POLL: Scholar, Polymath, Professional & Autodidact: Which Are You?

whither ‘I am a ducking dumbass’?

dilettante

so dumb i can’t even spell ‘fucking’

i mean *really* lazy dilettante

My field is small and I contribute on stuff that other people all agree is important but nobody else wants to do the work on, if that makes sense.

impostor iirc

Not really sure where I fit in this. Definitely not a "recognized contributor" in anything. Have college-level scholarship that spanned a broad range of topics including English and French lit, music, and critical theory, with an honors thesis on electronic music, but hold no advanced degrees. I'm widely conversant in the arts and pop culture, and play and write on multiple musical instruments. I've worked in the professional world for nearly 20 years, but am not credentialed in any particular way.

yeah dilettante is missing; so is amateur (in its root sense of "labor of love."

Voted autodidact because it seemed closest. I was trained, sort of, in three more or less moribund trades: journalism, English, and philosophy. That I am employed at all is a continuing mystery.

That's probably right for me too. Even though I'm not completely self-taught, I can't say that I have tons of hard scholarship under my belt. My major in college was chosen specifically for its purposeful lack of focus.

Autodidact is closest, I guess. I'd rather just call myself a reader. I have an advanced degree, but I mainly read outside of that degree.

Autodidact is probably too serious, dilettante too light, connoisseur too pretentious. It's hard to find the right word. I'd rather just call myself a reader too.

full-time dreamah

dilettante

100%

in the kingdom of the fuckwits, the one-eyed dilettante gets called a weirdo!

Bounder

what the lazy people said

ive honours degrees in two essentially unrelated disciplines neither of which i really use in my job, which itself involves very little of anything.

thinking of getting a third honours degree that would bridge the gap between the current ones i still wouldn't use it but work would pay for it i reckon

outside of work i distrust expertise

i'm still p good at unreal tournament

uh the list is missing "handsome as fuck genius"

"but lazy"

One thing about what I do is that if the thing you’ve made doesn’t have an API, it’s not real, for some people- but my contributions are specifically about the people problems, not the engineering problems, because we’re already covered up in technical “solutions”

Technically I guess I'm a Scholar, but Autodidact is far more accurate of where I'm coming from.

When I put together the list of options I was thinking Autodidact or Not in These Categories would be the runaway vote-getters. I considered Amateur and Dilettante, but these are just variations of autodidact in most cases, imo.

what about an academic whose contributions are ignored?

I’m just a wage laborer who occasionally goes into reveries about metaphysics, I’d be the perfect person for someone more functional to meet in an amusing anecdote.

Professional cause I'm boring

recognized crank in multiple fields of knowledge

which answer is "I instinctively recoil at the thought of identifying as any of these, the same way I'd recoil at the thought of identifying as a sapiosexual or whatever"

what about an academic whose contributions are ignored?

katherine: read more than five of the options

i actually have a professional career at this point, but the stuff i know most about is of marginal professional value and is just stuff i picked up on the side

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

No "Budding crank," no credibility.

I'd select 'autodidact' from the available poll options, 'dilettante' from the options suggested by others itt. Left to my own self-description I'd probably go with 'jack of all offs'.

"budding"? cranks here (myself included) tend to be more full-blown than todd rundgren

"I probably fit the classic profile of an autodidact, who knows a tremendous amount, but who is so isolated from the community that tests and ratifies 'correct' knowledge that my base of knowledge is amorphous and often uncertain."

oh then i guess this is me too (good summary aimless)

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

(strokes chin. slightly purses lips)

very interesting results. very ilxy. many, many bright people and 12.5% complainers.

many selfdescribed independent thinking experts

and dont underrate how many of em wouldve complained as a second choice

I am much better at complaining than I am at knowing stuff tbf.

i'm not much of a complainer but not a smart guy either. just happy to be here