When I was in elementary school, I had a few very good friends. Every day after school, I would walk around the school fields with this small group of 3 friends and play D&D-like pretend games. Being that I was very healthy and athletic with good self-esteem, I was foremost confused by a large number of my classmates who attempted to bully me.
Taking pity upon them, in the 3rd grade I began wondering what was wrong with them and, yes, I even posited that it was better for me to be the target of scorn than others when I could defend myself and even strive to beat my classmates in any mental or physical feat (which I often did).
I found the education system oppressively dull, as well. Obviously girls were favored and—later I read studies that confirm this was likely—I was discriminated against because I wasn’t as cute as other students and liked to write things differently.
I think the simultaneous experiences of being accepted in a fulfilling and creative group which explored new possibilities while being rejected from the traditional track for reasons that were obviously irrational made it easy for me to become an individually-fulfilled autodidactic student of philosophy and, from there, a student of everything else. I formally adopted rationality 6 months ago after encountering HPMOR, analyzing it from a philosophical and psychological basis, and finding that it was a stupendous new arena for me to hone my skills within and perhaps utilize for affecting broad-scale social change.
Yudkowsky, in response to your query: I believe these issues are mostly settled in childhood (at least before the age of 18, perhaps younger). In the short run, to affect change, it may be best to simply have lots of children and raise them very well (this idea is very comforting). The most important point in the macro-scale is, of course, to overcome class contradictions which interfere with the creation and utilization of scientific data to improve people’s lives, i.e.: “The purpose of socialism is to liberate science from its class ties and make it available for the transformation of society.” -Marx
When I was in elementary school, I had a few very good friends. Every day after school, I would walk around the school fields with this small group of 3 friends and play D&D-like pretend games. Being that I was very healthy and athletic with good self-esteem, I was foremost confused by a large number of my classmates who attempted to bully me. Taking pity upon them, in the 3rd grade I began wondering what was wrong with them and, yes, I even posited that it was better for me to be the target of scorn than others when I could defend myself and even strive to beat my classmates in any mental or physical feat (which I often did). I found the education system oppressively dull, as well. Obviously girls were favored and—later I read studies that confirm this was likely—I was discriminated against because I wasn’t as cute as other students and liked to write things differently.
I think the simultaneous experiences of being accepted in a fulfilling and creative group which explored new possibilities while being rejected from the traditional track for reasons that were obviously irrational made it easy for me to become an individually-fulfilled autodidactic student of philosophy and, from there, a student of everything else. I formally adopted rationality 6 months ago after encountering HPMOR, analyzing it from a philosophical and psychological basis, and finding that it was a stupendous new arena for me to hone my skills within and perhaps utilize for affecting broad-scale social change.
Yudkowsky, in response to your query: I believe these issues are mostly settled in childhood (at least before the age of 18, perhaps younger). In the short run, to affect change, it may be best to simply have lots of children and raise them very well (this idea is very comforting). The most important point in the macro-scale is, of course, to overcome class contradictions which interfere with the creation and utilization of scientific data to improve people’s lives, i.e.: “The purpose of socialism is to liberate science from its class ties and make it available for the transformation of society.” -Marx