
Why Are Nerds Unpopular, An Alternative To PG's Essay - semmons
http://skepticblog.org/2010/04/26/why-are-nerds-unpopular/
======
tokenadult
I learned a lot about my cultural assumptions on the meaning of high
intelligence when I traveled from the United States to Taiwan to study the
Chinese language twenty-eight years ago. Here in the United States, I had
imbued the idea that high-IQ people are disliked because they are smart, and
that above a certain IQ, a person has no hope of having a friendship
relationship with a person of average IQ. (I especially got that idea from a
short story by Philip K. Dick

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_K._Dick>

I read when I was in ninth grade, but in fact this idea that high IQ causes an
inherent social gulf is commonplace in Western literature on education of
gifted children.)

I got a big surprise when I arrived in Taiwan. I found out that in east Asia,
the cultural assumption is that there are few finer uses for intelligence than
getting along with other people. It is expected that anyone who is generally
smart will be able to make friends with lots of people. (This emphasis comes
straight from the writings of Confucius and the successor Confucian
philosopher Mencius, which I studied in the original literary Chinese as part
of my language studies.) It helps, of course, that Chinese-influenced culture
in general also honors literacy and intellect in a way that is not quite as
direct or pervasive as in Western culture, but the main point is that the 知識分子
("intellectual") is a person who has his own responsibility to get along with
other people and lead society (by EXAMPLE) so that all of society is
harmonious. Once I learned not to whine to myself so much about how people
don't appreciate me because I'm so smart (doesn't it sound gauche to hear me
say that?), I learned to appreciate my fellow human beings a lot more, and
succeeded in making more friends. I'm glad I went overseas to learn a new
perspective, a perspective that helps me now that I am back in the United
States. Confucius had a great saying about how to appreciate other people and
learn from all of them: 三人行，必有我師焉 ("wherever three persons are walking, my
teacher is surely among them"). I can learn from anyone in my environment, and
I can make friends with more people than I realized at first.

~~~
apsec112
I think there's a bit of confusion here. People up to roughly 90th percentile
or so intelligence _will_ be able to use their smarts to make more friends,
get along better with others, etc. The problem that Paul Graham is talking
about is the 10% above the 90th percentile, who are sufficiently different
from the average as to make relating to normal people difficult. Not
coincidentally, the intelligence of Congressmen averages around 90th
percentile.

~~~
tokenadult
_10% above the 90th percentile, who are sufficiently different from the
average as to make relating to normal people difficult._

[citation needed]

There is no confusion at all on my part. I knew what subset of the population
I was writing about (perhaps an even narrower subset than the original Paul
Graham article, the first of his I ever read, was about) when I started
typing. I specifically disagree with "as to make relating to normal people
difficult." If high-IQ people have a social problem, as perhaps they
especially do in certain parts of American culture, I invite them to use their
high IQ to engage in problem-solving.

~~~
apsec112
" If high-IQ people have a social problem, as perhaps they especially do in
certain parts of American culture, I invite them to use their high IQ to
engage in problem-solving."

It doesn't work that way. The way humans usually solve social problems is
through asking, "how would I react if I were in the other person's place"? We
have specific biological structures, like mirror neurons
(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror_neuron>), that are set up to do that.
However, this only works if the person being modeled is similar to the
modeler. Because of this, there are actually a ton of factors that can make
relating to other people difficult, not just intelligence (like culture, age,
socioeconomic class, mental strengths and weaknesses, etc.)

------
njharman
Is the common perception of "nerds" (as in socially awkward/inept unpopular
people) is that they are universally smart?

Cause that's not been my experience at all. Some nerdly hobbies require (at
least some) intelligence, programming, building robots, etc. Other nerdly
activities that I'm part of don't require nearly as much, RPGs(pen and paper),
and fandom as in trekkies, browncoats etc. And boy am I here to tell you there
are some dumb "nerds".

In my experience "nerds" have the same ranges of intelligence as non-nerds and
intelligent people range from popular jocks to social handicapped nerds.

In other words, over my 35 years I've not seen a significant correlation
between "intelligence" and popularity, or "intelligence" and social
grace/ineptitude.

