10% above the 90th percentile, who are sufficiently different from the average as to make relating to normal people difficult.
[citation needed]
There is no confusion at all on my part. I knew what subset of the population I was writing about (perhaps an even narrower subset than the original Paul Graham article, the first of his I ever read, was about) when I started typing. I specifically disagree with "as to make relating to normal people difficult." If high-IQ people have a social problem, as perhaps they especially do in certain parts of American culture, I invite them to use their high IQ to engage in problem-solving.
" If high-IQ people have a social problem, as perhaps they especially do in certain parts of American culture, I invite them to use their high IQ to engage in problem-solving."
It doesn't work that way. The way humans usually solve social problems is through asking, "how would I react if I were in the other person's place"? We have specific biological structures, like mirror neurons (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror_neuron), that are set up to do that. However, this only works if the person being modeled is similar to the modeler. Because of this, there are actually a ton of factors that can make relating to other people difficult, not just intelligence (like culture, age, socioeconomic class, mental strengths and weaknesses, etc.)
I am in that 10% of 10% above the 90th percentile of the population. I have zero problems getting people to like me, however I find little of interest in "average" people.
But, being smart only get's you so far. There are plenty of ways people can diverge from the norms of society and intelligence is just one of them. Develop some hobby's more interesting than television and suddenly we have something to talk about.
Comments
10% above the 90th percentile, who are sufficiently different from the average as to make relating to normal people difficult.
[citation needed]
There is no confusion at all on my part. I knew what subset of the population I was writing about (perhaps an even narrower subset than the original Paul Graham article, the first of his I ever read, was about) when I started typing. I specifically disagree with "as to make relating to normal people difficult." If high-IQ people have a social problem, as perhaps they especially do in certain parts of American culture, I invite them to use their high IQ to engage in problem-solving.
" If high-IQ people have a social problem, as perhaps they especially do in certain parts of American culture, I invite them to use their high IQ to engage in problem-solving."
It doesn't work that way. The way humans usually solve social problems is through asking, "how would I react if I were in the other person's place"? We have specific biological structures, like mirror neurons (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror_neuron), that are set up to do that. However, this only works if the person being modeled is similar to the modeler. Because of this, there are actually a ton of factors that can make relating to other people difficult, not just intelligence (like culture, age, socioeconomic class, mental strengths and weaknesses, etc.)
I am in that 10% of 10% above the 90th percentile of the population. I have zero problems getting people to like me, however I find little of interest in "average" people.
But, being smart only get's you so far. There are plenty of ways people can diverge from the norms of society and intelligence is just one of them. Develop some hobby's more interesting than television and suddenly we have something to talk about.