[dTal]

>School was an education in contempt. I remain convinced that the majority of people are idiots, with the equivalent of a flickering strip lamp for a mind, and nothing I see in the world around me dispels that thought.

And here is the rub. You should not hold contempt for people you perceive as less intelligent than you. Your value system places intelligence above all else, and conveniently that puts you nicely at the top. But, for example, have you ever spent meaningful time around people nicer than you? It's a great way to learn humility. Almost everyone has something to teach you, if you let them - the scale of human experience is wider than will fit into a single life.

I think that many intelligent people note that people instinctively dislike them, and rationalize it away as "threatened by my superiority". But in fact I believe it's far more often the case that intelligent people are just off-puttingly arrogant. They smell your contempt, better than you probably realize.

Be humble. Be nice. And magically you will enjoy spending time with people, and vice versa.

[nitrogen]

Be humble. Be nice. And magically you will enjoy spending time with people, and vice versa.

Unfortunately for young gifted people, there is no reciprocity here. It might get better with age and probably varies with location, but as a kid, if you act naturally smart other kids will bully you. If you later act dumb other kids will think you are condescending and will bully you. Either way you learn just to avoid everyone.

[1bc29b36f623ba8]

This is the one thing that cannot be emphasized enough. Smart kids simply don't fit into modern society. Any kid who's ever tried to point out errors in the text book to their teachers can probably attest to that; teachers prefer silent and obedient kids and don't care much for that one odd-ball who whines about X or Y being wrong in the 10 year-old textbooks you need to use anyway.

[apotheon]

I think a lot of the arrogance that develops in some smart kids is a result of being shunned for being right. Kids often start out trying to help others by pointing out how something could be better, get socially (sometimes physically) beaten up for it, then develop into condescending assholes as a defense mechanism.

You need to give better advice than this to people when they're five, when they actually need it.

I learned early on that being right was no defense, and that no matter what happened I would always be blamed. These were the wrong lessons, but society at large was the wrong teacher, so I guess we're even.

This doesn't stop when we stop being kids. In the so-called "adult" world, people make some of the stupidest decisions imaginable on a daily basis, and refuse to acknowledge any errors in their choices no matter how they're brought up. Helping other people turns out to be an exercise not only in futility, but in masochism as well.

I've been called "justifiably arrogant" in the past. I've been condescending. I've come out the other side, and now basically think of myself as kind of mediocre. I used to look around at how people make much worse decisions than me about the important stuff and feel a little comforted by the idea that at least I'm doing better than them. Now, it just makes me sad, because I realize I kinda suck, but 98% of people make me look good by comparison.

I've learned to "go along to get along" to some extent, with people who don't matter to me. The people who do matter to me are the people with whom I can be honest, because honesty is a great way to get yourself in a lot of social trouble otherwise.

Mostly, what it comes down to, is that basically everybody sucks, smart or not, and everybody wants to believe "My shit doesn't stink." There's a grave injustice afoot when someone actually has a good idea, by way of applying some native intelligence and learned rationality to a problem, and gets punished for it, though -- and native intelligence helps people realize they're getting burned at the stake over someone else's superstitions, thus making "smart kids" bitter, dismissive, and lonely.

I'm generalizing a lot. Exceptions abound.