/sci/ - Science & Math

>>5266263
>What happens to gifted children?

OP here. Just to clarify. By gifted children I mean the really smart ones. The ones who can pass advanced algebra and calculus tests. Who are actually fluent in many languages. Who are tested and found to be outstandingly intelligent.

The key word here is "tested", so we are talking about kids way above the national and international norms.

I am not talking about moderately gifted children who are just a bit brighter than your average run of the mill bright kid, nor the odd students who stand out because they go to a school where most of the children are underachievers.

>>5266263
>But the years pass, and no new Newtons and Einsteins seem to appear. What happens to all the gifted children who were so full of promise? Does anyone do follow up studies to see what they make of their lives?

A bit of Googling can help you, but in short:

1) Child prodigy get depress and kill themselves

2) A world raised by TV and FB = less child prodigies

Another thing to consider is that these kids are good at things like math competitions, but generally not so much at coming up with original new material-- and especially, having spent so long being told how smart they are, they have trouble putting in the enormous amounts of tedious work needed to do science

>>5266263

I knew this incredibly brainy nerdy guy in high school. At age 13 he was doing maths most 17 year olds couldn't grasp. He was sitting University entrance exams at age 14 and getting top marks. Scholarships and shit like that.. The guy was a bit socially inept but otherwise OK. I always thought he would end up doing some kind of amazing shit in computers or astronomy. Last I heard of him he was running a construction business, doing well for himself, not outstandingly successful, but well enough..

I thought this was a sort of an "average" success for someone who was always so smart. I thought he would have accomplished something more than that.

The shitty part is that smart people tend to be content with less, and so don't put much effort into being successful.

probably got hired at SHIELD or the men in black and had to hide their identity.

>>5266275
idk what's going on here but that pic is kinda hot. I enjoy her lack of clothing.

>>5266275
That's bullshit. The world of discoveries in advanced mathematics, physics, and CS, is littered with people who did exceptionally well as a child.

The best example is terrence tao.

There is a difference between a child prodigy who masters difficult material early in life, and a really smart kid forced through HS and college at an early age.

One turns out much better than the other.

>>5266282
I used to be amazing advanced in school as well. Genius IQ and lots of people telling me I was going to do great things.

the problem I had was that I was extremely smart for my age but the more I advanced the less I was working with people my age. People catch up.

but anyways, I decided I must not be very smart if I can't make any money. I'm also a contractor now, a boring job that has made me tens of millions of dollars and allowed me to retire at the age of 32.

People often underestimate the worth of others. Your friend probably just translated his top tier intellect into a top tier net worth.

I for one understand.

>>5266289
lrn2logic

I didn't say all mathematicians were dumb as kids. All dogs are mammals, but not all mammals are dogs.

The world of discoveries in advanced mathematics, physics, and CS, is littered with people who work their asses off, writing papers with singular devotion, traveling to conferences, etc. etc. That includes Terence Tao (only one R in his first name btw)

>There is a difference between a child prodigy who masters difficult material early in life, and a really smart kid forced through HS and college at an early age.

Ok yes, you're on the right track now. OP is talking about the child prodigies we hear about on the news, and those are always in your 2nd category. May God have pity on them in their infinite misery

>>5266296
I don't understand what parent would have his kid go to college at such a young age?

First, that makes him less likely to go to the top universities, which are the only ones that really have the difficulty in coursework to sort out the geniuses from the rest.

Second, college is a place to explore yourself and really discover who you are on your own. Its really important to be of the right age, and it might even help a guy to be a year older on average entering college.

>>5266282

I think things like "ambition" and "interest" play a far more important role.

I always thought of myself as being reasonably bright. I did well in school, top of the class, had no problems with maths or science, bit of a breeze actually, but I knew I was no genius.

Then I meet this guy at University who was. This guy could do anything. He was just extraordinary bright. He instantly understood anything. maths, physics, chem, engineering. This guy would design his own combustion engines for fun, create complex three dimensional puzzles out of wood that only the maths geeks could solve (with much trouble), make his own working parts for engines. He spoke Greek, Latin, German, Russian as well as English. He was witty and successful with the girls. He played and excelled at nearly all sports. He painted. good art that everyone admired and played piano.

I really envied this guy. He was only 18. Smarter than most people. So sharp. Not just academically smart but also smart in life. He always made the right choices, said the right things, was very popular and very wise.

He could have been a politician. He could have been a sportsman. He could have been an artist. He could have gone to any university in the world and done practically anything he wanted. He was just that smart.

He became a farmer after he left university. He only stayed to do a science degree. He was of course offered honors, but he declined and went farming instead. I remained friends with him after. he is happy. married now with kids. Still incredibly smart, still building engines in his shed.

I often wondered about it and asked him about why he had chosen a simple life instead of aiming high. To make a long story short he simply revealed that he had no interest or ambition in pursuing anything else than a farming lifestyle.

Interest and ambition.

>>5266295

Contractors were starving these days from what I understand.

>>5266318
I would guess that it is that rare occurrence of interest, ambition and talent that makes people like Newton and Einstein so rare.

Your problem is you have made a connection, which while seems logical, has nothing to do with how things work.

You can't just get the most brilliant people in the world together and expect them to start discovering stuff. Sometimes discoveries are pure coincidence (even these days, fucking graphene). Others take years of works on papers on top of papers on top of papers. Sometimes smart people prefer to do other stuff. Sometimes a man with a really high IQ is retarded in other aspects which don't let him use that. Governments are stupid and don't fund research as much as they should, instead wasting their budgets on irrelevant shit and claiming research is the irrelevant thing.

And even after you discover the most amazing shit, there are patents, and problems, and it takes years until someone does anything significant with it. We should have gigantic stadiums churning out carbon nanotubes these days, and yet we don't.

I was maybe one of those kids, though I don't really think of myself that way. I wasn't famous except in a very local sense, but I was tested and recommended for university quite young.

When I was 14 months old, I could memorize poems and stories on the first telling and recite them word for word. At age 4, I devised my own number system (base 20, sort of... the highest "real" number I knew was 20)... it included multiplication and something approximating logs. I taught myself calculus from my dad's old textbooks when I was 10, and had read most of the major works of English literature by 12. (Fucking terrible at other languages though.) I worked through introductory quantum mechanics when I was 13 and 14, then classical mechanics and GR later that year.

So anyway I got offered a spot at a university at age 12. But the best thing my parents ever did for me was to tell all the teachers suggesting it to fuck off and let me be a kid. So I got to play sax in band, and poisoned my cooking partner, and accidentally grabbed a girl's boob in PE, and played rugby and got picked on by the older kids and got drunk in the woods and.... all the good shit that goes with growing up.

Anyway, now I work as an electrician (good money and easy work), compose music for a theatre, sell paintings (mostly ink these days), and do math research in my spare time. My degrees were in comp sci, chem, and physics, in that order... I know that /sci/ is obsessed with degree programmes.

>>5266351
>>5266351
good on your parents. anyone who would send a 12 year old to university doesn't understand how university works. the education can all be gotten from books and online (and much better, in fact, than from lecture-- lecture is one of the least efficient ways to learn anything!) university is about the social experience (don't know it, it's of utmost important if you want to be a researcher, 80% of research is communicating your ideas). 12 years old? yeah that social experience is gonna be suck

they get burned out

timing is everything, you want people who are peaking in their 30s or 40s rather than in their teens

I remember this one kid I went through elementary school alongside. Was pretty much directly on-par with your description OP. Ever since the very first grade he was always quietly at the back of the classroom, doing his own worksheets and assignments, or reading book. Occasionally he would help out other kids out with their work. I remember he could speak English, French and German. During interval and lunch he would just sit down somewhere and read. He probably read 2 or 3 books a week. Would always sit different tests from the masses. Eventually I think after the 6th grade, he just didn't return after summer. I would guess that the government whisked him off to a private school or something. Somewhere with less students, better teachers, better books, and more advanced technology. Now that you've reminded me of him I'm curious to find out what happened. Might try stalk him on facebook, though I doubt he'd have one.

>>5266371
In my opinion, the polyglot (multiple languages) trait is a dead giveaway.

Unless they actually live with family from those countries, learning multiple languages is actually not a very good investment, relative to the time and effort-- most people who do it (and not because of living with diverse relatives) do it to look smart. It's part of the "smart identity" they're trying to build for themselves.

Trying to build a mathematician or scientist out of that is like trying to build a house on sand. No foundations. Eventually they'll move away from mommy and daddy, realize nobody cares how smart they look, and then scramble to make up for the devastated shell which is their social life

>>5266318
Beautiful post, thanks for sharing. Reminds me of the "smartest man who ever lived", he used to be a bouncer and now he's a farmer.

