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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."
hmm.. I wonder why that is... (as I read the article with my laptop in my lap)
Did they ever consider it not a disease, but lack of teaching? Most geeks lack social skills and are poor at picking up social clues. Now, if they have children, where will their children learn this from?
Fight Spammers!
I've read that the levels of pollution in SV are pretty mind-boggling. While software development is "pollution free" (except for the crap we developers eat that mascarades as food), other industry there has not been so kind to the soil and water.
As Salon points out in this article, the situation is pretty dire.
From the New Almaden Mine in the Santa Cruz mountains, to the "largest plumes of poisoned groundwater in the United States, over 3 miles long and 180 feet deep, contaminated with xylene, toluene and other volatile organic compounds, including the chlorinated solvent trichloroethane (TCA)" that IBM left behind when manufacturing disk drives, there are some serious problems.
O's R would suggest that we look at this first, rather than at the genetics of the parents. Birds of a feather have flocked together for centuries, with no apparent ill effects.
Love or Hate him, virtually everyone of those articles about Gates having Asperger's use it to sneer - I guess technically-handicapped have got to try and make themselves feel superior again somehow.
This perception of Asperger's is similar in someways to Dyslexia - also perceived of as a handicap or disease but in fact perfectly normal. Some recent research indicates that a common cause of dyslexia seems to happen because of the selective death of particular brain cells - but the flip side of this is that these people seem to be extremely good at visual-spatial tasks and particularly making mental maps. It's postulated that it would be a great advantage to a tribe of hunter/gatherers to have a few such members among their company.
Similarly to Asperger's, in the age of the purly written word dyslexia became a handicap - but as our use of media becomes richer and more varied increasingly the ability to think visually is becoming an advantage again (and we have spell-checkers now too!)
Bottom line - evolution has equipped the human mind to come in many different flavours - it's our definition of 'normal' which is incorrect, not people with Asperger's, Dyslexia or any on of a myriad of other different mental gifts.
The "conclusion" that has been [almost] reached is that the cause of the weirdness in Nick is the same as the cause of the similar (attenuated) weirdness in each of his parents. The suggestion is genetic predisposition. The parents' occupations are effects, not causes.
Premise: "Nick" is acting weird.
Premise: His parents are software engineers.
Conclusion: Nick's behavior is an effect of his parents' occupation.
Let's explore your simple minded interpretations of the article using some of the context from the article.
The BBC has an interesting article that gives some real numbers. The article says that about "pervasive developmental disorders" are running at a rate of about 46 per 10,000, and full out autism is about 17 per 10,000.
The future isn't what it used to be.
There has been a similar upsurge in cases of autism in the UK which has generated considerable publicity because the growth has been linked to the triple MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) vacine.
i d_1687000/1687967.stm) It seems as though there are considerable vested interests on the side of those in support of the MMR vacine.
The theory is that in a small percentage of cases the vacine triggers some type of bowel disfunction which causes the children considerable pain and autism is a neurological feedback from this condition. Unfortunately, the condition seems permanent regardless.
The doctor in the UK who was the first to suggest that there may be a link has just been forced from his position in a London Teaching Hospital even though he is a world-renowned expert in the field of bowel disfunction in children. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/uk/england/news
Parents with young children should perhaps consider whether there is indeed a link between the two because autism seems a very high price pay when single vacine alternatives are available.
Society is the abberation, not us. Society should conform to nature, not we to they. Yes, I am one like the article describes. And when it comes to academia, I simply perform. Learning takes about 1/10 the effort for me than it does for my neurotypical friends. In a world quickly changing to favor technology, it is people like me who will shape humanity within the next few centuries. We are a force against the consumeration and against the domestication of the human species. Perhaps this is even the beginning of a split somewhat like races in Welles' Time Machine.
Don't fear the change. Embrace it.
it's also been proven that kids who have small pets (cats, dogs, ..) are better to notify body language and emotions and so.. so all geeks in silicon valley should adopt a cat for their children..
Learn about pinball machines on www.flippers.be
One of the things I have been finding out a lot about recently is aspergers due to living with the daughter of an expert.
We ahve been toying with ideas about links between people suffering from high functioning aspergers syndrome and people who work in professions such as IT, especially development. This is mainly because with aspergers the only major outward impairment of the individual is with social interraction and social awareness and this coupled with tendency to obsess over repetitive detail means that aspergers sufferers fit the mould of good programmers.
I don't know enough about the syndrome to know if it is passed on through genes, but one could postulate if there is a group with a higher than average make up of the disease who are breeding amongst themselves it might possibly lead to a significent level of new cases compared to the national average.
Even today a lot of aspergers cases are misdiagnosed as straight autism.
Here for more information on aspergers and the differences between it and autism
Working for the (other) man
I not in CA, I'm in NY, but a programmer all the same. Yes I've bought my 4 yo son every electronic toy in the store, and he's addicted to computers just like me.
/. population could be considered autistic.
He had a problem with speech not too long ago. Nothing drastic, but he would tend to slur a couple words in the middle of long sentances. We had a speech therapist visit once a week for a couple months. She decided he must be autistic. She went on to explain that they (phsycologists) are finding that there are several levels of autism. I asked to see the criteria for determining autism. I was expecting to find some scientific process for testing. What she handed me was a booklet similar to this, with all the criteria used to judge a child.
For those of you that follow the link, you can see how subjective and innacurate the evaluation is. Basically, if you are not considered "Perfect" based on some arbitrary set of standards, then you must be autistic. Based on that test, probably 80% of the
I truly doubt there is an increase in autism, just an increase in the number of children they are diagnosing as autistic. I never believed or trusted in psychologist in the first place. This just reassures me that they are as bad as lawyers, only caring about getting more clients and more money than actually helping anyone with real problems.
