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Didn't finish reading the article because, like so many articles, (1) it equates achievement with intelligence (2) it does not actually seem to tell you how to

Didn't finish reading the article because, like so many articles, (1) it equates achievement with intelligence (2) it does not actually seem to tell you how to "raise a genius". I have seen a lot of lives of highly intelligent people go wrong, and this is the advice I would give: respect high-IQ children intellectually, prepare to lose arguments, but still give them emotional support. It's easy to imagine someone is an adult because they argue well, but in my experience intellectual capacity is not related to emotional stability. Both aspects need to be developed. I'm the godfather of a very intelligent young woman. She is at university now, but regularly drops by to discuss all kinds of things. Achievement is totally unimportant to her, but she is very curious about how the world works. Talking to her is just amazing!

AstralStorm 10y ago
It does not equate anything. It describes the correlation and steps to not waste huge talents. In fact it does say they do not know exactly why some highly intelligent people do not achieve much. It is surprisingly easy to waste talent. For example, get a gifted person through standard school and they will likely never extend enough to achieve full potential, often by growing lazy and coasting. Or push them into a wrong field, they will do good but not exceptional. See, if your niece was challenged enough, she would probably place more value on achievement and thus achieve more. It is a positive feedback loop. The correct approach is to give them as much challenge as they can take. Evaluating where this point is takes some major interpersonal skills and experience. Emotional support is a necessary ingredient as well so that failures do not break them and they remain human.
- nils-m-holm 10y ago
  > See, if your niece was challenged enough, she would probably place more value on achievement You say that as if it would be a good thing. In my view, life is about happiness, not about achievement. If those two correlate, fine. If they don't, also fine.
  - AstralStorm 10y ago
    The values of children do not come from nowhere. They are not raised in a vacuum. While it is purview of philosophy, it seems unethical to let your talents be wasted; you could be improving life of others instead. Plus kids typically like to do what they are talented to do.
- panic 10y ago
  IMO the whole idea of "potential" that can be "wasted" is toxic. As soon as you feel yourself falling behind -- which you always will -- that idea that you've wasted your potential shows up to make you feel bad. This inevitably drives people toward easier kinds of achievement like awards, promotions, and degrees. But a lot of real progress happens outside systems like this! I think it's valuable to have smart people working on stuff for its own sake, not chasing any kind of achievement.
  - cpkpad 10y ago
    It depends on where the pressure is places. If the pressure is placed on kids, sure. If it's placed on schools, that's not toxic. The school system in most of the US works under an attitude that the smart kids will do okay, and don't need anything extra. Even gifted and talented programs are fading fast. The truth is those school system are toxic, abusive torture to someone smart. There were plenty of smart kids I knew -- some smarter than me -- who got horrible grades going through one of these school. Many of them did not, in any real sense, succeed. Imagine being placed in a room, today, and forced to listen to lectures on what you already know, and be given menial make-work tasks, like adding big numbers and copying letters, and doing that for hours each day. Some people are resilient enough to survive that. Others get pretty broken by it.
    - DanBC 10y ago
      > Even gifted and talented programs are fading fast. What's the evidence that G&T programmes achieve better academic or life outcomes?
      - luxpir 10y ago
        Isn't that the premise of the study? Sidenote: I read the SciAm article last week, not this one yet.
      - deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
      - nitrogen 10y ago
- scandox 10y ago
  > they do not know exactly why some highly intelligent people do not achieve much My guess: an intelligent reaction to life is to value things that can't be measured
  - AstralStorm 10y ago
    Achievement cannot really be measured either. Doctorates and patents are used as proxies. You could also add scientific papers, renowned works of art, successful businesses, charities etc. Anything that advances humanity.
- agumonkey 10y ago
  There's a socio-affective component to 'achieving'. The pupils have to care about the people and about what society think is an achievement. And for this I believe they have to care about said pupils identity (which they might not understand for lack of overlapping common views)
madaxe_again 10y ago
Tell me about it. I was one of those "precocious" children - I consistently tested years ahead of my peers, did state exams several years early, went to university several years younger than my peers. Pressure. So much damn pressure. "Madaxe, don't you think it's disappointing that you didn't come first in all of your exams? Blankety blank is a stupid boy. He shouldn't have beaten you in blank. Are you stupid too?" I never cared about achievement - just about knowing more, understanding why everything was as it was, how everything works - I ended up studying physics, because "because atoms" didn't cut it. All my parents and my schools cared about was achievement. Stop asking questions, study the material we gave you. "But it's wrong." "We know. Doesn't matter. Learn it anyway.". The bit at the end of TFA about emotional intelligence vs academic intelligence is very true - my parents and the boarding schools which raised me put emphasis only on academic achievement. The fact that I was setting fire to things and torturing other kids apparently wasn't too important, and just warranted more beatings, and more pressure. As an adult, I have the emotional intelligence of a cucumber and am conflict avoidant in the extreme. Whatever benefit having a superior intellect might have granted me I am hell-bent upon squandering, as I learned long ago to be ashamed of and resent my intelligence. People hate you if you are academically gifted. It's much easier to pretend to be a dullard.
- beefield 10y ago
  > People hate you if you are academically gifted. It is somehow simultaneously sad and infuriating that it is not only socially accepted but seemingly ok to be _proud_ to be stupid in mathematics, computers and science. Try that with social intelligence, knowledge of popular culture or your capability/interest in keeping your home tidy, and the _best_ you can hope is a stamp "weirdo" in your forehead.
  - yomly 10y ago
