriated in pop culture by every damn asshat who suddenly wants to pass as intelligent. It's especially frustrating when it's misapplied to people who are already getting more than their fair share of attention -- sorry, being popular does not automatically mean you deserve to be labelled intelligent.
Having an obsession with something doesn't automatically make you a "geek" or a "nerd". Development of cliquish lingo also doesn't make something "geeky" or "nerdy" either.
I think the defining characteristic of "geeks" and "nerds" is the comfort with and use of one or more branches mathmatics. This means people who love science, math itself, and engineering -- regardless of whether it's their day job.
But it does not include smarmy, clueless, "Hollywood" hipsters seeking attention and validation! Yes, there are people in "Hollywood" who use math -- geeks. But they're *rarely* the ones on screen. It's as if we need to have any bogus rationalization of why these people deserve our attention! :P
Weirdos and geeks are unrelated. Weirdos are often individuals with alternative personas. Geeks (not being pejorative, just factual) don't know how to, can't fit it. They may be very smart and therefore perhaps successful (as the weirdos) in later life but for whatever reason in HS they are not yet socially adept, mature. Me thinks the writer of this article was probably a geek, but so clueless.
_most_ people are harassed and out cast from groups at one time or another in their lives. Its an absolute minority who have never been "picked" on, and we tend to remember when being on the receiving end. The correct assumption of this reports should be, "Most people have been picked on, a minority of these later went on to become famous and 'successful'"
First off, geek != intelligent. Secondly, geeks often have poor social skills, have enormous inferiority/superiority complexes (you're a case in point), are hugely self righteous (think nice-guy syndrome) and are very manipulative (again, nice-guy syndrome), together with a whole host of other defects. I have literally no idea why you think geeks are better people in any way, other than fixing computers...care to explain?