"bringing a plague down on the best minds of the next generation"
I have some symptoms of autism (I'm sure I'm not alone), and have done a fair bit of reading on it. It seems very common that with autisms come some very great intellectual gifts - eg. Rainman. Some these kids need a lot of help, but I have to question whether autism is really a curse.
I'm no expert, but it seems to me that mildly autistic people often get better themselves (usually after puberty), and still retain their mental gifts. IMHO we should be trying to develop and harness the abilities of these kids rather than trying to make them normal.
Finally some (non-expert) advice. This is just stuff that would have helped me when I was younger. If your kid is really autistic, you need professional help:
Let them do their own thing. Many things which are normal for most people are very stressful for autistic people, they need their own routine / fantasy world / etc. to relax and get them selves together. I would suggest managing a team of specialists for your kid 80 hours a week is not the best approach. At the same time, it's important not to let them obsess for hours on end. Find something they like to break the routine occaisionally.
Find some physical excercise they enjoy. In school predominantly team sports are played, autistics typically don't like these. Try individual or one-on-one sports. Excercise I got into (in spite of being very non-physical) included swimming, running, tennis and martial arts. Creative pursuits are also good - particularly visual arts and music.
Above all, remember that your kid does not have to be normal - no-one is. For every time you lament their lack of friends or weird behaviour there will be a time you are amazed at their accomplishments.
I used to also believe that ADD was a load of hooey. Until I met my college roommate, John. Nice guy, very creative, very cool.
He had a much more extreme case of ADD than I had seen. When he forgot to take his ritalin, he was unable to get anything done. I don't just mean homework, I mean he wasn't able to stay focused on tv or video games or projects he was working on to procrastinate doing homework. He found that extremely frustrating. When medicated he was still extremely creative and imaginative, but he could put those abilities to use for more than 5 minutes at a shot.
Now, I will be the first to admit that ADD is overdiagnosed, but to say that it's just a stupid name for kids who are simply different is to deny people like John any medical assistance, and to condem him to a life of spinning his mental wheels, when he'd rather take the perscribed drugs to balance his brain chemistry so he can do the stuff that he wants to.
Trees can't go dancing
So do them a big favor
Pretend dancing stinks!
Well, according to my family, I was a pretty happy and good kid until 2, then "it" started. I was unruly and unmanageable, and just not "ordinary". I was diagnosed as autistic, and supposedly highly intelligent. Most of my problems were behavioural (tantrums, outburts,etc) and later I was "hyperactive". I spent most of late childhood/early adolescence on medication.
;)
Now I am in my late 20's and can honestly say that I am of average or even above-average intelligence, and pretty much fit the description of any of those children. I will admit that pop-culture diagnoses like those in the article are like reading horoscopes alot of the time, but then I see this "social interactions, motor skills, sensory processing, and a tendency toward repetitive behavior" and "Marked impairment in the use of nonverbal behaviors such as eye-to-eye gaze, facial expression, body posture, and gestures to regulate social interaction."
It friggin sucks to be like this when others are around. I feel fine when its just me, alone. Then I am "normal". Or maybe it's all another marketable designer disease to capitalise on an information overloaded society. All those wired kids from (wealthy) wired parents ready for the diagnosing. Maybe our species is slowly evolving into specialised groups. We have races that developed along climatological and geographical lines to adapt to the environment, so I have no problem thinking that maybe this is just darwinian environmental pressures in action. There is alot of information out there, and alot of it is highly specialised, requiring a certain mind ( or wetware configuration?)
I don't mean that people like this are superior or anything, although in the short-term it may have an advantage in our economy, but that is only on the scale of a few generations. I am thinking more in terms of ourselves as a species. We have "geeks", "atheletes", "artists" and the ever-numerous "sheeple", which have always been around to an extent, maybe our species is specialising in order to cope with the amount of information neccessary to survive.
How many people can run a triathalon, code up a small mail agent, cook a gourmet dinner, perform simple surgery if the need arose, interpret the latest precedent-setting court case, sculpt a piece of greco-roman inspired art, and read a book to your kids at night? I don't know about you, but I have hard time just getting out of the bed, my stupid body refuses to hear the damn alarm clock sometimes
Anyways, I have shit social skills, avoid the company of others, and am basically a misfit. I am not pulling in the huge IT bucks, so despite my intelligence, I won't get the sexy AND intelligent wife, fast car, and nice clothes (in that order please).
So, how many slashdotters out there are well-adjusted, sociable geeks (Hmm, oxymoron?), and how many of you are/have been diagnosed as being "different" from your fellow homo sapiens?
< raises hand >
Having dealt with _many_ psychologists at the undergraduate level, particularly in the teaching of statisitics and computing, I feel comfortable saying that it is the science (and I use the word loosely) in which the scientific method fails to rear its head most frequently.
Articles like this are exactly the kind of crap that fail to distinguish correlation from causation. That is assuming that there is some empirical evidence to suggest that there is an actual rise, a fact which the article supports with:
[For Rick Rollens, former secretary of the California Senate and cofounder of the MIND Institute, the notion that there is a frightening increase in autism worldwide is no longer in question. "Anyone who says this epidemic is due to better diagnostics," he says, "has his head in the sand."]
rant
Now theres an objective analysis from a double blind researcher NOT. And only last night I saw the South park episode where all the kids are given Ritilin. Alternative therapy - gee well maybe there aint nothin' wrong with most of them so just leave them alone and let them work out via peer groups that you shouldn't wear stupid clothes for a bet. Most of us geeks got a bit of a kicking when we were at school and whilst it is not ideal it is pretty much human behaviour 101 that we attack that which makes us feel insecure and from my experience the most attacking were the most insecure so "get over it"
\rant
"The first thing to do when you find yourself in a hole is stop digging."
