Child Prodigy Has Goals of Immortality

....

How exactly does an 11 year old get a bachelors degree in 1 year? I had to take 32 courses to get my degree, so how do you do that in 1 year at 11?

He sounds like a lot of straight men

Remember that English kid who was being passed off as some sort of super genius and then changed his sex and disappeared?

Yeah.

That.

Suicide by 18

R1, that made me spit out my food from laughing so hard 🤣

R2 - presumably there are proficiency tests and you can test out of some classes/requirements.

Things usually don't go well for child prodigies. They're given too much attention and adoration because of their exceptionalism as a child. But adults don't do that to each other.

Plus there's the obvious loss of social conditioning and emotional intelligence. This usually ends in low performance later on and isolation.

Is this his villain origin story?

Child prodigies burn out early and seldom acquire renown for their work as adults.

r1 and r8 have already won the thread.

OP’s photo reminds me of something...

That education is practically meaningless. A college degree in one year. Please. That's like a trade school.

This is almost child abuse.

I feel like I've heard of these child prodigies all my life, but then you never get any follow-up as to how they wound up as adults?

Did they burn out?

Did they become anti-social hermits?

Did they get recruited into some dark and shadowy government/corporate program to build a doomsday weapon?

Tiger Woods was a prodigy, r13. In golf which I know isn't the same as academic pursuits, but he was on TV shows as a little kid. We've seen how he turned out.

Michael Kupperman wrote a book about his father, child prodigy John J. Kupperman. He did not turn out well.

Kim Ung-Yong has grown up to be a relatively normal person but he gets accused of being a "failed genius" regularly.

[quote]“This is the first puzzle piece in my goal of replacing body parts with mechanical parts,” Simons said.

He has raw intelligence but still the mind of a child. I don't think a lot of people realize that about prodigies.

First thing first, child. Mechanical dong, please.

R14 and R15 true enough! I guess they're always sold as being the ones that are going to solve existential problems, but in reality, the world ends up being too complicated to distill down to a neat and balanced mathematical equation even for them.

God, what R1 said. That picture alone gives off Damien at the cemetery vibes

There was a child prodigy who was gay back in the early 90s who’s now trans today. His parents took him to the doctor because he was male and feminine and determined he was trans. They were on Big Brother Celebrity a few years back.

Pumpkin head.

This kid looks like a douche

I can't wait.

R19 - that family was a bunch of grifters. He was not a genius - they're all just con artists. And that kid turned out INSANE.

This kid is being pushed through and not having to abide by other rules and restrictions that others face. Eventually, he's going to hit those roadblocks and he's going to have a real reckoning and won't be able to handle it.

B-b-b-but, I'm a GENIUS! Yeah, yeah genius, nobody is required to hire you or give you money for your research. You can't even teach because you're too young (not allowed) and wouldn't be able to command a room of people older than you anyway.

There was some girl genius that came from a very poor background -- a true prodigy and very much into physics as well, I believe. All this crazy shit went down in her preteens, with a college that was helpful at first, but then she came to a point where money was necessary (I believe more for living costs and mom, than education), leading to her trying alternative ways to get backers, which ended up with a grown man becoming her stalker. Just tons of misfortune and drama. Her story was crazier than a movie.

Long story short, she ended up locking herself away from the world. A reporter eventually got an interview, out of curiosity of what happened to this promising girl. Such a waste of genuis and a gift.

I'll see if I can dig up the article. It's a fascinating read, about the struggles of child geniuses, the way they're fawned over until forgotten, and the reaction from the people around them.

Puberty is the ticking time bomb in all these scenarios

Ah, R25, we have a lovely little pill to help that pesky issue.

I found it: "Promethea Unbound; A child genius raised in poverty, she wanted to change the world. A horrific act of violence nearly destroyed her"

There's a ton of great insight from professionals about child prodigies, along with this girl's crazy life story. The mother was a poor greek immigrant. Ironically, this girl's life story rivals the saddest of greek tragedies.

