Re: On nerds and dreamers

* Jörg Rhiemeier said on 2005-03-02 22:02:01 +0100
> A "nerd", as I understand the word, is someone who is single-mindedly
> pursuing one special field.  This type is especially common in the
> computer trade, and I learned to know many nerds when I was studying
> computer science in university.  These people do almost nothing
> without computers.  Their hobbies are computer programming, computer
> games, computer this and computer that.  At most, they play chess,
> or role-playing games, but the latter without actually role-playing,
> reducing the game to dice-rolling and rules-lawyering.  Some nerds
> conlang, but their conlangs are mostly loglangs, engelangs or other
> non-naturalist projects, often inspired by computer programming
> languages more than by human languages.  And there is almost never
> a conculture attached.
Yeez, Jörg? Bitter much? This characterization makes me a little angry.

Being a member of at least two computer clubs[*] I know a lot of
geeks/nerds and I consider myself to be one. (And they consider me to be
one, just so that is clear.) I do everything on my computer(s), but when
I rpg I prefer diceless, roleplay-heavy rpging, as does everyone I know
that I know rpgs, geeks/nerds or not. It's about maturity and access to
other systems of thought/rpgs than Dungeons and Dragons...

So, what would you call someone that are both a dreamer and a nerd/geek?

> Another personality type who is frequently mistaken for a nerd is
> the "dreamer".  Unlike the nerd, who isn't really all that imaginative,
> the dreamer is a very imaginative person.  [..]
[*] This town has AFAIK both the oldest university computer club and the
oldest rpg-club in the country, and a very big (half a dozen clubs) live
role play contigent.


t.