There are plenty of serious diseases that are "just genetics". PKU, sickle-cell anemia, even things like an elevated predisposition to breast cancer are "just genetics".
While I agree with your conclusion that labels and drugs are not the answer, I don't see how it's relevant whether a disease's origins are genetic or not. In some ways you could even argue that genetic oddities should get *more* attention than ones that are more behavioral, given that you have control over your behavior but not over your genes...
"Biped! Good cranial development. Evidently considerable human ancestry."
From famous painters who cut off their own ears, to the antisocial Einstein, there has never in history been a single gifted person that wasn't 'disabled' in one way or another. That's the main reason I'm proud to be schitzophrenic.
The more skilled a person is, the less 'normal' they seem. Personally, schizophrenia has made it difficult to hold focused conversations. My mind just doesn't work in straight lines, but that also means I think of things that other people do not. While everyone else is focused on what they think the problem might be, I pull something out of left field and it makes sense.
I personally don't believe that mental illness brings about superb abilites, but that it is the abilities that cause the brain to function in an abnormal way. The human form is the most adaptable creature around, and that applies to the mind as well. I believe that if the person chooses to be adept at something, their brain begins to work in a way that most suits the person. Of course that may mean some other skills are negated, that doesn't mean the excentricites of these people are a bad thing, only that in the eyes of society, something is wrong with them.
I.E. If I was to go around mumbling to myself all day, people would believe I should be institutionalize. Not because I've done something wrong, just because they don't like the looks of it. In other words, the problem is not with the people (they can usually function just fine) but with societies' views on what a person should look, act, and be like.
Just as it used to be considered a bad thing to be a geek, it is considered bad to act different. Now geekdom is seen as something good and benefitial and is pretty much accepted. One people realize the strange behaviors are a harbinger of talent, those types of people will eventually gain acceptance.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
"It's like a planned obsolescence in the intelligence of the species."
Good observation, nicely worded too!
You mustn't forget intellectuals' breeding patterns anyway. Intellectuals breed with negative population growth. (i.e. 2 intellectuals have 2.0 children on average). i.e. Intellectuals are destined to become outnumbered anyway. (However, that doesn't mean that they won't be a dominating minority - the majority of South Africans were black, the dominant minority white, for example).
However I'm not convinced, from reading the article, that the thing is hugely genetic anyway. I think that, as always, the socialisation that the children get in the first few years of life governs how schizophrenic (i.e. detached) the child will develop. Maybe the intellectual parents _nurture_ detached children.
(i.e. it is more like self-inflicting obselescence.)
FatPhil
Also FatPhil on SoylentNews, id 863
If thats true, why do people treat autism like its a disease, when its just genetics.
WTF does that mean? There are many inherited diseases. For example, Thallasemia - the most common monogenic (single gene) disorder in the world. Or sickle cell disease. Or Cyctic fibrosis. Or Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy. Or Prader-Willi Syndrome. Or DiGeorge syndrome. Or Angelmann syndrome. I could go on....
All these are considered "syndromes" or "Diseases", despite the fact thay are at least in part "genetic". In fact, many of the worlds most common diseases (including autism) are the result of a combination of environmental and inherited factors - so called "multifactorial" disorders. Such as diabetes, heart disease, or cancer.
Instead of focusing on labeling people and giving them drugs
Labelling people is actually pretty important step of helping them. For example:
Doctor1: "this man need's help"
Doctor2: "Whats wrong with him?"
Doctor1: "Er, he's got that thing, you know, the doobree, where they are, er, a bit shy. Talk funny, oh c'mon... you must know it!"
Who said we were just giving them drugs? From the article
"In the last 20 years, significant advances have been made in developing methods of behavioral training that help autistic children find ways to communicate. These techniques, however, require prodigious amounts of persistence, time, money, and love. Though more than half a century has passed since Kanner and Asperger first gave a name to autism, there is still no known cause, no miracle drug, and no cure. "
if they end up becoming the next einstiens is it worth it?
Yes. There's no point in being a genius if you are unable to communicate your idea's. Or if you are isolated, unhappy and socially inept. I would much rather be socially included in society, than be a genius outsider.
This is a _good_ article. It covers all the bases- has the guts to see that people on the spectrum are capable of things that stun and astonish NT humans- and isn't afraid to also confront the fact that this comes at a price- if we breed as if we were some superior race, we are FSCKED, producing children who... well, if we are 'overclocked' then our potential kids can be 'thermal meltdown', virtually incapable of functioning. A daunting thought... and we are the LEAST capable of humans, as far as dealing with heavy personal needs of others.
We've always been around. The whole stereotype of the Eccentric German Professor is pure autism. Albert Einstein dealt with this sort of thing- for instance, he couldn't remember his own phone number. "Why should I when I can write it down?" People say that what he could remember, most people couldn't even imagine- at the same time, the guy couldn't remember his own phone number! It's not simple eccentricity or wilful decision to flout the expectations of society. It's NOT just PR.
My favorite way of describing it is subroutines. Most people are more pre-emptive- those of us who are far out along the spectrum can hit amazing peaks of 'processing' but don't necessarily have the control over when it's happening. If that happens to me, I might go and get something and immediately not know what I was getting. At the same time, I also don't know what my mind is processing- it's in a subroutine, doing something that I don't know what it is. Solving some problem I might think of another day. In the immediate moment, I'm standing there looking like a fool. If it was just going to the fridge or whatever this would be less of a problem. I don't drive anymore- it took me too long to figure out that I dropped into subroutines even at the wheel- and five seconds between 'interrupts' isn't enough for driving. Fortunately I never hurt anybody- I'm not risking it any longer, license expired of old age and I'm not getting a new one.
