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I enjoy his 3B1B videos, but this talk did not resonate with me at all. I was good at math as a kid, but no part of my motivation came from "a desire to be seen

I enjoy his 3B1B videos, but this talk did not resonate with me at all. I was good at math as a kid, but no part of my motivation came from "a desire to be seen as being good at it." If anything, many people looked at me kind of funny for being good at math, so I learned to play down my ability when necessary. Maybe it's just because I grew up in an earlier era, but being nerdy was definitely not cool when I was young.

dkarl 3y ago
I grew up in the eighties when being nerdy wasn't cool, but math was something that people recognized as real, not a nerdy invention, even if it was weird and nerdy to enjoy it. Other nerdy pursuits like D&D or fantasy (or, at the time, computers) were seen as escapes for people who couldn't face the difficulties of the real world and had to invent easier worlds to live in where they could pretend not to be lame. By contrast, math was real and hard. Every kid in school had moments when they wished they were better at math. I was a weirdo and an outcast, but I was a weirdo and an outcast who had an ability that people recognized. Being better at math to make up for being socially useless in every other way didn't take me very far, though. Once I got to a top ten PhD program and was surrounded by people who were just as smart, some of them much smarter, and I faced the likely reality of ending up at minor university cranking out trivial results to get tenure, permanently outed as a mediocrity, making minor contributions that did nothing to advance the real work done by brilliant people, I couldn't face years of hard work for that outcome. Now as a programmer I have zero prestige and negative social cachet, but I get to do useful work on educational software used in primary school classrooms.
- SamPatt 3y ago
  Programmers don't have negative social cachet anymore. I imagine telling people "I build software to help young children learn" will get a nearly universal positive reaction.
  - hgsgm 3y ago
    Not from parents who've seen all the "educational software" and who want their kids to study and practice instead of more time staring at distractions on screens.
- hgsgm 3y ago
  "Educational software for primary school" is a field far more crowded with trivial results than pure mathematics is. More videogames aren't what kids need to help learn better.
  - dkarl 3y ago
    That's not the kind of software I work on, but if you go to a classroom, you'll probably see that when students are practicing via a "video game," they still get all the elements of instruction that we did when we were kids, with the addition of immediate feedback and better teacher awareness. When I was in school, kids would work on paper without getting any feedback until the teacher wandered by their desk to look over their shoulder, which could be the whole class period if the teacher spent time with other students first. Teachers would have to be pretty sharp and active to notice during class time that half the class was struggling with a certain kind of question; they might catch on later when they graded assignments, or they might not. I saw a teacher glance over a screen of updating results and within minutes interrupt practice to reteach an idea. Again, not my software, but I wouldn't dismiss the value of it without seeing it in action. Teachers these days aren't that different from decades ago. I'm sure there are plenty of bad and lazy teachers, just like when I was a kid, but the ones who drive the adoption of software are engaged, hard-working, and interested in results.
    - Jimpulse 3y ago
      Is there a way to filter simple gamified education tools vs the type of tools you allude to? I understand not wanting to dox yourself, but as a new parent it's difficult to vet education tools before my child is already enrolled and using potentially poor education tools.
      - dkarl 3y ago
        I'd approach it the other way around: find good teachers, and trust them to choose the tools they use.
importantbrian 3y ago
I also grew up as a nerdy kid long before being nerdy was cool. All the nerdy kids I knew took a lot of pride in being smarter than the cool kids. Being good at math was just an extension of that. I actually didn't know playing down how smart you were was a thing until much later when some of the popular kids who I had just assumed weren't that bright went on to become engineers, or doctors, or one who went on to get a PhD in biochemistry. I know a few of them still and they all talk about playing down that side of themselves in order to blend in. It makes me feel pretty silly about how smug I was about my intelligence back then.
AnotherGoodName 3y ago
Being open about your motivations to yourself and others and identifying how that can help or hinder you is the real takeaway here, not the particular motivation discussed. I personally appreciate the candor and his own story of growth in this subject.
jebarker 3y ago
The video resonated with me. Looking back I think that I studied pure math in further education because I thought that others perceived it as the hardest subject you could study and therefore would think highly of me for studying it. I think that motivated me much longer than Sanderson too, as I think it's the main reason I started my PhD in a topic that probably wasn't the most interesting to me. Along the way I developed an appreciation for the innate beauty of the subject but these days I find it much more rewarding to work on something that's useful to someone else no matter whether it's particularly easy or hard. The sad thing about wasting your youth trying to be seen as smart or successful is that later in life you'll probably have much less freedom of choice in what to work on.

