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ENOUGH! Take your stupid sports and shove them. Take your stupid pop music TV shows and shove them. Take your idolization of stupidity and sacrifice it on the altar of curiosity, the altar of edification, and the altar of neckbeards and cheetos!

WE MUST DEFEAT THE...

What's that mom? Yeah... OK... I'll be up for dinner as soon as I finish this level. Did you get some Mountain Dew?

Sorry, gotta go AFK.

Originally posted here [slashdot.org].

[Maybe people should be more well-rounded.] Then you wouldn't be pegged with (and the associated stigmas) of a certain stereotype.

I was heavy into science in high school, as well as sports and other extra-curricular activities. I never had a problem with any group of people.

<sarcasm>
Right - people get picked on in high school because they're not sufficiently well rounded. That was exactly my experience.

How clearly I remember the captain of the wrestling team accosting me in gym class in my sophomore year, throwing me against the wall, and sneering, "You know, you could really benefit from a more diverse set of interests."
</sarcasm>

I agree completely. In fact, I seem to recall this whole thread about nine years ago [slashdot.org]...

What's the big obsession on Slashdot with perpetuating silly stereotypes? It's like people here actually believe that they are B-movie nerds, waging an eternal war against jocks. My friends and I played role-playing games in high school, we liked to mess with the computers. A wild Saturday night was some Pepsi, pizza, and a game of Starfleet Battles.We also played varsity football, basketball, and track. We were in the weight room three days a week.People who thought they were "nerds" thought we were "jocks". The people who thought they were "jocks" thought we were "nerds". I had a lot of fun playing sports and a lot of fun in other activities. You only hurt yourself by letting someone label you.

I think the biggest problem is the labels would appear to identify academic and athletic achievements. When, in reality, they're just certain fringe social groups and kids often allow themselves to be identified as one or the other, to their own loss. The most successful people I know were both in academic and athletic activities while in school, and continue to pursue both physical and mental growth as adults.

It's not about being well-rounded. You say you were popular because you knew about science, sports, and "other extracurricular activities". If you had known science but not sports, you would have needed to be more well-rounded. had you known sports, but not science, you would have been ok.

Well-roundedness is only necessary for people who don't play sports.

The dichotomy between nerds and jocks is a false one, and it has been for some time. The stereotypes assert that "jocks" who are socially active, athletic, and attractive must not have any interest in technology, be smart, or value intellectual pursuits. Likewise, "nerds" who are smart and dedicated to learning must be slobs, socially awkward, and unattractive.

I believe Hodgeman's point is more around the dichotomy between society's celebration of jockdom as opposed to nerddom. How many current professional athletes can the average person name? 50? 100?. How many Nobel prize scientiest? Maybe 3?

Sure, those Nobel prize winners may also be rock climbers, rugby players, what have you, and those professional athletes may have IQ's in th 140's, but that is not what they are being recognized for.

The fact is, society rewards elite jockdom much more that in does elite nerddom.

"Our culture does not respect those whose labor directly produces wealth. In fact, it doesn't even have a clue about how to become wealthy and stay wealthy now. The very fact that companies look at their domestic wealth-producing workers and think "these guys are optional" rather than going to H.R., middle management, etc. for budget cuts is proof of that."

In an army, the privates are important, but mostly replaceable. A general (and other people that are making important decisions), on the other hand, cannot be replaced easily.

Even though you don't want to hear it, it works the same way with companies. Most non-management jobs are important, but replaceable. It's just a fact of life. On top of this fact, we have an economy where there is a surplus of talent and employees.

You say that H.R and middle management are easily replaceable? I would have to disagree. Not everyone can do those positions well. I would not want the job of determining who gets fired. I also don't enjoy managing other programmers or filling my day with meetings.

The trick to not being replaced is to have some sort of domain knowledge that makes it painful for the company to find someone to replace you.

you could preserve american labor, and someone else would use cheaper overseas labor. then american consumers would buy that cheaper product of which nothing, not even company headquarters, gets a cut of that profit. then the next step is protectionism, where you insist everyone buy more expensive american made goods. then people buy far less, or they buy black market goods, because patriotism does not magically put money into your bank account, and you still need to buy a refrigerator. meanwhile, the rest of the world enjoys better products at cheaper prices while the american economy stagnates and shrinks, cut off from the rest of the world because of protectionism

i'm sorry, but in the interest of what is best for the united states, fuck american labor. the industrial age is over, let china pollute itself rather than the usa. and unions seem less like their ancestors, out to protect american labor from predatory management, and more like the new predator: upper middle class incomes at the expense of everyone else, including the health of the company, and the country

goodbye GM, goodbye industrial dinosaurs, good fucking riddance. if that means we are a poorer country for it, fine, no problem. as if the industrial age defines what is best for us, or even the only model for wealth creation possible. no, your lament at the decline of american labor only means that you don't know any better, not that there isn't anything better than what you have unilaterally decided is the come-all be-all of existence. you think the industrial model is only thing that defines wealth creation, and for some reason is fixed in your mind as a golden age, and all that comes after is somehow magically inferior. maybe its superior, and you simply don't see that. superior not in terms of the economic imperialism of past ages, but superior in simple quality of life

japan is coping with ecnomic decline to a far greater extent than the usa, and for a lot longer (since their economy stagnated in 1990). and maybe it means the japanese aren't seen as ubereconomic imperial masters any more, but maybe it also means less salarymen are having heart attacks and that the japanese have a more mellow, easier and happier life. the europeans have months of vacation time and generous social safety nets. so what exactly should we be fighting to retain in your mind? are we at economic war with the world?

fuck your fetishization of the industrial age as all we should aspire to. welcome the poorer, more mellower american age. time to step off the world stage as its master, and fuck you to those of you who think we need to stay in that role for some reason

Psst, hey, French guy. C'mere.....

At first, I was wondering where this vitriolic rant came from, and from which country you could be from. Then I saw "France", and it all became clear. I'm not going to scream and yell, really, because I understand that this kind of a tantrum comes from a massive inferiority complex that the French collective psyche carries around. Hey, it's okay, really. Once proud imperial power, now relegated to getting wedgies from upstart nations that you once toyed with. You need a hug, and maybe a good solid "There, there" and a pat on the back. Then you'll bawl for a bit, check under your bed for Germans, and go back to sleep 'till morning. I know, it's hard to look around seeing American stuff *everywhere*, when you know deep in your heart that it's just not fair! "That should be French culture that's slipping it's tendrils into the lives of people around the globe, not American! Those jocks, er, I mean Americans don't deserve all the attention that us nerds, er, I mean Frenchmen should be getting on the world-stage!" you cry out. Then the U.S. gives you another wedgie and stupid England just snickers in that annoying way it has, and you're just left *steaming*.

Oh, and "big jewy loser"? Really?

As an aside, you've completely missed the point of all those movies you are so angry about. It's not that people identify with the "loser" character in those movies. It's that Americans like to root for the underdog. Maybe that's a cultural difference, maybe France prefers to "root for the winner", I don't know, but somewhere something seems to be getting lost in the translation.