Slashdot Mirror
Interview with the Creator of BitTorrent
brokencomputer writes "There is an interesting interview with Bram Cohen, the creator of BitTorrent, on my site, WrongPlanet.net. Because there is already a plethora of information about BitTorrent, this interview takes a different approach and focuses entirely on Cohen's Asperger's Syndrome. In addition to being interesting to anyone interested in BitTorrent, Cohen's story is extremely inspirational to those of us who do have Asperger's, and will probably be so even to those without Asperger's Syndrome."
What do you...
(rest available from the torrent)
The latest Slashdot meme.
WP: How was life at school?
BC: I hated school, and dropped out of college. I got picked on a lot in school, and had a lot of trouble making friends.
Rejoice Slashdotters, we still have hope!
the corrent pronounciation of Asberger's is "Ass-burgers".
Making the moon less necessary since 1998.
There was a book I read recently which was written as if narrated by a teenage boy with Asperger's Syndrome.
It's called "The curious incident of the dog in the night time" and I recommend it to anyone who would like to learn a little more about Asperger's, or, just feels like an entertaining and moving read.
But that article seems to be sort of lacking. It seems rather short, has a few typos and errors, and doesn't really delve into anything technical about BitTorrent (admitted by the summary). Sure now the people who RTFA'd probably are a little more understanding of a certain syndrome, or are intrigued by the fact that somebody with the syndrome can achieve great things (the American Dream), but I really would have liked to see some deeper thought on the issues. Deeper sociological questions, perhaps more depth on the influence of the (lack of) college, or even his views on the future of any given tech sector or his other interests. I suppose that this all lies at the fault of the interviewer, and not the interviewee.
It was great to read this article as it gives me hope. My own son has a similar form of Autism and although I've been able to 'get into his head' to understand him better, I know that others won't have the patience or the understanding to do the same.
And on a further note, I can tell you from experience that early intervention really helps ALOT! My son's progress is such that he is almost ready to join full time with his second grade class. Two years ago he was still struggling with speech.
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
What about the many Slashdotters who only think they have Aspergers, and use it as an excuse to excuse their anti-social behavior?
This space intentionally left blank.
Why have ASPberger's, when you can have PHPberger's, or SQLberger's?
Listen pal, nobody forced you to make Gigli. If you spend all your time making massive steaming piles of excrement you shouldn't lament your fate when nobody buys them.
After all, you got paid to do work of little or no value. Consider yourself lucky, people who want to create things of value have been having trouble finding work going on 5 years now.
According to the Internet Movie Database, Steven Spielberg also suffers from Aspeger Syndrome.
Just in case...
I hate posting anonymous, so No Karma Bonus instead.
I hate grammar Nazi's.
A while back I was talking to this bloke who's young son has Aspberger's, and when they would be sitting watching tv and two or three ads would go by and then suddenly he would jump up and run out of the room screaming. Almost invariably one of a series of quite graphic government sponsored [TAC] road safety ads would then appear. Seems he had the ability to recognise the combination of the types of ads that immediately preceded the scary ones.
Learn? Who the hell wants to learn anymore? That's an old-fashioned way to look at it. Since your acceptance into college and, ultimately, your college degree amounts to your grade, why worry about what you learn? What? Doing your best? Being productive? I don't understand, what does that have to do with getting an A? That kind of thinking is last-century...who wants to be productive when you can just slide by your whole life? I mean, no matter what you make, the government's gonna pay you when you get old. What? The government fucked up Social Security?
"What most people with Asperger's Syndrome find difficult is casual chatting - they can't do small talk."
So, that includes most geeks, but not those who hang about posting on /., yes?
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
Wired did an article about Cohen in January.
Here's a link: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.01/bittorreComment removed based on user account deletion
At least not officially. It's curious how he went from joking that he was "autistic" and "had" asperger's to a self-diagnosis of "I probably have asperger's" to now, "i have asperger's".
