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L.A. Times Columnist Says Geek-Autism is a Good Thing
rillian writes "Gary Chapman has an interesting take on the geekness-autism connection in his Digital Nation column in the Los Angeles Times: So what? Some of us are offended by this connection because it makes us even less normal, but he points at the opposing point of view: that the concerns of 'normal' people can be shallow and don't advance civilization. We need more Edisons, not more pop stars."
It must be very comforting to have complete understanding of all those questions you have had all your life about why you were different. Scientologists and Moonies get the same thing through their absolutist doctrines- an end to uncertainty, all is now understood by a simple label. No more uncomfortable doubt or messy grey areas, everything is black and white. I wonder what price is to be paid by so broadly labeling entire sets of personality types.
Perhaps communication problems do contribute to our being oriented toward computers. Although I don't see myself in your description, I do have some motor brain damage that kept me from speaking clearly for a long time. But it never stopped me from speaking a lot - people just asked what country I came from because they couldn't figure out my "accent". Therapy made it better. But I'm sensitive enough to nonverbal cues. And so, of course, are lots of us. Thus, I fear that the "autism" argument is being over-applied.
Thanks
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
DOH!
Sorry, forgot:
I am not supporting "normal" society or any of it's institutions, it's just that I don't like the assumption that people that don't have their face in a screen, test tube, or whatever.
Philosophers and artists are even more undervalued (and criticised) than our technical brothers-in-"weirdness." Our skills are above the average consumer's ablility of comprehention. We don't make 3d cards or upgrade our system three times a day.
At least geek skills can be used in the "real" world, some of the other oddities like us have to wait 'til we're dead before we have use.
Why am I on news for nerds? Because I'm a nerd too, but only because it helps with everything else.
Dan
That's "Genius", Genius.
I think that as soon as computer literacy becomes more widespread, the irreverance that geeks now enjoy will come to an abrupt halt.
Don't hold your breath. Computers are becoming more and more complex (despite the "user friendliness" that's being touted so highly). This is a natural phenomenon -- as things get more powerful, they also increase in complexity. We are adding more and more hardware, from different vendors (all misinterpreting standards in their own creative ways), and thenlayering software on top of it all. This means that when something goes wrong, you need someone highly trained to resolve the problem.
The other thing to keep in mind is that computers have changed their place in society -- as little as ten years ago, computers were mostly a business item, and businesses could afford to train their employees properly. Now, with the spread of computers into the marketplace, people are being exposed to this technology without any kind of background knowledge. This situation is not likely to get any better any time soon; just look at how many people can't set the clock on their VCR!
Besides which, as we move more and more to knowledge- and technology-based economies, you will need ever-increasing techie people. So we won't be out of a job soon.
probably. then again, everyone keeps telling us to "get a life". society in general usually defines whats fun for everyone (read: the majority). i guess the grass will always be greener on the other side until you step into cow shit.
I am not sure that it is exactly the same principle, but instead of towers, it has been tried with tethers suspended from the space shuttle. Apparently it works, and the technique might be used to partially power the international space station
The technical document on that page is rather big, and I haven't completely read it yet, so I might be way off, but:
The space shuttle tether was 20 km long. Perhaps the technical difficulty with Tesla's plan was that the towers would have had to be impractically tall, making energy generated by them impractically expensive? I love the idea though... reminds me a bit of building pyramids or putting people on the moon.
All this labeling is what sets people apart.
So now get get a whole bunch of people who are quite happy in doing what they like to do (working in sci/tech fields) saying its not my fault cause of some syndrome. Now you get the feeling that your not a REAL "geek" unless you've got autism.
Sounds eerily familiar... the sheer agony of 6 of detention in grammar school (it's 6 years in my country). I could read and write before I went there, and simple arithmetic was clear after one explanation. Six years they spend teaching the kids how to read and write and do simple arithmetic. Six years I spent there every single day 'learning' stuff I already knew, bored to death and extatically happy when I could finally go home and learn something.
I left that school having learnt nothing at all, least of all social skills as the only social interaction I knew was psychological warfare. Them humiliating me over my nerdiness, me humiliating them with their 'stupidity', or trying to anyway. Actually humiliating people requires some social skills. I couldn't do it.
Highschool was a similar story. Bored to death, because I didn't do a thing at school, but also stressed almost to insanity, as I discovered I could no longer pass exams without studying for them. I passed my time studying 'how to become cool'. I concluded that it must involve vandalising stuff, defying orders and insulting people, because that was what the cool kids appeared to be doing most of the time. I spent my time doing that, which was entertaining, but did not gain me any cool at all.
Oh well, I could still comfort myself with the thought that I would have excelled if only I had worked harder.
Then University was a disaster. I had become physically incapable of paying attention to what other people say, especially professors. Having to work for something makes me feel stupid and talentless now. I see many of the people, who used to taunt me in grammar school because I was on a different intellectual plane than they were, excell where I fail. The worst thing is they turn out to be real likeable, interesting people now, who know a lot of interesting stuff and can make an interesting conversation.
All I have to show for my so called brilliance is the fact that I could write complex self modifying code in assembly when I was 13, but besides aquiring some arcane knowledge I haven't done a single interesting thing in the past decade and a half.
I wish I had realised I had a problem when I was a kid, and that I, having a form of autism could not learn social skills without special help. I would not have had to learn them now that I'm almost 30, and I might have been a nicer person for the people around me, and especially for myself.
>>In today's society, those that posess it are at an advantage. Now remember back to elementary evolutionary science; those members of a species with even a slight advantage will tend to outnumber those without over time.
We may be at a financial advantage, but the reality is, trash tends to breed at a much greater rate than we productive members of society. Remember, evolutionary fitness is solely a measure of how many offspring you have.
Reading that line chilled my heart. This is the age of the anti-depressant wonder-drug. All the doctors are prescribing them for just about anything, as if they are candy with no ill effects. Just last month my wife went to a neurologist because of an enormous headache that lasted 5-6 days. He said it was a migraine and prescribed zoloft. We went for a second opinion, the other doctor said it was a low-pressure headache, they happen rarely and almost never reoccur. No drugs needed, no further treatment needed as long as there is no more pain. You have to wonder what kind of lazy doctor that first guy was to just offer up the "latest and greatest" drug with hardly any critical thinking at all.
As a matter of fact, Haldol is not an antidepressant, but rather an antipsychotic drug that has been around for many years. Far from a "latest and greatest" drug. Good for people with paranoid delusions and other problems with reality. Not sure if the girl needed it or not from the description of things though.
Also interesting, many of the "antidepressant" drugs are useful for many other things than depression. Many types of chronic pain are treated with "antidepressants" - even if the person is not depressed. Certain types of "antidepressants" work for obsessive compulsive disorder. Others work for childhood bed - wetting. The list goes on, and is ever expanding. Headaches are notoriously difficult to diagnose and treat. Whether zoloft was appropriate for your wife is difficult to say - it is not the usual first line treatment for migraines. It does however, have fewer side effects than other migraine medications.
I think you may have been extra-lucky... :) Geeks are outcasts all over the world, but what may make the problem so exacerbated in American schools is that everything is structured like a competition; Queen of the Prom, Student of the Month, Most likely to Succeed, yada yada.
The paradox about Europe (or at least the part of Europe I'm most familiar with) is that, even though being a geek will make you popular, being popular is in itself frowned upon. Success is OK, if you don't flaunt it, but conspicuous success is a social liability.
"Be nice, veer left, and never stop thinking" Iain Banks - Walking On Glass
Well, haven't you started the labeling by labeling yourself as a geek?
[SARCASM]
How dare gays be outraged at being called sick like kleptomaniacs! Didn't they start the labeling by calling themselves gay?
[/SARCASM]
But that has always been so and is not limited to computer people
[SARCASM]
Slavery's always been around and was not limited to just blacks, so how dare anyone say it's wrong!
[/SARCASM]
And we don't burn weird people at stake any more, which is a bid [sic] advancement from my personal point of view.
[SARCASM]
And we don't lynch uppity niggers any more, which is a big advancement from my personal point of view.
[/SARCASM]
He was faking it! Just toying with the examiners for the sake of fun and games, as he did with everything else...
He was probably one of the more socially facile geek geniuses in history!
Not to mention math anxiety.
There weren't any gifted classes in the two schools I went to. In Grade 4 I was reading at a Grade 10 level and if it hadn't been for the public library, I would have been stuck reading baby books for another three grades. Reading, art - the only escape.
Studying genes and linking DNA patterns to predispositions of personality traits is one thing. Lets find the DNA patterns that are linked to "nerd" personalities, fine. Maybe these DNA patterns will have much resemblence to those of autism and aspergers syndrome. Then lets find the DNA patterns that are linked to football jocks, politicians, psychopaths, artists, musicians, great, lets find them all.
Lets label *NONE* of these genetic sets as "syndromes". Lets especially not label *just one* of them as a mild form of a disease, while the rest remain as "predispositions". Lets take into account all the variations, grey areas and exceptions, without branding an oversimplificaiton on it. We dont want predictions of someone's performance to arise from observations of various traits that fall into a genetic generalization; this hurts us. Science can continue as long as unnecessary and harmful stigmas are not propigated.
I couldn't let this one go without commenting on it. I am not a doctor, but the above seems like an excellent indicator of some type of autism.
I had already heard about the "geeks as autistics" theory months ago, and personally, I was comforted by it. In my case, it explains a lot Carl Sagan said that as a scientist, one must be cautious of results that you *want* to believe. The more you want to believe your results, the more careful you have to be with them. I'm not 100% sold on this theory, but I'm comfortable believing it for now, and besides, I'm not really a scientist. ^_^
-zack
Just like the Myers-Brigg Type Indicator, it is a tool. And when understood, it allows you to make better decisions which will affect the rest of your life.
On that note I suggest that everyone here take the MBTI and understand your type. I would guess that the majority of geeks are INTP's or INTJ's. When you understand the complexities of introversion, you will be able to look more clearly at shadow syndromes of autism, and you will realize that it may be one of the causes that make many of us such strong introverts.
Read his book The Demon Haunted World.. he has a whole chapter devoted to the issue of the general populace's superstitious treatment of geeks in the context of the life of a proto-geek named James Clerk Maxwell.
His gist: "geeks will be geeks; let them be."
Why is that so hard to grok? Why does the public have to act like every teenager who wears unkempt clothes and plays with a soldering iron in his garage is a threat to society?
(And as for Aspberger's Syndrome, sorry, no go.
Geeks can spot nuance in text. Folks with AS can't spot nuance when it is biting their noses.)
I have no problem with sterotypes, for instance i associate better with techies and i dislike buisness majors, there are exceptions to both but i dont think there is anything wrong with annoucing who I am and who i like to associate with. As for 'fratish', as a former frat member, i realize that generally frat boys have a bad reputation which is often deserved.
Actually, most of the "popular" folks are in sales and marketing, making the same as or more than you. Only the ugly or really dumb are at McDonalds.
"Well, good luck finding a judge that doesn't run a bestiality site."
Actually, Beethoven or Bruckner are maybe better examples than Mozart... Wasn't Mozart a bit of a party animal? :)
"Be nice, veer left, and never stop thinking" Iain Banks - Walking On Glass
Why single out computer geeks? Why not study football jocks? I think we'd find they all have a mild form of psychotic behavior...dont you? For some reason we single out the geeks, like there is somehting that must be "cured". The football jock, however, is "totally healthy", he just lacks compassion and respect for humanity and cheats on his wife later in life BUT THATS ALL OK.
I think trust is an important consideration for NG's, even between people nominally on the same side, like family members, friends, business partners, supplier and customer, ... NG's rarely if ever say what they mean, instead of what they want other people to hear.