    It is certainly strange and frustrating. Being academically talented is generally socially frowned upon. On the contrary, being talented in other dimensions such as sports or music is generally celebrated. In the general sense, there seems to be a confluence of factors at hand - I see it as academically talented people having not having great soft skills, academic achievement being of valued low by society, and a base aversion toward people of academic ability. If you accept PG's explanation of academically intelligent people being deficient in social skills[0], then it follows that it is possible many academically skilled people have also not learned how to gracefully acknowledge their abilities (e.g. they're not modest). From anecdotal personal experience it seems to me this is driven by two interrelated sub factors - the first is a lack of popularity / social value causing overcompensation. School years can be brutal for certain archetypes and this produces damaged egos which can result in certain unpopular behaviour in later life such as immodesty. The other is more tenuous but I have also found that progressing deeper along the thought process for STEM fields is at ends with social interaction - one requires absolute logical and rational thought, the other involves ambiguous emotional and often contradictory thought processes - e.g. in programming you develop a thicker skin toward being objectively wrong but pointing this out to people from other backgrounds can seem obtuse at the best of times, smart/show-offy at the worst of times. On the social sciences side, things are more relatable but only certain types of people enjoy engaging in "intellectual" conversation. This feeds into the last point. Socially it is more glamorous to be a sporting champion than a mathematician. This is potentially due to relatability - it is easier to appreciate a good footballer or tennis player on a primal level than a brilliant mathematician or physicist: the sportsman's abilities are more tangible than the academic's. Its hard to sell academic work, it is by its nature difficult and the people involved do not spend enough time explaining this to people in the field to laypeople. Finally, while we're not really all forced to do sports, we are all forced to do school and study maths, science etc. So for people who are weak in these subjects, it is natural to project the resentment held against the subjects to people associated with them. It probably doesn't helpe that success at school is a decent predictor for later life success - no one likes being reminded of their own inadequacy. It also doesn't help that things which are encouraged by academic activities like correctness and depth can be at ends with social interraction. Use of overly correct punctuation and grammar can seem formal and stuffy to normal people. Appreciation of arts and classical music can seem pretentious or posh. These things can lead to further alienation when passion is expressed in the wrong context. It's worth noting that in East Asian countries where academic ability is more socially recognised, there seems to also be less of a stigma being brilliant or behaviour of people parading their inability at maths. Singapore is probably the closest place you'll get to having a nation that celebrates its great minds but its still a far cry from reaching the heights of popularity celebrities achieve... [0]http://www.paulgraham.com/nerds.html http://www.paulgraham.com/nerds.html
paulpauper 10y ago
(1) it equates achievement with intelligence The two are positively correlated, as the article mentions . The super-intelligent are more likely to achieve success as measured by creative output ,wages, educational attainment, publishing paper, and social status (2) it does not actually seem to tell you how to "raise a genius" The article is about how to not waste talent once it has been identified
abysmallyideal 10y ago
The US appears to be the norm in this, which is why they focus on bringing in well developed intelligent people from other nations despite having boasted a program for intelligent kids, which in large part was an enormous failure to develop these kids into productive adults utilizing their capabilities. Quite a few of the people that move here are already considering moving back to raise their kids in an environment more conducive to their intellectual capability, rather than deal with the US' bully/violence and abnormally extremely aggressive culture. Edit: I can't tell you how many "gifted" and highly intelligent people struggled as adults, with a significant amount of them have already committed suicide... it is a significant amount. The way the US' so called program for intelligent kids left many of them utterly defenseless and pariahs, was abominable. A few of the smartest people I've known committed suicide, and a few others died from drug overdoses. It's a fucked up place, there's something wrong with the US' progrms, something severely wrong. Its level of "disturbing" is reminiscent of the CIA programs that targeted highly intelligent people for experimentation.
- nikdaheratik 10y ago
  From what I've read, and some of my own experience, it seems like some of the genetic markers for high IQ are also shared with other mental illness, particularly depression and bipolar disorder. A few papers have even theorized that one of the triggers for these illnesses is when some of the markers for high IQ are switched on, but others are not. The bullying doesn't help, but it isn't the only cause for the downward spiral and may not be unique to the US.
  - abysmallyideal 10y ago
    I'm in the same boat, likely less. I figure my IQ is no where near as high as the people who had to suffer under the US' misguided programs and possible subversion and antagonism by their own elites. It reminds me of the disturbing movie called "The Accountant" where they express a genius of Mozart and Einstein is turned into a complete monster, a robotic killing machine... and this is somehow celebratory. Maybe it is an expression of our times, and that western civility has failed (or is non-existant). Environment has an active effect on how a person develops through their lives, and maybe scientifically and genetically this is expressed as "marker switching" or "de/activation".
nikdaheratik 10y ago
Well from what I can tell, it basically said that it's good to let "genius" children skip grades if they're really bored in school. Also that it's important to give them chances to learn more even if they don't skip ahead in their regular class. So it kind of did tell you how. More to the point, it did not equate high achievement with intelligence all that much, it just pointed out that if you have someone who is intelligent and you want them to achieve alot in their future, you want to give them as many chances they can to keep learning. That being said, if you want the child to grow up and be a well rounded and happy person, it's probably also good to give them the chance to do what they want to do even if that isn't the traditional definition of a high achiever. Although, being a complete slacker in everything isn't that great either.