I think there's such a complex heap of problems with these types of children, and sadly there's not a lot of support, because their intelligence is seen as a blessing in life, not a hindrance. Think about all they have to contend with: families that don't get it (it's not a genetic inheritance, it's a biological lottery, with most people being average), little to no connection with peers, mental frustration in a world not designed around children like them, etc.

They skip ahead in education, but emotionally and socially, they're still children. Even 16/17 yr old teens have reported social distress with early college admission, imagine being as young as 10. K that girl's story, you got the impression her college peers were more annoyed than impressed, because of course -- a 15 yr old is way ahead intellectually, but they're awkward, look like children still, etc.

My biggest surprise delving into this topic, was the real lack of support overall. You'd think these children would be handled more carefully, so they reach full potential, not risking a meltdown. Hell, some could hold the key to solving so many world issues.

This child is a DataLounger, I can just tell.

Reminds me of the Steven Wright joke: "I plan to live forever. So far so good".

He sounds like another Stefano DiMera, Doc.

Yo, Laurent, bro -- about that immortality, hit me up. I've got a lead on it.

I attended university with a child prodigy. He was in my health law class. I wondered to someone why Tom behaved like an awkward teenager and I was told “he is an awkward teenager”. Only 14. He did some dumb shit like hit on 22 year old women but settled down. He also played sports and worked at the McDonalds, so his parents made sure he was around people his own age.

What I wonder when they're geniuses is why do so many of them not attend the top universities?

Reckless youth. They all think they're immortal.

R34 - top universities don't want need or want them. That's why lower tier schools always accept them - they'll throw special privileges their way and they get good press for the school.

Top universities already have plenty of brilliant people. Mid and low schools don't have hardly any.

I'm glad top universities don't twist and bend their requirements and rules for these children.

It must be destroyed.

We live in a throwaway culture, which includes burned-out child prodigies. We're so busy consuming we don't even know when we're full. Man would eat the stars if he could get from here to there.

R36, but I'd rather kid prodigies get in than Kushners, Trumps and Dubyas.

Fascinating R27 and really tragic.

Went down the Promethea rabbit hole. Seems she has more stalkers.

Her stalkers are no doubt incels who delude themselves into believing they will create a race of super-geniuses.

[quote] There was a child prodigy who was gay back in the early 90s who’s now trans today. His parents took him to the doctor because he was male and feminine and determined he was trans. They were on Big Brother Celebrity a few years back.

Was that India Willoughby? Who threw a tantrum when Ginuwine said he wasn’t attracted to trans women and cheerfully flirted with Courtney Act/Shane instead?

Insufferable!

Well, for a so-called genius he certainly have a lot to learn about biology/ physiology. Replace every body part with mechanical ones because he wants immortality? Besides the fact that thinking about immortality at his age is creepy fuck, this “genius” has zero clues to how the human body works. For comparison, if you have a mechanical heart valve you’d have to be on anticoagulant for life or you’d get blood clots that lead to heart attack or stroke. Think of how much anticoagulant you’d have to take if ALL of your body parts are mechanical. It’s functionally impossible under those circumstances because you’d get the opposite effect. Essentially your blood would never clot; you’d be a functional hemophiliac and you’re one knee bump from potential death.

I can think of a few ways to gain immortality.

[quote]Throughout high school, Kaczynski was ahead of his classmates academically. Placed in a more advanced mathematics class, he soon mastered the material. He skipped the eleventh grade, and by attending summer school he graduated at age 15. Kaczynski was one of his school's five National Merit finalists and was encouraged to apply to Harvard College. He entered Harvard on a scholarship in 1958 at age 16. A classmate later said Kaczynski was emotionally unprepared: "They packed him up and sent him to Harvard before he was ready ... He didn't even have a driver's license."

He and Greta Thunberg would make a cute precocious couple.

"“Immortality” is his goal"

Let us know how that works out.

Immortality is for now, but ugly is forever. And that is one butt-ugly child.

