Slashdot Mirror
British Hacker Loses Review of Asperger's Defense
Barence writes "Gary McKinnon has lost the judicial review of his case, dealing a potentially fatal blow to his hopes of avoiding extradition to the US. Lord Justice Stanley Burnton and Mr. Justice Wilkie dismissed the review at the Royal Courts of Justice. The review had been assembled to determine whether the diagnosis of McKinnon's Asperger's Syndrome had any bearing on the Home Office's original decision to extradite him to the US. Asperger's sufferers often exhibit obsessive behavior and social naivety, which McKinnon's lawyers have long offered as mitigation. His legal team now has 28 days to appeal the verdict, and his lawyer, Karen Todners, has indicated they may consider taking his case before the US Supreme Court. Last year we discussed a full profile of the hacker published by the BBC." Sophos's survey of 550 IT professionals found that 71% believe McKinnon should not be extradited.
It is the new English supreme court the case is going to, the one that replaces the Judicial Committee of the House of Lords.
It's surprising this guy didn't wake up in Guantanamo Bay one morning, considering there is a lot more evidence against him than some of the inmates there.
I can understand that the activity all happened within the US but i'm not quite so sure why there is the instance on extriditing him apart from presumably that a guy on his mom's computer managed to hack into supposedly the most secure computers at the time leaving them with egg on their face and a great deal of embarrasment.
The computer misuse act in the UK is pretty strong and would come with fines and imprisonment for up to 10 years.
What is really pissing the British off is that the American government is trying to extradite McKinnon using a law that was passed under the shadow of 9/11 for the purposes of anti-terrorism.
Granted, McKinnon was foolish to enter the US government computers, although perhaps he should be given a consultant's fee for highlighting such lax security. If they're going to prosecute him for being an idiot, then certainly they could look closer to home.
And the tactics employed by the American Justice Department have been more than questionable under various EU laws, let alone the English legal system.
Perhaps the biggest disappointment is to see the politicians rolling over for the American government instead of standing up for their own citizens.
Did McKinnon break into the systems? Yes, and he has admitted such. Surely as a British citizen having commited a crime in England he should be tried under English law.
Iain
I'm so sick of the aspie defense. Seems like every time a computer user is on trial (remember Reiser?), it gets rolled out. "My client is guilty as hell, but he's got Asperger's!" First, your mental handicap has to be to the point where you quite literally don't know what you're doing - so just give it up, having light Asperger's doesn't cut it. Second, it impacts the way people view us computer professionals - for example, when we try to argue for less copyright and more information freedom. The aspie defense does us about as much good as the "Your honor, this man did indeed kill his daughter, but he's Muslim, he can't help himself" defense does for the vast majority of Muslims.
If he fits the requirements of the extradition agreements between the US and the UK, then he should be extradited. If he wants to try to use Aspergers in his defence, he can do that over here.
Burn her so she won't hex me no more !!
I guess you have to be at the right place at the right time to get a ticket to Guantanamo.
Maybe if he had been hacking via an Afghan proxy server?
""Despite his growing affinity for the machine, he left school at 17 to become a hairdresser, a career cut short by a friend's insistence that there was better money, and he was better suited, to a career in IT."" http://www.pcpro.co.uk/features/252972/gary-mckinnon-britains-hacking-hero.html I find it highly unlikely that an Aspie would ever become a hair dresser, an incredibly social job. Anybody who has every had any kind of contact with a true Aspie knows they avoid social situations like the plague. I call shenanigans.
Hes guilty as hell: we all know it. His lawyers are spinning the sympathy card around every do-gooding media type they can find when in reality any medical problems have absolutely nothing to do with the facts of the case. Ill take great satisfaction in seeing him locked up to rot in the US.
WE NO WHAT 2 DO WITH HIS KIND!
-- /. CAN have positive carma
a consrvvativ on
Abandon All Hope, Ye Who Enter Here
Oh come on, stop making medical excuses for this guy. Most people with AS know that you cannot do something like this without breaking the law and getting punished.
McKinnon is just another geek who thought that a lack of security implied that he could just walk right in through the door without punishment. Chances are, he's also one of those geeks who would hypocritically go postal if he left his door unlocked and a bunch of people walked in and refused to leave.
"But it's a computer... it's **different** mmmmkay?"
--- http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/please-go --- the petition http://kalvis.com?PleaseGo.pdf --- the poster ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: 10 Downing Street Date: 2009/7/31 Subject: Your petition has been rejected To: petition@kalvis.com Hi, I'm sorry to inform you that your petition has been rejected. Your petition was classed as being in the following categories: * Issues for which an e-petition is not the appropriate channel Further information: We cannot accept petitions which involve individual legal cases. Individual legal cases are a matter for direct communication with the Home Office. If you wish to edit and resubmit your petition, please follow the following link: http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/ex-treaty/BOdqUVCfKXpvB6NOBuAUBWV You have four weeks in which to do this, after which your petition will appear in the list of rejected petitions. Your petition reads: We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to: 'end our extradition treaty with the USA.' After the abuse of the extradition treaty in the Gary McKinnon case, we petition the Prime Minister to end the extradition treaty with the USA. -- the ePetitions team
"Sophos's survey of 550 IT professionals found that 71% believe McKinnon should not be extradited"
What exactly was asked in this 'survey', how were the questions phrased, what questions were asked before the one on McKinnon, why would it matter that they were 'IT professionals' considering that the hack McKinnon did consisted of logging into passwordless Windows NT computers and typing rude msgs (in wordpad) to the administrator
davecb5620@gmail.com
I do not think that the parent post is trollish. Just the truth. Either that or the parent suffers from the rare /.trolling syndrome which is caused by the combination of mercury from vaccines and the CO2 that is destroying 'the world.
Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
"Gary McKinnon has lost the judicial review of his case, dealing a potentially fatal blow to his hopes of avoiding extradition to the US" It's ironic that if the situation were reversed and under the 'evidence; presented in this case, the UK government would have no way of getting McKinnon extradited here. I guess we're not a real country ane'ways .. :)
davecb5620@gmail.com
Maybe people will finally realise Aspergers isn't a real condition and an excuse for the the socially inept to not make the effort.
Fuck You! Fuck You! FUCK YOU!
You do realize the UK government used anti-terrorist laws against Iceland right? And I would mention those people never set foot in the UK either.
What goes around comes around.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
Really, it's the admins of those insecure computers who should be prosecuted. I thought it was a federal offense negligently to give access to secret data?
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
Alexis? Is that you?
obsession, social naivette/awkwardness? Maybe I have ass burgers too!
...used the wookie defence...
"He didn't "hack in". They had default "Administrator" accounts with no password. The hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of damage he's supposed to have caused was the cost of checking to see if he'd damaged anything (he hadn't) and fixing the security holes (which weren't his problem). They only noticed the intrusion because he left messages telling them!" - by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 31, @10:08AM (#28895641)
Funny you should mention that: In 2007, while I was working doing virus/spyware/malware in general removals as part of my job duties (often taking over when the other techs failed to do so @ times), I saw that also, & on MANY systems from OEM's like DELL, HP, etc. et al!
Blew my mind - ESPECIALLY on what you now note: Because that's when those same system vendor oem's shipped those to users with ADMINISTRATOR ACCOUNTS with NO PASSWORD (blank pwd) @ all...
(So, as you state, ANYONE could remotely logon to them basically, from anyplace online, & because LanMan networking is enabled, by DEFAULT from MS & these system vendors (tcpip over netbios service & Client for MS Networks networking client for File & Printer sharing with Enable NetBIOS over Tcp/IP enabled-checked as working/on))...
BIG mistake on the part of the oem's distributing Windows rigs... huge.
APK
just like ADD and ADHD. its called being a kid.
... think Charles Manson should be let free.
It may be an excuse if it wasn't for the obvious neurological difference that shows up in MRIs of people both with autism and AS.
The British Government is dead set on getting him extradited. They are obsessed with being seen as being tough on "cybercrime" in case the US removes our already piddling access to their secret data.
I always thought the British were our ally. Last time I checked, the British Army had 30,000 soldiers crossing the border into Iraq in March 2003 and they stayed for a pretty darned good time after the rest of Europe bailed.
Seems to me that information sharing between the two countries should be more, not less.
This is my sig.
Maybe people will finally realise Aspergers isn't a real condition and an excuse for the the socially inept to not make the effort.
Some psychological, personality, and/or developmental disorders aren't fictitious. Maybe people will finally realize that and stop being facetious know-it-all assholes. Then again, maybe people like ringbarer are obvious trolls and my social ineptness and my lack of effort is the excuse for this misunderstanding.
"Be prepared, son. That's my motto. Be prepared." --Joe Hallenbeck
And just like heart disease. It's called being a pussy. Don't grab at your chest pussy. Suck it up!
(obviously you've never heard of adult ADD which is somehow "just being a kid?")
and qEEG is showing differences in people with ADD.
I think the everyone missed the irony of you being unable to connect with and empathize with people with Aspergers.
i got your joke.
I realize this is not quite the same, but the idea is if you leave giant gaping security holes, someone somewhere is going to exploit them. The US is lucky this guy found the hole and not some angry terrorist, or chinese/russian hacker with a beef against the West. Now that would have made for an interesting case. This guy's actions are the equivalent to you logging on to your neighbours unencrypted wireless, and them being nice enough to go over and tell them, and maybe even help them put the password on.
As the saying goes "No harm, no foul", and the only harm done was that the US had to fix it's own security. Tough having to admit your a bunch of idiots I guess.
Do not argue with an idiot. He will drag you down to his level and beat you with experience.
You are woefully uninformed and have probably only run into those idiots that self-diagnose as having Aspergers for the reason you state. If you've ever met anyone that was professionally diagnosed with Aspergers you'd know that almost all of them do what they can to fight the disorder and act normally. I, personally, know several and unless they told you it'd be hard to tell them apart from your average geek.