If an NG writing a geek article didn't know that geeks are not like this, s/he wouldn't expect an honest answer from a geek, and so wouldn't ask one. Instead, s/he'd draw his/er own conclusions and write them.
Why the other NG's will listen to this NG but not to an actual geek seems to have something to do with NG trust priorities, but the complexities of this culture are really beyond me.
Possibly an alien thing is always untrusted - unknown, thought not worth studying, and therefore unpredictable and untrusted. But then why write the article at all?
Perhaps an alien thing is thought unimportant as long as it appears to deliver no value to NG's; then if it becomes valuable, there is a gray zone where it is still unknown (=> untrusted) but it is important to learn more, so trusted NG's are given the task of studying it and reporting.
Or perhaps NG's don't understand the unimportance of trust maneuverings to geeks, and construe a geek's failure to seek the trust of NG's as actual untrustworthiness.
"Public school serves one pupose == socialization."
Then why do the teachers always say "No Talking!"?
Geeks cannot be heroes to the public for one simple reason: comprehension. You will never hear a bunch of nubile cheerleaders tittering over the captain of the math club. They won't adore him because they don't understand him.
Instead, geeks have their own heroes. You'd be surprised by how many "normal people" (heretofore known as "norms") on the street don't known who Linus is. Come on -- we're familiar with him on a first name basis, and these norms don't even known who he is! "Linux -- is that some kind of fabric softener?"
Geeks make their own heroes. And to the geeks, their heroes *are* geeks. While geeks can appreciate "norm" heroes like Maya Angelou and (insert generic professional athlete here), it very rarely it the other way around. You will be hard-pressed to walk into a shopping mall and find a single shirt for sale with a Linux distro logo on it. Professional sports jackets? They'll have them out the wazoo. Why?
Because sports are easy to relate to. The rules aren't too complicated and it's something you can do with your dad on a weekend. Technology is usually expensive and intricate. We all understand what it's like being the only one in the family who can program the VCR. Most norms don't find programming VCRs fun or interesting. They'd rather just tape the Big Game and watch it. Only we geeks understand what's involved -- what's vital -- in becoming a geek hero. It takes brains: lots of brains, and an understanding of how things work, which, frankly, most norms lack. That's why they're norms.
And that's why *they* work for *us*.
===
Remember when "Truth, Justice, & the American Way"
---
Remember when "Truth, Justice, & the American Way" wasn't contradictory?
ROTFL :P
Mark this one up...
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
I hate to spell FUD, but this make me more than mildly paranoid.
What is common in the two articles is more dreadful than what differs. While creative and profound thinking is degraded to a disability that is far from desirable in the former article, the second one augments the former's elementary assumption with the straightforward implication that those disabled "worker bee"s (us) are useful for the society so they must be kept for the time being. In this claim, scientific skills and innovation is attributed to an obvious defect, the kind of imperfection that would render those people who suffer from it inferior if they were not useful for the advent of technology, hence for the provision of resources for the world order.
You admire the great minds, and follow them, years in a tough enterprise, and while you think you're getting somewhere you're spotted with a mark you couldn't like less. It is ironic, in a sense, that the people who lack the highly technical/scientific skills would discover this amazing fact, however that is not our primary concern. Although I suspect that these statements are overly complex driven, there is a side that should bother all of us "geeks". However, marked along you must be many distinguished minds whom you respected. By this, I refer to people such as Einstein who would call the practise of everyday life "trivialities of youth" for he had abandoned the ordinary for a life of contemplation. I refer to Carl Sagan who has always stressed the importance of scientific thinking. I refer also to people who have pioneered technology such as Alan Turing, von Neumann and Claude Shannon. Such people I should refer to, and many is their number.
I wonder, how many of the people who have dedicated a large portion of their lives to attain those skills in question will find this claim delightful. Is it their mere goal in life to work for the benefit of higher beings? In that case, the socially capable, fully functional human beings who are free of a nasty IQ load, which I understand to be a rather awkward thing to have from the point of view presented by these enlightened authors, are to administer these unfortunate souls and harvest the products the "geek" fields yield. Personally I don't find living under the rule of tasteless managers, malevolent lawyers, petty politicians and dry journalists attractive. I would like to propose a world in which those mediocre members of the society exist solely to supply the comfort the "geek"s require. "What a harsh suggestion", one would argue. "What a harsher thing to suppose the opposite" I would suggest in return. An earth inherited by "geek"s could be more entertaining, if we mean by that a society that is free from supersition and gives value to scientific thinking. A place where humane properties, first of which is thinking, are valuable...
To contribute more than a rebel-ish flavor, I'm afraid the study cited does not report "hard" scientific facts. They are biased, definitely based on personal opinion. Although it may be a tradition in the psychology field to make up everything and add a gram of science as glue, the data does not entail any of the results mentioned. Now, as the second article states, Edison, since he is a scientist, may be a safe bet for a geek. But what about Bill Gates? Is he a "geek"? Take the autistic computer programmer woman, how "geek" is she? It is difficult to reply affirmative. Now that I have demonstrated a flaw, let me pose another question. Is Edison autistic? Think of someone else, a contemporary, a leader of "geek"s: Richard Stallman. How can someone who talks so much can be autistic or mildly autistic? Take another public hacker figure, for instance Linus Torvalds. He may be arrogant, but he isn't autistic at all. For these are most renowned "geek"s, their being non-autistic allows us to refute the extremely naive claim that sophisticated technical skills are acquired only when a certain defect, known as a form of autism, exists. Indeed, the claim that some of the "geek"s have not developed sufficient social skills since they have had little chance to participate in the social life seems to be much more plausible. Otherwise, it would be a burden on the notion of "creativity", though I'm sure that these authors could utilize no ammunition from Hofstadter or Fodor, or other significant thinkers on the subject of "mind". (But practise really helps, 15 yeards of hard work and they can enjoy a fair IQ, around 70. Imagine some average journalist and psychologist trying to read a philosophy of mind paper, and looking real blank at it.)
I do protest the view that scientific skills are a deviation from the norm. That is an offense that leaps on the boundaries of insulting the whole scientific endeavour, and each single philosophical investigation. They seem to be on the side of the masses who would be better off thoughtless and mindless, from the point of view presented by the proponents of this claim. What if those "normal" people realized that intelligence is a thing to envy? Perhaps, we could have a civilization as it ought to be.
--exa--
That's not Chapman's take, it's the take of, to use his phrase, "self-professed computer geeks":
(emphasis mine).
The emphasised parts indicate that the ones he's saying are claiming that "it's not a bug, it's a feature" are the "self-professed computer geeks"; about the only thing I see there that indicates that he might agree with them is "Maybe the geeks shall inherit the Earth", but he may just be saying that's what the "self-professed computer geeks" think.
*Someone* is guilty of reading way too deeply into a web page...
i always knew that smelling stuff was a good idea.. and this constant rocking back and forth is wonderful for muster up amazing ideas!
Sosumi. just kidding. DONT!
So what do we call people with low iq's who exibit this behaviour? Again, this is an example of a journalist trying to justify an absolutely rediculous claim. As if my life hasn't been hard enough. Being a social outcast and all. Now my school couseller will diagnose me with having autism every time I have an encounter with him/her. Psychologists are just trying to change the definition of autism in an effort to create a new field. If you don't believe me, go to your local university and see how many branches there are. Cognitive, Neural, Physio, Clinical, ..... and the list goes on. I'll pass on the quack science.
I would like to think I'm a geek. At least, I enjoy knowing things, and thinking about things, to an extent that other people don't. However, I also remember how I got here. Mostly it's because of the work I put into knowing things and learning things, by reading a lot, paying attention in class, asking questions etc. But it wasn't all me. The reason I know what I know is that other people have taken the time to teach me, whether by writing a book, teaching a class, or answering my dumb questions. As a result, I regard the teaching of others as one of the noblest things one can do, even if it means answering "stupid questions." Even on a self-interest level, answering "stupid questions" both gives one a reputation for knowledge, and tests one's knowledge. You can think you know something, but you don't really understand it until you can teach it.
Of course, as you point out, there's a difference between stupid questions asked for the sake of learning, which are by definition not stupid, and questions asked as a roudabout way of getting someone else to do your thinking for you.
"Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right" -Salvor Hardin
Point number 2 - At my fiance's school they routinely take kids (elementary) out of the "high" group and put them in the "low" group when they misbehave. Given that the misbehaviour is almost always a function of their boredom at the school moving too slowly, you have the smartest kids in the slowest moving academic circles. If you start lableing those kids as "Austistic" you give schools even further ability to move the smartest kids all the way into something like special ed. Potentially dangerous in my opinion.
Werd.
If this describes you, you know it. If you wonder if it describes you, ignore it. It doesn't. In Oliver Sach's "Anthropologist on Mars" he covers this well with semi-clinical treatment of autistic Prof. at an Arizona Educational Institution. It's not screaming out at society in anger. You just don't feel. Period.
I am quite frankly horrified by the implications of this 'The Price of Genius' comment. Speaking from the position of a 'very smart person' I do not find myself lacking in any 'day-to-day' talents. I am quite capable of socialising, loving, caring and befriending when I so choose. If anything my feelings often run deeper that those of many of the 'less smart' people I am surrounded by.
The fact the many smart people seem aloof is easily explained by considering a few consequences of their high IQs :
1. Having to explain every step of your thoughts to 'less intelligent' people is tedious.
2. Being further from the center of the 'IQ bell-curve' means that there are fewer people who fall into the same bracket as you - thus possibly fewer friends.
3. A quick, flexible mind makes accepting and adapting new concepts (such as 'advanced technology') easier - this automatically makes you a target for those less adaptable who fear these advances. (Watch the genetists become Green Peace's new target)
4. 'Smart people' are often very curious and hence spend less time partaking in activities 'on the beaten track'. For instance sport, while a worthwhile physical activity, is often boring for intelligent people because once the basic rules have been learned it's just practice from there on. Soccer, the world's leading sport, hasn't change much since the middle ages. Such mundane social activities are when many friendships are formed.
Note that none of these points in anyway suggest that smart people have an impaired ability to interact socially. Rather, it is simply the enviroment in which 'smart people' find themselves which causes many of them to be less interested in social interaction than their 'less intelligent' peers.
In my personal experience, the opposite trend is in fact noticeable - those intelligent people who are inclined to make the effort, fare far better socially than their 'less intelligent' counterparts.
Finallly, it has occurred to me that this post might come across as somewhat elitist - it was not intended as such. Everyone is part of the giant bell-curve in the end, whether we like it or nay.
Simon.
/-\-/
This autism thing might be true of some technical people, but many of the tech people (including myself) are quite gregarious and outgoing. The autism thing has grown to encompass all technical people, which I think is a disservice to Joe Tech.
I know there are ways some of us think differently than others, but this applies to doctors, artists, and craftsmen as well. The geek==autistic thing has got to go. It's stereotypes us way too much.
"...the concerns of 'normal' people can be shallow and don't advance civilization..."
Amen to that.
Cool, thanks for the technical backup there! I was getting smashed by these people wholly corrupted by the Edisonians! :)
This article reads, as if the author just summarised the discussion on /. a few week ago about the original article.
We always knew it.
Servus,
johi
Yech. The last thing the world needs is another slave driving IP droid. Edison was the Bill Gates of the early 20th century. We need more Nikolai Teslas, not more greedy money grubbing patent stealing lawyer types.
support gun control: take guns from cops
Heck, it happened to me yesterday. And the day before. And I'm a high school senior, for cryin' out loud! (For those non-US people, that's the last year of school before college/university).
I've actually failed a few classes due to exactly that.--
"I personal[ly] think Unix is "superior" because on LSD it tastes like Blue." -- jbarnett
Many thanks for all the fascinating and very informative replies about my column in The Los Angeles Times this morning, about Asperger's syndrome and "geeks."
