Slashdot Mirror
Why geek geniuses may lack social graces
chadmulligan gave us the
head's-up to a recent story about research into why "geeks" lack social graces, and don't appear "normal". The answer may be due to mild autism for some geeks.
← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)
CNN.com is running a related story on social phobia, panic attacks and selective mutism.
Their spin is unfocused, and suggests both a developing condition and/or a psychological trauma that causes the above behaviours.
We should consider social factors as heavily as chemical and neurological ones, when contemplating geekness as a form of autism... It seems, to me at least, that being geek is a reaction to the environment, or a predisposition to a particular pattern of behavior. It is not something of which we should be 'cured' in either case.
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
So am I black or am I white? Am I geek, nerd or just another guy on the street. It's all subjective and is based on what people view as common. If you are a geek and see the intelligence and ingiuity in me, you might consider me a geek. If you see that I am not dull or 'stupid' you might think so too.. on the flip side, if you are 2x intelligent than I am, you may think of me as a fool (less chances of so if your ego isn't huge).
I am not trying to prove a point, but make people think.
-
ping -f 255.255.255.255 # if only
Must post comment until the paragraph spacing is just right!
--
I are one and you am two.
On the other hand, if there had been articles like this around when I was in school, and teachers and councelers had deemed I didn't need to go to music and gym because of my nerdiness, I wouldn't have shed a tear
-
Hmmm, I wonder if an obsessive need to correct people's minds is not a symptom of some kind of mental disorder. Perhaps a large number of these afflicted individuals are phychiatrists themselves where they have escaped detection! We need to officially initiate a study. What do you think?
I agree, it's not fair for "geeks" to be labeled as "not normal", when those happy little bouncy basically "useless" people are what "we" are supposed to be like.
I mean "useless" in the sense that they go on to do basically nothing with their life(In my opinion, anyway), like be lawyers, journalists, managers, play professional sports.. sure some do something like teach english or whatnot, and I'm not really trying to bash them or anything, but, I mean, without "geeks" where would the rest of the world be? "Geeks" invent things, "geeks" can fix things, "geeks" have the best imaginations. Without "geeks" the world would be pretty boring. The world would probably be in the stone age, talking non stop to each other. Who knows. Oh well. I'm just frustrated with the world.
... and that's the point. It's a perfectly natural aspect of human development allowing for maximum diversity among the same species (i.e. by killing of certain parts of the brain and allowing others to take their place you can have high heterogeneity from a common blueprint). If it wasn't for biological tricks like this we'd all still be in dank caves.
BPD entails too many people with degrees in Social Work out there on the street needing jobs. And all the Social Work graduates entail too many people drifting around in college thinking that they should be 'working toward something' while they take Liberal Arts courses.
People should take Liberal Arts courses and learn lots of things. But anybody who tells them that because they can't figure out anything else to do with the intellectual skills they are developing that they should make it their vocation to go into Social Work should be quietly shuffled off campus.
Anyhow, it makes sense to me.
Almost any 'clinical' term with the word "Syndrome" or "Disorder" in it should start the bullshit meters clacking. The people who overuse the term should be issued new job doing something productive.
It won't happen, of course, because it's unbalanced and probaby some sort of "syndrome" to oppose their efforts. Probaby a 'disorder' of some type to tell them to go do something productive for a change.
Seriously though, perhaps the definition of "normal" is what's messed up. My entire family is used to doing six impossible things before brunch - is this "normal"? Perhaps the reason why humans are a dominant species is that we adapt.
Perhaps we have adapted to high input lives. Autism may be that adaptation. This may have started with the introduction of television, for all we know.
And for the record, I can dance, I can sing (used to perform with my family in front of thousands), I can shmooze at parties, and I don't think the football jocks are "normal" - they're the deadweight in this society that we lug around as ancestral baggage.
Brains are what we need for the next century, not luddite notions of what's "right".
If the sociologists had their way, half the kids in school would be labelled as ADD.
Oh, and I'm also in the PTA - have served many offices in that as well as political ones.
Will in Seattle
Nobody is claiming that *every* geek has mild autism, but the comment about startle reactions struck a nerve. If I'm startled, it takes me a *long* time to recover, and I'm sure that it's a large part of the reason why I pay such intense attention to my environment.
:-)
As for the idea that many of us have shadow autism, why is this so objectionable? It's fairly well accepted that there's a high incidence of bipolar disorders in this field, yet you don't see people bemoaning that label. Is it simply a matter of "good press" for the latter, since it's associated with genius?
As to the general idea of "shadow" manifestations of severe mental illnesses, that mirrors what we see in many genetic illnesses. One copy of the gene gives you some benefit, but two copies of the gene causes problems. I guess that's an argument against geek in-breeding.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
Maybe it's because I just finished reading Ubik by Philip K. Dick and Natural Law by Robert A. Wilson, but this article struck me as bing tailored for a "certain" audience. Which is leading me somewhere that we don't need to really go. The one thing that made it cool was the percieved intent and the Freud thing at the end.
ANYway. I have a question. I have noticed that lots of people derive their "pride" and/or "confidence" from ego tripping which usually leads to bashing people that are not like them. Ism skisms I believe is the term.
The question? Oh yeah right. Why do so many people have to feel like they are right?
Is that a condition (yeah I know two questions, jail me!)?
Maybe we can call it being human.
nothing excels in every environment
Geek has different connotations to different groups. To people in the computer field, it tends to mean somebody who is excellent with computers. To people in other walks of life, it tends to mean people with little or no social graces.
So, yes, I am using it with two different meanings. I'm trying to use the meaning which was used in the article.
As for why don't geeks have social graces, that becomes a circular definition (ie: Recursion (n) see recursion). While it is a valid reason, it doesn't explain it unless you already know it.
In this case, the people are trying to explain why geek geniuses, as a rule, have so few social graces. They've found something which at least provides a correlation (however weak) as to the why.
As other people have pointed out, there are a ton of other reasons why they could have so few social graces. From the other responses I've read, I'd have to take this report with a whole salt lick, instead of just one grain.
But that doesn't necessarily invalidate the association. It's very possible that people with a mild form of autism are considered geeks. No, I don't think they should be cured, provided they are happy with who they are. If, however, they want those social graces, shouldn't we try and help them understand why they might not have it, and help them find a "cure"?
Personally, I think it's an area worth further study.
GPL made simple: What was my stuff is now our stuff. If you improve our stuff, please keep it our stuff.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
You can not have a mild form of down syndrome. You can not have just a little bit of extra chromosomes. You either do or you dont.
There's even a simpler explanation for this than incompetance. Greed. Psychologists want to be able to diagnose everyone with some form of disorder. Charge them $200 an hour, plus the cut they get from recommending prozac to every patient, and they never have to have a sports car more than a year old. There's a book, published by the American psychologist's organization (I don't remember the name of either), in which every disorder is listed and numbered. They publish it every year. The reason every disorder must be enumerated is that without a number, the psychologist can't bill the insurance company for that disorder. Yet, they are the ones writing the list of disorders. Sound like a conflict of interest to anyone else?
Communication is only possible between equals
I go to CMU now. I am NOT a Computer Science student, but I will say that this I believe the article to be true and the parallels between the antisocial computer geek described in the article and the typical CMU CS student is quite clear. I thought the article was very interesting, since the behavior of the uncoordinated geek seems to be strange. I will say that I am a geek, however, I still have coordination and like to chit chat with friends.
I'd say that 99% of the biological disorders (OCD, depression, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, etc) are not defined societally, but are actual illnesses of the brain. If there is something physically wrong with the brain, then that will manifest itself in behavior. It's as simple as that. I also think that a lot of illnesses that many people say are just "in your head" have a biological basis. I recently read an article (in the New Yorker, I believe) where a neuroscientist suggested that Attention-Deficit Disorder comes from the inability to perceive lengths of time reliably. Yes, there are many illnesses that are based in society (and are also defined by the society) but there are many more where there is actually something wrong with the way a person's brain is working.
Must be an over-developed cerebellum. Who knows.
Don't worry. They already know all about your paranoia, and are planning to "take care of the problem" sometime soon while you're asleep.
- I more than CAN dance!!
- I can read people!
- I don't rock
- I know how to dress!
i.e. lots of silly generalizations
I'm clumsy. I don't get lots of people. Most people don't get me.
Yet, as a geek (as most of us here are), konstant took the stance that this analysis of his traits and their relationship to a disease was a personal attack. He was only able to see the word Autistic, and not the larger picture.
My interpretation was not that geeks are abnormal because they are on the thin part of a bell curve. My interpretation was that autistic people are normal, because they are on the bell curve at all.
But then, maybe I'm not a geek.
...with the same brush.
I am in my 20s with a computer engineering degree, and I got good marks at school. I have 4 computers on my desk at work (well 6 if you count my PDA and digital cell). I develop S/W for a living - I'll work plenty of 12-hour days durnig a crunch. I have 2 more computers at home. I work on a personal website project with some of my spare time. Classic geek/nerd?
Well, I am married and have lots of friends. I play organized sports (hockey, baseball) 3 times a week. I rally my car in solo II racing on the weekends.
What's the point? Just becuase people who exhibit these "mild autistic symptoms" and happen to be smart does not therefore mean that everyone who is a "nerd" or "geek" is un-coordinated, smells and wears a pocket protector.
The question should be "why do x% of these people who have these characteristics also have above-average intelligence?" and not "why do geeks/nerds exhibit these characteristics". There is a big difference.
Do you even know anything about perl? -- AC Replying to Tom Christiansen post.
Thank you for a *reasonable* post. I think it's interesting that one article which *skimmed* a study is suddenly flamed so heavily. sheesh. I didn't read anywhere in that article that *all* people who work with computers are autistic, and I didn't read that we should drug it out of those who aren't (never mind that there really isn't a 'cure' for autism)
Interestingly, both me and my son were at various points diagnosed with mild autism..his diagnosis has been changed, and my mother just stormed out of the doctor's office and wouldn't take me back (good for her!).
The problem isn't in the diagnoses so much as in the reactions -- there are quite a few people with autism of various severities doing good things out there, and it *would* explain a lot about a few computer geeks I know (myself included) and if people would consider it as 'just another theory' [and I mean professionals as well as laypeople] rather than some sort of religious fact [by that I mean believing it even though it can't be proved..you can prove downs syndrome with genetic tests, you can't prove autism except by observing symptoms, which, as several people have pointed out, can also be caused by other conditions) and use that theory to design ways of migitating annoying symptoms (as designated by the person in question, not a random board of psychs or even their own psychs), without losing the good 'symptoms', then we'd go far with this.
humans.
"Entering"? Nope. "Wittily"? Sure. "Finest"? Oh, if you insist.
MIT kinda takes a sabbatical each January, and the students and faculty hold various activities to entertain each other over the month. People show movies, take intensive and concentrated language classes, hold game tournaments, and what have you; each department will sponsor dozens of events and students hold about twice as many on their own.
One of the traditional events is Charm School, an utterly tongue-in-cheek collection of booths in one of the main lobbies. I think its description can be found somewhere on this page. Two years ago, I think, Miss Manners was the guest of honor.
I'd chalk this whole topic up to more of that vague, unsubstantiated, grasping-at-straws quality of the article that others have already pointed out. Let's move on.
We are after him and he should be afraid. B-}
Interesting. See anyone you know? ;)
IMHO, it's very interesting to compare the "symptoms" of mild-autism, ADD (and ADHD), and the "hacker mentaility". Perhaps what makes geeks geeks is a different way our brains are wired.
Ceci n'est pas une sig.
There have been a series of views on the state of geeks today. I personally have become so confused at the differing stances on "Geeks" "Nerds" "Hackers" and "Crackers" that I just classify myself as a Geek because I have become so tired at explaining what a Hacker is.
The point being, this study has actually begun to hit the surface of how geeks work. Most of these studies are funded because most of the individuals who in high school were austracised (sp) from any social clique are maturing into indispensable members of society. The "jocks" and "preps" are getting out of college and thrown into the fire. Most of them come out of the fire scorched and bleeding from not having to deal with abuse. However the pre-scorched pre-beaten Geeks and Nerds who drop out of high school, or leave high school having been through the fire learn to cope.
And survive..
Study high-school and you will find your answer to how "socially inept" individuals survive.
Study us... and you will find that we've been studying you much longer.
I cannot confirm nor deny the allegation or allegations you may or may not have just made
>I am also tired of people not understanding the difference between someone who is just different and someone who is functionally impaired and needs help.
This reminds me of a behavior that is the bane of code reviews: wasting everyone's time criticizing things because "I would have done it differently" instead of sticking to things that actually fail. I agree with you: the world would be better off if people could distinguish between matters of personal taste and matters of objectively measurable difference.
Slashdot - News for Herds. Stuff that Splatters.
Social graces are irrelevant. Politeness and the expression and the care for emotions leads to inefficiency.
that is seems people are taking offense at being labelled a geek, mild autism, and possibly ADD. Does is really make a difference to any of you that you're labelled these things? Personally, I think most of us should be proud of it. Hell, it could be worse; we could be starving artists (what I was almost doomed to be), paralegals or even lawyers (blood-suckers), or maybe just trashmen. Now, who cares that we're being labelled by the media or misunderstood by the so-called specialists on the human psyche? Hmmm, in Victorian England, having a sex drive was considered a psychological disorder, and even being left-handed in the middle ages was considered an original form of brain damage. So we're misunderstood and labelled. Chances are, most people that label geeks are jealous that thse geeks are able to understand things that are beyond the scope of the majority of the population. Laugh at it and see it for what it is. Utter nonsense.
In their original form they are both insults and neither implies any kind of social skills.
Now it's the 90's and nerds and geeks (as well as other technically competent people who weren't ever called nerd or geek) are getting money and power. So, rather than say "I'm sorry for insulting you", contemporary society has chosen to redefine the terms so it looks like the insults never happened.
I disagree. This author uses the term geek and nerd as one in the same. I think a geek is a nerd that has social skills. I know that I am social, and yet at the same time like to find time to myself and a computer. I guess slashdot is an example of geeks. Those who post I would think are social in real life. What do you guys think?
-davidu
-Davidu
# Hack the planet, it's important.
Could it be that we dont enjoy the same type of 'social events' as others do?
:P
The fact that we talk to most of our friends via online forms of communication: IRC, ICQ, E-Mail, etc... instead of constantly calling them up and leaving annoying messages on awkward answering machines? True I do like the way voicemail works on my cell, but icq is still cheaper
I like LAN Parties and hanging out with other technical people who I have something to talk to about. I personally don't drink or smoke, and I really dont enjoy many parties where I spend half the night defending the fact that I don't drink and the other half trying to figure out what they keep trying to place in my drink.
I think it's really a matter of style, how many people who look back on the 4 or 5 years they spent either in high school or college drunk off their asses can say it was really worth it? I'd say if I had to venture a guess maybe half of them, the ones who got lucky and didn't get sued for sexual harassment or something else stupid while they were drunk or didn't get arrested.
I'm at college now, and alot of people think I'm nuts because I enjoy an afternoon of chilling out listening to cds, watching movies, or playing video games while their 'out' doing shit. Then I walk outside and see the great fun event their all doing... sitting around being porch monkies in the sun. Not what I would consider fun, maybe I just dont understand the concept of baking my way into cancer on a saturday afternoon and consider myself cool for doing so.
Take it as ya like, but I dont agree with a good 40% of the social norms out there of things to do.
...dont talk about what you dont know about.
:-) His article blatantly comes across as something new. (not much public knows about it, but they dont know about eg particle physics)
:-)
He talks about validating a theory that had little if any evidence for or against it.
You're the one with little or any evidence
No, not true - it has been known for 10 - 20+ years that Asperger's syndrome (which I have) gives one a predisposition to technical things.
I have social skills and a social life, although I CANNOT do smalltalk
It isn't necessarily a `illness'/`syndrome' / whatever - it is just a variation from the `normal'. (You ever seen those (now known to be wrong) bell curves? They show just how wide ranging `normal' is.
Apparently those with asperger's syndrome are also suited to be chefs, or something.
AC
P.S. there is a condition that is more prevalent in girls (cant remember what its called) which makes them over talkative, and go up to complete strangers and talk to them etc. (any ideas what its called? )
We're supposed to smell the bullshit, go out and vote Republican, and run the creeps and psuedo-scientist out of their government-funded jobs.
I'm not even usually that conservative, and I find the layers, and layers, and layers of crap these people lay down to support their theories, and their thick volumes full of jargon... well, I find it nausiating to the extreme.
I like computers..definately computers. Oh yeah...
jf
While I won't even try to pretend to have the faculties to diagnose your mental state, I feel safe recommending that you wear a helmet until you visit somebody who can :)
Here's how I see it.
:)
The field of psychology is fundamentally flawed in that all the bookworms and loners who write the psych dogma are themselves abnormal.
They project, onto those whom they would like to emulate, the definition of 'normal'. Normalcy, per a sub-conscious desire to fit in, is wishfull thinking on part of the psycho-babbler. It is a fictional standard to which they (and so we as sheep) aspire to, based on the image they hold from childhood, of those they wish had been their friends - the social butterflies.
We all know the 'bell curve' model of statistics. We can all make the mental leap of comprehension, and realize that normal, in this context, means 'average' statistically. It explains why the 'popular' kids are always so 'mean' to their peers. Pun intended.
Also, lets consider for a moment that nothing is ever accomplished by the average. Mediocrity barely succeeds in sustaining itself - nevermind driving the world forward. Mediocrity did not put mankind on the moon. The average socialite was home eating bland meatloaf and oatmeal while the geeks and idiot-savants at NASA did the impossible. The mediocre stared in wide-eyed wonder as those they once pushed around, now stood a million miles above them. The different became the better, the Neil Armstrong, the Charles Atlas. They shook and rocked the mediocre status quo, and being average didn't feel so glamorous or popular anymore.
The psychological label of 'average' serves to do only one thing. It bludgeons the outstanding into a cookie-cutter mold of sameness. It homogenizes the radical and exceptional, before they have a chance to give the psychology geek something better than 'average' to aspire towards.
Much as Freud's own screwed up relationship with his parents gave us the Oedipal Complex and Penis Envy, so does the modern label of 'normal' force the better and the different into hiding.
Let's let the psychologists talk. Let's let them broadcars their findings using the technology we developed. Let's let them feel above average, and then let's bitch-slap them down with their own research papers, just for being different and for standing out above the crowd. Let's medicate them for having such disturbing ideas. Obviously, they suffer from ADD, and they must be protected from their own instability.
Long live Harrison Bergeron!
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
I've thought this for years so I wouldn't be surprised.
On a similar note, many geeks (particularly moderately to very successful ones) probably have mild cases of OCD (obsessive-compulsive disorder). I wouldn't be a bit surprised to find myself diagnosed with this (which is different than actually having it).
It all boils down to "What's normal?" When my roommates and I argued about dishes in the sink and socks on the floor, was it because I was too anal or because they were too sloppy? When I correct people's grammar, it is because I feel they have been imprecise--but they don't feel that way. Who's right? As a character in Greg Egan's book "Distress" notes, the next big social battle will be over the two H's: Health and Humanity. Do people with "disorders" but who are otherwise fully functional have a right to stay that way? His example of autistics hits home right here, I suggest you all check it out (although the plot isn't directly concerned with this topic).
---
Put Hemos through English 101!
"An armed society is a polite society" -- Robert Heinlein
Linux MAPI Server!
http://www.openone.com/software/MailOne/
(Exchange Migration HOWTO coming soon)
Bill Gates may have a "mild form of Autism" but _I_ sure don't. Many of my very computer literate friends were also in band in HS and college. We _can_ keep time, thank you. Also, even tho I did go to a Baptist College, I can dance. I also understand C, HTML, and can dine without sticking my nose in hot food. I don't laugh at all, and do possess a good level of coordination.
I think this guy needs to meet with more people that just Mormon Autistics. Never base a theory on just one set of people. Or try to justify a stereotype. Reading the article, it sounds like he is trying hard to justify a stereotype of the "nerd".
Nerds wear thick glasses, never bathe, and trip over their shadow whenever possible.
Geeks enjoy technology, almost to excess, and in general are above average intelligence.
Both classifications can err toward each other, but there's a line where the range ends and one can exclusively be one or the other.
This is the way it has seemed for a long time (since the late 80's). It could be blamed on experience, but I've encountered many people who feel the same way.
Why can't people just understand that it's everyone else that is "not normal"? I for one am getting sick and tired of "geeks" being slammed for their "lack of social skills". I am both a "hardware geek" and a "programming geek" and I was happily married at the ripe old age of 21 and have 3 great kids. (I am 27 now) I belong to the PTA, serve in my church, and generally do all the things that other "normal" people do. I just happen to enjoy re-compiling my kernal while watching monday night football! When will the "geek" prejudice stop!?!
Hey, I have to admit (not that it is tough for an AC to do)... I've got a good OCD buzz going. Sure, it makes me a Slashdot junkie. But it has also given me the ability to concentrate and focus my attention on my computer skills, to a degree far better than the OCD deficient would be capable of. OCD IS FOR ME!
I agree that there is a biological basis for a lot of mental illnesses. Depression, for example, runs in my family, & I thank God every day for anti-depressant medication that returns seratonin levels to normal. My point was that the reactions of people to these diseases is what's socially dictated. You're not considered an outcast if you catch a cold, but you are if you get diagnosed with ADHD or bipolar disorder. That's where the problem is.
Think like a person of action, act like a person of thought. --H. Bergson
Early on, I displayed some symptoms. Like my father, I didn't speak until I was 3 yrs old (and even then, I developed my own language before I switched over to English -- e.g., my parents tell me part of the vocabulary was "ruck-row" for truck. Later, I tended to trip frequently over nothing (or, as my parents put it, over black scuff marks on the floor), that the number of bruises I had actually led to a brief abused-child investigation.
Since then, I've adjusted pretty well. Still irritate my mother when I don't telephone her frequently (Q: nothing new to report, so what's the point in calling her? A: to make her happy. That'll be $2.35 long-distance charge, please).
Christopher A. Bohn
cb
Oooh! What does this button do!?
My daughter was noticeably odd at 2 ys old, and was officially diagnosed as "high functioning autistic with hyperlexia" at 3. Clumsy, speech difficulties (reverses "I" and "you"), doesn't look at people's faces as much as normal, reading at 24 months, etc. She is definately wired differently than most of us.
When she's older, she'll probably fit the Bill Gates-style nerd stereotype pretty well. She's a wonderful child but very odd, and it's hard for me to imagine where she'll fit in to society, except as a "tech geek".
Thank hypothetical supernatural power that the hacker subculture exists and welcomes any odd duck that can do the work! This is something to be proud of.
Disclaimer: most of us "tech geeks" are reasonably socially skilled (at least at work, as adults). My guess is that fewer than 10% of us gain our "tech mind powers" from any form of autism. But isn't it nice that autistics are welcome, too?
no, common sense is not crossing a busy road without looking first, and not poking a pitbull in the eye when its sleeping (or any other time for that matter). =]
not to nitpick your style of life, but
1. getting married at 21 ( too young )
2. 3 kids at 27 ( again, too fast AND too young )
1 & 2 are NOT normal.
you're either
a. extraordinarily mature for your age
b. fast-forwarding your life
I hope its a.
