Commenter TG left these remarks on an Obsidian post I linked last Sunday on why a disproportionate number of atheists are nerds:
Of course smart guys hate religion. Smart men typically don’t follow(in many cases) follow their impulses to make decisions.
Religion is designed to protect people from their own internal impulses.
Atheism is fine in the university or in the computer lab, but when you’re average joe becomes atheist he no longer has anything to control his impulses.
Again mostly nerdy book-smart academics COULDN’T live a sinful life if a bit them on the face.
Again nerdy types don’t let their emotion rule them or perhaps…they don’t feel those emotions at all, which is perhaps why religion seems silly to these types.
Think about the lifestyles rich nerds like Bill Gates vs rich regular guys like you average sports stars…
Bill Gates with all his money and power probably never lived a life of drugs, booze and banging tons of women
Religion or no relgion, nerdy guys are less (socially) capable of living sinful lives, which is why religion seems silly to people controlled by their intellect.
I’ll come clean, I know this, because I’m a nerd…
Tiger Woods(While not as nerdy as bill gates or the google guys but still nerdy or at least a nerd in a past life)…
can BARELY manage sleeping around with a few women without…
A. Falling in love and becoming obsessed with them.
B. The whole thing blowing up in his face and being humiliated on national tv.…it all comes down to him not being SMOOTH enough to handle the darker side of social relationships…
Hell, I’ve known guys who wanted to smoke weed but honestly didn’t where or how to get it…so they had to concoct a plan to grow weed.
AGAIN…Most nerds aren’t socially capable when it comes to DARKER side of social life…
…as a result stay out of a lot of trouble…therefore probably find religion less appealing
this is also why nerds like myself struggle with the current dating environment…as it primarily a DARK social environment….
I’m tryin’ though
These comments got me thinking. Could TG’s logic also explain libertarianism’s nerdiness problem? I wrote this back in October on libertarians and sexuality:
Most libertarians are betas. Every hardcore libertarian I’ve known was socially maladjusted to some degree, and none of them were good with women.
I posted an excerpt by Razib Khan to back me up:
The “grasped a priori†part has really bothered me. I mean, I read psychology and history, I can’t derive it a priori. Recently I was going over some issues in modern Middle Eastern history, and learned that King Hussein of Jordan had apparently asked Israel for permission to send a brigade to Syria to invade the Jewish state during the 1973 Yom Kippur War. Honestly, I really don’t know if I could ever grasp Arab psychology a priori. The more and more I read about psychology the more I think that anyone who believes that they could develop an axiomatic system of human action from insights they grasped a priori is totally retarded (mad props to Aristotle though, he worked before the cognitive revolution). More specifically I have to wonder if they are socially retarded. I have suggested that an attraction to libertarianism is in part a function of your personality. Normal people rarely become libertarians, rather, it’s a ideology driven by young non-alpha males with Roark/Galt fantasies. There are many more Justin Raimondo & Eric Garris types than Mark Cubans in hard-core libertarianism. Any survey of the biographies of von Mises or Murray Rothbard emphasizes their stubborn heterodox tendencies; but at this point I just wonder if they were social retards to whom their a priori logic was plausible because they really weren’t as complicated as most humans, who engage in habitual and casual hypocrisy and contradiction. I recall reading Rothbard once explaining how one might buy and sell children in “flourishing child markets†in an anarcho-capitalist order. Even then I remember thinking, “Dude is weird….â€
Hell, even Justin Raimondo admits that libertarians are nerdier than most:
Whenever I come across one of Reason‘s endless pieces on some “hip†cultural phenomenon, my eyes glaze over and I move the cursor hurriedly down the page, mostly out of embarrassment. To watch these typically nerd-geek types—a libertarian archetype—trying to be cool is painful, and I have to look away.
The most hardcore libertarian I’ve ever known was a co-worker of mine who wore Libertarian Party T-shirts in public, was a avid fan of comic books and anime, and even wrote reviews of Atari 2600 games in his free time. I could almost imagine him debating with his equally spazzy friends about whether Superman could beat Batman in a fight or any of the other retarded pop culture dribblings that define geek culture.
Also note that both atheists and libertarians are disproportionately male. The reason why Half Sigma’s Libertarian Girl hoax blog got so much attention was because girls of that political persuasion are almost nonexistent in the real world. The only major women libertarian writers I know of off the top of my head are Ilana Mercer, Karen De Coster, and Megan McArdle.