Academic intelligence is just one of many types of intelligence, and probably not the most important predictor of future success or happiness. Probably that would be social intelligence.

Speaking as a former "child prodigy" (nothing as advanced as this kid, but enough so that there was a thought of my starting school in 6th grade), "academic intelligence" and "social" or "emotional intelligence" are very different things.

Nothing can prepare you for the emotional storm of puberty, particularly if you come out as gay on the other side of it.

I think I'm reasonably intelligent and that the work I do is based on that. The genius my parents briefly thought I would be never happened because I was too busy going fetal because I realized the world would kill me because I liked boys. And this was an even bigger wedge between me and my family than my sexuality.

I don't want to dampen down intelligence when it's there, but the idea that an 11-year old should be in college is wrong.

That smug look in OP's pic tells me all I need to know about this child.

I went down the rabbit hole as well R41. She seems to lack focus in her life and I do think her mother isolated her to a debilitating degree.

Sure, Damien....

I remember a kid who was in LIFE magazine, going to college—I think University of Michigan—when he was eleven. His name was Mike. I used to remember his last name and googled him about ten years ago. Wasn’t doing much as I recall, he was really into movie trivia, but he seemed okay.

These kids are like meteors streaking across the sky and then burning out.

Well, if one of his goals is to be insufferable, he's already reached that one.

I will always remember what someone said to me regarding smart children - in 20 years, the novelty will wear off and then they're just smart adults who may or may not be able to function in society once they are no longer coddled as they were when they were young.

R14 it's because outside of raw talent areas like sports or specific should, "child Prodigies," like " photographic memory," doesn't exist and is only believed to exist by stupid people.

Further, the"advantages" that a child prodigy ( in an area where such a thing actually exists) are shown to generally not persist, and to be quickly surpassed by a non child prodigy whom is doing real practice.

Another one:

At the age of six months, he said to his pediatrician, "I have a left ear infection"

jfc

R59, yes, and then he had a binder full of questions about his co-pay.

This is sounding a little bit like bullshit.

Children with exceptional IQs can speak in full sentences while they are babies R60

No, R61. They cannot. Not beyond "me go poo-poo".

And they certainly will not have the mental wherewithal at six months to diagnose an ear infection.

You should study up on kids with extremely rare IQs. It's common for them to be able to speak in full sentences beyond the normal baby talk of an child.

R61 the fact that you think "IQ" is in any way a relevant metric to infant cognitive function (hint: ANY age) is revealing. Folks, I hate to tell you this, but "IQ" is made up, and the idea that a single test can accurately gauge intelligence is bananas (fun exercise: define intelligence. Your definition probably sucks and that underscores how loony it is that we're all assuming humans can measure something that we can't when fully adequately conceptualize).

I don’t think he diagnosed it, he probably just repeated something he heard his parent say. He was talking at 3 months. (This is Michael Kearney, btw. Now a college professor)

Bitch looks like Damien from "The Omen" part 1....

How is that even possible? A 3-month old baby speaking? Verificatia, please. Like, a panel of licensed professionals who examined and witnessed this.

[Quote]Children with exceptional IQs can speak in full sentences while they are babies.

Why, our Archie talks about his grandmother all the time! He was speaking Mandarin at 6 months old!

I don't doubt that children of high intelligence can verbalize at a very high level early in life. But an infant's mouth and vocal chords are not developed enough to say: "I have a left ear infection" even if they were simply parroting something they heard their parents say.

He's like Tetsuro from Galaxy Express 999.

R63 it’s possible. I could speak in full cogent sentences very easily, and taught myself to read before school—hyperlexia, which stems from autism.

R52 yes, I agree completely. I too was considered for accelerated education (my middle-school term papers were considered to be College graduate level), but thankfully didn’t attend a higher education program early on the advice of school counsellors. Being Aspergic, I struggled to socialise with my peers and with people younger, let alone more mature and experienced people. The gas panic of hormones did a number on me, as well; one with which my top-loaded tender teenage brain could not cope.