Good luck.
"bullshit" is a bit harsh, but the article is very blurry (the book might be perfectly scientific and deep). whenever i read something about "socially inept","shyness" etc., i oscillate between "yes! that's me!" and "hm. does not quite fit." So although the article seems to make sense superficially, and might even get the phenomenology right (plus i did enjoy the reading), it reminds me of astrology (read: useful as a dead rotting crab).
you collect a bunch of features and put a name tag on it (shadow autism or sagittarius). then write a book in a popular, easily comprehensible style. the many psychology-obsessed people will buy the book and therein find trivialities they can match to their own (often unfulfilled) lives and they will feel happy that they are not alone.
or maybe i am wrong. hnc.
NAW, THE OPPOSITE OF BEING AUTISTIC IS BEING A LOUDMOUTHED OBNOXIOUS JERK WITH AN OPINION ABOUT EVERYTHING, AND ALL MY OPINIONS ARE RIGHT, OF COURSE.
What you probably have is easy to diagnose. I'd say you have acute shyness, also called social anxiety disorder. I suggest you check out Shyness (what it is, what it does) by Dr. Phil Zimbardo. The book changed my life, helped me to understand my own behavior, and slowly over time to modify it. And if you look, he's even online, with his own website and email.
But so does posting the same message twice.
Hey now. All I'm lacking is a good set of conversation skills and the ability to tell people what exactly I want ("You know, one of those things."). I used to rock back and forth but not anymore.
Then again, we're all different...
And yet...I can honestly say I've never met any "nerd" who was mildly autistic (or however you spell it). I've met people who rock back and forth, can't look directly into someone's eyes, etc, but never anyone with ALL the symptoms.
Good article, though. Got me thinking.
miyax
When I was a kid I was put in the class with the kids who had learning disabilites or severe ADHD. I didn't know what exactly was going on but there were a lot of weird things that led me to a string of strange doctors and special teachers in grade school:
- I never crwaled. This bugged the hell out of them. I just started walking one day, and to me the idea of crawling once you could walk seemed absurd but I could never figure out how to tell them.
- I had bad gross motor skills. I would trip, fall, could not play sports, I'm a terrible judge of distance, and would run into things (knocked out my first baby tooth on a doorknob).
- I have NEVER been able to play nice with the other children. To this day I cannot tolerate losing in games of skill.
- Nasty nasty temper. It took me damn near 10 years to calm this bad boy down. I used to throw anything and everything at people when I got mad.
- Despite testing off the curve in the standardized tests I had virtually no interest in school whatsoever.
When all was said and done, would you like to know what it took to get them to leave me alone? Computers
Of course the kids never stopped teasing me, but for the first time the adults saw that I could direct my energy towards something seemingly productive. I never looked normal til they saw me at a computer. Most people did not even know what the hell computers were, but at least they were happy I was doing something.
My point in all this is that society needs to see kids doing something, moving in a postive direction, and for most kids this comes from sports. They learn how to work as a team, they learn the value of sportsmanship, they learn the value of hard work. For the most part, most kids can show progress in sports with not too much effort, hell they spend their entire days playing! It's for this reason that society is so big on sports. Jocks exist as role models for acheivement for the kids who are in the baseball, basketball, or football league. It's a very tangible example of human accomplishment for people who have the ability to play them, and for the most part, most kids do okay. It's only a few of us who excel at technical things, and you'll never get society to side with the minority.
Needless to say, I still suck at ALL sports, but this computer stuff sure turned out to be lucrative.
Anyone who isn't just like them has some social disease, is that right? So, do these jerks ever *define* this alleged lack of social skills? Before you answer, let me note that my son was diagnosed, a number of years ago, by a clinical specialist in the field, as having ADD...not fad diagnosed by someone with no clue. He also has a number of friends, including girlfriends (ok, he's 16 - he "doesn't have girlfriends"). Social skills? Are these like, how to play mind games, how to lead people on, how to be a tease, like the "popular" kids in school? Like, ahhhh, upper management? Are those what they're talking about? Or maybe they're talking about how to be snotty and rude to someone who knows more than you do, and find some way to put them down, rather than admit that they are better than you are in something, esp. if it's something that doesn't require using your body as a blunt instrument (he said, thinking of US football). Oh, and beating someone up because they know more than you do is looked down on, after high school (and no, I was never a victim, being taller than most of them, nor so insecure that I couldn't simply walk away). Maybe it means that they're perturbed that the "nasty names" they came up with don't work, so they've got to find something less pleasant. Maybe it's time for *us* to start discussing Comprehension Envy (tm), or Ignorance Denial (tm), by the fools that write this crap. mark "fed up" whitroth@wwa.com
Go into the information security field.
The "technical" term for mild autism is "Asperger's Syndrome".
That's just one of a whole family of diseases. The larger category is PDD, or "Pervasive Developmental Delay" -- a category of which autism is only one extreme. My older son has this, and I'm probably one of the people who show the "shadow syndromes" which are a much, much milder example of it.
There are many good sites on the WWW which discuss this, but unfortunately most of the good information is still in books. But you might start with autism resources.
A song that is actually DECENT comes on while you're holding...and 5 seconds into it...
*click*
"Your call IS important to us. Please continue to hold. Your call will be answered in the order that it was received."
*10 seconds of silence*
*5 seconds of the decent song* then...
*click*...*repeat cycle*
WHY do they do this? This is more annoying than the WORST hold music that could possibly be played. I can't just put the phone on speakerphone and keep working on whatever I was working on before because I keep getting distracted by the damn *click* making me think that an actual human being has picked up the phone.
I'm willing to wait on hold as long as I can do something ELSE while on hold. Tricking me into thinking that they have actually answered the phone when they haven't is insulting and annoying, and makes me much MORE resentful of the hold time.
Dealing with other people is a lot more frustrating than working with incredibly precise and predictable technology (Windows excepted). It's tempting to give up on people and avoid improving our own skills in that regard, but this is irresponsible.
I think non-geeks have some very valid criticisms, and that geeks ought to come to terms with these and do something about it. It's usually better to solve a problem than to deny it and blame it on someone else. It's also better not to blame some mysterious genetic or chemical influence. Human will can overcome some incredible obstacles.
Making computers easier to use is very important. It requires us geeks to give up our arrogance and try to understand how other people see the technology that we create. It's not their stupidity that makes something hard to use, it is ours that keeps us from designing better interfaces.
BTW, I wonder if people who write and publish such books might be suffering from a mild form of megalomania?
Spicoli
Who ordered the double cheese and sausage?
This article doesn't have a lot to it. A researcher went around looking at autistic kids and found their parents had symptoms. That's interesting, though not that unexpected. And Bill Gates being autistic proves nothing. Contrary to what the media may report, Bill Gates is actually just one person, and doesn't represent the computing industry as a whole.
Outside of those two points, the article consisted of unsupported suppositions and blatant stereotyping. Does the writer actually know any geeks, or is he basing this on Revenge of the Nerds? Because that's what it sounded like to me, when I read about the whiney voices, the physical awkwardness, and the snorting laugh. That described none of the people I work with. Most of them play sports, are in a relationship, and while perhaps more shy than your average bar-hopper, do not exhibit any of the symptoms the writer described for autism.
I am assuming, however, that the writer (of the aritcle) read the book and fixed on one little aspect which would make a good headline. I expect the book is better researched, more logically sound, and entirely not worth reading unless you're specifically interested in psychology.
Using Microsoft software is like having unprotected sex.
Bite the hand.
1) Teach them social skills so they can live better, more fulfilling lives;
2) Ship them to Auschwitz where they can pound out code 24/7, then gas 'em when they're too old.
I'm thinking the latter is more likely to occur in America
Better come up with a better explanation. One cannot be "mildly afflicted by downs syndrome." Down's Syndrome is a specific defect in which there is an extra 21st chromosome. Either you have it, or you don't (although the severity of its symtoms vary).
:)
Hmm..I took that down syndrome remark as sarcasm. Then again...maybe geek syndrome is clouding my judgement.
What I'm seeing in the replies to this post is the assertion that I'm improperly condemning a good book and a decent scientist. Apologies if that's the impression I gave.
My concern isn't with Ratey, Johnson, Courchesne et. al., who I don't doubt are honest scientists only trying to discover the truth. The danger isn't with rational people like those, but with irrational people who will inevitably hold up their work as an illustration of what is "wrong" with geeks.
Sure, maybe Gates has a mental problem. But don't go extrapolating from him to geeks in general. For one thing, he's in a far more exclusive segment of the population: megalomaniac billionaires, and is arguably more representative of that clique than of nerds.
The very fact that this study was conducted but no such studies were conducted on jocks indicates to me there is a bias in operation.
-konstant
-konstant
Yes! We are all individuals! I'm not!
I can't let all these readers who are bashing this story go unchalanged. Every day, I watch a living example of high-functional autisim right in front of me.
:) )
I have a four year old who is all but a poster child for this. At one year of age, he knew his alphabet; by three, he could write words and phrases in his choice of three or four fonts; now, he can spell phoneticly and a wide variety of interesting typograpohy (ie: substituting a cookie for the letter "o" - with the Nabisco logo faithfully reproduced with the painstaking detail described). Testers have rated his visual spacial skills off the chart. His motor skills are another story. He can button any button on his shirt as long as he can see it. He can't button the top shirt button because he can't see it. He still can't conduct a decent verbal conversation or catch a ball. Don't even talk to me about the washroom. *sigh* He uses phrase fragments clipped out of everyday life, TV, movies, commericals to express what he wants and doesn't always adjust the phrase to match the tense, gender or person.
The only thing I'll challange is the issue of musically ability. Both by wife and I are musically inclined; each of us are from musical parents. My son can sing quite well. I think there is a whold branch of autism that has outstanding musical ability, but that is another posting. (I guess that's because "Normals" in journalism don't go into enough detail
On the humorous side I guess that what happens when geeks breed - I married a math major.
Having a label attached to this "condition" has empowered us a parents to direct our public school system to address my son's education. It also helps everyone who evaluates him know what to expect. I dislike labels, catagories, and pigeon-holing as much as anybody; but, as long as I can use a label to benefit him, I'm willing to live with it. A label gives educators a reference to see everything that is good in him and strategies to deal with his compulsive need to finish the twenty-seventh drawing of the "Bill Nye the Science Guy" logo (Using the correct fonts and shaded letters, of course). The last thing I want is to see his special abilities homoginized by educators who don't understand it.
As an interesting side note, most of the literature we've read indicates that this affects boys far more than girls. This is probably a leading reason why our profession is so male dominated.
This is a boring sig
I read an article in this week's New Scientist which suggests that Tourette's syndrome twitches are "intentional, coordinated movements made in response to some irresistable urge" rather than involuntary muscular spasms as previously thought. The article actually compares Tourette's to OCD and suggests it's an "extreme variant of a normal thing felt by many people". Interesting, no?
-- Arm yourself when the Frog God smiles.
You're also describing a Social Phobia or a Post Traumatic Stress disorder.
My observations have been that most 'geeks' over intellectualize to make up for a painfull childhood. Supressing their emotions, since acknowledging them would be very painfull and we don't have a support system to deal with the pain, and focusing on their intellectual interests.
Social interaction can be very scary and painfull if you didn't learn how to connect to another human being or how to handle an unpleasent human being because your upbringing was lacking.
Most people won't admit to it, again since admiting to it would mean acknowledging their past. I know its an easy cop out, but its true.
The previous comment about the simplist answer, its not a rare brain disorder, but simple side effects of a poor childhood that are self reinforcing. You are affriad in social situations and thus get hurt, so you are even more affraid the next time around.
Later,
MarkV.
What you are describing is classic social phobia. It sounds just like my life a few years ago-- before I got help. Read up about it on the WWW and get books on the subject. You should also seek professional help -- you might benefit from medication and/or therapy (I needed both).
Good luck and feel free to email me...
Autism would be an upgrade to his condition.
--
I'd rock back and forth, but then I'd only get motion sickness.
Yes, there are many people with ADHD and dyslexia.
One of my personal pet peeves about our very modern society (US) is the overabundance of these "diagnosis"es that are made in about an hour and lead to continuous drug use to modify the behaviour of children. Then worst part is the description of most of the symptoms, doesn't pay attention in school, fidgets, low attention span, acts like a child (oops, that last one is mine). Brings to mind a certain novel about a certain drug, Pro^H^H^HSoma (which BTW was a pre-christian term for the body part of the body,mind,soul triumvirate)
One of the best parts about the article (read it, everyone) was that it said that "normal" doesn't really exist. We're all freaks in our own special ways. That's the kind of science I like.
when they could easily maintain the pace of
the other students if only they were encouraged in the right way?
This is where I think education research should be focused, "how do I teach this type of child?" instead of "how do I make this child one I can teach?" Heck I've been to business training "understanding" sessions, where they basically say there are different (very and obviously) types of people that use different ways to communicate and are influenced by different criteria. I think it could be very applicable to our school system, especially for the younger children.
my $.02(US)
+&x
I thought this article would be typical clueless bs...but actually this article is quite on target.
;).
I used to know a kid like this (roommate). Annoying to the extreme unfortunately. He used to rock constantly in his chair, and had the weirdest "galloping" style of locomotion, both of which are referred to in the article. He claimed he could never understand lyrics or music. He also, with no offense, was pretty slovenly and understatedly less than mannered in his dining behavoir. Very smart kid. But when his sleep cycle started to become the exact opposite of mine that was the last straw.
To make an analogy to operating systems, it seems people with this mild autism have a larger timeslice...they can get more of any one thing done at a time, but their consistency and responsiveness is at a disadvantage...their IO is also terrible because of a higher timeslice
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
I've actually observed this a long time ago, in myself and others. "Nerds"/"geeks"/"gifted kids"/etc. usually exhibit signs of "problems" such as ADD/ADHD, OCD, depression, Tourette's syndrome, or slight autism, all of which are caused by "problems" in various regions or chemical balances of the brain. However, there's something to think about here. Many of the "symptoms" of these problems are also what make these people so "gifted" and add to their best qualities, which is usually in academic areas. This was touched on in the article posted, but not enough; these are not really "problems", they are merely "differences" in the way these people's brains work, from the "normal" way. Think about it. Albert Einstein could probably have been diagnosed with one of these issues... especially with his consistent failing in mathematics in high school. Today, he would have been given Ritalin (which is now proven to cause permanent brain damage if taken long-term), "normalized", sent on his way, and probably settle down into a "normal" job and life. We are given these labels with a negative connotation. We should be PROUD of them. I have been diagnosed ADD, and I also have an IQ well above 100. To shed one would be to shed the other. I'll personally take the tradeoff.
Wait, I thought it was XYY ("supermale") that was supposedly overly agressive, not XXY.
*--------------------------
I'm of the opinion that perhaps the reason why so many geeks have such low social graces is because of the way in which we are treated growing up. If you're an outcast for long enough, you may start believe that other people and their social graces aren't worth dealing with.
*--------------------------
I agree with this statement 100%. I, like so many other "geeks", was a complete social outcast in school and had no friends and was constantly being phsically and verbally abused. But when I moved here to Austin (Texas) I was excepted by almost everyone (perhaps because of the very diverse culture here). It took a while but I finally began to make friends and actually have a semi-"normal" life. I still find it hard to make friends and the only real friends that I have are people who have gone completely out of their way to get to know me. This is because I do believe that many people are not worth dealing with although I am usually very polite for the simple fact that I don't want to put anyone else through the torture of low self esteem that still exists in me today. I get very sressed in large crowds and can't stand jobs that require interaction with other people.
Linux Dashes, NT Crashes...
go ahead and label me as having MWZBDFPED (cookie points to whoever finds something that that could stand for, starting with Mild and ending with Disorder) ...
I could well have used the MIT social graces class when I was in college. My oldest son has been diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome (classified as gifted, but can't tie his shoes). On a long tangent, assuming that there is some kernal of truth to the thesis of the article, how would longterm enclosed space habitats or generational starships deal with a larger than population normal proportion of asocial autistic offspring from the techno geek parents who are likely to populating such systems?
Jungian psychology divides the brain onto four
functions and basically says you can't do
more than one (conciously) at a time. So you can't think logically on about a problem and interface with a socialite at the same time; you
can't use your imagination and pay attention
to what's going on externally at the same time.
Normally, you switch between these fast enough to not notice, but if you're really focused, then
you might fee like you're being pulled out of something.
That and they (jungians) say that no one has a perfectly even brain, and it's actually not healthy to have evenly matched brain functions.
I think our society is based a lot on the freudian idea that you can change people. There's certainly a lot of work being done to do so.
Nobody said all geeks have autism or any other mental disorder. The article is pointing out a reason that many geeks/nerds seem to act in the same manner. Some people just like computers/technology/ham radio/etc. I am certainly a geek and while I do lack a few of the more relevant social graces, I also do not act in the same fashion as some of these people. Also, being "computer literate" does not make you a geek, it just makes you someone who can use a computer. I can use a car, but that does not make me a "car guy" by any means.
:)
And you should try laughing a little, it's great.
My younger sister (not a geek or a nerd or any such) was a Speech and Hearing Major in college. In this capacity, she worked a lot with autistic children. I remember one time when the family was together and she was talking about the aspects of autism, both positive and negative, like trouble with empathy and facility with language -- punning and suchlike -- and I found myself thinking, "My God, that sounds like me, only worse!"
It was at that point that I started suspecting that many of my social difficulties result from what might be a very mild form of autism. It's always nice to see those little "gee, what if..." moments reflected in massive academic tomes.
------- St Crazy Bob (Cannonized by Wholly Ordinance of the SubGenius Church)
One summer vacation, I spent dozens of hours reinstalling the OS so it is just to right. If I made one mistake during the install, I felt is was all screwed up however minor and had to reinstall all over again! And given that it was Windows I was using back then, I wasted lots of time! And I have done lots of the counting stuff. I have also been able to mask it from others very well I think. I found a trick which works is to count something out mentally than to do the action itself...for me this removes the compulsion. I have a whole bunch of other embarassing other tales to tell if you want more... Basically OCD is this nagging feeling you get in your head unless you do something a certain way. For me the compulsion comes is phases which swing up and down. The good side of it is that in the up phase, you can accomplish lots of amazing stuff. Also I have never told anyone this...last thing I want is a mental disability on my records!
Disclaimer: the following is all wild-assed guesses and speculation. Please don't flame
/* i.e. males are both smarter AND stupider than females, on avg. */
:p
Now, assuming we use that definition, what other cool insights might we get?
The most interesting speculation I have, comes from info from IQ studies:
male_avg == female_avg, male_std_dev > female_std_dev;
From an evolutionary standpoint, this makes sense if you view males as expendable, (we are not the child bearers) and thus living test labs- if the Y chromosome codes for more extreme expression of genes, than you can select out beneficial stuff faster where it doesn't hurt the species. If half the males die from living this unbalanced way, well, the other half just have to impregnate two females on avg., who aren't affected by the Y chromosome.
So, from the above definition of GEEK, you're gonna get more male geeks than female geeks, just 'cause of the way the Y works. Also, if you're looking at ANY group more than 2 deviations from norm, you're probably going to find other oddities, simply because gets 'stuck' with these traits on the genetic level. Change a bunch of proteins to favor one specific trait, you'll probably get unanticipated side effects.
This doesn't mean that the oddities are the cause of the primary trait, or vice versa. For instance, studies have shown a positive correlation between myopia and high intelligence. Does this mean that whatever made my great^65 grandfather smart also made him see worse? Or vice versa? Nah, it probably means that those of my great^65_grandparents who were both blind AND dumb got themselves killed off, while those who were only one or the other (blind but smart, dumb but 20/20) survived.
So, now that I've put out some weird ideas, what conclusions do I have?
1. The study is not trying to call intelligence a disease
-It's just saying THEY found a correlation between certain traits. Whether its because (a.some technophiles are less interested in people, b. genetic intelligence to enjoy technical stuff offsets the evolutionary disadvantage of certain genetic problems, or c. the time spent on cool stuff comes at the opportunity cost of time spent socializing) is a topic for later investigation
2. More investigation is needed
-where? see above for some starter ideas, and submit your own
3. We have some new tools
-if you have some problems in common with group X, you can consult the literature written/take the meds made/use the W invented for group X. I have some ADHD traits, and yes, the stuff helps me, so I use it.
4. We are not absolutely limited by our genes, but we must take them into consideration
-the Y chromosome is the product of millions of years of evolution, but it doesn't work to our benefit all the time. So be aware of tendencies to excess if you're male, but don't embrace them. After all, monogamy works better for humanity than rutting (like deer) does...which is the model the Y chromosome has worked with for most of those years...
And some personal beliefs
5. There's a lot to learn still
6. New knowledge is not threatening
7. I believe in higher purposes, the existence of the soul, a Loving God(dess? both in one?), etc.
-a bit of a digression, but SO many people believe #6 is incompatible w/ #7, that I personally feel it must be said. Besides, people often take personal offense at certain ideas, feeling them to be demeaning, insulting, etc., but if #7 isn't incompatible w/ #6, what else is possible?
God gave us both brains and hearts. Let's use 'em.
Well, we've disposed of objections to research per se, so, anyone up for ethics/ practicality discussions? As in, the ethics of methods in research, of applications, and more importantly, the ethics and feasibility of the systems that apply the knowledge.
Darn, this became too long a post
Amateurs think tactics.
Professionals think logistics.
-Military saying, source unknown (to me)
hehe, yeah, but the problem is too strong a dose of geek genes might cause the kids to go full autistic, which is not a good thing.
Were any of these geeks who were rocking back and forth wearing pants?
AHA! I found the flaw in the study.
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
Hmm... maybe. Does he talk about voices commanding him to do things? That is sort of the traditional, textbook description of schizophrenia.
I don't know, but my wife would (she's a psych nurse). I am just a geek who has read too much, but not recieved any education in it.
Look at the DSM-IV (or, better, the DSM-IV Made Easy)...why have I done this? I was trying to make an application that did some of this, and part of it was putting in DSM diagnoses boilerplate, so I needed a db of DSM stuff...
Schizoid, I think my wife would be likely to say.
Back in school they always told me I was a freak, I guess they were right! *sob*
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
Fear of rejection? Try Apple.
Insecure? AIX, HPUX, and Solaris will give you the power.
Need for community? Mmmmmm... Beowulf cluster.
Peer approval issues? Linux, my friend. Of course!
Schizophrenic? Try the Sun E10000.
Manic depressive? Amiga is for you.
Normal and able to cope? Welcome to Windows 98.
