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In my college class there were two kids I would call absolute geniuses, possibly the smartest folk I have ever met. One wrote his senior thesis his second year
by yolesaber 10y ago
In my college class there were two kids I would call absolute geniuses, possibly the smartest folk I have ever met. One wrote his senior thesis his second year there (on compilers and type theory) and another was a young philosophy transfer student from Deep Springs who regularly owned and outwitted professors in class to such a degree that rumors abounded he would be offered a faculty position after graduating. And he was. But he didn't take the position. Why? Because he killed himself a few days later, jumped in front of a train. The kid who wrote his senior thesis sophomore year got a job working for Google when he was nineteen (this was back when Google was still cool and considered the elite of the elite) and killed himself before his 21st birthday.
My point is that academic performance and intellect doesn't mean shit outside the academy and is a terrible indicator to use for success or accomplishment. It's never too late.
- Bakary 10y agoI won't ever know how people like that process the world but my guess is that they are attuned to the sheer horror of it in a way that most people can't conceive of, and aren't able to distract themselves from this with other pursuits. Following this taking their own lives becomes the only solution they can envision.
- sheer_horror 10y agoI'm a 22 year old student and developer. I took a test that said I was gifted as a kid. Since I was very young, I've sensed 'sheer horror' constantly. It's when I see my friends and family, and they describe their aspirations that they won't reach for lack of insight; its the people that get stuck in a local minimum of cognotive dissonance who decide not to seek the global minimum. The coming death of the world is the strongest and most painful, because to help avoid that is to decimate my interpersonal relationships in pursuit of a craft that I could use to grow a business that might have some shred of succeeding and granting me the power of influence. I can't meet people without perceiving their flaws that they won't acknowledge. Every day I am appalled by my mistakes and failures of the week, yet my standards are so high that I cannot even express my grief without people rolling their eyes at my lofty goals. I should be writing my integration tests.
- rublev 10y agoIs there a way to contact you?
- sheer_horror 10y agostill want to? just write something in this simple app i'm serving and I'll check it out. deppth.me/tasks afterwards, go back and check to see if I left a reply.
- Jimmy 10y agoOn the face of it, this is nonsensical, and highly offensive to people who are actually suffering. My first intuition is that no safe, warm, and dry college student could be "attuned to the sheer horror of the world" on the basis of their intelligence alone. On the other hand, you clearly have to be in a lot of pain if you're driven to kill yourself, and we shouldn't underestimate the degree of torture that one can inflict on oneself with one's own mind.
- yolesaber 10y agoYes, I think you are right. These were two very well-off people who basically had a meal ticket to success and accomplishment but chose a different path. I don't think it's because they were 'attuned' to suffering moreso than anyone (it doesn't take a genius to realize the world is a horrible, cruel place) but rather their immense mental faculties took up so much of their mind's resources that their well-being and emotional intellect suffered. At least, that's what it seemed to me but we will never know. Neither left a note.