If we accept the theory that religion exists to keep humanity’s excesses in check, and we accept that government exists for the same reason, it’s not much of a stretch to suggest that nerds disproportionately oppose both for the same reasons. The inability of these folks to drown themselves in sin that leads them to find religion pointless or silly would also lead many of them to think the same of government restrictions on sex, drug usage, and other vices. Think about it from their perspective: if you rarely or don’t engage in self-destructive or sinful behavior, why do you need outside forces to prevent you from doing those things?
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In BG’s defense, he had to reallly…. REALLY… work with his mind to make his business what it was/is/wont-be-for-much-longer-under-Steve-Ballmer. Rich sports stars don’t even come close to comparing in their accomplishments to a man who created probably over 10,000 multimillionaires just among his own employees, to say nothing of the role he played in making his stockholders obscenely rich ($2000 of MSFT stock from the 80s would have probably been worth about $5M in 2000).
If she’s a libertarian, then I’m a monkey’s uncle.
Additionally, as much as people like to hate on Microsoft, they actually brought computing to the masses in a way that never would have happened if Apple were still the big player there.
The argument that nerdy guys are incapable of sin is flawed. If you’ve ever been to church, you know that sexual sins are only a sub-set of all the available sins. Greed, envy, giving false testimony do not require you to be ‘alpha’; indeed, a weak man would commit any of them often (as would a strong one).
Also, I will challenge the other, unrelated claim that most libertarians are ‘nerds’. I see no supporting evidence (see sites such as Reason or Samizdata where they congregate). Common sense would suggest otherwise: an alpha womanizer cannot be neither liberal (liberalism is collectivist and he is his own man) nor conservative (as his moral choices are anything but); he would either be apolitical or libertarian-leaning.
…an alpha womanizer cannot be neither liberal (liberalism is collectivist and he is his own man) nor conservative (as his moral choices are anything but); he would either be apolitical or libertarian-leaning.
Or, gasp, he could simply not apply the logic he applies to politics to his personal life. What non-nerd actually thinks about the implications of political beliefs?
Mike T – true – linux would not exist without the standardization of x86 PC hardware.
Mike T:
Could’ve sworn she identified as such. In any event, my point still stands.
Tom:
Reason is the most normal of libertarian outlets. Go read Mises Daily, LewRockwell, or any Objectivist website and get back to me.
Dude, you just managed to prove Khan’s point about libertarians being incapable of engaging in “casual hypocrisy.” Most people are hypocrites who don’t bother to match their behavior to their politics.
there are libertarians and there are libertarians. the former can include people who would generally define themselves as free-market, classical liberals or conservatices without all the social hangups.
it’s the latter class of libertarians – the ron paul followers and randroids – that definitely contains more than its fair share of apergery, nerd types. i know most of the DC libertarian crowd, and that’s just a pure empirical observation. as for why it is so, ferd’s argument is pretty solid. there’s a high level of correlation between people who have a hard time fitting in to social situations and people who inhabit the fringes of the political spectrum. this can be illustrated with respect to leftist radicals as well. with them, however, it’s less an asperger’s thing and more about clinical depression.
It’s an interesting theory, and in some ways probably largely correct.
If your assertion is that many people and governments have used religion as a means of social control, then I think that point is beyond dispute by anyone.
The real question is whether religious faith served an original purpose other than social control, and what that purpose was.
That said, I do not think that you probably have the whole picture on what the condition of “sin” is with respect to the Christian faith.
Whether or not one subscribes to the Christian faith, the following does describe the doctrine accurately:
Even though many Christians are not always aware of it, Christianity considers sin to be a STATE of being, not an action. The actions are merely symptoms of the state.
E.g.: Coughing up green phlegm is not an infection, it is a symptom of an infection.
What is also interesting about religious debate is that a religion is often best viewed through the lens of the non-participant. Why is this? This is because history proves that PARTICIPANTS in many belief systems have done things no reasonable person would do, such as suicide cults.
Any religion that can only be viewed as positive from the ‘inside’ has severe problems from the start.
Time for a thought experiment:
(1) Suppose I start a new religion, in which the only sin is murder.
