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Comment by sametmax | Hacker News Reader

The problem with this theory, is that it completely ignores that a lot of people good at math have poor people skills. And you need people to be happy and improve your life opportunities.

So yeah, math is beautiful, and if you like it, go for it.

But if you look for a skill to acquire or practice, your taste no withstanding, this may not be the best investment. Sport, social skills, languages, time management, self introspection and cooking are examples of things that usually pay off better than math in your life. It brings more people, opportunities, health, money, etc.

Again, not saying math is not a good thing to practice. We need math as a specie. And an individual may need it for his or her happiness. But as a strategy I don't think so.

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You could likely be linking an association with a trend. Maybe society treats people who have the personality requisite to study mathematics poorly. Thus, over time, both the individual and society 'negatively associate'.

That was my experience, anyway, and I know it has been a historical trend. Some of the best mathematicians were bullied by their cultures, isolated, and thus had plenty of time to work on mathematics.

Absolutely, it's rarely one way.

But I've been a young nerd with nerd friends, then working with nerds.

By some twisted fate, life forced me to improve my people skill a lot. It was painful, I didn't ask for it, but now I'm glad it happened.

Now I still have a big nerd entourage, because I like to be surrounded by people smarter than me. But I can't help but notice all the things they do that drive others away. Things I used to do.

And this things are linked to they nerdy skills.

E.G:

- they don't play artificial social games

- they don't try to dress up

- they are straight forward and honest

And they are because it would not make sense for them to be otherwise. It would not be logical. I would be stupid. A waste. Useless.

So they don't do it.

They also usually have a strong ability to feel, connect with people. But they also use they intellect to deal with those instead of knowing how to manage their emotions. But using a screwdriver to nail something is inefficient. And people are so overdoing it. Touching, making noise, taking attention, expressing themself in overwhelming ways. This is utter nonsense to them. It takes a toll.

So they take a distance.

And the world is always agitated, filled with unimportant things, requiring to switch context, to take stances on unnecessary things.

So they stay in their head.

And people are petty. Why would anyone not do what's best if they know it is ? Why would not somebody work for the group ? Why would somebody purposely destroy something ? Pick up on someone ? This is mean, it makes no sense.

And why would they not use proper words. Understand this efficient sentence ? Get the reference to this book / movie that is so good ? Talk about those stuff, sport / terrible tv show / cars that are such bullshit. Ignore scientific evidences to run their life ?

So they separate themself from part of the population.

These traits, I see them over, and over. But it's what allow them to analyze. It's what allow them to concentrate. To remove clutter. To categorize. To extract. To model systems. To abstract. To understand. To solve problems. To bring solution. To makes things better.

As usual, generality is not reality.

But this is my experience of it.

These traits you describe, you say they are a side effect of good reasoning skills. I agree that people who think more methodically are more susceptible to these traits, however, I think they are actually characteristic of a certain immaturity in one's reasoning abilities.

To ask : "Why would anyone not do what's best if they know it is?", and to have no clue of an answer, would imply a lack of reasoning ability, rather than a surplus of it. Likewise for the other questions you suggest.

I think this way of thinking is very natural to a young mind who finds the world overly complicated and is attracted to the logical nature of subjects like maths. It is a sort of escape, to mentally write off everything that is not clean and simple as "illogical".

Clinging to that world view for long time would require serious cognitive dissonance though. It is a crutch that those with a 'problem solving' mindset hopefully use for a while before seeing things with a more subtlety.

I don't claim to know what reasoning maturity looks like, but I believe embracing your humanity and own fallibility, and understanding the motivations of others (especially those you dislike / disagree with) are not trivial elements of it.

I do feel like we are on a similar page though, since you are describing the traits of others, not your own, and you say you are happy to have developed your people skills. Still, I worry that explaining these traits away as the result of above average intellect is some sort of enabling. It's the narrative they need to stay in place so they don't have to change. IQ becomes a justification for being detached and uncaring.

> IQ becomes a justification for being detached and uncaring.

I see your point.

But I think some things are like a color you never saw and can't understand until you see it for the first time. In a sense, it's lack of maturity because it's a lack of experience.

You can wait for the experience to reach them, or you can offer them to practice it. The second way is quicker and more reliable.

I agree. I don't think you can get past that stage without a few 'aha' moments that make you rethink things.

The mindset might be a bit of a trap because it can make you more isolated, which could then make those 'aha' moments less likely. In that position, you're right, waiting for it to fix itself won't be very effective so a more proactive approach sounds better.

I don't think the suggestion of a "personality requisite to study math" supports the articles thesis.

in today's culture

While it's true the current culture is particularly hostile to math incline people, I must also say that, by nature, people good at solving problem with perfect solutions are not good at integrating in an imperfect society.
They bear part of the responsibility.

An individual is but one individual. Societies ills should not be dismissed nor diminished because of an individual or even group. Society affects everyone in vastly larger ways.
I'm thinking of it as similar to a companies products. A company will refund you if you bring them evidence that they sold you a defective product or service (in a good state of the world). That individual bad product hurts their bottom line, but typically in a small enough way to be mostly ignorable. Now when the company has to issue a multimillion dollar recall some internal process or procedure to the company needs to change. The general operating parameters of the company affect its overall "health" much more than a one off "bad product". In this analogy, societies are the company and it's individuals are the products.

Maybe people good at math are actually great at people skills and you're just repeating a bias spread by a banality driven media.

In my experience, people are all equally bad at math. There are just people who have spent longer with the problem(s)/domain(s) and have developed a skill set around it. They start from the same beginnings, though. If you take them out of their usual 'watering hole' they go straight back to beginner status (and of course the degree of it varies by how far it is from their usual routine).

Yes, but some personality traits will make you more apt and willing to keep working on it.
There is a limit in the skills you can acquire. If you spend time and energy on flirting, learning to dress up, building social network, you will have less time to learn maths.
Because of course you'll have sport, music, games, books, movies, family and other study topics taking time as well.
Now maths incline kids, given the choice, will usually choose working on math than going to 10 groups of people to chit chat about superficial topics just to stay in the network.
Nothing wrong about it, just an observation.

See my other comment where I explain in details what I mean.
I met some people that are both good at maths and with people skills. They are, however, adults. They started as nerds, and worked their people skills on the way up.
But starting with both, I never met one.

Or maybe sametmax has met dozens of mathematicians and made an informed summary.

To be fair, I had a strange life. I changed school 11 times, and rebuilt my social circle every time. My father also worked for an airline company, so I traveled the world most of my life.
Because I was a geek, I was mostly surrounded by geeks. It gave me a huge and diverse sample to observe. Granted, it's not something you can consider scientific, since I'm the common ground and so the bias in all those observations.

>a lot of people good at math have poor people skills
All the more reason to open the floodgates so we can get the few people with both skillsets.

You won't achieve that by encouraging people at doing math, it's not attractive enough. Just like it's hard to sell vegetable to somebody eating chocolate. And I LOOOOVE vegetables.
You can, however, achieve this by encouraging nerds to get people skills. Double benefit :
- they will have an easier life
- nerds will be less stigmatized, linked topics will so be more appealing and math more successful
I agree though that putting more kids in contact with math sooner will help a lot. A lot of kids like maths if it's shown to them with passion before they are exposed to the social stereotype or nerdiness.

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