[es7]

Science and technology and other nerdy pursuits can be really valuable, and certainly don’t require you to be judgmental of others.

The problem, as I’ve seen it is that people who are bad at some of the other ‘games’ that make a meaningful life lean too heavily on science and technology as a coping mechanism. That coping mechanism could be many things: nerdy pursuits, alcohol, video games, etc.

Whatever your pursuit, if you’re being judgmental of most other people, then you’re probably missing something big and should take some time to reflect on what that is for you.

[routerl]

> Whatever your pursuit, if you’re being judgmental of most other people, then you’re probably missing something big

Sure, but this may very well be intentional and good; an entire community can become pathological, and it then makes sense (and is good) for principled people to trust their judgement, even if it makes them an outcast.

Liberal-minded people often had this reaction to the mid-century rise of fascism, to the point of turning that into art. I'm specifically thinking of Rhinoceros by Eugene Ionescu, but there are many other examples.

[hans1729]

>it then makes sense (and is good) for principled people to trust their judgement, even if it makes them an outcast.

I don't get this. Being judgemental always seemed immature to me. Being curious and trying to understand why individuals or groups do seemingly irrational things: yes. Being judgemental (or "principled" (is this synonymous?)): no. To me, that was always a sign of someone who hasn't made sense of themselves yet. At what point have you made so much sense of anything that you can make a defining principle out of it? That just robs one of agency, reminding of religion and stubbornness.

I get that being fixated on some idiom is helpful in avoiding mental drift and maintaining focus, but that seems like the end of the road in terms of advantages. At the same time, that fixation limits your ability to go beyond the things you felt you understood years ago, whenever the principle was cemented into your cortex.

Is it a desire for deeper stability? For ground truth? Because if I look at what people actually are, no matter how intelligent they may be in some domain, what I see is not able to come up with general idioms. Not even close, actually. What I see is brains trying to make sense out of noise with extreme simplifications, rather fitting the data to their model than the other way around. I never got the advantage of saying "well now MY model fits this pattern, PERIOD!".

[temp8964]

However, in high school, many of other kids are in fact playing stupid games. Boys hang out do stupid things, or compete who’s the bigger bully. Girls play social games with bullies.

[pm90]

Im guilty of being rather judgmental of others who performed worse than me in academics. I don’t really want to go into the reasons but, yes its very unhealthy to think that way. People have their reasons for why they choose to focus on some things and not others. Perhaps the most important goal of a good society is to be able to assign people to things they’re most suited for.

[sleepdreamy]

At least you are able to see your behavior.

I was judged harshly for not going to college immediately out of HS. I went 6-7 years later and graduated debt free. Meanwhile some of my peers will be paying their loans well into their late 50s. Not knowing what you want to do for the rest of your life at 18 shouldn't be shunned when you acknowledge that fact.

I'll never forget going into WaWa after a day at the office(Dressed up) and seeing the girl from my English AP class who would mock me when I presented infront of class. Super uppity and always negatively judging the quality of others work. I was very nice to her when I could've easily been cruel.

I hope she learned a lesson on judging others, but probably not.

[hans1729]

>People have their reasons for why they choose to focus on some things and not others.

You're saying that like those "reasons" are properties of the personality of their beholders. They are not, it's coping mechanisms all the way down.

>Perhaps the most important goal of a good society is to be able to assign people to things they’re most suited for.

Perhaps we should stop putting things as wild as brains into boxes labelled "suited for X, suited for Y". Perhaps the most important goal of a good individual is to be able to leave others alone, so they can flourish instead of trying to fit the arbitrary concepts that random other participants made up for them to fit into.

[dasz]

I've found that there's a kind of person who excels at academic pursuits but isn't so great elsewhere. Especially outside academia.

I was judged harshly at school. Fast forward years later and I'm that guy who hired someone who got better scores than me. Annoyingly I later also had to fire them because they couldn't deliver. Those scores didn't help them succeed. Too much theory.

They had not played the associated game of project management. Too much focus on getting good caused excessive success in their local minima instead of the bigger picture.

I realised this lesson quite frequently in many ways and our hiring is now more around the competency game. Can they do it? So now the bar is set differently and there's multiple games you need to play and succeed in. Better have hobbies outside IT as well.

We've gotten suspicious of people who overplay in the tech sandpit. Its suboptimal in our view.

Hiring adult humans who can succeed with adult supervision seems like a better overall situation.

[Bancakes]

It seems like such an outdated world view that "person X is born to do Y. His ancestry is such." Everyone can put efforts to adapt and learn new concepts and skills and isn't that the point of university? I'm confident out of 100 somali pirates, one of them is the most apt to learn python.

[blindmute]

This post could be satire, but it sadly isn't