While most people may not decide to join my religion, very few individuals will have a problem with me calling murder a “sin”.
(2) Now suppose that add another “sin”: Stealing. I’m still probably okay. Most non-participants in my religion
(3) Now I add premarital sex.
Here it gets interesting. While I may lose some members of my hypothetical congregation over this issue, MANY of them will remain, since they are now heavily invested psychologically in being part of something. One can never discount the effect of this kind of personal investment.
BUT, but, but – The OUTSIDER’S view of my religion may now shift radically, since I am opposing something that is a more controversial issue.
What I am showing with this thought experiment is that the term “sin” as used in your post is far too blunt of an instrument to be used as such.
Whose definition of sin? Sin as an action, or as a state of being? If as action, which actions?
While you may THINK that comic-book nerds don’t sin that much, you do not understand what sin is, from a Christian perspective.
Murder, theft, and all the other big-ticket sins are pretty obvious. If you think Christianity exists to prevent those actions, then you don’t really see the purpose of the Christian faith. A powerful legal system can achieve much of the same effect, since neither law or religious faith can either claim total effectiveness in preventing sinful behavior, insofar as you have used the term.
Think about it from their perspective: if you rarely or don’t engage in self-destructive or sinful behavior, why do you need outside forces to prevent you from doing those things?
“If men were angels, no government would be necessary.” – James Madison
I would argue that most people of libertarian leanings aren’t even aware that they are libertarians. They’re just people going about their business and wish to be left alone. They don’t rail against the Fed, but they do wish they could keep more of their money and maybe legally toke up if they choose to do so.
This seems to make sense – most of the real nerds I know identify as libertarian. But I think there are also a lot of people who lean libertarian because of one pet issue that affects them personally.
For instance, many of my hunting buddies claim to be libertarian, but it’s mostly in a “leave me and my damned guns alone” sort of way. But in 2009 hunting may be considered a nerdy activity too, so maybe they count as nerds (and me too for that matter).
I think people here should make a big distinction between “social reality” and “religion”. Religion intersects social reality, but extends beyond social reality.
Libertarians are nerds that want to escape social reality, so they have created a rule system to avoid having to deal with social reality.
And people who think “religion” is the only social reality that has caused people to believe manifestly idiotic things hasn’t been paying attention.
What is social reality?
Would a typical women believe it because it assures her place, and her childrens place in her society?
IWell, then it’s a social reality.
Arnold Schwarzenegger is a libertarian.
“Arnold Schwarzenegger is a libertarian.”
Yeah. Just like Ronald Ray-gun. Hah.
Perhaps there is a community definition of “nerd” I am not privy too (nor have bothered to uncover). I certainly agree with Ferdinand’s thoughts in regard to this subset of nerds who eschew redundant governmental and religious interference in their own life because essentially they have cut out the “middle man” by virtue of their own unspectacular lifestyles.
I say subset because the only nerd being singled out in the context of this post is the “Libertarian nerd.”
As with all monomanias, “nerdism” comes in as many forms as there are hobbies, beliefs and lifestyles which have the ability to elicit utter devotion.
So yes, RP-in-TX, it is possible to be a “hunting nerd.”
The archetypal nerd (frail, bookish, bespectacled) is certainly not physically threatening and even slightly deserving of our derision.
However, I would suggest that “nerd” should encompass all manner of monomanias.
I’ve noticed recently the existence of a “sports nerd.” He (more often than not) does not fill the nerdish qualifications we’ve come to expect. They are usually robust, beer-swigging, testosterone-fueled, physically violent and territorial males.
Nerds, nevertheless.
To characterize the group as nerds and further extrapolate that nerds love American-brewed ales might be misleading in the absence of a more flexible definition of the word.
A rorschach test for wanna-be libertarians, especially about the effects of their support for various institutions.
http://dissention.wordpress.com/2009/12/30/thoughts-on-zero-sum-03/
Very amusing blog. I’m not sure if I consider myself a libertarian, I was a hardcore leftist like the rest of my family until getting to college. I study economics and that was the main force pushing me toward the right(Roissy’s blog and Devlin’s essays also helped) and specifically toward libertarianism. I don’t wear shirts, advertise it in public, or go to advocacy meetings; I usually vote republican as well. A lot of my economics classmates and professors are super extreme about it though and I’ve definitely noticed the same trend. I can’t remember who said the phrase, but “losertarians” comes to mind. The people who would benefit from a smaller and less invasive government are also the ones who are losing out in the current mess.