In other words... I'd suggest you STFU and actually do some research before cocking off about something you obviously have no real knowledge about.
It's a simple case of being responsible for ones actions. If you choose to do something, as a human, you weigh what you do on it's affect to others. Many people don't care or consider the consequences for their actions. Well now this person is faced with the consequences and doesn't like what will happen, thus the "Oh woe is me" arguement. I say if the courts find someone guilty, they should just get the punishment going and not have 50 million appeals. Medical conditions have become the excuse for so many court cases, that it truely does diminish the patience that humanity has for those who really do have no control of what they do due to medical conditions.
It's a slippery slope that's being opened up and it's getting more slippery every day.
Life takes interesting turns, but the most interest is when you're off the beaten path.
Ah yes. In
http://news.slashdot.org/story/09/07/17/085244/New-Developments-In-NPGWikipedia-Lawsuit-Threat
where a UK computer was used to post information out of the UK in breach of copyright and that infringing work is still available in the UK.
Then it was all "hey, it's a US site, so why does it matter?" and "why do the UK laws apply in the US???"
Yup, and you can do a scan to determine if I am awake or asleep, or whether I am thinking or not. This does not, however, indicate it is some type of genetic disorder or environmental variable causing this.
The one fact that keeps rearing its head is that even after you take out other socioeconomic variables, ADD and ADHD is much more prevalent in fatherless households. There is a very high correlation. And yes, I know correlation!=causation. However, you have to make some pretty big leaps of faith to get around it. Dads have a much different parenting style and discipline style than moms. It stands to reason that this would have an impact on the outcome of the children.
And now, in the modern America, where husbands aren't really viewed as necessary (or even desired), we wonder why we have an explosion of these "disorders". Sorry... it ain't rocket science.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
Unlike Tourette's, clearly.
Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?
We may socially subfunctional, but we can still tell right from wrong.
You can vote for or against here: http://slashdot.org/submission/1044077/We-petition-the-Prime-Minister-to-resign?art_pos=1
Asperger's is a very real condition, however by definition it is no defense for criminal behavior. The similar condition that is severe enough to merit a diminished capacity defense is called Autism. The threshold of diminished capacity was long established in autism diagnosis before Asperger's was identified. Autism is a disease, Asperger's is a disorder.
And although we can agree on the invalidity of the legal argument, I must point out that derogatory comments about the mentally disabled is extremely lame.
War as we knew it was obsolete
Nothing could beat complete denial
- Emily Haines
I know you were trolling, but I need to respond. I have AS. My father has it. My grandfather had it. And my son and one of my daughters have it. Believe me, it's real. I'm nearly 40. I'm just now feeling like I'm getting a handle on social skills. I believe I'm now entering the realm of the merely poor people-skilled humans. But it's much more than a lack of people skills. I have problems experiencing any emotion except anger. Sometimes I know what I'm feeling. Sometimes I feel something specific (like jealousy or embarrassment for example) but interpret it as a generic "bad". Sometimes I can't identify it at all. And sometimes I feel nothing when something should be there. Even when I know exactly what I'm feeling, 80% of the time, I express it incorrectly. Normal people can't read me either. They think I'm angry when I'm not, or feel completely blind-sided when I am angry. Behaviors that are natural and automatic for neurotypicals are learned behaviors for me. And if I haven't learned them, I execute them wrong or not at all. I have problems with executive function meaning that it's difficult or impossible to plan and organize some things. It explains why I always scored sky-high on aptitude tests in school, but always got bad grades. My spacial relations, problem solving, design abilities, and speech/linguistics are way out there. I always impress people with it. But my memory is beyond terrible. I can remember hardware addresses of computers I used 20 years ago, but can't remember what I had for breakfast a couple days ago. I also have sensory problems, mainly with touch and hearing. I have problem filtering out background noises and focusing on specific people talking. I have no idea what they're saying. Yet my hearing tests out perfect. When it happens, it's like my wife has switched to a foreign language. My gait is visibly wrong, which is common. I also have the theory of mind problems (mind-blindness). It's sometimes nearly impossible for me to understand at all how someone else feels unless something nearly identical has happened to me. As a coping mechanism, I have a long mental list of things that I know make people feel bad. When someone expresses sadness to me because of one of these things, I fake the empathy back to them. It works most of the time. And I intend the same things for them as someone who actually feels bad for them. I really want them to feel better. But inside me, I feel mostly nothingness.
Asperger's Syndrome and other autism spectrum disorders are real. I've benefited partially from it. But for the most part it sucks. I would give anything to be normal.
Disconnect your television. Do your own research. Draw your own conclusions. They're probably lying. Don't be a sheep.
And now, in the modern America, where husbands aren't really viewed as necessary (or even desired), we wonder why we have an explosion of these "disorders". Sorry... it ain't rocket science.
What America do you live in? In the one I live in, "family values" like marriage, having children, etc are cherished. There's even public service announcements like "it takes a man to be a dad." No one, besides maybe the most radical feminists would say that fathers are "undesired." And there really aren't many single-parent households at all if you count step-parents.