Perhaps, Mr Cohen should actually go out and get diagnosed by someone competent before misrepresenting a legitimate illness.
PS: What's with people's fascination of collecting disorders? "I'm a cutter! No! Bipolar! No, schizophrenic!"
For the people that actually have these fad-ish disorders, it isn't some cool gee-whizz thing, it's a nightmare.
...is to have everyone assume that you were able to create this great original application because you have Asperger's, as opposed to crediting your creativity or perseverence.
I object to that article, and to the next reply.
Obviously you don't understand AS. They are not acting, as you call it "assholish" on purpose. People with Autism and AS don't pick up on the social cues that regular people pick up on. For instance, some people with Autism eat sloppy or walk with a gait. There is nothing conscience about this.
Yes! I listen to NYC Speedcore and do math at 3AM. I suggest you try it too.
As a Fad
Since its introduction into the knowledge of the general public, Asperger's has become somewhat of a fad for those seeking to garner attention. In the fine tradition of disease whores everywhere, many young people who have ever felt the least bit shy or eccentric decide to self-diagnose themselves, forsaking the opinion of a qualified MD and therefore belittling genuine sufferers for just the sake of appearing special.
As Covering Up for Being a Total Fucktard
Some close-knit communities of people with distorted views of reality, such as furries, plushies and otherkin will frequently claim to have Asperger's or be Autistic en masse, often finding some way to tie its manifestations into the fact that they are social misfits, can't properly express affection, or to claim that it's an intrinsic part of being fucked up in the particular way that they are. In these instances, having "Asperger's" seems to be closely tied to posting disgusting and semi-nude pictures of yourself frequently to the internet, or writing extremely off-kilter fanfiction (see here (http://www.fanfiction.net/u/49104/)). This disease (and the associated Autism) are frequent mix-ins for those who like to claim to have many diseases and disorders. They can usually pull it off in quite a long-term manner, much as children are often over-diagnosed with ADD/ADHD simply because if you distort reality enough, you can claim the particular social dysfunction or misbehavior is part of the syndrome in question.
Diagnosis
If you feel that you're shy, unusual, highly intelligent, able to sense the emotional states of others, good at judging body language and inordinantly pre-occupied with things that most people are not, congratulations! You are just like everybody else.
/satire
On Fake Diseases
When children behave in ways that schools or parents dislike, this behaviour is often characterised as an illness. Depending on the nuances of the behaviour concerned, a child might be deemed to have Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD),
Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD) or any one of a growing range of other illnesses.
However, there is something unusual about these diseases. First of all, they are defined entirely in terms of their symptoms, not in terms of some malfunction of the body. Why is this unusual? After all, before the underlying cause was known, diseases like AIDS and SARS, too, were recognised in terms of their symptoms. But that is different. It is perfectly meaningful to say: "that looks like SARS, but it might just be a bad cold, or the person might be deliberately exaggerating his symptoms". Hence also, with real diseases, it is possible to have an asymptomatic disease, like asymptomatic Hepatitis C. But it is not possible, even in principle, to have asymptomatic ADHD.
There is another unusual feature of diseases like ODD that should give us pause: they are typically treated without the patient's consent; and indeed the "treatments" are often physically identical to what would in a non-medical context be called punishments. This breach of human rights is casually justified as being "for their own good".
ADHD and its ilk really aren't diseases in the same sense as, say, Hepatitis C. They are metaphorical diseases, the names of which denote behaviours that are deemed to be morally unacceptable. In other words, the child has a certain opinion about what he ought to be doing and this opinion is different from his parents' opinion about what he ought to be doing.
