Sorry, but I think you're reading way too much in the OP. Their account is compatible with their biggest issue being "extremelly high intelligence" coupled with a lack of empathy, but it's also compatible with ordinary intelligence coupled with some bad choices- and the chances are that the latter is the right explanation ("extremely high intelligence" should only be the case very, very rarely, by definition [1]).

I think you're also perhaps projecting a bit. You stopped (very) short of giving the OP a diagnosis of ASD ("high functioning"). Again, that's way, way too much to read into 1590 characters (not counting spaces) on an HN post.

Personally I think there's no way to answer OP with anything approaching good advice when going only by what they have posted. I understand that everyone will want to try anyway, but sometimes the best asnwer is to say "I don't know".

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[1] Funny aside. Suppose Alice has "extremely high intelligence" (EHI). Her EHI will make her aware of two facts: a) everyone seems to think they have EHI, or at least intelligence above the mean; b) only a tiny minority of those people can be right. The obvious corrolary is that Alice herself must be of average intelligence and only feel like she has EHI because that's a common cognitive bias of people with average intelligence. Therefore Alice will assume she has average intelligence and discount evidence to the contrary. In other words, people who have EHI will very rarely believe they have EHI, let alone say they do.

I think with any kind of crowd-sourced-internet-therapy like the OP is currently receiving, you're right, no one answering is going to be able to accurately understand and relate to the OP. That being said, if 50 kind people like /u/endymi0n share their own parsing of the situation and offer some advice, maybe 1 in those 50 is actually the advice OP needed, and their life could be positively affected.

The alternative, I guess, is that everyone correctly realizes they can't understand the full context of OP's position, and no one gives OP any advice and they continue down the road they're currently on. Just my view :)

You are right that the poster you replied to makes many assumptions. But I think his post is still very valuable to others: I have seen smart people shoot themselves in the foot doing just what was described and that advice is a good thing to keep in mind. My 2c.

I don't disagree! But the way I've mostly seen capable people fail is by becoming afraid to push themselves beyond the limits of their innate capabilities, into the territory where people stop telling them how smart they are and every step forward is paid for with pain, Little-Mermaid style.

By contrast, people who have not learned to put so much value on their being "above average" don't have as much trouble pushing further into that painful territory because to them, everything is pain anyway.

That way I've seen people with little talent go further than, or at least catch up to others who have it in abdundance, through discipline and work. My formative experience in that respect is from a different life when I was studying for a modern drums degree.

Please slow down with the "intelligence" narrative. Cognitive abilities are complex and multi-faceted. There's logical-mathematical and much more.

Even if they are reading too much into the OP, the advice is sound for anyone starting any job, especially at the start of their career with little on their resume.

About your aside, while all of that is true, the inverse isn't. Not everyone thinks everyone else has EHI. So if you have a lot of people telling you you have EHI, then you can feel confident in your own assessment of whether or not you have EHI.

That's an astute observation, but there is such a thing as flattery and compliments paid with an ulterior motive and it's not always easy to tell those apart from genuine recognition of a perceived positive trait.

For example, perhaps people are telling you you're smart because they like your er other assets. Or because they feel obliged to because you're their boss. Or because they know your parents. etc etc.

Bottom line, there's confounding factors that can throw the calculation way off.

> The obvious corrolary is that Alice herself must be of average intelligence

Would she also conclude that because some fruit in bowls is hollow plastic that there doesn't exist any real fruit in bowls?

I have a similar story.

I learned at all early age the only thing appearing like the smartest guy in the room was good for was paining a target on your back. I also learned how to emulate empathy, it's not perfect, but it makes up for the natural broken/missing wiring in my head.

Also early in my career I talked my way out of several jobs, You might have the best ideas in the world, but if powers that be don't want to hear them, don't belabor the matter, give your suggestions and move on.

I started out too in customer support, 20 years later I'm making an engineers salary, with an engineering title, which isn't too bad for a drop out.

