> That's just not the reality I experienced, and I never saw the ecosystem through that prism. shrugs I agree. Did you go to a small high school? I suspect mo

> That's just not the reality I experienced, and I never saw the ecosystem through that prism. shrugs I agree. Did you go to a small high school? I suspect most of this labeling happens in large high schools. When a grade has more than 150 or so students[1], it becomes impossible for them to all interact with each other. They get divided up into different classrooms, take different classes, each lunch at staggered times, and form small, non-overlapping cliques. At least, that's the impression I've gotten from talking to people about it. My high school was small and homogeneous: everyone knew each other, took many of the same classes, had the same teachers, etc. So the world described in pg's Nerds essay[2] is pretty foreign to me. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbars_number http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbars_number [2] http://www.paulgraham.com/nerds.html http://www.paulgraham.com/nerds.html