I want to point out that while I did discuss a *possible* link between this syndrome and the stereotype of computer geeks, this is controversial (which I tried to point out), speculative, and subject to a zillion different interpretations. I did mention that it's not necessary to have any kind of mental syndrome or specific personality trait to be successful with computers; indeed, I know many first-rate programmers and hardware engineers who have none of the qualities associated with Asperger's syndrome or any other identifiable syndrome. I said that some people who have this syndrome, or who may have it in a mild form, may simply be attracted to computers as a field of work. Of course, the idea of a "mild" form of a mental syndrome is controversial in itself. We're talking about the human brain, the biggest mystery in the world.
I didn't mention this in the article, but it's controversial about how common Asperger's syndrome is too, although the ballpark figure seems to be somewhere between 1 in 500 to 1 in a thousand, which seems to me pretty high. So even if this syndrome has no connection at all to computer professionals, there may be a lot of syndrome examples among us.
I didn't know about the opinions of / participants regarding Thomas Edison. :-) I probably could not have mentioned Tesla, anyway, since too few people in the general public have ever heard of him. Anyway, Edison is sometimes mentioned as a figure of the past who seems to fit the Asperger's syndrome picture -- Emily Dickinson, too, by the way. (Most Asperger's syndrome patients are male, however.)
I tried to mention (and close with) the "geek's perspective," which is probably shared by many non-geeks as well: this syndrome stuff doesn't really matter. We all have a complex mix of genetic, environmental and historical inputs into our consciousness and personalities, and we all fall somewhere on a very wide spectrum of human behaviors. In terms of human ecology, each person certainly must have a role in the total story of the species.
-- Gary
gary.chapman@mail.utexas.edu
...socially? I understand the "thinking about finding the cure to aids vs. thinking about finding the bar to cure sobriety" concept as being good, but how can more of these type of people come into existence if this is not normal behavior? For God's sake, I can't even seem to relate to a group of normal hicks, and furthermore, they even get violent in my presence. "Smart man bad...bad...me bashum with club....he he he"
Remember this...no eternal reward will forgive us now for wasting the dawn....(jim morrison)
When I smile..people run. Think: Cheshire cat. >:) Anyway... alot of geeks I know got the boot out of the house as soon as they turned 18. The circumstances vary, of course. I do have to wonder though if it's higher per capita than "normal" people.
--
My 2 year old son was recently diagnosed as possibly autistic, and while it's a terrifying diagnosis -- articles like this are heartening in a couple of ways. First, they show how broad a spectrum of behavior the world 'autism' now encompasses -- you can be called autistic and really be not terribly disabled. The second comforting thing is that people who are 'not normal' can still be capable, self-sufficient people.
I am not hung-up on 'normal', I think it is more of a curse than a blessing in this world and the one of the future -- I'm definitely looking forward to what our Thomas is going to do as he grows.
With a possibly autistic child you may see positive benefits from classical music. It tends to help provide a comfort level and ease focusing. Also do everything you can to help his mental development early on in his childhood, this will increase the chances of him being a genius level child. It is rather well documented that synapse connections are formed during early childhood and that you can actually manufacture (For lack of a better term) math geniuses by bombarding them with mathimatical terms and information between the ages of 1 month and 2 years.
Kintanon
Check out JoshJitsu.info for Brazilian Ji
Hmmm... the tall towers would be stationary with respect to the earth's magnetic field, so you wouldn't get an induced current. The tethers dangled from the shuttle/space station, on the other hand, are cutting the magnetic flux lines as they circle the earth, and so induce a current. So the tall tower idea must work some other way. Tesla was cool, though. I see him as Steve Jobs to Edison's Bill Gates.
I believe that the article on autism describes people who have problems 'seeing socially', as if we/they can't notice that someone is irritated at us/them until the non-geek is enraged. This doesn't seem to fit with my experience of geeks, both my friends and myself. Most of the people that I know are very socially perceptive, and the social 'problem', if I can call it that, is at the action end, rather than the perception end. Perhaps imagining one of those people from OSC's Homecoming series would be useful. (If you know what I'm talking about, you know who I'm talking about) Are geeks more like that socially-perceptive extreme, or the opposite, being socially-oblivious?
I'm sure there must be others. Can anyone name some others?
I used to be much more physically awkward and ungainly, but fourteen years of karate training have almost got me down to average clumsiness. MA training is highly recommended, BTW - my dojo is full of programmers and engineers, and my current boss is an aikido instructor. There are a lot of very dangerous geeks out there!
Same thing happened with me, before I started taking TKD I could barely walk through a room without bumping into every piece of furniture around. Now I can do a handspring off of my couch and come up without distrubing the glass table next to it.>:) TKD also did some amazing things for my academic discipline, I started to actually turn in those lame homework assignments...
Kintanon
Check out JoshJitsu.info for Brazilian Ji
Ever since then, D has been quirky. Talks, but awkwardly, and always and only just about things that interest her -- tiedye and wiccanism and such. She's pretty clearly brilliant, but always fixated on this or that to the point that it gets frustrating.
You have to understand that Asperger's doesn't mean Rain Man; the "high functioning" modifier is important. In D's case, she has held down jobs, lived on her own, done well in school, had boyfriends, etc. She's 25 or so now and we've only realized there could be a clinical explanation for her oddities for a few months now. Alot of the people that have this condition, if they are anything like D, would for most purposes blend right in with "normal", functioning society.
And this has nothing to do with "labelling the geek phenomenon." Rather, it is a recognition of the fact that there are people -- some but not all of them programmers -- that have a condition and can seek help for it. No one is trying to "weed out the geeks" here, sorry, but you're paranoid.
And in response to Bruce Parens' points -- again, it does not mean non-functional behavior. Aspberger's patients function more or less just like "normal" people -- in the case of D, it took 25 years or so for anyone to realize that there was anything unusual here. Don't associate this with previous conceptions of autism, because on a functional level it seems to be quite different. People with Asperger's are likely to talk just as much as anyone else -- the difference is more in what they will talk about, that mainly being themselves and the things they are interested in and not much else.
For more information, you can look at a study from CMU that deals with Aspberger's patients & computer usage, or a more general explanatory link on the condition at Yale University.
DO NOT LEAVE IT IS NOT REAL
The article a week or so ago mentioned that the part of the brain that allows for "social" functioning in an autistic person is smaller than that of the average person. I would ahve to say that it does make sense that maybe autism should simply be defined as a non-average distribution of brain functions. Basically, we got 100 points to allocate to our character, and autistics only used 10 towards user interface, and the other 90 went toward processor power. Sound right to you?
Lessee... So the Typical Geek would be:
Str:15
Int: 40
Wis: 15
Dex: 20
Cha: 10
Low Wisdom because of that lack of mundane concerns like showering or matching our clothing, a slightly higher Strength since we do have to carry around those 40-50lb monitors and boxes. A pretty good Dexterity for manipulating those little jumpers and fishing screws out from under a motherboard, low Charisma because we can't be bothered to be nice to everyone we meet, we have more important things to do, and extremely high Intelligence because we have excellent problem solving skills and memory for information.
>:)
Kintanon
Check out JoshJitsu.info for Brazilian Ji
Who are we? I feel sympathy for your emotional distress, but don't you think that such a reaction is excessive? It's just a newspaper article, for God's sake!
In all seriousness, and not wanting to put you down, but have you thought about getting help to find out why you feel this way?
Graham
Autism is a very misunderstood condition, and one which has been repeatedly mischaracterized, misdiagnosed, and mistreated.
....
I strongly suggest that before anyone jump to conclusions on what it means for some "geeks" to be characterized as "autistic", "borderline autistic", "Asperger's syndrome", or "shadow autistic", that you familiarize yourself with some of the material available at www.autistics.org. Something which might be especially appropriate is "Autistic Adults and Adolescents", an essay by a woman with "atypical autism" who might also very well fall into the "geek" category some ways.
You will find that "autism" does not mean "mental retardation", nor does it mean "insanity", nor does it mean "inability to function in society". As for what it does mean, well, that's still rather up in the air
This has cause and effect arse backwards. The "inability to read routine human nonverbal cues" is the cause not effect. These kinds of misconceptions can be very offensive. The inability goes both ways; The Neurotypical often mis-read the nonverbal and verbal communication of those who are autistic.
but theres one thing you've forgotten to factor into your equation... human stupidity. Walk down a beach and you'll notice that 9 of 10 males are watching the fashionable, slim, and (what society says is) good looking. Even geeks are the same way, look at any *cough*adultsites*cough* and see how many geek pictures there are. They're all the same plastic mold women.
;-)
Another thing that factors in is teenage pregnancy (wow, i'm on a roll, attacking everyone today, arn't i? ^_~). How many geeks do you know who will go out there and have unprotected sex at that age? how many will have sex at all?
It may be true that we're smarter, but that's what is going to kill us out. Maybe its just because i'm a pessamist, but 98% of the population isn't gonna die out because we're a tad bit smarter. That tad bit may be whats keeping us from having the unprotected sex or keeping us from leering at women or men knowing how lame they can be under the skin.
another thing about evolutionary theory is that its "the strongest survive through the changes of its environment" if the world was hit by a huge asteroid, then it would be everyone who can live without sun for... awhile (^_^) would be the ones that evolution would keep. our supposed higher IQ or whatever isn't gonna help us there (or it might... we could make a bio-dome thingy and live in there for awhile, but then again the gov would prolly pay us lots to make a biggie one for everyone, were the whole thing would be useless)
*shrug* my standard disclaimer: Take this post with all the salt in the dead sea, maybe more, i'm just feeling cranky and slamming everyone, sorry if it doesnt make sence
-confidential
AIM: confdntl98 ICQ: 150685 E-Mail: above... you can figure it out ^_~
Does anyone know if Tesla left behind enough records to duplicate his inventions? I know the Tesla Coil can be duplicated, but I heard about a lot of crazy stuff he made that used electricity in super efficient fashion. It would be nice if those plans were still around somewhere, even if some oil company bought them... As long as they exist there is a chance of us getting them.
Kintanon
Check out JoshJitsu.info for Brazilian Ji
I am in probably what is the ultimate microcosm of a geek in the middle of society -- I am a computer specialist in the Marine Corps. For my battalion, a combat unit, I run the computer network, administrate the server, do trouble calls, etc. etc. etc. What I do is both vital to the operations of the unit and put me in a spot where I am seen often by higher ups. Does this do me any good? No. Promotions are slow, and no one really seems to be in a real hurry to get me promoted. Aside from the occasional pat on the back, the voluntary long hours, wasted weekends, all-nighters, are all thankless. Why? Because, like most geeks in the world today, I'm viewed more as a resource than an individual. Somehow, because I'm a computer geek, because I enjoy this, I am expected to do it. I am expected to perform miracles, put in long hours, because I enjoy it. And yet, because I am that computer geek, and not the atypical AJ Squared Away Marine (translate: rock dumb jarhead), I do not reap the benefits that those who do less work, but prehaps are the better Marine, get. So where am I going with this? Never once get fooled into the idea that computer geeks are all of the sudden becoming accepted. We are just as feared, just as loathed as we always were. Only difference is, now we run the place. We're needed. Mainstream society has never had a place for us, except down below making sure the computers run and the data flows. Because you never want that techie looking at you going, "Damn, sir, I have no idea why your hard drive suddenly fried."
just look at how many people can't set the clock on their VCR!
Though I have never had trouble setting a VCR, the one I have currently sets it's own clock from a time signal PBS broadcasts (which it found for itself when I plugged it in).