>>5266263

What makes you think they are so different? You said you were quite bright at school and went to Uni. That probably makes you far brighter than the bottom half of the population. Consider that to the bottom 20% of the population you are a genius. If fact the bottom 20% of the population would have trouble telling you apart from Einstein if you can do quadratic equations, conceptualize the workings of a four stroke combustion engine and understand how an enzyme works. Yet you will go through life just doing what you want, not thinking much of it, you just consider yourself an average intelligent person in comparison to other average intelligent persons around you.

Well I think the same goes for these gifted children. We might think of them as something special because they are so much brighter then us and because we have the education to understand just how much brighter they are than us. But to them its probably the same comparison as we make to the bottom 20% of the population. meanwhile they just deal with the same sort of issues we do, occasionally one of them is motivated to be a scientist and does something amazing. A lot of the time they dont, just like us.

>>5266351
>My degrees were in comp sci, chem, and physics, in that order.

So you got 3 degree and you became an electrician? interesting.

>>5266362
>they get burned out
>timing is everything, you want people who are peaking in their 30s or 40s rather than in their teens

THIS. Being smart is one thing, they also need ambition and stamina.

Imagine someone with an IQ of 140 and doing sustained research for 40 years.

Since I don't want to create my own thread, I'll post it here.

I will be earning my own "degrees" at home, learning for fun because I like learning.

Right now, I'm going to do 1 to 4 years of liberal arts, and this is what I'm doing:

Part I: Foreign Cultures and Languages

Assignment 1: Develop a General Understanding of Geography
>learn the countries on the map

Assignment 2: Learn About Other Countries & Cultures
>learn the top 50 most populous countries in the world, read wiki

Assignment 3: Speak a Foreign Language
>pick a foreign language and learn it!

Part II: Historical Study

Understand the Three Defining Periods of Western Civilization
>Classicism of Ancient Greece & Rome
>Christianity of the Middle Ages
>Enlightenment of the Modern Era

Understand East Asian, South Asia, Middle East and - giggle - African history

>>5266402
Part III: The Arts

Assignment 1: Explore Fine Art
>study art history
>study art theory
>visit an art museum

Assignment 2: Explore Music
>study music history
>study music theory

Assignment 3 – Develop a creative talent
Do Fine art: drawing, cartooning, charcoaling, watercolors, oil painting, sculpture, etc OR Music: piano, guitar, drums, flute, saxophone, singing, harp, harmonica, etc.

>>5266400
Part II: Literature

Assignment 1: Master the Art of Reading
>read "How to Read a Book", by Mortimer Adler
>read "How to Read and Why", by Harold Bloom
>read "How to Read Literature Like a Professor " by Professor Thomas Foster

Compile a reading list
>Great Books of the Western World, This 54-volume set includes classics selected by University of Chicago president Robert Hutchins and educator Mortimer Adler.
>Harvard Classics – The 51 volumes in the Harvard Classics set were selected by university president Charles Eliot in 1909.

Familiarize Yourself with the Major British and American Literary Movements

(forgot my trip)

>>5266404
Part IIII: Moral Reasoning

Assignment #1: Learn the Difference between Morals and Ethics
>what is right and wrong, what is best practices

Assignment #2: Explore the Major Theories of Moral Philosophy
>learn Socrates, Aristotle, Epicurus, Kant, and Thomas Aquinas.

Assignment #3: Use the Tools of Moral Decision-Making in Your Life

>listen to Ethics Bites Podcast – In 14 episodes, this podcast from the Open University and the BBC explores ethics and modern issues. (http://www.open.edu/openlearn/whats-on/ethics-bites))

Religion study:

Assignment #1: Learn the major religions, it's believes and tenets
>Christianity, Islam, Buddhism

Assignment #2:Learn about religion history and it's impact
>The crusades, etc.

Assignment #3:Read religious text
>Koran, Bible, Buddhist scriptures

>>5266391
>smartest man who ever lived

Whats the story on this guy? Got a link or a name to google?

So I'm doing a "liberal arts degree" (LOL) at home, after that, I'm going to move into:

Philsophy
Science
Finance
Political science
Math

Again, I won't be getting the depth of things but more general understanding.

Life long learning and autoaddictism FTW.

I find learning off Khan Academy also helps.

>>5266407
>Whats the story on this guy? Got a link or a name to google?

Yeah - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ggur-Ca2nzs

Name is Chris Langan

>>5266318
Again, beautiful post. I want to be that.

I'm not genius tier IQ, probably average IQ at best - but I make up for it in hard work and ambition.

I want to:

Have a model like body (currently going to the gym 3 weekly)

Speak 4 or more languages (currently speak 2)

Make tons of money and be my own boss (current doing a startup)

Be socially savvy (have dated con-current women in the past, do cold approaches, going to tons of social events)

Be intellectually balance (firm knowledge in science, philosophy, psychology, history, religion, finance, etc)

I fucking love life, and every day I strive to become my ideal self but sometimes it's emotioanally hard, I cry sometimes.

>>5266270
Your definition of "gifted" is really fucking wonky.
Being better than average in all areas of intelligence makes you just as gifted as having magical talent in a single area.
The latter kind of person will have it easier than the former.
For the former, there's a general trend of these people not knowing what the fuck to do with their future. It's better to suck at everything and do one thing moderately well than be good at everything equally. Especially because not doing the things you are good at will make you depressed.
Good luck loving sports and technology and literature alike.


Anyway, school simply ignore them, causing the students to be incapable of taking authority structure seriously. Then, when they go to university, they will just fuck around because they simply lost touch with reality. They can't comprehend the idea of actually having to use effort anymore.
When a gifted child is in school, it soon learns to see "this is really fucking hard" as a recommendation - Because the things that everyone else whines about are piss easy in reality.
And then comes university and the professors tell you that the tests will be hard... And you don't believe them anymore.

It's really fucking hard to re-learn how to actually get shit done.

>>5266406
So in which part do you learn how to use Roman numerals properly?

>>5266410

Cheers. Have read the wiki and watching the utube vids now. Fascinating story.

>>5266419

Your welcome.

Everyday I wake up and fucking learn. I FUCKING LOVE IT!

>>5266371
> I remember he could speak English, French and German.
You just reminded me that most people on this board are American.

All the 'gifted' kids I knew in school burned themselves out during high school and now live mundane lives they in no way directed themselves towards.

>>5266425

Yeah almost like it's an an american site or something.

>>5266400
I myself am educating myself on computers right now.
"Black magic" simply isn't sufficient for me. Now that I know C++ I realize even more how much I don't know.

>>5266424
>All the 'gifted' kids I knew in school burned themselves out during high school and now live mundane lives they in no way directed themselves towards.

Again, it's ambition, being smart just isn't enough. Just like the popular high school kids who burn out and do fuck all, because they never got any pressure to succeed.

>>5266433
11. The Story of Sushi: An unlikely saga of raw sh and rice, by Trevor Corson
12. Twelve by Twelve: A one room cabin o
the grid and beyond the American Dream by William Powers
13. Words that work by Frank Luntz
14. Automatic Wealth by Michael Masterson
15. 101 Habits of highly successful novelists by Andrew Mcaleer
16. Branching Streams Flow in the Darkness: Zen Talks on the Sandokai by Shunryu Suzuki
17. SuperFreakonomics: Global Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes, and Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life
Insurance by Steven D. Levitt
18. The Ultimate Cheapskate's Road Map to True Riches: by Je
Yeager
19. The Tao Of Poker: 285 Rules to Transform Your Game and Your Life by Larry W. Philips
20. Action: nothing happens until something moves by Robert Ringer

>>5266430
Cool! Great to hear.

I'm pretty excited to "earn" a liberal arts degree, because if you look at my reading list, I was pretty much spinning my wheels.

------------------------------
Books read in 2012:
------------------------------

1. The Millionaire Fastlane: Crack the Code to Wealth and Live Rich for a Lifetime. by MJ DeMarco
2. The Art of the Start: The Time-Tested, Battle-Hardened Guide for Anyone Starting Anything By Guy
Kawasaki.
3. Getting Things Done By David Allen
4. Faith Finish Line by Jimmy D Brown [66 pages ebook]
5. Duck Tape SEO by James Hussey
6. Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation by Lynne Truss
7. Convict Conditioning by Paul Wade
8. How to get rich by Felix Dennis
9. Compound Effect: Jump start your income, your life, your success by Darren Hardy
10. The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg

>>5266318
I have a good feeling that this story is bullshit and sci just fell for the bait.

I mean, for starters, farming is not this romantic lifestyle that people some people think it is. If you actually know something about it, its probably not going to be appealing to you if you have options.

And of course somebody who puts in lots of time and effort to become great at absolutely everything just wants to become a farmer. This mastermind who speaks several languages, great at all sports, bangs chicks left and right, absolute top of every class just want's to become a farmer.