AstralStorm 10y ago

It does not equate anything. It describes the correlation and steps to not waste huge talents. In fact it does say they do not know exactly why some highly intelligent people do not achieve much. It is surprisingly easy to waste talent. For example, get a gifted person through standard school and they will likely never extend enough to achieve full potential, often by growing lazy and coasting. Or push them into a wrong field, they will do good but not exceptional. See, if your niece was challenged enough, she would probably place more value on achievement and thus achieve more. It is a positive feedback loop. The correct approach is to give them as much challenge as they can take. Evaluating where this point is takes some major interpersonal skills and experience. Emotional support is a necessary ingredient as well so that failures do not break them and they remain human.

nils-m-holm 10y ago
> See, if your niece was challenged enough, she would probably place more value on achievement You say that as if it would be a good thing. In my view, life is about happiness, not about achievement. If those two correlate, fine. If they don't, also fine.
- AstralStorm 10y ago
  The values of children do not come from nowhere. They are not raised in a vacuum. While it is purview of philosophy, it seems unethical to let your talents be wasted; you could be improving life of others instead. Plus kids typically like to do what they are talented to do.
panic 10y ago
IMO the whole idea of "potential" that can be "wasted" is toxic. As soon as you feel yourself falling behind -- which you always will -- that idea that you've wasted your potential shows up to make you feel bad. This inevitably drives people toward easier kinds of achievement like awards, promotions, and degrees. But a lot of real progress happens outside systems like this! I think it's valuable to have smart people working on stuff for its own sake, not chasing any kind of achievement.
- cpkpad 10y ago
  It depends on where the pressure is places. If the pressure is placed on kids, sure. If it's placed on schools, that's not toxic. The school system in most of the US works under an attitude that the smart kids will do okay, and don't need anything extra. Even gifted and talented programs are fading fast. The truth is those school system are toxic, abusive torture to someone smart. There were plenty of smart kids I knew -- some smarter than me -- who got horrible grades going through one of these school. Many of them did not, in any real sense, succeed. Imagine being placed in a room, today, and forced to listen to lectures on what you already know, and be given menial make-work tasks, like adding big numbers and copying letters, and doing that for hours each day. Some people are resilient enough to survive that. Others get pretty broken by it.
  - DanBC 10y ago
    > Even gifted and talented programs are fading fast. What's the evidence that G&T programmes achieve better academic or life outcomes?
    - luxpir 10y ago
      Isn't that the premise of the study? Sidenote: I read the SciAm article last week, not this one yet.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
    - nitrogen 10y ago
scandox 10y ago
> they do not know exactly why some highly intelligent people do not achieve much My guess: an intelligent reaction to life is to value things that can't be measured
- AstralStorm 10y ago
  Achievement cannot really be measured either. Doctorates and patents are used as proxies. You could also add scientific papers, renowned works of art, successful businesses, charities etc. Anything that advances humanity.
agumonkey 10y ago
There's a socio-affective component to 'achieving'. The pupils have to care about the people and about what society think is an achievement. And for this I believe they have to care about said pupils identity (which they might not understand for lack of overlapping common views)

madaxe_again 10y ago

Tell me about it. I was one of those "precocious" children - I consistently tested years ahead of my peers, did state exams several years early, went to university several years younger than my peers. Pressure. So much damn pressure. "Madaxe, don't you think it's disappointing that you didn't come first in all of your exams? Blankety blank is a stupid boy. He shouldn't have beaten you in blank. Are you stupid too?" I never cared about achievement - just about knowing more, understanding why everything was as it was, how everything works - I ended up studying physics, because "because atoms" didn't cut it. All my parents and my schools cared about was achievement. Stop asking questions, study the material we gave you. "But