My Childhood Death Spiral — LessWrong
My parents always used to downplay the value of intelligence. And play up the value of—effort, as recommended by the latest research? No, not effort. Experience. A nicely unattainable hammer with which to smack down a bright young child, to be sure. That was what my parents told me when I questioned the Jewish religion, for example. I tried laying out an argument, and I was told something along the lines of: "Logic has limits, you'll understand when you're older that experience is the important thing, and then you'll see the truth of Judaism." I didn't try again. I made one attempt to question Judaism in school, got slapped down, didn't try again. I've never been a slow learner. Whenever my parents were doing something ill-advised, it was always, "We know better because we have more experience. You'll understand when you're older: maturity and wisdom is more important than intelligence." If this was an attempt to focus the young Eliezer on intelligence uber alles, it was the