Dr. Temple Grandin, an adult with autism who became a successful engineer, academic and speaker, believes that her disorder is an asset. She once famously called NASA a sheltered workshop for people with autism and Asperger Syndrome. She believes that people with autistic spectrum disorders are the great innovators, and "if the world was left to you socialites, nothing would get done and we would still be in caves talking to each other."
I'm not a fan of this quote. It really does dismiss the arts, the power of socializing, society, government, and largely the human experience.
I'm much, much closer in mentality to Temple and to be frank, her strawman socialite is weak sauce. I've spent much of my adulthood learning social skills I never picked up as a child or teenager and they in themselves have an incredible amount of power. Without the socialites we wouldn't have gotten on the moon because we'd be too busy in our basements making toothpick replicas of various Lord of The Ring battles. Honestly, NASA is a pretty poor example. The amount of politicking, career maneuvering, inter department competition, giant egos, public policy changes, new administrations, etc going on there would be unbearable to someone like Grandin.
Different evolutionary neurotypical strategies exist because they have value. One isn't "better" than another. Let's stop playing this game and accept that from a macro view there's a lot going on and its unfair to piss on or put one group on a pedestal. Its just too easy to do so. Ease and psychologically pleasing conclusions should always be seen with a critical eye.
I think this is also why extremist right-wing politics appeals to the geeky crowd. We like simple answers that rely on systems (free markets, no taxes) and don't understand how the social aspects (regulation, control, subsidizing for the poor) matter. To many they're just roadblocks to some idealized system that 'must work' because it makes sense on paper in a very simple way.
Oh well, here come the downvotes, but I really wish on a personal level that my own issues were addressed when I was younger. I learned long ago that, yes, I'm smart and creative and am able to do difficult things, but the price for that for a long time was misery, loneliness, confusion, and depression. I know its a cliche but the balanced really life is the best life. I don't want to be Temple Grandin the same way I don't want to be Paris Hilton. I wouldn't mind being Temple Hilton though.
People is not either autistic or socialite. Following the same (rhetoric) logic, "if the world was left to you autistic, humanity would extinguish in two generations tops".
I'm sure the special needs teachers who made that possible, and the taxpayers who fund them, are delighted to hear that. Maybe the socialites would still be in caves, but the "aspies" would be outside starving.
The symptoms of Asberger's are so indistinguishable from "being a dick" that they might as well be synonymous.
"Recruiters have noticed that the mental qualities that make a good computer programmer resemble those that might get you diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome... an addiction to repetitive tasks"
I think someone is forgetting one of the three virtues of programming: laziness.
Typing out class and function declarations, if-then-else constructs, and recompiling on a regular basis is tediously repetitive to most people. It doesn't necessarily mean you're repeating the same program. Likewise, most techno music sounds repetitive to the disinterested listener, notwithstanding the large relative variations that occur within the music.
I thought the same thing. If there's anything a good programmer shouldn't be doing, it's repetitive tasks. If you're coding the same thing over and over again, you're doing it wrong.
I wonder just how much I'm overreacting by feeling disgusted about the way that Asperger's, ADD and stuff like that are suddenly a thing of fashion. It seems to be a trendy thing for journalists to discuss and a sort of a fashion statement for geeks.
Maybe I'm wrong, but to me this is a rather simple matter: there are great people who happen to have Asperger's syndrome, ADD, dyslexia, autism or what have you, but unless someone proves some sort of link between their greatness and things they were diagnosed with, then that's just what it is -- people who happen to be both great and have one of the above.
As someone with ADD, I have trouble gaining and maintaining focus while ignoring distracting factors. However, in an environment where distractions are minimized (eg a traditional library), or where there is an agreed-upon system for handling distracting factors - some kinds of workplaces, or an understanding about personal space/time boundaries - then the flip side of this is an ability to stay focused on something for hours, days, weeks, if necessary and a capacity for very rapid adaption and innovation.
In film production, which I used to work at, a lot of people have ADD - but the highly procedural (and proceduralized) nature of the work optimizes for this. You need to be willing to keep doing the same thing until you get it right 10, 20 or more times in a row, but also to drop it and switch to something completely different at short notice if other conditions change. I have a strong hunch that people with ADD are considerably over-represented in the military as well.
And maybe the way Bill Gates rocks in his chair is low-level aspbergers and the incidence of aspbergers in men explains why men dominate the computer industry and possibly these disorders are both indicative of strength in the area and encouraged by the usage of technology.
Yeah, either that, or pop-science doesn't actually have much explanatory or prescriptive power in this area until they clear up their own messes with ADD diagnosis and poorly crafted studies.
I don't know about Bill Gates, but several of the people mentioned (e.g., CEO of Jetblue) have clinical diagnoses and would not have been able to be where they are without understanding their conditions.
Two of the three of those have prevalence rates at around 10% of the population, so if nothing else not effectively employing such people cuts your pool of potential employees by 10%...
