Hacker News Reader

Comment by catalogia | Hacker News Reader

> "Call it the "jock-ification" of the tech world. It was bad enough when they were in high school, now they've infiltrated the tech world."

The "jock/nerd dichotomy" is a dumb harmful stereotype used by lazy hollywood and television writers. Many of the smartest people I've ever known were also the most athletic. There is NO inverse relationship between physical fitness and intelligence. If anything, there is a positive correlation between the two, as being healthy and well nourished makes you more likely to realize both your physical and intellectual potential.

View on HN

I found the dichotomy basically real in high school, but once I came to San Francisco, the smartest and highest-achieving people around were also ripped, or at least slender. I was never self-conscious about it in high school or college, but here I felt a lot of pressure to start exercising, and I think it's been good for me.

The high-school-like dichotomy has more to do with affect. Everyone is athletic, but you can definitely tell the boisterous business bros from the soft-spoken engineers.

> Many of the smartest people I've ever known were also the most athletic.

Many of the prettiest/handsomest people I've met were the dumbest. The more likely they are to seek popularity (think "taste-makers") as a source of income, the less likely they are to have any sort of intellectual curiosity.

It was obvious to the ancient Greeks, we're still getting there today. The Hollywood stereotype perpetuates the split, which definitely exists today, but also the advantages of economic specialization kind of limits you to one or the other these days.

It exists only insofar as naive children internalize and ape what they see on TV. There is no reason whatsoever that a bright child shouldn't enjoy sports, except the Disney channel tells him he must choose between reading books or exercise, when there is plenty of time in the day for both. And insofar as it discourages smart kids from exercising, it's a clearly harmful stereotype which you should refrain from reinforcing.

Real life is not a 1980s teen comedy movie, no matter how comforting out of shape engineers may find the notion.

Hollywood is a reflection on culture, not the other way around. They just make what people want to see (it's a business, after all).

Anything else is mindless conspiracy theories. There is no secret cabal pushing culture to the masses.

It's so bizarre to observe normal humans and businesses (and how organizations completely fail at any meaningful scale), and then to turn around and assume there is a hyper-intelligent, hyper-powerful secret society running things.

Instead of blaming Satan, now we have boogeymen from conspiracy theories to fulfill his role.

Thank you. Athleticism and social skills are forms of intelligence.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com