You actually are dismissing the article itself, and the experiences of all the HNers that have experienced what it talks about firsthand.
Your phrase "self-proclaimed gifted" is outright dismissive.
This is a natural human reaction. The reminder of the existence of people smarter than ourselves often results in narcissistic injury, it feels bad, it can hurt.
It's the reason gifted education is such a low and unpopular funding priority.
But all that does is make society poorer.
Humanity's gifted population is one of it's great resources, and we squander it. We don't protect it, and we don't value it, and we don't foster it.
The article talks about twice exceptional kids, these are kids who are gifted but often have a discrepancy or a weakness, a learning disability.
Because they are highly verbal and intelligent, they can use that to cover for their weaknesses, but they do not do well in a school setting at all.
They withdraw or they become the class clown to entertain themselves.
This often compounds over the years, like untreated ADD, and turns into depression, anxiety, substance abuse and so on.
And it's a tragedy because they have so much to offer, but we fail them, and we lose a lot of them.
The problem is that "Taking care of the gifted kids" is often upper middle class talking about their slightly above the average kids (IQ >125) who they want into special schools.
I'm in the 98th percentile and I thought that I was special flower until I started to study math and physics in university level. I met several people who I would consider actually gifted (IQ above 160 and intellectual curiosity to use that IQ). I quickly realized that my problem had never been my intelligence. It was the arrogance and laziness that came with being relatively smart. I could cope with everything and everyone if I tried even a little.
Many of these actually bright guys (and especially girls) had actual problems in their youth. Taking part of International Mathematical Olympiads allowed them to use their noggin and meet others like them. Getting noticed and the ability to take university classes while minor was the lifeline that gave them purpose and mentoring they needed. They really benefited from being noticed when young.
I'm going to say you are a special flower. You're smarter than 98% of people. You are 1 in 50 special.
I think from your own words you would have benefited greatly from gifted education. Thinking about your story here, I think that maybe lowering the IQ bar to something like 125 is exactly what gifted education needs.
Look at what you said:
"I could cope with everything and everyone if I tried even a little."
You were coping, and getting by. You are calling it laziness but maybe it was boredom?
Maybe after being bored and unchallenged you became "lazy" at school. I would bet that you were very interested in your own activities that you were interested in.
If we opened up gifted education to 120+ there would be enough students to have a decent sized class in suburban schools.
Your comment is exactly the attitude the person you were replying to was mocking. What that person saying is that a lot of reasonably intelligent people who are nowhere near geniuses like to think of themselves as geniuses as a form of narcissistic self-flattery. For people good at math, sciences and computing and other occupations considered "nerdy", capability in these fields and stereotypes of intelligence associated with them become a point of pride and they begin to identify with people far smarter than they are, despite actually being unexceptionally intelligent. HN has talented people, sure, but I think it's definitely fair to say there's a large population of people who flatter themselves thinking they're geniuses who regularly post, upvote, and comment on this kind of article with "me too!" sentiments. Pointing this out has nothing to do with the kids in this article, who are genuinely exceptional and certainly worthy of sympathy and nurturing.
>Your comment is exactly the attitude the person you were replying to was mocking.
What is being mocked is the attitude we should care for people? Think about that for a second.
>What that person saying is that a lot of reasonably intelligent people who are nowhere near geniuses like to think of themselves as geniuses as a form of narcissistic self-flattery.
Yet the parent comment didn't have that in it. How can the grandparent be mocking the parent if the grandparent is mocking those who chime in 'me too' while the parent doesn't do that?
Perhaps, but from a utilitarian standpoint, isn't that ultimately a good thing? If we agree that our society needs to improve the way it copes with and nurtures its extraordinarily gifted, then surely a wellspring of sympathy -- even if initially misguided -- from the merely intelligent is a step in the right direction. "Bright normals" tend to occupy the higher echelons of cultural influence in this country, and they certainly represent well in the higher income deciles. I'd argue they are the perfect advocates for those who may, in fact, be unable to advocate for themselves en masse. (Whether through extremely low numbers in the general population, or through being unable to connect on the same level as the gen-pop average.)
Actually Great GP "mocking" comment would have fit perfectly in a parody of HNers posts/comments. We keep seeing them from time to time, and LOL at them. But not as a top comment on a sensitive article about the problems of gifted children (a minority of a kind).
For that matter, even on posts of mental health issues, people comment and proclaim "me too", do you and GGP think, even there people are just trying to carve out an image out of vanity.
Simple fact is this, GGP's comment angered a lot of people - I too wrote few draft replies earlier and deleted them. But you comment, made me say, what the heck?
Actually, to such low value comments as that of the GGP. May be we should allow reddit like replies. You reap what you sow.
I'm fine with the dismissal, personally. Do I think some of this stuff describes me? Yes. Does that make me a special snowflake, or somehow more put-upon than others in the world? No, and I think that belief is harmful and self-absorbed.
Your phrase "self-proclaimed gifted" is outright dismissive.
This is a natural human reaction. The reminder of the existence of people smarter than ourselves often results in narcissistic injury, it feels bad, it can hurt.
It's the reason gifted education is such a low and unpopular funding priority.
But all that does is make society poorer.
Humanity's gifted population is one of it's great resources, and we squander it. We don't protect it, and we don't value it, and we don't foster it.
The article talks about twice exceptional kids, these are kids who are gifted but often have a discrepancy or a weakness, a learning disability.
Because they are highly verbal and intelligent, they can use that to cover for their weaknesses, but they do not do well in a school setting at all.
They withdraw or they become the class clown to entertain themselves.
This often compounds over the years, like untreated ADD, and turns into depression, anxiety, substance abuse and so on.
And it's a tragedy because they have so much to offer, but we fail them, and we lose a lot of them.