It wasn't forced upon the employees; they were free to choose to take the cure or not. Personally, I think Moon's portrayal of the protagonist was overly dark and depressing (probably to shed some light into the kind of nasty shit that can happen to an autistic). Given the choice, I'd refuse the "cure".
I met a friend in college with real ADD. The type where the medication he takes is about 2 chemical reactions away from straight-up cocaine. One day, he forgot to take his meds, and I was talking to him at lunch. He was in the middle of a sentence, and he just... stopped. Completely frozen. Motionless, mid-gesture, staring off into space. He stayed like this for close to a full minute, and just as I was about to ask him if he was ok, he yelled out "SHIT, WHERE'D IT GO!?!" Apparently the sentence he was saying evaporated from his head while he was in the process of speaking it.
So yeah, there really is such a thing as ADD. I won't contest that it's overdiagnosed to hell and back. I wouldn't be surprised if only 1 case in 100 is the real thing, or even 1 in 1,000. But there actually is a real thing, that exists, underneath all the misdiagnoses.
I appreciate the attempted compliment. It's nice to consider myself interesting and clever.
Unfortunately, it's not so nice when I'm unmedicated to lose my train of thought constantly, be totally distracted by small noises (think Doug the dog: "SQUIRREL!"), be totally manic and creative for two to four hours only to be beset by a terrible fog of malaise for the next few days or even week. But with a boost extra norepinephrine and dopamine, however, I can actually function as a human being and feel like I have control over my life.
Whatever peculiar chemical mixture I have, whether you'd like to call it ADD (or ADHD-PI) or some sort of minor bipolar disorder or depression or hypomania, has very real consequences on my life. Without medication, I am miserable. With it, I feel some semblance of what I would presume "normal" feels like. It doesn't fix all of my problems - my memory recording and recall skills are still very poor and my ability to manage my time is a challenge, which has taken years of practice to compensate for - but it stabilizes me emotionally and mentally so that I can actually focus on living my life vs. using all my faculties up struggling to do basic things like dishes or laundry.
Now I'd like to turn the discussion back to you: what's with your hostility to people who aren't like you?
As cynicalkane said, you say this because you haven't met people who are very serious affected by these illnesses. These people will greatly disagree with you: yes, they are interesting and clever, but they do _suffer_ from their afflictions. Saying that these conditions do not exist discourages those individuals from seeking diagnosis and accommodations for their conditions.
For example, an individual with ADD [1] might be very intelligent but will be unable to focus on timed tests and will suffer from worse academic performance. If they're unaware of their ADD diagnosis they and others around them will think they are lazy and/or stupid; this becomes a self fulfilling prophecy.
Being diagnosed with ADD doesn't just mean a prescription for medicine, it can instead mean being allowed to take more time on a test or to take the test in a closed office. This can mean they have a chance to be admitted to a university and be exposed to intellectually stimulating material (whether it's computer science, physics, economics, or philosophy).
I had a co-worker with Asperger's Syndrome. It was actually quite fascinating to me, since I'm a big science/medicine geek.
The amazing thing was that you could pull a list of symptoms from wikipedia or the Merck Manual and put a check mark next to each one with this guy.
Smart guy and very pleasant, but it was apparent his lack of social awareness was very challenging to him. I would get frustrated sometimes and other coworkers would be very aware of my frustration but this guy was completely unaware.
I have ADD, and my diagnosis comes courtesy of a leading researcher in the field. I like to think that I am also interesting and clever, and there are aspects of the condition that are a positive asset, but these are offset by considerable disadvantages. I can tell you meant your comment positively, but it comes across as ignorant and obnoxious.
wannabe big soon companies want socially nice ppl . very few companies hire for shear capacity because their culture can not handle it ... capacity is looked at with fear since plain jon/jane can not simply grok ...
is it a problem ? well really its a opportunity ...
[+] [-] poundy|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] drzaiusapelord|13 years ago|reply
I'm much, much closer in mentality to Temple and to be frank, her strawman socialite is weak sauce. I've spent much of my adulthood learning social skills I never picked up as a child or teenager and they in themselves have an incredible amount of power. Without the socialites we wouldn't have gotten on the moon because we'd be too busy in our basements making toothpick replicas of various Lord of The Ring battles. Honestly, NASA is a pretty poor example. The amount of politicking, career maneuvering, inter department competition, giant egos, public policy changes, new administrations, etc going on there would be unbearable to someone like Grandin.
Different evolutionary neurotypical strategies exist because they have value. One isn't "better" than another. Let's stop playing this game and accept that from a macro view there's a lot going on and its unfair to piss on or put one group on a pedestal. Its just too easy to do so. Ease and psychologically pleasing conclusions should always be seen with a critical eye.
I think this is also why extremist right-wing politics appeals to the geeky crowd. We like simple answers that rely on systems (free markets, no taxes) and don't understand how the social aspects (regulation, control, subsidizing for the poor) matter. To many they're just roadblocks to some idealized system that 'must work' because it makes sense on paper in a very simple way.
