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Comment by overgard | Hacker News Reader

I get what you're saying, but I also tend to think: if they're so smart, why not learn some social skills? It's not like being socially awkward has to be an innate thing; they're called social skills for a reason, you can learn them. Many people were once socially awkward, and then fixed it.

It's not particularly fair, but social awkwardness does tend to send a signal about what people value. And what a socially awkward person clearly does not particularly value is time spent with other people. I'm not saying everyone needs to be a gregarious extrovert (I'm certainly not), but if I were looking to hire someone, I'd be a bit concerned if it was obvious that they had no real interest in anything that isn't directly within their bubble. It's not just "are they skilled" it's, are they actually going to fit in the company?

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Social skills are very hard to learn. The best way to learn something is to get a result, positive or negative, for a given input. When interacting socially, results can be difficult to observe, especially when you don't know what to look for, and often can be time delayed. It's also virtually impossible to test a specific behavior in isolation, which makes it difficult to detect what specific thing might cause you to be perceived negatively. Most people start off on a strong footing socially, making it easier to try new things to see if they get a positive reaction, but for someone that doesn't have such a strong footing it can be confusing and frustrating when people don't want to talk to you or spend time with you, and you don't know why.

This is the reason behind manners. They may be bullshit, but they're a conservative basis from which to begin.

For example, manners say, "don't swear at people in conversation." We all know it can be okay to swear at people in conversation, but Xah Lee hasn't learned when to swear at people.

Xah Lee, stop swearing at people for now and stick to your technical guns. Once you get on some stronger footing, experiment with venting.

Never thought about manners as a "conservative basis" before. Thanks for that thought!

I mean, I can't argue they're hard to learn, but in terms of things you can invest time in compared to the value it'll bring you... wow!

I'm not trying to pick on people that lack social skills. Obviously that's an unfortunate predicament. But I do think the general nerd meme that social skills "shouldn't" matter.. I don't like that. They do matter, a lot, there's no getting around it.

There's also the problem that social interactions are emotionnally stressing, so it's hard to have a scientific (external observer) point of view when you must have them yourself. Unless you turn sociopath. Which would be my advice.

It takes years to learn them. In an unforgiving environment. If you were punished or mocked every time you got even one answer wrong on a math test growing up, would you be terribly interested in math?

Think of it this way: your brain has a number of very, very powerful "vector units" which do certain types of specialized processing insanely fast. Most standard "neurotypical" humans come with their "vector units" preconfigured to analyze and anticipate the reactions of other humans. Some of us don't have such preconfiguration, so we learn to apply them to interesting things we find in the world, like math or programming or board games or something and we become pretty good at intuiting about deep, complex systems. But we have to learn, from square one, things about sociality that everyone else just seems to assume you already know -- and, again, is willing to punish you for not knowing.

There are places where you won't be openly mocked, though. If you live in a city, you can easily find a good neighborhood bar. If you go there a couple times a week on slow nights, grab a couple of beers, and sit at the bar and watch SportsCenter, you'll end up getting to know the bartenders pretty well. Then the bartenders will make introductions to other bar regulars, and you can get to know them too.

Local bars in cities tend to have very diverse crowds who are accepting of just about anyone as long as you're not a complete asshole. Even the creepy guy at my local bar who hits on every girl who walks in is part of the "crew".

From there, it's just a matter of talking to people and gauging reactions naturally. Your brain will adjust.

While I think you're right, the problem is that the mere first step of hanging at a neighbourhood bar can be terrifying. Doing this alone, in fact, is something that very few people do comfortable, even social individuals.

It's worth the effort though. It's definitely helped me!

> It's not like being socially awkward has to be an innate thing; they're called social skills for a reason, you can learn them.

It doesn't have to be, true. But in the same way that a tone-deaf or rhythmically-challenged individual can probably never be even a decent musician, there are plenty of people who can probably never become 'socially skilled'. Consider autism, for example (in all it's degrees), and also the fact that it's probably quite a bit more prevalent in our profession.

