5 ms·

> maybe it wasn't completely the jock's (or whomever's) fault that the nerds were unpopular. I can agree with this to a point - by the time high school rolls a

> maybe it wasn't completely the jock's (or whomever's) fault that the nerds were unpopular. I can agree with this to a point - by the time high school rolls around, yeah, the unpopular kids probably have adopted a set of behaviors that contributes to them being unpopular. However, those behaviors are probably defenses developed against some early damaging experiences. And who is responsible for those experiences? In my experience, it was those same jocks (or whatever) inflicting their damage all the way up. Personally, I find it much more helpful not to worry about who to blame for unpopularity itself, and to focus more on what is _done_ to the unpopular. And the responsibility for that is much more clear.

rorymarinich 17y ago
To be completely honest, if I were to go back to elementary school and look at when I first started being divided from other kids, I'm almost certain it would have begun with me being an arrogant brat because of my intelligence. When you're bright, it's too tempting to try and rise above teasing by claiming superintelligence. I'm not saying that arrogance is a bad thing, but I feel that people who are persecuted for arrogance should at least admit that their own attitude is partly at fault. Of course, such an admission makes persecution less likely to happen. It's a nice circle. Personally, I find it much more helpful not to worry about who to blame for unpopularity itself, and to focus more on what is _done_ to the unpopular. And the responsibility for that is much more clear. To discuss a problem, you need to get to its root. The root of the problem is twofold: people on one side are too willing to ostracize themselves, and people on the other side don't want to spend time learning about people. My belief is that it's not the responsibility of others to spend time trying to understand you. I think that bullying is a problem, but frankly, if nerds were ostracized but not actively bullied I would find a hard time blaming the other kids and not the nerds. I actually discussed this problem with a professor: my solution to this problem would be twofold. First, get the other kids to realize why nerd things are cool. If people think programming is really super neato, then suddenly programmers are neato too. (It worked with math in my school: once you like math, then math geeks are pretty awesome kids. By my junior year all of the math kids hung out with the jock/class clown group.) At the same time, though, you've got to do the same in reverse. Teach the nerds to appreciate the non-nerds. Intolerance works both ways, and there are a lot of people willing to dismiss sports players or actors or musicians or artists or preps as stupid and meaningless, and what this essay's all about is that in my experience, the nerds are usually a lot less tolerant than the other people. My first day in college, when my roommate arrived, I was unpacking a virtual library, and he was carrying a volleyball, and my first impression was that we wouldn't get along because he wouldn't "understand" me. This year's taught me a lot about how you can be smart and not be a nerd, and I honestly think that the nerds are less aware of this than the other groups.
- chairface 17y ago
  > I feel that people who are persecuted for arrogance should at least admit that their own attitude is partly at fault Again with this theory. Should battered wives admit that they are partially at fault because they annoyed their husbands? Should rape victims admit that they are partially at fault because they led a guy on? People are responsible for _their own actions_. No more, no less. If this means that the people you're talking about are guilty for being arrogant and annoying, then fine. I have no problem with that. But they are not responsible for the crimes committed by others. > my solution to this problem would be twofold. I think it's funny that you think you can solve this problem, and that we can all live in egalitarian bliss.
  - rorymarinich 17y ago
    I think it's funny that you think you can solve this problem, and that we can all live in egalitarian bliss. You know that you're the reason I wrote this article, right? This is exactly the HN attitude that made me freeze my main account away. People who take things that other people say and extend them to drastic proportions just so they can be dicks about it. No, we're not going to have egalitarian bliss. We're human beings. We have flaws. Those flaws won't go away. My "solution" is one that I think would work better than the endless "be diverse" speeches kids get. I think that it might make a lot of smart people a lot happier. It won't fix everything, but it might at least help. But no, you won't address the ideas I put forth. You'll nitpick. You'll be an absolute snot just so that you can gain the upper hand in an argument. And so you might reach a point where I and people like me get tired of your bullshit and walk away, and then you'll declare yourself the victor because you were the last person to make a post in my comment thread, but all you're doing is making the person on the other side want to punch yourself in the face. In a microcosm, that's my essay: you're probably not a stupid person, but you're deliberately avoiding facts to paint a one-sided portrayal of what I'm saying, and it's pissing me off. If we were having this argument in real life and I was a more naturally violent person, I'd probably hit you, and then in your eyes I'd become the bully and you wouldn't be guilty of anything. That's the problem here, and it's incredibly common amongst programmers, and it sucks. I have no problem with that. But they are not responsible for the crimes committed by others. They're interconnected. You're like the American attitude after 9/11 that terrorists were wholly evil Satanic creatures with no motive. I'm arguing back and saying that the people on the other side are doing bad things, but that that's a separate issue from what I'm talking about. If you're guilty about being arrogant and annoying, then when you get teased and beaten up it's not causeless. You caused this. And the other side is more at fault then you are, but don't act like you're a saint. Should battered wives admit that they are partially at fault because they annoyed their husbands? If you get beaten and do nothing about it, it's your fault that it goes on. See, two sides of the same struggle can both be guilty. The husband is more at fault, but if the battered wife acts like there's nothing she can do then she's to blame for it going on. Same with rape. If you get raped and do nothing about it, you're letting the other guy get away. The other guy isn't innocent. This isn't a blame game where it's the victim's fault entirely. But the victim does not exist in a vacuum, and the fact that the problem still exists suggests that in some way the victim is complicit about the problem. Is McDonald's to blame for making people fat? Partly. But they exist to provide something for people who are asking for it. Fat people are to blame for their being fat. Perhaps not entirely 100% to blame, but they can stop themselves, and they're not, and so it's partly their fault. One day I might write something about how much bullies suck, but other people are already doing this. I don't like being generic. So I thought I would write a little thing about how nerds are often partially to blame for their oppression, and that they refuse to take responsibility for themselves, not expecting anybody to submit it to a place where people like you would get to spray their spittle around without ever once addressing what I'm saying.
dkarl 17y ago
For fairness' sake you should also focus on what the unpopular do to other people: how they bring down a conversation, unwittingly sabotage their friends' efforts at looking sane and approachable, pick the wrong moments for racy jokes, and hijack conversations towards topics they find interesting but nobody else does. In hindsight, I can see that I wasn't always a pleasant person to be around. High school kids don't feel like they have a lot of social capital to blow on dorks.
- chairface 17y ago
  The entire article and most of rory's comments in this thread are about what the unpopular do to other people. I'm balancing that.
  - dkarl 17y ago
    I'm pretty sure it was already balanced by the preponderance of extended meditations on the indignities suffered by nerds. It's not like jocks blog insightfully about their social anxieties. Hell, I don't think most popular kids understood what was going on at all. They were just going on instinct. It's nice to see some actual analysis about the other side of the equation for a change, and it seems like a bad idea to immediately swing the focus back to the side that we already understand.
    - chairface 17y ago
      Well, that's what discussions are made of. I think it's silly of you to suggest that I shouldn't say anything without making sure to reiterate the original author's points.
      - dkarl 17y ago
        I think it's silly of you to say it's "much more helpful" to "focus more on what is _done_ to the unpopular" when we've all been over that ad nauseam. Everybody knows it's bad to be mean to people. There's nothing to be learned from it. Plus, it's somebody else's pathology, not ours. Since we already understand it and can't directly fix it, the only possible effect of us dwelling on it is to distance ourselves from responsibility by focusing on the aspect of the problem that isn't under our control. Not only is that behavior pointless and self-serving, it's actually psychologically damaging because it externalizes our locus of control.