~~~
Qz
Don't confuse 'nerds' with 'geeks'.

~~~
scott_s
I find the quibbling over _nerds_ versus _geeks_ or whatever other term one
wants to use silly. You may subscribe to that distinction, but most people
don't - which makes it hard to communicate meaningfully with those terms.

~~~
endtime
Whatever your favored labeling, the distinction is valid. If people in general
don't distinguish between "nerds" and "geeks", then people in general are
suffering from a misconception, and encouraging usage of two distinct terms is
surely a good way to combat that misconception. No?

~~~
scott_s
I don't agree. Many people who use the labels on themselves and their friends
have conflicting definitions. Further, I see the distinction as a false one.
It boils down to "people within my subgroup that I like" and "people within my
subgroup that I don't like."

~~~
endtime
That's not the distinction at all. The distinction is between antisocial
people who like sci-fi and fantasy and smart, somewhat obsessive people who
like technology. The groups are not disjoint, but they're by no means the same
group.

~~~
scott_s
Those aren't the definitions I've heard other people use. And since you've
characterized one group as "antisocial," I think you've labeled one of the
groups as "people I don't like."

~~~
endtime
Sorry, antisocial was too strong a word. What I meant was something more like
"socially awkward".

------
moultano
We've created popular culture that doesn't value intelligence. This has an
intergenerational compounding effect. When smart people aren't socially valued
for their intelligence, they mate with less attractive people, and the effect
is reinforced in the next generation.

The opposite is happening in India. Intelligence is a high ideal, and seen as
insurance against abject poverty. Men with prestigious degrees and good
careers regardless of their attractiveness generally have their pick of wives
through arranged marriage. This ends up resulting in a lot of people that are
both intelligent and beautiful, and the preference for intelligence is
reinforced.

~~~
luckystrike

      Men with prestigious degrees and good careers regardless of their attractiveness 
      generally have their pick of wives through arranged marriage. 
    

I would say its more about 'good careers' than prestigious degrees or
intelligence here in India. I am pretty sure even a guy with a 'prestigious'
degree but an 'unsettled' career (Startup? NGO Worker?) would have a lot of
trouble going through the arranged marriage routine. (Most of the gal's
families would reject him even before they get a chance to meet each other.)

But doesn't a guy with a career that is perceived to be good, have an
advantage everywhere else in the world as well, when it comes to selecting a
mate?

~~~
GFischer
Hmmm... as a single 29-year old here in Uruguay... I'd say that the advantage
starts to show only when you're older than, say, 25 - the older girls realize
their looks aren't going to last forever, or want to have a baby and start to
worry about having a husband able to provide. It's a bit cynical but I believe
it's mostly true.

That said, I think there's hope for love too :) - only not always the kind you
see in the movies.

------
yason
I'm a nerd and I wasn't popular in school because I simply wasn't very
interested in what the others talked about. Thus, I had nothing to say really,
which makes a great ground for having nothing much in common between me and
other students.

~~~
stcredzero
Reminds of a an account I read about a kid whose hippy-throwback parents
didn't own a TV. He did ok socially, however, because he had access to their
old music collection and played Jimi Hendrix tunes on the electric guitar.

~~~
Shorel
Cool. I plan to be one of those parents that don't own a TV.

~~~
chbarts
> I plan to be one of those parents that don't own a TV.

The modern equivalent is denying your kids Internet access. According to a
(somewhat) recent _Variety_ article, the median age of TV viewership is 50.

(Yes, I do trust _Variety_ to get _entertainment_ news right.)

------
lukev
I wonder why people spend so much time deconstructing and perpetuating a
classification that has absolutely no meaning outside of highschool.

