What happens when 'child geniuses' grow up | Hacker News Reader

What happens when 'child geniuses' grow up

bbc.co.uk

I think there is an issue where the term 'genius' and 'prodigy' are used interchangeably in popular discourse, when they are in fact not the same.

Most 'child geniuses' are in-fact child prodigies, children which display extraordinary talent in one or multiple fields (say mathematics, piano, etc.).

Genius requires an element of creativity and not just proficiency. Schopenhauer made the distinction quite nicely: 'Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius hits a target no one else can see.'

I think very few people are both prodigies and geniuses. One notable example is Mozart - played the piano at an incredibly high level at a very young age and also composed some creative masterpieces later in life.

For Mozart presumably his years of musical experience (and training) as a child prodigy helped him become an excellent composer early in life.

Symphony #25, composed by Mozart at 17 (and used as opening music in the movie Amadeus) is pretty great.

Sadly Mozart died at 35 (unlike his friends the Haydns who had successful careers into their 60s.)

I was a 'gifted' child. IQ tested at 160+, graduated high school at 13. Feels like it's been an albatross around my neck that I'm only starting to shake. A lot of my self-worth came from being recognized as special. When I stopped over-performing, it felt like my world ended. Can only imagine what child actors feel like.

There's an interplay between talent and recognition. I'm perfectly happy to grind something out for no reward. The second I get noticed for being good, all that goes out the window. Recognition is "free", and that easy validation starts corrupting the initial impulse to do well. For me, getting older has been about discounting both the positive + negative reactions.

Neil Young said it best:

When you're down

you gather strength

to leave the ground

And when you're high

it makes you weak

and you fall back down

The worst part was maybe that when there was something I couldn't understand, nobody would believe me and actually help. Everyone thought I was lying, lazy, or difficult on purpose. Which trained me to lie, be lazy, and become difficult. It felt like punishment out of spite for being ahead in other areas.

The idea of "child geniuses" just makes me kinda sick. I feel like an important aspect of genius is aggregating lots of information and being able to share your information with others. Children with high IQs just aren't able to do that, they don't have the life experience. Separating them from "common" people and telling them they're "exceptional" just sounds like a recipe for disaster for a 4 year old with no life context...

you're quite right, no person with somewhat better cognitive performance than others should consider itself "superior" to anyone else. Just like many people just go to a gym, end up having stronger legs, arms, shoulders and most have no sense of superiority over someone who doesn't train.

As parents - and even more, as a society - the best you can do for kids with better cognitive performance than average is to just let them live their life as every other kids, if they somehow feel interest in other stuff (learning 4 extra languages or something), most probably they will ask you for your support to engage in stuff.

These kids deserve their freedom to live their lives as every other child out there, they'll get to to whatever they feel to, when they feel to, if they feel to, but it would be quite selfish for the society to try to "build" them to serve some higher purpose.

You obviously hack the planet, 'cause is a mess, and few are actually trying to help.

You may end up going the Oppenheimmer way and taking an U turn, away from existential boredom (fascism), or something

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