I personally have been identified by shrinks as "gifted disabled". As a youth, I would forget what my mother and other close family members looked like on a regular basis. I didn't know what I looked like until I was about 13 (mirrors troubled me, and it didn't feel strange for me to simply avoid them). I have a deeply associative memory, and will make what others precieve to be unbelivable non-sequiters on a regular basis. I can trace out the sequence of thoughts which led me to my new topic, verbally if necessary; When I do so, I'm often met with laughter or blank stares. Walking and handwriting are severely inconsistent for me. I will never write the same letter the same way twice. I was once told by a friend who was attempting to immitate the stride of his various friends that he couldn't quite pin mine down. He asked me if I did it on purpose. I have a deep and irrational fear of the unknown, and a penchant for control. I am 21 and have a mild fear of the dark. I'm known to 'know' things without understanding why clearly. For instance, ten years ago, I won a contest in which hopefulls were to guess the number of candies in a 4 ft tall cylinder (it's shape was curved to make it more difficult). I was within 20 (4,712 I think). It took me less than 30 seconds to produce my guess, I don't know clearly how I did it. I have an eidetic memory for the most ecclectic things although I have forgotten the names of most of my friends and girlfriends. I have yet to identify any easy method by which I might determine what I'm liable to recall and what I won't. These symptoms are almost all consistent with autism.
Based on the iq exams I took for disability elligibility for college, I have an IQ of about 144, even though there were easily identifiable catagories in which I performed substantially below average, and others in which I performed flawlessly.
Anyway. I've thought of myself as being mildly autistic for many years now.
Well, you're half right. It's true that you either have it or you don't, but it is possible to be affected by it to differing degrees. Just look at a number of Down's syndrome folks, and you will see that the physical manifestations of the disorder vary widely from one individual to the next. They all have that same extra chromosome, but some don't show it as much.
Ahh - My eye!
The doctor said I'm not supposed to get Slashdot in it!
Like most people, I know many very bright but awkward geeks, and equally many dull but charismatic socialites. There is also a vast spectrum of personalities between these poles.
I've met lots of combinations. I've met the bright and awkward fellows, and I've met awkward idiots. What's interesting is that among the brightest people that I've met, they tend to be either completely detatched from reality, or else
"freakisly normal" - so normal, that you'd never be able to pick them out from the croud.
The obvious question is: why characterize the jock extreme as genial and average, but depict the geek extreme as the early onset of a disease!?
I haven't seen this to be the case (outside of movies), and don't think it to be true. The "jock" and "geek" prototypes are examples of two different but not incompatible excursions from the social norm.
Speaking for myself, I'm a top-100 scorer on the Putnam. I also lift weights regularly, and when I was in college, I'd play ball with walkons from the team. Now mind you, I wasn't quite *that* good myself, but at least good enough to run with them without embarassing myself.
So, what does that make me? A geek? A jock? To tell the truth, it's usually other people that use those words to describe me, and it's usually based on who I'm hanging out with at the time.
Actually, if they do have a "cure", let me be the first in line. Please! If I can be the brain guy *and* work the women plenty, hey! Medicate me. NOW.
*----------------
Another thing to try, is getting stuck doing a job that forces you to talk to people, ie. technical support
*----------------
I tried this a year or two ago and my experiences with it were not good. I got myself a job as a cashier at a local Target. I spent a whole summer at this job and by the end of it I was EXTREMELY stressed and was worse off than before and could not hardly even walk into a grocery store without wanting to crawl into a corner and die.
Linux Dashes, NT Crashes...
I'm a pretty decent rollerhocky player. I skate fast and shot well. I'm a jock?
Which is it?
I've always thought that I'm normally a clutz because I'm always thinking. When I'm walking around I don't pay attention to where I'm walking... I'm always thinking of something else.
When I play rollerhockey I focus... on rollerhockey. I'm not a clutz anymore because I stop thinking about other things and focus on the game.
Is this the mild autism that they're talking about? Sounds kinda like it, but I don't think so.
I don't rock back and forth. I consider myself to be an empathatic person.
On the other hand.... I can't dance. At times I have trouble making social conversation.
Something to think about, eh...
I for one couldn't hold interest in social activities as a child. But I always pined away for it... I've seen a lot of "social geeks" who end up changing their outward personality as the situation demands, and generally not restricting themselves to one single style of clothes or speech, but rather a collection of them. If you approach social relations as a system and social behaviours as the laws by which the system can be affected, then succeeding in that system is similar to understanding physical forces in a system of masses. That's an excellent point that wouldn't be deduced by non-geek (according to the article) but is related to the following quote: Later on, he may learn to tediously calculate what others are feeling, but that is hard work, indeed. Indeed. But that process does not live in isolation. Every aspect of social interaction, including the behavior of the "geek" himself, is controlled and limited by this; excepting those moments when a geek's guard is down. It takes energy dealing with people... can't keep it up all the time. Just my opinions.
Door nobs can be a bit of a bitch being left handed, because it seems that about 1/2 of the ones at school will not turn one way, the way I try to turn them on the first try. As for twist ties, i agree with you, they are not a issue.
P.S. there is a condition that is more prevalent in girls (cant remember what its called) which makes them over talkative, and go up to complete strangers and talk to them etc. (any ideas what its called? )
Histrionic personality disorder?
Let's calm down here... I see a lot of people who seem to think that the only reason for this kind of research is to either diminish the severity of people with severely disabling mental disorders, or to come up with an excuse to medicate anyone who's different into a quivering, conformist pulp. But the basic issue isn't who to give what label, but the origins and mechanisms of both ordinary and abnormal behavior. One of the great discoveries of modern psychology is that "healthy" and "pathological" behavior can fit on the same continuum. Someone who's afraid of dogs isn't necessarily diseased in a deep and pervasive fashion; zhe's showing an unsually maladaptive manifestation of normal learning principles. Similarly, we now recognize that schizophrenia (one of the most alien and easily "other-able" conditions) can show up in mild forms like schizotypal personality disorder, and even very faintly in people who are totally normal. Autism is a very severe developmental disorder, differentiating sufferers from normals from a very early age and continuing throughout life. If it turns out that autistic behavior also occurs on a continuum, that would be a real bombshell: it would provide a new way of categorizing and studying "antisocial" behavior, and it would suggest new methods for socializing and teaching even the most autistic children. The amazing abilities of rare autistic savants are well-known. If these turn out to share mechanisms with extraordinary abilities in significantly less disabled individuals, that could teach us a lot about helping both types of people to cultivate them, and about how thought works in general. Yeah, maybe the angle of "explaining" geekiness is being overplayed - but there is solid, useful science here, even if the media ignore it. - laborit
-----
Go ahead, blame me... I voted for Nader!
I see what you're saying.
To go a little further offtopic, I have to wonder about the ramifications of that sort of worldview. The notion that mental disease is only a point on a continuum of personalities makes a certain amount of sense. Obviously these people wouldn't have written an entire book if they didn't feel it was convincing. And many people I know, including myself, betray traits that if observed in a clinically nutso individual would be considered only a normal "part of their psychosis".
OTOH, don't you think it's important to make a strong distinction between people who are a tad extreme but require no treatment to lead meaningful lives, and others who cannot function without intervention. To say that I or some other intellectual has "shadow" autism might deprecate the public impression of the severity of full autism, which AFAIK is currently untreatable and life-debilitating.
It's a bit like saying that a person with blond hair and pale skin has "shadow" albinism. Yes, maybe albinism is only an exagerrated version of the traits this other person possesses, but the albino is actually afflicted by their condition, whereas the white blond is not.
The disease occurs when those traits mar the life experience of the bearer. Until that point, they are not even a shadow of a disease, it seems to me.
Maybe that is a somwhat abstruse point...
-konstant
-konstant
Yes! We are all individuals! I'm not!
Let's calm down here... I see a lot of people who seem to think that the only reason for this kind of research is to either diminish the severity of people with severely disabling mental disorders, or to come up with an excuse to medicate anyone who's different into a quivering, conformist pulp. But the basic issue isn't who to give what label, but the origins and mechanisms of both ordinary and abnormal behavior.
One of the great discoveries of modern psychology is that "healthy" and "pathological" behavior can fit on the same continuum. Someone who's afraid of dogs isn't necessarily diseased in a deep and pervasive fashion; zhe's showing an unsually maladaptive manifestation of normal learning principles. Similarly, we now recognize that schizophrenia (one of the most alien and easily "other-able" conditions) can show up in mild forms like schizotypal personality disorder, and even very faintly in people who are totally normal.
Autism is a very severe developmental disorder, differentiating sufferers from normals from a very early age and continuing throughout life. If it turns out that autistic behavior also occurs on a continuum, that would be a real bombshell: it would provide a new way of categorizing and studying "antisocial" behavior, and it would suggest new methods for socializing and teaching even the most autistic children.
The amazing abilities of rare autistic savants are well-known. If these turn out to share mechanisms with extraordinary abilities in significantly less disabled individuals, that could teach us a lot about helping both types of people to cultivate them, and about how thought works in general.
Yeah, maybe the angle of "explaining" geekiness is being overplayed - but there is solid, useful science here, even if the media ignore it.
- laborit
-----
Go ahead, blame me... I voted for Nader!
- You like Monty Python
- You've read The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy at least once.
- You like cats
- You enjoy wordplay and puns
- You are artistically or musically inclined
A colleague read this somewhere, and brought it up in the office one day. Most of us here hit on at least four of the five, and a few (myself included) were 5 for 5.Ring any bells around here?
Keith Russell
OS != Religion
This sig intentionally left blank.
I suppose I do rock alot as I'm always flipping my chair back on two legs, but what I'm wondering is if other repetitive behavior is linked to autism. I have to have something in my hands. I cannot be without something to fidget with. I play guitar (for 10 years now) but have no desire to be in a band at all, I can play for hours while watching TV or reading stuff off the web. (Maybe it's why I dont read. Have to shut down the brain if I'm not fidgeting with something). When I'm listening to music I cant stop tapping my feet or hands. Right now as I was thinking up the next sentence I had to drum on the keyboard. My favorite thing to do as a child? Legos. Not only did I get to sort through thousands of little plastic pieces but I got to build something with my hands.
When I first read this article, I was like "That does not describe me" But the more I look at it, the more it does.
-Rich
I wish they wouldn't have made it sound like the class is on the same level as the computer science and math classes, but I suppose a little research is too much to ask of the press these days. The manners class is taught during "Independent Activities Period" which is essentially the winter break at MIT. You can do whatever you want during this break and if you happen to be on campus there are a lot of classes you can take for fun. Some classes you can even take for credit during this period, but the manners class is not one of them. Anybody who is motivated to teach a class may do so and they often do with subjects that range from beer brewing to sushi making. Anyway, the manners class is in the same league as these other for-fun classes (although it is easily one of the more popular classes).
-----
Free P2P Backup, Windows & Linux
You can't blame that on being left-handed.
You have other issues.
Being left-handed in a right-handed world is frustrating,
but you'll get no sympathy around here for it.
There's lots of us.
Yes, absolutely. But normalcy is also a disease of the brain, if society were to choose to call it that.
Your personality is determined by the physical condition of your brain. So personality disorders are, too. No news there.
(Of course, experience -- going to school, learning to dance, taking Prozac, being hit in the head with a two-by-four -- changes the condition of your brain. I was not born knowing Perl. If I had been, my parents would surely have tried to cure me.)
But society is what gives names to certain conditions. Society determines which conditions are "normal", which are "optionally treatable" and which "must be treated".
To pick a particularly controversial example: until the 1970s homosexuality was defined by psychologists as a disease, to be treated at all costs (electric shocks, aversion therapy, brainwashing). Today, homosexuality is considered by many to be a common variation of human personality. (Of course, there are others who still prescribe brainwashing.)
Most people would agree that extreme bipolar disorder is an illness which should be cured. Unfortunately, some of my friends have mild-to-average bipolar disorder, and they aren't sure if they should be cured or not, or at what cost.
finally, someone with some sense!
some many people here seem to want to take everything personally and misinturpret(sp) things so that they seem more offensive towards themselves. eg, all these claims of "he's saying all nerds/geeks/tech people are autistic", when that is CLEARLY not what the article said or implied.
I didn't see any mention of "curing" anyone's "disease" in the article. They're making the same point you are: personalities have ranges. "Mentally ill" is an artificial concept: a fuzzy line drawn, in this case, between people with extreme autism and people with very extreme autism.
This is banal stuff. Unless you're a psychologist, employed to sort personality types into neat and artificial categories, it's obvious. Oliver Sacks, in The Man who Mistook his Wife for a Hat, talks about meeting his first Tourette's syndrome patient. He walked out onto the street after the interview and was startled: Tourette's syndrome was everywhere! Half the people he passed seemed to have one involuntary tic or another. Obviously, half the world is not sick. Rather, Tourette's syndrome is human nature. Only more so.
If "mentally ill" is a fuzzy concept, "mildly autistic" is completely blurry. Bill Gates shares a few characteristics with autistic people, but so does everyone. Perhaps the concept of "mild mental illness" is like the concept of "race": it has a social meaning but no scientific one, because the small differences which are meant to "define" it are lost in the noise of normal human variation.
OK, I'm confused. Door knobs are on the opposite side of the door whether you're going in or out, and can be turned either way to open (at least as far as I can remember, and all the doorknobs in my immediate vicinity). And where I'm from, twist ties are a piece of metal covered by paper, and are symmetrical. The efforts to close one and open one are the inverse of each other, so left vs right handed won't make a difference, just the same as doorknob positioning.
The article was well written and thought provoking. HTML presentation looked nice too, so I checked out the HTML source. Check out the source yourself and ask yourself what's a fartslife doing in the JavaScript...
Lets see.. Im a senior year CS major at UCSD working for a satelite company in San Diego over the summer. Im very good at programming, very fast at reading, not very good at social skills, but a very good skier. I am able to get into the "zone" where I can concentrate on one task and can filter out almost any distraction (tv, people talking, radio). In school I will often be one of the first people done and get some of the highest grades in the class. I was quite outgoing when I was young until the third grade or so. It was at this time that I broke my elbow at school. Perhaps the time I spent away from all the other kids entertaining myself caused me to change because I became quite introverted. I also changed from an overachieving student to a slacker at this time. I realized I did not have to do much work at all to get mostly As with an occasional Bs. Im still a slacker. Here at work I mostly goof off with periods of very intense coding where I get my work done much faster than my boss expects giving me more free time. So where does this article put me. I dont rock in a chair but I do bite my fingernails sometimes and compulsively highlight text Im reading with my mouse (this can make Netscape crash btw ;) ) Ive recently been contemplating spending much less time in front of the computer and more with some friends I dont hang out with much. Course Im not very good at this but oh well. Im also a lot more talkative and outgoing now with my shyness mostly confined to people I dont know and women in general (unless Im drunk).
;). Anyone else notice that caffeine helps them in social situations?
Well I suppose I can get to something interesting to say rather than some random facts about me (btw anyone at UCSD want to guess who I am? email me if you know.. first initiallast name@ucsd.edu will work hint: first and last letters of my login are the same) A physical therapist once told me that people tend to self-medicate themselves. i had hurt my back and she asked if I had been drinking or smoking pot recently. I said yes and she said that those are both very good muscle relaxants and that people tend to self-medicate themselves (I know Im repeating myself but whatever). I know I will drink alchohol to make myself more extroverted when in a situation that calls for it (party, bar, dance, whatever). What Im wondering is if caffeine helps to make autistic people more alert to their environments. I drink quite a bit of soda (Dr. Pepper mostly), and while I tend to code faster while on my caffeine fix I also am better able to talk with my boss, and express ideas. I susspect that the caffeine gives my brain more cycles to think up a suitable social answer since its been overclocked
semi-anonymous ucsd student
Thus, intelligent people tend to recognize "common sense" as vast collection of "facts" that are epistemically suspect. Thus, we tend to reject or pay no attention to "common sense" notions of this or that. And when we witness things, we tend to reject or at least not give over much credence to "common sense explanations", knowing that the real reasons for things often differ from common sense explanations.
So it's not that common sense dribbles out one ear as real information comes in, it's just that common sense never takes hold in the first place because we're too skeptical of it to believe it when we hear it.
--
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
I know there's got to be more to it than this -
/.) - yet, I'm not what you'd call a "computer genius" either. I just can't get into programming, I can't devote myself to any kind of long-term project without a clear worthy end-result in sight. (writing "hello world" etc. would be a crucial learning step, yet it just doesn't seem worth the time and effort). But I really dig troubleshooting - so I do tech support.
I was diagnosed as "borderline autistic" when I was a child, but really, that seemed extremely harsh when I saw how bad-off truly autistic kids were on TV documentaries and stuff like that.
I DO have a lot of trouble connecting with people, and I DO have a tendency to rock a bit when I'm sitting still, or bounce my knee, and I do get a bit obsessive, I HATE switching tasks when I get immersed. (which is probably why I spend so much time on
I certainly don't have balance and coordination problems, and I CAN be social, and polite when I want to be.
I just don't think I fit the stereotype, 100%.
"The number of suckers born each minute doubles every 18 months."
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
How about this: use them brains and research the state of the art in mind control. That'll get you the chicks. Though, a word of warning... research ethics as well. You'll need to understand the ethics of mind control, or you'll end up biting yourself in the arse (think Hitler).
Let's calm down here... I see a lot of people who seem to think that the only reason for this kind of research is either to trivialize the plight of the severely mentally ill, or to exaggerate the differences of every nonconformist until we can medicate them into a quivering load of docile, conformist pulp. But the basic issue isn't who to give what label, but the origins and mechanisms of both ordinary and abnormal behavior.
One of the great discoveries of modern psychology is that "healthy" and "pathological" behavior can fit on the same continuum. Someone who's afraid of dogs isn't necessarily diseased in a deep and pervasive fashion; zhe's showing an unsually maladaptive manifestation of normal learning principles. Similarly, we now recognize that schizophrenia (one of the most alien and easily "other-able" conditions) can show up in mild forms like schizotypal personality disorder, and even very faintly in people who are totally normal.
Autism is a very severe developmental disorder, differentiating sufferers from normals from a very early age and continuing throughout life. If it turns out that autistic behavior also occurs on a continuum, that would be a real bombshell: it would provide a new way of categorizing and studying "antisocial" behavior, and it would suggest new methods for socializing and teaching even the most autistic children.
The amazing abilities of rare autistic savants are well-known. If these turn out to share mechanisms with extraordinary abilities in significantly less disabled individuals, that could teach us a lot about helping both types of people to cultivate them, and about how thought works in general.
Yeah, maybe the angle of "explaining" geekiness is being overplayed - but there is solid, useful science here, even if the media ignore it.
- laborit
-----
Go ahead, blame me... I voted for Nader!
I'm a geek and I don't like any of this stuff!!
Well, that could be a reason, although what the authors of 'Shadow Syndromes' failed to differentiate is that everyone suffers from a mental disorder to some degree. It just happens that 'geeks' (or /. readers) suffer from a few other things. BPD perhaps?
I'm a very technical type, interested in the innards of both hardware and software, and now I'm kind of upset because I don't have the same symptoms that seem to make the geekiest of us stand out. Damn! I gotta start being more clumsy, forget how to dance, avoid gazes, and forget how to make small talk.
The problem with going about it that way is that half of you is thinking about your preconceived plan that you realize is silly at the last second and the other half is thinking about what you should *really* be doing. Thus, you can end up embarassing yourself, or perhaps just choking on your tongue.
I'm concentrating very hard on this.
Concentrate.Concentrate.Concentrate.Concentrate.
Now I'm concentrating very hard on this other thing.
Concentrate.Concentrate.Concentrate.Concentrate.
'Scuse me. I need to concentrate on that now!
Concentrate.Concentrate.Concentrate.Concentrate.
Sir. How would you describe your day.
Very concentrated....
Note. I'm an ADD sufferer. I used to drive my teachers crazy in school (and they'd return the favor).
Please understand that the joke was directed more at myself than at your uncle.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
I think the format of this questions speaks more about the structure of the human brain than the question itself. It is the product of a binary mind.
It seems to me that the brain has an easier time classifying data when it can contrast a concept with its opposite. Makes since biologically, if you think about how neurons use electrochemical gradients to define specific open/closed (on/off, true/false, 0/1) states. Sure, we are capable of more complex analysis, but I think that is the result of weighted aggregates of tiny decisions made on a cellular level and that these fundamental decisions are boolean in nature. This is why you find it so much easier to classify an idea by separating it from what it is not, and why you may feel compelled to do so.
Think about how you learn to use a boolean value in a database. When I first had to visualize true/false, I saw them on opposite sides of a divider. Now when I had to incorporate NULL values into the picture, I did not visualize the three states as equal. True and false were still on opposite sides of a divider, but then I created a larger divider and positioned the true/false aggregate on the opposite of the divider from the NULL concept.
I'm largely talking out of my ass while reflecting on my neuroscience education as an undergrad, but it is interesting, isn't it? It could just be the result of a Western upbringing, what with all the heaven/hell, creation/evolution, nature/nurture, oppositional kind of philosophy. Taoism seems to allow for more variability.
Tying back into the topic, does this mean the autistic have deeper, more streamlined boolean thought patterns and the less autistic have more breadth of though but less depth (not that these concepts are neccessarily opposites)? It would mean that the former could store deeper links but would take longer traversing the tree to get there.
OK, that's it for me.
--darkness is not the opposite of light, but the abscence of it.
It's not so much lacking a sense of rhythm, or being unmusical- for autistic people it's kind of 'all or nothing'. There's a similar situation with Parkinsonians- their rhythm and flow of movement can be totally, totally screwed up, but put on music and they can dance as if there was nothing unusual about them at all- sometimes. And that's the trick- the 'sometimes'. :) I guess it's just a matter of taste, and how much you're willing to sell out... because apart from an ability to play blues guitar and write the occasional pop song, 'my music' is really damn inaccessible to most normal people o_O *g*
I've played music at times when I was 'on', and I've also tried to play music when my 'rhythm' was just not there. It can be pretty frustrating to have a thing like that not be under your control. There has to be a flow somewhere to latch onto, or you're toast- you can play _with_ anything no matter how tough, the stronger the groove the better you can contribute to it, but you get screwed up by bad grooves or unsteadiness. I've done some OK work with sequencers- it's possible to make sequencers 'drive' the beat but still preserve the artificial perfection of it, and that can produce some very strong performances.
Quick precis: Autistic people can _too_ keep time and perform music. The question is, to what extent is this a facade? What is the 'soul' of autistic music? A lot of my stuff suffers from this paradox- the more commercial it is, the more likely it is that some element of posturing was involved. When I just make music for me, it tends to be very very abstract- I'm capable of listening for hours to the shortwave 3-meter band (there's a satellite broadcasting there, sounds like bionic white-noise). I've made music with a chaotic-equations program (MidiChaos, a little Mac hack from the 68K days) that I enjoy, but which is so abstract that most people would hurl
Let's calm down here... I see a lot of people who seem to think that the only reason for this kind of research is either to trivialize the plight of the severely mentally ill, or to exaggerate the differences of every nonconformist until we can medicate them into a quivering load of docile, conformist pulp. But the basic issue isn't who to give what label, but the origins and mechanisms of both ordinary and abnormal behavior.