~~~
moultano
Many people never escape the conception of themselves they developed in
childhood. As banal as it is, this stuff is important.

~~~
orangecat
This. See [http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/23/this-ones-
for-a...](http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/23/this-ones-for-all-the-
little-people-out-there/) . Salaries for men are positively correlated with
height, and even more strongly correlated with height _in high school_.

------
Jun8
I think one of the more interesting points in the article was: "The bottom
line is this : don’t assume that an American public school experience is
universal and broadly applicable social lessons can be derived from it."

In European countries, AFAIK, there's very little "Jock worship" in junior-
high and hing schools, definitely nowhere near the levels I have seen here. My
high school also had sports teams but the people who were in the teams were
not necessarily popular. So, my simplistic answer to this social problem:
downgrade the sports teams and cheer leading squads in high schools and
colleges :-)

------
araneae
Why do we believe that intelligence and nerdiness go hand in hand? Not to be
all anecdotal or anything, but the top 6 GPA ranked people in my high school
class were normal. They weren't popular, but they certainly weren't nerds. I
was 7th, and I didn't really count as a "nerd" until college, when I started
going to anime club. In high school, I was so socially awkward that even the
nerds wouldn't let me play DnD with them. The nerds were all kind of middle-
of-the-pack intelligence.

I suspect that we believe this because there are some powerfully intelligent
and powerfully nerdy folks out there. But if you just look at academic
performance, I bet the reality isn't so strong. There are a lot of dumb nerds
out there.

------
stcredzero
_We must also consider that popularity is also complex_

I thought that was a premise of PG's essay. To be fair, the point being made
is that there may be many specific tradeoffs with many nuances.

------
pauldirac137
Nerds are unpopular because people don't like to hang out with anyone who is
much more intelligent than they are. This transcends any arguments about
social ineptness or pursuing popularity. If you're 30+ IQ points above your
peers, you would need an awful lot of social skills to make them feel
comfortable being around you. Let's say you're a theoretical physicist and you
meet someone who has an average intellect. The first thing they ask you is
"What do you do?" If you say (truthfully) "I work on supersymmetric string
theories in order to unify all the fundamental forces of the universe" (or
whatever; I'm not a physicist). You want the other person to say "Wow, that's
cool!" What actually goes through their head is "Oh my God! This person's main
interest in life is something that I not only do not understand, but _could
not_ understand no matter how hard I try!" Then they just want to get away
from you as fast as they can, because being around you makes them feel
diminished. This is why nerds are unpopular in high school. If you're a nerd
in high school, and you're lucky, you'll get shunned. If you're unlucky,
you'll get beaten up.

~~~
dagw
You don't need a lot of social skills to know that when people ask you what
you do, they probably don't want to hear the abstract from your latest paper,
but will be quite content with "oh I work at the university". The only reason
any one will feel diminished around you is because you go out of your way to
make them feel that way.

I know several very smart people with PhDs in very complicated things, working
on very hard cutting edge research problems, and they don't have a problem
hanging out with people from a wide variety of backgrounds.

The whole "no one likes me because I'm too smart" smacks of lies mothers make
up to make their anti-social kids feel better about being bullied at school

------
bootload
_"... I went to a prep school, and I can tell you that the culture was
somewhat flipped – the academically successful kids tended to be more
generally popular. There were still subcultures and different groups with
different interests and characters – but generally, being smart was considered
a virtue. The culture of the school generally respected hard work, integrity,
and achievement. ..."_

The author might have benefited from reading the redux of of pg's article,
_"Gateway High School, 1981"_ ~ <http://paulgraham.com/gateway.html> to get
some context. In the social graph of the described school pg went to I can
imagine the half life of the author would be a tenth of Cobolt 56. Try _"hard
work, integrity, and achievement"_ on these chums ~
<http://ep.yimg.com/ca/I/paulgraham_2102_11802106> Look at the clenched fists
and how close they are standing together.

------
apsec112
This seems to basically be:

Paul Graham: X, Y and Z are generally true, except under conditions A and B.

These guys: But X, Y, and Z aren't true all the time! And they aren't even
true most of the time, given conditions A and B!

The only _substantial_ part of this appears to be "nerdiness is becoming
cooler", and I find that highly questionable.