Not that I actually disagree with your point. For every thing like the new VCR's clock, there's something like DSS which you have to know at least a little bit about in order to set it up. Then there's the fact that all the marketers in the world couldn't have made DSS work without engineers.
Whoops, sorry, must be my inability to recognize subtle social cues. ;)
Though I do think trying to define such an arbitrary criterion as "taste in clothes" goes totally against the spirit of geekiness. I'm not saying geeks have *bad* taste in clothes. I'm saying that geeks don't consider clothing a valid criteria for evaluating self worth. It's like bragging about one's favorite foods.
Of course, I'm not saying geeks don't care about clothes, either. We may intentinonally dress somewhat against the norm because we're disgusted at the way other people do believe that clothes are important.
I have to admit I enjoy not being socially normal. It gives me a sense of being special ;-). But the issue here is that the "normal" are looking at us and saying that alot of us have this kind of mental problem...or that kind of mental problem. Why? The answer is simple. We are different. I look at society today and gasp at its barbaric and childish nature. The nature of science is that of labeling. Everything has to be identified and labeled and here is an instance where the "normal" have taken a look at us, who are now looked upon to keep bringing better technology to society, and decided that because we are different that there must be something wrong with us. I personally don't thing that I am better then anyone else, but I do believe that there are certain people who will look at me and suggest that because I am different that I must have some kind of mental problem (do you really have to have a mental problem when you excel at complicated and technologically advanced things?). Just my 2 cents.
I've got to point out that these symptoms aren't necessarily linked to autism. I should know -- I've got all three of the physical tics commonly associated with autism: rocking in your chair, shaking your head violently, and bouncing from wall to wall. And I do mean bouncing from wall to wall, not pacing or the like, I knocked myself silly more than a few times when my hand slipped and I hit the wall with my head instead.
But while I had a few traits you might call autistic -- being a quiet and self sufficient 'good' baby and toddler, not being particularly socially apt -- you couldn't call me autistic or even shadow autistic without distorting the term beyond all meaning. I didn't have trouble reading people, I was in fact very good. I was just sucked at manipulating them with that knowledge.
It completely freaked me out the first time I saw film of autistic kids in a college psychology course. Had me slumping down in my chair thinking 'I do that.' I did manage to supress them to some degree as I got older, but one or the other of the three is still my unconscious reaction when I'm on a intense thinking or daydreaming jag, so you could call it 'compulsive.' I can stop once I've started, but not without losing some edge to my thinking.
Humans are wierd stuff.
--Seen
"I used to be a dilettante. Then I thought I'd try something else for a while."
Shine on, you crazy diamond.
Why do they feel compelled to explain to the world what a geek is? And if they felt so compelled, why distribute half-truths and pseudo-intellectual explanations instead of going to the root of the matter and asking one of us.
... I'm simply trying to point out that trying to figure out why reporters as a class of people insist on describing geeks in a particular fashion is logically the same thing as a reporter trying to figure out why geeks as a class of people behave in a particular fashion. It's the same behavior either way.]
For probably the same reason that, if I could answer this question, I would feel compelled to do so --- but my answer would probably be a half-truth.
[NO, I'm _not_ trying to be rude here
The education of our children should not be controlled by the NEA or anyone ultimately but ourselves. People have it in their mind that they are just supposed to hand their kids over to the school system to be educated. The only problem is, the school system doesn't work. People complain about the school system when they aren't willing to take things into their own hands. If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself after all.
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
Am I a geek? I've read both the articles posted on /. about geeks and autism so far, and both times I read through the list of supposed symptoms and said to myself "yup, that's me." Except for one thing: I suck at math, and I've never written a line of code in my entire life (well, ok, that's not true. But near enough). I even *gasp* use windows. All the same, I am a loner, always have been; I've been chastised countless times for not being able to read people's emotions, I had the whole "social outcast" thing going in high school. I'm getting my BA in Classics right now. School is my life. I go for books (mostly), not computers. So, what am I? Am I to be disdained as one of the non-geek masses? Is it possible to be a non-computer geek? The fun part about it all is, because I'm female, and don't already have the background, no one who I've met so far has the time to spend on a newbie who can't self-teach from a book. Else there would be no way you could keep me from using Linux. Except that laptops are weird about stuff like that. *sigh*
I'd like to hear from european and British kids to see if this shaming is a global or uniquely American problem.
In response to your mention of the SAT... well, phew! I've not made that high yet (and I'm not trying to say that, oh, i'm a genius, but i haven't made that high, so that means that they need to re-evaluate their assessment of a genius), but I also want to remind everyone that, as we all know, the SAT isn't the determining factor for genius-hood. And you're very much above-average, because I'm considered (where i come from, at least, which doens't mean to imply that this evaluation is correct) above-average.. it's all in how you handle yourself and interact and learn and think and KNOW.
Sigue siguiendo!
Insert mind here.
To me the article was just trying to marginalize geeks, since that apparently makes it easier for some non-geeks to "understand" us. To me most geeks are simply above average intelligence people who happen to excel in the hard sciences. Sure there may be a few who owe their intelligence to mental illness or "abnormality" of one kind or another, but I find it insulting to suggest that this is the common case. Given the current "taking back" of the term geek from being an insult to an insider term of peer recognition, it seems a shame that some factions of the media appear still to feel the need to analyze geeks in this disparaging kind of way. Sure there's a difference between lack of empathy (to see feeling in others) and lack of feeling (in oneself), but I'm not so sure that this distinction is so important to those who would appear to like to portray geeks as a potentially sociopathic minority. Maybe my vent was a little off focus, though. Personally I'm more inclined to believe that any typically geek social deficiencies are due to lack of social interaction/experience more than anything else.
What the hell is "evolutionary momentum." What other affects can you attribute to this new discovery you've made? In fact I think we're going to have our enlarged frontal lobes shrink and the lizard part will increase in size, it's the "evolutionary slingshot" hypothesis. Excellent, we can be like Lamarck and Darwin!
The only way to settle this is.... TRIAL BY COMBAT! The way things should have been decided the first time around! You have 24 hours for one of you to crack the others home PC.>:)
Kintanon
Check out JoshJitsu.info for Brazilian Ji
The only time I was ever proven that the school system works was the day I met an adult who was home schooled.
Don't get me wrong - I firmly believe that people should be educated and well-rounded individuals. But I believe even more strongly in the individual's right to think for himself. Should I believe that school really does teach people to think for themselves, I would agree with you wholeheartedly. But school exists less to teach people real openmindedness and rational thought than to enforce a cultural hegemony. Look at your own words: you complain not that people would not be taught to critically examine ideas, but that they would not be taught the things that you believe.
Beyond that, I think you do most people a great disservice, and you are factually incorrect. Homeschooling is legal virtually everywhere in the US, although it is not always easy. Most families probably are not interested in homeschooling for the same reason they're not interested in raising their own vegetables, either: it's much easier to leave that job to professionals, especially when you already have your own job. Furthermore, why do you assume that most (or even many) parents who homeschool would not teach their children any science or politics or history? Your statement implies that you think the "education" on these subjects you get in an American public school does somehow make the individual fundamentally better suited for life. I'm afraid I don't share your views on the lifelong usefulness of one semester in the 5th grade spent on the French Revolution, which is how history (for example) is too often taught.
The weakness of your own education is exposed by the fact that you draw firm conclusions from a sample size of one.
Why complain and worry about a corrupt school system when you can teach your kid at home?
People complain that our educational system is poor and no one seems to be able to agree on how to fix it, or even what the problem is. Well why should anyone let that situation prevent their child from excelling? Why should any of us put up with a bunch of grade A bravo sierra when we can teach our kids at home and give them the education they deserve?
Don't leave your childs intellectual development in the hands of a bunch of glorified babysitters and psycho-political hacks.
The NEA abhors the idea of home schooling because it threatens their base of power and puts a spot light on their incompetence. In my opinion this is exactly what needs to be done.
"Microsoft, the bugs go in the before the name goes on."
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
"We"? That's a fairly broad statement. I've certainly no doubt that the number of similarities between my personality and the classic Asperger's traits are probably more than coincidence. My girlfriend is certainly not someone that could be called anything other than a geek, and her entire family has been diagnosed. I've no doubt whatsoever that some people I've met fall into the same catagory - certainly not everyone who I'd call a geek, but easily more geeks than the population at large.
Does this bother me? Not really. I see myself as different to other people. Not better, not worse. Just different. And since I began to accept that, my life has improved. I am a geek, regardless of whether I admit it or deny it - it's part of my nature that I'm unable to change. I find it hard to relate to people. I don't enjoy social situations involving large numbers of people that I've never met before. I'm hugely over-literal in conversation. No matter how hard I try, I will never be able to fit into society seamlessly. And frankly, I don't care.
I'm happy to accept that I'm not going to be a part of mainstream society, and mainstream society seems happy enough with that. I don't expect them to understand me in the same way that I don't expect to be able to understand the way an alien behaves. My thought processes don't fit into the social norms, and attempting to pretend that that isn't the case would be going against my own personality.
I'm a geek. And I'm not worried about who knows it.
The way you phrased this tends to make you sound paranoid rather than making your point. Yes, geeks and outcasts are having trouble with schools. But the schools are not intentionally weeding them out. If you ask the high school administrator they'll say that they're making an effort to include them. The problems often occur because they don't understand how to do this. They frequently only alienate furthur when they try to include. They are creating labels bcause they are trying to see what to do. Do we have to be careful of these labels? Of course. Should we see this as an intentional attack? No.
God does not play dice - Einstein
Not only does God play dice, he sometimes throws them where they
I feel that it is a useful term, as I needed speech therapy when I was young and was bullied at school.
While it's not correct to label techies as having AS, it's probably OK to describe *stereotypical* techies as being like that.
Andjam
People may ask how much M$ is paying me to say this. Let me tell you: nothing.
I get options instead.
Hey, I managed to do it without getting into too much trouble. But it was pretty frustrating. Back in primary school (age 4-11,) it was easier for me with a couple of the subjects. You know why? Because they were taught from exercise books - it meant that I could carry on with working while the other kids just fell behind. Same goes for English. However, if you take this to it's logical conclusion, with each kid being taught individually from books, although it will encourage the smarter people to learn more, it will discourage socialising, which can't be a good thing. Where's the compromise here?
However, like other people have said, when the pressure is on you to do homework, it can seriously harm your motivation when all you have done all day is sit in class being bored. It doesn't get better the older you get, either. At Uni, it was just plain depressing when you have to be taught C by people who shouldn't be let near a computer because it has small parts. These were the people who had trouble teaching because they told everyone to call their programs "while" and "test" on a UNIX platform.
In short, if I have to go through all this to be called smart, then I shouldn't have to endure being labelled nuts. No offense to all the truly autistic people out there, but I'm a normal person when it comes to socialising and I don't want people to think otherwise just because I'm smart.
There is some fascinating speculation going on these days that the well-known stereotype of the computer geek or nerd may actually be a description of mild autism, especially a form of autism known as Asperger's syndrome.
Exactly. Note the words "speculation" and "sterotype". All reliable forms of information when it comes to writing news articles.
Asperger's syndrome patients, who usually develop their traits at a young age, often have these tendencies: ... fascination with fantasy worlds and arcane facts..."
Hmm. Arcane facts. Does that include being able to recall around 70% of the "Pop-up Video" facts about a song by just watching it once? Sad, but that's about all the musical ability I have :).
Who reads /.? Anti-literate fundamentalist fanatics or intelligent people such as yourself? I believe the original post suggested that you home-school your kids. Would you teach your kids about the theory of evolution?
My opinion is that the very best thing you can do for your young kids is to home-school them until they can read fairly fluently. Up to age nine or ten is about ideal. It's not natural, a form of torture really, to expect a six year old to sit silently for several hours in a row. This may make sense if you're training up a crew of child laborers to work thirteen hours a day in the factory next door; it makes no sense in 1999. It's especially hard on a smart kid to sit there while the rest of the class goes over the same old material again and again very slowly.
