He was a socialist and was arrested during a May day protest. He was tried and convicted of sedition. The media attention and the fact that America was in the middle of the Red Scare made sure that he didn't get a fair trial. His parents made a deal to have him serve the sentence suspended and also be confined to a sanatorium for a year. This really changed his world view and he became very distrustful of media attention and central authority. Before these events he wasn't really bothered by the attention and he liked having public intellectual discourse.

That guy's name?

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FYI William James Sidis (Wikipedia)

Show me a guy who just jacks off at home all day and I’ll show you a guy who’s not causing any trouble.

Also obsessed with tranfer tickets, would chase them down in the street, wrote a whole book about collecting them and would bore the fuck out of anyone who would listen about them.

"Ambition" is often just a "bell curve meme" situation, lol.

He understood that money and fame don't really make you happy

i am in no way “smart” and all that but i have subjects i love to learn about. mostly philosophy and “thought about thought.”

one of the things that depresses me is how I kind of wish to be stranded on an island with unlimited free time to read and think. like if i were to die and end up in some sort of afterlife, i would miss most the lost time i had to simply learn stuff.

sometimes that spirals me. sigh.

William James Sidis

Sidis deserves to be remembered. Not only was he smart, but he seemed like a genuinely good and reasonable person too. I also like that he took great interest in anthropology and languages. If I remember correctly, he even developed a couple of languages himself because he was fascinated by it.

graduated CUM LAUDE in 1914 at 16.