To be remarkable as a youngster means to be marked out as different, and in the mind of children ‘different’ is weird enough to target justifiably. I have underperformed in life ever since, in part because the isolating social and emotional hell of adolescence scarred me, and in part because nihilism and boredom have become my default synaptic response.

Growing up with the pressure of wunderkind expectation as I did, I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s a dangerous, heartbreaking, road to nowhere. I’d rather have been someone who is all-round capable and intelligent, such as my reasonably-smart and pragmatic sister (though sometimes even she gets bored and frustrated with the idiocracy).

R70 he’s more like a Tetsuo Shima waiting to happen.

IQ is not completely arbitrary, r64.

[quote]he 1970s studies conducted in Warsaw focused on the impact of social background on IQ. Results from the 1990s panel study indicate that the IQ score at age thirteen can be viewed as a good indicator for future life success, defined in terms of attained education, occupational status, and material well-being. Dramatic differences in this attainment between the groups of respondents with high and low IQ scores attest to this conclusion. Smaller, yet still significant, differences between our former talented teenagers and their counterparts from the two control groups, who apparently did not have the high-IQ advantage, also support the thesis that IQ has a significant impact on success in life. Three points are in order. First, we do not know how to disentangle the IQ scores from many environmental factors that are colinear with them. In the limited cases of persons with identical IQ scores but different social backgrounds, we discovered that the predictive power of intelligence was limited. Second, it turns out that the IQ score loses its predictive power for a sense of achieving life success, at least among those with high levels of intellectual functioning. Personality variables, particularly high and stable self-esteem, are decisive for a sense of achieving life success. Third, intelligence does not seem to be as stable through the life course as other investigations suggest. Our study shows only a moderate correlation between IQs measured at ages thirteen and thirty-six. Thus, the value of the IQ scores should not be overestimated. It would be useful to consider IQ in the context of a full range of environmental factors that could affect success in life. Not only objective but also subjective measures of life success need to be carefully considered. In measuring IQ, various points in the life cycle should be scrutinized.

Source: Firkowska-Mankiewicz, A., & Słomczyńska, J. (2002). Intelligence (IQ) as a Predictor of Life Success. International Journal of Sociology, 32(3), 25-43.

R40 R41 R54 -- I'm glad you all took the time to read it. I thought it was worth the effort in sharing, on a forum with more mature users, that still bother to read. It's definitely an interesting peek into children's lives that are like this, if they don't have the right support (or economic class).

R54 and I agree. I think this was posted on a different forum when I first read it, in regards to a conversation about misogyny/ violence, but I too thought it was complicated because of the mother. Not going to put a lot of the blame on her, because I can understand not wanting to send your own young child away that early on, but still -- there was a weird dependency created there, and she moved her to such an isolated location.

You have a young girl that could've made a real mark on world, end up stuck in the middle of nowhere, fixing computers. I don't think it helped that her interests were so spread out (she couldn't fathom doing one advanced degree, ironically ending up doing nothing). I thought that set it her apart from other geniuses though -- many tend to hyper focused on a subject or two. She seen a value in having a spectrum of knowledge at her disposal.

It's insightful because if a child like that can fall through the cracks, what chance is there for other kids? We talk about bootstraps, but rarely the part money plays.

Only a child could want to live forever.

R73 maybe not *completely* arbitrary, but even you'r own link questions it's validity in measuring outcomes, because there's too many other life circumstances that play a role. It also admits that IQ can fluctuate depending on factors (like age).

If IQ testing was that good of a measurement, it wouldn't be so easy to manipulate through environment. Of course there's some people off the charts, that score high no matter what's thrown at them, but for most, IQ can suffer from lack of proper environment. In the past, IQ testing was an earmark of bad science trying to prove intelligent differences amongst the races -- no surprise, when living conditions improved, the intelligent gap started to close.

There's a lot of questions on those tests that require some educational background. If people don't have a decent education, it's impossible to claim they have a naturally low IQ, just because they missed the opportunity to learn certain words, or know the math problems. You'd think by now we'd develop a better test.