What do I get to balance out these problems? Some stuff that's paid off a lot of the stress of getting this far. Some things that are subjective, some that are objective. Thankfully, self-awareness: we're as capable of self-awareness and wisdom as anybody, given the right information. I'm 33, so for most of my life the information I was given was 'you're just not trying to get along!' or some such crap. Better to know the truth with its curses AND blessings.
Nothing like a personal interest... anyhow, I think this is a really good article.
Marriage? Children? Not my problem- I ended up failing at being heterosexual, and discovering I could be gay just as easily, even be considered a hottie (most unexpected!). I've ended up mated with a guy, no desire to produce or raise children- if it wasn't for that I'd doubtless be a bachelor until I died. My 'line' will die with me.
I wonder how many of the important Free Software people are autistic? Is it that a level of autism ironically helps people understand and see deeper social benefit precisely BECAUSE we don't have the whirl of normal social interaction to distract us from what we're really doing? For a Bill Gates, this turns him to the dark side and he responds by rejecting it- 'OK, all the toys must be mine!' and doesn't have normal social restraints to suggest to him that this is bad. For a Richard Stallman, this turns him towards dedicated, unyielding determination to maximize social benefit at all costs- at the expense of his day-to-day social contacts, and the patience of those around him. Either way it's more focus than most people ever see, and that's the secret of it... a lot of people seem ready to make all sorts of compromises in their lives, that an autistic person may not be able to make. Which is a weakness and a strength- look at what RMS has been able to do by being singleminded..
There are a few people commenting on here how autism might actually be an advantage. Well, they clearly haven't come into contact with a seriously autistic child. It's not funny.
The last thing that
Last point: my authority to comment on this comes from:
Working with actuaries. Most of them make the average IT person look like the life and soul of the party. We have real trouble communicating requirements with them.
Having a stepdaughter with Aspergers. It is a frustrating problem for the child, but therapy can help.
Saying all that, often I'd rather be coding device drivers than talking to people.
This sig made only from recycled ASCII
I have a thought about autism. And it was to some extent assisted by Rainman, but even more by a book called The October Child. It seems that deeply autistic persons, see the raw data from which the rest of us are shielded to avoid the kind of sensory overload that causes autistic persons to retreat into ritual and routine.
For example, the Rainmain, counting toothpicks scene. We _all_ see the exact number of toothpicks but normal people have a filter which stops us from processing the raw data and as such we see "bunch of sticks" first and if we want detail then we concnetrate on extracting it. The autistic sees the raw data and knows it, but then they see the raw data in everything. Imagine how overwhelming that would be.
Consider also the musical "idiot savant" the order and pattern in music is a refuge for them to help coope with the cacophony of data with which they must otherwise deal.
Why is this relevant, well because maybe some of these filters are the result of socialisation by peers and by parents. It would seem that some of these kids are might be missing some of the processes that lead to this socialisation. Get any kid young enough and they will wear something stupid for a bet.
(This is also an interesting prompt for a theme for a book, but that is my secret)
"The first thing to do when you find yourself in a hole is stop digging."
I hate to say this, but I think most of the disorders and non-bacterial, non-viral diseases that are on the rise are explained by two things: women's liberation and environmental contamination.
;-)
The first might seem like a silly joke, but think about what's different today in the mating game from what was the norm in almost all of human history until it started changing in the last 60 years. Traditionally, marriage had little at all to do with common interests, and nothing to do with common professions. Male-dominated society meant that men would engage in professions and women, if they were in a working class, worked at common "women's jobs" like straight factory work or sewing or teaching/watching young children. People didn't marry because of anything they had in common. People usually married based on convenience, friendships between families, whoever lived nearby, whatever wife they could afford, etc.
By contrats, today women and men meet, date, then marry, and most of the people they meet work in similar professions and therefore have similar interests and if those interests are determined genetically, similar genes. It's like a mild, remote form of inbreeding. More often than not techies marry techies, teachers marry teachers, scientists marry scientists, lawyers marry lawyers, etc. The result over time is to reinforce those genetic factors which are common between these people who have married and procrated thanks to common interests or employment. And if some of those traits have slightly negative side-effects, then those side-effects will become more pronounced. Add in this selective breeding over several generations, and well--you're looking at a pronounced enhancement of both the positives and negatives inherent in genes which cause one to have a predisposition towards certain vocations.
Second, I think we can't deny that we've changed our environment significantly, particularly in the area of foodstuffs and radiation. We now eat more and more genetically enhanced food--some of it enhanced through centuries of selective breeding, such as the milk we drink and the meat we eat, and some of it more recently enhanced through artificial hormones which may leave traces in that food--such as, again, milk and meat, and now even some vegetable foods. For at least 6 years people have expressed concern that hormones in milk may be contributing to the progressively earlier ages at which girls are hitting puberty, and that perhaps the same hormones contribute to cancer. Whether that's true or not, surely some of our food additives and genetic enhancements have effects we cannot measure or imagine. I'm not saying to go organic--I liberally at such altered foodstuffs--but I am saying only a person with his head in the sand would refuse to realize that some of our alterations to our food, whether genetic or chemical, have to have effects we don't fully understand yet.
