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0 pointsteekert6y ago0 comments

I had a colleague like that, he was diagnosed with Asperger. He genuinely wanted to be interested in others but wasn't... At least until we discussed bitcoin, or Isaac Arthur, or Scifi audio books with interesting concepts, or his body building diet... I think he just had little in common with the family people at work. I told him, most people have something you can learn from them and if not, just be polite and it's ok. I can tell you (and I have a PhD if this helps you accept my answer) that intelligence has very little to do with having a PhD so you are ignoring a lot of interesting, smart people right there.

You know, some people that you would consider simpletons are intensely happy due to their attitude in life and I for one am always interested in those people. People with a drive to explore the world or to make their loved ones happy. To me you sound pretty ignorant if you claim that you can peel back a layer on something as complex as a human mind and then claim to find it empty.

If you walk the footsteps of a stranger, you will learn the things you never knew you never knew. Though you seem to feel like you know what you don't know. And I'd consider that a somewhat boring attitude, although I'd be interested in how you came to feel that way.

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dougmwne6y ago

I think this is pretty spot and this is a telling quote from GP:

>It's like you try to peel back a single layer of why people believe what they believe and there's nothing there.

Oh, but there is something there. People are not paper shells, but if you perceive them that way then you reveal your own blindness. Most non-ASD people find the emotional and experiential lives of others to be endlessly fascinating. Talking through a well-worn topic is a chance to see it new again through the other person's eyes and get a new flavor for it as you understand their own experience.

So I think my advice to GP would be lose the attitude. Others can smell it from a mile away and will treat you accordingly. Holding such a negative belief about others will make your professional life much more difficult and you will lose opportunities. It might be difficult to perceive these inner emotional lives of the people around you, but what you can't see exists all the same. People, even the ones who seem lazy or stupid at first glance are awe-inspiringly capable. We all run on similar hardware, and so each of us has a few PhDs worth of hidden depths.

throwaway8484836y ago

There are different levels though. There is complexity and tremendous ingenuity at any levels. It's just that the greater the level difference between two people, the less the interaction is fruitful for the both of them.

Poverty might mean that a smart one may spend most of its brain power to make rent, instead of getting a PHD. Omnipresent marketing might have ingrained some ideas and dreams.

People tend to stay in their level as long as they find it entertaining. Which can be very long because when you do thing inefficiently you get to face new problems that you can once more treat inefficiently until you are crushed by an inextricable mess of superficial things.

Like you said people are pretty good at pettiness when noticing the attitude, and then close the door even further on sharing anything potentially interesting.

When you are more than a few levels above, it's your role to find the way to make the interaction between the two of you, meaningful, positive and interesting for the both of you. Very often it will require some attention to details.

teekertOP6y ago

The fact that you are talking about a "level difference" reveals a very 1 (or low) dimensional look on things. Some people may be blend and boring in one dimension i.e. they are not "deeply self-aware people struggling with the boundaries of human knowledge". But they may have learned to cope with great trauma that would wipe others away. Or they have musical skills or their profession may teach you something (or are you already a good electrician?).

How would you feel being judged as several levels below me?

In 2013 or so, after going to a congress I booked another 5 days in the cheapest Hostel I could find (in New Orleans) and slept in the large sleeping hall in a bunk bed. One night cost me as much as the wifi in my previous hotel. And I met a teacher doing charity work on the Katrina disaster houses that were still dealing with fungi. He took me around the sites, to camp hope, I ate with all the volunteers. Many Christians and Mormons were there, this was new to me and I don't agree with religious people on many things but it was a wonderful experience. One I would have certainly missed with your attitude. On another night I met an artist living in a van that ran on waste cooking oil she filtered through old jeans. She was very conscientious about our planet and reflected that in her art. She thought me that art, like words and code are a means of communication but more on the emotional level. I never looked at it like that. I didn't see a single PhD that week and I liked it at least as much as the week before, talking about single molecule biophysics.

One of the most important lessons (imho) I teach my kids is to withhold judgement. Do not put absolute values on anything or anyone in a short amount of time. You will do yourself and other a disservice. Someone cutting you of in traffic may have a sick kid at home and in a hurry/distracted, someone being rude may have just been fired and about to burst in tears, etc.

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