Lack of Peers?? and social problems associated with intelligence

Gwern Branwen · 20 Oct 2011, 01:31 · from 2011-October.txt.gz

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From: gwern0 at gmail.com (Gwern Branwen)
Date: Wed, 19 Oct 2011 21:31:35 -0400
Subject: (urth) Lack of Peers?? and social problems associated with
	intelligence
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	<6dd12c17-4c40-40ee-8f36-c96ff93a6afd at p23g2000vbl.googlegroups.com>
	<7a68ea3e0909162256j2d93202ft189179bcebedfe7d at mail.gmail.com>
	<7a3ef706-1a35-4104-9886-0cf9b43ec22b at d9g2000prh.googlegroups.com>
	<cf33cb1f0909170154v19854676s1799cf34e4d5adb4 at mail.gmail.com>
	<f18dc58e0909200731p24552630w534b908a8a436654 at mail.gmail.com>
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>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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