Open thread, Dec. 29, 2014 - Jan 04, 2015

MrMind

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If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post (even in Discussion), then it goes here.

Notes for future OT posters:

1. Please add the 'open_thread' tag.

2. Check if there is an active Open Thread before posting a new one. (Immediately before; refresh the list-of-threads page before posting.)

3. Open Threads should be posted in Discussion, and not Main.

4. Open Threads should start on Monday, and end on Sunday.

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.

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.

1Nornagest11y

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.

5ChristianKl11y

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.

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Open thread, Dec. 29, 2014 - Jan 04, 2015

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