(-1, Raw and Uncut is the only way to read)
Maybe people will finally realise Aspergers isn't a real condition and an excuse for the the socially inept to not make the effort.
Careful what you wish for. When I was younger I was at my worst when I was making an effort. Imagine someone who is socially clumsy, with no ability to read when he is pushing things too far, trying to meet women. I freaked quite a few of them out, because I had no ability to understand that they weren't interested. I truly had no idea, it wasn't until a friend sat me down and said, "You're really making her uncomfortable.". Even then, I had no idea what I was doing to make them uncomfortable. They would say hi, and I thought that meant everything was great. I had no idea when people were lying, or telling the truth. I had no idea when they were laughing with me, or laughing at me, so I eventually just assumed that people were malicious all the time, rather than trust them. I have Asperger's, and I can tell you, I've put in several lifetime's worth of effort in trying to understand and read people.
Obsessive behavior and social naivety describes every IT professional I know (myself included). I'm amazed that only 71% don't think he should be extradited (the other 29% must be in denial).
Support Right To Repair Legislation.
Family values are talked about. We have advertising campaigns. But it is projected that in a few years that more kids will be born out of wedlock than in (it is slightly over 40% now). This is trend is being seen in all social levels. So, Family Values are a nice political campaign slogan, but we have rejected them as a society.
If you want the #1 factor in a child's success, look to two-parent households with parents who are actively involved with their children. Forget ethnicity, forget money. They may be big factors, but parents' involvement is #1.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
Asperger's Syndrome has already been established as being a defect in the mirror neurons in the brain, and it is unquestionably a form of autism (which is caused by those parts of the brain designed to filter information being malformed).
If a malformed brain is an "excuse", I'd LOVE to see ringbarer's sick notes. What the hell is real, if great big chunks of the brain being missing is fake?
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)
The American prison system (judging by how it's described by American sources themselves - often with glee) is something to which no civilized nation should allow its citizens to be subjected. Sometimes people seem not to realize how twisted it is that prison rape be considered a normal part of going to jail, instead of the vile barbarity that it is.
First off, Asperger's Syndrome is generally recognized as being on the Autistic Spectrum, not as an independently-classified condition. Second, MRI shows the two to be tightly-coupled, that there can be no serious question that Asperger's Syndrome is merely a specific subset of Autism.
Now we've got that out the way, I strongly object to the whole mental concept of absolute diminished responsibility. It's a sliding scale, not an on/off switch, and ALL people will have some area in which some diminished responsibility will exist.
The only sane, rational, logical approach is to forget about the notion of whether a person is legally culpable because of such a defect, because it's simply not useful, but rather to approach the issue as a case of how to divide the consequences of the action between treatment for the defect and punishment for the action.
Although I can see the UK legal system someday making such a switch, the US is legally very primitive. So much so that they still think the death penalty and digital watches are pretty neat ideas. I'd argue against extradition, less on the grounds of diminished responsibility of the guy and more on the grounds of diminished responsibility on the part of the US.
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)
I'd rather him win his appeal and be charged in the UK. Let them try him and lock him up. I'd rather not pay for his club-fed stay.
Don't be normal. If you think being aspie is bad, neurotypicals are infinitely worse off. They even believe their own crud, half the time, believe it or not.
For those curious about whether they have Asperger's Syndrome, there are three simple ways to self-diagnose:
On the other hand, Slashdot is going to primarily be of interest to aspies, so constitutes a test in its own right:
If you have answered Y to two or more of these, you're aspie.
Alternately, you could just look at the two "classic" symptoms:
If you answered Y to either of these, you're aspie.
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)
i don't understand why this gets him off the hook
if you kill 20 people and plead insanity, you still get a form of punishment: the insane asylum. regardless of WHY someone commits the crime, is the more important priority of society protecting itself from people who engage in criminal behavior. whether because of moral failure, psychological defect, or some other variation on the tired "the devil made me do it" defense
you've been revealed as someone dangerous to society. therefore, some sort of restrictions on your freedom are necessary, regardless of WHY you commit various transgressions
so if he wins based on his defense, he'll still be punished
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Yup, and you can do a scan to determine if I am awake or asleep, or whether I am thinking or not. This does not, however, indicate it is some type of genetic disorder or environmental variable causing this.
How is this +4? The qEEG can be used as a tool to diagnose ADD. How is that a negative thing?
If we can cut down on over-prescription of ADD medication isn't this a good thing, regardless of not being able to figure out if it is a genetic disorder or environmentally caused?
I'm not sure how the fact that environmental issues such as child rearing can lead to higher chances of ADD symptoms becoming expressed has anything to do with the validity of ADD.
As far as I can tell this guy isn't a kid. He's a 40 year old pretending to be mentally ill using the same defense that furries use to justify why they spend their days sexually suggestive anthropomorphic foxes with five nipples and then complain they can't get women.