One of the great discoveries of modern psychology is that "healthy" and "pathological" behavior can fit on the same continuum. Someone who's afraid of dogs isn't necessarily diseased in a deep and pervasive fashion; zhe's showing an unsually maladaptive manifestation of normal learning principles. Similarly, we now recognize that schizophrenia (one of the most alien and easily "other-able" conditions) can show up in mild forms like schizotypal personality disorder, and even very faintly in people who are totally normal.
Autism is a very severe developmental disorder, differentiating sufferers from normals from a very early age and continuing throughout life. If it turns out that autistic behavior also occurs on a continuum, that would be a real bombshell: it would provide a new way of categorizing and studying "antisocial" behavior, and it would suggest new methods for socializing and teaching even the most autistic children.
The amazing abilities of rare autistic savants are well-known. If these turn out to share mechanisms with extraordinary abilities in significantly less disabled individuals, that could teach us a lot about helping both types of people to cultivate them, and about how thought works in general.
Yeah, maybe the angle of "explaining" geekiness is being overplayed - but there is solid, useful science here, even if the media ignore it.
- laborit
-----
Go ahead, blame me... I voted for Nader!
Keep in mind that having a disorder is frequently defined (and rightly so, IMNSHO) as having problems to a degree that you cannot cope with ordinary life. I don't care what your symptom is, from fear of other people to actually hearing voices, if it doesn't interfere with your ability to live your life, it's not actually a problem! It's just a personality quirk. So, if the voices don't bother you and you have no difficulties interacting with people, holding a job, etc, it's not a "disorder". That may be an extreme example, but you get the idea...
Thus, you may have gotten the correct impressions of the IQ levels of the mentally ill people you've met (or you may not have, but let's just assume for the sake of argument that you did). However, you may also have met much more intelligent people with the same symptoms to the same degree, and not realized they had the same symptoms because, by the definition above, they don't have a problem! Being of higher IQ has helped them cope with the same symptoms with the same severity, so that they lead a normal life despite them. So, even if your impressions of the mentally ill you've met are correct, it means nothing to the original question. It may be that many people of high IQ have these same symptoms, they're just not labelled as having the disorder, nor should they be, since it shouldn't be considered a disorder unless you're unable to cope with it.
Either that, or I'm just biased because I'm nuts...
--
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
Slashdot might be a haven for mildly autistic freaks like ourselves.
-Oy Vey
I thought until about a year ago that I was mildly OCD and borderline ADHD as well; I can focus on something more intensely than anyone I know, I'm an extreme perfectionist, I'm sensitive to things being out of place, I sort my M&Ms and Skittles, etc. Then I found out what the real cause was: I have ADHD, and rather severely as well; some symptoms can be similar to OCD. Despite the fact that I am female, I tested off the charts for hyperactivity for my age. This late diagnosis came because of a misunderstanding of ADHD.
ADHD is very badly named. It is not a disorder. I do many things much better because of my ADHD, and I'm very happy I have it. It also is not necessarily "Attention Deficit" - it's more the inability to regulate attention properly. I can read a book or work on a webpage for hours without noticing the time or taking a break. But I can't sit through five minutes of a boring class without tuning out or fidgeting. Someone in another thread mentioned that he fidgets a lot; this can be a sign of adult ADHD. However, some people with ADHD, particularly girls, aren't hyper at all; they can even seem lethargic and spacey.
Why does it matter? Well, I was diagnosed halfway through my senior year of HS. I'd been taking honors (IB) courses as well as college classes but with a 2.4 GPA. My final semester of HS, my GPA was over 3.0 for the first time ever. Medication was part of the solution, but knowing how to take advantage of my "disorder" was just as important. If I hadn't been diagnosed, I am sure I would've been fired from my summer job. Instead, they've asked me to keep working for them during college. Some of you have good jobs, good lives, few problems. For those who don't, this may be one of the reasons.
If you want a good summary of ADHD, try http://www.add.org/content/interview/peter.htm or the parent site, http://www.add.org/ - all kinds of good stuff. I also recommend the book "Driven to Distraction" by Dr. Edward Hallowell; some of the information is slightly outdated, but it has more information on, and sample cases of, adult ADHD than any other I've found.
Sorry about the too much information post; my late diagnosis and the problems it caused make me want to inform people who have been misinformed, like I was.
Abigail
In "An Anthropologist on Mars" Saks makes a similar speculation in passing.
It's a fascinating book.
I have discovered a wonderful
Sigh...
/. articles receive. But everyone's hung up on whether they're "autistic" or "normal"!!
...btw, that's a joke :-). Of course there's a range to autism.
/. login...)
It was discouraging enough for me to read that someone found it newsworthy that people don't fit into neat and tidy pidgeonholes, but that there are (gasp!) ranges of personality.
So I turned to the reader comments and expected to find the typical "That's obvious. That's not news!" response so many
There's no such thing as "normal", people. Nothing is black and white (of course maybe I shouldn't be surprised that bitheads find this difficult to understand?
I had an ex-girlfriend whose aunt was severely autistic; her mother used to kid her father (the autistic woman's brother) that he was partially autistic too. I thought it was obvious. That doesn't mean that he was autistic like his sister though. Terms like "autistic" only have meaning in the extremes; anywhere else and you're left in a gray zone arguing definitions. (Just look at the abortion debate about where "life" begins.)
Just as everyone can't be clearly pidgeonholed as smart or dumb, short or tall, wide or thin, nor should the terms we use for describing mental affectations be any different. Of course there are some people in the world who exhibit minor symptoms of autism.
- Scott G
(One of these days I'll get around to resurrecting my
...
I moved from Austin to West Palm Beach at age 10, and everyone just seemed to be a lot more threatening to the geek types in Florida.
I would suggest you start with reading the books the others have recommended and subscribe to the Social Phobia mailing list (sorry, don't have the URL handy). Learning about it was a sort of revelation to me and helped me get up enough courage to seek professional help. It's a long process but things do get better!
P.S. there is a condition that is more prevalent in girls (cant remember what its called) which makes them over talkative, and go up to complete strangers and talk to them etc. (any ideas what its called? )
Might you mean Williams Syndrome? ISTR seeing a "60 Minutes" piece on it a year or two ago.
>>The obvious question is: why characterize the jock extreme as genial and average, but depict the geek extreme as the early onset of a disease!?extreme? I graduated salutorian of my high-school class - right behind the most beautiful, and socially graceful girl that has ever lived. I wrestle and was good enough to make it to the state tournament. I was the captain of the cross country team, and at a 185lb was the biggest runner in the league. (I didn't play football because my mother wouldn't let me play a sport where the ambulance showed up before the game started. Besides the coaches were nasty and foul mouthed).
I can be completely graceful, when I wanna. But I usually don't wanna, unless I think there is a posibility of sex being involved. Which there usually isn't, so fsst. I prefer to spend my time digging into the latest technology. I spend a lot of conversational time explaining to the underinformed what the hell I'm talking about.
So, am I a geek, or am I a jock?
Wait a minute now, I used to stumble over my feet a lot. My Dad always said that I would fall over the marks on a basketball court, but I could run down a dried-up riverbed with no problem (maybe that explains the cross country thing). I used to walk to supper with a sci-fi book in my face. My wife is an aerobics instructor, and I'm one of her best students. I program computers for a living. I like to fix things, and discover how they work. I like to throw large parties with lots of friends that work out regularly.
So am I a geek or a jock? Why does there have to be a distinction?
My comments are all of those here claiming that they get beat-up because they're smart geeks that dress funny. My contention is that a smart animal is the one that bends itself and its environment to suit its own needs. If your getting your ass kicked for wearing a black trenchcoat, then it is fairly stupid to keep wearing the black trenchcoat without responding to the violence (by HERF gunning the assailant's car, for example). If you're not smart enough to remove the threat of violence, then you're not very smart.
You people who want to believe that being smart or good a computers, please do so, but quit whining here. Some of the most beautiful people I have ever known have been the smartest (and I participated in 'gifted' classes in school, so I associated with all the smartest in the school). If there is a correlation between intelligence and social grace, I would postulate that it is the opposite of what people on this site claim. Beauty and intelligence usually walk hand in hand.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
Now being a nerd is a "mental disorder!!" Jesus man! If your goth, gay, or just plain goofy there is something wrong with your head today.
Speaking of today, Sept. 13, 1999, can anyone name the event in SciFi history that took place to day?
I read at +2. If your post doesn't reach that level I will not see or respond to it.
In a recent article in the New Yorker that profiled the players in the MS/DOJ case (sorry, it's not online -- you have to actually read a magazine), it was mentioned that Bill Gates' apparent inability to mesh socially was often rumored to be due to mild autism. Mentioned are his singlemindedness and his habit of rocking or other types of repetitive physical behavior often noted by people who interview him.
The article said that this was kind of a "dirty rumor" circulated about him -- akin to whispering about a disease or addiction.
I'm guessing that "mild autism" is probably a poor way to label whatever phenomenon this is, since it seems to imply all the usual things associated with severe autism, like total withdrawal, idiot savant behavior (think Rain Man), destructive repetitive physical movement and so on.
BPD is kind of scary.
(stereo)typically, it is seen in women. Low self esteem, but not clinically depressed. Low threshold of tolerance for authority [can't/won't hold a job]. Degree of self-abuse that could be seen as suicide attempts (wrist slashing), but aren't [slashes aren't deep enough, etc.]. Some degree of codependence.
But that is my layman's view of how my wife has described it.
to worry about social graces.
:P
This sig is false.
Like most people, I know many very bright but awkward geeks, and equally many dull but charismatic socialites. There is also a vast spectrum of personalities between these poles.
The obvious question is: why characterize the jock extreme as genial and average, but depict the geek extreme as the early onset of a disease!?
Only social preference can explain it and until I hear that jocks are probably mildly afflicted by downs syndrome I'll be happy with that explanation. Naturally society prefers to deal with technical talent as an illness requiring a cure - socialites are so much easier to have around!
Let's face it. Intelligence has at least two components, the social and the logical. Mixtures of these produce everyone from the poet to the garbageman. And as with any bell curve, you will have some people at either extreme. This is not abnormal; it is inevitable. Norming out society (and, no doubt, prescribing drugs to quell the fears of jock mothers that their children may turn out "odd ducks" in the words of the article) is only going to change the definition of what is an extreme jock or geek. The social dynamics will still be present and they will still have an equally difficult time getting along.
Let's just allow people to be who they are, ok?
-konstant
-konstant
Yes! We are all individuals! I'm not!
So I now have a name for my "disorder". Cool. I hope that means I can demand "Reasonable Accommodation" under the Americans with Disabilities act so my rah-rah football hero boss and his ex-cheerleader sidekick know to include me out of the pep rallies and compulsory motivational-seminar-of-the-month sessions and fad-of-the-week management books.
But then, in HS we only had two seats for flautists as opposed to three in Junior High.
Personally, I think someone just wants to go on tours promoting their "why geeks are so" book, audio tapes, and classes on How To Become Autistic and Make A Million In Your Spare Time.
Nerds are a candy. Slashdot is a drug.
Will in Seattle
I wish they wouldn't have made it sound like the class is on the same level as the computer science and math classes, but I suppose a little research is too much to ask of the press these days. They are certainly blowing the manners class at MIT way out of proportion and as such I'm not sure how much of the rest of the article to believe.
The manners class is taught during "Independent Activities Period" which is essentially the winter break at MIT. You can do whatever you want during this break and if you happen to be on campus there are a lot of classes you can take for fun. Some classes you can even take for credit during this period, but the manners class is not one of them. Anybody who is motivated to teach a class may do so and they often do with subjects that range from beer brewing to sushi making. Anyway, the manners class is in the same league as these other for-fun classes (although it is easily one of the more popular classes).
-----
Free P2P Backup, Windows & Linux
I went to that site (http://dir.yahoo.com/Health/Diseases_and_Conditio ns/Social_Phobia/), and read a few things, it says the more perminant treatment is theropy, but what if you are to scared to talk to the therapist? (which I am)
what are we supposed to do about it?
I actually thought the article (and by extension the book) makes a lot of sense. If only we'd stop thinking in extremes and start to see that everything can and should be classified along a continuum of possible values.
v e-you.
I liked the part of the article best that discusses the inability to define (and probable inexistence of) perfect normalcy.
If one fully accepts the continuum principle, then disease stops to have much meaning. It's merely a state of being closer to extreme points. That can even be a blessing as it allows for very different and interesting experiences/perceptions/abilities/talents/what-ha
does this mean someone is working on a cure for being a geek? that would be bad... very bad...
I post links to stuff here
I don't mind saying I'm 'legally autistic'- as in 'on disability w. Asperger's Syndrome'. I understand even making such an admission exposes me to frantic hateful attacks from Randites going 'there's nothing the matter with you! just try harder you lazy bastard!', but I thought it was a useful context to say some things I thought needed saying. ;) ) Seems awfully trivial- but when the dislocation of changing your train of thought and answering the phone really _hurts_ and undercuts the little oasis of stability you've built for yourself, sometimes you have to ask for what you need. I did. I also show up whenever I like and stay as late as I want, because I cannot control when I'm going to be able to sleep, so I can't keep regular hours either- that's another one I learned through rough experience. (reminds me of childhood and routinely getting 2 hours sleep before school because my head wouldn't quit processing). Again, I got this through being honest and also willing to _stay_ late if needed- I go into work with the understanding that it has permission to switch my 'track' over to computer repair for however many hours it takes. My boss considers it his job to tell me and the other (equally obsessive) computer tech to go _home_ when we're threatening to spend 12 hours on the same intractable problem! ;) because autism/asperger's may not be a 'disease' in the sense of 'fix meeee!' but by GOD it's different, and ignoring that kills people slowly.
Asperger's is incurable. It's like trying to cure being six foot tall, or trying to cure bipedal locomotion. What Asperger's really is about to me (and I make use of some resources I have to learn more about this) is "what rules do I need to live by in order to survive?". Neglecting this or trying to deny it with stubborn willpower damn near killed me- at one point I got sent to an emergency room with internal bleeding from ulcers (typically, I sort of ignored the pain of it, having decided that 'willpower' and my goals were more important).
One of my needs is for the flow of my attention to flow naturally. I cannot handle derailment- even if I force myself to permit it, I take an absurd amount of damage from it in stress, and get driven farther into autistic defenses. For instance, I've managed to work out ways to do computer repair work and maintain it without burning out or flaking out. One of these ways is this: my boss is totally aware of who I am and where I'm coming from, and from day one I have arranged that I do not answer the telephone. (heh- I'm picturing a lot of heads nodding out there in slashdotland
It's bad to behave like some types of geekiness are diseases to be stamped out- but it's worse to behave like these differences, these different needs, don't exist. I don't know how many other autistic geeks (include 'Asperger.h') are out there- I've seen a couple touching posts from people who felt really crappy about themselves- and it's not OK for me to shut up about it anymore. I WILL be heard from- as much as I can communicate, and not a bit more
Those of us who are autistic geeks generally cannot go on grand crusades to define and protect our image, establish our identity as a worthy thing, prove our value. We typically have a hell of a job keeping our own boats steady and no attention to spare for PR. Even when a Slashdot article shines a beam of light on us, the comments are mostly people arguing ABOUT us, arguing we don't exist or don't count OR arguing that we are totally normal, really, and must be treated as regular guys!
Well- we're out there, we are the worst stereotypes and the fondest rationalizations all rolled into one, and we certainly are not going away. (That would be change- ew! Find another line of work? yuck!) So people had better get used to the idea. It's not new- ever read 'The Hacker FAQ'? It's practically a tutorial on 'how to give an autistic person a work environment that is nurturing and let them perform optimally'. The fact is, for many of us this is NECESSARY. We aren't as adaptable as your regular Joe- to really be kick-ass productive members of society we _need_ our quirks to be respected and understood, otherwise it's like having a track star run a race with both hands tied together behind his back. ("You run with your legs, right? Shouldn't matter."). To explore that simile a bit, in running arms are used for _balance_ and if you did that to a track star they'd be totally uncomfortable and slowed down, running very unnaturally. It's the same thing for autistic people working and being expected to maintain regular-folks social interactions- the balance is off, it's exhausting and unproductive, and as inappropriate as tying a track star's hands behind his back.
We don't need cures, we don't need help faking normal societal attitudes- we need the proper context. It's not so much to ask. There are pluses and minuses to this- the most important point is, this is not an option. Treat us like Joe Sixpack, and you lose, we lose, everybody loses out on the potential harmony that is there for the taking, for anyone willing to make a bit of an effort to accept what they don't understand.
It's all really quite scary.
I decry both chains of newspapers in Canada. Southam is bad, the Sun is even worse. The Calgary Sun is so mired down in some misogynistic age, that they have a Bible thumping woman hating columnist called "Tom Humble". Bah! Their pictures are bigger than their stories. Sad, sad,
but oh, how many will be crushed by the mighty thumb of Conrad Black?
Hey, if you think STRAIGHT geniuses are smart, you should check out the GAY ones. Now they're really really smart. And they can pick things out you wouldn't even begin to see. Mmmmm.... must get gay programming gene.
Could it just be that Geeks don't have good social skills simply becasue they don't go out into public much?
The only time I venture out into the real world is to go to uni or when I realise that eating might actualy be good for me. If for some other reason I go out into the world (to buy books, hardware, etc.) I am ill at ease with those around me, make a fool of myself at the counter and knock over a display or two.
But I am damned if I am autistic. I have good co-ordination, (most geeks do to be able to play quake well), the reason I knock things over is that I am nervious and trying to get out of wherever I am as fast as possible. My rhythm may not be the best in the world but most of the time I can keep in time with the music and I have great balance.
I just think that this article/study/book is trying to create a 'sexy' solution for a question that has a very obvious answer. Granted SOME geeks may have mild autism, just as some non-geeks have it to.
There are some laguages that completely lack words for "please" and "thank you", particularly in West Africa, if I remember correctly. Such 'niceties' are only a convention of our culture.
---
I was rather antisocial and introverted when I was a kid, but I developped my social skills perfectly once I began to care about whether the girl next door wanted to go out with me or not. As a matter of fact, most geeks and nerds who end up wanting to augment their face-time end up doing it better than others, because they approach the problem with great analytical skills instead of going into it blind.
---
I don't buy that at all. You see, there's this really cute girl in one of my math classes this semester, and everytime I try and use "analytical skills" to come up with something to say to her (I still don't know if she's taken, or even her name!), I end up choking on my tongue, so to speak. I think just being able to go into it blind would be much better.
I think these people are making excuses to discriminate even more the poor geek kids. I remember reading some years ago studies made when the debate about abolishing slavery was hot (a long time ago in a galaxy not so far away). The studies demonstrated that black people was "different", and even one of these morons said that the internal organs of a black person had a certain "blackness"! I think this is the same case.
My point was all the symptoms of Asperger Syndrome and Autism are also symptoms of children and adult children of physical, sexual or emotional abuse. "miserable childhood" was me trying to be a delicate.
My point that AS and Autism like symptoms 'geeks' tend exhibit are more likely from childhood issues then biological issues.
Even if the 'geek' population has say 4x the distrubution of the rest of the population that leaves a large number of 'geeks' with no biological reason for their symptoms.
Later,
MarkV.
Granted that ADHD is over diagnosed, I've got reason to believe that this plays a part in "nerd syndrome." This was certainly the case with me. Although I was recognized at a young age as being "gifted", with a high IQ (and was programming at age 10), I also had a number of learning disabilities, including ADHD.
Most of the time, social cues would pass in one ear and out the other. Between ADHD and America's problem with youth subculture (I believe it's called the Hellmouth here), my social life went nowhere until I got to college.
Suddenly I was the one who people called to save their a** when their computer screwed up. Today I don't have social difficulties, am happily married, and if anyone calls me a nerd I waste a perfectly good 2-hour lunch crying all the way to the bank.
Anyways, my 2 cents.
--WH
Seattle, WA
the smarter you are, the less commen sense you have, which is what social abilites form from...at least in my opinion :)
Gorfin
I think they've got it all wrong. Instead of these "Shadow Syndromes" being milder forms of "abnormal" conditions such as autism, the "abnormal" conditions are merely extreme amplifications of normal human traits. I.e, geekdom is normal...
But on the other hand, what does it matter what they call us anyway? We rule the world now.
Really? I thought it was the billionaires and the politician puppets they control. Guess I was wrong...It's apparently a bunch of computer programming robot-people with no social skills...they control the world! Everyone is under their control. Yup. What a perfect world it is! What an easy way to escape the sad realities of the world. Perhaps it's the devil behind all of the injustices!
Another condition that many nerds share is a mild form of Turret's Syndrome. This is the one often associated with twitching.
There's a "mosaic" form of Down's Syndrome in which a certain percentage of cells have trisomy-21, and the rest are normal. The proportion seems to be quite correlated to the severity of symptoms. This also makes sense in light of recent therapies that aim to treat some of the symptoms with massive amounts of antioxidants and aminoacids - the abnormal cells cause varying degrees of metabolic overdoses and deficiencies. There are some articles on CERI about this (warning: controversial issue).
I personally have an acquaintance with mosaic Down's who holds down a regular job... he's somewhat forgetful and badly-coordinated, but so am I :-)
How do you say "get a fucking life" in Klingon?
It'd be a good thing to print on a T-shirt and wear to Star Trek conventions.
you are confusing symptoms from different things. where you are getting mixed up is in that it is very common for schizophrenics to also be manics and the fact that autism shares many symptoms with depression.
Does it bother anyone else that Billy Boy is being identified here as a "computer nerd"? Accepting for a moment the geek/nerd equivalence assumed in the article, just how can they say this? Has he written any code at all since Altair Basic? Has his entire company ever had a single, decent, original idea, or produced a robust, high quality product?
His wealth and evil power come not from any particular computer skill, but from the deal he cut with IBM. Negotiating skill, I would think, would be a contraindicator of autism, and is certainly not something your average nerd can manage well. (I think this has something to do with the working conditions under which most nerds/geeks suffer: they're doing for money what they would otherwise do for free and are not good enough negotiators to conceal that fact even if they were so inclined.) His subsequent successes are a result of marketing, which is not exactly a nerdly activity either.
It's interesting that Linus, the "computer nerd" who is now genuinely reorganizing the planet, doesn't fit this profile at all.
-- Captain Carrot
And the brethren went away edified.
...that books/articles on social grace/etiquette do not get slashdotted...
= -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Or if they do they get hopelessly bombarded by protests from autistic SlashDot readers?
"Definitely OffTopic...definitely defintitely OffTopic"
- JoeShmoe
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
-- I wonder which will go down in history as the bigger failure: the War on Drugs or the War on Filesharing
Untwisting a twist tie twisted by a right handed person might be the problem. The lefty may may end up twisting it more when he is trying to untwist it.
Also, on the subject of scissors, if I'm not mistaken, the issue isn't so much whether you are right handed or left handed, it is which way you want to make turns in the cut to go. Of course, Righties want to have the cut curve to the left, and lefties want it to curve to the right. I remember when I worked as an insulator for a summer and had to do some cutting of sheet metal. You need two cutters, one righty and one lefty, to make cuts that curve one way or the other.
