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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   35775 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 3, 2025

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There's an argument that this should change, which I'd probably agree with; there's an argument that this is misguided or bad lottery thinking, which I wish were true but probably is more a systemic thing. ((It's also just one of a few issues that comes up.))

You know, I never competed in school. But I did my share of martial arts competitions in my early adulthood. And I definitely remember the people who competed in school.

Now, at the time, being a nerd who's only thing I really had going for me was being "smart", I looked down on the "jocks". Even the ones in the AP classes with me keeping up just fine. Come college, a lot of my nerd friends had issues. They just struggled with the adversity that came along with more challenging classes, terrible unfair professors, and school administrators just nakedly fucking you over by not giving you the classes you needed to graduate. The "jocks" who were just as smart as us and hardened by competition? In my relatively small sample size, their faired far better. Turns out competition is a great way to harden yourself against adversity, and is just as important as being smart.

I got lucky. I had an AP Calculus teacher who saw the path I was on and warned me I needed more discipline. I respected him greatly, and I took it to heart.

I think the stereotype of the "dumb jock" or of sports being useless is nerd cope. Given two equal candidates, I'd take the one who's been forged in the fire of competition and adversity over the one just good at school any day.

Eh, in my rather long career in programming I've only run across one classic jock (as in, had played one of the major high school team sports) doing the job, and that was back in the dot-com days; he moved over to the sales side when that went away. Lots of nerds, as you might expect. There's plenty of dumb jocks, and plenty of not-dumb jocks, but the nerds are still smarter in general. And the tails come apart both ways -- the classic physically-useless nerd isn't very common any more, but nerds are still not likely to be at the top of sport.

As for competition... nerds compete. Yes, jocks make fun of "mathletes", but intellectual competition is still competition.

If we channel Vivek and go for Saved By The Bell analogies, Screech was the nerd and Slater was the jock. Zach was the guy you're talking about; problem with him is he's going to want not the job you're offering but your CEOs job.

I've known a number of nerdy folks who enjoy playing sports, generally less-contact ones like soccer or track, rather than American football. Fewer that competed in high school or college, but I know at least a couple sharp folks from college that used track scholarships to get (hard) engineering degrees.

Track people are weird and off enough as is("In a good way", he says, having known a number of track people in his lifetime), so that checks out.

Zach was the guy you're talking about; problem with him is he's going to want not the job you're offering but your CEOs job.

Funny you should mention that, there was supposedly a Saved By The Bell reboot/continuation being made where Zach is now Governor of California, no joke

Edit: even worse, they actually made it https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saved_by_the_Bell_(2020_TV_series)

Was 2020 really already 5 years ago?

Having not watched the original or the reboot, I didn't know what to expect; but based on that link, the main group of kids includes a transgender reality star and the female starting quarterback of the football team. Really not interested in subtlety there, huh.

The original was ordinary cheesy high school drama set in California in the 90's, none of the identity politics garbage like in the reboot

none of the identity politics garbage like in the reboot

It's quaint, and it's not exactly the weapons grade ID pol of today, but having a white nerd obsessed with an angry black woman definitely played to a certain stereotype. Actually knew two nerds of the 80's/90's from school that went on to fulfill exactly that stereotype. Some sort of arbitrage between dating markets at work.

I would argue since 2025 is still a relatively new year, it can be safe to guess that 2020 is 4ish years away.

Either way time flies, though!

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