rorymarinich 17y ago

To be completely honest, if I were to go back to elementary school and look at when I first started being divided from other kids, I'm almost certain it would have begun with me being an arrogant brat because of my intelligence. When you're bright, it's too tempting to try and rise above teasing by claiming superintelligence. I'm not saying that arrogance is a bad thing, but I feel that people who are persecuted for arrogance should at least admit that their own attitude is partly at fault. Of course, such an admission makes persecution less likely to happen. It's a nice circle. Personally, I find it much more helpful not to worry about who to blame for unpopularity itself, and to focus more on what is _done_ to the unpopular. And the responsibility for that is much more clear. To discuss a problem, you need to get to its root. The root of the problem is twofold: people on one side are too willing to ostracize themselves, and people on the other side don't want to spend time learning about people. My belief is that it's not the responsibility of others to spend time trying to understand you. I think that bullying is a problem, but frankly, if nerds were ostracized but not actively bullied I would find a hard time blaming the other kids and not the nerds. I actually discussed this problem with a professor: my solution to this problem would be twofold. First, get the other kids to realize why nerd things are cool. If people think programming is really super neato, then suddenly programmers are neato too. (It worked with math in my school: once you like math, then math geeks are pretty awesome kids. By my junior year all of the math kids hung out with the jock/class clown group.) At the same time, though, you've got to do the same in reverse. Teach the nerds to appreciate the non-nerds. Intolerance works both ways, and there are a lot of people willing to dismiss sports players or actors or musicians or artists or preps as stupid and meaningless, and what this essay's all about is that in my experience, the nerds are usually a lot less tolerant than the other people. My first day in college, when my roommate arrived, I was unpacking a virtual library, and he was carrying a volleyball, and my first impression was that we wouldn't get along because he wouldn't "understand" me. This year's taught me a lot about how you can be smart and not be a nerd, and I honestly think that the nerds are less aware of this than the other groups.