>>5266434
21. The Book Of Five Rings by Miyamoto Musashi
22. The Mental Game of Poker: Proven Strategies for Improving Tilt Control, Confidence, Motivation,
Coping with Variance, and More. by Jared Tendler
23. Surely You're Joking, Mr FeynMan by Richard P. Feynman
24. The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory by
Brian Greene.
25. American Psycho by Bret Ellis.
26. 59 Seconds: Think a Little, Change a Lot by Richard Wiseman
27. Angry White Pyjamas: A Scrawny Oxford Poet Takes Lessons From The Tokyo Riot Police" by Robert
Twigger
28. The complete handbook of novel writing by Mel Leder
29. The shortcuts for the student writer by Jay Silverman
30. Great by Choice: Uncertainty, Chaos, and Luck{ Why Some Thrive Despite Them All by Jim Collins

>>5266435
31. How to be a super read: read faster, under more and remember for longer by Ron Cole
32. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey
33. The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right by Atul Gawande
34. The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins
35. Future Shock by Alvin Toffler.

>>5266428

Well the only reason that they were 'gifted' were that they took harder classes in school earlier and usually meant their parents lived vicariously through them.

>>5266439
-------------------------------------------------------
Books read in 2011 (Starting from April).
-------------------------------------------------------

1. Drive: the surprising truth about what drives us, by Daniel H. Pink
2. Great by Choice: Uncertainty, Chaos, and Luck Why Some Thrive Despite Them All by Jim Collins
3. The E
ortless Life, by Leo Babauta
4. The Time Management Masterclass By James Mankelow
5. Everyday Zen By Joko Beck
6. Zen and the Art of Poker By Larry K. Philips
7. The Narrow Road: short guide to getting rich by Dennis Felix
8. Play Poker As a Business: Rob Tucker
9. A Year of Living Generously: Dispatches from the Frontlines of Philanthropy by Lawrence Scanlan
10. Make Your Own Rules: A Renegade Guide To Unconventional Success By Josh Young

>>5266441
11. Nothing Special by Joko Beck
12. The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Di
erence by Malcolm Gladwell
13. Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking by Malcolm Gladwell
14. Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell
15. Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt
16. Racing Towards Excellence by Muza
ar A. Khan
17. A 450 page book on the history of Ancient civilizations, I forgot the name.
18. Oriental Philosophy by some old senile man with a Ph.D
19. It's Not About the Bike: My Journey Back to Life by Lance Armstrong
20. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig

>>5266438
>And of course somebody who puts in lots of time and effort to become great at absolutely everything just wants to become a farmer. This mastermind who speaks several languages, great at all sports, bangs chicks left and right, absolute top of every class just want's to become a farmer.
Why not?
I, for one, want to settle down and have a stable life with enough money to experience the progress of technology.

>>5266443
21. SEO book (2005 edition) by Aaron of SEObook.com
22. Goals!: How to Get Everything You Want-Faster Than You Ever Thought Possible by Brian Tracy
23. Principles 101 & Social Competence, by Manhood Academy
24. Talent Is Overrated: What Really Separates World-Class Performers from Everybody Else by Geo
rey
Colvin
25. Empire State of Mind: How Jay-Z Went from Street Corner to Corner Oce by Zack Greenburg
26. The 10X Rule: The Only Difference Between Success and Failure by Grant Cardone
27. Zen and the Art of Happiness by Chris Prentiss
28. Zen and the art of archery by Eugen Herrigel
29. The slight edge by Jeff Olson

>>5266447
So as you can see, the past 2 years it has been kinda been a self help junkie, reading about self improvement, with a bit of zen and psychology.

That's why I'm in love with the ideal of learning science, philosophy, psychology, history, religion, finance, history.

>>5266412
You really can't change your success with women THAT much.

Most blind date studies show that good looks is *the* most important factor for getting a second date.

Much of game is just the usual self-help scam crap

>>5266440
There's also the gifted children that just give up.
Personal example: Before I ever went to school, I wanted my mother to teach me how to read.
Instead of teaching me, she gave me a non-answer.
Sometimes it's not your parents trying to live through you - Sometimes it's your parents and everyone else trying to keep you down.
I gained an extremely spiteful personality because of tons of these experiences. If you don't want me to learn then I'll fucking learn it myself.
Teacher says we won't read a book because it's too hard? Well, fuck you.
College says the programming lessons won't teach me real programming?
I would've learned it on my own, had I not already had two semester of university beforehand where we learned all of C++ in a single semester.

>>5266445
>I, for one, want to settle down and have a stable life with enough money to experience the progress of technology.

Absolutely, we might reach the singularity within our life time, or halting the aging process, thanks to nano technology and AI.

I can't wait.

>>5266452
Dating is also very different, depending on culture.
There's a funny song about a French woman going to Germany and being frustrated because she can't get laid. Turns out that Germans have a very subtle approach and take weeks or months of occasional talking to finally start something resembling dating.
The people who start off with a date in Germany are the ones with a history of *many* relationships and are generally unreliable in terms of long-term relationships.

>>5266394
Oh god, can't you see that people in this thread are now just making up stories?

Im sure someone who does great in college in difficult degrees chooses to go into a more dangerous line of work on purpose, with less job security and less social status. Because that's totally how people work.

These fake stories are not nearly as annoying as the people who are falling for them :/

>>5266453
>all of C++ in a single semester

you're just adorable.

and the cutest part of all? you think you're a prodigy!

>>5266459
I never said it was anything special.
It just far exceeds the stuff I have right now.
We have a single Semester of imperative programming in Java (!).
Most won't even get to object-oriented programming because it's an optional course for a third semester of lessons on the topic.

>>5266409
Why are you doing this?

Academia is getting so advanced and specialized that if you want to make a difference, you pick a topic, maaayyybeee a double major(in somewhat related subjects) and run with them to success. You don't just study everything and expect success.

Are you doing this just for curiosity and filling time? If so, go ahead.

>>5266464
>Are you doing this just for curiosity and filling time? If so, go ahead.

Yes! The average American spends 3.5 hours per day watching TV. I use that time to learn and exercise. I love it!

I love exercising and learning for life, it's pretty fucking cool.

I finish about 36 per year (looking to up the ante to 52 books per year), while the average America never reads a book.

>>5266464
To add, I think learning is SO FUCKING essential.

I learned how to eat healthy (micro-nutrients and stuff), how to lift weights with proper form, learn about history to appreciate my our current world, and learning about religion to appreciate what it's like to be human etc.

What's interesting is that I'm the opposite of gifted children, I squandered my teen years away playing video games and posting on gamefaqs, it wasn't until my early 20s until I turned my around.

Been doing this for a couple years now, feels fucking amazing!

>>5266461
You're digging yourself deeper.

C++ is the textbook example of a bloated language. Programmers who have used it for a decade don't know "all" of it. And neither *should* they.

Saying you took a class where you learned all of C++ in a semester doesn't just make your story look fake, it makes you look like you are talking about things you have absolutely no idea about, you can't even fake your story well and you can't even understand what seems fake about it

>>5266472
I'm not telling you that I know what the fuck the bit operators do or anything like that. I obviously don't know all of the arcane aspects of the language (Fuck, we had a discussion where someone explained that "i++" was slower than "++i"), but I know how to use all important elements of it.
I can use the language fully in terms of actually getting work done with it.

You are just nitpicking. Your argument would also mean that I don't know German despite it being my mother tongue.

>>5266461
>Most won't even get to object-oriented programming because it's an optional course for a third semester of lessons on the topic.

Courses containing object orientated languages are usually first semester core classes for CSE majors. Are you just talking out your ass, or talking out your ass?

>>5266477
I would nitpick you for not knowing German if you went out of your way to CLAIM that you know all German.

If I meet a girl and she says she's into the bands I like, I'll give her a kiss. If she says she's a *member* of those bands, I'll push her down the nearest flight of stairs for being a pathological liar

>>5266477
>Bitwise operators being archaic.
>i++ slower than ++i

Oh dear god, it's like you read an online tutorial on C++ and now think you're proficient at it.

>>5266477
>I'm not telling you that I know what the fuck the bit operators do or anything like that
>implying the bit operators are some kind of obscure arcana
the bit operators are part of the 1% "core" of C++ that everyone DOES know...

in the military they have a saying, if you find yourself deep in a hole, the first thing to do is stop digging

>>5266483
Just to clarify:
I'm going to a German "Fachhochschule", which seems about equivalent to a college. It's basically university but with a more direct approach towards work.

And yes, actually learning Java at an object-oriented level is an optional course in one of the higher semesters. First and second semester is Java imperative programming.

>>5266484
Simply put, you are just an asshole. Or autistic.

>>5266495
>"Java at an object-orientated level" vs "Java imperative programming".

If you're actually telling the truth them I'm just going to sit back and laugh. I feel sorry for anyone who pursues a comp sci degree from your 'college'.

I recently watched some Korean doc about this guy ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Ung-yong ) who was hailed as a child prodigy for being able to calculate insane formulas in his head and etc. you know the drill. He was almost immediately carted off to NASA when he was fifteen or sixteen, I forget. Spent the rest of his childhood doing work as a human calculator, and chose to retire early due to depression, social anxiety, and a number of other things.

