Swimmer963 comments on Calibrate your self-assessments - LessWrong

68 Post author: Yvain 09 October 2011 11:26PM

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Comment author: Swimmer963 11 October 2011 01:41:17PM 5 points [-]

So I'm not the only one who's found that!

When I was younger, for reasons that I don't understand well now, I really didn't want to be defined by "intelligence." People often told me that I was smart, and that because I was smart, I ought to do x, y, z (be a biologist, be a physicist, whatever, and if it was a teacher, it was usually the subject they taught.) Which prompted me not to want to do x, y, z even though I found pretty much all subjects fascinating.

So I went into nursing, where a lot of the material (practical skills and empathy-based skills) involves stuff I'm not naturally good at...and all of the sudden intelligence is something I want to prove, and the fact that most people on LW are smarter than I am bothers me way more than it should.