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More Evidence of Increase in Profound Autism
I am Jack's username writes "The New York times has an article (no registration required) about an increase in profound autism in California of 273% between 1987 and 1998. Between 1999 and 2001 more than 6 500 cases were reported, similar to the number reported between 1970 to 1995. The increase cannot be accounted for by misdiagnosis, increased awareness, childhood immunizations, emigration, birth injuries, and genetics. Some autism experts think the actual cases to be dramatically more than reported in the UC study. See also previous discussions about high-function geek rich areas like silicon valley."
Right here on Slashdot!
Some forms of autism make one not like to be around people. I wonder if I have some of that. People who talk too much about non-geek things drive me crackers. Some people just cannot shuddup. My mom, for example, can stretch a 2-minute story into a 20-minute one by providing details that are useless to the story, but I cannot tell her off because she is my mom. She is the reader's digest in reverse.
Mild autism may be what makes a lot of geeks geeks. You never know.
Table-ized A.I.
So this is what happens when all those parents spend too much time reading /. and sucking up monitor radiation!
--Won't that be grand? Computers and the programs will start thinking and the people will stop. - Dr. Walter Gibbs
From the article...
meaning they suffered from a brain disorder that left them unable to speak or compulsively performing repetitive motions like flapping their arms or rocking.
So this is what afflicts all of our programmers, and I thought it was because our marketing department keeps saying the product will be released next week when we are still in beta...
From excellent karma to terible karma with a single +5 funny post...
Slashdot readers very generally very intellegent, so maybe the fact that 99% of them will never have a girlfriend is a good thing...
months ago - but they kept to themselves and got distracted.
"The only way to see an "evolutionary step" (itself a misnomer) is to see some variation that causes greatly enhanced success at breeding. Needless to say, we are not seeing that here."
:))) -- Oprah Smiley, >:B -- Bunny Smiley, :ß -- British Smiley.
Makes me wish my mouse was heavier so my right arm'd really bulk up. Boy I'd get the chicks then. In the mean time, I have to rely on cute emoticons to get them to smile.
There was this kid who, as he got older, never spoke. His parents took him to doctors, specialists, psychiatrists, all to no avail. In ever other way, he seemed normal. This continued until his 10th birthday, when one night at dinner, he said "These beans are cold".
His overjoyed parents asked "if you can talk, why haven't you said anything before?"
He replied "Up to now, everything's been ok".
To ensure perfect aim, shoot first and call whatever you hit the target
However, it is possible that a milder expression of the same genes does have advantages, ala tech centers. Think sickle-cell anemia, where one gene gives you malaria resistantance, but two make you very sick.
So clearly, the answer to stopping the spread of this Autism is to mandate that every geek coder in Silicon Valley must mate with a supermodel who has no math or technical skills whatsoever. They must not mate with other geeks, but only with those who get paid to wear their underwear on stage. This is absolutely necessary for the survival of intelligence and technology in our country! So please models, take one for the team!
I take a look at most of the people around me who excel in computer-related fields, and on average, they certainly seem to have a significantly higher rate of lots of little "fun" neurological conditions. Concentrate a bunch of them in the same place, and they're going to breed.
In a way, it's kind of like marrying close relatives. All of the recessive or otherwise unnoticeable traits (be it from low penetrance or low expressivity) are going to start showing up in big ways.