Oh well, here come the downvotes, but I really wish on a personal level that my own issues were addressed when I was younger. I learned long ago that, yes, I'm smart and creative and am able to do difficult things, but the price for that for a long time was misery, loneliness, confusion, and depression. I know its a cliche but the balanced really life is the best life. I don't want to be Temple Grandin the same way I don't want to be Paris Hilton. I wouldn't mind being Temple Hilton though.
[+] [-] s8qnze982y|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gaius|13 years ago|reply
The symptoms of Asberger's are so indistinguishable from "being a dick" that they might as well be synonymous.
[+] [-] jere|13 years ago|reply
I think someone is forgetting one of the three virtues of programming: laziness.
http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?LazinessImpatienceHubris
[+] [-] anigbrowl|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Sunlis|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] CodeMage|13 years ago|reply
Maybe I'm wrong, but to me this is a rather simple matter: there are great people who happen to have Asperger's syndrome, ADD, dyslexia, autism or what have you, but unless someone proves some sort of link between their greatness and things they were diagnosed with, then that's just what it is -- people who happen to be both great and have one of the above.
[+] [-] anigbrowl|13 years ago|reply
In film production, which I used to work at, a lot of people have ADD - but the highly procedural (and proceduralized) nature of the work optimizes for this. You need to be willing to keep doing the same thing until you get it right 10, 20 or more times in a row, but also to drop it and switch to something completely different at short notice if other conditions change. I have a strong hunch that people with ADD are considerably over-represented in the military as well.
[+] [-] j_baker|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tmcw|13 years ago|reply
Yeah, either that, or pop-science doesn't actually have much explanatory or prescriptive power in this area until they clear up their own messes with ADD diagnosis and poorly crafted studies.
[+] [-] strlen|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] roguecoder|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gshakir|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] brudgers|13 years ago|reply
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000FC1B2Y/ref=pd_lpo_k2_dp...
[+] [-] kstenerud|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] losethos|13 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] excuse-me|13 years ago|reply
If we were in charge we would have medical terms for "unable to set the clock on a VCR" and "unable to read a book when Oprah is on"
But fortunately we don't care what a bunch of dreary moron office drones think of us - even when we bother to notice them.
[+] [-] lmkg|13 years ago|reply
So yeah, there really is such a thing as ADD. I won't contest that it's overdiagnosed to hell and back. I wouldn't be surprised if only 1 case in 100 is the real thing, or even 1 in 1,000. But there actually is a real thing, that exists, underneath all the misdiagnoses.
[+] [-] coridactyl|13 years ago|reply
Unfortunately, it's not so nice when I'm unmedicated to lose my train of thought constantly, be totally distracted by small noises (think Doug the dog: "SQUIRREL!"), be totally manic and creative for two to four hours only to be beset by a terrible fog of malaise for the next few days or even week. But with a boost extra norepinephrine and dopamine, however, I can actually function as a human being and feel like I have control over my life.
Whatever peculiar chemical mixture I have, whether you'd like to call it ADD (or ADHD-PI) or some sort of minor bipolar disorder or depression or hypomania, has very real consequences on my life. Without medication, I am miserable. With it, I feel some semblance of what I would presume "normal" feels like. It doesn't fix all of my problems - my memory recording and recall skills are still very poor and my ability to manage my time is a challenge, which has taken years of practice to compensate for - but it stabilizes me emotionally and mentally so that I can actually focus on living my life vs. using all my faculties up struggling to do basic things like dishes or laundry.
Now I'd like to turn the discussion back to you: what's with your hostility to people who aren't like you?
[+] [-] strlen|13 years ago|reply
For example, an individual with ADD [1] might be very intelligent but will be unable to focus on timed tests and will suffer from worse academic performance. If they're unaware of their ADD diagnosis they and others around them will think they are lazy and/or stupid; this becomes a self fulfilling prophecy.
Being diagnosed with ADD doesn't just mean a prescription for medicine, it can instead mean being allowed to take more time on a test or to take the test in a closed office. This can mean they have a chance to be admitted to a university and be exposed to intellectually stimulating material (whether it's computer science, physics, economics, or philosophy).
[+] [-] refurb|13 years ago|reply
The amazing thing was that you could pull a list of symptoms from wikipedia or the Merck Manual and put a check mark next to each one with this guy.
Smart guy and very pleasant, but it was apparent his lack of social awareness was very challenging to him. I would get frustrated sometimes and other coworkers would be very aware of my frustration but this guy was completely unaware.
Like I said, pretty interesting...
[+] [-] cynicalkane|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] anigbrowl|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] swedenborg|13 years ago|reply
is it a problem ? well really its a opportunity ...
the most wanted ppl. is free for hire ...
[+] [-] Karunamon|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] anigbrowl|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] swedenborg|13 years ago|reply