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This could be done with a few people eg: “The remarkable brain of a nightclub bouncer with the worlds highest IQ.” The article talks of him like he’s a child.

• rob74 5y ago
  Is it "normal" for Americans to not only not be able to speak a foreign language, but to not even know what the word "polyglot" means, and look at one like you would look at an alien (one from outer space, I mean, not one from another country)?
  • VincentEvans 5y ago
    Is that an attempt at a thinly veiled insult in a form of a question? Or do you really think that one of the most powerful countries in the world is “normally” somehow full of ignorants? I’ll answer - not any more than where you are from.
    • rob74 5y ago
      Sorry if it sounds that way! But if a Washington Post journalist is not embarrassed to not know the word "polyglot", and then describes polyglots as people she has only seen on YouTube, you might jump to that conclusion. Or, from her Spanish-sounding name, you might suspect that she does in fact speak at least two languages, but is trying to hide it in order to appear "normal"? And I'm not saying that the US has a higher percentage of ignorants than other countries, but being one of the most powerful countries in the world, they are also one of the most (if not the most) self-centered. So, not a higher percentage of ignorance in general, but maybe a higher percentage of ignorance of other languages, cultures etc.
      • VincentEvans 5y ago
        US is probably (I am pretty sure it holds the top spot, but haven’t checked so, “probably”) the most diverse country in the world with people of all kinds of backgrounds, languages, nationalities, and races all living alongside each other. So I am not sure how might one in good faith imagine that they are unused to people speaking multiple languages.
      • dahfizz 5y ago
        The word "polyglot" itself is not a common one. People speaking many languages is very common. The USA is the most diverse country in the world.
        • gilleain 5y ago
          > The USA is the most diverse country in the world. Is it. I was curious, and the first google hit I came across was: https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/most-diverse-countries https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/most-dive... 1. Chad - 0.8514 2. Cameroon - 0.8426 3. Nigeria - 0.8306 4. Togo - 0.8118 5. Congo (Dem. Republic of) - 0.8111 Not sure what this measure of diversity is, clearly the US is not the top of this list... For example, in terms of language, Nigeria has 525 languages: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_Nigeria https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_Nigeria
          • VincentEvans 5y ago
            From your link: “Index value is the probability of two people selected at random from any one country speaking the same language. 1.0 is most diverse, 0.0 is least diverse.” I leave the reader to judge for themselves whether that is a good measure to judge diversity as being discussed here or not.
    • notafraudster 5y ago
      I just spent a week in Morocco, a 3,000 USD per year GDP per cap country. In Marrakech, the modal service worker (so, we're talking about a guy who sells one dollar meat pitas, or leather goods, or whatever in a small store) speaks fluent Arabic, passable English and French, and probably at least some Amazigh. I got catcalled in German, Spanish, and Hebrew as well, just walking around shopping areas. This is a country where it's not unusual for someone to have a grade 5-8 education. I was in a Berber village where the modal young adult leaves school around age 10 to take part in agricultural activity; the village I was in got electricity around 15 years ago and is currently working on its first paved road. Everyone had conversational English, and fluent Arabic, native Amazigh -- this is probably an area where the GDP per cap is below 1,000 USD. Additionally, Moroccan Arabic is pretty strange compared to, say, standard Egyptian and so being a fluent Arabic speaker likely entails a bit more work. A friend of mine is currently in Nairobi on research (2,000 USD GDP per capita) and universally people speak fluent Swahili and English; most also speak various local languages. In California, my social circle is mostly PhDs. These are phenomenally smart people. You go to a JPL party and the average IQ has to be 2 or 3 standard deviations above the mean. There are a lot of rooms where I'm by far the dumbest person. But most people I know are either unilingual or bilingual. Even in Southern California, a majority of people have sub-conversational levels of Spanish. I know very few people who are conversationally trilingual. Where I grew up in Canada, E/F bilingualism was somewhat common but very, very, very few people spoke a third language and most people had halting French. I'm in Ireland right now and native-born Irish speak English and a culpa focal of Irish, and that's about it. What this says to me is that it's pretty unlikely that a country's tendency towards multilingualism is meaningfully correlated with education or economic status. And while I know the idea of measuring "intelligence" is completely fraught, I can at least say it seems unlikely that a random sample of people in one place are as intelligent as JPL people. All this to say that in all three of the anglosphere countries I've lived in, people seem to have a mental block on the idea that a second language is essential, or that a third or fourth language are even feasible. Someone who fluently speaks four languages is considered a polyglot, a freakshow, some kind of Beautiful Mind. But then you go to Netherlands or Switzerland or Morocco and it's normal. And the reason for this isn't obvious to me: it doesn't seem to relate to income, education, it doesn't seem to obviously correlate with intelligence. It seems to just reflect some kind of cultural premium placed on language acquisition. I'd love to read more about why this is.
  • valenaut 5y ago
    I'm a bilingual American (English and Russian), and I didn't know the word "polyglot" until a year ago. I learned it as part of a software localization project--it has never come up in my life otherwise.
  • jmopp 5y ago
    It's common for native English speakers to be monolingual. If there's no real need to learn another language, it takes more effort. Being able to speak multiple languages looks like a superpower if you only know one language.
    • rospaya 5y ago
      Just teach it in schools like every other country - learning a language after a certain age is very hard, even with all the tech and apps we have today.
    • KSPAtlas 5y ago
      Yeah, in an area where most people are monolingual being able to switch seamlessly from 1 language to the other is mind-boggling
• grayclhn 5y ago
  I read a lot of the same things, but picked up an aspirational undertone instead of mockery. I definitely didn't see it presenting him like a child. But ymmv.
