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Lumifer comments on Open thread, Apr. 18 - Apr. 24, 2016 - Less Wrong
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Well, us nerds are famous for lacking social skills. We may imagine ourselves to be a parallel (superior) tribe to the rest of the society, but the fact is that we are usually unable to cooperate even with each other. So let's continue making fun of the sour grapes of conformity.
That's a popular meme. I'm not sure how well does it match reality.
Sure, socially incompetent nerds exist. But socially incompetent yobs and rednecks exist, too, and might well outnumber the nerds. The meme is sticky for a couple of reasons: (1) it cuts nerds down to size ("He might be much smarter than me, but he couldn't pick up a girl if his life depended on it"); and (2) it has a nice reversion of skills ("Brainiac, but clueless").
Besides, there is an important distinction between people who want to but can't and people who just don't want to -- a distinction that's not made here.
I am not sure what does that show or prove. Cooperation is not the holy grail of human social behaviour.
Mutant and proud :-P