Take ODD as an example, the diagnostic criteria are:
A pattern of negativistic, hostile, and defiant behavior lasting at least 6 months, during which four (or more) of the following are present:
1. often loses temper
2. often argues with adults
3. often actively defies or refuses to comply with adults' requests or rules
4. often deliberately annoys people
5. often blames others for his or her mistakes or misbehavior
6. is often touchy or easily annoyed by others
7. is often angry and resentful
8. is often spiteful or vindictive
Note the many moral judgements that are necessary to make any diagnosis according to this definition: "actively defies", "deliberately annoys" and so on. These are not deemed to be disease symptoms when a child does them to an intending kidnapper, or to the parents' political opponents at a demonstration, for example. These states of the child's brain become diseases only when a certain condition - disapproval - exists in the brain of another person - the parent or other authority. The treatment is also metaphorical and for ODD it consists of conversations and discipline. Again, this is very different from other diseases: bacteria are not great conversationalists, one cannot debate diabetes, but apparently ODD can be disposed of by talking to it.
The entire purpose of these diseases is, in fact, to give these vile "treatments" a gloss of medical and scientific respectability. Then no attention need be paid to whether the child is right to behave defiantly toward his parents in specific cases. No effort needs to be wasted on such fripperies as rational argument or considering that the child might have a point if they repeatedly refuse to obey their parents or say that they are bored in school. How very convenient for the force-users.
There is one last oddity to note. Professor Michael Fitzgerald of Dublin University has recently said that geniuses such as Socrates, Charles Darwin, and Andy Warhol may have had a mental disease called Asperger's syndrome characterised by not wanting to talk to people and having "restricted" interests with "abnormal" intensity. Now, suppose that having Asperger's syndrome for a while wo
What about the amateur radio guys? The HAMbergers?
The Internet is full. Go Away!!!
I can tell you from personal experience it is a hell of a lot worse.
Here is the clinical criteria for it http://www.aspergers.com/aspcrit.htm Try effects like:
- inability to cope with stimulus (e.g. music on, people around)
- broken marriages
- constant problem with authority (could be boss, police or others)
Can give lots more but you probably get the idea especially if you read the URL.
Ian
I was diagnosed autistic at age five. The diagnosis was quickly withdrawn, since at the time a high IQ was a bar to a diagnosis of autism. In 1993, Asperger's Syndrome became an accepted diagnosis in the US, and it was pretty clear that it matched up with the behaviors seen when I was five. In 2000 I finally got around to talking to a psych about it. She gave me some excellent advice when it came to deciding whether or not I was autistic:
If the diagnosis helped me make sense of my life, if it gave me tools with which I could build a better life, then yes, I was autistic.
If the diagnosis turned into an excuse for self-destructive behavior, turned into a rationale for why I should be excused from the rules of civility, if it became a license for uncivil behavior, then no, I wasn't autistic.
In the end, she told me, it wasn't up to her to decide whether I was autistic. It was up to me.
It was the best psychiatric advice I've ever received. And, y'know what? I'm not going to tell you if I'm autistic or not. I don't care if you know. I don't wear a sign and advertise myself to the world one way or another.
I know if I'm autistic or not. That's enough.
So please show some courtesy to Bram Cohen. It's very possible he's received the exact same (excellent) psychiatric advice I've received.
here is the mirrordot cache:
e 74e1c22471a/index.html
http://mirrordot.org/stories/94287bd20a1426c0b8bb
The Television Wiki
Has this problem. He is a really good programmer but he shits and pisses all over the bathroom and then leaves it there like noone will know its him. A VP had to send out a company wide email basically saying that if you shit and piss all over the bathroom to please clean up after yourself.
I was diagnosed with a learning disability. I, in turn, diagnosed the U.S. education system with a teaching disability.
-------
Incite and flee.
You sure it wasn't a psychologist you saw? I find it hard to believe a psychiatrist would basically say "it's up to you whether or not you have a mental illness". That's like saying "it's up to you whether or not you have cancer". If any doctor said that to me I'd call em a quack and look elsewhere.
The best education consists in immunizing people against systematic attempts at education. - Paul Feyerabend
I think we all have Asperger's...
