Required reading : Paul Graham; why nerds are unpopular http://www.paulgraham.com/nerds.html http://www.paulgraham.com/nerds.html This is an incredibly insigh

Required reading : Paul Graham; why nerds are unpopular http://www.paulgraham.com/nerds.html http://www.paulgraham.com/nerds.html This is an incredibly insightful piece, one of the best. It talks about how, as a society, we shunt kids into a lord of the flies situation, and we force them to build skills that have little use outside the schoolyard. The problem is a lack of mentoring and not treating adolescents as people entering adulthood, but rather as a problem to be managed. Lots of cultures have initiations and rites of passage, and into this modern void hazing, bullying and downright weird stuff has popped up amongst peers rather than elders. I don't have the answer but it does cause a lot of problems.