# Revenge of the Sidis **URL:** \ **Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports\ **Created:** [January 27, 2015, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/revenge-of-the-sidis/710999 "2015-01-27T14:23:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![waddlingeagle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/4da419/32.png) [@waddlingeagle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/waddlingeagle)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2015, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/revenge-of-the-sidis/710999/1 "2015-01-27T14:23:31Z")
It looks to me like Sidis simply burned out. He took an obscure job as a bookkeeper because he craved obscurity. He realized that he didn’t have to do anything else. It seems to me that one of the hardest things a smart person has to learn is to stop trying to be the person everyone else wants him to be and to instead become the person he wants to be. ---
**Author:** ![qazwart](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/5fc32e/32.png) [@qazwart](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/qazwart)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2015, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/revenge-of-the-sidis/710999/2 "2015-01-27T14:25:59Z")
[link to the column](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1363/why-did-william-sidis-the-worlds-2nd-smartest-human-achieve-so-little-in-life) I read about William Sidis, and I immediately think of my own son who does quite nicely in dimensions that don’t involve space or time. He is also extremely brilliant. He learned to read at the age of 2 which was actually quite a surprise to me when I realized it. My son earned the nickname of _The Professor_ from his kindergarten and nursery school teachers who not only noticed his brilliance, but also his complete absentmindedness. He was first diagnosed with ADD and only later with Aspergers. I see Sidis’ lack of social graces, his preference to live in his own world, and even his amazing collection of street car transfers as all part of what we would now call Aspergers. There may have even been a touch in his _brilliant but neurotic_ parents. It has taken a careful guiding hand to get my son through life. You don’t want to be too hovering, but at the same time, you have to provide enough guidance to prevent him from spending all day in his room thinking brilliant thoughts to himself. When he was in elementary school, I wasn’t sure if he’d make it in high school. In high school, we weren’t sure if he’d ever make it to college. Once in college, I wasn’t sure whether he’d find his way to graduate. Two and a half decades later, I’m still not quite sure how he’ll do. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2015, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/revenge-of-the-sidis/710999/3 "2015-01-27T16:10:28Z")
Two threads on the same topic have been merged. ---
**Author:** ![cahutchins](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c37758/32.png) [@cahutchins](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cahutchins)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2015, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/revenge-of-the-sidis/710999/4 "2015-01-27T16:53:24Z")
This reminds me of a [New York Magazine article](http://nymag.com/news/features/27840/) from a couple years back. Briefly, the gist of the article (which included some very convincing studies of school children) is that we aren’t doing smart kids any favors by _telling_ them that they’re smart. Kids that are constantly praised for their innate abilities actually tend to underperform when they meet challenges or setbacks, because they start thinking that they’re naturally good at some things and naturally bad at others, and neither can be changed. Rather, we should be praising children for their _efforts_, not their intelligence. From the NYmag article: > [@](#): > > “Emphasizing effort gives a child a variable that they can control,” she explains. “They come to see themselves as in control of their success. Emphasizing natural intelligence takes it out of the child’s control, and it provides no good recipe for responding to a failure.” ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2015, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/revenge-of-the-sidis/710999/5 "2015-01-27T17:58:53Z")
> [@Dutch Courage](#): > > So, Cece baby, what’s the straight dope? Was Sidis a misunderstood genius or a kook savant? And don’t call him _Cece baby_ ! ---
**Author:** ![74westy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/74westy/32/3950_2.png) [@74westy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/74westy)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2015, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/revenge-of-the-sidis/710999/6 "2015-01-27T18:48:12Z")
I noticed that the Wikipedia page begins > [@Wikipedia](#): > > William James Sidis (/ˈsaɪ dɪs/; April 1, 1898 – July 17, 1944) was an American Jew child prodigy The word “Jew” was added on Jan 24, 2015. I’m not an editor but perhaps someone who is wants to fix that? ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2015, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/revenge-of-the-sidis/710999/7 "2015-01-29T00:30:39Z")
The possibly-racist problem is fixed. I had nothing to do with either. ---
**Author:** ![Deeg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/deeg/32/2955_2.png) [@Deeg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Deeg)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2015, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/revenge-of-the-sidis/710999/8 "2015-01-29T03:04:53Z")
Cecil’s response includes this: > [@](#): > > One of his major contributions to world literature was a book about streetcar transfers, which a biographer described as “the most boring book ever written.” A few have professed to find deep meaning in this work and believe Sidis’s many unpublished writings would yield great truths if only we lesser folk (well, you lesser folk) had the wit to understand them. That could be written with little change about James Joyce.