Slashdot Mirror
Wired on Autism in the Valley
digaman writes: "The December issue of Wired magazine contains an article of mine on what appears to be an upsurge in autism among the children of programmers and engineers in Silicon Valley: "The Geek Syndrome." A complicated issue, explored in depth. I hear the California Department of Developmental Services is launching a research project to investigate the questions raised in the article."
Software development is one of the few fields where extreme ability in technical tasks and an inability to socialize properly are welcome and in fact may be encouraged as being part of the "culture".
You mean linux programming, not software engineering. Socialisation is an important part of software engineering.
You should never let geeks interbreed. I'm just surprised they breed at all...!
"Information wants to be paid"
This is an entirely social problem that has very little (if anything at all) to do with genetics. Look at how it is diagnosed: you are diagnosed on a very vague scale of normalcy in several areas. If you're not normal, you're autistic.
Well, guess what? If you don't know how to be normal, it's because you weren't ever taught to be normal. Even the autistic parents have an idea of normalcy, but if they lack the skills to teach normalcy to their kids, hello autistic children.
Now, when is this most likely to happen? Well, let's say Christine is a poor child of one of these incompetent couples. She's six months old, and both her parents work twelve hour days while she stays in daycare. Level of human interaction? Approximately none. Time until she turns autistic? According to the article, eighteen months until her lack of taught normalcy outweighs the normal instinctive behaviour she is born with.
When I went through college, I saw all the smart people. Most of them weren't attracted to "The Valley," maybe because they wanted to spend time with their girlfriends and wives, but of the dozens that I knew, only two of them were antisocial like that. And I can tell you that when I meet them today, their children don't have any problems, either. As for the other two, I haven't seen them in years, but I hear that Wilfred is in San Jose, and Norm is in Seattle.
Really, this is just masturbation. Some of these people crave the attention that they can't get through normal human interactions like the rest of us have. Well, short of taking them away from their parents, there isn't much that can be done. Hi Christine! You're special, here's your stupid cookie.
Being Liberal should be a Crime!
Oh wait, that's autism... Oh well, I suppose the press thinks anything that's not selfish is retarted. They will catch up one day.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
For example, virtually ALL animals communicate using body language. Significantly, Aspies can't pick up the signals. They are deficient in this capability. One study discovered that they just don't pay any attention to a speaker's face. Trying to argue that there is something wrong with people who can both send and receive in multiple modes is a difficult stretch.
Similarly, severe Aspies may seem more intelligent, but their intelligence often seems very constrained. They take a lot for granted in ways that are surprising for such "smart" people. A disproportionate number don't seem to comprehend that Ayn Rand is evil.
They're also alienated from their bodies in ways that make it impossible for them to experience the kinds of physical pleasure that normal folk do.
They also seem to be really bad spellers, but I think that may just be a problem with our education system. ("hierarchies", "benefit", "independence", "fields" "condescending")
And let the angel whom thou still hast serv'd tell thee ...