Unabomber on Psychology of a Liberal

[Autumnlicious]

By the way, he didn't graduate from Harvard at 16. He started there at that age. Early, yes, but I have a friend who went to Cambridge at 15. It is not ideal, and that sort of socialization can mess kids up.

I've a young sibling in college, well ahead of the time I went. Keeping her balanced is hard -- College is a rather immature environment in many, many, many aspects.

I recommended to her to live in a Co-op, thinking it would mirror my fraternity experience (engineering frat, medium sized). I couldn't have been more fucking wrong; a house run by college age women is by far the most annoying, inconsistent and moronic shitshow I've ever seen. And apparently this was the "best" one.

Unlike the men of my house (frat) who'd drive you crazy if you couldn't get the job done, yell at you, etc, these... children utilize "make equal" work that the slackers, predictably, never do. Instead of "Everyone, each of you is responsible for an area and we will be checking", it is "Everyone, do an hour more of work! (That we never fucking verify)".

That's the best part of it. I've not even scratched the worst. Already you see things are easy to game, unequal and without recognition or care (an anathema to my sister, whose whole self is centered on being diligent, careful and observant).

I fear for my sibling's socialization, as she wants to be reasonable, but most of her peers aren't even at "College" behavior level, whereas she works with Post-docs all the time. The unremitting childishness of her peers is appalling at times, and I often wonder if I were not there to drop in, set things right, yell at people, etc, she'd have a twisted view of others. However, she is not fragile, which gives her strength to weather 99.9% of the insanity.

It comes to mind that perhaps the Unabomber, as intelligent as he is, was already fragile and didn't socialize well at all. It doesn't excuse his later actions, but it does raise the prospect that we as a society, as a social group end up amplifying the instabilities of others.

This is from a brother of highly intelligent, sociable and very young college student.