The predictably grievous harms of Effective Altruism
https://blog.oup.com/2022/12/the-predictably-grievous-harms-of-effective-altruism/
Yeah, as a kid I was kinda the archetypal nerd. Short, fat, airheaded, besserwisser, straight A’s,* into manga and video games. My best friend for most of primary school was the guy with even better grades, but tall, handsome and a national championship level athlete.
Then puberty hit me pretty early and suddenly I was about median height for my age, I could do pull-ups while most of my classmates couldn’t, and even though I wasn’t that fond of gym class, I was mostly motivated enough to get a decent grade just for trying a little.
The nerd/jock thing always felt like an American thing from an older generation that wasn’t taken seriously. Maybe it was acknowledged by an overthinker like me, but to even bring up the distinction was kinda nerdy itself. It definitely wasn’t the defining social divisor in my adolescent life.
*Or rather, nines and tens on the weird 4 to 10 scale Finnish primary education uses.
The nerd/jock thing always felt like an American thing
similarly, I never got to see the “school bully” thing even nearly as much as it seems to be an issue US-side. not that we didn’t have (or that they didn’t try with me[0] on occasion), but it seems to be quite extreme in the US?
I got some very intense, frequent bullying in 90s Latin America for being perceived as queer, before even understanding myself that I was actually queer.
I don’t think there was ever anything like the jocks from US movies. Bullies tended to be troubled kids from difficult backgrounds, the kind of kid who would be themself exposed to violence and abuse at home or in their neighbourhood. A handful were from religious fundamentalist families.
There was some hostility towards children who took school too seriously or were perceived as teacher’s pets, but I don’t think that in itself would have inspired “slapped every day” levels of bullying. I don’t remember bullying due to what today are called fandoms or geeky interests; they were just much less known.