The same is true of radiation. I'm not a nut who insists on not using cell phones because they allegedly cause cancer, but I do believe that with all the low-level radiation that passes through our bodies on a daily basis, at least a few particles eventually interact with our matter. This could easily explain the huge upswing in cancer over the last 40 years, as low-level radiation exposure has steadily increased. Before you dismiss it, think about how much radio, cell phone, television, cordless phone, microwave, and myriad other forms of man-made radiation passes through your body each day. Almost none of it interacts with you, since most of it can even pass cleanly through feet of concrete without interaction. But think of what a small antenna or dish it takes to get reception of so many radio, TV, satellite, or other channels, compared to the much larger size of your human body. What if only 1 in a billion of these low-energy particles interacts with your body? That's still a rather large interaction, when you consider the constant levels we experience day and night, even when sitting at home. What if it's only 1 in a trillion? Then it's still significant, given the constant bombardment. All it takes is one particle interacting with one cell to potentially cause a change that could spark a cancer. Given constant bombardment by so many low-level radiation sources, this has to be significant. We don't want to believe it, and usually dismiss it our of hand because we like our technology, but this is just so much sticking of heads in the sand. We're never going to give up our tech, even if it's the primary cause of cancer, but we could at least be honest about it when we look at it.
Sure, there are genetic predispositions for things like cancer. We know this. But factors which are most likely environmental have increased cancer rates exponentially over the last 40 years. A genetic predispostion still needs a trigger. I think large amounts of low-level radiation are a likely candidate for this.
Well, those are my theories, anyway. I know people are just lining up to disagree, so let's hear it!
Chasing Amy
(We all chase Amy...)
"The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws"-Tacitus
Sickle cell anemia is a horrible disease. It's a co-dominant trait. If you've got double-dominant genes, you don't have the disease. If you've got double-recessive, your blood can't carry enough oxygen, and you probably die by age four.
If you're single-recessive, you have a mild, survivable version of the disease. You probably couldn't live at high altitudes. And you're very resistant to malaria. A malarial infection sends your blood into a sickling crisis, and the malaria can't get enough oxygen to survive.
So, if you live in a malarial environment, single cell recessives are the only people that can survive. And sickle cell anemia is a good thing.
Clearly, autism isn't that simple. Everybody does fine without any traces of autism. And it's also surely not just one gene. But people with mild forms of autism may have some kind of advantage in certain settings in modern society. And full autistics rarely have children. It could be worse than just dying, in terms of evolution, because not only does the autist die, but he or she also detracts from the ability of their parent to have more children.
All people with sickle cell anemia have ancestors from malarial environments. And now we're seeing a similar effect in silicon valley. It's an environment where the semi-autistic people have some kind of competitive advantage, like the single-recessive sickle cell anemics. However, in this case, the double-dominant people do not have much of a disadvantage at all, compared to the double-dominant people did in malarial regions (A sure death of malaria is a big disadvantage). So. I have a guess for what might happen. If these conditions continued indefinitely (where semi-autists have some kind of competitive advantage, and these conditions will likely not remain unchanged) then eventually there would be some kind of adaptation that makes it so that semi-autists are less attracted to semi-autists.
This way, autism would still be propagated, but rarely to the point where people were no longer functional.
There are no trails. There are no trees out here.
Contrary to popular belief, ritalin is not some magic drug, it works almost exactly like amphetamine. If your friend had been addicted to speed for the last ten years, would you be surprised that he was a wreck when off it? There are alcoholics that can seem completely functional for long periods of time as long as they stay drunk, but break down completely if they do not get a drink - same thing goes with most drugs.
Dont compare someone with diabeties or cancer to someone with Autism.
If you actually read what I was saying, you would understand that I was comparing the genetic/environmental causes of these disorders, rather than comparing them at a medical/sociological level. Which is quite valid, because there are similarities between the causes.
Someone with a REAL disease which they can die from needs help.
Autism is a "REAL" disease, for fucks sake. Just because a disease is psychological and does not appear to be an immediate threat, it does not mean it isn't a problem.
Take your example of depression. A lot of depressed people commit suicide. Other than bringing to an end all the potential of their future life, it also has consequences for family, friends and colleagues. A lot of depressed people refuse treatment. A lot of idiots think depressed people should "pull their socks up", "knock it off", "stop attracting attention", etc. However, depression is a serious, medical disorder which should be treated by appropriate means - counselling, cognitive psychology, seratonin reuptake inhibitors, etc. Leaving them in a depressed state is not fair. Ever been depressed? It's not enjoyable, I can tell you. Ever had a family member who is depressed? Its not enjoyable, I can tell you. Ever had a work colleague with depression? They are not very productive. Ever seen someone for whom Prozac worked, without side affects? The change is profound and beautiful. You see the person come back to life.
Yes, maybe i am pushing my definition of social normality onto other people. But in certain cases it is hard to argue how not doing so is of benefit to that person. Sure, if somebody is a bit *special*, and is happy, fulfilled, and of no harm to themselves and others, then fine. If they could be helped in some way - help them. I don't see what the problem is here.
You're choice of depression was not a good one. It is a largely misunderstood disease. However, there is a deep philosophical point you were trying to make. At what point does someone need help? Where, on the scale from normality to disease, should we intervene? Should we help people who refuse treatment, even when the refusal is a consequence of this disease? Is the reason for treatment limited to the person involved, or should we take a wider stance, and consider the consequences of disease and subsequent treatment on society?
These are difficult questions. You and I cannot answer them. I am not even sure if society can answer them. I guess this is an example where democracy is an imperfect solution, but it's the best solution we've got. Opinions?
Mike Tyson, I'm sure he could use some anger management classes, but for a boxer, his anger is what made him champion of the world.