Elementary schools are remarkably inefficient in terms of time. Home-school kids cover the same material in two hours that it take a grade school all day to present. Also as a typical example, suppose a grade school teacher does a segment on the cycle of rain and evaporation, and the kid starts wondering about the color of clouds, where does that come from? Well, sorry kid, that's off the topic, and we have to switch to the reading lesson now anyway. The factory-like time schedule of school truncates that digression, whereas a home-school teacher (i.e. you) would naturally go off the pre-programmed subject and spend an hour or two satisfying your kid's curiosity.
This isn't the fault of the elementary school teachers. Their problem, in every school district, is that there are too many kids per teacher. But you can imagine the cost of running the teacher-student ratio up to one to six for the first two or three grades. At least in Florida, where I live, I guarantee that this will never ever happen. In Florida, politicians get elected by promising to dismantle and destroy the public school system.
Those first four or five grades in your ordinary elementary school can just ruin a kid for life as a student. Almost all grade school kids, including many of the smartest ones, have their natural interest in learning academic things completely extinguished. Excepting, maybe, those naturally spaced-out kids who are blessed with the faculty of splitting the boredom scene altogether and drifting off to fantasy land?
But there's a disadvantage to home-schooling too. As compared with attending a regular school, home-schooling limits a kid's social contacts. You want your kid to be happy, right? Also, a kid can get a lot out of school facilities like chem labs and the library and the specialized knowledge of the teachers of specific subjects; for example, I'm sure we both know enough about reading a arithmetic to teach an eight year old. But how many parents are well read in, say, English literature, and world history, and Latin grammar, and trigonometry, plus biology, chemistry and physics, all at the same time? But those strengths of a regular school mainly benefit older students, not young kids in grades 1-5.
So I think you get the best balance between the advantages and disadvantages of a regular school by letting your kids learn at home until age nine or ten. That's what my three kids did and they're all doing really well in school now.
Also, if they've got them in your area, try to get into one of thoose "magnet school" programs. My older daughter is a senior in an unbelievably good "magnet school;" I look at the homework they assign her and it's amazing, just like college level work. You can bet her fellow students at Tampa Bay Tech don't sit around all bored waiting for a class where they'll actually learn something for a change. How I wish I could have gone to a school like that! If there's one reform that would efficiently improve public education it would be a massive nationwide enlargement of "magnet school" programs like that one.
Yours WDK - WKiernan@concentric.net
I don't know about the rest of you, but in my experience most geeks are no better at rote memorization than the rest of society.
A strange ability to memorize arcane facts?
There is no strange ability. I know people who could tell you off the top of their head what team won the suerbowl in 1974, who was the MVP and what was the final score... most people call them jocks. I can tell you the first 20 elements even though I haven't done any chem in 5 years, and I know the names of most of the casts of Star Wars and Star Trek. I'm called a geek... I don't see any difference in ability, only in area of interest.
Now, I'm definatly not saying that i'm autistic or anything, but i have some of the traits (http://access.autistics.org is a great page for information, thanks for the page Frater 219) of being "High Functioning Autistic".
From their page:
But thats what they say ^_~. If you ask me, i'm (and my theory is that alot of us are) a little of everything. I slashdot, but i enjoy running and playing (US) football. I talk to friends, but when i get home i go straight to the computer to talk to them on AIM or ICQ rather then use the phone. Speaking of the phone, i havn't used one in ages since i got telephony software. Politically i'm in the middle (a little to the left). sexually I would say i'm asexual (not attracted to anyone, not as in i reproduce myself =P) but mentally I could have a relationship with anyone... male or female. (*realizes i'm starting to sound like a personals ad*) but you get what i'm saying.
Then again, i'm the anti- of every steriotype known to humans and here i am creating new ones ^_~. oh well
-confidential
AIM: confdntl98 ICQ: 150685 E-Mail: above... you can figure it out ^_~
Edison == Bill Gate's Idol?
Or worse.. Bill Gates is Edison Reincarnated!!
Makes you wonder why light bulbs need to be replaces so much....
Lack of empathy doesn't mean being unable to feel. I'm lacking in emotional empathy (sure, I can logically deduce what someone else is probably feeling - but I don't get a "gut feeling". There's a difference) but the idea of killing anything without a reason (and killing humans even with a reason) disgusts me. Suggesting that the two are related to that extent shows that you don't really understand the issue.
Our current school systems are designed (probably unintentionally, but never the less) to breed sheep. Look at the stories about ID badges that have come up this last week. geeks are not naturally sheep. So geeks are not happy in school.
God does not play dice - Einstein
Not only does God play dice, he sometimes throws them where they
Since when is money a good reason for doing, or putting up with anything? I've turned down plenty of jobs and taken a much lower station in life, finacially speaking, because I want to enjoy what I'm doing, and my personal satisfaction is far more important than my pocketbook. The net effect is that I have the time and freedom to attend courses at the university, talk with my friends, and do a lot of martial arts practice, which working 80+ hour weeks and earning the big bucks wouldn't let me do.
Maybe the fixation on the almighty buck, sacrifices be damned, is the real problem with geeks today.
From the begining of my education it was clear that I was smart, but as hard as I tried I was unable to do above B work in school, getting occasional C's and D's.
My parents put me through toutering (zzzz....), "eye training" (for reading).. the whole 9yds.
In tenth grade I was diagnosed with ADD and was perscribed with Ritalin.
I was finally able stay organised, get things done, and understand things like french verb condjugation.
Before you think that ADD or ADHD are made up, do some research. Labeling people for the sake of labeling is never good, but being diagnosed with ADD was one of the most important things to happen to me educationally.
(yes I have a username.)
I am reading all these articles, and I am crying. Why do they have to do this to us? Why? I have never thought about shooting someone in my life. But I would not mind shooting the next bastards that write about geeks and social behaviours and crap. I hate normal, fyou normal people, stay off our world. Don't be on our side, don't be against us either. Just forget our existance. We need you not!
In a world where even on slashdot, at the mere mention of autism/asperger's, you get people jumping around going "That's not me! I'm greatly insulted! People like me! I'm not a retard! I'm not a loser like them! You take that back!"... :P jesus! Exactly why is it proper to publically humiliate people with a different (and sometimes troublesome) mode of being? Why is it so important to run about desperately trying to prove that 'geekdom' is no haven for us?
Well, I have to say that I prefer the article to certain bits of the Slashdot threads
I (not surprisingly, as I have asperger's) am not overconcerned with other people's social opinions, particularly in that grand ungraspable region called 'public image'. However, it really grates sometimes, the way people are so terrified of being 'painted' as fellow travellers. Do you really mean to 'educate' both geekdom and the outside world that, even with geeks, if you are a certain way then you're a loser and should be shunned? Is it so important to establish that asperger's is a sickness and that people shouldn't hire/work with/associate with the autistic when there are good geeks available who bridle at the suggestion that they have handicaps?
Please. That's disgusting. It's a groupthink mentality that, ironically, many autistic people have a hard time grasping or relating to- a mentality of "I am of Group X. These people are also of Group X, but I must make everyone understand that they don't represent Group X, because they reflect badly on me!" Final thought for all those on all sides of this- if it did turn out that autistic/asperger's people did legitimately represent computer geeks... what would you do?
Before you think that ADD or ADHD are made up, do some research.
I don't think the problem is these diseases (I personally think they are in the same class of disease as alchoholism) but in the belief that they are common, and their common misdiagnosis. To take your example, every kid who tries real hard, but can't get above a B, needs drugs to pay attention. And perhaps "being diagnosed with ADD was one of the most important things to happen to me educationally. " is great for your grades, but what about the rest? Are grades *that* important to you(r family)?
Maybe it was just the strange behaviour of _everyone_ I've known who was on Ritalin (usually when they skipped a day and came *down*), maybe it's the people I know who take the drug to party on, but I don't think it's worth it. As a matter of fact, it scares me. To take the alarmist's stance "Little Johnnie isn't conforming Mrs. Jones. We think you should drug him."
+&x
A tendency to have escorts/prostitues:
Wally in the first episode of Dilbert (phone sex)
Joxer the Mighty from "Xena: Warrior Princess" (with Xena look-a-like Meg and possibly an entire brothel later on run by her)
Einstein (had escorts during his second marriage)
that would explain Bill Gates being into prostitutes/whatever before marriage (I have a harder time believing that he smoked Marujana than that he was into prostitutes)
Sometimes have relationships with co-workers.
Dilbert with Leena: Warrior Engineer
Wally in post-acopylitic hell workplace?
Tim Fischer (Australian politician with an autistic son) married another person in the same political party
Einstein married a fellow student in his first marriage?
that would explain his marrying another MS worker (though being a workaholic may be another explanation)
We have a tendency to steal:
Jar Jar Binks tried to steal fish
Joxer the Mighty was into stealing (comment in "Callisto", also had tried to "liberate" chickens in another episode)
The main reason why I don't regard Windows as stealing from Mac was because it was hot property anyway.
Bill Gates' main crime is that he is functioning waaay to highly.
Andjam
People may ask how much M$ is paying me to say this. Let me tell you: nothing.
I get options instead.
Personally, I find this fascinating. I feel sorry for all those that had to endure things like this, but from an impartial perspective, its fascinating.
:)
:)
:)
I was home-schooled. When my parents took me out of school (3rd grade) my parents were told by many people just how wrong home-schooling was. I would grow up without any friends, unable to function adequately in society, essentially an outcast. Needless to say, I don't consider this to be true. I graduated, went to college, and am now a sucessful software engineer. This is all my opinion, and I tend to be rather partial, but I consider myself to be a rather outgoing, personable, and get along well with co-workers, friends, etc.
Now I read stories about people who _feel_ like outcasts. (In an adult society, which most of us live in, IMHO nobody-everybody is an outcast (I'll make an exception of mentally ill ppl)) I feel that everyone is different, unique, and if you're not, you probably don't exist. Differences make us stronger, especially if you believe in evolution. This may sound like a bunch of hippie crap, but sex was alot easier in the sixties; I'm all for that.
Its an interesting comparison, and a really small sample to make statistics out of.
OTOH, my brother was also homeschooled, and he never liked it, and eventually went to a normal public school. I did have four years of being in public school to learn to hate it, whereas he was homeschooled from the beginning, and more mainstream than I. (Don't get me wrong, I love the guy. (You only truly love those you want to kill.)
Now where was I going with this? I dunno, and its getting late. I wanna hear about people who bucked this trend, or any homeschoolers who feel the same way.
>>>>>>>>> Kvort
-Don't mind me, I'm personality-deficient and mentally-impaired.
But we shouldn't stop there. There's no reason not to apply this kind of reasoning to all the different kinds of people in this society -- like, what makes the shameless power mongers so shameless and power-hungry? Just as geeks have their preoccupations, so other people have theirs, like devoting their lives to status and dominance games, or to gaining advantages for themselves at other people's expense. That doesn't mean they're dysfunctional megalomaniacs, any more than all geeks are catatonic idiot-savants.
I say it's better to understand than not to understand. The trick is not to let the knowledge be used against you.
"The deep-fried Mars bar is a symptom of a wider crisis." -- Nutritionist Ann Ralph, on the Scottish diet
That's much a matter of where you live... In Europe, where unemplyment is high and housing expensive, geeks get to live with their parents longer than they'd like to. Some would probably like the convenience, some would find it oppresive. I'm not sure that would make a defining geek trait...
"Be nice, veer left, and never stop thinking" Iain Banks - Walking On Glass
Oh, yeah. I forgot to mention: I walk funny too... :)
>>>>>>> Kvort
-Don't mind me, I'm personality-deficient and mentally-impaired.