Beyond a point, emulation becomes inefficient. Creating a virtual machine that emulates a social being, in interpreted neurocode, and running it when talking to members of the appropriate sex, is a massively ugly kludge on a Microsoftean scale.
Patching your usual human-interaction methods to be capable of speaking human social protocols takes up less space and runs more efficiently too. And you can always switch it off.
Stone Table
Definitely a very good programmer. Definitely.
Well, maybe not.
As gathered from theWhat is Autism? page
/. that I can handle. My psychology degree wasen't a waste. I hope.
Autism is a complex developmental disability that typically appears during the first three years of life. The result of a neurological disorder that affects the functioning of the brain, autism and its associated behaviors have been estimated to occur in as many as 1 in 500 individuals (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 1997). Autism is four times more prevalent in boys than girls and knows no racial, ethnic, or social boundaries. Family income, lifestyle, and educational levels do not affect the chance of autism's occurrence. Autism impacts the normal development of the brain in the areas of social interaction and communication skills. Children and adults with autism typically have difficulties in verbal and non-verbal communication, social interactions, and leisure or play activities. The disorder makes it hard for them to communicate with others and relate to the outside world. In some cases, aggressive and/or self-injurious behavior may be present. Persons with autism may exhibit repeated body movements (hand flapping, rocking), unusual responses to people or attachments to objects and resistance to changes in routines. Individuals may also experience sensitivities in the five senses of sight, hearing, touch, smell, and taste.
See also this Autism resoucre page.
Ok. Here's my (Duke of URL) bit: As mentioned in the main story Autistic people tend to have underdeveloped cerebellum which plays a role in coordinated movement (think athletes).
Autistics may also have RAS's (Reticular Activating System) which may be improperly developed. The RAS filters out unwanted stimuli (such as the sensation of the pants on your legs, the air on your arms and all the other stimuli you never think about). With a damaged RAS they may be experiencing sensory "overload" and attempt to focus on one thing or avoid social contact to compensate.
For once a question on
The previous comment about the simplist answer, its not a rare brain disorder, but simple side effects of a poor childhood that are self reinforcing. You are affriad in social situations and thus get hurt, so you are even more affraid the next time around.
I'm an Asperger Syndrome, and I disagree. While a miserable childhood might leads to Social Phobia or Post Traumatic Stress disorder, for people like me the childhood was the easiest period of my life. Children are somewhat free to be odd, and not communicate ; things are getting really complicated when getting adult. In general I'm not immediatly afraid in social situations, but I'm totally plain unable to pursue a "normal" conversation (i.e. non technical), and it shows. I've also tried a small experiment: trying to write a small novel: interestingly enough, I discovered that I'm also totally unable to write "normal" dialogs (so much for my career as a writer :-) ).
I don't know where you get the "miserable childhood" explanation, but mine was wonderful, and I think the original article might have some accuracy.
(scarcasm mode on)
(It is also a pretty good post-cyberpunk story, for what it's worth.)
The cake is a pie
Well, the article is interesting, and probably some proportion of so-called "geeks" and "nerds" exhibit mild autism. But I think the article is rather misleading, as most people who would consider themselves "geeks" or "nerds" are simply intelligent and often a bit introverted (i.e. shy).
:o)).
Right !
To an outside observer, they may appear to lack social skills. However, these people often have strong empathic traits, and are overly sensitive to social cues (which are opposite to autistic tendencies).
Maybe less right. Extreme sensitiveness to interation with other people is a defining character of some autistic types. Bursting into tears for apparently no reason (in fact, something you said that gave them an emotional shock), violent crisis in reaction to a simple emotively-significant contact. Still this is perfectly compatible with seemingly total indifference towards other people 95% of the time.
I don't like to take movies as scientific examples (!), but "Rain Man" is extremely well documented on the subject, and gives an idea of what this may mean. Another example from american popular culture would be "Forrest Gump" (the book, not the movie !), which is even more explicit.
In fact the real problem here is amalgam. People tend to see autists as one uniform class of people, and so do they for geeks. This is simply stupid. "Autism" is a syndrom (a bunch of symptoms) that can cover a wide range of extremely different cases, just as "geekness" or "nerdess". In fact, the very existence of these two different terms "nerds" and "geeks" is already a hint at this, although my poor understanding of English prevents me from making a clear dinstinction (but I understand there's an ongoing debate on this..
The fact that a particular kind of autism might be related to a particular kind of "nerdness" is an interesting idea, which I think should not be despised. Using this to assert "Geek = Autist" only proves a real, severe and unquestionable mental disorder in the person who emits such a statement !
Thomas Miconi
Karma Police - enforcing peace of mind by all possible means.
Of course. People who admit it are data that fit with the theory. People who deny it are in denial, so they fit with the theory too. I just love unfalsifiable theories.
This also ignores the reams of evidence that this is due to genetic or pre-natal influence. Certain monkeys display introversion to the point of social phobia -- and they can usually be identified as such within a couple of days of their birth, with about 100% accuracy.
For many, it ain't upbringing...
--
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
Definitely ;) ;)
In all seriousness, it's _great_ that there's a form of human endeavor where the quirks we're stuck with are considered 'par for the course'. I think part of this may simply be availability- lots of people can take MCSE courses (*shudder*) but the fact is that most of them simply will not be able to organise the information system that is a personal computer into a coherent and well working whole.
Those who can, can write their own ticket- and among them have always been the serious 'nerds' who just plain were from Mars, so a precedent keeps being set: the weirdo is kept around or even enticed to stay because he is the one who can save everyone's butt when the problem gets particularly hard.
There are tests for some of these things, though not always for the exact capacity you're interested in- my personal favorite test story was for part of a test called the 'GATB', a sort of vocational aptitude test. One part of it involved looking at a drawing of a 3D shape and picking the 2D cutout that could be folded into that shape. I loved it, it was so much fun I wheedled the testgiver into letting me look at the rest of the problems in that category after the time period stopped (just to _see_ them, to do the hard ones, to finish them). I tore through those problems with geeky glee, and it turned out that I'd set a TEN YEAR peak for that particular test. I don't think it's at all an accident that I enjoyed it so much... it was cranking up what Temple Grandin calls 'the Sun workstation in your head'. I have Asperger's Syndrome. I'd never had an example quite so obvious to give me confidence in the face of my other obvious lacks and liabilities, to show me that I was good for something. Finally, the truth- I need to go into origami
No, seriously- what that test revealed was this: although my brain is a very balky and inconvenient instrument, there are some things it can do that your average person just can't. Ever since, I've been trying to figure out how to actually put it in gear, as it were: I can predict trends about stuff I'm interested in (I tend to be interested in the computer industry, and have called many shots accurately, didn't gain by it though- my current hunch is that MS is breaking free of its dependence on government in general and the US government in particular). I design stuff. I'd like to give as much of it away as possible- of course if you just give something away nobody notices so you have to build it up a bit first.
I'm glad the tech world has a place for people like me- and I wish people were as enlightened as you are, back when I was growing up. Back then nobody had a clue, and I was sort of Skinner-avoidance-response trained to look people in the eye and not rock, in a remedial school. It didn't change me, it only made me decide that the world was a very hostile place where you had to act certain ways or be punished. It feels good to think that your daughter doesn't have to go through that...
Try here.
Hee hee hee...
I understand what you are going through, if you want to talk about it email me at witigis$royal.net
Many people seem to assume that the article is saying that all geeks are autistic. Not by any stretch of the imagination. The article is just trying to explain some of the geeks. Geeks like me.
It wasn't until recently that I realized that I can't get along with people because I am deaf to almost all forms of body language. I can't catch all the subtle hints that people drop all over the place, I just never notice it. I love Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series so much because he details all those little nuances in words that I would never ever catch in real life. Because of that that series of books, and a few others, seem more real than real life to me.
I've never been able to make smalltalk. It wasn't until recently that I've been able to train myself to make programmed responses to the everyday "Hi, how are you?" "How was your weekend". So on and so forth. I have to think about these responses before otherwise I'm utterly flabbergasted. Even now I'm not quite sure if I'm making the right responses, I'm making an effort to observe other people making that kind of smalltalk so I can see what they do.
I only feel at home talking when I'm talking online, or with very close friends and family. Online I have time to think about what they said, and there is no subtlties in expression that I would have to try to puzzle out. With my two friends and my close family I know them so well that I can make an educated guess at what they're expressing nonverbally.
Like the programmer, I cannot empathize, and I cannot understand empathy or understanding directed towards me. I, too feel that they're "invading my mind". I consistently score the lowest possible score on the "introverted" scale of whatever test I'm taking. So much of what I think I don't think anyone else in the world can understand, and I guard anything I write like a hawk. I don't even let my boyfriend (yes, I'm female) in on what I think most of the time, for fear that he, too will invade my mind. Like Bill Gates (Gasp! I'm comparing myself to bill gates!) I avoid eye contact at all costs.
I've never been coordinated. My rhythm is horrible. Remember that Volkswagen commercial where they're driving down the alley and everything is going to the beat of the music? I didn't understand it at all, even after seeing it several dozen times, until someone pointed out to me that everything is actually moving the beat.
A few things in the article didn't match up with me. I don't rock, but I do compuslivley fiddle with my hair, my pencil, or whatever's sitting on my desk (I have a flexure with me now that I'm playing with when not typing). However, enough things did make sense that it gave me the heebiejeebies.
Applying labels such as "autistic", "borderline", "ADHD", &c., to sets of traits and behaviours on such a fine level seems fundamentally flawed. Human nature doesn't fit into such neat packages, and labels are more cumbersome than they're worth when discussing subtle traits.
Take, for example, seeing things out of context. This is not a symptom of a mental disorder/syndrome, or a characteristic of an enumerable personality type, but a behaviour or ability. Someone who can see out of context has mental strategies for considering problems which consider things others wouldn't consider.
The thing about strategies is that they can be modified. The brain is reconfigurable. Anyone can modify their behaviour strategies to consider different information; usually it involves consciously rehearsing them until they become subconscious.
(Editing existing strategies is harder, as they are below the level of conscious awareness, though apparently it is possible. Check out some literature on NLP (Neurolinguistic Programming) if you're interested in that kind of thing.)
I'm going to have to agree here. Whenever I approach such a situation analytically, I fall on my face. But if I just let myself go, turn down my degree of care a bit (if I can!), and just jump in, things generally go *really* well.
Mod down posts with a "Free Mac Mini/iPod" sig, they're spam!
Sad but true.
What is the reason for this classification of a otherwise normal but slightly eccentric human? Save things like autism for the folx who really need the label for legit reasons. This is just a theory of mine, but I firmly believe that we all fit somewhere on a graduated scale that extends from one extreme to another. It may very well be a mild form of autism, but does that necessarly mean that anyone who likes to do one thing to the exclusion of something else is also ill? I can't play sports to save my life, hell Nike would probably pay me a lot of money to not wear their shoes. If there is one thing that I pulled from this article, it is that, as a group, we all need to get out more. Many geeks that I know are not terribly good social-wise until they get into a group of other geeks, then you can almost feel the packets running around. A good bit of follow-up research would be to analyze the same geeks in a geek-friendly social setting. I'm sure that the picture will change to one of a group of people who are more interested in the WHAT, WHY, and HOW end of the scale than in idle chatter.
So what if Bill G. rocks on his heels when giving a presentation. So do I. I get the distinct feeling that I have not made a good connection at the internet and data link layers and the TCP layer is just spraying frames all over the place. Don't we all have better things to do?
Now what do I do about my paranoia?
Hmm... psychological disorders ARE defined socially/culturally to some extent or another. Some cultures do not have any context of clinical depression, for example, so for someone outside that culture to interview people there looking for depression could easily conclude that that culture has a very low rate of depression.
Interesting... according to
another recent article, a lot of brain functions which were thought to run in parallel run serially; parallelism is simulated much like in a multitasking single-CPU computer: by swapping tasks rapidly.
I believe someone else found a brain area responsible for task switching; a sort of neurological scheduler. This is apparently damaged or underutilised in people with ADHD or a tendency to hyperfocus.
But your symptoms are also the symptoms of a physically and emotionally abused child. You know better than I about your family life, but if I heard your story in a textbook I would be suspicious.
Children can be made to believe in events that never transpired. Enough suggestions of "you trip all the time" could actually manufacture memories of having tripped.
Just a thought.
I'd moderate this at least Score >=1, Sincere
Here's a little cue: maybe people of higher calling don't exhibit perfect social skills because while other boys were learning to perfect the art of sucking up, lying and trying to get girls, some of us were reading about astronomy or programming a Texas Instrument.
I was rather antisocial and introverted when I was a kid, but I developped my social skills perfectly once I began to care about whether the girl next door wanted to go out with me or not. As a matter of fact, most geeks and nerds who end up wanting to augment their face-time end up doing it better than others, because they approach the problem with great analytical skills instead of going into it blind.
I've seen a lot of "social geeks" who end up changing their outward personality as the situation demands, and generally not restricting themselves to one single style of clothes or speech, but rather a collection of them. If you approach social relations as a system and social behaviours as the laws by which the system can be affected, then succeeding in that system is similar to understanding physical forces in a system of masses.
The others just don't care enough about it for the time being.
"There is no surer way to ruin a good discussion than to contaminate it with the facts."
BTW, did you know you can buy 9mm ammo for about 13 cents a round and .223 ammo for 17 cents a round? Cool! And what weapons do you recommend for going postal? (I suspect you'd want a large number of rounds in an easily changable magazine. Fie on the Clinton administration for trying to make these kind of toys harder to obtain!)
I think that this is just a poor article. I think the researhers went looking for something, then read why to much into their data. I believe that alot of the reason that some people (not all) with above average intelligence lack social graces is because they never bothered to try to learn and understand them. Example: I can't dance, but can be led through a dance step. However, If I were to take lessons and train my body in those moves then I would be able to dance better and end up having a much greater body awarness. So all you smartie-pants-geeks remember there is much more to intelligence than what you read in books. PS Excuse any splling are any grammmerticall errors...I'm a supra-genius.
you dont know what the hell youre talking about and everyone here is looking for an explaination where there is not one. I have possessed all the downfalls of a "nerd" including lack of social grace, hypersensitivity, sucking at sports (*really sucking*), no clue how to dress (*really no clue*), no girlfriends for a very long time indeed, super-concentration skills, and I now earn my living as a software artchitect, YET I MAJORED IN MUSIC. I have played drums all over new york city and I also am a huge fan of dance clubs nowadays. In fact there are tons of nerds that excel at music as well. So ive either found a cure for lack of a cerebellum and I should be handsomely rewarded, or this is just another pile of grabbing-for-straws throw-nerds-in-the-pile-of-rejects attempt.
As a curious sidenote - national post's servers throw out alot of extranneous icmp/7 packets.. or so my firewall says so....
--
Actually the study was flawed, when those findings were presented subsequent studies found the percentage of xxy or other chromosomal syndromes to be no different in the prison population than in the normal population. The prison study happened to be the first wide scale experiment and the results were far off what was expected so they interpreted the data as showing xxy individuals as potential criminals. I sort of think that was the result they were looking for when they conducted the research, they found the result they were looking for. The only thing certain about xxy is that a minority of individuals with the chromosome abberation develop klienfelter syndrome, not directly as a result of the defect but because of lower testosterone levels..
I'm trying to find something to back this up, I heard about the study from my ex the other day, it was something she brought back from her genetics class
When it rains, it pours. Just last week I was turned on to the existence of Asperger's Syndrome, which is the highest form of high-functioning autism. Reading the symptoms, I immediately recognized about 75% of them in myself - gaze avoidance, ability to talk long and well on technical issues, but no clue as to how to make small-talk, a kind of analness for precision in language, the ability to learn social graces only via rote repitition (I sure would like to attend those "charm school" classes, there is a lot of stuff I just need practice on to figure out how to handle myself in social situations), and an absolute inability to dance.
There has been a lot of talk about how people with Asperger's are common in the computing industry and how it is actually a boon for us in terms of being able to understand and focus on the abstract details required to make our technology go.
For me, learning about Asperger's has been useful not only in recognizing that "I am not alone" but in helping my most beautiful and socially adept wife to better understand why I am the way I am, which can only be a good thing of our relationship.
To learn more about Asperger's, just go to google.com and search for it, there are literally thousands of sites on the web that talk about it.
as well as of massive overdiagnosis of things like ADHD/ADD.
... ) because it's comfortable and they honestly have more important things to do than care. When they do choose to dress well they have no problems doing so...
I suspect this psychologist is reading things a bit far into these results. While is possible there are a few highly intelligent technical people who are mildly autistic, I think it is very rare.
I think it's much more likely that parents who were themselves clumsy and socially inept bring up distant, socially uncomfortable children. This may be part of the "nurture" makeup of autism that these researchers are considering, but I have trouble seeing it as a disease.
Speaking from pretty decent samples -- TJHSST and CMU SCS -- I think it's far more likely for nerds to
a) Do ballroom. Nerds dance as well as anyone and we're always looking to meet girls.
b) Do S'n'S or have other interest/background in acting and theater, including film.
c) Be perfectly socially graceful, except for lapses of lust over hardware, and a deep enjoyment of conversations no one else can understand.
I strongly believe that physicists have a reputation (well deserved IMHO) for being poorly dressed (atrocious prevalence of khakies/sneakers
Okay, as a prospective cognitive scientist, I am dazzled by the naive-ness of this article. How simple it is really. If you have superior mental capabilities, you gotta be mildly autistic. Great relief for the less clever people.
;)
However, I was never very obsessed with mathematics (I remember only 10% of all theorems or so) and I believe I never experienced any difficulty understanding someone else's emotions. Even funnier, I didn't experience life as a series of freeze frames. Seriously, I had no trouble perceiving the whole; indeed the image of the whole always formed so easily. Though, I consider myself quite good at learning, and innovation.. whatever. I've been a hacker for about 10 yrs and I'm sure that I think, talk, feel and act 3 or 4 times faster than average ppl socially. Yep, I wrote billions of lines of assembly, coded every kind of program, read zillions of science books, got a CS Bsc, did research... But in the end I've found myself to be emotionally richer than virtually all the women and 90% of the men I've ever met. Why? It's because I also experienced the "triviality of youth" as Einstein put it, to some degree. Plus, I have had the joy of processing all the literature, movies, plays, etc. I consumed in more detail.
Now, intelligence is like a swiss-blade. It will adapt to any situation within a sufficient period. Those unlucky MIT hardcore nerds, study-maths-all-day-long ppl may of course lack social skills, because they didn't get the social training -- which I believe is a piece of cake compared to the whole complexity of knowledge a human embodies.
Learning the dynamics of the society, for a smart young man/woman takes at most 2-3 years, rather shorter than the lifetime required by the dork next door. The average man shall stall at quarrels with his lover/partner, remain enslaved by the codes and traditions of his society, bow down to every kind of authority and live in happiness through slavery. He shall dress as he ought to, he shall live as he ought to, he shall take little intellectual challenge throughout his life, he shall care so little about his freedom, he shall care little about others' freedom, he shall not endeavour to understand the great minds, he shall not acquire subtle aesthetic values, he shall not see a creation to light, he shall practise emotions as a sheep does, and still like his pen. You will do otherwise.
--exa--
Autism seems to be a label for a bunch of symptoms that are often found together - lengthy attention span, physical unbalance, emotional distance, hypersensitivity......
But, there are people that have 1 or two of these, and not the others. It appears to me that autism is what we call it when a bunch of these psychological traits happen to occur together in one person. I know I have some autistic tendencies that are described in the article, but I definitely don't have others. So, it seems to me we still have a ways to go to real understanding of what's going on. As long as we're applying arbitrary labels to unrelated traits, we're still pretty much in the dark, IMO.
First, make it work, then make it right, then make it fast, then, make it bloated!
Use theodoric@zombieworld.com instead that email address is not working.
Despite what some of the posters say, there seems to be some basic truth to this. May I suggest a /. poll (with a decent range of options!) to get some percentages about the incidence of this "geek syndrome"?
However, I didn't expect that so many of you immediately concluded that this is a sickness, has to be "cured" (or would attract people who wanted to cure others), or even saw some negative aspects to applying a label to this range of symptoms. Hey, lighten up! We need labels in order to be able to talk about things, and to focus attention for meaningful analysis. Unfortunately too many people are afflicted with "PC syndrome" (Political Correctness, that is) where they are either madly for or against applying or removing labels, and discussing the consequences - and there's no cure for that!
Personally I'm very happy to be a sufferer of "Geek syndrome" (or rather, I don't suffer from it, but revel in it)! After all, how would I make a profitable and enjoyable living otherwise? And I don't mind overmuch the downside parts, like being forced to spend 15 minutes reformatting and mentally checking the spelling of this comment (none of these sissy spelling checkers for me!).
--
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
I have antisocial personality disorder!
Seriously, many personality traits can considered a disorder; what matters is whether or not it's causing you a problem. So don't be offended if you fit a list of symptoms. If you're having problems (can't keep a job, can't make friends, etc.) then seek help.
Obviously Bill Gates didn't let his "condition" prevent him from making smart business decisions.
Hell, even jocks can have disorders, such as Narcissistic Personality Disorder,or Mathematics Disorder!
"One of Dr. Ratey's patients, Aaron, ... couldn't empathize at all. Never having known what empathy was, when others understood him, he felt they had invaded his mind."
Obviously, Aaron is a Nexus-5 or 6. He should be retired at once.
There was a whole new world of MIT jokes waiting to happen. I wonder how many can't pass it?
This is my signature. There are many signatures like it but this one is mine..
...those are the jocks.
**>>BELCH
I've been playing AD&D for years now and there's nothing wrong with my social skills.....
"Please continue to hold. A representative will be with you shortly. We apologize for the long wait time."
No you're not. If you were truly sorry for the annoying length of time I'm sitting here on hold, you would be spending money getting more people and/or upgrading your call center to see that it doesn't happen again.
Grr.. A simple "Thank you for holding" is sufficient.
I would like to see a neurologival study done of techies/geeks/us to see if there are any common traits that we share which aren't in the so-called normal people. It'd be interesting.
Pardon the spelling and semi-incohearentnes of this post. I'm so doped up I can hardly see the keyboard. Hell, that'd be another good study: Physical injuries to techies and how they are treated. Mine involved large doses of a very strond pain killer, two types of muscle relaxents, two different anti-depressants and three or four other for someoreason I can't remember right now.
[Heh, I kinda prooved my original point in that I got totally off the original thread within my own message]
---
"Who pill da cubby custar?"
--
If I actually could spell I'd have spelled it right in the first place.
Well, I'm an eliminative materialist, so you'd have to go lots further than this to convince me that there's any meaningful distinction to be made between "psychiatric" or "behavioral" and "neurological".
Moreover, you seem to be equating "neurological" and "anatomical" at some level. Anatomy is certainly important, but so are (at least) the pharamacology and physiology of the system.