dkarl 3y ago

I grew up in the eighties when being nerdy wasn't cool, but math was something that people recognized as real, not a nerdy invention, even if it was weird and nerdy to enjoy it. Other nerdy pursuits like D&D or fantasy (or, at the time, computers) were seen as escapes for people who couldn't face the difficulties of the real world and had to invent easier worlds to live in where they could pretend not to be lame. By contrast, math was real and hard. Every kid in school had moments when they wished they were better at math. I was a weirdo and an outcast, but I was a weirdo and an outcast who had an ability that people recognized. Being better at math to make up for being socially useless in every other way didn't take me very far, though. Once I got to a top ten PhD program and was surrounded by people who were just as smart, some of them much smarter, and I faced the likely reality of ending up at minor university cranking out trivial results to get tenure, permanently outed as a mediocrity, making minor contributions that did nothing to advance the real work done by brilliant people, I couldn't face years of hard work for that outcome. Now as a programmer I have zero prestige and negative social cachet, but I get to do useful work on educational software used in primary school classrooms.

SamPatt 3y ago
Programmers don't have negative social cachet anymore. I imagine telling people "I build software to help young children learn" will get a nearly universal positive reaction.
- hgsgm 3y ago
  Not from parents who've seen all the "educational software" and who want their kids to study and practice instead of more time staring at distractions on screens.
hgsgm 3y ago
"Educational software for primary school" is a field far more crowded with trivial results than pure mathematics is. More videogames aren't what kids need to help learn better.
- dkarl 3y ago
  That's not the kind of software I work on, but if you go to a classroom, you'll probably see that when students are practicing via a "video game," they still get all the elements of instruction that we did when we were kids, with the addition of immediate feedback and better teacher awareness. When I was in school, kids would work on paper without getting any feedback until the teacher wandered by their desk to look over their shoulder, which could be the whole class period if the teacher spent time with other students first. Teachers would have to be pretty sharp and active to notice during class time that half the class was struggling with a certain kind of question; they might catch on later when they graded assignments, or they might not. I saw a teacher glance over a screen of updating results and within minutes interrupt practice to reteach an idea. Again, not my software, but I wouldn't dismiss the value of it without seeing it in action. Teachers these days aren't that different from decades ago. I'm sure there are plenty of bad and lazy teachers, just like when I was a kid, but the ones who drive the adoption of software are engaged, hard-working, and interested in results.
  - Jimpulse 3y ago
    Is there a way to filter simple gamified education tools vs the type of tools you allude to? I understand not wanting to dox yourself, but as a new parent it's difficult to vet education tools before my child is already enrolled and using potentially poor education tools.
    - dkarl 3y ago
      I'd approach it the other way around: find good teachers, and trust them to choose the tools they use.

importantbrian 3y ago

I also grew up as a nerdy kid long before being nerdy was cool. All the nerdy kids I knew took a lot of pride in being smarter than the cool kids. Being good at math was just an extension of that. I actually didn't know playing down how smart you were was a thing until much later when some of the popular kids who I had just assumed weren't that bright went on to become engineers, or doctors, or one who went on to get a PhD in biochemistry. I know a few of them still and they all talk about playing down that side of themselves in order to blend in. It makes me feel pretty silly about how smug I was about my intelligence back then.

AnotherGoodName 3y ago

Being open about your motivations to yourself and others and identifying how that can help or hinder you is the real takeaway here, not the particular motivation discussed. I personally appreciate the candor and his own story of growth in this subject.

jebarker 3y ago

The video resonated with me. Looking back I think that I studied pure math in further education because I thought that others perceived it as the hardest subject you could study and therefore would think highly of me for studying it. I think that motivated me much longer than Sanderson too, as I think it's the main reason I started my PhD in a topic that probably wasn't the most interesting to me. Along the way I developed an appreciation for the innate beauty of the subject but these days I find it much more rewarding to work on something that's useful to someone else no matter whether it's particularly easy or hard. The sad thing about wasting your youth trying to be seen as smart or successful is that later in life you'll probably have much less freedom of choice in what to work on.