...if you consider the new trait to be disfunctional relative to the old trait. The idea that our brains may be physiologically different than "non-g***s" is probably accurate, and may lead to a different chain. It will probably be a dead-end though, just a gut feeling there.
Given, a population will have a full range of intelligence types. However, I think that there's a lot more intelligence in the "non-g***" population than they're given credit for. There's a lot of latent gray matter, so to speak, suppressed by attention to social interaction, and other not-so-useless things that help decide who reproduces and who doesn't.
If we continue to have public schools, we will have a huge portion of the people who suppose that the "theory" of evolution is a proven fact (it's not, and Darwinian evolution is hardly thought of outside the United States anymore)
/lot/ -- on the order of 50 families) do an excellent job of teaching their children basic skills.
/prefer/ home-schoolers now? For example, Harvard, Yale, Wheaton. Of course, according to you those are all just charm schools, right?
/do/ get socialization. Very often in church, if not there then with neighbour children or relatives. What reason do you have to believe that 35 hours a week of socialization is called for?
All statistics that I've seen indicate that home schooling, at least in the early grades, results in better educated, better rounded children on average. While I must admit that some home-schoolers are right-wing subliterates, most of the ones I know (and I know a
The biggest danger sign is when they stop doing the Iowa tests. If the child can't pass the Iowa tests, then there's a problem. My Pastor's 9 year old took the one of the standardized tests a couple of weeks ago and scored 12th grade 9th month. Oh yeah -- despite being a radical Christian, he taught his kids evolution -- in fact, he had them read Origin of the Species and another book: "Darwin's Black Box" by Behe. Highly recommended -- maybe it will cure you of the fact that you apparently know less about Biology than a home-schooled nine year old.
Incidentally, did you know that most Ivy League colleges
Also, let's talk a little bit about socialization. First, there have never been any studies whatsoever done to show that home-schooled children are less socially adept as adults than public schooled Children. In fact, there have been several which have traced some of the rampant neuroses of our culture to the school system. Second, home school children
Finally, for me socialization was little better than torture. I was beaten, harrassed, and isolated. I ended up dropping out of high school because I would literally go in every morning ready to take on the day and leave literally suicidal. I would love to see any of you anti-homeschoolers show how THAT'S healthy. You talk about what you don't know about. Stop, learn, and take notes.
-- Slashdot sucks.
As much as we like to fool ourselves, things stay pretty much the same out of high school. The same type of people who snubbed me and talked behind my back are now my co-workers. I was socially inept back then, as I am socially inept now. But, becuse of school, I know how to deal with it. I know when to shut up. I do not fit in, and I have come to a certain peace with that. My friend who was home schooled does not reallize how the structure of most everything works. He does not know when to shut up. He was doomed to fail in the university because he didn't know how to sit down and listen to the lecture. Now he is doomed to fail in life because he doesn't understand the hierarchy of things or how to listen to authority. Although I am going off of a sample of one, I doubt that this is unusual among people who were home schooled. Perhaps if I was not sent to the schools that I was, I would not be a misfit. I might have even become normal. I really do doubt that. I also doubt that, as isolated as I was at school, I would be sociallized better had I stayed home with my mom and sister. At least at school I found a few kindred spirits. I agree, this point of view sucks, and things should change. They havn't, and until they do I want to eat, and have a roof over my head, and a computer on my desk. I want these things, so I have to work within the system, a system that my friend has no clue about. The school system really does work. I'm sitting here in my cube entertaining myself between the ocational tedious tasks of my job, like the most of you. This is one thing that high school taught me, and it obviously taught it very well.
But if reproductive influence can be translated (updated) to be economic influence, doesn't it sorta relate?
I mean, I realize my original idea was a little wacky, but who makes the world go 'round these days? The successful businessmen and successful politicians. And lately it seems like technical innovators are gaining more recognition and influence than managers and CEOs.
There is a definite trend towards classifying someone who is unusual as having some disorder or another. It's a socio-political change, not a genuine increase in how well science understands people. There is no such thing as normal. You'll meet every kind of person in the world except an average one. We are all different. Saying that someone has a disorder because they fall someplace in the outer fringes is inaccurate. There may be people out there who are geeks and who suffer from some form of autism. But that does not mean that every geek out there who may also have bad social skills is autistic. Autism, as I'm sure you know, is a very definite medical condition. Mysterious yes, but very definite. The whole geek=autistic thing seems to me to be applied to the stereotype of what a geek is, than to anyone who might call themselves that.
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
Hmmm... I have a tendancy to curl my toes completly under my feet, or pull my heels up and walk on the balls of my feet. I attempt to take all stairs three at a time on the way up (Have't fallen yet!), and sort of lossen my ankles and slide/fall when going down. So my gait is rather weird. Oh, I also sort of zig zag aimlessly in a general direction instead of following a straight path. And my co-ordination is horrific in it's total uselessness. It's gotten so I don'tt even bother trying to catch things unless they look like they could hurt. Generally, I think it IS a chemical imblance/odd connection thing. But, if you really think about it, all personality is essentially based on chemicals and connections in our brains. A trait i find common among geeks is an interest in patterns and connections between ideas. Would this not lead to a propensity for networking and electronics, not to mention the applied sciences? Alex Heggie
Jar Jar Binks, Joxer the Mighty (from "Xena: Warrior Princess") and Bill Gates are probably the biggest victims of "Kill XXX" interactive web pages.
And they all have Aspergia Syndrome.
Anyone else (especially those with Aspergia Syndrome) find that worrying?
Andjam
People may ask how much M$ is paying me to say this. Let me tell you: nothing.
I get options instead.
This post represents one of the rare moments when something worthy is written to Slashdot forums. Thanks for writing this. I am awfully shocked at how nearly all of this thread avoids the real point of the article. The article sucks. It tries so hard to suggest a groundless connection between autism and intellegience without appearing biased. The author fails miserably. (I am probably making the mistake of expecting a feature piece from "the unwashed" to contain a valid rational support for its points.)
So why would someone propagate bullshit such as this? You give a very plausible explanation, not as a conspiracy theory but as an awfully convenient trend. Thanks for your acute observations.
If we continue to have public schools, we will have a huge portion of the people who suppose that the "theory" of evolution is a proven fact (it's not, and Darwinian evolution is hardly thought of outside the United States anymore)
Well, on that logic, nothing is a proven fact, then, and we can throw the entire curriculum in the trash. As for Darwinian evolution not being thought of outside the US... Well, I don't know which orifice you pulled that out of, but it's certainly untrue. Maybe in other countries they also teach mechanisms parallel to Darwinian Natural Selection as able to drive Evolution (which is true, and a good thing), but certainly the US is the only Western nation in which the teaching of Evolution is under attack.
"Be nice, veer left, and never stop thinking" Iain Banks - Walking On Glass
If this is based on those Shadow Syndrome writings then there has been some criticism that they are making the definition of autism overly broad and possibly detracting from attention on actualy autism.
At least that's what I gather from the article (towards the bottom).
Exactly, one of my musical friends is like this, everyone at my lunch table jokes that he is a stoner, when in fact, he's just actually pretty shy unless he's with a group of people
Shine on, you crazy diamond.
Given the chance (1 in a billion) that if I have a child, I would wish him/her to be smart or as smarter as me. However, I would not wish the child to have any physical or developmental problems (be it autism or otherwise). Would Gary Chapman wished a child to have Asperger's syndrome in order to be smart? I better hope not.
Besides, I was not "born a geek" or something of the sorts. I sometimes think of myself as being "tempered" to be a nerd or a geek. Let's just say my older brother's computer from years ago was the anvil.
Asperger's syndrome patients, who usually develop their traits at a
young age, often have these tendencies: excellent rote memory;
fascination with fantasy worlds and arcane facts; facility with math and
science; physical awkwardness or clumsiness and sometimes an unusual
gait; hyperactivity but with an ability to focus on interesting problems for
hours at a time; poor social understanding; hyper-verbal activity but
without the ability to make contextual connections in conversations; and
an appearance of insensitivity and eccentricity. They are commonly
victims of teasing in school.
Okay, so I suck at math. I'm more interested in working with a computer than calculus. I don't feel or see myself as physically awkward. I do have an appearance of insensitivity (because of the so-called "normal folk"). I think the more-popular jocks (frat types and otherwise) and the girls (who can be easily described with a license plate that says "PMS 666") are the ones with the poor social understanding.
[Note: I got the "PMS 666" license plate thing from comedienne Wendy Liebman. Afterwards, nobody ever tried to cut her off when she's driving.]
Currently, those who's reproduction is least benificial to society tend to reproduce the most!
It's important to note that success and skill with computers do not depend on any mental condition such as Asperger's syndrome, if there is a connection at all. It appears that some people who may have a mild form of this syndrome may simply find computers and computer culture more comfortable than other professions.
This statement in and of itself shows that "geeks" should neither be proud nor dismayed by this column, because it undermines its thesis that this disorder should be valued in any way above other medical conditions.
*** Proven iconoclast, aspiring bohemian. ***
yes a linux user who smokes weed! at least he's not autistic
...serves me right to get overpassionate about such things, I don't _do_ 'passionate' well. Anytime I find myself underlining, italicising or boldfacing too many words, I ought to not post the comment ;)
I think it is very strange to be compared to a Moonie for what I've said. I'm only trying to provoke consideration and understanding- I have only a limited ability to reach out the other way to make contact, and a lot of people more autistic than me have even less ability to do this.
I am not lost and lonely (or school age, for that matter): I'm only trying against troublesome odds to get some people to have a bit of clue about what's going on here. There _is_ evidence to suggest that computer geekery is a singularly appropriate 'haven' for autistics and those with Asperger's. Many aspects of it help to cover for our weak points, and there are things about coding that are easier for an autistic person to keep track of. Denying this is foolish- it just is- this is hardly a great mystery. Nothing about it says that 'NT' (neurologically typical) people are less capable at computer geekery- it's simply that autistic/Asperger's people _thrive_ within computer geekery.
People are still learning what autism is. (It has nothing to do with schizophrenia, BTW, though there are some similarities with being schizoid.) Just because it is not 'black and white' rigorously defined doesn't mean it's not real- there's a lot of reality behind that simple term. It matters, it requires a certain amount of effort to coexist with (on both sides!), and it is part of the computer geek scene and will continue to be. No amount of mockery, shame, pity or dismissal will change this. If you don't like it, learn to tolerate it because it's not going to be possible to cleanse computer geekery of autism and Asperger's- or desirable, no matter 'what people think' of it.
So much for that. If this keeps up, Linux people are gonna need another HOWTO... interestingly, the Hacker FAQ is a very good start, and could almost be used as a handbook on how to keep an autistic person comfortable and productive in the workplace. It's not exact, but much of what it covers also applies to autism.
I have written an essay on Jar Jar having AS if you guys want it.
Andjam
People may ask how much M$ is paying me to say this. Let me tell you: nothing.
I get options instead.
Damn, that should have got upped a bit. It's funny as hell.
I think this article is completely backwards. It says that "geeks" _lack_ empathy for other people. . . I think its just the opposite.
It seems more like geeks have LOTS of empathy, but this society is really geared towards being ANTI empathy, especially during developmental times (high school and such). We are NOT supposed to really care about things. Look at the word "cool", it basically means you don't care. Yes, there is an aspect of that about not caring about people breaking rules, but do stereotypically "cool" people show compassion? That's not my understanding.