The documentary ended with showing him (now in his 50's) living in a quiet neighborhood, quote "like a normal person", married, with kids, modest house and modest work, occasionally accepting brief teaching positions. He doesn't necessarily hide his abilities, rather just kept them on the down low as he turned most of his focus and energy into raising a good family and slowing down to enjoy life. He seemed pretty damn happy, and stated as such, commenting about the immense stress he felt prior to the changes he made in his life.

>>5266506
>depression, anxiety, etc.

that's the media sensationalizing it. he retired because computers transformed human calculator from "world-changing superhero" to "circus freak"

>>5266275
>>5266275
Where can I get more images like this?

>>5266506
Excellent post. I think to get into Einstein or Da vinci tier, they need to become self actualize, so they can do research and work without burning out.

That's rare.

>>5266528
7 Habits of Highly Innovative People
>http://thinksimplenow.com/creativity/7-habits-of-highly-innovative-people/

The Habits of Six Highly Eccentric Geniuses
>http://www.divinecaroline.com/22321/70220-habits-six-highly-eccentric-geniuses

>>5266533
>http://thinksimplenow.com/creativity/7-habits-of-highly-innovative-people/

Shit like this is always so incredibly stupid
There's not test or criteria for intelligence

>>5266533
>http://thinksimplenow.com/creativity/7-habits-of-highly-innovative-people/

>edison
stopped skimming through text there

>>5266263
sauce on OP's pic?
oh god please she is beautiful

>>5266460
Why wouldn't people do that?
I'm not a genius, but I am relatively smart. Won some minor math competitions and have a top two percentile IQ. I'll start at uni next year and probably study maths or CS, but I really feel the urge to do something different. the thought of for example working as a firefighter appeals to me.

the stories aren't necessarily false.

>>5266441
>Zen and the Art of Poker By Larry K. Philips
>Play Poker As a Business: Rob Tucker
>The Tao Of Poker: 285 Rules to Transform Your Game and Your Life by Larry W. Philips

you poor, poor soul.

Baluga's Easy Game
Fee's 6max
How to Read Hands by em.. Miller?

Winning In Though Hold'em Games - for limit
One Hand at a time - for torunaments

deuces cracked videos, obligatory.

You start viewing the world from a strange perspective and suddenly nothing matters anymore. Everything is just particles and energy adrift in the cosmos.

You could apply your gift to help the world but would they care? Would they honestly give a damn about you even if you did the most amazing deeds? Happiness becomes your only pursuit.

Then I smoked weed every day. What a waste of a mind.

>>5266451
The amount of time spent on reading self-help books rather than helping yourself is almost as disturbing as the amount of Zen and the Art of X books written by americans.

>>5266275
That pic is hot on so many levels

>>5266635
it's always posted but no one ever seems to have sauce on it. same as with the 4 chicks with current day physics written on their backs.

>>5266604
Please, sauce on OP's pic. Anyone?

I, for one, want to have an impact on the world.
Trying to learn different stuff, reading a lot, enjoying life at the moment. yo.

>>5266458
Wir sind Helden, haha.

On a somewhat related not, there is this phenomenon that good mathematicans often report that an idea/reuslt/trick just suddently comes to them, after learning and trying to understand for a long long while. That seems to be how the brain often works. You think about stuff alot and then, under the shower, it's there.
I think being clever is good, but it seems hard work and dedication is what makes it. I don't really think that it's not possible to be better than the genius people, at least if you work more than them.
Also related, I like this paper, where someone asked great mathematicans to give general advice
http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/gowers/gowers_VIII_6.pdf
and, I see, everyone interprets the question quite differently.

Child "prodigies" are useless because in 10 years everyone else has the same knowledge and skill as them.

>>5266645
They're both for films but I can't remember which ones.

Sorry for destroying your dream of hot girls doing maths/physics,

>>5266660
She is a qt Mexicana.
that is all I know

>>5266718
sinaloa from kc int

>>5266263
Einstein was not a child prodigy retard

>>5266716
still want sauce

>>5266318

>implying honors are anything special

Mah sides.

>>5266735

this. einstein failed maths in school.

>>5266380
>Unless they actually live with family from those countries, learning multiple languages is actually not a very good investment, relative to the time and effort-- most people who do it (and not because of living with diverse relatives) do it to look smart. It's part of the "smart identity" they're trying to build for themselves.

Yeah unless you happen to live outside of the US where people actually learn multiple languages in school.

Well, in my opinion, it's because in the past 100 years the body of scientific knowledge has grown so much that it's becoming damn near impossible for a single person to revolutionize an entire field. Just because you're smart doesn't mean you'll change the world. Prior to the 1900s and some parts of the early 1900s it was possible to be well versed in all of mathematics and physics. Not anymore.. You're lucky if you can even become renowned in a tiny, obscure subfield of a branch of math or physics today.

Also, Einstein didn't fail math in school, that is a myth to make idiots feel better about themselves; his biography clearly states that he was always in the top of all of his classes.

>>5266806
He did fail a local history entrance exam, but that was right after he moved to a new country

>>5266755
In the netherlands 40 years ago it wasnt uncommon for schools to teach english french and german alongside dutch

>>5266820
I know a dutch guy, he's around 55. He can speak Dutch, English, French and German fluently with a perfect accent. He told they'd read roughly 20 English novels a year in school. This was all completely normal at the time.

darpa? or they become day traders

>>5266270

They aren't geniuses.

People think just because they are a year or two more mature than their peers they're 'geniuses'. They're not. That kid that can do calculus. Sure he can wow some laymen, but every 16 year old on the planet is learning the same stuff as him, alot have no problem, and a good portion of them (maybe 3/10 I dunno) pick it up just as intuitively as he did.

Just because he has autism and seeked it out for himself the media shits a brick. He's just an average mind he only seems a genius compared to other 12 year olds.

>>5266608

Thanks for the recommendation, I will look into it! :D

>>5266968
God damn, learning feels so good. Today I did 30 minutes of language learning, I count from 1 to 50 in Korean, I went to the gym, I wrote 1000 words for a book.

GOD DAMN, learning is awesome.

>>5266295

I was the same way. Intellectually I peaked very early. I rember being in first grade and taking an IQ test and getting out in a "gifted and talented" program. I must have done very well because my teachers all started treating me way different. I remember telling my second grade teacher how pointless it was to memorize multiplication tables with flash cards and I got a lengthy response about how the other kids are different from me and shit.

Now at college I don't consider myself anything special. I still have a high GPA but it's because I work hard not because I'm smarter than everyone.

I guess I was smarter than most, but I went full nihilst, despise myself and spent 10 years in a living coma. I feel like I fucked up my life, I do have ambition though, my nihilist self was so divorced from banal human existence it I couldn't even think of operating in the world. Family is everything /sci/ it can make you and break you, my family is non functional, limbic, and completely beyond cooperation.

>>5266998
Only 70% of high school graduates go to post secondary schools, that raises the level of intelligence
Only 70% of students even graduated
highschool, that raises the level of intelligence
Only 70% of secondary school enrollment is in 4 year colleges and universities, that raises the average intelligence.
Only 70% of students continue on to a second year of studies, that raises the average intelligence

It might not be that you are less special now, it could just be that you are no longer the big fish in a little pond

>>5266423
*You're
Here's another information to learn for today.

Jesus Christ, nobody cares you god damn tripfag. If you are a god damn autodictat, don't go around attentionwhoring. You can't differentiate between "your" and "you're", can't use roman numerals (4 is IV, not IIII) and just to break your illusion of you becoming a genius very soon, all the liberal arts you mentioned in another series of posts nobody cares about are taught in every respectable gymnasium in Europe. Kudos to you for trying, but don't be a annoying showoff you are being right now - people with any real education will laugh at you.

Also man, what the fuck, stay off the get rich quick and self help books, they are extremely rarely worth shit.

I didn't read the thread, but the answer to OP's thread is because it's based on a flawed understanding of the past compared to the present.

The Great Man theory of history is dead.
The Zeitgeist theory is now prevalent.

In any case, the individual matters less and less anymore anyway.

>>5266275
Why is she wearing two pairs of underwear?

>>5266263

It takes a lot more than genius level intelligence to make breakthroughs in math and science. Because of how specialized both fields are today it takes years of study at the highest levels to even make a mark.

Some very smart people see the futility of a life like that and look elsewhere.

>>5266275

>e^[-ln(...

>Not simplifying that in your head.

2/10 wouldn't bang.

>>5267143
You little white nigglet.

>>5267143
>edgy teen

You mad I'm flaunting? ;3

>>5266453
I know that feel bro. I wouldn't consider myself gifted, but there were a lot of possibilities in my life at which I could have developed an early intellectual talent if only there would have been a person functioning as a mentor for me.

They become Terence Tao, Stephen Wolfram etc.

