• daniyeg [he/him]@hexbear.net
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    29
    ·
    1 month ago

    how the fuck does someone finish high school at 8, and gets a PhD at 15?? boomers read super genius, i read rushed school, under constant stress and socially stunted.

    • Llituro [he/him, they/them]@hexbear.net
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      17
      ·
      1 month ago

      It’s usually all the things you mentioned, no interest in socializing the child with humans their own age, and parents that are also PhD havers. Most prodigies have some unusual access to a very learned person in the field they end up a prodigy.

      • BodyBySisyphus [he/him]@hexbear.net
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        1 month ago

        no interest in socializing the child with humans their own age

        If he’s genuinely that intelligent, socializing him with humans his own age will just get him bullied or result in the other kids feeling inferior. He deserves to be able to engage with people who are on his level.

        • Llituro [he/him, they/them]@hexbear.net
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          7
          ·
          1 month ago

          Yeah, that isn’t how a person learns to deal with the emotions of life. This child will never know how to interact normally with people that don’t have a PhD and are at an academic conference.

          • BodyBySisyphus [he/him]@hexbear.net
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            2
            ·
            1 month ago

            Not saying he shouldn’t get diversity of social experiences but the idea that a bunch of mutual misunderstandings with kids his own age is somehow going to result in better development doesn’t really track, either.

            • Llituro [he/him, they/them]@hexbear.net
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              4
              ·
              1 month ago

              Learning how to navigate mutual misunderstanding productively and non violently is one of the most important aspects of socialization. Those misunderstandings are the development.

              • BodyBySisyphus [he/him]@hexbear.net
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                2
                ·
                1 month ago

                That assumes that the other party is also interested in navigation; some people are - and I’m sure you’ve reached this conclusion in your own experiences - just not worth the time and effort it takes to engage with. As it is all we can do is guess on the state of this kid’s social life because the article doesn’t talk about it. He could also have friends his own age; going through a PhD program would make it harder, but it’s not like has to worry about feeding himself, taking care of his living situation, and paying off student loans like most PhD students.

            • AssortedBiscuits [they/them]@hexbear.net
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              3
              ·
              1 month ago

              It just means being a child prodigy is a curse. It’s monkey paw shit. The kid is screwed either way. No matter what, he’s going to grow up with a massive ego about how he’s a god compared to the rest of us plebs only to crash out hard when he gets tripped up by something that he’s not a prodigy in, which is literally everything outside of the one thing he’s super competent in. Even a well-adjusted adult has to constantly fight against stans inflating their ego. A kid doesn’t stand a fucking chance.

          • BodyBySisyphus [he/him]@hexbear.net
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            2
            ·
            edit-2
            1 month ago

            He might be, we don’t know either way. Jumping immediately to the conclusion that he must be socially stunted just because he’s doing an advanced degree at a young age smells like anti-intellectualism.

            • hellinkilla [they/them, they/them]@hexbear.netOP
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              3
              ·
              1 month ago

              If someone is being bullied because their parents have intentionally withheld age appropriate social opportunities I’m order to feed their own egos, leading them to have a deficit, then it is exactly a skill issue.

              If, as hypothesized, the child was already behind in social aptitude, then completely exempting him from the world of children and fast tracking to adulthood is hardly the solution. It would only male the situation worse. Regardless of the behavior of other kids around him this is really setting up to fail down the road.

              • chgxvjh [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                2
                ·
                1 month ago

                If, as hypothesized, the child was already behind in social aptitude, then completely exempting him from the world of children and fast tracking to adulthood is hardly the solution.

                Why not? I don’t think children really grow from getting bullied. If anything he is learning earlier how to deal with adults, a skill that is useful for your entire life. Having to deal with teenagers isn’t really a problem that comes back later in life unless you decide to become a teacher or parent.

        • christian [he/him, any]@hexbear.net
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          1 month ago

          This might be a me problem but there is no way I would have been capable of interacting with a fifteen-year-old in my program like he was an adult like everyone else. I might talk to him about math in the same way I’d engage with a teenager on their favorite video game, but I’m not inviting a teenager to shoot the shit in my office and I’m not going to think of him as a friend.

          result in the other kids feeling inferior

          Also my imposter syndrome might have left the stratosphere.

  • if you’re gonna get a group together to do 80+ people all at once, you should totally take the heads and make like some furniture or a trophy/altar with the skulls.

    it’s a timeless way to say, “we handle our shit around here, so don’t start any.”

  • BodyBySisyphus [he/him]@hexbear.net
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    9
    ·
    1 month ago

    He says the degree is a means to a larger goal: building longer, healthier lives by enhancing human biology.

    Simons research focuses on Bose polarons, mobile impurities dressed by surrounding particles, in superfluids and supersolids.

    Maybe it’s because I’m not a genius child prodigy but I’m not seeing the connection between these two ideas.

    Also, I had to stop reading that article midway through because it’s an incoherent jumble of sentences that reads like a game of journalistic beautiful corpse.