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."
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!
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.
What about the many Slashdotters who only think they have Aspergers, and use it as an excuse to excuse their anti-social behavior?
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Why have ASPberger's, when you can have PHPberger's, or SQLberger's?
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.
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
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.
You're only an insensitive jerk if the mystery shitter were within earshot. Otherwise, it's just private enjoyment of your thoughts.
Reminds me of the time everybody in my college dorm found a turd in the toilet that looked like it had to kill the guy who birthed it. It was spherical, green and literally the size of a grape fruit. Obviously, it wouldn't flush. So it sort of became like the dorm pet. Everybody thought it was really funny except the gay vegetarian on the hall, who was conspicuous in his lack of humor about it.