Which gets me to the point where you claim there are "manifest and concrete differences between the autistic brain and the normal one." That's probably true at some level, but the trick is that there is not yet general agreement on what those differences are exactly. In particular, most autistic brain MRI scans are read as "normal" in radiology clinics. You have to go to really careful 3-d volume studies to get consistent data. So, Courchesne's work is mentioned in the article: roughly, autistic children have smaller lobes VI and VII of the vermis of the cerebellum. That's nice, but more recent work by Courchesne has demonstrated that life is more complicated; a subset of the autistic children whose brains he scanned show reliably larger than normal lobes VI and VII as well. In other words, the autistic samples have a greater variance in size. That's not uninteresting, but it does make the correct interpretation of the data less obvious, especially since it was a statistical finding to begin with.
Uh, but that's not Occam's Razor. Occam's Razor as usually translated states:
Occam's Razor is a nice thing to trot out, but I think it would tough to argue that we have a sufficiently good idea about what the entities are at this point to wonder which theory has more of them (or even whether there are two theories that even fit the data).That begs the question of why they are inexperienced with it, of course. And the difficulty with making the "autism is rare" argument here is that the whole discussion is about whether autism is a really rare neurological disorder that always has devestating consequences, or whether it is a far more common disorder that, in (statistically) extreme cases leads to the very bad outcomes we usually label as autism.
And this entire discussion begs the question of whether we should be talking about autism as anything other than a set of DSM-III diagnostic criteria. In the last 20 years or so, several biologically distinct causes of autistic behavior have been found, ranging from Fragile X syndrome to tubercular sclerosus. Naturally, the brain-imaging work of Courchesne and others tries to rule out some of the obvious confounds, but you should all keep in mind that autism is diagnosed based on tricky check-list criteria rather than specific genetic markers or gross anatomical abnormalities.
King Babar
Babar
Now if they can just explain why geeks randomly sprinkle apostrophes everywhere. (See the text of nearly any SlashDot article. "Head's Up!" "It's features")
I would definately consider myself a geek and a nerd (yes, they are different), but i don't really display any form of autism IMO. I can dance, I'm socially adept, I have fast reflexes, and I started speaking English long before I was a year old.
I'm thinking that this guy may be grossly over-generalizing.
Then again, maybe he's right and as far as abnormal "geeks" go, i'm not normal.
That your wife was also the valedictorian of your graduating class.
Grace is important, but the truth is that to master something, time cannot be a consideration.
see the "book of five rings".
Depending on what appears in your mind when you say "Geek", you envision someone with extreme focus; someone who prioritizes their computer above the natural social interactions.
Where the individual is focused on mastering a task, social graces will come with mastery of their task.
The other option is addiction and despair; the truth is that we need others. If those others are on computers over the internet, the 'social graces problem' is drek, geeks just have another culture.
-t
"Scientists - discovers - dont have to be creative at all, and I would expect them not to understand creative things."
Nothing could be further from the truth. Scientists, especially research scientists, must be highly creative in order to function is such a capacity. To say that they would not understand creative things has got to be the most assinine thing I have ever heard.
They have problems relating to me. Clearly, their inability to discuss low-level network protocol details makes them ill-equiped for life in the real world. They must have some sort of mild disorder.
I saw some comments on this subject on many of the reply threads, so I am going to discuss my thoughts on why society often sees single geeks, etc. as too nerdy, geeky, too uncool to get a girlfriend:
... you never know...
Geeks are eficient by nature: they can convey their message in the least number of words.
FOR example:
It would take a "normal" (hehe) person 100+ words to describe a situtation:
Yeah, Um I was, um, using my computer, and, um, I clicked on the colorful button, icon, I think it's called the um, Start Menu, and then I, um clicked, on um, programs, then, um, Office, then Word, and then I like clicked on the, um, Word icon, and then I typed my report, but like, in the middle of me typing it, my computer just like, it um, it like, stopped, like the screen became like blue, and like, it was weird, It said there was an error, um like some number, I forget, but like, anyway, I had to like turn off the machine, and like turn it back on, and anyways, like my whole paper was like gone, so I am like majorly pissed, you know.
Where as a "geek" could describe the same situation in 25 words or less:
I typed around 5 pages of the paper, when the machine locked up and I lost the whole report. I was so pissed.
Basically, most of the women, I have had the unpleasantry of meeting, are too bouncy, giggly, happy for no reason, and ~75% of what they say is just bullshit, just jaw exercise. AND, you never know if they really mean what the say.
I can't wait to meet the woman who is down to earth, Not happy, not sad unless reason to be so, can communicate efficiently and accurately, intelligent, not hoe-ish, can carry a real conversation, and is good company. -=-> I know they exist, I have met a few, but the vast majority of todays young-women are just too hoe-ish or bimbo-tic (caused by years of useless brain-washing TV shows e.g. Beverly Hills 90210, Melrose Place, Dawson's Creek, etc.)
Uhh... Yeah, I think I hit on the major points - That's enough talk for one day --> back to coding.
ALSO, I heard of some show on NBC called Freaks & Geeks - what high school was for the rest of us - I think it will be a cool show, but
- Peace
Consider the source of this article: The National Post, or The Daily Tubby, a cruel perversion of a once good financial paper, the Financial Post. It's widely thought to have the content of the Toronto Sun (a tabloid like the New York Post) wrapped in the layout of the Globe and Mail (a reputable and venerable broadsheet like the New York Times).
/.ers aren't.
Of course, you might like the Sun or the Post, and you might even subscribe, but you probably don't mistake them for quality journalism.
As for the article: Shadow Syndromes is indeed a good read, but the central premise, that psychiatric disorders are only the severe end of a continuum of human behaviour, is not new. Nor does it support the conclusion that many single-minded geeks have an attenuated form of autism: autism is not a psychiatric or behavioural disorder but a neurological one, with manifest and concrete differences between the normal brain and the autistic one.
A corresponding argument might be that a broken arm is merely at the far range of variation in normal arms. Which it isn't. It's a broken arm.
It may be that parents of autistic children are themselves autistic. It is already known that autism is heritable. It is already known that autism varies widely in severity. But to paint all geeks with that broad brush, without any but anecdotal evidence, is irresponsible. To buy the conclusion is also equally irresponsible, and I'm glad to see that most
Consider also Occam's Razor, where the simplest explanation is most likely the correct one. Do you think that many geeks find social activity difficult because they are relatively inexperienced in it, or because they have a mild form of a rare neurological disorder?
--
--
There is no premature anti-fascism. -Ernest Hemingway
when I first started reading it, I thought it would explain why i act the way I act but then when I finished I realized this is not me, i'm not mildly autistic or anything, im just weird I guess..
:(. So I guess im just a computer addict/hermit.. if any of you know more about weirdos like me, and where i can get help, please tell me, cause I want to be able to get a job and have a sorta real life, if not, my life will just be talking to people through email/messenging, and slashdot... help me!
I have real social problem, I dont like to leave my house, if someone tries to talk to me if I look them in the face ill start to turn red and my eyes will start to water, and if i have to talk to someone i forget to swollow and i start to stutter and it just cant do it, but if it is someone ive known for a while, like my parents, brother, or some close friends , then I am fine. This started a few years ago I guess, I was normal, then I was homeschooled for 2 years, then when I went back to school thats when I couldnt talk to kids and stuff, i hated school, i knew everything, but i would never do my homework cause i would just come home and go on the pc, and i never did school work cause all i could think about was going home to my computer. When I took my exams I got all A's, but not doing school work/homework made me fail, so I dropped out
(posted AC because i am a pathetic person who doesnt want to be laughed at)
I've also been diagnosticiced with Asperger's syndrome, when I was a kid.(The diagnose really went more in the lines of "possibly mild Asperger's syndrome" since the only things they could really verify at that time were that I was below avarage proficient in noticing subtle body language, and had a far above avarage IQ, and unusual interests for my age. I've since come to believe it was correct. But that's not the point.)
I also notice I have several problems in common with you. I can't function properly with preset times. (I'm always about 15 minutes late no matter what I do.) I can't end an interesting project before it's done without some kind of help.
Whenever a teacher expected me to fall in line my productivity always dropped way down. Whenever they tried to find out my quirks and use them, I excelled. And what is really interesting is that those flexible teachers usually got better results with all students, even though it was most noticable with the extremes. Some that were branded as "just plain stupid" by other teachers performed completely avarage, thus not only getting better grades but self esteem too, making the classroom come closer to harmony.
So the point is, basically, not just that we should be treated how we need to be treated, but that the same should go for every person if we want a well functioning society.
Society needs flexibility to harness the power of the people.
(I will make no excuses for eventual grammar-be-bad/speling erors, English isn't my mother tongue.)
As a side note I just expressed obsessive behaviour and lack of time sense writing this comment. 5 hours sleep, and I often sleep as a rock for 8. Yippee, I might be later than usual tomorrow...
I think I'll stay away from that book, Shadow Syndromes, thank-you-very-much. If it's going to alter one's conception of oneself and others, imagine what effect it will have on the our society when the rest get wind of it.
And you thought bringing pickled tigers back from the dead was an iffy ethics issue! Ban this book immediately! ;-)
It may be silly to think that, but it is common sense. After all there is only so much space between those ears. Oh wait, common sense, is it really a wisdom thing or a sort of cultural norm of what you are expected to know? Meaning, I common level of knowledge that you need to know in a culture to be considered socially and capalbly normal? In the middle-ages it was common sense that a headache was demonic possession and it had to be beaten out of you. This, to today's person, is utter nonsense, but it was perfectly acceptable at one point in time. In fact, you were daft if you didn't believe it. I have so much "logical" sense that it makes most of the people I know sick. I also have a lot of common sense. However, sometimes my logical sense wins out and I do the socially incorrect thing but the completely logical one.
Time to ramble, folks...
I tend to think that social interactivity (or lack) is not a direct function of genetics, but an applied result of traits that are. I.E., a loner that can't relate to people is a loner because he/she can't relate, not the other way around.
The article was blah, blah, glossy, blah, but maybe the book will be better. More ramblings later.
Now nerds are afflicted with a shadow symptom.
:-)
So quick, discover a cure. The human race doesn't need amazing discoveries, inventions, leaps of science, breakthough advances in medicine
Take that with a gallon of sarcasm.
But its nice to see someone start to look at geek and nerd habits as possibly a heriditary function, which may make us deviate from the non-existant human norm. But I think most of us wouldn't trade out geek abilities for a nice normal life. We prefer the admiration of our fellow geeks for a well crafted hack as opposed to the minor platitudes for behaving well in public.
the AC
Hemos is like...sci-fi fans;he thinks technology is cool, but he hasn't bothered to understand the science it's based on
a geek is somebody who bites the heads of chickens in a circus side show. because of this it has a rather negative connotation. for a good idea of what i am talking about watch the movie "Freaks" by Tod Browning and keep in mind that none of that is special effects or makeup. now as others have mentioned, we as a group have reapropriated the word and now use it as a badge of honor amongst ourselves. that does not change the fact though that outside out little community it is still a very derogatory remark.
I've always had people problems. I find that I am better prepared to deal with people when I am suitably "fueled" - enough rest, enough food, no sugar crashes, no caffeine cravings, no bad weather on approach. But when I'm not operating on a full tank, my behavior tends toward autism all the way around: focus problems (the aforementioned crowd situation improves if I can find something to do, like read or draw), nervous twitches (like obsessively twiddling fingers on alternate hands to make myself "balanced" - don't ask), etc.
:-)
:-)
I do have a host of other problems too, which can contribute: hypoglycemia, severe caffeine addiction, sleep problems (maybe related to the caffeine), hypersensitivity to approaching storms (they make me drowsy!), and an extremely sheltered upbringing. I will never know how much of my introversion is due to that sheltered upbringing, btw - I suspect some of it is innate, or else I would have undoubtedly found ways around the parental restrictions that kept me away from other kids.
But the point is, I honestly don't know. Autism rings true for much of what I display as "symptoms", but yet those symptoms come and go based on other environmental factors, and some "symptoms" appear directly traceable to psychology alone. Clues to the real nature of "autism", perhaps - that it might in fact be psychological and not physiological in nature? Hints at an autism-like mental illness afflicting people with isolated childhoods? Or just the totally normal and expected result of someone who grew up the way I did and wound up an Amiga user who drinks ~4 liters of Diet Pepsi a day?
I do agree, however, with whoever mentioned the fact that the general populace seems more than willing to accept people like me as "mentally ill" but yet would never dare try to classify jocks as ill. I keep remembering the hype over the Phantom Menace premiere, where they focused on the lines of strangely dressed people - while ignoring the lines of strangely dressed people at sporting events. Painting your face in team colors is okay, painting your face like Maul isn't. Being rude to people who interrupt your football game is okay, being rude to people who interrupt your Quake game is not. Loud rowdy behavior in a sports bar is okay, quiet rowdy behavior in a monitor's soft glow is not. If this is how society defines normal, they have no right to wonder why I keep to myself. Revealing that socially awkward and/or unusually focused behavior is the result of autism will only serve to encourage those who just don't like geeks in the first place, even if true, it will probably be used to marginalize us even further (and frustrate them when we do not wish to be "cured" of a disease from which we cannot be said to suffer).
On the other hand, I do have a girlfriend, though I keep wondering when I'm going to learn what's really wrong with her that balances out the incongruous fact that she actually LIKES me. The list of possibilities so far: she is escaped from an asylum, she is a well-programmed spy from the star cluster 671 Getax, she is a mass murderer, or she is not real and I'm the only human who perceives her.
~ radiographite: art by john shepard
see subject
now I know what is wrong with me! really, I am not joking, I have alot of those symtoms... i suppose alot of /. readers do
Read the article. It was interesting, but that was about it for me. I didn't take it seriously enough to let it effect my life (particularly since I don't believe psychology to be a "real" science...yet anyway). Sure I was an introverted kid. Sure I didn't like playing dodgeball with the other kids and instead played with my calculator in my own corner. And yes, I've been called a nerd. But that hasn't stopped me from getting friends, getting along with my family, getting into college, getting a computer, a job...
never been called "socially inept" yet, although they don't call me "normal" either. It's better that way anyway; to have your own unique personality.
I always detested labels anyway. This is just another one. If they call me "mildly autistic" or a "space-cadet" (my old nickname) that's fine because it doesn't mean a squat to. People will always try to label you in some way because they can't understand geeks. The best way is to be cynical of their opinions and find out who you are for yourself (blah, that was cheesy, but I sincerely believe in it).
Just another example of the fact the Psychology/Physchiatry/Sociology are not SCIENCES. Are all uncoordinated people 'nerds'? Obviously not, go no further than any physical study on humans. Good intelligence and coordination are rare talents to begin with. Maybe it is just rare that a person has both. Thus the stereotypes: dumb jocks and clumsy nerds. I have a BSc in CSc. I can play baseball and number of other sports. I don't consider myself an exceedingly well coordinated person but I have competed at the varsity level in level in squash. I view this as another soon to be discounted psychological theory. Rain man.
Do you often find yourself rocking back and forth to relax? I'd like to test this theory ...
I have to ask, does fidgeting count as an autistic type of repetitive physical activity like rocking? If so, then my self diagnosis is I'm mildly autistic :P
If you need an example of autism, go rent "Rain Man".
I'm the way I am because my older sister was a crazy, nuts, a really screwed up while I was growing up, so I always locked myself into my room with my nice trusty 386!
"Geeks" sometimes have a tendency to lock themselves into a room while they do their work...and if they don't have interactions they tend to be more autistic, because they know how to interact with computers, and not people...Then again people who sit on the 'net chatting all day are proabably a little more social....but still not as social as someone who didn't sit on the net all day chatting....Okay back to sitting on the net chatting.
Hmmm... Somehow I thought that I had noted that such definitions weren't absolute, and they varied. Perhaps you should read my post again.
Well, the article is interesting, and probably some proportion of so-called "geeks" and "nerds" exhibit mild autism. But I think the article is rather misleading, as most people who would consider themselves "geeks" or "nerds" are simply intelligent and often a bit introverted (i.e. shy).
...
I know several people who are involved in science or technology fields, and who are shy. To an outside observer, they may appear to lack social skills. However, these people often have strong empathic traits, and are overly sensitive to social cues (which are opposite to autistic tendencies). They get along well with each other, and have active social lives within their social circles. (Admittedly some of them did not have much in the way of social lives in high school, where they were in a very small minority!) People tend to interact best with others who share interests and abilities - if you are someone who is highly intelligent and interested in something specialized, you may not seem socially adept to most of the populace. This does not necessarily mean you have a brain disorder!
Public education is probably good for people who have a mild version of autism - but it would be unfortunate for the already-stigmatized groups of introverted geeks/nerds/etc to be branded as having a mental illness. Be nice to have more non-negative publicity out there to combat the recent negative happenings
YS
"Arrr! The laws of science be a harsh mistress." -- Bender
That's the weird thing, I think about half of my "lack of social skills" comes from lack of confidence/low self esteem, and the other half from skills, but I did do phone support for several years, and I had NO problem dealing with people over the phone. It's face to face that's a problem with me.
Of course, when you're the magic man with all the answers, people will bend over backwards to "connect" with you.
"The number of suckers born each minute doubles every 18 months."
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
I agree with you that this is all iffy/kinda/sorta/well_"you_know" mumbo-jumbo populist clap-trap psychology. Here's why (btw, I'm not a psychologist, psychiatrist, head shrinker, etc.):
Unlike most non-psychiatric disease measures, psychological diagnostics are virtually never disconfirmatory. For example, if you think you have Strep Throat, you can go get a throat culture from a doctor. The results of that diagnostic instrument conclusively tell you whether or **not** you have the disease you suspect that you have. Unfortunately, psychiatric diagnoses are not nearly as precise or valid. If you think you have "mild autism" (as the authors are talking about), while there are diagnostics that will confirm that you do have mild autism, no diagnostic will tell you that you **don't** have mild autism. These diagnostics will only conclude that the test failed to detect mild autism.
Problem is, you need disconfirmatory instruments to "know" things. Otherwise, you end up in this epistomological nightmare of having "hunches" or suggestive evidence for many, many things but no proof for any of them.
This article is one of those hunches masquerading as a sound idea. Anecdote after anecdote linked by specious references to tenuous physiological findings, with no attempt to ever disconfirm the idea that geeks are mildly autistic or even exercise restraint in their conclusions (the title of the article is "Why Geniuses Lack Social Graces"--as if we know after this one popular psychology book). Failing to actively search for disconfirmatory evidence is a sure-fire mark of bad science.
What's even worse, and what makes drivel like this both dangerous and popular, is that almost everyone can identify with at least a couple of their diagnostic criteria. I mean, who hasn't felt socially awkard or unable to keep up at one time or another.
The impacts of popularising this non-scientific nonsense are profound. Robyn Dawes, a noted psychological researcher from Carnegie-Mellon, outlines the dangers in House of Cards. It "...leaves potential clients incapable of distinguishing between service that has a true scientific base and service based simply on the claims of those providing the service" (page 9). These practices, "...have apparently had a profound effect on our culture's beliefs about what constitutes a good life, what types of behavior are desirable, and -- most important -- how people "should" feel about the world" (page 9).
Geeks of the world, fight back against shoddy science that attempts to marginalize and fix you.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I don't rock back and forth :P.
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
SLayer rules!
That article really opened my eyes to a degree. I am practically crying. I was placed into a school for the autistic when I was 6 years old. The pre-K teacher had found an effective way to handle me:she used to put me in the closet after my mother dropped me off. One day my mother came to class and found out what the teacher had been doing. I was 'weird' you might say. The school psycologist said I had an extreme case of dyslexia with small and gross motor defiency along with a severe speech impediment. I had problems walking (constantly falling), bumping into things, could barely speak anything, could not read or write at all, etc. After going to Kindergarten with Special Education, the teachers recommened that I go someplace where I could get something else. That was the autistic school. Each student had one teacher or mentor. I spent three and a half years there. I had been tested to have an IQ of over 150 but I could not fit into the real world. My teacher spent a lot of time with me training me e.g. she taught me how to write using food colored soap suds poured on a table and then taking my hand and drawing out the letters. She taught me all kinds of things like astronomy and biology which I was really into. My parents also enrolled me in ballet classes for adults. The ballet teacher spent so much time trying to teach me not to waddle (it really helped... now I dance at night clubs and people give me props at my skills). My parents tried to put me back into the public school system but after much fighting with the bureacracy I was only allowed in as someone in the "Self Contained" program. There we had essentially nothing to do with the rest of the school. Most of my fellow students were there because of severe emotional/psycological/developmental problems. We also had our own special school bus that was much smaller than the average school bus, everyone named it the "tart cart" because we were considered the 'retards'. In this self contained program at the elementary school I learned the basics what everyone else learns using special tools like a Bell-Howell machine where the teacher writes down on a card a word and then the card has a audio tape at the bottom of it and she records her voice. We then run it through the Bell-Howell machine and send the card through, write it 20 times, and type it 20 times. Every day. Also had to do math but used this really cool sci-fi coming book to do it. I loved that comic book. There were MANY special techniques we learned which I still use today to survive. As I went along, they allowed me to start this process called "mainstreaming" meaning I could take a 'normal' class with 'normal' kids. My first was science. I loved it so. By the time I was in Junior High I had gone from 'self-contained' to 'resource room' meaning that all my classes were mainstream but I need support once a day. By the end of junior high I started taking honors classes. In high school I was still considered LD (learning disabled) but not only was I totally mainstreamed but now taking AP classes. Socially at first I was very awkward and was CONSTANTLY beaing beaten up. Only by high school did the beatings stop. There was still some teasing but the violence was no more. Now I just finished my computer science degree for it has taken me 9 years to get my bachelors (I was a part time student). I felt compelled to write since I do not want to feel typecasted by any 'expert'. I constantly shake and I have severe problems with my life (trying to get a job, etc.) but I am extremely good with computers. I am not looking for sympathy at all. I am PROUD to be who I am and would not want to be different. I see things very differently than anybody else. I am not materialistic or many other negative connotations that people have if they are 'normal'. I obstinately refuse to wear something to be cool and I am terribly lonely guy to a degree. The only people who hang out with me are similar 'misfits' and much older people who seem to appreciate my intellect. I am writing this not for fame but because I know there are people out there who have had similar experience and should know that they can still succeed and make it.
Hey I happen to like brie :-) it's a good thing I don't admit it too often in the math lab, I might get my access number taken away.
I have a mild case of Asperger's, along with mild ADHD (at least I think so: its never been formally diagnosed). I learned to read at about 3 or 4, encouraged by my mother. In my first year at primary school my parents were told by the headmaster that I was mentally subnormal and should go to a "special" school.
I've since met another young man with a severe case of Aspergers. He spends hours fiddling with broken video recorders and things, and can talk about nothing else. But he has got to University and his parents are very proud of him.
The thing is that all of these pros and cons come as part of a package. Its not "normal" (in the sense of "usual"), but its not pathalogical either. The trick is to recognise both the pros and the cons, and then play to your own strengths.
Geek Pride!
Paul.
You are lost in a twisty maze of little standards, all different.
