I agree with your model, but without the nerd-exception.
This exception might sound not very elegant, but it’s crucial. Either you model the world and people inside this world and you have beliefs. Either you just try to fit in. Most people do both. But a minority do modeling when things are complicated. Which is almost always. This minority you can call nerds or geeks or professors or whatever. You have to steal the name somewhere. Or even some day invent a new one.
Those models nerds make may be often wrong, but it was a try to really understand things and not just to fit in.
This exception might sound not very elegant, but it’s crucial. Either you model the world and people inside this world and you have beliefs. Either you just try to fit in. Most people do both. But a minority do modeling when things are complicated. Which is almost always. This minority you can call nerds or geeks or professors or whatever. You have to steal the name somewhere. Or even some day invent a new one.
Those models nerds make may be often wrong, but it was a try to really understand things and not just to fit in.