Also both economics and libertarianism seem to be completely dominated by males, maybe even moreso than physical sciences at my university. In my 40 student money and banking course last semester it was probably 80% male, and not one of the women in the class was an economics major. Come to think of it I still haven’t met one in all my years at college.
Extremists of all stripes are typically nerdy and maladjusted. Far right libertarians in particular usually have an autistic view of the world – their ideology would work if humans were robots – amoral and perfectly logical without the messiness and complexity of the human experience. We don’t exist within logical systems, as atomized individuals detached from the larger social and cultural atmosphere, and authority isn’t inherently evil. Humans are a social and dynamic species – our identies are a complex web of competing personal and group alliances, values and motivations. We crave and need the stability, security and predictabilty which only authority and regulation can provide. There is no such thing as absolute freedom and more freedom isn’t neccesarily better: anarchy/minarchy leaves us slaves to our most immoral and primitive instincts. All of which is why most people need and desire a healthy balance of authority and freedom, and why civilization is not possible without it.
“Arnold Schwarzenegger is a libertarian.â€
Yeah. Just like Ronald Ray-gun. Hah.
Reagan slashed taxes, but did little against abortion, yes, de facto he was a libertarian.
Bill Clinton reformed welfare, but kept abortion legal like no other, so: another libertarian.
You’re definitely onto something here. Every libertarian I know is a dork, including the lady libertarians. I myself was a dork when I was too much weaksauce to admit I was an eeebil conservative oppressor of whatever gets in my way, and so called myself a libertarian. Now that I am less of a dork, I don’t believe in any of the faggoty shibboleths of libertarianism. Pot smokers should all be shot, or at least worked over with a bullwhip like they do in Singapore. Dipshits who think everything should work via private enterprise have never contemplated what happens when they flush their toilet, to say nothing of how little fun it is living in a society where you have advertising in elevators. I also love how they deal with lack of laws: lawsuits. Brilliant idea, nutsacks. Because tort law works so well in America.
FWIIW, I can tell you first hand, Mark Cuban is a fucking pussy. He’s a likeable pussy though. Not what anyone would call alpha; just a regular guy making a living.
Many libertarians are nerds because it is a philosophy that is appropriate for smart people. If we had a society composed exclusively of IQ 130+ people, then libertarianism could work. Unfortunately, we do not, so libertarianism may not be appropriate for our society. We have to have a different system.
Any society is only as good as the human capital that comprises it.
The comments about atheism and smart people are telling as well. Again, IQ 130+ people have no need for religion. Religion is designed and intended for the less intelligent. We all know this. I don’t see why this should be so surprising.
I’m very late to this debate, but I just discovered this fascinating post, and I’d like to respond.
“Most libertarians are betas.” I’m a libertarian and socially maladjusted, and completely agree. (I can be honest with myself and admit that both are true.)
It makes perfect sense that the socially maladjusted and beta-inclined would adopt libertarian views, rather than statist ones, because extant power structures do not accommodate them. At least not on a sufficiently high rung. They see ascent into power as unlikely and eventually become skeptical about the concept of power.
I can only agree that sometimes when I read articles at Reason and other libertarian rags, I find myself thinking a nerd had written it. Especially when it reviews cultural matters. On the other hand is it possible that this is only so because leftards have for so long defined what is “cool” for us?
An instance of “cool” Libertarians may well be gaining strength though. I would rather watch Redeye on Fox than any similar show (are there similar shows?) on the other networks. These days when I think “cool” I am definitely not thinking of the standard issue any longer. The hippy aesthetic has really worn out its welcome…When I look at Kurt Cobain, I see a dumb manchild that was controlled by a whorable bitch and did what only a pussy boy could in such a situation.. I mean basically EVERY icon of my teens and tweens turned out to be loony frauds.