The fact that madness and deficiencies are in the eyes of the beholder is nothing new, but this is what I can see from the article:
In a room full of geeks fitting the article's description, we have:
1) those who aren't *really* (deep down in their hearts) happy with their lack of social skills, secretly fancy the girl on the bus, would like to really be able to explain things properly to their boss. (Please don't get pissed off: this is theoretical)
2) Those who are happy with how they are, a little shy, a little dysfuctional at parties, but pleased that they are also quite inventive, and in their element with what they do. Maybe sometimes buy one of those self help assertivity books in bad moments.
3)Those who are not content with their level of geekiness: They would take classes in autisticity if they could. As long as it helped them really be able to solve the problems they want to solve, and do what they want to do.
We're all free to be in one of these (theoretical!) factions, because ultimately geekdom and society are both valuable things!
For a while I thought I was psychotic. Inability to empathize with others, inability to read emotions in others, always outside looking in. Was considering medication, but then I read the synopsis and it fits me to a frightning T. At least I know anti-psychotics aren't going to help me. BTW, did you know you can buy 9mm ammo for about 13 cents a round and .223 ammo for 17 cents a round?
If you approach social relations as a system and social behaviours as the laws by which the system can be affected, then succeeding in that system is similar to understanding physical forces in a system of masses.
The point is that most people don't actually need to learn this stuff, only practice. Its like learning language. During your first few years of life you soak it up from your environment and become totally fluent without trying. When you learn a language as an adult it is a major struggle.
Most people aquire social skills in the same way they aquire language. Autistics don't. They have to learn it consciously as a set of rules, just like an adult learning a foreign language.
Someone earlier mentioned Lt. Cmdr Data. I'd love to meet him, because I know I could explain things to him. The people around him can't explain social rules to him because they don't consciously know them. But I've had to figure out the rules for myself, and as a result I know what they are.
Paul.
You are lost in a twisty maze of little standards, all different.
Yaaahh. Definitely, Definitely not autistic. yahhh.
I don't have symptoms of Shadow Autism or anything of the like, but I do have definate social "lackings". For instance, a difficulty in generating smalltalk. I can change focus easy enough, and I can recognize subtle meanings in tone of voice, inflection, facial expression and the like much better than what normal people can. I just have extreme difficulty in actually thinking of words to say and even greater difficulty getting them out of my mouth in a coherent way. I don't stutter and I don't really have a fear of speaking to people I don't know. It's more a lack of verbal ability. When it comes to writing, I can usually express myself fairly well. I was extremely introverted as a child, gradually becoming more outgoing as I got older (though still introverted). Perhaps the verbal centers of my brain didn't develop fully? I also know I'm not normal in most mental respects. This doesn't bother me at all, of course. :) From a very young age people have said to me, "You're wierd". I can't even count the number of times. At first I would just look at them funny and wonder what THEIR problem was. I suppose now my feelings are pretty much the same, though now it makes me a little sad that people allow their brains such restricted movement.
Something else of interest: when under the influence of certain drugs, such as LSD, mushrooms, extacy, I become very verbal and am able to function quite well on large doses, to the utter amazement of my friends. I can drive or do cartwheels when my friends can barely walk. Apparently this isn't normal either.
Does anybody else have a similiar situation? Anybody have any suggestions about the lack of verbal ability thing? From my experiences with certain (illegal) drugs, it would appear that there could be a drug of some kind that could be of help...
Any one with a quick wit deserves to be appreciated. The problem, of course, is that a lot of people take things personally and feel threatened by the fact that they are too dull witted to come up with a response. The art of conversation today is the ability to be vacuous. It's not autism, it's elitism
It would seem to me that the journalist took what was a limited scope scientific investigation and ended up implying that all of us geek geniuses lack social graces, etc. I personally think that while this may explain a certain percentage of "non-standard behaviorisms", it's certainly not the norm.
:)
I know many "geeks" who are physically capable, very interesting, and have no issues with "small talk". I truly believe that the "35-year old computer programmer virgin" is the exception, not the rule.
At my office there's one person who comes to mind after reading this article, but that's one person out of an entire department full of ivy-league certified geniuses, most of which you could NEVER guess their occupation to judge solely by looks, coordination, manners, etc.
Fie on this anti-geek FUD
A geek may also reply that the social grace excuse/copout is used by others that are plain dumb or ignorant. Call it being able to handle other people who fork their conversations/explanations (some say rudely switching topics that are in no way connected). Fellow geeks instantly follow my ramblings, and I follow theirs, so much as a chess grandmaster remembers the threads. Managers get rattled with techos,so leave them out the loop, which is why bad decisions get made. The geeks on the otherhand, can't figure out why the manager is confused after just 3 levels of recursion. Geek: One who is technically competent in their chosen specialization. Motorhead : same Drunkard: same Pinup model: Who cares Madam: social graces and ethics for sale Media Personality : One who has social graces, needs a therapist, potential to act, and whould rather spend money on clothes and fortune tellers than improving their brains. Manager: One who has all the above attributes, plus can 'talk sports' Geek: deficient in one or more of the above, often cursed with an overly high intellegence. Wear the badge with pride.
It's funny how some psychologists have blamed TV and computers for creating kids with ADD. It's obvious to me that these people need to review their sense of causality.
As for me, I would never admit to having ADD, as it seems rather negative to me. Still, I can't help but wonder what it's like to be in tune with your senses, living externally as well as internally.
In my opinion, some (well, quite a number of) people turn to machines, when they have problems socializing with people (for various reasons, not only people who are mildly autistic).
Because they spend so much time with computers, quite a number of these people become successful in the IT business. Which is good! If you are excellent at something, because you work hard to develop your talents, you deserve to be rewarded. And being not that good at socialising doesn't detract from it.
Hmm... Jesus didn't signficantly impact how my house is built... Jesus isn't mentioned much as an innovator in building techniques or carpentry skill... I don't understand what you mean... *:)
There is a lot to do, discover and create in this world and it takes all types to get it done. An article like this re-validates the fact that all types of people are necessary to move this world forward. It made me feel better knowing that it is virtually impossible for a perfect person to exist and that there is something wrong (and very right) with all of us.
-Chuck
*Condense fact from the vapor of nuance*
I was diagnosed with ADD my 7th grade year. I took medication through my freshman year in High School. I also tested high for ADD. I maintained a 3.4 GPA (non weighted, 5.4 weighted) throught HS. While some of the things that did go away came back (figiting with everything) some did not. I ended up teaching myself to focus on stuff that I never did before (boring lectures). In my opinion medication should be a last resort for ADD. Much can be accomplished with just being aware of the problem, and working throught it yourself, or with help.
I mean, hours of rocking motion is exactly what women want from a man, according to what I've read.
It makes no sense to me. And this article certainly did not help.
its because the baud rate of other carbon based bipeds is 300. Tending to give lag in conversations.
Is my favorite :)
I can't imitate movements other make with their feet, although I have less trouble with hands - I even learned to juggle and know about 20 3-ball tricks.
Forgot to tell you folks the technical term for this condition: I call it an "IQ Gradient". My IQ is very high in the center of my head and it steadily diminishes to zero at my feet.
And yes, I've heard all the jokes about what happens in the middle - but then anybody's penis is a half-wit ;-).
you dont know what the hell youre talking about
I sure do. I've always been a nerd myself, and so are nearly all the friends I've ever had. What you say is a bit like "smoking cannot cause cancer, because not everyone who smokes has cancer"
I've never heard that people with a damaged cerebellum can't excel in music, and certainly not that nerd can't have artistic skills.
I know very well the lack of social graces is not caused by a general disinterest in how other people feel and what they think of me, it's just something that can't be learned. People have tried to teach me, but it just comes out like a robot attemptimg to be charming. Sucking at sports I know very well too, although I've discovered that a complete lack of fine motor control doesn't have to stop you from lifting weights, and becoming quite strong.
How?
And why is it that suddenly, people who cannot be social are no longer part of the EVERYONE needed to make the world go around?
I'm going to try not to lose my temper here, but it is going to take a lot of effort. This brought back the bad memories of my earliest Hellmouth experience (private school pre-K teacher insisting that I was autistic because I couldn't, at the ripe old age of four, tie my shoes -- supposedly this meant I didn't care about my classmates).
OK. Here goes.
I am really tired of trendy diagnoses, and the "dilution" of legitimate problems into the latest label to slap on a deviant kid. I don't want this supposed "autism" thing to go the route of ADD for boys or clinical depression for teenage girls.
I am also tired of people not understanding the difference between someone who is just different and someone who is functionally impaired and needs help. The best line I can think of from I Never Promised You a Rose Garden is "Please, Doctor, my difference is not my sickness." If someone is absolutely unable to function in society, is a danger to self or others, or recognizes a mildly self-destructive behavior pattern that is getting worse, then by all means get that person some help.
But enough with the armchair diagnosis. And if someone is merely "different," but can hold down a job and isn't running around with an Uzi threatening to destroy himself or anyone else, what the hell is the problem?
The other fun part of all this is that someone who has something about them that makes them seem superficially crazy and ALSO has an underlying problem that has nothing to do with the superficial one will have a hard time finding help because the superficial problem-that-isn't-a-real-problem will outweigh the real problem that they came to get help for in the eyes of the therapist. And yes, I'm speaking from (somewhat) personal experience here, both my own and that of those close to me. *sigh*
"Somebody exploded a letter-bomb today
In A Deepness In The Sky by Vernor Vinge (a prequel to A Fire Upon The Deep) the (relatively) 'bad' guys turn a part of their population (and anybody else's if they can get their hands on them) into 'focussed' specialists by artificially causing a form of autism. The specialists have no life outside work at all; they become completely obsessed by their particular topic. A large part of the book is dedicated to exploring the social consequences of this practice.
If you intend to read both books then read them in the order they were published, even though A Fire Upon The Deep doesn't really contain anything relevant to this article.
Ok, so after reading comments and the article, what comes to mind is a generalization of geeks and autism, for if you used corollaries (probably spelled wrong) if you're a geek you're most likley autistic and if you're austistic you'll most likely be a geek.
So then..what happens to people who are huge geeks (like myself) but don't seem to be autistic. I'm sure there are lots of people who are very "geeky" who, like myself, love computers, get happy when there's talk about crypto, beg to talk about wormholes, plasma engines, Esher, Turing etc etc etc, but have absolutely no problem with their social life.
I think a lot of this "autism" is circumstancial. I've developed my social "skills" because I've had an odd (unusal) life so far and it's been necessary. I think the point to see with geeks is not to treat it as a condition, but rather a choice. You see..I think geeks could be and many are perfectly good social butterflies, but most chose not to bother..they DO have priorities.
I don't see why people bother to classify geekism as a condition. Sure there are traits that can be found in all geeks, that doesn't make it at all a sickness or problem..just similar habits and priorities...
Jesus isn't mentioned much as an innovator in building techniques or carpentry skill
You obviously haven't seen the "Kids in the Hall" sketch showing some of Jesus' carpentry -- examples include a two-legged table and a spice rack whose shelf tilted at about a 30-degree angle.
OTOH, my brother is a math whiz (I almost failed!)
and is a bookkeeper. I'm into HTML and Javascript.
I didn't speak for a long time either...maybe till I was eight, I never actively engaged in conversation (we got a pair of birds and then after that I couldn't shut up!)
Perhaps I'm just introverted to the extreme. I prefer to read and spend quiet time programming and designing.
I am told that left-handedness is the result of a difficult birth, and that most lefties are somewhat brain damaged, tho I'd to think that! It's true I "zone" people out, but that's because I need to concentrate...
School may have been another factor. I was lousy in gym, and math especially. I was in the "slow" group in Grade 3 - you can't imagine how demoralizing that can be to a little kid! And I tended to be ignored a lot, just because I was in my own little world half the time
I think it's a lot of things...and of course we're all not normal...sheesh!
Is it just me, or is this just another psychobabble cop-out mechanism? Every time a segment of the population gets marginalized, some head-shrinker gets the idea that they must have a disease, and then spends the next four years drawing bad conclusions. Its the PC thing to do, right? Give everyone an escape from accountability. I'm sick of it.
A minority didn't score so well on the SAT? It's 'Ghetto Syndrome'.
Didn't get a prom date and you killed your family? You've got 'interactive rage disorder'.
Spend the last four days drunk? You have a 'socially-enabled addiction'.
Spend more time with an x86 than people? Congrats! You're disabled! Now you can get a job you're not qualified for with whatever special accomidations you want! You've got a disease!
I think the psychologists, and the morons that buy into this theory are the only sick people in the whole deal.
"We apologize" doesn't mean "we feel sorry." IT just acknowledges the problem.
However, a true nerd will use the time granted by waiting on hold to run a calculation proving that no limited resource should ever economically be built to handle maximum traffic. You get diminishing returns, especially since not that many people are adversely impacted by the maximum-traffic times.
Or worse yet, if the DID improve the maximum-load size, it's quite likely that more people would find it convenient to call during peak hours, thus leaving everyone in the same bad situation.
Our freeways always have this second problem -- widening them is possible and would seem to benefit a lot of people, but in practice whenever it happens people change their habits to use the highway more, and you wind up just as congested.
-Billy (sniff)
I have a new-found respect for Bill Gates. He creates an empire, is one of the (if not the) richest men in the world, and he passes his time on a trampoline. I wonder if he plays with legos, too?
I just wanted to pipe in that I Never Promised You a Rose Garden is an excellent book that everyone should be required to read. I read it in high-school and it changed my outlook on life. My favorite part is when the girl describes her world changing from black and white to color. I remember the fear written into those words and it struck me as awesome. Unfortunately, nobody else, except for teachers, could understand what I had just grokked, so I kinda kept to myself. I'm glad someone else discovered this book.
-B
I'm a Geek, and proud of it. what I've noticed about most of us geeks isn't a lack of personal skills as much as not wanting to waste my time on pointless smalltalk.In the past I have tutored people, Served as a Campaign Manager for a policital canidate, Worked as Republican Party Precent captian, Served on the county Party execitive comitee, Made public Speaches, and rarely left a pickup bar alone. I've even sold very expensive classic cars for a time. All hallmarks of good social skills. However I found most of it totally boring. Conversations with so called normal people tend to stray off subject. I found I prefer talking to other geeks. They stay on subject, and rarely jabber about things they know nothing about. Austic? Hell no! I'd call it being antisocial by choice. I like Sgt. Joe Friday's Tag line from the old Dragnet Show, "Just the facts ma'mm". If being normal means I have to dress like everybody else, act like everybody else, and worst of all think like everybody else, then to Hell with being Normal. I'm better than normal, I'm a Class A geek!
Quemadmodum gladius neminem occidit, occidentis telum est
Could it not be, that geeks tend to be good at what they do simply because they spend so much time doing it?
When other people make them miserable, an obscure book like 'the art of computer programming' and 'advanced metaphysics: a primer', sitting in some lab or in front of a screen does a better job at keeps them away than Raid for moskitos.
And, while they are at it, they may try to get some pleasure to get out of what they do, they get involved, and sometimes get really good at what they do.
Similar reaction help other groups to cope with their problems. All those busy-bodies trying overcome their boredom and frustration by competing at charity dinners with their neighbors aren't what I would call sane either.
And not to forget, all those baseball-, soccer-, beauty peagent-, and what ever else-moms and dads, trying to live through their kids, because they failed with their own life.
Geeks as insane as everybody else, just in a different way. And each insanity attracts get relieved by its own kind of behaviour. As it would be inefficient for a society-junky to hide for years in a lab, geeks in ballrooms are in the wrong place.
Sevus,
johi
I have some personal experience on this one. There was a time when I became homeless and ended up in a psych ward on the assumption that I was depressed. I didn't mind admitting that I didn't see what good I was to the world, and that it would be much easier if I offed myself, though I wasn't going to do it as I knew people who would be hurt by such an act. ;) when the clarion call is 'All For The SELF!' my reaction tends to be 'for the what?' and I don't understand. To me, that is such an empty motivation, so hollow... there needs to be more, not for any grand emotional reason but simply because Self, to me, seems like a pathetically feeble thing to base a worldview and belief system around. Hence, other belief systems, notably the GNU strain of Free Software, seem a lot more suitable- to me, a person with very low priority on Self, the notion of Cooperation or Society seems significantly more useful. And if something like the GPL really _bugs_ people whose ethic is Self primarily, I find I have no sympathy whatsoever, which is my bias, not considering the Self important or useful.
I now understand that depressed people would say such things from a position of great anguish, like living in a state of just-having-gotten-terrible-news ALL the time without relief, and so they'd be hurting enough to override their usual instinct of self-preservation.
I wasn't in that kind of anguish- was reacting kind of dispassionately to the way the world seemed to be shaping up- but what throws people is this, I don't really have much of a self, never have. I mean that literally- it's a part of the human mainspring and in me it's not really there... People have mentioned Spock, but think Data, instead. Data is a bit of an icon for a lot of autistic people. That level of disconnection is damned tough for a normal person to understand, and to make matters worse, either Data or an autistic person _can_ learn to mimic regular human emotions quite convincingly, which happens as a matter of course.
Perhaps this is what irritates me about certain belief systems such as Ayn Rand disciples
Maybe the popularity of the GPL and such cooperation-forcing situations is particularly strong among those of us who are autistic and do not have a strong emotional bias towards the Self? What sort of person finds it easy and harmonious to 'sell out' the Self and contribute to society?
Douglas Coupland's microserfs mentioned the possibility that geeks are autistic.. around 2/3rd's of the way in... Coupland raised the issue that the 'better' (more productive) geek you are the more autistic (the ability to focus on one item intensly.
4 9/o/qid=937246669/sr=8-1/002-1727877-72430 04
Good book, see:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/00609870
--I hate people when they're not polite -"Psycho Killer", Talking Heads
This seems to be another thing that says, "Geeks are different. They need help." Yeah, we're different, but we don't need help. Sure there's probably some geeks out there are mildly autsitic or suffer from ADHD, but I can't belive the majority do. I have no problem with empathy, when someone is emotionally hurt, it really bothers me. Now that doesn't mean I make it my mission to make people happy. I don't, I don't like those people, they annoy me, but that doesn't mean I like to see someone in emotional pain.
Sure I occasionally have problems with social interaction. Small talk seems incredibly laborous unless I'm talking about some sort of geek topic, but then I just seem pathetic.
I do receive conversational signals, I'm just never sure if they mean what they mean, I'm always afraid I'm reading too much into them because I get mildly self-consious around new people. Usually the signals mean what I thought they did, but by the time I reallize that I've already barreled through them and emberessed myself.
I like the article but would like to point out that many technical people suffer from social phobia (or social anxiety, it's more politically correct label). It is an actual psychiatric illness that is very treatable, though medication an/or therapy. Having suffered from it myself I can see it in many of my coworkers.
Just to let you know how bad it was for me, I spent five years of my life in my parents basement, playing with computers. I was in college but I felt so uncomfortable around people I skipped 90% of my classes. Luckly I was smart enough I could simply read textbooks, take the exam, and still get good grades. My social life, if you can call it that, consisted of discussion on Usenet (this was in the days before the WWW).
It all came to a head when I kept failing this one class that required attendance every day. I couldn't bring my self to go the small, cramped classrom. I knew something was really wrong with me and I went to the school's psyciatrist. He promptly put me on a SSRI (a kind of anti-depressant/anti-anxiety medication). It was like night and day -- I immediately improved.
I'm still not a big socializer but I think I have "acceptable" social behaviour now. I spent years studying others social interaction and have tried to emulate them. I still get nervous around people, have few friends, but I can handle basic interaction at work (even a little public speaking!).
Just my $.02,
Tom
im a pretty smart guy...always top 1% of everything ive done in HS etc... but sometimes, the commen sense i have, just flys out the windows. the word "duh!" comes to mind. it would be so obviouse to some one else who's doing it, yet so alien to me. its wierd.
Gorfin
I think I'm somewhat qualified to comment on this book, as I have actually read a decent portion of it. The book makes sense. It specificaly says that "normal" does not normally exist, and it may be impossible. The idea is that everyone is a little off in one way or another. Many of us still function in life and even society, though we may not do so as well as we would like. Being a little off is generally not a problem, but there are many cases where a little help would go a long way, for example in the case of a mother who suffers from atypical depression. She is not able to give her children a happy home to live in. The book addresses the fact that "wonder" drugs may be over prescribed, but that the "wonder" stories are true and many people can benifit from from them. OTOH many people may benifit from simple behavoir changes. One of the points of the book (and the one generating all the comment) is that the same root case of many of peoples little disorders are also the things that make some people very good at what they do. There's nothing like coding while "suffering" from mainia. A persons inability to have a one track mind (outside of sex in the case of men) may contribute to them doing well in areas where seeing many thigns at once is a key skill. I would suguest reading the intro in this book next time your in the book store before tearing it apart.
While I do recognize many of the symptons of mild autism in myself, I have a severe lack of several as well. - I am a 22 year old computer professional (a database administrator, to be presise) - and, I'm fairly well socially adjusted, although this was not always the case. I do have a tendency to 'rock' - but, then, I also have kids, so, who's complaning? On the other hand, I have a strong sense of rhythem. I played drums for several years, and from what I've been told, am a fairly good dancer. and, whil eI was clumsy as a child, as an adult, I seem to be possesed of a grace and sense of balance that amuses my roomates (due to my constant habit of walking across the back of the sofa) At the same time, I have several 'geek' friends. One is a former football player, and saxaphone player (Who I know is reading this!). So much for the stereotypes, eh? One (ok, a geek-in-training), is ex-military, and shows none of the symptons of autism. And still manages to pick up on computer skills as fast as I can cram them in his head. We all seem to possess the same quality though - a profound sense of rationality and logic. We tend to shun overly emotional types(Or at least get annoyed with them), We tend to get irritated at silly stupidity (As a close-to-home example, people getting hyserical about Y2K), and generally get much amusement out of the little things in life that are beyond explaining (For example, trying to figure out exactly what the point behind decaffinated coffee is. Its not like it tastes good, isn't the point that its supposed to wake you up?) An Anonymous Coward (ok, a lazy coward who hasn't gotten around to getting an account. So sue me.)
damn, I've been diagnosed. what now, doktor?
Stands for Borderline Personality Disorder -- I'm not exactly sure what that entails, only that it seems to be coming into use as sort of a catch-all. Sally Bedell Smith, in her recent biography of the late Princess of Wales, suggests that Diana suffered from BPD (and she's about as non-geeky as they come).
The real reason we geeks appear to lack social graces:
I think most people are idiots.. so why bother.
-- jga@wastelandranger.org http://www.wastelandranger.org
Back in the 60s and 70s, when computers were becoming important and coders were needed but there were no trained ones available, several of the big companies (IBM and AT&T, for example) tried to figure out which college majors would provide the best programmers (besides math, of course). It was discovered that music majors often made good programmers, so apparently some of the same skills are present in the two groups.
As a supposition backed up with no facts, it's possible, making the assumption that you're mildly autistic, that part of that autism (ability to concentrate without external stimuli interfering) balances out other parts (general clumsiness).
Or, you're not autistic at all.
Who can tell? But I think it bears looking into.