The one fact that keeps rearing its head is that even after you take out other socioeconomic variables, ADD and ADHD is much more prevalent in fatherless households. There is a very high correlation. And yes, I know correlation!=causation. However, you have to make some pretty big leaps of faith to get around it. Dads have a much different parenting style and discipline style than moms. It stands to reason that this would have an impact on the outcome of the children.
While I had a hard time believing in ADD/ADHD when I was a kid, my step-brother was diagnosed with it at an extremely young age, when he was still in a 2-parent household with an active father. I was recently diagnosed with it as an adult, having grown up in a 2-parent household until I was 9, and living with my father the remaining time (with a step-mother a couple years later).
In many ways the reason I was diagnosed so late in life is that I also had social anxiety that was a strong control on the ADHD, caused in part by the parenting style of my mother. It was only when I took steps to counter the social issues so I could live a normal life that many of the attention deficit issues became noticeable to others. I also changed jobs recently to one which requires greater organizational skills and self-monitoring of one's time, both of which I've found are nearly impossible without medication and discipline.
In most cases where we see an increase in the diagnosis of a particular disease or problem in the population, it has more to do with the increased awareness of the disease and increased screening than a major shift in society itself. Additionally, the fact that we're less likely to beat children into submission when they speak out of turn or won't sit still means we're causing fewer additional problems that simply mask the problems they already have.
-PainKilleR-[CE]
McKinnon stands accused of hacking into US systems 97 times, causing millions of dollars worth of damage. McKinnon claims he was merely looking for evidence of aliens - though he doesn't deny the hacking charges. If convicted he could face 70 years in jail.
If the Aspergers defense doesn't work he could always try for insanity in the U.S!
/TROLL
"i lost my dignity on a slippery wiener"
The one fact that keeps rearing its head is that even after you take out other socioeconomic variables, ADD and ADHD is much more prevalent in fatherless households. There is a very high correlation. And yes, I know correlation!=causation. However, you have to make some pretty big leaps of faith to get around it. Dads have a much different parenting style and discipline style than moms. It stands to reason that this would have an impact on the outcome of the children.
ADD and ADHD appear to have a strong hereditary correlation, it's as highly plausable the ADD/ADHD fathers are more likely to leave their families as it is that the absence of a Father contributes to ADD/ADHD children; most likely is both facters come into play. ADD/ADHD Fathers have probably develop alternative coping skills and teaching them to their offspring would increase their functionality in society which doesn't happen if the Father is absent.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
Hmm.. that seems kind of familiar. I've discovered a treatment for something. Nobody knows what I have, so I've had to do my own reseach for years, and found something that helps immensely. The symptoms are the wide range of those of chronic fatigue syndrome and aspergers seems to fit the profile as well. What it comes down to is a very unusual allergic reaction. One has a huge number of allergies, but no allergy symptoms. Clear sinuses, no sneezing, no itching. INSTEAD the reaction is neurological. Here's how it works - histamine (H1) is the source of all the usual allergy symptoms. The body has a histamine feedback mechanism - the H3 receptor, which turns down Histamine when it gets too high but also drags down dopamine, GABA, acetylcholine, noradrenaline, and serotonin with it. My theory is that in some people (CFS sufferers, maybe Aspergers, etc etc) this H3 receptor is oversensitive, and is constantly cranking down all those essential neurotransmitters, causing lots of side effects, and never giving you any sign that you have allergies, because H1 is never allowed to get too high and show symptoms.
I wanted to test my theory, and found a H3 receptor antagonist called Betahistine. I tried it. It works like magic. It's primarily used for Vertigo, but works for this. I wonder if it would help with Aspergers.
I am not a doctor, and you probably won't find a doctor who will prescribe it for this purpose. I'm throwing this out there, though, because I hope it could help someone.
Yeah? How many "Aspergers" nerds have actually been diagnosed with an MRI?
Face it, its a fake checklist disease that Albert Einstein-wannabes heard about on Oprah. Obvious autistics are obvious.
and i thought they said "assburgers" disease...and i nearly crashed my car i laughed so hard.
People who do stuff have an inclination to do that stuff. If we don't want them to do that stuff, then we have to take action. That is particularly so for people who are particularly likely to do the stuff we don't want them to do.
Any interest or quirk of character can be labelled a syndrome. It should not mean a get out of jail free card for life.
That said, I don't think he should be extradited..
That's what a large number of people do, yes.
But that's not what everyone does. Asperger's is a valid diagnosis, but it's a lot rarer and harder to diagnose than the number of people having it would lead you to believe. Most of the people who are validly diagnosed with it spend more time trying to get around the social awkwardness that's one of (and only one of) the symptoms associated with it, instead of trying to use it as an excuse for bad behaviour (which is what most self-diagnosed idiots do with it).
By "having it", I meant "state they have it".
But it is projected that in a few years that more kids will be born out of wedlock than in (it is slightly over 40% now).
That doesn't in any way invalidate what has been said. Birth out of wedlock doesn't rule out later marriages, whether to the biological father or some other male to serve as a step-father. As it stands right now, you're just getting up on the soap-box and pulling numbers out of your ass to attempt to justify your position. I won't disagree with your point about parent involvement, however.
