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."

Comments

Re:I'm in that boat

[MrFredBloggs]

"Nothing drastic, but he would tend to slur a couple words in the middle of long sentances"

Sounds like a quantisation error. You might want to think about upping the sample rate.

Re:this is evolution of mankind

[Skirwan]

Meanwhile, I stare at the corner of the ceiling with a beautific smile on my face, utterly content with what I have and who I am.

Dude, I hate to break it to you, but you're not a geek, you're a Buddhist.

Talk about misdiagnosis...

The dangers of sociotism

[Eugene O'Neil]

Sociotism is a mental disorder characterised by an undue obsession with social interaction and eye contact, which often interferes with healthy interests such as computer programming and science fiction.

Sociotistic people often band together in tightly-knit heirarchies, where social status is determined by subtle shifts in "body language" rather than skill or experience. Sociotistic children often play cruel tricks on their healthier playmates for no logical reason. They prefer brutal team-oriented games like football over healthy, abstract tests of individual merit, such as video games.

Victims of sociotism of all ages tend to be less intelligent than healthy people. They are capable of learning skills that have an obvious and immediate short-term benifit, but profoundly lack the social independance and intellectual curiosity needed to explore new frontiers of knowledge. As a result, sociotistic people rarely succeed in feilds such as science or engineering, and when they do succeed in these feilds it is usually only in a managerial capacity.

If you know anyone that fits the description of a sociotistic person, please pat them on the head in a sympathetic but condecending manner and tell them to get professional help for their obvious deficiencies. With any luck, we will some day discover powerful mind-altering drugs that will force these people to be as healthy and well-adjusted as we are.