Um, maybe if he had taken anger management courses, he wouldn't have ended up in prison, and hurt those around him. This is exactly the point I am trying to make.
You should never let geeks interbreed. I'm just surprised they breed at all...!
"Information wants to be paid"
I would much rather be socially included in society, than be a genius outsider.
If you ask me, anyone willing to give up uniqueness and individuality for comfort needs more help than nearly anyone I can think of. I find it shameful that people are willing to dismiss or hide their difference from those around them for fear of acceptance. What a boring place this would be if everyone felt that way! My opinion is that your flaws, whether they be genetic or otherwise, are what set you apart from the blind hordes of modern culture (read: nameless faces.) How else could you expect to really know yourself?
Besides, the expression of genius is not necessarily more fruitful through communication with other people. In fact, most original expression is often misinterpreted or not even understood at all. Think of the countless musicians, thinkers, poets, et al who we only now have begun to study with enough depth to even hope to grasp their point!
Ultimately, it seems to me that for those who one might label genius, a solitary existence will always outweigh that of the mob, where individuality is feared and discouraged.
Just my 2 pesos, not meant to be a flame or an insult.
--------
[McP]KAAOS
It goes from God, to Jerry, to me.
Most of the so called Balanced people, arent very intelligent. Sure they are very balanced, but because of their extreme balance, while they may be normal, how many Balanced people are truely intelligent?
It seems, that its always the people who are the most social, who end up doing the stupidest things.
As far as social skills go, I dont have them, I have technical skills. I could develop social skills but to do so while it would balance me, i'd have to become less technical to do so.
People work like this, either you are naturally good at sometihng, or you arent, usually its best to focus on what you are naturally good at, than to focus on developing skills you arent good at just for the sake of being balanced. As far as social skills go, you dont really need social skills to be successful, take a good look at bill gates, a liar, a backstabber, not really someone anyone could call a friend, no sense of style, he doesnt go to parties, I'm sure he would be considered autistic, but the fact that hes the richest man in the world should tell you something. In order to have what it takes, you need to be the best at what you do, not the most balanced. Have enough social skills to have a conversation of course, but you dont have to try to completely balance yourself unless you are naturally balanced.
I agree with you, people are very specialized, just like good code, is very specialized. When you try to be a jack of all trades, you are always a master of none.
Introduce me to the great scientist or technical person who goes to parties and socializes and no i dont mean some guy from slashdot, slashdotters arent "great" just average.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
Einstein wasn't antisocial. And John von Neumann, Leonardo da Vinci and Richard Feynman didn't seem to have anything wrong with their lives. Some people are just lucky so-and-sos.
-- the most controversial site on the Web
Agreed. The most obvious factor at work here isn't radiation or bad genes, it's both parents working ridiculously long hours and leaving the children to raise themselves. For the past ten, twenty years, there's been an upsurge in "psychological disorders" children are supposed to suffer from that, to my mind, aren't disorders at all, just fancy names given to bad upbringing.
ADHD=spoilt brat
PDD-NOS ("mild form of autism") = loner
I've recently looked into this stuff together with my g/f, who is a secondary school teacher in a thinly populated area of the Netherlands (more like Montana than Silicon Valley), and we both felt that the criteria used to diagnose so many children these days with "psychological disorders" are extremely vague, appliccable in a whole slew of different situations (tends to be an indication of bad science) and, worst of all, there's a striking similarity between purportedly "pathological" behavior and "healthy" behavior.
Now in a situation where parents actually have time to spend on bringing up their children, such tendencies usually get checked in such a degree that the child may be a loner or a very chaotic person, but at least he'll be aware that in order to function within his society, there are some situations in which it's advantageous to conform somewhat. If, on the other hand, both parents work 9 to 9 in a cubicle farm, rarely have dinner with the kids and leave upbringing to school (teachers don't have time to raise 30 kids all at once), television, books, computer games, the internet, what have you, such tendencies will run unchecked, resulting in society, parents, doctors and overworked school teachers screaming "ADHD!" or "autism!" or what have you.
It's a problem that's not unique to Silicon Valley, it happens everywhere, but given the nature of Sillicon Valley society, it's not surprising that the problem is most apparent there. I'll guarantee, however, that it'll be a problem in other parts of the western world as well, and I'm very curious to see what it'll do to the fabric of society in years to come, when all these autists/ADHD/whatever kids grow up and start assuming positions of power and responsabilities.
News and bla for computer musicians: http://lomechanik.net/
Okay, let's look at the evidence presented:
- It's genetic
- It's on the rise
- It's not a disease and can't be cured.
- It's higher in the children of smart people
- It makes the kids bad at some things, better at others.
Even without knowing what those things are, if someone just presented me with these points, I'd say it sounds like the humans are evolving.
So let's look at what they're evolving into:
No social skills : looks like they'll need to get in touch with people through computer chat instead, huh?
High intelligence, repetitive behavior: I bet the new humans are really good at video games.
Low verbal skills: Looks like voice interfaces won't be the way of the future.
When more than 30% of new humans are "Autistic" we may start to find out what they're best at, and we may find that the future needs them more than 'us'. Assuming I'm not already one of them. I suspect I am.
People with autism show extreme ability in some area of scientific or artistic endeavor but extreme retardation in basic human social and communication skills (i.e. some can barely speak).
Bzzt. Autism, as in "the bonafide psychiatric/neurological disorder called autism" does not equal "extreme ability in one area vs. extreme retardation in social and communication skills". It's a genuine, empirically verifiable form of brain damage that *primarily* leads to severe retardation of social skills (and that, I can assure you, is a very broad category of skills), but to other forms of retardation as well. The so-called "Idiot Savant" is nowhere near as sexy as urban mythology would have you believe. If you were to take a look at the fruits of these so-called "extreme abilities", you'd find that they aren't that wonderful at all, they show insistence to do something, but not any form of talent, genius or what have you. Rather, they look like they were done by someone with Down Syndrome, but in a very mechanical, monomanic way.