it's wrong." "We know. Doesn't matter. Learn it anyway.". The bit at the end of TFA about emotional intelligence vs academic intelligence is very true - my parents and the boarding schools which raised me put emphasis only on academic achievement. The fact that I was setting fire to things and torturing other kids apparently wasn't too important, and just warranted more beatings, and more pressure. As an adult, I have the emotional intelligence of a cucumber and am conflict avoidant in the extreme. Whatever benefit having a superior intellect might have granted me I am hell-bent upon squandering, as I learned long ago to be ashamed of and resent my intelligence. People hate you if you are academically gifted. It's much easier to pretend to be a dullard.

beefield 10y ago
> People hate you if you are academically gifted. It is somehow simultaneously sad and infuriating that it is not only socially accepted but seemingly ok to be _proud_ to be stupid in mathematics, computers and science. Try that with social intelligence, knowledge of popular culture or your capability/interest in keeping your home tidy, and the _best_ you can hope is a stamp "weirdo" in your forehead.
- yomly 10y ago
  It is certainly strange and frustrating. Being academically talented is generally socially frowned upon. On the contrary, being talented in other dimensions such as sports or music is generally celebrated. In the general sense, there seems to be a confluence of factors at hand - I see it as academically talented people having not having great soft skills, academic achievement being of valued low by society, and a base aversion toward people of academic ability. If you accept PG's explanation of academically intelligent people being deficient in social skills[0], then it follows that it is possible many academically skilled people have also not learned how to gracefully acknowledge their abilities (e.g. they're not modest). From anecdotal personal experience it seems to me this is driven by two interrelated sub factors - the first is a lack of popularity / social value causing overcompensation. School years can be brutal for certain archetypes and this produces damaged egos which can result in certain unpopular behaviour in later life such as immodesty. The other is more tenuous but I have also found that progressing deeper along the thought process for STEM fields is at ends with social interaction - one requires absolute logical and rational thought, the other involves ambiguous emotional and often contradictory thought processes - e.g. in programming you develop a thicker skin toward being objectively wrong but pointing this out to people from other backgrounds can seem obtuse at the best of times, smart/show-offy at the worst of times. On the social sciences side, things are more relatable but only certain types of people enjoy engaging in "intellectual" conversation. This feeds into the last point. Socially it is more glamorous to be a sporting champion than a mathematician. This is potentially due to relatability - it is easier to appreciate a good footballer or tennis player on a primal level than a brilliant mathematician or physicist: the sportsman's abilities are more tangible than the academic's. Its hard to sell academic work, it is by its nature difficult and the people involved do not spend enough time explaining this to people in the field to laypeople. Finally, while we're not really all forced to do sports, we are all forced to do school and study maths, science etc. So for people who are weak in these subjects, it is natural to project the resentment held against the subjects to people associated with them. It probably doesn't helpe that success at school is a decent predictor for later life success - no one likes being reminded of their own inadequacy. It also doesn't help that things which are encouraged by academic activities like correctness and depth can be at ends with social interraction. Use of overly correct punctuation and grammar can seem formal and stuffy to normal people. Appreciation of arts and classical music can seem pretentious or posh. These things can lead to further alienation when passion is expressed in the wrong context. It's worth noting that in East Asian countries where academic ability is more socially recognised, there seems to also be less of a stigma being brilliant or behaviour of people parading their inability at maths. Singapore is probably the closest place you'll get to having a nation that celebrates its great minds but its still a far cry from reaching the heights of popularity celebrities achieve... [0]http://www.paulgraham.com/nerds.html http://www.paulgraham.com/nerds.html