There are a lot of losers replying in this thread about how the "disease" makes it difficult to talk to women or engage in social situations. They're giving a disease status to their socially ineptitude. In other words, there's no magic syndrome causing them to be losers; they're losers and justifying it by saying they have a syndrome.
There are a lot of Anonymous Coward losers replying in this thread about how the disease is fake and an excuse; they're losers and justifying it by writing caustic and inflammatory statements saying it is not a real condition. Curiously I wonder how many on each side, the trolling side and the defending side, are Aspies themselves... as it is quite clear to me that just as many of these trolls have the same social ineptitude as the people they are trolling.
"Be prepared, son. That's my motto. Be prepared." --Joe Hallenbeck
Obvious autistics are obvious
Captain Obvious is pretty obvious.
Pulling numbers out of my ass? Here is the first link that come up in google: http://www.cnn.com/2009/LIVING/wayoflife/04/08/out.of.wedlock.births/index.html
If you only like wikipedia, here is another http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legitimacy_(law)
Regardless of whether future marriage occurs, the 40% rate of out of wedlock births strongly indicates that couples are not willing to make a commitment to each other before having a kid. And of the remaining 3/5, 40-50% are projected NOT to stay together. This makes it really hard for a kid to have both a father and mother role model.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
Hey! Welcome to the ADD club! Although i hate the term because at least what i have is more Executive Function Disorder then a lack of attention.
I can focus so intently (on the wrong things) that i lose track of hours. That is obviously not a deficiency of attention.
I highly recommend the book: Delivered from Distraction (the first on is Driven to Distraction).
Roughly the stats are something like you have a 30% chance of passing ADD on to a child.
In fatherless households, female children reach menarche and display secondary sexual characteristics sooner, too.
Is that somehow due to discipline style also? Or is it POSSIBLE that gene expression is influenced by environmental characteristics like presence of one or both parents?
Don't you wish your girlfriend was a geek like me?
Source please?
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
I see you're avoiding the issue that it can be detected and diagnosed by brain scans. I don't give a damn what person X says person Y says they have, I care that MRI results establish a neurological disorder within the mirror neurons produces the symptoms established by the psychiatric profession as Asperger's Syndrome.
What you say others say is of no significance whatsoever compared to the hard evidence. Now either address it or admit you have no point.
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)
Frankly, does it matter what a large number of people do? A medical psychiatric diagnosis can only be given by a fully-qualified specialist on the disorder in the psychiatric profession and a neurological diagnosis can only be given by a neurologist.
If these professions concur that, say, Britain has an incidence rate of 1:60 people for AS disorders, of what possibly consequence is the opinion of the remaining 59 on what they have, or indeed of the 1 in that 60 as to what consequences they face?
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)
Either McKinnon had open access to unsecured information and no intention of committing a crime - which makes him innocent of any crime under UK common law - or he didn't. The US Administration wants to say that he had no access to anything sensitive, but that he should still be tried for a crime. This is stupid. The UK Government is supposed to have signed the UN Convention on Human Rights as enshrined in European law. They are trying to circumvent it. They are both stupid and malicious.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
Here's the first hit on a scholar.google.com search for menarche father absent. If you want more, you now know how to find it.
Don't you wish your girlfriend was a geek like me?
Family values are talked about. We have advertising campaigns. But it is projected that in a few years that more kids will be born out of wedlock than in (it is slightly over 40% now). This is trend is being seen in all social levels. So, Family Values are a nice political campaign slogan, but we have rejected them as a society.
I don't think anyone anyone debates that a real, 2-parent household is the best environment for raising children. But a 2-parent household is the exception throughout history, especially for the lower classes. It is a form of wealth in its own way.
(-1, Raw and Uncut is the only way to read)
That would make me a bit more tense than "Please remember to lock it."
You are inferring that ADHD is somehow caused by the absence of a father.
Wouldn't it make just as much sense to infer that ADHD might be genetic and that if a parent has ADHD then the parents are more likely to be divorced, leading to a fatherless household?
Someone can go cry about brain scans all day, all it does is provide mental justification for sitting on their fat ass eating cheetos and playing world of warcraft. I've got zero pity and I'm going to laugh at them for what they are, fatasses eating cheetos playing world of warcraft.
He is going to spend 60 years in US prison, according to the guardian.co.uk, as least the judge said so. Considering if someone kill a person by a car when he is drunk, he get less punishment than this poor boy. What I'm saying is he just don't deserve this harsh punishment.
As someone who scores 172 and 46 respectively on that quiz when I first took it in 2007 and 182 and 37 respectively when I took a newer version of said quiz last month, I would not recommend self-diagnosis using the internet.
It's possible for other psychological disorders to be confused with AS.
Interesting. Thanks for the link.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
Don't be normal. If you think being aspie is bad, neurotypicals are infinitely worse off. They even believe their own crud, half the time, believe it or not.
To me it feels like that twilight zone episode where they removed the bandages from that beautiful woman, but the hideous doctors and nurses were revolted by how disfigured she was. There's power and logic in how we operate. But they'll never see it and accept us. And since there are more of them, they'll always rule the world and make life hell for us.