> I get what you're saying, but I also tend to think: if they're so smart, why not learn some social skills?

Why are so many very intelligent people alcoholics? Why are so many doctors smokers? Why do so many psychologists have psychological issues?

There's a massive gap between knowledge and practice, and I've become increasingly convinced that not being aware of that gap is one of the primary reasons people have trouble turning 'saying/thinking' into 'doing'. We underestimate the difficulty.

For example. As a student, me and a friend of mine were living rather unhealthy lifestyles. Then a few years ago she suddenly 'got serious'. She started working out, implemented a healthy diet, and applied herself more to her studies.

A month ago I remarked that I really admired her strength, as I still struggle with these things (to a degree). Her answer? She'd been raised with a strong emphasis on health, her family was always into sports and they're all over-achievers. From her perspective, she merely 'dropped' a habit that was deeply instilled in her, and had little trouble picking it up.

I've found that most of the 'changes' and personal development that I see are not a result of mind of matter, but more a result of upbringing, social environment, and being in the right place at the right time. It's not just that, and I think it should't ever be used as an excuse, but it's much more that case than we often suspect.

A socially awkward person who doesn't 'value' time spent with others more often than not 1) just hasn't proper experienced the value of this, 2) has been actively shunned or bullied socially, or 3) just hasn't found the particular people that they can enjoy time with.

tl;dr: the value we place on things is often a result, not a cause. Or at least it goes in both directions.

So your post kind of resonates with me, but if I were to boil it down I think your point is "Smart people frequently do dumb things, but that doesn't mean they're not smart". Agreed!

I just think a lot of what we call social skills really comes down to, frankly, giving a shit about the person in front of you.

For exceptionally smart people sometimes this is hard.

Interacting with average people can be mind numbing. I mean the average person is.. well, average. But I think 90% of social skills is finding a way to be interested in the people around you. Finding what's interesting about them. As annoying as the phrase is, I think "if you're bored than you're boring" is pretty much true.

Charismatic people don't have some fundamental gift, for the most part, charismatic people are charismatic because they seem to find a way to be interested in all the people around them. Or at least they can fake it.

Sometimes I think about 18 year old me versus 28 year old me. 18 year old me was undeniably smart, but shy and awkward. 28 year old me is (reasonably) socially skilled. The only particular difference between the two is 18 year old me only really wanted to talk about myself, or things I liked. 18 year old me was a total fucking narcissist. 28 year old me tries to figure out what other people are about, and engage them on their terms. It sounds small, but actually caring about other people is a thing some people have to learn, and it makes most social situations about 200% more interesting.

"I just think a lot of what we call social skills really comes down to, frankly, giving a shit about the person in front of you."

Honestly, I don't think that that is always true. It's possible to have great social skills and not care about people at all. We sometimes call people like that sociopaths. And on the contrary, some people can care greatly but not understand how to express their care/interest.

> I just think a lot of what we call social skills really comes down to, frankly, giving a shit about the person in front of you.

Very true. But first of all I'd argue that 'giving a shit' in itself is a skill. We are, to a large degree, taught to be nice. Watching the average eight-year-old in a school yard is a clear example of that. They're practically psychopathic: developed enough to understand the concept of 'the other', but they haven't necessarily learned how to empathize.

I suspect there's a strong correlation between being socially outcast or awkward (whether biological, developmental or contextual in nature) and taking up programming and computers as a hobby. For me that was the case, and for most geeks I know it was too. In fact, the very definition of a nerd is someone who focuses unusually a lot on one thing, at the detriment of other things (usually social).

Plus, it's a relatively recent development that 'social' kids are also into computers, on account of wanting to make games, or emulating 'skater geeks' like Kevin Rose. I still remember that it was rather 'uncool' to be in chat rooms, for example. Or reddit being the nerd version of digg.

And finally, people have a tendency to conform their views to their experiences (more than the other way around, I suspect). So it kind of makes sense that a person with few friends, or a history of no partners, will conclude that 'people are shit'. Misanthropy is usually not innate. I've met a shocking amount of people who are eerily similar in their deeply negative view of society with no real experience of friendship. Some of them, in their late twenties or thirties, seem beyond help.