As anyone who knows much about it would've guessed from my nick, i'm actively involved in "rave" culture. A brief non-fox-new definition of rave is just that they're music based (we go to dance, or just enjoy the bass, not to get drunk and hook up) parties with truly friendly people. (this is, of course, the ideal, but I'm just going to dismiss the popular commercialized aspects right now). From my nick, PLUR stands for Peace, Love, Unity, and Respect (lots of people, including me, like to add a second R for responsibility), and is a sterotypical raver ideal.
You're probably wondering where I'm going with this. What spurred this was the fact that I've noticed MANY MANY technical people in the scene, especially compared to any other parties or concerts I've ever been to. There was at least one linux shirt at the last party i went to. It's a place where you are not just allowed, but encouraged to care about other people.
A brief summary of this still half formed idea: Raves support being openly empathic, lots of geeks like raves (once they get past the idea that all parties are for the people that tormented them in high school) Therefore, geeks tend to be more empathic rather than less.
[Discalimer] This idea just came into my head, and it's full of generalizations, idealizations, and (most likely) logic holes. Nothing I said (in fact, nothing anyone says) applies to all geeks, or all ravers. But I think it's an interesting idea.
erik@NcsO.ShmcP.AeduM
It's all subjective anyway...what is normal to one person could be construed as abnormal to others. This whole emphasis on if(geek == true) { geek = "probably autistic";} that's been making waves lately just shows how much of a gap there is in what people know about things and what people perceive about things. It's just spackle to fill up those holes in our consciousness that we sometimes all too readily accept from another POV, instead of actually knowing for ourselves or engaging in critical thought. Now pass me the remote.... Brokaw's about to make me afraid of something else...
Hate to "me too", but it applies. I never played sports - couldn't. Martial arts came naturally, however and many years of (self and dojo) teaching worked out the awkwardness.
I have a theory, however - social awkwardness and carrying a pile of books makes for many a clumsy and hasty exit from the company of others - maybe that's the gait.
Also disturbiingly on-point is the fantasy thing - how many Tolkien and D&D fans post here?
I don't know. It sounds like you're describing me =)
My dad doesn't think I'm autistic, though he does acknowledge that I'm different.
I grew up very comfortable being intelligent, always getting straight A's and always doing the best, though not without effort. Talent would only get one so far, and effort will bridge the rest.
I'll tell you what I'm like now.
I love to read. Everything. Anything. Anytime. It's compulsive--a book or text or box of cereal in hand, and I read it.
I'm endlessly fascinated with the world. A leaf, a bug, a rock, a tree. If it's there, I'm fascinated.
I'm fearless. I'm confident. I'm decisive. I'm reckless. I'm bold. I'm impulsive. I'm arrogant. I'm self-assured. Those are all faults and strengths.
I'm always driven to challenge myself. If I take the easy way now, it will just become harder later. Always better to take the harder challenge, now, when you can see it, when you can chose, then when you have no choice and are forced to take the harder path.
Life is meant to be lived. Savor food, sleep, and dreams. The feel of fabrics and woods, the colors, the sounds.
It's hard for me to understand people. For someone so intelligent, to be so blank or dumb is hard to fathom. People think I'm mocking them, or teasing them, or playing with them. Why aren't you angry? Why aren't you pissed? Why do you keep asking this? This is common sense?
If it's common sense, why don't I understand it?
I was very lucky to have understanding and totally supportive parents. I've made many comments to the point that I don't need God because I have my dad. He was my role model and my mentor and my idol. Even if he is imperfect and human. My mom gives everything for me.
On my part I've already said how bold/confident/reckless/brash I am. I'm totally unself conscious. I don't care much about other people, or what they think. Perhaps that is why I don't understand them? Nonetheless, it's a perfect combination for success. You just don't fear. Failure. Shame. Frustration. Doubt. Guilt. I feel none of them.
I don't think I'm autistic. Or at least if I am, I'm very social, friendly, and out-going.
=)
-AS
-AS
*Pikachu*
I totally see your point, but it's worse than that. I have the money and (hopefully) the looks to get one night stands if I made that my goal. But I don't, because I can't. I lust after women just like the next guy, but nightclubs are to me like the surface of Neptune, just not my environment, and even the whole concept of "one night stands" is alien to me. Hell, I want to be able to talk to someone I'm sleeping with.
The thing is, we think too much. Thinking gets in the way of some forms of entertainment (the ones known to the masses as "having fun"), and opens whole new others (the ones known to the masses as "nerdy shit"). That's our lot, and even if sometimes I think I wouldn't mind to be for one night the dude with the slicked-back hair, the gold chains, the cigarette and the gorgeous blonde in the arm, on the whole I wouldn't change my life for anybody else's.
I'm a geek. I can't say I'm proud of it, since I wasn't given a choice in the matter, but on the whole, I'm glad and grateful for what I am.
"Be nice, veer left, and never stop thinking" Iain Banks - Walking On Glass
I don't see anything new here. Every article relating to this issue always tries to explain why we geeks "aren't" normal.
A few comments on geeks. To generalize, geeks tend to think for themselves, and tend to ignore the superficial. Of course this isn't true of all. But we're harder to brainwash culturally. It's harder to get us to go out and spend all our money on the superficial things in life. In this culture, that makes you abnormal.
A few comments on psychologists. These guys seem to have replaced god in our world. Many years ago most people simply believed the bible was true. Now we have our new gods, the psychologists, using their science to "prove" whatever words come out of their mouth. There are more problems with this than I can think of.
- With everyone in this society seemingly looking to get themselves ahead, the temptation to change a few facts here, a few numbers there, becomes hard to resist. Money, fame for discovering the "disease of the month", or whatever other bones are thrown to you can be irresistable for the average selfish person.
- No one on this earth is qualified to tell me the definition of normal. We're all different, in fact, thats what makes us interesting.
- There are too many things about the brain that we simply don't understand. It will be many years before we can understand it at some sort of mathematical level. To me that is what defines a scientific analysis at the core. There are plenty of good insights into how the mind works, but I'm skeptical whenever I see the new "disease of the month" on the evening news.
- Drug Companies. These guys have an interest in selling us every type of pill they can. The more "diseases" that exist, the more pills they can sell us. The shareholders will scream bloody murder if profits don't keep going up. The conflict of interest is obvious.
- Our culture. Apathy and a narrow mindset don't lead to good results. How this affects "geeks" I think we all know.
Have a nice day.
ok, a little offtopic from the discussions, but maybe if you read this, it will make a little more sense...
:), although the nazis killed him and stole the patents :( )... my father is one of the top mech-aero quality experts in the nation, with a 3D mind like no other, my mom's father still teaches at the technion university (the israeli MIT) at 84, and my mom is the smartest stats major i know :>... one of my younger brothers is taking graduate math courses as a high-school freshman, and has started coding for competition... a cousin is a chess champ, etc... this is not bragging (i think i'm pretty bright too), just background...
yes, the family of diseases and 'wanting to know' are very much related, this is something i have been saying for several years...
some background - being 'bright' runs in the family... my great-granfather invented the modern cinderblock (someone had to
why? because we are all 'different' - we are not very social, but no one has to be... its just that every generation or so, someone gets 'it' - they cannot relate to the outside world... this has always been the person's fault, only with this generation has it been understood to be a disease, possibly genetic in nature... it's now fairly obvious that autism/asperger's runs in the family...
this time, it was my youngest brother... the (supposedly best) doctors were morons and missed the fact that he is legally blind (its very common along with Asperger's and autism)... he was borderline for Autism and Asperger's, but was high-functioning from the start...when he got glasses, and began going to a special school in the area, things began to improve, and he started to act more normal for his age - i do no mean 'playing with tonka trucks' normal - there are certian 'milestones' that every child needs to reach in the development process, such as toilet training, dressing and feeding oneself, etc... for example, he just lied for the first time at age 8 - this is something kids should do at age 5 or so... weirdly enough, my mom called me at college to tell me about - it was that important and exiting to her...
either way, how did it scale with him? he tought himself to speak and read hebrew and english at age 3, his fine motor skills (another common related condition) were so poor that only at age 5 was he able to begin writing... now he types, after having mastered how to uninstall every component on our Win98 box... he reads about 10 books a week (at 3 or 4 grade levels above his age), and has gone through almost every volume of our dead-tree encyclopaedia britannica - and he knows the stuff too... i explain things like atomic structure and weather formations to him, and he ALWAYS wants to listen... like all of us, he has a penchant for learning and understanding the world around us...
and the most important part? he is the nicest kid i have ever known, and i am VERY proud to have him as my brother - he wants everyone around himself to be happy, and does all he can to ensure it... he also realizes that he is 'different' - and it bothers him... one day in a mall, my father saw a 'support autism research' booth, and gave a donation - my brother asked, why, and my dad told him he was autistic, so when he came home that afternoon, he asked us all what it meant - can you imagine telling a 7 year old this? well, he knows a bit about it know, and it helps him to understand how he is different...
well, why do i write?
Please, Please, Please, Don't Glorify It...
This is not something YOU want to have... it is a disease, it is debilitating, and it is not fun... for those who have it seriously, like my brother, can you imagine what its like to be missing part of your humanity? now, he is no less of a human, but the perils of society unfortunately define him as so... there is a specific ability which we all assume in each other which is just GONE... something on the empathic level, the ability to relate to others on a level other than biology...
also, autism has some weird features - it is surprisingly common (many folks have met/seen autistic people and now known), it affects ALL races and geographic locations equally, and boys about twice as often as girls... Doug Flutie and Sylvester Stallone have autistic children, as do teachers, homeless folks, politicians, and anyone...
it's not gonna make you code better, its not gonna make you smarter, it just correlates, to varying degrees... often have I felt like I cannot relate to folks, and since i have seen the formal definitions of autism, i have been able to see much more how i have it to a certian degree...for example, Autists are very sensetive, just in general - i have seen this in myself as well... i can take 1/2 as much medication to work just as effectivly, i have to wear sunglasses outside so i dont get headaches, etc... it has helped my life very much to realize how i am...
so why do i think it is related? its very hard for me to say, i have been struggling with it for years...
is it a gift? that i am intelligent, yes... that my brother's inteligence has been hampered, no... that his ability to understand other people has been compromised, it's an infinite loss...
but, not all is forsaken... in his school, he has learned to better understand us, to speak well, to have patience, to eat and go to the bathroom, and to learn what it is to be a person growing up... and now he is getting back to the mainstream, to be with some non-classified kids...
he might never live on his own, or hold a normal job, but i know the possibilites of what he can do in our world are great - he hungers for knowing, and i am proud to have him as my brother...
here i must that the teachers and workers, and most of all, my mom and dad, for making sure he gets the best chance of getting living a good life...
all i can think of 'this' is that my brother was given a gift... one that does not make up for what he had taken away...
I think we've basically put a stop to human evolution with all these new ways to "save human life".
Evolution is "survival of the fittest", and if no "unfit" people are allowed to die... humans won't evolve.
-- The act of censorship is always worse than whatever is being censored. Always.
Yes, but not becauase of medical life support!
Our schools are engaged in an intensive effort to weed out geeks and outcasts.
Conspiracy bullshit.
Geeks get a hard time sinc they are different and kids are cruel. I have never been picked on by an for being nerdy. And now that I am older, my peers don't do it either (because they are also older too.)
that's exactly what I'm talking about =) It stands to reason if you ask me though, we do tend to be socially inept, with a higer than average intelligence.
another example could be runway models - on average, they seem to be beautiful, yet not quite so smart... maybe they are:
str: 5
int: 10
wis: 10
dex: 15
cha: 60
=) Surely someone else before has made the realization that maybe role-playing charater generation isn't taht far off of the real world =)
pixel.
People see the world as they are, not as it is.
I'm sick of the labelling. I'm sick of saying that geeks are autistic, that we're super-intelligent but socially inept. I'm sick of having the legions of psychologists say that we all have ADD or ADHD. All of it is a coverup - the truth is we think. It's that simple! Because we think, we are different, and because we are different we are ejected from society.