Obessions often including computers: Check
Lack of the ability to learn social skills: Check
Failure in school because we like to hate the grade system: Check
Mostly in males: Check
So where are my nerd curing pills?
WASTE - The Secure P2P
I co-founded WrongPlanet.net along with the interviewer, and like Alex, I have Asperger's myself. I've separated myself from the site since, and I'm sure glad I made Alex get his own webhost before the slashdotting :-D.
Anyway, I'd like to respond to some of the comments here.
First, I want to clarify some of the things people say about Asperger's that irritate me and some of the Aspergers community. One thing that's irritating is when people say that there's an 'epidemic' of autism -- as if we're all some horrible thing that should never come into existance. Some of history's most brilliant minds have supposedly had Asperger's (see 'Diagnosing Jefferson', etc). People with Asperger's can often live perfectly normal lives. There even was some controversy at one point over the word "disorder" on WrongPlanet a while back, but I don't take it that far.
Another point is that autism is a spectrum disorder. Sometimes people with it have it milder or worse than others diagnosed. And also that it's an incredibly diverse bunch of people. It's hard to make generalizations. I like to think that most people with Asperger's have very redeeming qualities -- but the fact of the matter is that some aspies are normal intelligence. Some are brilliant, and some are, what others categorize as being "assholes".
One person here made a comment about people using Asperger's as some kind of excuse for something, like sometimes people claim dyslexia if they can't read well. I don't think that's the case for many people with AS, and I take some offense to that, but the poster brings up an interesting point. The reality is you shouldn't have to have an excuse to be who you are. But it certainly feels better to have one, doesn't it?
It so happens that people like myself and many others who have Asperger's have the particular general set of symptoms required for diagnosis. And even then, many of us a hard time gaining acceptance in the world, and finding people who are tolerant. It's hard enough with a diagnosis. And even if you have to explain it to someone (which I try to avoid doing myself, unless it's particularly relevant), their reaction is they either become more distant because they don't know how to deal with you, or they have precisely that reaction.
I guess the point I'm making here is that, especially in high schools, people are prejudiced and biased towards Aspies and others -- regardless of their official diagnosis (which they don't know) or any of that arbitrary stuff. The old slashdot article "Voices from the Hellmouth sums this up very well.
But don't get me wrong. I think that people who have Asperger's (and similar people in general) do have some obligation to try to overcome their problems. It's not good to chalk it up to autism and be a dick to everyone. But, again, a large part of it is how willing society is to accept people who aren't even necessarily rude or anything, but are just plain different. There's a certain amount of work that people with AS need to take, and a certain amount of work that society needs to take.
If anybody wants to talk to me about these issues, I'd be happy to do so and point you to some good resources and information.
I knew someone with AS. He went to college and was in our little circle. I even lived with him for a short time. If I had to guess I'd say he had mildly severe AS. He violated people's space all the time. He'd want to know what you were eating and would have his face an inch or so from your food. Saying hi was a in your face experience.
The kid was smart, but not super smart. He'd try so hard but would end up jumbling everything he learned. Confusing one fact with another. His problem was he'd believe anything anyone said to him. He definitely had preoccupations. Spaghetti was the main course every dinner. Despite his anability to function around many people, we liked him the same. Always had some great new fact for us.
It's not a guarantee that they'll have a higher IQ. It's not an east thing to deal with. It could reach the point of self confusion. It's not fun when you work on a weather map, draw everything in. It's full of high end stuff, but it's all wrong, or doesn't make sense. I feel sorry because it may not have any possitive sides for some.
For example during Ghostbusters I could somehow feel that confusing anti-drug ad with skateboarders coming up.
You mean "Be An Original" listed here?
Actually, I wish they'd run some anti-drug PSAs against Lilly, Pfizer, GSK, Novartis, etc.
I think we got the site back up pretty fast. That's entirely php and MySql requests thank you very much.
