I had a few advantages. I'm one of those people that "learns by osmosis", my brain just sucks up information wether I want it to or not. I never paid attention in school, I never had to, I just sat there reading science fiction novels while a subconscious part of my brain did all the listening and learning. I was always a straight A student.
I also have an eidetic memory and I never had to study anything, I read it once and I remember it. At the beginning of every school year they issue you with a new set of text books, I'd sit down and read them over the weekend. That was exams and tests taken care of for the rest of the year.
From a very young age I started watching the news and taking notice of world events, I always had an interest in that sort of thing. Then when I was 11 my father got poached by a union, he has the exact same mental abilities as me, the union sent him to university to study Constitutional Law and then they employed him as an Industrial Advocate, the union's own lawyer.
During this time while my father was studying he talked through a lot of what he was learning with me. We actually never liked each other and never got along but I was the only one he could talk to that was actually interested so I basically got an ad-hoc education there as well.
Other than that I was always interested in pretty much everything except team sports.
Believe me, I'm no angel.

Probably more harmless than most though.
People are just people to me and I take them as they are. I was never a big fan of racism, bigotry or any other form of bullying and I tend to have rather strong reactions when I see it happening. For some reason I was never able to stick up for myself but if I see someone else getting picked on I instantly become the scariest monster in the room.
Childhood trauma.