Nerds: Have I mentioned before that Steve Sailer rocks? He writes today at VDARE that he started to study social statistics when he was 12 or 13 and had a letter to the editor concerning individual differences published in National Review when he was 14!
I RARELY encounter college students who love data. Oh yes, they all want to help people and save the world, but a passion for facts is rare indeed. When I find this kind of student, I want to kiss them. Not infrequently, I asked them to help me with research projects. Sure, many of them are nerdy, but I raise my glass to all the geeks of the world. Others laugh at you. Girls reject you. But you are my heroes. Without you, we'd still be living in grass huts.
Are gun owners mentally ill?
Some anti-gun people think owning a gun is a sign of some kind of mental abnormality. According to General Social Survey data, gun owners ...
"But you are my heroes. Without you, we'd still be living in grass huts."
ReplyDeleteprecisely......m
(furthermore, dammit!, if the men that the media praises and women gush over were the sole type of men on the planet, we'd rarely move forward technolgoically, agriculturally, environmentally. We really would stagnante. Greg Cochran once suggested the same genes that made Ashkenazi Jews smart, also made them liable to develop several diseases that they have way more often than the rest of the population. Perhaps some of the same genes that make nerds so smart, also make them a little less socially dominant. They aren't all "homely" men as there are too many exceptions to the rule (Sailer is a nice looking masculine guy, like Werner Von Braun was, etc). Many do seem introverted and interested in esoteric things. I think this is wonderful as the nerds Ive known have been genuinely delightful people who were conciencious about others.
And yet we live in a culture where Chris Brown and George Clooney are praised.
"...they all want to help people and save the world..."
ReplyDeleteWell, sort of.
As Thomas Sowell has documented, such youngsters are keen to discover schemes and plans by which other peoples' money can be used with the rationale of helping people and saving the world - less keen when it comes to checking the outcome of these schemes and plans.
Typically, these schemes and plans make matters worse in such a way as to provide long-term, well-paid and high status employment for those who want to help people and save the world.
Indeed, it seems that no amount of evidence of harm inflicted can ever be enough to deter young people from their schemes and plans to help people and save the world.
When I find this kind of student, I want to kiss them.Sailer is a nice looking masculine guy, like Werner Von Braun was, etcThe whole drift of this post is starting to make me feel uncomfortable.
ReplyDeleteThe whole drift of this post is starting to make me feel uncomfortable.
ReplyDeleteI bet it's because Ron figures everyone knows he's straight, and he wants to avoid making everyone uncomfortable. So we won't think he's talking about hittin' on his lady students.
Classic American style nerds are pretty masculine, they also tend to lack "credentials."
ReplyDeleteThomas Edison, the Wright Brothers, Philo T. Farnsworth, Samuel Colt, John Moses Browning, all come to mind. This particularly applies to Mechanical types, who tend to be tinkerers.
credential giving institutions are built for game players, not game changers.
ReplyDelete