> But first of all I'd argue that 'giving a shit' in itself is a skill.

Yes. No doubt. I think for intellectual people, the tendency is always to move to a higher level of abstraction and generalize. Works well for ideas, but not for people. A lot of times, the interesting thing about people or situations is in exploring the details.

(That's probably not going to make it on a motivational poster any time soon.)

Great point, because it highlights how 'not giving a shit' is not necessarily a result of an inherent lack of empathy or caring.

I've definitely noticed this in myself. By constantly abstracting things (perhaps exacerbated by my work), I lose the human connection sometimes and only later realize that I wasn't as empathic or caring as I wanted to be, simply because I got caught up in the abstractions.

Perhaps look at it a different way. We all know people who are not good at math. Sure they could spend days, even years, trying to improve their math skills. But even with such a huge time investment, they might be only, say, 10% better at math than when they started.

Was it worth all this effort? Maybe. However most people will think that they should probably have spent their time on something else.

It's pretty much the same situation for socially unfit types - why spend so much time on something they'll never be good at no matter how hard they try. In the end they would just end up being both socially and technically mediocre.

>if they're so smart, why not learn some social skills?

If I learned social skills with the same abilities that made me smart, I wouldn't use that knowledge to interview, I would use it to build an AI.

The comparison is invalid because so far no one has learned social skills that way.

If we understand others by imagining how we ourselves would react, then the things that make it hard to learn social skills will be things that make you different, even if they also help you with something else.

I'm inclined towards this thinking also.

Not learning crucial skills is just lazy and self-centred.

I've met amazing devs with no social skills because they didn't want to put effort into learning anything except what they enjoyed.

The world doesn't owe you anything - it's up to yourself to do your best to acquire what you want. You don't get what you want just because in your own opinion, you deem yourself to be deserving of it.

I've argued against your point in these comments, but I must say I also agree. Some of the most unpleasant people I've met were a toxic combination of intelligence, skill, and a total lack of empathy. Intensely judgmental, misogynistic, vaguely racist, a chip on their shoulders, and no sense of humor (big red flag for me, usually).

But these, I believe, are relatively rare. I like to believe so anyways, and I try to give nasty people the benefit of the doubt. Because this: http://www.ic.sunysb.edu/Clubs/buddhism/story/oldmanscorpion....

You're absolutely right that social skills can be learned. But note that they can be massively harder for some people to learn than others. Social skills that come almost automatically to your average person can be a lot of a work for someone with Asperger's to learn, for instance.

Well, I'm not trying to pick on people with neurological disorders. For those people I'm sure it's an incredible struggle. I'm mostly thinking of average people that just aren't willing to put forth the effort.

But how can you tell?

Well, what I'm saying is stuff that you would apply to yourself. So I don't know how you'd tell, but presumably, if a person had one of those disorders they'd already know.

I'd say the problem is that we're not always aware of our own struggles (let alone those of others).

In my process of becoming a 'functioning adult', perhaps the most important steps involved realizing what my limitations were, and then learning to accept them.

And looking back, I often 'punished' myself for not trying hard enough, or for being lazy. I only later realized that some things are just much more difficult for me, and the better solution was to shape my lifestyle and environment around those limitations.

The problem of concepts 'lazy' or 'incapable' is that if you apply these concepts to yourself or others, they can easily become just a vehicle for whatever mood or state you're in.

If a behavior runs deep enough it can be really hard to admit that it's even there. After admitting it's there, it can be really hard to come to grips with how much an effect it has on your life. After understanding the impact it has on your life, past and present, it can be challenging to work towards changing the behavior.

> "why not learn some social skills"

Go fuck yourself. Why not learn to be understanding of struggle?

Social skills covers a lot of ground, from being honest to ass-kissing. Xah Lee seems decidedly stronger in the former than the latter.

If doctors are so smart, why do they die from cancer?

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