...that those who are claiming to have this Asperger's syndrome and trying to defend the reality of it have been making quite long posts.
Your explaination made me see a Venn diagram in my head. Which I think is a good thing... I think...
Am I open minded towards open source, or closed minded towards closed source?
Above average intelligence, obsession with a single subject area, often a form of transportation... encyclopedic knowledge of that subject... delayed social skills...
This describes at least half the people I know, and 90% of the ones you meet at a Star Trek con. [I mean, not that I've ever been to one, I'm just you know, assuming]
Get him off the artificial sweeteners and sourers and see if that makes any difference. Fixed my kids up lickity split.
(not just artificial foods, lots of natural stuff is bad for some people too, eg milk)
If the diagnosis helped me make sense of my life, if it gave me tools with which I could build a better life, then yes, I was autistic.
If the diagnosis turned into an excuse for self-destructive behavior, turned into a rationale for why I should be excused from the rules of civility, if it became a license for uncivil behavior, then no, I wasn't autistic.
I think that this is quite possibly the greatest thing I've ever read on Slashdot.
I've often looked at the (sometimes deliberately?) vague descriptions of various popular mental disorders, including autism, and noted how many of those traits might apply to me. But with almost every one, I could see it being the latter case, not the former.
That's great advice and spoken (written?) well.
I'll share with you another piece of advice I was once given by my child psychiatrist* when I was having difficulty coping with grad school:
Drugs are for temporarily helping you regain your sanity until you can control your life just fine on your own. They're a boost to regain self-reliance, not a permanent crutch.
*Not because my parents suspected I was nuts, but because I'd had febrile convulsions and they wanted to make sure nothing broke.
I think a large percentage of us can relate to what this guy is about...Trouble making friends, hates school, college dropout, awkward in social situations. Hell I thought I was reading my own interview...Well, except that I'm a lousy programmer.
:)
Anyway, I got to thinking, is the majority of cases of this so called "Asperger's Syndrome" really a "disease", or simply a consequence of being an introvert? Practice makes perfect, and if you like being by yourself and don't enjoy talking to people, then of course you are not going to be very good in social situations. That explains problems making friends and problems with social situations.
As such, what is there to do by yourself besides partake in intellectual pursuits? School is the devil for those who truly love to learn. "Here's a piece of paper, now regurgitate all of the pointless information you have learned this year with a reasonable percentage of accuracy and guess what, you go to the next level. Yay!"
I'm not saying that Asperger's Syndrome does not exist, but I think it's over diagnosed just like most other conditions out there that gives drug companies an excuse to sell their wares. Only in the most extreme cases where someone cannot function should treatment be required. Other than that, it does not to be "cured". IMHO, mild "cases" are little more than a personality trait.
Read Bram's interview. Looks to me like he was able to figure out how to read people in social situations and wishes he could go back in time and smack his previous self around a little. I think he got over his problem (look, he's got a kid to prove it!) the same way I did...By being in situations that require social interaction. Being a consultant, this happens a lot. When I first started off as a tech monkey visiting customers on site or deal with them directly, I got reports from my boss that they thought I was a pretty weird dude. Eventually I learned that the customer does not want to hear how many transistors a Pentium has when they want Windows working again. Anyway, I think I'm able to handle people better today, and if my customers still think I'm weird, at least they aren't telling anyone about it.
-R
Thanks, you did the hard work for me. I agree whole heartedly and am the same. I now say that I have AS. Due to, from mid-teens, running my own small company, I HAD to become socially apt... I had no choice otherwise I would have been consumed by mad PR pratts...
I learnt veryf ast that I couldn't be quiet, rude etc and had to 'just talk'. Now, unlike the grandparents crap above, AS does't ALWAYS make it impossible for you to deal with social situations in every event. In fact, I can be overly apt in social situations - incredibly articulate and polite. However, it runs to extremes and there'll be some situations which will make me buckle. I'll get anxiety attacks, I'll feel like I need to 'run away' or I'll just be incredibly rude and not realise it. In fact, most of my eye-opening that there was something wrong with me and had AS came from the fact that I'm incredibly rude and have no concept of bounderies, in most situations. My friends get used to this, but it REALLY shocks people with the 'weird' things I say and do, yet I never see any problem with this.