*your

That is the last thing I would want to “achieve”. After watching Death Becomes Her, I’ve never wanted immortality. But good luck kiddo!

IQ does not test for things like creativity or being a creative genius. You cant solve problems if you cant think outside of the box.

The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination. - Albert Einstein

[quote]Besides the fact that thinking about immortality at his age is creepy fuck

He's just a kid, he's thinking of it in terms of Lego building blocks and robots. The ethics and practicality of it has probably never entered his mind.

Someone needs to make the kid read a lot of literature and philosophy to learn the error of his fantasies about the follies of physical immortality, and then give him a whopping dose of a psychedelic to learn about immaterial immortality.

He's a savant, but a short-sighted one who is too new to this material world to get why it's not a place no one wants to be trapped in forever.

R73

[Quote]Our study shows only a moderate correlation between IQs measured at ages thirteen and thirty-six.

This alone implies that a significant amount of the "information" captured by the "IQ" metric isn't consistent and, considering what this number is people to be measuring, that's a significant amount of introduced uncertainty to our confidence in it's use.

More than that, you can reason out why IQ doesn't make sense for yourself: IQ : intelligence quotient. Define intelligence. Is it how "smart" you are? What's smart? Good at trivia? Math? History? Good memory? Good reasoning? What about emotional intelligence? Street smarts? Good at reading people? Good at recognizing patterns? Some people are good at some of these things in certain areas and abysmal at them in others--a TEST can accurately measure this???

IQ is actually an estimator, trying to approximate this vague idea of "intelligence." It's like MENSA, society gives it undue gravitas because people don't think about how ridiculous it is.

Everyone will forget this Kid again once the Queer Eyes have made me over!

Who cares how smart he supposedly is? I can already tell he is going to grow up to be a psychotic straight uggo. Nobody will want him to live forever.

Even if his immortality plan fails, he can still become an award winning journalist.

Evil Genius.

Why is everyone debating his IQ score? It's irrelevant. He has completed a bachelor's degree in physics at age 11. There's no denying that he has a savant mind no matter his IQ. He has an exceptional scientific/methematical mind, period, given his ability to think at that level and to demonstrate that he can think at that level through the required coursework.

IQ measures are arguable, but scientific evidence by virtue of needing to be proved is inarguable; it's demonstrable.

I just remembered the last name of the kid I mentioned in r56. He went to Michigan State, and had a Ph.D in Math at 23. Apparently lives quietly like I said, works with computers (I couldn’t understand what it was, lol), is interested in art, music, biology and ecology. His web page is basic html and is all *extensive* lists and links of stuff he’s interested in.

We always think that a person with an ultra high IQ is going to come up with a way to save the world or at least invent something transformative. Was Bill Gates considered a child genius? I read somewhere that math prodigies do all their groundbreaking work before the age of 30 and after that, they’re just kind of normal-smart but no more discoveries. It’s a cruel trick that nature plays.

School sucks!

R82 the tests are imperfect, it doesn't mean they are invalid. If a child can understand quantum physics then it's demonstrative of an intelligent quotient well above the norm. It seems to hurt a lot of people's feelings that they might be measurably inferior to someone doesn't it?

Studying up on these child prodigies has really shed light on how many average joes are in charge and how much of the general population is threatened by extremely intelligent people

R87 r90 the problem is, I don't believe it. I've seen more than one of these puff pieces when about a supposed child genius (which, by lack of experience ALONE, makes such a child subordinate to any similarly qualified adult with ACTUAL experience) where either the journalists--but more often the parents/ institution has an branding interest in promoting the story--just misrepresent or outright lie.

It would take a decent amount of evidence to overcome my skepticism of this outlandish story. Well I trust a narrator who expects my unquestioning acceptance of "IQ" as a valid measure of assessing this child's abilities? Lol no. If the child has graduated, where's his thesis (presuming that he received no additional assistance In winning it than a regular student would have)? Let's see the child hold his own in and unscripted oral examination. You think that's extreme? So is the ridiculous idea that an 11 year old is not only valuable of completing University level courses, but has done so.