Someone else in this thread mentions another popular misconception, that of Einstein being an example of an autist: this, too, is wildly off the mark. Sure, he was a bad student, but for the most part his social skills were well within "normal" range.
If you were to meet an autist in real life, you'd find that, to put it bluntly, he'd be a "retard", hardly distinguishable from other "retards".
News and bla for computer musicians: http://lomechanik.net/
The problem with your statements is that many people brought up in happy, loving families also have Autism or Asperger's syndrome (I know this because I am an example of this).
In fact, if you read the article, it actually refutes your claims, and provides comprehensive evidence that Autism and Asperger's syndrome are genetically based. It is dangerous and irrational to blame parents for something that has been proven (almost conclusively) to be a genetic disorder.
(Posting AC because I have already moderated).
"why the hell is it, by the way, that stupid people breed much faster than us smart ones?"
Because they don't spend all day on slashdot.
(I DID read the entire article when it first came out)-
Whether it is genetic, or environmental ("odd" socialization that is somehow "learned" by children) it really doesn't matter, the outcome is the same.
What concerns me the most is how "disease theory" operates, and how certain diseases (especially mental disorders) become "in vogue." This goes all the way back to Freud (say what you will)- but as a newly emerging middle class had more "idle time" on their hands, and as newly affluent wives developed widely publicized anxiety disorders, the disorder eventually trickled down to the rest of the population.
-not to mention of diagnosis by practioneers is practically contagious.
I work in the field, and have seen wild diagnostic trends- in the 80s we saw an explosion in the diagnosis of depression and BPD (Borderline Personality Disorder). In the early 90s MPD (multiple personalities) was widely diagnosed (way above the prevalence rates shown by any "hard research"- and now MPD is not even in the diagnostic manual). Then we've seen the diagnosis of everything under the sun for our children- (ADD, ADHD, ODD, it goes on and on... BTW- ODD stands for "Oppositional Defiant Disorder"- these are just KIDS were talking about here! All kids can be ODD.).
For many parents it is ultimately "cool" to have a kid with a diagnosis... it lets them off the hook. It lets educators off the hook. How many of you went to primary school in the 70s and sat in a class of 30+ and were taught by a 60+ year old ex-nun with a two-year teaching certificate who had absolutely NO PROBLEM maintaining discipline in the classroom?
Aspergers IS relatively new as a *widespread* diagnosis- it is in essence a "disease of the week." After the inevitable backlash, we'll be having this discussion about some other "disorder" and Aspergers will be an odd footnote of early 21st Century child psychology.
Those that suggest you "dance like no one is watching" really want to see you make a complete fool of yourself.
However, this does not mean that giving them drugs is the right thing to do. All it does is create a dependency which may or may not be necessary. It is a much more responsible thing (IMHO) to recommend they take Ritalin only sparingly, and at least attempt to overcome their neurological problem by themselves. This approach would give them the opportunity to learn behaviors that would help them when they don't have access to Ritalin, and ultimately be much more beneficial to them than just relying on drugs to fix their problem.
I wouldn't draw too many conclusions from talking to psych. undergrad students. I doubt that their professor will approve their "proposal". Talk to someone in a doctoral program - I think you'll see quite a different picture. After all - what conclusions would you draw talking to a group of neophyte comp. sci. students working on their first sorting algorithms?
[Insert pithy quote here]
see how they weigh up:
Normal People:
round them should just read their minds, damn it!
basis
a cool word, regardless of whether those products
are any different from anything else out there or
not
inquisitiveness of a mushroom, and a faith in
simple interfaces that the religions of the world
can only stand and marvel at.
Autistic people:
symbolic logic
-something-. The more "autistic" a person is, on
the autistic spectrum, the more important it is to
filter out the "background noise" of their
environment. If they didn't, they'd go nuts.
groups. Large groups put the mind on overload.
abstract concepts, in the mind, usually in some
symbolic way. It's as easy for an autistic person
as changing channels on the TV.
There are no more "autistic" people than there
used to be. The difference is, they're no longer
being put into mental institutions, locked up and
forgotten. They're getting $$$ in computing,
instead.
(Which only goes to show that society is fickle.
People rather reject "problem people" than see how
they could be beneficial. If you've watched the
news, in the past 3 months, I'm sure you can name
a fair number of "problem people" that society is
hell-bent on rejecting. Maybe society has no real
option, maybe it does. It's the reflex reaction of
destroying the different that is the real enemy,
though, in my humble opinion.)
P.S. I'm diagnosed Aspergers, with Bipolar I. The
labels are useful, because they help me see what
my mind is chemically & electrically designed to
do. It's no different from labelling a computer as
a Pentium III, or a PA-RISC. Each of them is
suited for different types of task than the other.
It doesn't make one "better" or "worse", in the
abstract, but only in the context of running a
specific class of algorithms. Or, to put it
another way, the best, the most accurate clock in
the world makes a damn lousy web browser. Not
because of a defect in the clock, but because it's
not - and never was - configured to be a web
browser. If it were, it could not be the most
accurate clock in the world, as it would need to
spend time handling HTML, et al.
Psychological labels are powerful tools. But only
if used correctly. But we're already familiar with
that. DDD is a powerful debugger...
a programmer. Hand it to Joe Schmuck, and they
would be hopelessly confused.