Couple this with finding it impossible to tell what a person thinks of me (and therefore jumping to crazy conclusions), absolute obsession over people (which freaks people out heavily), activities and objects, plus some VERY VERY obscure eye contact issues (EXTREME stare or TOTAL avoidance) and it starts to look clearer.
I may not be your clear cut 'he's AS', but EVERYONE says I'm 'quite wierd' without much hesitation, and I match the criteria.
I also can't help most things I've described. I'm so obsessive that if my mind is set on something I HAVE to do it.
So don't trivialise; AS is much more complex than people realise, and it's people like the grandparent who made me cry and gave me panic attacks for weeks when I found out I could have AS.
I know exactly what you're talking about. I get that all the time. For myself at least, it can easily be explained by coincidence the the brains insane ability to detect patterns.
The thing is, these sorts of coincidences are likely to happen all the time, its just the way the world is, can't be any other way. However, not everyone will notice them. I find I notice them more often. Just by NOTICING it, it makes you feel like the two matching events are somehow special, if you get what I mean.
As for situations spanning just a few seconds, often it can be due to the way the brain treats time. I sometimes feel like I was thinking about the word someone says just a few seconds before, but probably what happened was my brain changed my memory and got the times mixed up.(Same sort of thing when you 'wake up JUST before the alarm clock goes off'. What actually happens is you are woken by the alarm clock, but your sense of time is distorted, and your brain gets confused).
Normally it IS just coincidence though. I believe if you studied it a bit more, you'll find you can never actually -predict- something, you can only match up the two events AFTER they have both occured. Since the brain is hard-wired for pattern recognition, it can make you think you predicted it earlier, when infact there were hundreds of other thoughts also going on inside your head, which didn't end up with another matching event, but you're brain ignores those BECAUSE they don't match.)
Sorry if that didn't make sense, but hopefully you get the general gist of what I'm saying.
printf("Goodbye cruel world!\b\b\b\b\b\b\b\b\b\b\b\b\b\b\b\b\b\b\b\b");
Men with Aspergers often end up in jobs where they make the nuts and bolts of society run, because they can focus on them. And, in fact (sorry about the myth destruction) many of them do get laid. And seem to have mostly normal kids... Men with alpha male social disorder frequently end up killing people, destroying social structures and generally making people's lives a misery. It's a matter of perception.
I have a feeling that in earlier societies where there were no chattering classes, the intelligent people with Aspergers ended up as priests or shamans and acted as a check or balance on the alphas. Prophets like Nathan and Jeremiah with their tendency to flame people in public and obsessions with strange things would seem to have exhibited at least some of the symptoms of Aspergers.
I am not denying that Aspergers makes normal social relations difficult. I probably have a mild version of it but never needed to get formally diagnosed: I know of people who have it more seriously and it can be a real handicap. But it is not usually as severe a handicap as being stupid, being brought up by useless parents, or growing up in a criminal society like the Jamaican or LA gang culture.
Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.
9/11 Eyewitnesses to Explosive WTC Demolition 1 of 2
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
In the USSR, political troublemakers and opponents of the regime were often diagnosed as mentally ill, committed to mental institutions, drugged and locked up. The diagnoses were based on the assumption that opposing the system was, in itself, an insane act.
The definition of ODD above, a "mental disorder" characterised by opposition and defiance, sounds uncomfortably like something out of Soviet social psychiatry.
Don't know this for certain but based on the info i read on Asperger's Syndrome (focused intelligence in one area, inability to read body language in others- social akwardness), doesn't it seem like Chloe from 24 is the hollywood version of Asperger's?