Mozart was indisputably a child prodigy. His personal character, however, seems to have been incredibly immature and his home life and finances were a shambles.

^ And that hair! A good brush and a pair of scissors wouldn't have gone amiss.

[quote] How is that even possible? A 3-month old baby speaking?

Of course it’s possible. My nephew was speaking at 2 months old. Instead of me reading him bedtime stories, he wanted to read them to me.

R87 it wasn't a debate over his IQ, but the overall value of IQ tests in general. They're better suited for getting an idea of how children/ people compare in absorbing knowledge and some problem solving, within similar environments; but on their own, they aren't necessary to get some idea of how intelligent someone is. IQ tests only came into fruition (1905)-- yet no one required one to discover geniuses before that. In fact, Einstein published revolutionary articles about our universe the same year the IQ test came about.

R90 Same thing -- I don't think anyone is debating if this kid is intelligent. That's a given, but we'd know that without ever knowing the exact IQ test score all the same. As you perfectly put it "if a kid can understand quantum physics...[it demonstrates an IQ above average]... " I concur. I'd say if you have a child pursuing advanced subjects with success and showing other signs of being ahead for their age, it's safe to assume they're gifted, without needing an official IQ test.

Musical prodigies and sporting prodigies are on a different level, quantitatively.

I went to school with a girl who finished senior level English, mathematics, physics and chemistry by the the time she was 12. Her parents didn’t want her skipping grades and she wanted to become a veterinarian so they eventually enrolled her in a fancy agricultural boarding school where where she philosophy, biology, history, languages, religious studies and art. She finished up high school by 15 and attended a technical college where she studied animal welfare and worked as a vet assistant until she went to university at 17.

She’s now a veterinarian, an out lesbian and mother, and is well adjusted and sensitive in large part because of how well she was parented.

R97, I'm curious...did she have the kid before or after she came out?

Crazy hair seems to be a defining characteristic of many geniuses.

We know hairs, whiskers, etc. are sensory organs and also insulation from the elements. I have a theory that wild, unconditioned hair may play a role in electrical conduction that improves some brains' functioning or makes them function differently.

A lot of brilliant men who go bald nevertheless have grossly unruly, long hair wherever they can grow it.

He looks like Sprague Grayden.

I hope the smug little bitch hurries up with his body parts replacement shit, though--my poor spine is turning to dust with the quickness, and nerve damage is no fucking joke.

This is a really interesting thread.

r27, that was a interesting story, thanks for the link.

[quote]Crazy hair seems to be a defining characteristic of many geniuses.

Um you sure about that?

R94, regarding your nephew who, as an eight week-old baby, was reading to you: what's he up to now?

(In lieu of gifs--because gifs haven't worked here since that one day around Christmas-- you'll just have to picture the Unsolved Mysteries lasers with the word "UPDATE" coming at you, accompanied by the Unsolved Mysteries theme music attached to my post)

R94 8 week babies can barely swallow fluids without dribbling all over their fronts. Yet your 8 week old nephew had the oral dexterity to form words?

R102 lacks a grasp of basic logic.

[quote]My nephew was speaking at 2 months old. Instead of me reading him bedtime stories, he wanted to read them to me.

Nice try. A 2 month old doesn't have the motor skills or dexterity to even hold a book. They can't sit up and can barely hold their heads up when lying on their stomachs.

It's clear many of you know nothing about babies.

[quote] My nephew was speaking at 2 months old. Instead of me reading him bedtime stories, he wanted to read them to me.

I was speaking at two hours old. And reading bedtime stories to my two-year-old sister at three weeks. At two months, I was writing bedtime stories. You may have heard of Where the Wild Things Are? I insisted on using a pen name when I published it at 8 months old so I wouldn't be swarmed by a mob of fans at Oxford, where I was finishing my Rhodes scholarship, so...