= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
Tem42 comments on Stupid Questions December 2014 - Less Wrong Discussion
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
= 783df68a0f980790206b9ea87794c5b6)
Loading…= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Powered by Reddit
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d)
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (341)
All of this is very true (for me, anyway--typical mind fallacy and all that). High intelligence does seem to cause social isolation in most situations. However, I also agree with this:
High intelligence does not intrinsically have a negative effect on your social skills. Rather, I feel that it's the lack of peers that does that. Lack of peers leads to lack of relatability leads to lack of socialization leads to lack of practice leads to (eventually) poor social skills. Worse yet, eventually that starts feeling like the norm to you; it no longer feels strange to be the only one without any real friends. When you do find a suitable social group, on the other hand, I can testify from experience that the feeling is absolutely exhilarating. That's pretty much the main reason I'm glad I found Less Wrong.
It is not true that people cannot - or do not - interact successfully with people that are less intelligent than they are. Many children get along well with their younger siblings. Many adults love being kindergarten teachers... Or feel highly engaged working in the dementia wing of the rest home. Many people of all intelligence levels love having very dumb pets. These are not people (or beings) that you relate to because of their 'relatability' in the sense that they are like you, but because they are meaningful to you. And interacting with people build social skills appropriate to those people -- which may not be very generalizable when you are practicing interacting with kindergarten students, but is certainly a useful skill when you are interacting with average people.
I personally would think that the problem under discussion is not related to intelligence, but in trying to help an introvert identify the most fulfilling interpersonal bonds without making them more social in a general sense. However, I don't know the kid in question, so I can't say.