Comment by bjourne | Hacker News Reader

Comment by bjourne | Hacker News Reader

This is a kind of typical dialogue from an episode:

    Sheldon: Leonard, where do you stand on the anthropic principle?
    Leonard: Interesting question. On the one hand, I always thought…
    Sheldon: You don’t even know what it is, do you? The anthropic principle     states that if we wish to explain why our universe exists the way it does, the     answer is that it must have qualities that allow intelligent creatures to arise     who are capable of asking the question. As I am doing so eloquently right now.
    Leonard: I know what the anthropic principle is.
    Sheldon: Of course. I just explained it to you. Now, where do you stand on     it?
    Leonard: Where do you stand on it?
    Sheldon: Strongly pro.
    Leonard: Then I believe that God created the world in six days, and on the     seventh he made you to annoy me.
    Raj: Hey, guys.
    Leonard: Hey.
    Sheldon: Yeah, wait, Raj, where do you stand on the anthropic principle?
    Raj: I’m all for it.
    Sheldon: Attaboy!
    Leonard: Well, hang on. Why do you believe that he knows what it is and I don’t?
    Sheldon: Oh, Leonard. Let’s not take a saw to the branch we’re sitting on, shall we?

Why is Sheldon such a douchebag? He is socially incompetent but does he have to be an asshole too? Why doesn't Leonard or anyone else ever want to discuss science with Sheldon when it's supposed to be their biggest interest? It's like they are ashamed of being smart people.

It's a running joke that Sheldon and others look down on Leonard as a scientist. The claim is often that his work is very "derivative". Even Leonard's own mother criticized the originality of his science fair experiments as a child. Also, the dynamic between Sheldon and Leonard can be seen as theoretical physicist versus experimental physicist. (Not to mention extending the layers of superiority when Howard, the non-PhD mechanical engineer, is included.)

As for Sheldon generally being a douchebag, the article does a good job of explaining his (partially deserved) sense of superiority.

> Why is Sheldon such a douchebag? He is socially incompetent but does he have to be an asshole too?

Have you ever read Hacker News comments?

It's never confirmed that Sheldon is the smartest of them. You only have his words for that. He's always working on sth big, but never delivers. And there are dozens of other smart people and geeks in the show, most of them likeable. I don't have a problem with show full of geeks, in which one of them is asshole. Seems fair.

I do think that's actually a hole in the show. One can infer socially that Sheldon really must be all that or he'd be long-since fired, but it would be helpful to be a bit more direct in occasionally showing it.

I've also noticed that for all they dump on Howard, he's the only one in the show who they show accomplishing things (plural!); I have not yet figured out if this is dramatic oversight or something they are doing on purpose. I'm assuming accident; neutering your main characters like that isn't a good narrative move, unless they're being really meta (which I doubt in this case).

Sheldon is a douchebag because he is brutally honest. He doesn't have that part of personality that softens one's opinions for the benefit of other people's feelings.

Leonard doesn't want to discuss science with Sheldon because Sheldon thinks lowly of Leonard's scientific merit, and doesn't hesitate to express that sentiment (see above).

Right, I get that. But it is not honest to ask someone "where do you stand on the anthropic principle?" if you assume that they do not know what it is. Asking in that way is a common trickery to get someone to look foolish by attempting to answer a question they have no idea about. Classic douchebaggery.

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