paulpauper 10y ago

(1) it equates achievement with intelligence The two are positively correlated, as the article mentions . The super-intelligent are more likely to achieve success as measured by creative output ,wages, educational attainment, publishing paper, and social status (2) it does not actually seem to tell you how to "raise a genius" The article is about how to not waste talent once it has been identified

abysmallyideal 10y ago

The US appears to be the norm in this, which is why they focus on bringing in well developed intelligent people from other nations despite having boasted a program for intelligent kids, which in large part was an enormous failure to develop these kids into productive adults utilizing their capabilities. Quite a few of the people that move here are already considering moving back to raise their kids in an environment more conducive to their intellectual capability, rather than deal with the US' bully/violence and abnormally extremely aggressive culture. Edit: I can't tell you how many "gifted" and highly intelligent people struggled as adults, with a significant amount of them have already committed suicide... it is a significant amount. The way the US' so called program for intelligent kids left many of them utterly defenseless and pariahs, was abominable. A few of the smartest people I've known committed suicide, and a few others died from drug overdoses. It's a fucked up place, there's something wrong with the US' progrms, something severely wrong. Its level of "disturbing" is reminiscent of the CIA programs that targeted highly intelligent people for experimentation.

nikdaheratik 10y ago
From what I've read, and some of my own experience, it seems like some of the genetic markers for high IQ are also shared with other mental illness, particularly depression and bipolar disorder. A few papers have even theorized that one of the triggers for these illnesses is when some of the markers for high IQ are switched on, but others are not. The bullying doesn't help, but it isn't the only cause for the downward spiral and may not be unique to the US.
- abysmallyideal 10y ago
  I'm in the same boat, likely less. I figure my IQ is no where near as high as the people who had to suffer under the US' misguided programs and possible subversion and antagonism by their own elites. It reminds me of the disturbing movie called "The Accountant" where they express a genius of Mozart and Einstein is turned into a complete monster, a robotic killing machine... and this is somehow celebratory. Maybe it is an expression of our times, and that western civility has failed (or is non-existant). Environment has an active effect on how a person develops through their lives, and maybe scientifically and genetically this is expressed as "marker switching" or "de/activation".

nikdaheratik 10y ago

Well from what I can tell, it basically said that it's good to let "genius" children skip grades if they're really bored in school. Also that it's important to give them chances to learn more even if they don't skip ahead in their regular class. So it kind of did tell you how. More to the point, it did not equate high achievement with intelligence all that much, it just pointed out that if you have someone who is intelligent and you want them to achieve alot in their future, you want to give them as many chances they can to keep learning. That being said, if you want the child to grow up and be a well rounded and happy person, it's probably also good to give them the chance to do what they want to do even if that isn't the traditional definition of a high achiever. Although, being a complete slacker in everything isn't that great either.