------
petercooper
The populist definition of "nerd" has shifted significantly with the times.

In the 1980s, saying you had a computer at home could have you cast as a
"nerd." In the 1990s, saying you used the Internet could automatically make
you a nerd. In the 2000s, saying you met your girlfriend (or had a girlfriend
you'd never met) online could automatically make you a nerd. A similar
shifting of definitions over time even occurred earlier.. consider the
reputations of "sci-fi" between 1950 and 1980 (Star Wars, anyone?)

I think nerds are, perhaps, just "edge cases." The activities aren't nerdy,
per se, but it's just that the mass public hasn't caught up with the ideas
yet. What's nerdy right now might be the next big craze.

~~~
orangecat
_What's nerdy right now might be the next big craze._

Heck, it's now less nerdy to be on Facebook than not.

------
akkartik
Adds detail, but misses the main thrust. PG's essay illuminated, for me, the
social dynamic common to prisons, schools, and Victorian England: when you
take away consequence, people build a 'cruel and stupid world' for themselves.

------
douglasputnam
Considering we're gossiping on PG's dime, are we allowed to describe his
Nerd's manifesto as "a steaming pile of stereotypes"?

~~~
timwiseman
You are certainly allowed to, but I for one would respectfully disagree.

He certainly discusses stereotypes, but that was the point. Moreover, many
stereotypes exist because they reflect a facet of the truth (this is
definitely not always true, but it sometimes is). His essay explores why the
truth behind a couple of specific stereotypes is there.

------
zackattack
Lots of bizarre rationalizing. "Nerds" tend to be unpopular because they lack
emotional and social intelligence.

~~~
trominos
What? I mean, of course, if you define "nerds" to be "people without social
intelligence" you're gonna see that nerds are unpopular. The premise beneath
PG's essay (and this one, I think) is that if you instead define "nerds" to be
"people with a lot of interest in some academic subject, and/or people who are
quantifiably 'smart'" you still (seem to) find that nerds are unpopular.

So are you saying that that's not actually the case, that smart people aren't
disproportionately unpopular? Interesting if true. Definitely needs some kind
of justification, since it flies in the face of most people's intuition.

I'm not sure what the answer is, but I'm leaning more towards the position
that intelligence is negatively correlated with popularity. Smart people
aren't necessarily outcasts, but IMX you'll tend to see fewer of them at the
top of the popularity curve and more at the bottom than you'd expect from a
random distribution. And I imagine that there are a lot of reasons for why
this is.

PG's argument in particular is closer to the truth than it seems at face
value, I think. He says that smart people's problem is that they don't spend
enough time on socializing; I'm not sure if this is really the prime cause of
smart people's ostensible unpopularity, but it applies to my experience in
middle and high school. My parents were rich enough to send me to good private
schools that valued intellectualism (which probably more closely parallel
schools outside the US) so I was never really unpopular, but I was definitely
less popular than I wanted to be. In retrospect it's pretty clear that I
could've been way more popular if I'd doubled or tripled the amount of time I
spent on it; instead, I spent my free time programming and doing math.

The only place that I disagree is with PG's rationalization of _why_ nerds
don't socialize more. In my case, it wasn't that I wanted to build great
things (although to some extent I did). I'm pretty sure it was just that
solving math problems was a much more reliable and straightforward endorphin
trigger than socializing.

Anyway, all this is to say that a) I disagree with you and b) you should be
less pithy and more explanatory.

~~~
nearestneighbor
> if you instead define "nerds" to be "people with a lot of interest in some
> academic subject, and/or people who are quantifiably 'smart'"

So, the Comic Book Guy is not a nerd? Even Wikipedia calls him that.

~~~
aharrison
This is drifting offtopic, but CBG was a member of MENSA[1] and therefore
falls under the "quantifiably 'smart'" category.

[1]
[http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Is_Comic_Book_Guy_a_member_of_MENS...](http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Is_Comic_Book_Guy_a_member_of_MENSA)

~~~
nearestneighbor
You win this round, The Simpsons Cartoon Guy.