"It was me against the world, I was sure that I'd win.... but the world fought back, punished me for my sins" - Social D
OK, so a lot of you take this article as insulting. I can see why. But while maybe the doctor conducting the study doesn't quite get it, I think maybe there's a lesson to be learned here: people do not all have to think exactly the same way to be healthy. One of my biggest problems with modern psychology is that it's desperate to class anything slightly out of the ordinairy as something bad that can be fixed. But recently, with the advent of newer, more powerful drugs that promise to make us all 'normal', we have to ask ourselves, do we *want* to be normal?
I for one would never give up my geekhood. I know lots of others feel the same way. And in a strange sort of way, if this turns out to be true, it feels like justification to me. Before, it seemed like we were misguided folk who just never learned. But now, maybe we really are wired different. We're driven by different things. Some would call this a problem to be corrected, but I say that it's mother nature acknowledging our right to be unique. And seeing how much of modern technology is founded on geek accomplishment, I damn well don't see how people can say how we are is *wrong*.
So don't take this as discouragement, take it as a sign to keep the path. While some psychologists may see this as another thing that needs 'cured', it may just show that abnormality is more normal than most people thought. And hey, we already knew that anyway, right?
--
'I love it when somebody's own sig describes how much they suck so much
more concisely and elegantly than I possibly ever could.'
hot foreign sheep.
Quite a little backlash we have going here... This is a wonderful time to bring up a topic that has been eating at the back of my mind since I started reading slashdot, quite a while ago.
It is my opinion that people generally take this kind of report far too personally. Understand that the author is not trying to peg every computer literate person as suffering from autism. The foundation is that people who suffer from a lack of social and physical graces, and subsequently exceed in ability to focus, exhibit traits that are similar to autism. Thus Louis Skolnick, from Revenge of the Nerds, was a good candidate for a mild case of autism.
The lesson learned here can be applied just about everywhere. Calm down a little folks. Don't make a knee jerk defensive reaction and start screaming how any author clearly doesn't know what s/he's talking about until you've thought it through. If, after some investiagation and reflection, an injustice has truely been served... then let 'em have it.
I think this was my favorite line from the whole article:
Bill Gates, according to Shadow Syndromes, is reported to rock himself, spend hours on the trampoline, not make eye contact, and have trouble making social conversation.This is my unprofessional advice, but seeing as most professionals in the 'mental health industry' are full of ess-aitch-eye-tee SHIT, I'd say it's as good as any.
I reccommend applying the same sense of curiosity and adventure that you apply to your computer skills to your 'social' life. First admit (as you have) that, for whatever reason, you're scared shitless (if that's how you feel). You may or may not know why, and it may make no sense to other people, but call a spade a spade and say it out loud (to the mirror, to the dog, to the computer, whatever). There is power in the spoken word.
Set small, attainable goal (I hate that word) or 'missions' (much better!) for yourself, like looking into the eyes of the checkout person at the store next time you buy a bottle of Diet Coke as they hand you your change. When you get home, go over your mental 'notes', but don't be too judgemental. If you shivered and shook and gushed tears and whatnot, don't consider it a failure. Just say, 'Wow. That's interesting.' and go over EXACTLY how it made you feel, physically inside. Don't worry about attaching emotive words like 'frightened', 'angry' or whatever. Just describe the feelings to yourself. Maybe keep a log in your computer, as it seems to be a haven of sorts for you. If and when you 'succeed' in a mission (ie: look the clerk in the eye without projectile vomiting on him or her) then you can up the stakes a bit. When the clerk hands you your change, look him/her in the eye and say "hello," and so on.
Take detailed notes on the 'missions' that get the strongest reactions from you. There may be some that seem insurmountable (firmly but politely refusing/returning a meal at a restaurant that is poorly prepared) but don't fret. Approach it all with a sense of adventure and curiosity, and most importantly a sense of humor.
You might even try talking to women, usually the MOST stressful dialog for the entire male half of the species! Don't worry about 'asking them out' or anything like that. Just give a compliment or something (nice dress, cool tattoo, cool car, nice palm pilot, etc.) that doesn't require anything more than a smile or a nod on their part. Say it, look them in the eye, smile and go.
yikes, I'm ranting. sorry!
good luck!
**>>BELCH
I fail to see why people think that it is impossible for someone to have both intelligence and "common sense" (wisdom). It is kind of silly to say that when you learn something new, that a bit of common sense just leaked out of the other ear to make room for it.
I can't beleive anyone would imply that humanity (in general) would be capable of setting aside a small spectrum of it's population, hold them up as "pure", and set aside the rest as "dysfunctional".
Tell me we aren't capable of such a thing!
I love programming, but have a very tough time with social graces. And I'm no genius, unfortunately. My boss and coworkers chide me incessently about my computer addiction.
Even worse, as I get older, I find myself feeling getting ill after too many days of 17-18 hours of programming, so I have forced myself to re-learn a musical instrument I played as a child. It soothes me quite a bit.
Friends? Unfortunately, for whatever reason, I've noticed most people, at least in personal relationships, tend to take what they can from me and leave me behind. I don't know if this is an "American" thing or not, the attitude of "using" people as stepping stones to get ahead, or get what you need, then walk away from them. All take, no give. It seems endemic here in the US.
Of course, it could be a flaw in my thinking, too. I struggle with trusting people.
I know a lot of double majors (and plenty of double degrees too) which makes the pool pretty mixed.
... don't know why. But it's not that many.
I might agree there are more (in my observation) socially inept ones in Physics
This seems like a lot of over-simplification. There is a much simpler solution to the question of why "geeks" are socially awkward--they spend more time without the company of other human beings. Does anyone know a "geek" who is completely well-adjusted? Or anyone who is, for that matter? We "geeks" have probably spent more time in front of a computer, or studying physics, or electronics, or whatever than others ("jocks", or just "regular folk").
And, let's face it--warning! more over-simplification--excelling at something mundane like sports or human interaction is, in many ways, a much simpler task that becomming an excellent programmer or electrical engineer. These things are more "natural" for people; out bodies are engineered for these things. Excelling at other, more intellectual endeavors, require more time and effort.
(darren)
I can't believe anyone would imply that humanity (in general) would be capable of setting aside a small spectrum of its population, hold them up as "pure", and set aside the rest as "dysfunctional".
Tell me we aren't capable of such a thing!
I love programming, but have a very tough time with social graces. And I'm no genius, unfortunately. My boss and coworkers chide me incessently about my computer addiction.
Even worse, as I get older, I find myself feeling getting ill after too many days of 17-18 hours of programming, so I have forced myself to re-learn a musical instrument I played as a child. It soothes me quite a bit, and my sw quality has risen fairly sharply.
Friends? I have maybe two that I trust. Unfortunately, for whatever reason, I've noticed most people, at least in personal relationships, tend to take what they can from me and leave me behind.
I don't know if this is an "American" thing or not, the attitude of "using" people as stepping stones to get ahead, taking what you need, then walk away from them. All take, no give. It seems endemic here in the US.
Of course, it could be a flaw in my thinking, too. I struggle with trusting people.
The danger isn't the article itself, the danger is the interpretation placed on it by people who will use "science" to promote their private interpretations of the world. Consider how dyslexia and ADHD have both been used to explain why some children have difficulty in school. Yes, there are many people with ADHD and dyslexia. But are there as many as these casual diagnoses claim? How many students are being underserved because they are placed in a special education class for their dyslexia when they could easily maintain the pace of the other students if only they were encouraged in the right way?
-konstant
-konstant
Yes! We are all individuals! I'm not!
Who's on first?
Stop posting as an AC if you really believe in what you are saying. Please quote for me where he implies that he is coming up with something new, other than the proof that shadow syndromes exist. He only proved that shadow syndromes actually exist.
And by the way, I don't care what you have or don't have, contrary to what you believe it does not make you special or better (or worse) than anyone else.
*Condense fact from the vapor of nuance*
--
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
Talk about sloppy science! The whole study is based on the assumption that the popular stereotypes about technically-minded people are true, without ever testing that assumption! Frankly, I think this is just another case of humanities majors looking down their noses at us so that they don't have to feel inferior about their intellectual deficiencies.
I think Heinlein's character Lazarus Long said it best:
"Anyone who cannot handle mathematics is not fully human. He is at best a tolerable subhuman who has learned to bathe, wear shoes, and not make messes in the house."
Maybe it has something to do with the holy jocks at schools, who are so highly regarded, who ridiculed me when I raised my hand but had a "stupid question". They were insecure themselves, obviously thats why they needed to put me down to feel big. Enough people laughing and ridiculing you when you try to speak, is enough to make anyone not want to talk to people again. It only makes sense, that when you talk in public, if you get ridiculed, that you should just not talk in public anymore and then you wont get ridiculed. So that's what I did. Sorry to all those jerks that I wasnt as "cool" as them and my parents didnt tell me exactly how many points Joe Schmoe scored in his lifetime career and my dad didnt sit on his ass and drink beer and watch the game every sunday while my mom bitched... So I didnt know those useless facts. I was too busy being a "nerd" playing with that weird computer thing... talking about these "modems". Oh yeah, I'm sure you all know by now that they all have computers with modems too now, all like 8 times as fast as the stuff they used to ridicule me for using.
Too many damn rude people feeling insecure about themselves that need to step on the shoulders of the meek, to make themselves feel big. Well the meek get used to it when they are too young to know better and that's how they end up.
And I am not even a doctor or anything. Imagine I could come up with this all on my own. How nice.
TookyCat
tookycat@bigfoot.com
> plastic pen packs in smudged shirt pockets, have an often whiny voice with a mechanical
> timbre, and a sudden loud, peculiar, foghorn laugh and snort. He wondered why a "nerd" stoops to take
> such as close look at what interests him, sniffing his food if it smells funny, placing his
> nose right in it, "locking on" with his eyes
On the other hand the article claims this is genetical. So are we the 'homo superior'? I think geeks should start a genetical breeding program to direct our evolution. Something like eugenics for geeks. Anybody? geek girl + geek boy = geek child? In Herbert's Dune was this huge genetic manipulation program. It is widely known that geeks are intelligently superior to other people. So maybe now there's a reason we should unite and create the 'homo superior' or Muad'dib?
I also belive we geeks are just the labrats for psyhiatrists, thanks to us they can earn their doctor degree.
In theam meanwhile take it easy, this is only the beginning.
Truly yours, AC.
Damn boys! I'm a geek and I still get laid at least three times a week. I have all the usual geek problems I think. What the hell are you all doing wrong?! P.S. no I don't have a girlfriend, I can get it anyway. :P
Watch "Rain Man". Read "Forrest Gump" - the book, not the movie. Doesn't it sound familiar to you ?
:o)), I can talk to people - although I am extremely reluctant to talk to people I don't know, and the simple fact of having to give a phone call is scaring.
Quick intelligence, overwhelming shyness, strange (sometimes even downright irritating/childish) behaviour. Inability to understand most social codes of the outside world. In some cases, total inability to entertain a simple, meaningless conversation.
Most striking fact : In some occasions, the surging of bad memories (remembering a difficult or even simply embarrassing situation) launches a brutal burst of shaky movements, sometimes with a clear self-destructive origin (such as brutally grasping your own head), maybe coming with bribes of sentences that an observator would find totally meaningless. These movements can be controlled, especially when there are people around, but at the price of significant effort - and even then a big, odd kind of shiver is noticed.
The above may be taken as a good description of autism. It also happens to be a description of many people that can be called geeks, including myself - even for the last part, which may not be the case for everybody.
Still, of course, I'm not a real autist, I have friends (even non-geek friends !
We have learnt to adopt an attitude that does not induce blatant hostility from the outside world. For many of us, we have learnt it the hard way. For some of us, this has been done by trying to cut down almost any social contact. Re-learning social skills is a difficult task that some (quite few, in fact) never achieve.
We are aborted autists, just the same way as Jupiter is an aborted star.
Thomas Miconi
PS - Of Course, I'm not talking about *all* of you, dear readers. Still, I think many among you will understand what I mean.
...Yet this well understood disorder is still not recognized by the herd/sheeple. Most of my friends stupidly just say "Get Over It!"..like ok, so I'll just perform that miracle change that I haven't been able to do--after lots of hard and painful work--for the last 26 years right now....okay....hold on.....here it comes......grrrrrrrr...aaaaieeee.....uhhhhh....ahh hhhh. Would anyone care for some brie...I have a nice port in the basement--Oh, yes, I know about those computer things, yea, I have AOL. Why would anyone want to use anything other than AOL? .....err.......system failure...rebooting linux......wow, that hurt!
Remember this...no eternal reward will forgive us now for wasting the dawn....(jim morrison)
It is overly beneficial for a species to have certain members that excel in some areas at the expense of other areas. By sacrificing some capacities others are enhanced (though likely not to the degree of the loss), thereby making a specialized individual that provides new functionality to the group. Most of us have seen the advantages of a largely heterogeneous population, any Total Annihilation fans out there?
konstant trolls:
The obvious question is: why characterize the jock extreme as genial and average, but depict the geek extreme as the early onset of a disease!?
Not only doesn't the article characterize jocks as genial and average, it doesn't discuss them at all. Nor does the article depict geek behavior as early onset of a disease.
The article looks at the nerd stereotype, and people who seem to match that stereotype (eg. Bill Gates). It finds that many of the mannerisms and behaviors presented by these people appear to be less extreme versions of the mannerisms and behaviors presented by people with autism. Have you ever watched Bill Gates speak without a podium? The way he rocks on his feet is a classic symptom of autism. Not early onset of a disease, a mild form of a neurological condition.
He goes on to talk about how the different setup of an autistic brain, in a milder form, could be a boon to people in highly technical fields.
He says nothing about "Norming out society", nor about "prescribing drugs to quell the fears of jock mothers". In fact, he explicitly dismisses the concept of "Normal". He merely gives insight on where some people in the "geek" and "nerd" community might get their behavior from.
Some of you are writing this article off as worthless psycho dribble because you believe they are labeling all geeks as autistic.
;)
Thats not the case, no where do they say ALL geeks have a disease or all social "misfits" are autistic. It merely states that the recent discovery of shadow symptomes helps explain some reaccuring themes in SOME people.
If you choose to not be socially active or just don't have the practice to be good at it your not suddenly autistic. But if your like me, you have several neutrotic habits (neurocese or however thats spelled) often linked to autism as well as other symptoms (like attention problems and social trip-ups), then this article helps to link it all together.
Personally I thought this was a great article and very informing. Now I don't feel so alone in the world
-Ecc
If you read the whole article, you'll see it ends with a reference to Freud and the idea that there is no such thing as normal. No where in this article, and I am assuming the study, does it indicate that these behaviors are wrong.
Obviously, our society does place some value on the notion of normality. There are behaviors that exist typically, and behaviors outside of that are considered abnormal. Its abnormal for you to be this smart in the first place. But does anyone condemn you for being smart? No. In fact its rewarded. There may be some behavior associated with intelligence, however, that we do, as a society, consider negatively abnormal. This study addresses some of those common relationships in behavior.
Like any study, you should be critical. But keep an open mind. They aren't excusing anything. They aren't making any decisions about how we should treat people. If anything, the are opening the doors to a better understanding of the behavior that makes a 'geek'.
First Post Disorder.
-- Arm yourself when the Frog God smiles.
I was always nervous around women and really stumbled on my words badly because I was always worried about what dumbass thing I was going to say next.
/.
(please read the below part before laughing)
My friends took me to the nudie bar, and after the initial being scared shitless of the situation and such I started spending some of that easily earned coding money. I had my friend ask the woman for my first lap dance, once I got past the initial phobia of the entire thing I had a blast and found most of my tensions were relieved about being around them.
It might not work for everyone but I have no problem talking to girls anymore, and find that life is a little easier without that stress. And we all make more then enough doing this shit so why not spend a hundred bucks and experiment it might help ya. Just a thought that what you really need is a "culture shock" and have a fun time outside for a change believe me it's well worth the money for the stress relief.
Yeah I know you're thinking god this guy is pathetic, but I'd rather be over that problem in life then be stuck scared to talk to them.
Another thing to try, is getting stuck doing a job that forces you to talk to people, ie. technical support. I worked for an isp doing tech, was a easy and somewhat fun job at times, sucks for pay but it's a good experience.
Don't try to become a social king over night, but do get out when you can.
Just some thoughts from a fellow
Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Poison, W.A.S.P. ... 8-)
-- Arm yourself when the Frog God smiles.
You can't define "nerd" or "geek" in absolute terms. It varies from place to place and person to person. The meaning of both words switched when I graduated from high school and went to university.
Michael Gentili
- He's just some guy, you know?
I saw it visiting a friend in a psychiatric ward. An old woman I'd never seen before started talking to me, telling me I should visit her in her house in the country and they'd have a great party. As soon as she found out my name she started treating me like an old friend. I found it hard to be friendly while still keeping my distance. I'm pretty sure she's still there: I got the impression she'd been there a while and wasn't expected to check out any time soon.
So while some geeks may not have their social skills as honed as they could be (and I'll second the person who advises you to use your engineering skills on the problem) we're all fortunate not to be too far away from the roughly sensible arena of behaviour.
--
Xenu loves you!
I doubt that an autistic person would want to be the first post. Just a thought.
Strangly enough, I have found that music and nerdlyness/geekeness are related. At the university that I went to, they diddnt have a music degree program, but anyone could do a fine arts minor... There was a concert band and a brass enesmble, and both were abour 75% either CSers or Eng'rs.
This is because CS and Engineering are /art/ - that is creation. Scientists - discovers - dont have to be creative at all, and I would expect them not to understand creative things.
And, of coure, there is a difference beteween ignoreing social graces because you have concsiouly decided that they are unimportant, and ignoring them because you dont understand them.
On a related note, after 70minutes of being posted there were near 200 comments. Cool.
Very interesting, this whole shadow syndrome thing. It actually explains alot. I am a geek, and after reading the article, I feel that it describes a number of problems that I have had, although not as seriously. I have also met quite a number of people back in school who could be on the book's cover. It is really a disease if you're born with it?
Note, however, that these are "shadow" syndromes, whereas the real afflictions require drugs and other heavy treatments. Why is this important? Because it means that there is hope out there for all of us. Quite possibly a matter of environment. I knew a geek once who was a major klutz. But you get him on the soccer field and he'll run circles around you. His parents started him playing soccer when he was five. Environment change.
I have also known quite a few CS and ECEers that seemed perfectly normal. Before the shadow syndrome theory is applied to everyone, the first question should be, are these people geeks? Most of them would say no, and I am inclined to agree with them. The geek is a class of its own covering all areas of life, not a blanket grouping in one field or the other. There are the well known tech geeks, but there are also Art geeks, and history geeks, etc. And don't forget those much underpublized Frat Boy Geeks (I'm very guilty of that one).
Enough aside theorizing, back to the environment point. Kudos to MIT for their charm school course, forcing a change in the environment of their students. Personally, lucked out and ended up with some social freshman year roomates who became best friends of mine and made it a point to introduce me to girls. I learned pretty quick how to act properly, and one girl even took the time to teach me about the salad/dessert fork thing. Socially inept in high school, social in college. All a matter of environment.
If I hadn't had the roomates I did, I would have spent all my freetime hanging out with other geeks, (there were a couple down the hall. Great people. Fine human beings. No, I am *not* being sarcastic). Why? It was a comfort thing. Being with those like yourself is easier to deal with, be accepted. (I think that's also brought up in the article)
I apologize if it seems like I like talking about myself, but I am the best example I have with the greatest comprehension.
Sig:
Barbeque is a noun. Not a verb.
If the article is right then we should be cheering in that it demonstrates that Autistic people can benefit society as specialists. On the downside, it labels the entire tech industry as being composed of people with mental problems.
I think the bottom line is that everyone's personality is just different. And it's not "wrong" or "messed up".
We are geeks. And we do not need to be cured.
As an illustration of this, the book's author used (IN PART) the example of the geek stereotype, and the relationship of that stereotype to his observations of "shadow" autism (or "mild" autism, or whatever term he ended up using).
HE ANALYZED OTHER PEOPLE TOO. The article noted that the research looked at other disorders too, such as manic depression and schitzophrenia. Were some of these subjects "jocks"? The article didn't say. (Note that the journalist, at one point, uses the word "us" to refer to geeks. Thus the journalist *just might* be putting his or her own slant on this text.) Perhaps the book made observations about "shadow" aggression disorders, and their prevalence among football players (mirroring the large proportion of XYY individuals in prison). The "geek analysis" thing was peripheral to the main arguments of the text, and was meant to be illustrative.
He was talking about nerds. If you claim not to be a nerd, then stating that this article does not apply to you is redundant.
Everybody knows that not all smart people are nerds, just like not all nerds are smart.
Nerds are the sort of kids that are 'out of touch' socially: wear the wrong clothes, have no social skills, are crap at sports, have limbs/faces that do not have the 'right' proportions, and often have an abnormal attention span and sense of time. It does not surprise me at all that this now turns out to be the result of brain damage. Some are lucky, and their brain has compensated somewhat for their horrible fate by developing an unusual talent for sciences. Some aren't, but you will never hear from them, so it's just as if they never existed.
"Do you like sex, Raymond?"
"Yeah... yeah... Def-definitely. 82, 82, 82..."
As much as a run-of-the-mill psychologist *can* be a scientist, that is. Observing behavior and classifying it in a completely subjective manner, and then summarily tacking it onto a certain disorder, calling it a "shadow syndrome" is utter balogna. It is as bad as Freud's attributing every single problem of humanity to sex.
...Just like they believe that so many murderers are 'mentally ill," because only a mentally ill person would do *that* (circular reasoning, anyone?).
Use of the scientific method to systematically test geeks vs. a random sample of people off the street is the only way that such a claim could have any validity whatsoever. Brain and neural response analysis would be better.
Still, the general public will buy it, just as they believe that ADHD is on the rise (it's not, parents aren't disciplining their kids well, that's all.).
It's a shame that these "psychologists" are allowed to run around and ruin the good names of people (like myself) who have been trained in scientific psychology and are endeavoring to get legitimate answers and reasons for our cognitive and behavioral processes.
Could the opposite of autism be schizophrenia? It talked about an autistic person taking several seconds to pay attention to a change in surroundings, say someone walking in the room. It seems a person who is autistic is very good at concentrating on one thing at a time. I know someone who seems to be the opposite:
I had a chance to see a behavior that was quite different than autism at my family reunion. You see, an uncle of mine is schizophrenic. It was over 20 years since I have seen him and expected him to be a total nut. He used to be a straight A and got degrees in physics and mathematics, but at a point in his life, something changed.
He now seems to only do things 15 seconds at a time. A typical day would include playing a great piece on the piano for a moment, goes for a quick walk down the street, stops for several seconds, continues for a moment, etc. Repeat several hundred times and that would be his day. Always distracted. Surprisingly, he is very intelligent and is fun to talk with --not the most productive conversationalist, but he is very likeable and has the most innovative approaches to ideas. He can not hold a job or drive a car due to being distracted constantly by the busy way he views the world around him.