>>5266453
..yup

>>5267268
or strange hermits who mail bombs to people.

>>5266753
Bullshit. Einstein was very good at math. So good that this was the only reason why he was allowed to return to school after he was thrown out.

>>5266289
>the best example is Terrence Tao
>not Carl Friedrich Gauss

Most "child prodigies" are just regular smart kids with media whoring parents.

>>5266295
I've always been told I was intelligent, and shown it in some ways, for example I was always well above my age group in reading comprehension (I got 92% in a test at age 7) and creative writing (mine was frequently heralded as the best in the year), and I always found abstract concepts in science and maths easy to grasp, but I've always been below average at actually doing maths, especially mental arithmetic. Also I started programming at 14 and now I know a pretty wide range of languages 4 years later.

On the other side of things, I've always been lazy and forgetful, and I got bad grades when I didn't apply myself (which was most of the time). I would get very good grades when I put in a little effort (for example, in Biology A-level I got an A by reading the book the day before). I also scored 106 on an IQ test (the one on http://iqtest.dk/ although I've got much higher scores on other websites, but I know that they're probably shit ones). I'm currently studying CS, but I'd like to do physics afterwards. I really enjoy physics & maths, so I'm studying them independently, but I worry about how far I can go, because although my ability to grasp concepts is very good, my ability to actually do maths isn't. Maybe it's just because I was lazy as a child, and by working hard now I can turn it around and become good at maths, but Idk. Needless to say I'm pretty insecure about my intelligence.

I've wasted my life
In my first year of school, i was recognized as "smart" if you can call me that, i was great at mathematics, learning trig at 7 i was about to do calculus.
But i was badly failing at all my other subjects, part from the sciences.
And because of this everyone said to me "stop doing maths, pass all your other subjects" being a naive kid i did, i got depressed, stressed and to relieve stress i began playing my computer games, i got addicted, i stopped paying attention to mathematics, i lost my gift, it was only until i watched Cosmos in Year 10 that i came back to my original path, but it was too late.
I jus' wanna go back and teach myself not to listen to others.
i fucking hate life.

>>5267345
Why not pick up where you left off? That's what I'm doing in maths. If you were good at it once, you can train yourself to be good at it again. How old are you?

>>5267345
I can say that i regrett and dont regret playing vidya, it was fun and all and i gotta say i had the time of my life sometimes, but i just wish that i applied myself more.
Because i fucked up, i wanna make sure no one else fucks up like me, i am devising a book on how to develop a technocracy,i am 209 pages in, i am determined for it to be the Technocratic equivalent of Karl Marx's Communist Manifesto.

>>5267346
22.
I could, but i remember being able to solve 4 digit digit numbers in 3 seconds
things like
4134-9534
That was at 6.
Now i cant even do 2 digits, in the same timescale.

>>5267355
Well, this is coming from a mental arithmetic-deficient person, but mental arithmetic ability is probably not that important for doing high-level maths. Anyway, the brain doesn't stop developing until about 25 years (technically it never really stops) so you still have some time. If you were to spend the next 3 years self-teaching maths I'm sure you could get better again.

They crumble under the pressure.

>>5267362
Really?
Do you have any source i could use?
If you could that would great improve my current self esteem.

>>5267368
Yeah, i did, i crumbled under the pressure of shit i didn't even want to do, i am a faulty model, goddamit' transhumanism please happen before i die.

>>5267371
It depends how far you got. I only did the first year of A-level maths, so I'm self-teaching the second year plus the two year course of further maths. Then I'm doing calculus form James Stewart's book Calculus. After that I'll probably self-teach undergrad physics from Feynman's lectures. I actually really enjoy self-teaching, and find it very effective.

>>5267218
flaunting
Verb:
Display (something) ostentatiously, esp. in order to provoke envy or admiration or to show defiance.

Nothing there to cause envy or any admiration, except for the enormous enthusiasm.
>defiance
And I'm edgy.
Next time, stay off the big boy words, will you.

>>5267220
>implying.. what are you even implying?

>>5267384
Oh, yeah, as for a source, for the A-level maths stuff I'm using text books that are available on one of the exam boards' website for free, which is aqa.org. Look for MPC[1..4] for pure maths and MFP[2..4] (I haven't been able to find MFP1) for further pure maths. If you can't find a text book for part of it, just google something like "best <module> textbook" and then get a torrent. Use some initiative.

>>5267384
Yes so do i (4 digit solver guys here) i get major boners over Feynman and Sagan, Also which book should i get
Spivaks
or the guys you are talking about.
I am a mathematical failure, but that does not mean mathematics is now hidden from me, i want to get as far as i can.

>peaking before the age of 20

Never a good thing. Math IS a young man's game, but not that young. The best mathematicians peak in their late twenties, early thirties.

>>5267277
really? I'm told his wife would finish or do his math problems.

>>5266263
Sauce on OP's pic please
she is beautiful

>>5267494
the aryan queen she hoped to be
go ask /pol/ and /trv/

>>5266275
How would I go about finding other images in the vein? Naked/exposed women and math/science?

Can't really find any.

>>5267509
yeah, "math porn" isn't even a category in any of the major porn streaming sites

>>5267434
Lol @ serbian propaganda.

>>5266318

I see this phenomena as well. Here is the thing that smart people see: that the world of struggle and ambition is not a place where someone can find happiness unless your definition of happiness is sitting in a chair staring at a computer screen 40 hours a week, idling in city traffic and growing old and weak serving an evil system that is destroying the Earth with its unlimited appetites and banal prerogatives.

Corporate culture is a pig-pile of the worst types of people you remember from your high school trying to fuck each other in the ass all day, every day.

>>5267535
my sides

>>5266263 What happens to all the gifted children who were so full of promise? Does anyone do follow up studies to see what they make of their lives?

Great question OP! First of all, genius kids are much more newsworthy than smart adults, so the media loses interest once the kids lose their cuteness. A 4-year-old girl being accepted to Mensa is news, a 14-year-old or 40-year-old one is not.

Second, interests are important, as Anon pointed out. It makes a lot more sense to make your hobby your job, even if it is not the most prestigious or lucrative occupation. Why work on curing cancer if running a toy store makes you much happier?

Third, there are no projects which inspire capable minds. In fact, humans are still obsessed with ridiculous superstition, drug abuse and the mindless hunt for fame and money. Why even bother to contribute intelligence to such a society? It's like a brilliant scientist finding himself in prehistoric times. The reality of what you can achieve always falls short compared to what would be possible in a more civilized world. Would you waste your time trying to teach monkeys, or would you rather accept the circumstances and give up your ambitions?

this thread is pretty depressing

but at least I don't feel as bad about potentially squandering the moderate amount of promise I showed as a kid

>>5267207
I thought this too, but what if she's teaching it? That could add a whole new level to this

>>5266419

That guy is full of shit, so is the "smartest woman" in the world. They're both fucking fakes who took a bajillion IQ tests until they got really high scores. There is some 1-hour lecture with some guy going through people who the highest IQs and he calls them out as the fakes they are.

>>5266263
They get high paying and ranking jobs in corporations or government.
Ambassadors and shit.

pink pants looks to be actually hot

>>5268439
haha beta decay girl is fat

>>5268439

>>5268175
Any more hints which lecture that is?

"Child prodigies" are amazing because they're children.

When they stop being children they're just regular smart people.

>>5268478

On my iPhone currently, will try to find it if this is up tomorrow morning, try youtubing "highest iqs" it's a lecture-style thing with this guy going through histories highest estimates-iqs. Talks about people like Newton, Sidis, DiVinci, Tao, etc.

>>5268549

I found it, it's actually called "iq 200+ smartest person ever" it's 4 15-minute videos.

>>5268503
Everybody in here is just to pass crappy personal ideas about them, and media stories with no backup.

There have been studies of how extremely intelligent chilldren tend to grow up

How about you guys do some digging and find them?

I am wondering whats the stance /sci/ takes on people that consider themselves smart but underachieving.

After years of having thought of myself like that, and plenty of people telling me I am smart but underachieving, I started to somewhat resent it.
If I was smart I would do the smart thing and stop underachieving.

I think the big problem here is the first years of education not providing enough challenge. If you are very good in your education as a young child, and almost never or never have to practice for anything, you will have a hard time doing this later on in life. At least, thats what I figured it to be.

Another problem is that the education puts lots of different people with different skills together. I don't think its too bad, and gladly help others if I understand it better than they do, but I am nearly always bored in school. (Although college did improve it somewhat). I can't concentrate for fuck, and it made me stop listening after the first 10 words and then when I finally start to listen again, I have no fucking clue where we are.

How do I solve this problem? How do you go from being an "underachieving smart guy" to somebody who achieves what he should?

I just don't know how to start putting some god damn effort into anything. Just like now, I am typing this while I have only 3 more hours to write 20 pages for schoolwork.