The best advice on jobs I have, take a bad shitty job that's good for your resume, work there till you have the book experience to work someplace else, rinse and repeat,

> I also learned how to emulate empathy,

Please don't. I know a guy who does the same. It comes across as utterly condescending.

You know that the people failing to do it, do it badly. You have no idea how many people in your life succesfully do it. (Survivorship bias)

Empathy is very much a learned skill. "Pretending" to care is a good way for me to get someone's attention and learn a bit of their story, and then find something to relate to.

hen I fail to do it correctly, I get immediate negative feedback. If I fail to do it at all, I get immediate negative feedback - its part of success for me.

I do genuinely care about people, I just cannot for the life of me understand why things upset others.

Failing to do it, makes me less employable, and less successful socially.

I worked in 6 companies, in the first 3 years of my working life. I had a very difficult relationship with university in the late 90, where teachers were calling me to fix their linux, while they were still teaching me useless stuff. Newsgroup, IRC, RFC were my main source of knowledge. Im mostly self taugh. With great difficulties and many years after i got a bachelor degree, while i was also working and quitting jobs when realising my manager were as stupid as my univ teacher. Back in my 20, things were simple and clear, you want security: run openbsd lame bastard. And stop calling me at 3am to fix an hacking job, while in fact it's just your bangalore team powering on an old server with same network IP than your fucking main website server.

Around 25, i was really disgusted by computer and IT Job, even tryed to recycle into soft medecine.

At this exact time, the best things in my life occured: My (first) girl friend cheated on me after 2 years of love story. It forces me to consider that maybe im not always right. I had a wonderfull journey into psychology, pick up artist technics, self-improvement, and started to practice Systema (Russian Martial Art) where indeed i learn empathy. Im mean, i didnt learn it, i was over sensitive and over empathic. I was the too good to be happy, and my angry burst were just expression of my frustration accumulated by peoples abusing me.

Instability was coming from that. Quitting was an easy solution, escaping stupidity and predator instead of facing them was my main strategy.

With training and helps from great peoples, i improved my social skills. I learn how to say NO. Around 31, i was desperate with my job interview, my professionnal experience was expressing instability and induced fear to potential recruiters.

I had to makeup my resume. And i got the opportunity to work as a lvl3 support team. This was the way i came back into business. With my improved self, i spend 3 years (the first time i worked that long in a position) taking care of big problem in a critical application.

This was an honey moon, first time ever peoples were thanking me for saving their ass and cleaning their shit (we talk hundreds of million in electronic payment industry). Im still friend with this specific manager who was able to see potential in me, 12 years after.

I started a consulting company. Im 42, married, father of three. Im happy.

Just remember: Humans are not computer.

I sometimes run into people who mistake the ability to Google well (a very teachable skill) with intelligence.

They often work in IT jobs, and for all their lives have heard how smart they were because of stereotypes around computers, science and nerds. Knowing how to use command line tools and put together a computer does not often equal extremely high intelligence.

Job interview question: „What is your biggest weakness“ - „Extremely high intelligence paired with a lack of empathy“.

How does „extremely high intelligence“ lead to multiple college dropouts? For the OP it was a lack of money to pay US study fees. I doubt that several other points you mention (like „don’t be the one who makes the snarkiest comment“) are comparable to OPs experience.

Some solid advice. Especially the part about having a good boss. Only 1 in 4 fits that bill in my experience, and landing a job with one makes all the difference for your career.

Also, being the solution guy/girl is good advice.

Once you have that experience you know what to look for in your career. Keep in touch with the good managers and colleagues, as that network is worth gold.

I too suffer from an extremely high intelligence.

I would have replaced intelligence and ambition with confidence. I think it reads better. Theres no way we can measure the intelligence of people by the fact they dropped out of college or got a job and then left it. Theres no positive signals here, just negative or neutral.

I suspect people call it intelligence when they see themselves in the behaviour. Since we all think we're above average https://priceonomics.com/why-do-we-all-think-were-above-aver...

Really the only comparable pain is my equally large penis. It’s a drag.

I'm sure you could solve that with some kind of pulley system.