AS is about polarizing abilities. Good abilities become great. But bad abilities become dysfunction. Normal is the middle of the bell curve, and we ain't there.
The software I write are works of art. But few have the capacity to understand it. I have other abilities, like I can speak french and japanese. I also have nearly all of the lyrics from all popular music from about 1980 until about 1992 memorized. But it's all parlor tricks. Personally, I'd rather be a happy, clueless NT.
Disconnect your television. Do your own research. Draw your own conclusions. They're probably lying. Don't be a sheep.
They want to make an example out of Gary McKinnon.
They think he wanted to snoop on their skunkworks-style secretweapons or classified info which they covered up by calling it UFOs/unknowns.
This thing is fishy - to catch a scriptkiddie looking for UFOs with so much media exposure while the hundreds of really intelligent smart blackhats are just ignored.
This means that the US Govt has something to hide in the UFO files that Gary tried to access.
The truth is not out there, it's in there - and that's the real big deal.
IMO, YMMV.
NT version 3.5 or 4? :) I wouldn't consider it parlour tricks, and you WILL be grateful for that ability when you're in your 90s. Polyglots and "classical" thinkers (those who mix arts and science) have a much higher resistance to almost all the effects of old age and are virtually bullet-proof to things like Alzheimers.
Yes, you're right that it's polarizing, but NTs actually set out TO polarize their abilities. They just do it under the pretense that they are now "specialists" or "experts" in a field. NT is an evolutionary dead-end, and those who live in their world try hard to recreate ours in order to function.
Normal is a bell-curve in terms of frequency, but an inverse-bell in terms of functionality, producing more of a saddle-shape. The topology of this class of shapes is fascinating, but the usefulness is near-zero.
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)
Since I'm dangerously underweight (always have been), can't stand Cheetos and regard World of Warcraft as an inferior MUD that cannot hope to ever match the true supremacy of Live Roleplaying (Spirit of Adventure-style, or Trouble At Mill), I don't match any of your naive and rather superstitious stereotypes.
I probably walk more in an afternoon than you do in a week (I consider 21 miles to be a nice, gentle stroll), probably have more friends than you know people, and am unquestionably Aspie (diagnosed repeatedly by both neurologists and pdocs).
So who's crying? You, with your inferior 6-digit UID and stereotypical fantasies, or me?
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)
Congratulations on trying to justify your life to a stranger on the internet who doesn't care. You win nothing!
I have 2 fathers and ADD you insensitive clod!
I was recently diagnosed with Asperger's, and although it was a tentative diagnosis, it seemed to fit very well. I sat in shock as I read your post, because it seemed like something I would write. Even the part about anger being one of the few emotions you can experience readily. I get that too -- and it's easy for simple frustration to ratchet quickly into anger.
Thanks for sharing. Once upon a time, even I was skeptical of the existence of Asperger's Syndrome, but the evidence keeps piling up (both objectively, in the form of medical and scientific research, and subjectively, in terms of my self-analysis and recollections of events and behaviors throughout my life). Like you, my gait is screwed up -- indeed, I remember incidents in high school where other students would make fun of my peculiar walk. I never did learn how to ride a bicycle, despite numerous attempts (including some in adulthood).
Mod parent up, I'm also an aspie and while some sometimes its got certain advantages and may even seem suited towards certain areas of work (such as computers in my case) I would give anything to be normal. Trolls can go fuck themselves.
Reading comprehension failure on your part.
Parent was responding to grandparent's implicit statement that ADD and ADHD are not real disorders, and that they are "just being a kid." Parent points out that there are adults diagnosed with ADD and ADHD, which blows away the grandparent's theory that these disorders are "just part of being a kid."
Parent was not in any way suggesting that Gary McKinnon was a kid.
Then again, I suppose you would then suggest that there's no such thing as adult ADD or ADHD either, and that the people with these disorders really just want legal speed. (You know, like adderal or ritalin.)
Indeed. Here, you're assuming the absence of a father figure is a cause for ADHD. Isn't it possible that the father (who may or may not be a carrier for the trait himself) might have trouble coping with a "problem child" and abandon the family when the child is young? I've seen this happen to friends in all walks of life -- not everyone can handle special needs kids of whatever variety, and even mild medical issues might be too much for some guys' coping skills.
I have been diagnosed with Aspergers and I have allergies, specifically hay fever and to fish (hospitalized for eating tilapia of all things) so maybe you've got a placebo effect going for you or one of us is out of the norm.
But we don't lock people up for 60 years for trespassing.
There have always been places where a physical intrusion - no matter how trivial - could quite conceivably get you shot.
The online world isn't so very different.
Asperger's has become a fad for those seeking to garner attention unto themselves. In the fine, hallowed tradition of disease whores everywhere, many of today's youth expertly design a disease which kills two birds with one stone by:
1. . assuming others are born normal rather than work at it, giving the self-proclaimed Aspie an excuse not to make an effort to develop social skills, and
2. . assuming they were born smart, rather than merely having had more exposure to books and computers because no one wanted to be around them.