>>5268560
I find it funny how just about every genius from before IQ testing started has an estimated IQ of 200+. By the very way IQ is defined there should be one person with an IQ that high per trillion some people. Statically speaking, there shouldn't be a single person alive with an IQ that high.

>>5267410
Actually it gets later and later on in live.

Some studies found that in the past, the biggest things mathematicians (and many other scientists) did was at pretty young age. However it seems that the age for major discoveries and whatever is going up. This is likely because the relative low hanging fruit is going away and people just need to know more before they can really hack away at it all. Of course there are some exceptions, but still.

>>5267535
I wish this existed. Doesn't /sci/ have a sticky with all its science related porn?

>>5268560
>iq 200+ smartest person ever
Watching now, thanks!

>>5268561 Everybody in here is just to pass crappy personal ideas about them, and media stories with no backup.
I don't need a study to tell me what I missed in life.

ITT: overweight nerds share their stories how they're child prodgies now but they're dumb

>>5268813
> overweight
Nope

>>5268441
>>5268439
So, now that all the science crap is out of the way, can we get some more hot women and math?

>>5268569
are you me?

>>5269198
Nah, I am half of /sci/ probably. Hell, make that half of 4chan.

there are a few good chapters in Malcom Gladwell's The Outlires that are related to this

>>5268574
>This is likely because the relative low hanging fruit is going away and people just need to know more before they can really hack away at it all. Of course there are some exceptions, but still.

This makes a lot of sense.

>>5269239
Of course it does.

It doesn't mean the low hanging fruit was a lot easier, but it likely was easier to observe and thus know there is something to discover there.

>>original new material
this
and even then most people will mock you
for you knew ideas
see feyman diagrams
and telsa
and h-pylori story (Dr....i cure x / prevent percentage of stomach cancer.....medical profession you lie you scum)

and

terrence tao
the only gifted child i ever heard of actually remainig gifted in later life

>>5268574
>>5269279
>>5269239

Then does this mean the next line of "fruit" requires something more than just a gifted/genius/lucky person to obtain it?

>>5266318
i knew a guy just like this in electrical engineering
so smart, but all he wanted to be was a potato farmer

>>5269291
Except for pure math, most discoveries nowadays likely come down to what you have to work with. 20 years ago there wasn't even definitive proof that any stars outside ours had planets. Once you have access to better equipment, you are able to observe more and thus find something that you want to investigate further.
Thus doing big discoveries will likely need some budget, to get some budget, you need to have had a good education (nearly always), and thus before you know, 25 years of your life are mostly gone away on learning what others figured out before you can start on your own things. That said, more often than not you gonna need those things if you want to investigate further.

That said, we also live in an age where science is shared way more easily than before. Wikipedia has tons of things. Nasa publishes lots of data you can use to work with, as do many other science institutes. So its probably mostly just having the needed skills and putting some effort into it.

I remember it being said that the location where you will discover most new species of animals is simply whatever location you go through the most rigorously. This is likely the same with many other fields of science. There is so much data in the world, that if you work on something, you probably will find a few interesting phenomenon whatever data you decide to combine with whatever else.

I think it mostly comes down to how much effort you put into it. I am sure that tons of people noticed that stuff sticked on the ground, but Newton just put a bit more effort into it and that got us newtons law of gravity instead of jeff's.

>>5266270
"Gifted" child here.
I tested as more intelligent than 99% of my peers. The problem is that "giftedness" doesn't necessarily mean that the person will grow up and maintain that difference in intelligence.
Boys especially, as they grow older, will end up closer to everybody else than they started.

Also, I spent today laying in bed thinking about how I didn't want to die, but if I went to sleep and didn't wake up, how I wouldn't be too sad at that. So there's one data point for you, OP.

>>5268569
We're on the same boat.

>>5268574
I disagree.
Back when major breakthroughs were being made by much younger people, those younger people were being brought up to speed with the forefront at a younger age. They had private tutors, were fully educated by the time they were 16.
Ask yourself if the amount of knowledge you know now could account for that difference. How long do you think it would take you to explain all of that to somebody from back then?

>>5268569
Action. The spirit is free to make its own decisions. Our actions determine what becomes of us. My guess is you procrastinated that paper because you believe you are so smart and will be able to finish that paper whenever you want so you put it off. That was the action you choose. You choose to disregard the paper and find something more worthy of your time.

Pro tip: If you'e in a stage of life where papers are expected of you, it's the only thing worth your time.

>>5269386
Certainly there would be a huge difference. But I would say that the overall population having improved, I think it was worth it. That said, I really would have loved my education to have been a bit more personalized. If that happened I probably would have learned a lot more and know how to study well and put some actual effort into things. Something which my education never really showed me until it was far too late.

>>5269406
Nah, I take my time with the paper because I have this "whatever" feel to it. I have been telling myself that I have to do it plenty of times, but its pretty hard to do so. I am now at about page 16 of 20. But it is taking a lot of effort and I likely will be too late once again.

I know the only solution to my problem is simply not procrastinate. When I get the "I should do it now" moment, I simply should do it. But turns out that for a guy who has an attention span of a goldfish and about the same willpower, that is somewhat hard. Especially once you reached a later stadium in your life, you don't really have anybody to help you with it.

>But the years pass, and no new Newtons and Einsteins seem to appear. What happens to all the gifted children who were so full of promise?

-Resources

-Ambition

-Creativity

-Openness to Experience

People who have extremely high levels of intelligence or are gifted in a specific area tend to be average or merely a sigma above normal in these domains.

>>5269416
>>5269416

I'd also like to add that if you're trying ti identity high giftedness with testing, this isn't too practical due to diminishing returns. IQ/Achievement testing rely too heavily upon the general intelligence factor and are not able to accurately measure every meaningful cognitive domain.

wolfram the stephan is one such person he made mathematica

plos come over to my thread and tell me if its worth learning his junk.

I'm moderately gifted but indeed had any advantage destroyed by:
1. being shown I don't need to develop any skills that require effort
2. being bullied
3. not growing up in a family that really cared thus having no real conditions or motivation for anything other than pleb shit.

luckily I recovered partially by age 18~

Hey guys. 19 year old Mega Society guy here. Search for "Mega Society" on the dreaded reddit and you'll find my AMA there. Can answer questions now if you have any.

Intelligence threads are almost always big buckets of shit, but this thread has been a bit more interesting than most.

>>5269437
The last factor probably is a big one. If you grew up in a poor family, its likely they will have been unable to make you put effort in school as much as in a more wealthy family. Due to possibly not caring or having way too many other troubles already outside off the school system.

So, I have the feeling I should make sure my little brother does not go my path, but it may already be too late. He is way more gifted than me. And probably is bored a lot more than I have ever been in school. So, what do I do, /sci/?

>>5269443
On second thought, fuck that. It's already 4:25 am. Back to the grind.

>>5266395

I think this is an interesting and important point to consider. I'm constantly described by friends and family as a "genius", and yet honestly I can't see what they see. I did very well at secondary school and had an interest in philosophy and science, but most of the time I feel pretty average. I always feel like I'm not smart enough to be a scientist or mathematician, which is actually pretty strongly affecting my ability to persist at those things.

>>5266417

lol'd

>>5269452
Mensa guy here. I entered Mensa with the expectation that those people would be in some way different than normal ones, assuming that intelligence changes the way you view the world. But to my disappointment, they are exactly like everyone else. Even worse: They consist of people from all social groups. That seemed like a nice thing at the start, because of diversity and such. But then I realized that their humor and character was on the same low level as that of their peers in society.

A few months ago, I brought a female friend to the monthly Mensa meeting in a pub and the leader had nothing better to do than to crack really unfunny sexist jokes. Absolutely no hint of superior intelligence. Not even of basic
social skills. I was disgusted! Apparently intelligence alone does not have a noteworthy impact on one's personality, though I need to perform more observations to confirm this.

In comparison, there is an Atheist group in my city who also have a monthly meeting in a pub. I don't know their IQ, but they are likeable people who love exciting debates, discuss scientific and philosophical questions, ponder visionary society models and the future of humanity. My same friend was instantly thrilled. This suggests that the interest in an issue (in this case secularization) is a much better predictor of personality than intelligence. Of course it could be that the variance between groups is much larger than I assume. Maybe I am just lucky with my local Atheist group, maybe there are even more jerky atheist groups than jerky Mensa groups. I will need to go to some national meetings to get a better sense of the population.

Anyway, I wonder in which category Megas fall? Have not met any so far, but I am pretty fresh to Mensa as well...

>>5269599
>Mensa
>Society of "intellectually superior people that want to be with other such intellectually superior people"
>Thinking they wouldn't be a bunch of assholes on high horses on average

>>5268569

> If you are very good in your education as a young child, and almost never or never have to practice for anything, you will have a hard time doing this later on in life.

