(urth) Lack of Peers?? and social problems associated with intelligence

[Marc Aramini]

Well, sometimes the more people ostensibly have in common with you, the more you argue with them (wolfe mailing list, anyone?).  I like Wolfe's definition there.

--- On Wed, 10/19/11, Gwern Branwen <gwern0 at gmail.com> wrote:

> From: Gwern Branwen <gwern0 at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: (urth) Lack of Peers?? and social problems associated with intelligence
> To: "The Urth Mailing List" <urth at lists.urth.net>
> Date: Wednesday, October 19, 2011, 6:31 PM
> From the dual n-back mailing list:
> 
> On Sun, Sep 20, 2009 at 10:31 AM, Dennis Peterson
> <dennisbpeterson at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >
> > I recently saw Gene Wolfe speak at a conference. Aside
> from being a great
> > writer and an engineer, he's a Korean War veteran. He
> said he once asked a
> > bunch of college students what a friend is, and they
> all said "Someone who
> > shares your interests, who you can talk to about
> interesting things, etc."
> > He was somewhat appalled. He said "No. A friend is
> someone who will give you
> > a drink out of his canteen."
> > He went on to talk about some of the great friends he
> had during the
> > war...guys who had nothing in common with him, but
> they liked each other
> > anyway and looked out for each other.
> 
> -- 
> gwern
> http://www.gwern.net
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