It’s possible to make a mistake in both ways. I wish someone told me in my childhood: “Viliam, some things you are interested in are simply too complex for an average person to understand and care about. To discuss them with someone, you must first find sufficiently intelligent people.”
My parents never gave me information of this kind, probably believing that it would be morally bad for me to have it. So I spent many years believing that I am too weird and no one can understand me; that my only way to interact with people is to meet them at their turf, never going to mine. (And that social skills consist mostly of pretending to be like other people, and denying what is unique about me.) I did not have a good explanation for this asymetry.
And then (a dramatic exaggeration) I found LessWrong, and I realized there are other people like me on this planet. Then I went to a CFAR seminar and met them in person, so now I also feel on the emotional level they are real.
Sometimes working hard is not an answer, for example when you are a hard-working member in a team of idiots, and it’s a job you can’t manage all alone. The only solution is to find another team; but to do that you have to believe that different teams are possible, that not all people are the same.
“Go to school to learn how to socialize with other children.” That has some value if they’re genuine peers, but if he’s too much smarter than they are, that socialization will likely not turn out well for him.
So I spent many years believing that I am too weird and no one can understand me;
Similar feelings here.
And I had my own LessWrong moment. Or at least, an HPMOR moment. Seeing Harry as a kid
fundamentally refuse to accept death as an inevitable part of the natural order, and otherwise always with a sense of boundless opportunities in the world brought me back to the attitudes I had as a kid. Of course death is just a problem to be solved. I knew that then. But over the years, I lost that feeling, even if I was part of groups like the Extropians list or LessWrong who predicted such things.
It is also useful to socialize with people who are different than you. They make the majority of the world, don’t they? But at some point being only with that kind of people becomes exhausting. Finding people like you, that’s like… finally finding a home. A place where you can stop pretending, where you can fit as you are.
As I’ve indicated in this thread, I reject the notion that children are successfully socialized by putting them together in a big pile and letting them figure it out.
The younger the child, the less they need difference, and the more they need competence and acceptance, both of which the 8 year old under question will be unlikely to find institutionalized with all the other unsocialized 8 year olds, most all just too far from his level of intelligence to make suitable peers.
The 8 year old has a home—that’s where his parents live. Certainly it would be great to get him some actual peers his age too, but the socially competent elders who love him are the most important agents of his socialization at this point.
I wish you could talk to my parents 25 years ago.
It’s possible to make a mistake in both ways. I wish someone told me in my childhood: “Viliam, some things you are interested in are simply too complex for an average person to understand and care about. To discuss them with someone, you must first find sufficiently intelligent people.”
My parents never gave me information of this kind, probably believing that it would be morally bad for me to have it. So I spent many years believing that I am too weird and no one can understand me; that my only way to interact with people is to meet them at their turf, never going to mine. (And that social skills consist mostly of pretending to be like other people, and denying what is unique about me.) I did not have a good explanation for this asymetry.
And then (a dramatic exaggeration) I found LessWrong, and I realized there are other people like me on this planet. Then I went to a CFAR seminar and met them in person, so now I also feel on the emotional level they are real.
Sometimes working hard is not an answer, for example when you are a hard-working member in a team of idiots, and it’s a job you can’t manage all alone. The only solution is to find another team; but to do that you have to believe that different teams are possible, that not all people are the same.
This is other side of the socialization pancake.
“Go to school to learn how to socialize with other children.” That has some value if they’re genuine peers, but if he’s too much smarter than they are, that socialization will likely not turn out well for him.
Similar feelings here.
And I had my own LessWrong moment. Or at least, an HPMOR moment. Seeing Harry as a kid fundamentally refuse to accept death as an inevitable part of the natural order, and otherwise always with a sense of boundless opportunities in the world brought me back to the attitudes I had as a kid. Of course death is just a problem to be solved. I knew that then. But over the years, I lost that feeling, even if I was part of groups like the Extropians list or LessWrong who predicted such things.
It is also useful to socialize with people who are different than you. They make the majority of the world, don’t they? But at some point being only with that kind of people becomes exhausting. Finding people like you, that’s like… finally finding a home. A place where you can stop pretending, where you can fit as you are.
As I’ve indicated in this thread, I reject the notion that children are successfully socialized by putting them together in a big pile and letting them figure it out.
The younger the child, the less they need difference, and the more they need competence and acceptance, both of which the 8 year old under question will be unlikely to find institutionalized with all the other unsocialized 8 year olds, most all just too far from his level of intelligence to make suitable peers.
The 8 year old has a home—that’s where his parents live. Certainly it would be great to get him some actual peers his age too, but the socially competent elders who love him are the most important agents of his socialization at this point.