chairface 17y ago
> I feel that people who are persecuted for arrogance should at least admit that their own attitude is partly at fault Again with this theory. Should battered wives admit that they are partially at fault because they annoyed their husbands? Should rape victims admit that they are partially at fault because they led a guy on? People are responsible for _their own actions_. No more, no less. If this means that the people you're talking about are guilty for being arrogant and annoying, then fine. I have no problem with that. But they are not responsible for the crimes committed by others. > my solution to this problem would be twofold. I think it's funny that you think you can solve this problem, and that we can all live in egalitarian bliss.
- rorymarinich 17y ago
  I think it's funny that you think you can solve this problem, and that we can all live in egalitarian bliss. You know that you're the reason I wrote this article, right? This is exactly the HN attitude that made me freeze my main account away. People who take things that other people say and extend them to drastic proportions just so they can be dicks about it. No, we're not going to have egalitarian bliss. We're human beings. We have flaws. Those flaws won't go away. My "solution" is one that I think would work better than the endless "be diverse" speeches kids get. I think that it might make a lot of smart people a lot happier. It won't fix everything, but it might at least help. But no, you won't address the ideas I put forth. You'll nitpick. You'll be an absolute snot just so that you can gain the upper hand in an argument. And so you might reach a point where I and people like me get tired of your bullshit and walk away, and then you'll declare yourself the victor because you were the last person to make a post in my comment thread, but all you're doing is making the person on the other side want to punch yourself in the face. In a microcosm, that's my essay: you're probably not a stupid person, but you're deliberately avoiding facts to paint a one-sided portrayal of what I'm saying, and it's pissing me off. If we were having this argument in real life and I was a more naturally violent person, I'd probably hit you, and then in your eyes I'd become the bully and you wouldn't be guilty of anything. That's the problem here, and it's incredibly common amongst programmers, and it sucks. I have no problem with that. But they are not responsible for the crimes committed by others. They're interconnected. You're like the American attitude after 9/11 that terrorists were wholly evil Satanic creatures with no motive. I'm arguing back and saying that the people on the other side are doing bad things, but that that's a separate issue from what I'm talking about. If you're guilty about being arrogant and annoying, then when you get teased and beaten up it's not causeless. You caused this. And the other side is more at fault then you are, but don't act like you're a saint. Should battered wives admit that they are partially at fault because they annoyed their husbands? If you get beaten and do nothing about it, it's your fault that it goes on. See, two sides of the same struggle can both be guilty. The husband is more at fault, but if the battered wife acts like there's nothing she can do then she's to blame for it going on. Same with rape. If you get raped and do nothing about it, you're letting the other guy get away. The other guy isn't innocent. This isn't a blame game where it's the victim's fault entirely. But the victim does not exist in a vacuum, and the fact that the problem still exists suggests that in some way the victim is complicit about the problem. Is McDonald's to blame for making people fat? Partly. But they exist to provide something for people who are asking for it. Fat people are to blame for their being fat. Perhaps not entirely 100% to blame, but they can stop themselves, and they're not, and so it's partly their fault. One day I might write something about how much bullies suck, but other people are already doing this. I don't like being generic. So I thought I would write a little thing about how nerds are often partially to blame for their oppression, and that they refuse to take responsibility for themselves, not expecting anybody to submit it to a place where people like you would get to spray their spittle around without ever once addressing what I'm saying.

dkarl 17y ago

For fairness' sake you should also focus on what the unpopular do to other people: how they bring down a conversation, unwittingly sabotage their friends' efforts at looking sane and approachable, pick the wrong moments for racy jokes, and hijack conversations towards topics they find interesting but nobody else does. In hindsight, I can see that I wasn't always a pleasant person to be around. High school kids don't feel like they have a lot of social capital to blow on dorks.

chairface 17y ago
The entire article and most of rory's comments in this thread are about what the unpopular do to other people. I'm balancing that.
- dkarl 17y ago
  I'm pretty sure it was already balanced by the preponderance of extended meditations on the indignities suffered by nerds. It's not like jocks blog insightfully about their social anxieties. Hell, I don't think most popular kids understood what was going on at all. They were just going on instinct. It's nice to see some actual analysis about the other side of the equation for a change, and it seems like a bad idea to immediately swing the focus back to the side that we already understand.
  - chairface 17y ago
    Well, that's what discussions are made of. I think it's silly of you to suggest that I shouldn't say anything without making sure to reiterate the original author's points.
    - dkarl 17y ago
      I think it's silly of you to say it's "much more helpful" to "focus more on what is _done_ to the unpopular" when we've all been over that ad nauseam. Everybody knows it's bad to be mean to people. There's nothing to be learned from it. Plus, it's somebody else's pathology, not ours. Since we already understand it and can't directly fix it, the only possible effect of us dwelling on it is to distance ourselves from responsibility by focusing on the aspect of the problem that isn't under our control. Not only is that behavior pointless and self-serving, it's actually psychologically damaging because it externalizes our locus of control.