Pretty sure this is me. I seem to be a bit of a polymath (it was more notable when I was a kid because I was so far ahead of my peers).
Pretty much anything I try I am excellent at: maths, science, creative writing, art, music (piano, guitar), philosophy etc.
But because I'm so used to finding things piss easy, I inevitably reach a point where it gets difficult enough to actually require effort and tedium (one to two years in) and I completely give up.

Now I am exceptional at nothing and my peers who were just moderately intelligent before have continued to develop their skills by persistence and have surpassed me.

It's really not as much of a blessing to be a bright child as people think.

>>5269599
What a strange society where you can only interact with the kind of person you are interested in, like picking in a menu.
In the end, since you chose those groups out of your own interest, you are always sent back to yourself, there is no real opening to the world anymore.

>>5269626
Are you sure it isn't just that you are unwilling to put in the work, out of fear that you will discover that despite throwing your best efforts at a course, your marks still wind up being mediocre, thus disproving this entire "smart but lazy" illusion?

I bring this up because I used to think similarly, but I think it's because of what I just mentioned. That it isn't so much that i'm "smart but lazy". Sure, I can sit on my ass and get Bs on a lot of exams without studying. But even if I do put in the effort, and study for days, my marks wind up being no better than if I were to just fly by the seat of my pants.

>>5266820
>>5266844
I was born and raised in the Netherlands. I was taught Dutch, English and French from a very young age as well.

>>5269646
It's well known that marks in primary and secondary education have nothing to do with predisposition for a particular field, nor work.
School rewards pleasure, it's the single most important factor in success. The only things marks measure is your enthusiasm.

Actually the hardest working pupils are the one in a situation of academic failure.

Their only gift was to memorize things, also they usually have fucked up upbringings, never socializing properly, only being valued for their "gift" with any real creativity on their part perceived a slacking and distracting from their sole purpose in the world to memorize more shit and be a better circus exhibit.

>>5269626
It just shows you were an enthusiastic kid, and probably eager to please adults.

>>5267277
This. I never understood why people had such a hardon for devaluing Einstein's achievements. I guess some people just can't accept that another person is/was so much more intelligent than they are. Ironically it's that attitude that makes sure it stays that way.

>>5269646

But the thing is I didn't say I was smart-but-lazy, just that I seem to be very good at initially picking up skills at an accelerated rate compared to others, but once my natural ability peters out, I find motivation extremely difficult.
Therefore, I'm saying I have a natural ability up to a certain point that is above others', but beyond that hard work will contribute more than my "intelligence."
When I do actually really put into something, my results are still quite above average. I tried hard when I started university and got 90's and on the Dean's list. Not saying it's amazingly exceptional, just that it's not "mediocre" as you say.

>>5269660

I really don't think my goal was to please people. I was embarrassed about my achievements and hated my parents telling other people about them. Most of the time I didn't even want to tell my own parents my school marks. I just didn't like people knowing, it felt like a private thing.

>>5268503
>Carl Friedrich Gauss
>regular smart person

>>5269618 Thinking they wouldn't be a bunch of assholes on high horses on average
That argument is too focussed on downward comparisons. Most people look at Mensa with the attitude that a membership would grant them the right to feel smug - and project that primitive desire on Mensas without ever having talked to them.

But just like you (presumably) don't take pride in being smarter than a pig - or an African who believes that raping an infant will cure you from AIDS, to stay with humans - I don't care about the lower 98%. They are no standard. I seek the company of smart people because I want to learn, understand, grow - if the rest of humanity wants to stay savage, that is okay with me.

Also, these people are not smug either. They are just no wiser than average people, that's the problem.


>>5269631 What a strange society where you can only interact with the kind of person you are interested in, like picking in a menu.
Do you not pick your favorite meals from a menu? Don't get me wrong, I love to try things I never tasted before, but I never eat things I found to be disgusting or outright harmful. Lots of attitudes and beliefs are sickeningly stupid.

>>5269626
>>5269673
I'm exactly the same.

>>5269599
Mega is small. In general, "ultra-high" IQ societies are overwhelmingly white and male. A lot of the focus of "ultra-high" groups is on psychometrics -- how to actually test in the ultra-high range with any real accuracy.

Conventional IQ tests are pretty poor at this, since they're designed primarily for discriminating between below average, average, and high average, with a particular emphasis on identification of developmental delays and so on.

So the ultra-high groups tend to attract people who like to do unnatural and unholy things with psychometrics-related stats, create and solve the kinds of problems that might be used as high end items on IQ tests, that sort of thing. They're much more niche content-wise than groups like Mensa. Almost all of online discussions that aren't related to brainteasers and IQ are on science topics, generally physics.

>>5269683
(cont.)


Mega meetups aren't very common for basic reasons, mostly of which are logistical: small, very spread out membership, no dues or major income sources for events, not many members with the time + resources + interest to do the organization. Also, members tend either to be reclusive types or highly productive doctor/engineer/scientist types, so they're not necessarily dying to meet up for events.

There's also the problem of publicly identifying yourself as a member of something like the Mega Society -- responses can be highly negative, and are always extremely predictable in how they proceed: first comes flat-out denial, then rejection of the testing results (supervised vs. unsupervised, psychological licensure of test makers, validity of test norms, etc.), and finally the wholesale dismissal of IQ as a measure of intelligence or personal potential.

I wouldn't tell anyone who knows me personally that I'm in Mega. There's lots to be lost and nothing to be gained. It took me a good while to join their mailing list after qualifying; I wasn't immediately convinced that the positives of membership would outweigh the seeming pretentiousness of it all. Turned out not to be a problem after all.

>>5269685
>and finally the wholesale dismissal of IQ as a measure of intelligence or personal potential.
Well, to be fair most IQ tests are just pattern recognition, which isn't really useful for anything these days since the invention of computers. The people I consider smart are those who achieve a goal using the most simplistic method possible.

>>5266981
i have read exactly 5 of your posts and already am sure that i ahve never met anyone that is so full of himself. just the list of books you read made me want to vomit.

>>5269685
> responses can be highly negative
I know that feel. People admire smart kids, but react with distrust and hostility to intelligent adults. Apparently they do not perceive clever children as a threat to their self-value.

> Almost all of online discussions that aren't related to brainteasers and IQ are on science topics, generally physics.
I would love to work in the STEM fields, but for various reasons I am interested in psychology, philosophy and politics. So what interests me are ethical debates and grand visions for humanity. I like to get in touch with people who ponder that as well and exchange arguments with them. Are Megas a good choice for that, or are they focussed on the technical aspects?

What do you smart guys think about nihilism and the point of life? Can you write a longer post defending your point?

>>5269724
i know this is not long but:
>evolution
>hurrdurrselfishgene
>there is no "point" (not the kind you're looking for)
>enjoy the ride

>>5269693
>Well, to be fair most IQ tests are just pattern recognition
There is an online test that university beginners are required to take in one of Germany's federal states: http://www.was-studiere-ich.de/ .

It is not an IQ test, but it contains many classic IQ tasks. However, it also has some very interesting content I have not encountered before. For example, in one task you get a table with lots of data and two statements referring to the table. Your job is to determine in a limited time span whether these statements are in accordance, in contradiction or inconclusive with the information in the table. Now that is a challenge which is much closer to the reality of many scientists who will find it helpful to grasp large quantities of data quickly and check whether they support hypotheses.

But of course this is a test for aspiring students, so it can afford to be more challenging. It is not suitable for locating the general population on a distribution, a purpose for which you have to stick to the lowerst common denominator.

>>5269724
> What do you smart guys think about nihilism and the point of life?
I agree with the idea that life does not have a pre-determined "objective meaning" or "intrinsic value". It is us sentient beings who assign meaning and value to things. That also explains why human individuals and cultures are so vastly different in their values.

I do not agree with Emos whining over how sad and hard life is. And whenever tells me that life is only suffering, I kindly invite him to commit suicide. So far, no one has accepted the offer. Apparently they are quite fond of life, despite their complainst.

>>5269732
Interesting. It's really hard to define intelligence broadly I really.

>>5269724
There's a thread on such subject in page 1,2 or so of the board currently. Go look for it.

>>5269724
Not a "smart guy" here.

Life is just the result of the "desire" of genetic code to propagate itself. It has no real purpose or "meaning". It's just a kind of matter that does something more interesting (to the biologist, anyway) than other kinds of matter. I don't believe in an immaterial world. I see consciousness as emergence from having a large brain structured in a particular way. So I have quite a cold world-view. I don't mean that to imply that it's depressing, though; in my opinion it's realistic. It doesn't affect me emotionally or affect the way I interact with people.

I guess my point of view could be considered existential nihilism, but I don't like to be conflated with those edgy kids who associate nihilism with being dark and evil, and use it as an excuse for hedonism. It's ironic because many Nietzsche fans have beliefs that contradict those of their hero (for example, Nietzsche was against hedonism) and have probably never read any of his work, or even read about it. I think the problem is that Nietzsche wrote a lot of hyperbolic statements ("God is dead" for example) and worded things quite strongly, and they latch onto that rather than seeing it as what it is - hyperbole. They don't look deeply into what he is actually saying. They take it at face value.

