Lack of Peers?? and social problems associated with intelligence

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.

--- 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 _______________________________________________