So am I a Libertarian? I think I am on social issues, and partially on economics, but not at all when it comes to international affairs. Hell, I knew plenty of self proclaimed Libertarians who voted for Obama purely on the grounds that “America needs a black president”. Never mind that he opposes nearly EVERY Libertarian standard that exists save medical Marijuana. As a very good Democrat friend of mine is fond of saying, “Libertarians are just Republicans who for some unknown reason like the Velvet Underground and smoking pot.” I think he may have been onto something but at the same time I see the aging libtard crew of this spaceship earth and wish that they’d hurry up and eject because pretty much every political pressure that is short sighted or destructive to this culture crawled like a mewling baby Che Guevara out of that fat Mama Cass like vagina that some people like to refer to as “the 60′s”.
Some things never change. Like human nature.
It is remarkably consistent irrespective of age, clime, race, or culture.
There is an amusing anecdote in the Babur-nama / The Memoirs of Babur, the first Mughal emperor. As far as Mughal emperors go he was a total nerd, a bookworm, poet, bit of a historian, and liked gardening and hanging around with his mother and aunts in the Harem. His descendents Jahangir and Akbar were total party guys, Akbar was a drug addict, a drunk, and in addition to having an absurdly large harem by the standards of the time was also notorious for running around, seducing the wives of chiefs and neighboring princes when they visited, conducting practical jokes whilst drunk off his ass, and generally making an ass of himself.
That said, Babur was also a consummate warrior, nerdiness among the Mongols and Turks didn’t preclude martial aptitude because, frankly, if you couldn’t swing a sword you probably didn’t live very long. In Babur’s case he was a bookish young boy who was thrust into a dynastic struggle when his father died, had to flee Afghanistan and find refuge in neighboring lands, and plot his way to return home in victory. He did, and decided that conquest was enjoyable. I suppose this makes him a mix of Alpha and Beta traits.
Anyway, Babur wrote an incident, recalling that as a young man he never got drunk with the rest of the Mongols, and indeed never drank alcohol – due to his religious scrupuls and the feeling it was improper.
At some point noticing all of the fun that his uncles and other men in their circle were having, getting drunk and having a fun time, Babur decided to join one of their drinking parties.
The guy eventually left in embarrassment because he couldn’t figure out “the etiquette” of getting drunk. He just sat there with a smile on his face wondering if he should drink from the cup this way, or that way, whether he should laugh out loud, or do this or that, and trying to figure out which jokes to tell. Basically he couldn’t figure out the social rules of getting shit-faced with a bunch of tartar warriors. I can’t recall the exact phrasing, but the incident’s in the first 100 pages of the book if you every stumble on it in a library.
His men still respected him and fought for him to the death. In fact, in a way, Babur was endearing to the more rough hewn Mongol warriors. Mongols are pretty loyal to their own, that’s what Mongol hordes do. Fight and die for their Khan.
Anyway, eventually Babur got over his social unease, and became quite a notorious drunk and party guy. He remained somewhat nerdy throughout his life, though conquests and administration of his realm sort of pulled him away from private introspection. He liked gardens a lot, in his old age.
The Babur Nama’s fascinating reading, for any Central Asian history buffs. Also, the man had a keen strategic mind, so it’s not a bad read on this ground. The English translations are of varying degrees of reliability, however.
Anyway, nerdiness and coolness are as old as humanity. And everyone has their place in society, civilization would be a worse place if not for either the nerds or the cool guys.
The term nerd mustof undergone a transformation, because i dont think i would ever have classified someone who was completely happy and secure with everyone walking freely about bearing large assult rifles, managing prostitutes, and ingesting any hard drug they had a mind and a dollar for… as being a “nerd”. Unless by “nerd” you mean someone able to form an independant opinion based on logic. Cuz, yeah… nothing quite as “manly” as begging someone else to protect you from the big scary world where all those nasty ‘free-thinkers” roam around.
Religion is for boys who can’t man up and face reality.
krauserpua is a libertarian and he lays women so hot, you’ll cream in your pants just looking at them. Almost all the ladies men in my town are of the libertarian persuasion. They were nerds. They just diverted their brains to fucking women instead of working for the Man. You probably don’t get laid all that much. Whiny/angry little bitches like you and that idiot calling himself advocatus diaboli (gives us Indians a bad name that MoFo does) never do. No wonder you are so angry. stay angry loser, while I fuck all the women.
As libertarian I could easily pick apart the logic of your arguments with ease; but you already know that don’t you?
Sure were not drowning in poonani, but we are just better people, and superior to all other political types & subtypes.
And superman is gay, bat man’s cool because his super power is money.
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