>>5269728
>>5269739
>>5269750

Alright, nice. Another one:

Why do you get angry when you are surrounded by dumb people and why do you want the whole population to be more educated?

>>5269755
Intelligent and creative people are often ostracised by mainstream society, even though they often contribute far more to the advancement of mankind than the average layperson. Meanwhile, entrepreneurial types are practically deified for making themselves rich. It's sickening that selfish ambition is valued above the drive to understand the universe or create art. That's what makes me angry. I don't hate dumb people for being dumb, though, because it's not fair to hate people for something they didn't choose and can't change. I do dislike people who are wilfully ignorant, people who ostracise others, and people who value the accumulation of personal wealth above contribution to human knowledge. Why do people care so much about money anyway? You can't use it when you die, why accumulate more of it than you can enjoy?

As for the second part of your question, because a better educated populous is beneficial for everyone. It leads to advancement in all fields - maths, sciences, humanities, arts - which is important for advancing society.

>>5269693
I talked a bit about that in the reddit AMA I did (you can find it with a sitewide search for "Mega Society" if interested). What you've just said shouldn't really be the case, but is very much so for mainstream tests. Stanford-Binet and Wechsler in particular really fall there. Standardized test makers are always looking to target two main markets, namely clinical psychologists and educational institutions, so it's not surprising that poorly motivated/justified tasks that are nevertheless useful for coarse-grained evaluations would end up being incorporated into test designs. Give everyone's favorite paralyzed cosmologist and popular "genius" the WISC-III/IV timed task of wooden block unscrambling and see how well he does.

Despite what a lot of people assume, the state of modern (mainstream) psychometric testing isn't much of an improvement over what you would have seen in the 60's or 70's. The bulk of psychometricians remain concerned first and foremost with measurement resolution for low- and mid-range scores, and the potential effects of test revisions on psych evals. High-end accuracy isn't a priority. As long as the percentage of individuals who fall off the curve entirely remains quite small, designers of general purpose IQ tests are happy.

>>5269788
(cont.)

Besides, proper g-loading of items is incredibly challenging in its own right. Perceptually "hard" problems whose solutions don't rely on formal education are extremely difficult to create, difficult to norm, difficult to parameterize, and generally difficult to deal with. Makers of high IQ tests have tried zillions of different approaches, few of which have demonstrated robust results while remaining generalizable. Some basic considerations like sample size pose challenges as well.

In short, everyone intuitively senses that current solutions for measuring intelligence represent local maxima at best, but paths toward categorical improvements to the standard form aren't yet clear.

some of those kids becomes depressed because all other kids are too stupid for them. or their social skills are retarded

>>5269732
>>5269739
Excuse my typos and missing words. I'm not that awake today.

>>5269749
Well, in the broadest sense intelligence is any performance that involves neural activity. So it is pretty useless to speak about intelligence in general, you always need a specific task and reference group. A human walking up stairs is normal and boring, a robot walking up stairs is smart and exciting.

>>5269722
I can tell you now that poking around IQ groups for humanities talk isn't going to get you too far. Certain groups are more known for the sort of open-ended discussions you're looking for. Mega isn't.

Maybe check out Prometheus or similar groups. You can find a couple fairly comprehensive lists of IQ societies without any trouble.

Part 1:

>>5269755
How much a stupid person annoys me depends on the type of stupidity. For example, I have a friend who is really bad at abstract thinking and logical reasoning, so she sucks at debates. But she is aware of that and openly states when she cannot keep up. As I see it, knowing what she doesn't know makes her much wiser than people who have a strong opinion without realizing that they lack the necessary competence for it. Also, she is absolutely nice, so I enjoy having her around. While sharing exciting new scientific findings and political news with her is something between hard and impossible, I have other people for that, so that's not a problem.

My main problem with people whom I consider stupid is that I am very susceptible to social influence. In other words, spending time with them decreases my intelligence and increases my tendency for violence. Why are they like that? Because they lack abstract thinking and long-term perspective. They are like animals, acting instinctively and impulsively. They will cheat, lie, attack whenever it serves their emotional needs. Luckily, their thinking patterns are simple, so you can predict their behavior accurately. But it is still a risk to be around them.

On the social and political scale, a smart (not just pattern-recognizing) person decides differently than a stupid person. That involves anything from gambling over financial literacy to long-term investments into education and research. Smart people understand how counterproductive certain ideologies and measures are and avoid them, choosing much more efficient approaches instead.

Part 2:

>>5269755
On a small scale you can put this claim to the test in strategic MMOGs. Choose a rational, analytical, fact-based strategy and try them out in dozens of such games. You will realize that you are much more successful than 98% of the other players. In the next step, choose the company of other smart players. You will find that it will dominate the other guilds with ease. Now transfer that lesson to Real Life...imagine where we could be as individuals and as a society if our ancestors had not wasted ressources out of stupidity. We could have skipped thousands of years of cultural evolution! Now that can't be helped, but even in the present day the openness to technological progress can make a crucial difference. Just compare the current Third World to the First World. And that is only the kind of difference we have managed with the crappy, irrational approach!

>>5266495
Oh you are one of those guys going to a fake university and thinking they are smarter than university absolvents. Cool, nice to meet you.

They end up on 4chan.

>>5266495
I learned the whole object-oriented thing in middle school.
I can't imagine it being wise to wait so long to teach it.

>>5266495
So you germans have another kind of university for university dropouts? And do these universities offer mathematics? I cant imagine mathematics with "a more direct approach towards work". Please explain.

gifted then = think outside le box, rise beyond

gifted now = take gifted test (pass/fail) fit le mold

>>5269883
It makes sense to teach imperative programming before OOP because objects can initially be thought of as self-contained imperative programs (as can functions). You have to move on from that mental model later, but it can be useful at first. It definitely makes sense to teach imperative programming before functional, because if you did it the other way around, it'd be like torture, and you can't get away with only learning functional languages if you want to be a professional programmer.

>>5269755
i am not even sure if i should answer a question here because i barely made the top 2% but stupid people do not annoy me. i have had and still have lots of friends that are not, or at least not well, educated, are unemployed or do manual labour and make no efforts to change that. they are sociable and pleasant to be around for the most part, even though i think i stick around mainly because we spent our childhoods together.
what annoys me a lot more than genuinely unintelligent people are (fairly) intelligent ones that say or do things that show they have given no second (or maybe even first) thought to a matter and still feel that they have a valid educated opinion that is worth sharing.

The survival of the human species will depend upon convincing the dumb majority that the work scientists do is important. We could all have electric cars and space travel by now but it's not intelligence that drives the world's leaders, it's greed.

>>5266282
>owns a business
>only an average success
nigger, that's the american dream right there

>>5269724
Been a while since you made that post, but whatever.

I personally don't believe there is a real goal in life other than those forced mechanism we have, we want to eat, survive and ultimately reproduce. Its pretty much hard wired into us.
I also don't get why people act as if its impossible and everything is worthless if there is no point. There being no set point for you means you have the freedom to determine your own road. Who cares if ultimately its meaningless, in the end, the only person who can attach true value to your life is yourself. You should live your life for your own. Decide what to do. Being somebody who visits /v/ every now and then, I would say that this "need for goals" is what ruins games, and it ruins lives. Games that give you freedom to make your own story are so much better, so much more engaging. Same with life. If you do things your way, isn't that a lot more valuable?

I do know this is very much determined by a social aspect. My mother has given me plenty of freedom, far beyond what anybody else had, and I have grown to value that. In many Asian families, it seems like the family is valued a lot. Every group has their own values, so what I would think as the ultimate life may very well be sort of crap for other people.

The major question I have is how free this freedom is. If I put some voltage on a lamp, it will burn. It follows a set of rules that will have that lamp burn every time. Until it breaks, but even that happens in a set of rules. So I can't help but wonder if I can really decide anything for myself or if my brain just follows a set of rules. As in, if I go back in time to yesterday, and everything is exactly the same, will I do exactly the same?
One of my major hopes that this isn't true is randomness in the universe. There are some effects that seem to be truly random. If these effects exist, it may mean we do a certain amount of control and freedom.

>>5269755
I don't get angry when surrounded by people that are less knowledgeable at whatever subject is at hand. I just assume them to be more knowledgeable on subjects that may not have come up. Even if I know they aren't.

The whole population being more educated just seems to be the right thing. Mankind has its place on earth due to intelligence. We aren't strong like a bear or fast like a cheetah, we don't really have a natural habitat but our intelligence allowed us to construct our own. For that, I believe the best thing is to improve on our strength.

>>>/s/13708208

For those interested, here is the AMA mentioned by Anon earlier: http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/x7drk/by_request_iama_member_of_the_mega_society_the/

>>5266734
what? what does this mean? do you have sauce?

>>5266471
good for you man! thats awesome