A psychological label tells you, in general terms,
something about the configuration of the brain. It
really doesn't do any more than that. With enough
time and effort, any person with any brain CAN do
anything any other person can do, the same way a
PA-RISC chip can run a Pentium III emulator. But
you're burning a hell of a lot of brain cycles in
the process. Doesn't it just make a hell of a lot
more sense to forget about "others", and use your
brain for something it can do, and do phenominally
well, that you enjoy? Emulators can be useful, but
don't make them your entire life.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Pollution could be a factor, for sure, but it seems that we should also consider the possibility that Silicon Valley, with it's go-go-go lifestyle and stressful jobs, could be. Check out this article in Yahoo News describing a link between stress in the 24-28th weeks of pregnancy to Autism.
-Paul
The real Paul Vallee is slashdot userid 2192, and, what do you mean it's not cool to point out your low userid?
In H. G. Wells's The Time Machine, this is precisely what happened. Mankind's evolutionary tree split into the friendly, social, but profoundly stupid Eloi and the brutish, mechanically inclined Morlocks. Oh, and the Morlocks ate Eloi for breakfast.
N4st0r, trixx0r h0bb1tz0rz! Th3y st0l3 0ur pr3c10uzz!
I've no doubt that some significant percentage of the new cases in California are legitimate. I do wonder, though, if a significant percentage of the remainder, though, are not autistic but are rather by-products of society's modern trend of blaming a child's behavioral or developmental problems on a psychological/mental disorder and doping him/her up on medication as a means of covering up our failures at being and unwillingness to be responsible parents.
I am *really* trying hard not to flame these days.... but:
"Studies have shown that problems with inbreeding only occur after many generations of close relatives breeding together"
That is patently bullshit. Please would you point me to the references for these "studies" and I will tear them up along with your post.
OK, here goes. This is pointless, but I feel compelled to demolish you fallacy:
There are thousands of single-gene "monogenic" disorders. A Good example is Cystic Fibrosis, although you could replace this in the example for countless diseases. Cystic fibrosis is a recessive disease. This means that you have two copies of the gene (called CFTR), and if both are "damaged" or mutated, you will have the disease. However, if you have only one mutated copy, you are just fine. In this case you are a "carrier" for CF - but you will probably never know it.
Now let's take the example that you are a carrier for CF. About 1/20 people are carriers for a mutated CFTR gene, so this is not unlikely. Now, you have a 1/20 chance of marrying somebody who also is a carrier for CF. If you did marry someone who was a carrier, each child you give birth to will have a chance of having CF. Each child will have a 1/2 chance of inheriting your "bad" copy of the gene, and a 1/2 chance of inheriting your partners "bad" copy of the gene. 1/2 x 1/2 = 1/4, so there would be a 1/4 chance of the child having full blown CF. So overall, you would have a 1/20 (chance of meeting somebody else with CF) x 1/4 chance of having a child with CF:
= 1/20 x 1/4 = 1/80 chance of giving birth to a single CF child, if you are a carrier and marry a random individual.
Now consider having a child with your sister [er... rather not - ed.]. She shares 50% of your genetic makeup. Therefore if you have a single mutated copy of the CF gene, she has a 1/2 chance of having that bad copy. Therefore:
= 1/2 x 1/4 = 1/8 chance of giving birth to a single CF child if you are a carrier and have a child with your sister
So, quite evidently, if you are a carrier for a "recessive monogenic" disorder, the chances of having an abnormal child are HUGELY increased with inbreeding - within a single generation. This same principal applies to other modes of inheritance and more complex traits - such as heart disease or diabetes. The maths is a little more complicated though. Furthermore, every person is a "carrier" for on average TWO inherited diseases. This seems like a lot, but just remember that the chances of meeting someone else who also happens to be a carrier for the same disease is very rare. Unless you happen to have sex with a relative. In which case, you are very likely to have an abnormal child.
Despite what the twat above said, I seriously advise you *NOT* to start going out and making bacon with your auntie.
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.
I saw this in the Wired article:
/.) experimented with this idea in his latest book, calling it "Focus". The ramifications where not totally positive, to say the least.
"We have the human data," says Shestack. "Now we need the brute-force processing power. We need high-density SNP mapping and microarray analysis so we can design pharmaceutical interventions. We need Big Pharma to wake up to the fact that while 450,000 people in America may not be as large a market as for cholesterol drugs, we're talking about a demand for new products that will be needed from age 2 to age 70.
OK, I work in Big Pharma (though I don't speak for them, blah blah). The big $$ here would not be "curing" those 450k. The $$ would be creating a drug to *induce* an Asperger like state in the normals. Think of it as Viagra for study skills. I think we could sell a few doses of that....
Vernor Vinge (wonder if he reads
garyr
-- your Web browser is Ronald Reagan
Well gee, lets look at the facts..
You have a group of people consuming copious amounts of a drug known to cause low birth weight, birth defects, mental retardation, and complications during pregnancy. Caffiene. A fetus isn't able to metabolize caffiene, so it builds up in the fetus' body eventually interfereing with nervous system growth. To the mother, Caffiene is also a diuretic, and an appetite supressant. The more caffiene the mother takes in, the less likely she is to eat well, and provide her unborn baby with the nutrients it needs.
The mothers and fathers spend alot of time near high-strength EMF from computer monitors, at least 8 hours a day if theyre employed. EMF causes chromosomal abnormalities.
The mother and the father of the children live in one of the most polluted areas of the entire country in terms of air quality. Carcinogens given off by automobiles make their way into the air, into the water, and in some cases, even into the food they eat on a daily basis. Welcome to California.
Is it any wonder your kid turns out autistic?
Cheers,
Bowie J. Poag