  • regpertom 5y ago
    It’s funny that in the context of an article about a genius of language that I’ll admit there would be better, more accurate words, and ways, to say what I’ve tried to say. May I also clarify that I mean no bad will towards to writer or anyone else involved, it’s only through their honesty that things like what conversation led to his name being brought up can be wondered about. I’d like to take it as a win though that I wasn’t incoherent! Thanks :)
• recuter 5y ago
  there is enough treachery, hatred violence absurdity in the average human being to supply any given army on any given day and the best at murder are those who preach against it and the best at hate are those who preach love and the best at war finally are those who preach peace those who preach god, need god those who preach peace do not have peace those who preach peace do not have love beware the preachers beware the knowers beware those who are always reading books beware those who either detest poverty or are proud of it beware those quick to praise for they need praise in return beware those who are quick to censor they are afraid of what they do not know beware those who seek constant crowds for they are nothing alone beware the average man the average woman beware their love, their love is average seeks average but there is genius in their hatred there is enough genius in their hatred to kill you to kill anybody not wanting solitude not understanding solitude they will attempt to destroy anything that differs from their own not being able to create art they will not understand art they will consider their failure as creators only as a failure of the world not being able to love fully they will believe your love incomplete and then they will hate you and their hatred will be perfect like a shining diamond like a knife like a mountain like a tiger like hemlock their finest art
  • irrational 5y ago
    Is this a quote or something? The takeaway seems to be to beware of everyone.
    • uglygoblin 5y ago
      The Genius of the Crowd by Charles Bukowski
      • Grimburger 5y ago
        Could have just posted a link. It looks spammy otherwise. https://allpoetry.com/The-Genius-Of-The-Crowd https://allpoetry.com/The-Genius-Of-The-Crowd
  • openknot 5y ago
    I didn't immediately understand the line "beware those who are always reading books." Perhaps the line means that people who read a lot are judgemental and likely to hate others. If that's the case, I don't really buy it, because people who truly read a lot are probably too busy reading to hate people not in the books.
• unethical_ban 5y ago
  As someone who sometimes wonders if he has autistic traits, I found it refreshing that the article didn't try to be over-inclusive. Okay! The dude doesn't think "neurotypically"! Don't sugarcoat it. I think they presented it honestly without being derisive.
• fristechill 5y ago
  I share the sentiment however the grain of truth here is that it does take a lot of effort to appear normal. The essence of being normal is trying to appear normal which is what most people are engaged in most of the time. The hidden motivation behind this is fear of other people and the fear of evil which for most people has all but conquered their love of reality, truth, and so on. If one does have other genuine interests and pursuits (for example foreign languages) then the task of appearing normal is harder. So the implication that he isn't smart enough to be normal is in this sense correct. Which by the by suggests that motivation is the key to learning, not attention control, repetition, particular books, starting young or the other usual suspects and methods. These are downstream from motivation.
• Uniblaab 4y ago
  I didnt get the same feeling. I saw it as another opportunity to show how much science and experts "dont understand". For instance, there is no way that any kind of C.A.T., M.R.I, E.K.G, E.E.G, LMNOP scan could show enough about it to duplicate it. Why even bother. Just try to understand how -if its important enough to you- he accomplished it. It looks like he can because he wanted to. He got fascinated by language and set himself to learn, "LEARN" as many as he could. So the attention isnt created by him. He was found out to be who he is and gained attention, possibly unwanted. So, I think that you may feel like mocking the event. I appreciate it as he doesn't seem to be a savant. Just an ordinary guy that set himself to be able to speak to whomsoever he came across. As a carpet cleaner, I bet it comes in handy.
  • regpertom 4y ago
    True. Please allow me to expand my interpretation, not trying to discount yours. One thing would be a talk by Temple Grandin, who had her brain scanned in some way (I’m not sure between mri cat ekg eeg etc but I think fmri). Iirc and very loose summary it showed a mid section of her brain to be different, and therefore an explanation of the symptoms of her autism was her brain rewireing around this difference by relying more on other parts. I think she does compare it to others who have suffered brain trauma to see how the brain can do amazing things, as well as there might be some physical thing to autism. So I’d say rather interesting and a reason to bother with those kinds of things. Otoh have you ever been so different that people want to study you? An autist can miss this and think they’ve made a new friend but the crushing realisation is that it’s a bit more like a freak show. And so, mentioned at the bottom of the article is that he shows signs of autism. If you assume that to be true and read between the lines of his history, throw in a leap here and there, in an attempt to understand why, it can look as though he learnt the languages because he decided to and did, but why is that he wanted to connect with someone, anyone, from childhood being a constant outsider. Like Forrest Gump learning ping pong. Like Forrest Gump only ever being treated like a person from damaged people. It also explains why he didn’t want attention, associating all attention with bad, since early childhood. Iirc, to be specific, he found novelty in how different words sound in his mouth and enjoys seeing people be happy that he can speak to them. Those people being outsiders as well, from a certain perspective. I feel as though these are all quite common autistic experiences. Another one is being paraded around as a novelty by people only long enough until you annoy them and then you are tossed aside again, not knowing why, todays puppy being tomorrows embarrassment/responsibility. Which talks of another autistic trait: be useful. So please forgive me for portraying that I am mocking the event, you are correct in that I may have been too sensitive, but I feel as though the writer writes off as him just being brown, something quite different: the lengths some autists, and generally, some outsiders, will go to to fit in or to avoid or cope with the anxiety of not fitting in. To have a normal experience in a normal way. So to stress again, I appreciate the story and everyone involved. I’m aware there’s a lot of contention and hot button issues nearby but I’d like to avoid it. I’ll leave you with a scene from almost famous: https://youtu.be/WzY2pWrXB_0 https://youtu.be/WzY2pWrXB_0