I know you were trolling, but I need to respond. I have AS. My father has it. My grandfather had it. And my son and one of my daughters have it.
Awh shit, even people with Aspergers date and have sex. I need to get out of my parent's basement! :-)
The one fact that keeps rearing its head is that even after you take out other socioeconomic variables, ADD and ADHD is much more prevalent in fatherless households. There is a very high correlation. And yes, I know correlation!=causation. However, you have to make some pretty big leaps of faith to get around it. Dads have a much different parenting style and discipline style than moms. It stands to reason that this would have an impact on the outcome of the children.
It's a pretty big leap of faith to claim parenting style has that kind of effect on a child's brain.
Might it not just be that having a kid with ADHD or ADD puts a hell of a strain on a marriage?
---- Sig. gone.
It's a pretty big leap of faith to claim parenting style has that kind of effect on a child's brain.
Huh? That parental style means kids are undisciplined and don't respond to authority? No leap at all.
Might it not just be that having a kid with ADHD or ADD puts a hell of a strain on a marriage?
If they don't get married BEFORE the kids are born? I think you have it backwards.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
Might it not just be that having a kid with ADHD or ADD puts a hell of a strain on a marriage?
If they don't get married BEFORE the kids are born? I think you have it backwards.
Depends on what is actually measured.
If only kids who's been brought up in a single parent household since birth is counted in the statistics you quote my point is irrelevant.
If kids who's father has left on some point between birth and diagnosis is also counted as having been brought up in a fatherless household, my point stands (although, I should have not used the word married but relationship).
---- Sig. gone.
Self diagnosed no doubt.
Two parent families are very nice when they occur, but too many males expect to be expensive children, spending more than their share of the budget on toys and games for themselves, then spending their time at home playing with those toys and games while drinking instead of being a positive role model for their children or doing a fair share of the other jobs around the house. Fair share, of course, depends on how a couple organizes their work, if a guy really does work 80 hours a week and his wife is a "professional mom", then maybe he can come home, sit on the couch, and yell for beer, while playing games, but even that guy probably has a family that just wishes he'd go away and send money. The least a guy can do is be a role model for his kids. They can learn to laze around, drink, and play games without his modeling of such behavior. And it's a lot easier to fight for the toys with your siblings than with your old man.
"What America do you live in? "
Turn the question around and I ask what America you live in?
Divorce rate for first marriages is over 50%. And the US leads the world in teen pregnancy, a significant percentage of which result in a single mom because the baby daddy is often a POS.
Men raised by single mom's often don't have any significant/consistent adult male role models in their lives. This often leads to their growing up to be a "Man-child" who doesn't know how to 'be a man.'
Family values makes for a nice slogan, but the plebiscite appears to be functionally ignoring the message, while paying it lip service.
It's not just the US, though. Russia also has a very high divorce rate and a high teen mother population, though one difference is that teen mothers in Russia often get more support from their immediate families than those in the US.
Everything a child is exposed to affects the developing brain, for better or for worse. That's how development works. A key reason that Nature vs. Nurture will most likely never be resolved is that genetic effects and environmental effects have a huge area of overlap in child development.
Get a grip. He hasn't said he can't tell right from wrong, the only reason AS has been brought into his argument is because they are claiming his AS will make it had for him to survive in the US prison system which is a perfectly fair argument. Finding social situations more awkward than most people understand is a symptom of many AS sufferers even if it's not a symptom you personally have. Having that inability to deal with social situation with the US prison system will mean he'll either get ripped or shreds, or as his defence quite rightly states, simply kill himself.
He's not claiming mental incompetence as you and others seem to be suggesting, his defence are saying they do not believe the US prison system will be able to look after someone with the traits he has.
This is a perfectly valid argument, even the white collar crime section of US system is relatively brutal compared to those in Europe, and it's not as if there's an argument the brutality helps due to the US' relatively high crime and re-offending rate.
He admitted to doing what he did, he knows he was wrong. The problem is whether he should be stuck in a relatively brutal US prison with no hope of visits from his family due to them being 3000+ miles away, or whether he should be in a British prison which at least has a better track record of dealing with people like him, whilst allowing familiar faces like his mother to visit so he wont be turned into a suicide case.
This guy did not rape, murder, steal, he did not even have kiddie porn images on his machine. He telnetted/FTP'd/VNC'd/whatever into a few US government systems that had blank or default passwords.
Frankly I think community service and a criminal record is punishment enough for that, it's not even worth jail time. He's being hung out to dry simply because he made a laughing stock of the abysmal security of NASA et al made worse by the fact it's hardly the first time their IT security has made them a laughing stock.
Someone can go cry about brain scans all day, all it does is provide mental justification for sitting on their fat ass eating cheetos and playing world of warcraft. I've got zero pity and I'm going to laugh at them for what they are, fatasses eating cheetos playing world of warcraft.
Personally, I'd rather be fat and eat cheetos and play WoW than be gay and use linux...