Although Scott was too modest to point this out, part of the reason he is right is that nerds massively contribute to our economy and defense making anything that harms their (our) productivity significant.
Unfortunately it isn’t as simple as that. His social troubles made him withdraw into mathematics. If he would have got a girlfriend in his school time he might have spent less time with math.
If he would have got a girlfriend in his school time he might have spent less time with math.
You say that like it’s his fault that he didn’t try and get one. The whole point of his comment is to explain why that’s not the case.
Secondly, yes, there is some tradeoff between cultivating a romantic relationship and pursuing outside interests. But even rare and fleeting romances, if pursued from a position of secure social standing and self-esteem, would’ve been far preferable to what Scott actually got, which apparently was bad enough to make him wish for meds that would suppress his sex drive.
No, I didn’t say that it’s his fault. The main point is that if your goal is raising productivity of intellectuals it’s not clear that getting them girls is helpful.
Would you rephrase this, or expand upon it? I’m having a hard time coming up with an interpretation that isn’t “nerd desires should be prioritized above most others’ desires”, which is both gross and seems difficult to support.
It is unfair and perhaps gross, but I still think it’s true. For utilitarian reasons, U.S. should prioritize the productivity of high math ability people (who are often nerds) over that of the average citizen.
edit: in particular, in light of the average nerd’s reliance on lots of non-nerd workers. (I did just envision a lot of infrastructure that incentivizes nerd support, which I admit I kind of like, but not, I’m afraid, for particularly well-thought-out reasons.)
My claim is that the average nerd creates far more positive externalities through his/her work then the average American does. I do not have rigorous statistics to back this up, but I believe it is probably true because nerds have high IQ and conscientiousness and this is strongly correlated with income (and so taxes paid) and nerds tend to work in STEM fields and these, I believe, have more positive externalties than most fields do, and nerds dominate the software industry and this industry plays a big part in U.S. economic growth and military power. Also, if (like me) you believe that the future of mankind will come down to whether we get friendly AI right, then our species’ fate is in the hands of a few ultra-nerds.
I’m actually not sure how true this is on average. Nerds are overrepresented in tech and other abstraction-heavy fields, yes; but not all nerds have a personality or a set of interests that lends itself to such a career, and the nerd package seems to be bad news outside of one. If the set of nerds that successfully go into those careers is small enough relative to the set of nerds at large, then the demographic might not end up being disproportionately economically important, despite what you’d guess from looking at e.g. Bill Gates. I don’t think anyone’s studied this halfway rigorously, but anecdotally the nerds I know seem to end up with massively bimodal financial outcomes.
Of course, anything that impacts the productivity of any demographic without commensurate gains elsewhere is going to end up being negative, and I’m pretty skeptical about possible gains here.
Although Scott was too modest to point this out, part of the reason he is right is that nerds massively contribute to our economy and defense making anything that harms their (our) productivity significant.
Unfortunately it isn’t as simple as that. His social troubles made him withdraw into mathematics. If he would have got a girlfriend in his school time he might have spent less time with math.
You say that like it’s his fault that he didn’t try and get one. The whole point of his comment is to explain why that’s not the case.
Secondly, yes, there is some tradeoff between cultivating a romantic relationship and pursuing outside interests. But even rare and fleeting romances, if pursued from a position of secure social standing and self-esteem, would’ve been far preferable to what Scott actually got, which apparently was bad enough to make him wish for meds that would suppress his sex drive.
No, I didn’t say that it’s his fault. The main point is that if your goal is raising productivity of intellectuals it’s not clear that getting them girls is helpful.
There the Xkcd comic about Debian developer productivity: http://xkcd.com/306/
Would you rephrase this, or expand upon it? I’m having a hard time coming up with an interpretation that isn’t “nerd desires should be prioritized above most others’ desires”, which is both gross and seems difficult to support.
It is unfair and perhaps gross, but I still think it’s true. For utilitarian reasons, U.S. should prioritize the productivity of high math ability people (who are often nerds) over that of the average citizen.
Please justify your claim.
edit: in particular, in light of the average nerd’s reliance on lots of non-nerd workers. (I did just envision a lot of infrastructure that incentivizes nerd support, which I admit I kind of like, but not, I’m afraid, for particularly well-thought-out reasons.)
My claim is that the average nerd creates far more positive externalities through his/her work then the average American does. I do not have rigorous statistics to back this up, but I believe it is probably true because nerds have high IQ and conscientiousness and this is strongly correlated with income (and so taxes paid) and nerds tend to work in STEM fields and these, I believe, have more positive externalties than most fields do, and nerds dominate the software industry and this industry plays a big part in U.S. economic growth and military power. Also, if (like me) you believe that the future of mankind will come down to whether we get friendly AI right, then our species’ fate is in the hands of a few ultra-nerds.
I’m actually not sure how true this is on average. Nerds are overrepresented in tech and other abstraction-heavy fields, yes; but not all nerds have a personality or a set of interests that lends itself to such a career, and the nerd package seems to be bad news outside of one. If the set of nerds that successfully go into those careers is small enough relative to the set of nerds at large, then the demographic might not end up being disproportionately economically important, despite what you’d guess from looking at e.g. Bill Gates. I don’t think anyone’s studied this halfway rigorously, but anecdotally the nerds I know seem to end up with massively bimodal financial outcomes.
Of course, anything that impacts the productivity of any demographic without commensurate gains elsewhere is going to end up being negative, and I’m pretty skeptical about possible gains here.