Wake up! Our schools are engaged in an intensive effort to weed out geeks and outcasts. Our politicians are shouting for additional controls and monitoring of us. All eyes are on us. We are under attack! Fear, fire, foes, awake!
--
I think Thom Yorke of Radiohead -- unquestionably a brilliant musical genius -- qualifies in this category. His social skills, at least in an interview context, are downright bizarre. I hope he never changes!
You'll get no argument from me that the current public educational system is lacking when it comes to educating the best and the brightest, and I think that extends generally from elementary school to college. I spent a large amount of my time in school frustrated at the snail's pace and lack of challenge. But having now taught classes myself, I realize the primary problem teachers face - how do you address the needs of *all* students when their skills vary? If you have two or three extremely intelligent students who get it at once and twenty or thirty others who don't, how can you set a pace that everyone can learn by? And we all know what happens - in most cases you end up sacrificing the needs of the smart kids, because you can slow them down while you can't speed up the slow ones...
My point? Smart kids acting out on their boredom accomplishes nothing constructive (unless they find sitting in the principal's office to be more interesting than sitting in class).
This was posted on slashdot 14 days ago...
/article.pl?sid=99/09/13/1223215&mode=thread
http://slashdot.org
If they (the psych community) starts labeling it a condition or syndrome, I'm not going to be very happy. Remember what happened to the homosexual community when they started becoming more main stream, there were those (and still are) that feel they can "cure" it. Why can't we just get along (pun intended) and realize there are not hard lines only broad grey ones.
-- Moondog
The article didn't seem like it was so much "promoting" autism/Asperger's syndrome, it was more promoting being original and explaining Asperger's syndrome. I think promoting originality is always the best course but I can see the media pushing Asperger's syndrome on the populace as the "cause" of geekiness, like being a geek is some sort of abnormality. The end of the article talked about not looking to cure geek kids but looking at the rate at which drugs are being prescribed to "cure" supposedly hyper-active kids nowadays, I can see this happening.
This looks like a chicken-and-egg discussion. Are computer geeks autistic, which leads to their particular skills and lacks, or do their natural choices and desires lead them to their skills and lacks which make them appear autistic.
For instance I do not think that I am autistic or that I fall under the true parameters of "Asperger's Syndrome", but of course there are some similarities.
Normal or above-average IQ: nearly all people who are good with computers are intelligent. I only scores 1480 on the silly SAT, so probably I'm not a 'genius' but maybe I fall to 'above-average'.
Savantism: Studying computers with disregard for all else will lead to something like this, but for instance people like Bruce Perens can carry on intelligent discussions on a range of topics from computers (of course) to economics and even genetics.
Lacking human empathy: The current generation of computer people grew up in dark rooms and late night university computer labs, so of course they could be lacking in certain skills. But the people currently studying computers seem to have a much better handle on the empathy thing, and so I think this 'autism-geek' thing will pass.
Excellent Rote Memory: of course a computer geek will have this trait, after all, how many times do you have to look up the T568A and B cat-5 wiring schemes before you have it remembered? Much of computer knowledge is rote knowledge, this is why 'computer technology' is at the same time a good field and a lousy one, you can simply learn a lot of facts and find a job, even without actually understanding the principles and theory like a computer scientist would.
Fascination with fantasy worlds and arcane facts: I'll admit it, sure. But then again that is a description of my generation of computer people, not so much as current 'geeks' as a whole. I run into undergraduates every day who haven't read Tolkien or Heinlein, etc.
Facility with Math and/or Science: I won't touch this. Math is a fundamental requirement to really understanding computer science, and thus to be a geek you have to learn lots of math.
Physical awkwardness/funny gait: I play about every sport imaginable. I'm not really good at any but I don't feel awkward. I've been told my 'walk is unique' and have been recognised by it, but I think that has more to do with growing up in a rural area where I walked a lot that being autistic.
Before I make this post any longer, I'll add that I think all this geek-autism thing just seems like your standard stereotype. It fits pretty well for a lot of people, and fits horribly for a lot of people. And, as the next generation of world-savvy geeks rises up and shows what can happen when computers are mainstream and not something relegated to the post-midnight hours on college campuses, we'll see this geek-autism connection fall.
of course my seriously mis/under-informed opinion.
i am sam i am.
burn the computers. go back to the abacus.
The interesting thing about Haldol and similar drugs is that they all seem to improve the patient or make things much worse. They can even reverse their effect over the course of treatment. Dose changes can also bring out these paradoxical effects.
This strikes me as being very similar to hitting the TV to fix the picture. If all else fails, that is sometimes justifiable, but probably nowhere near as often as the drugs are prescribed.
Fuck the draft. Where is Robert Bork. Where is the meat, the groin meat?
Those few who felt no doubts at all probably lacked the intelligence and imagination it takes to see yourself as the victim, or else they were true sociopaths. Doubt what I am saying? Talk at length with your spouse or your 'normal' siblings...
Well, they do say that the First Rule is "Always remember that everybody else is as scared as you are"...
"Be nice, veer left, and never stop thinking" Iain Banks - Walking On Glass
I know what you mean ... I feel like school was a total waste of time for me. I knew reading and writing before I got there, learned everything else mainly from reading constantly and wasted 10 or 11 years in boring, humiliating torture at public schools.
Juln
but I still was able to get through college and get a good job even though my high school councelors suggested that I not take science in college....hmmm
Remember this...no eternal reward will forgive us now for wasting the dawn....(jim morrison)
Bruce, do some research, OK? Careful with the judgement calls. ;)
The net is a boon for the 'way of being' known as autism/Asperger's. We (I speak for myself and some others) do not cope well with disruptions of our mental 'flow'. We can lock into really hardcore degrees of concentration that lift eyebrows, but it's like jet-lag to be distracted or derailed from this pressured focus.
I'm gonna ask, how many geeks work and geek out at night? How many do it so intensely that they have trouble managing normal sleep schedules and tend to consistently stay up until dawn or later?
I do, and I know some of the reasons why I 'jack in' to my net data sources so intensely at night. It's because there's no other stimulus going on, and no likelihood of being distracted and derailed, and this has everything to do with my having Asperger's.
That said, net data is a very _narrow_ bandwidth. It's language- Asperger's people are very _very_ good at language, so that's no trouble- it's accessible at one's own pace, and you control its flow.
Now, contrast this with the social thing. I've studied enough that I can get a sense of what I'm missing here- for years it was just like I was on Mars, or _from_ Mars, and I had no idea. I'll illustrate with a next-door neighbor thing...
I'm hanging out with Foo. I've always been able to do that- one on one is OK, not too much of a strain. Suddenly, Bar and Baz come over. I like Bar but not Baz, Foo likes Baz but not Bar, and I owe Baz money while Bar is trying to get me to program something for him and is being extra nice. As a side note, Foo hates people being wheedling and whiny. That's the terrain (and shockingly simplified, really.)
In the next fifth of a second, Bar's eyebrows will go up as he looks at me, and Foo's mouth will tighten, while Baz's mouth will also tighten in sympathy, but not as much. Given that Bar is probably going to wheedle me while in Foo's territory, what is the likelihood of me getting yelled at, and what degree of attention and priority should I give to Foo, Bar and Baz?Discuss.
Normal people do this all the time. It's a form of intelligence or perhaps instinct that the majority of people have very well developed. They spend huge amounts of time in social situations this complex or more so, effortlessly decoding and computing their reactions as easily as I decide to use a series of overlaying tiled heightmaps based on series of primes in a program... and to me and to other sufficiently autistic people, this is just as incomprehensible as my coding would be to them.
This is what 'social' means in practice. Talking to people with language online through text is different. There is nothing that says that autistic people hate communicating- it's just that if the average social thing is _that_ hard to do, how surprising is it that autistic people can't deal with it? Also we tolerate solitude a lot better than most people- another hidden advantage.
Bruce, you're great, you rule- your help with the Corel thing was terrific. Please don't take the wrong step here. You don't know the whole story, and very likely you don't have to- if you aren't autistic, trust me, you don't want it- it's too different and your life would be unrecognizably different, incomprehensibly so. However, 'we' are as much autistic as we are not- there is no requirement, but the nature of computerdom _draws_ the autistic, and those with Asperger's, because it is a mode of being in which our strengths can shine and our limitations are not so relevant.
Please do not say 'we (computer geeks) are not autistic'. Without meaning the slightest harm you are walling off a whole class of people who are mostly not well equipped to speak up for their own rights. My own sporadic outbursts draw more from adeptness with written language and a lasting fascination with the subject. I suggest that if you haven't studied it as seriously, then you might be well qualified to speak on computers and geeks and open source, but you may have no particular qualifications on specifically geek autism.
Being autistic is both alienating and alienated, but you have to understand that it's not a conscious pose or act of rebellion- it is the product of great difficulty in handling the horrendously overwhelming flow of nonverbal signals and balances of personality in interpersonal communications.
I'll talk to my next door neighbors- on _my_ turf, where I can act from a position of ease and ability. If my neighbors had computers and AOL and wanted to come over and talk about the latest Microsoft active web technologies, I'd be just as inadequate as if they were talking hockey or Spice Girls. Their being acquainted with computers would _not_ make them a person like me, or make me able to interact on their level...
Check out the book Distress (I think) by Greg Egan. Autistic people have a different view of the world that 'normal' people consider deficient. In Distress autistic people have formed a pressure group arguing that their view of the world is just as valid as anyone else's - if not superior.
http://www.latimes.com/CNS_D AYS/990927/t000086706.html
That original URL was insanely long when I was trying to send it to a friend through email...
If your high school councelors were so smart, they wouldn't be high school councelors.
We've already got it, baby!
/\ X | O M
Most autistics never speak without expensive and time consuming treatment(see www.cdso.org and www.autism.com for more info). Access to this treatment varies widely from location to location.
The number of autistics is rising, and according to some sources there is a correlation of autism with a father who is and engineer or accountant.
The researcher Ivar Lovaas in his 1996 speech at the FEAT conference on autism noted that a high proportion of "giants of civilization" came from children who manifested symptoms of autism early on but recovered to some degree.
There is no generally accepted operational definition of "autism" used as a basis for establishing testable hypotheses and reproducible results. In general, medical science has not yet seriously addressed "autism". While not as bad as "mental health" the study and treatment of "autism" is bad in terms of the per-capita expenditures relative to what is actually known.
Seastead this.
I am afraid your ego's are driving you to the wrong conclusions. Your personal definition of intelligence is what is wrong, you may be content typing tar -xvf bla.tar, configure --help, make... Or making yet another file manager, circuit simulator, etc, but you arent innovating beyond the conventional, I dont think you are the ones working with rotoxane, or force-feedback nano-manipulators, no you just talk about them, much like a sports fan talks about football...
I think, by the current standards, a geek is on par with a sports fan, only he watches technology evolve, only he doenst have much of an effect on the development of that technology.
Linux is great, but making a POSIX operating system is not innovation, QNX, or eCOS, are both innovations, AEGIS is an innovation, Linux is a grunt implementation of a standard...
We are both alienating and alienated, but not autistic.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
The full story is recounted in "Uncle Sam Doesn't Need You!" in Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
True enough. I can't understand how Limp Bizkit and Kid Rock or whatever are getting so much airplay.
...And don't even get my started on Backstreet Boys.
*sigh*
(goes back to his Nine Inch Nails and SMG)
- Darchmare
- Axis Mutatis, http://www.axismutatis.net
- Jeff
There is some fascinating speculation going on these days that the well-known stereotype of the computer geek or nerd may actually be a description of mild autism, especially a form of autism known as Asperger's syndrome. Unlike classic autism, which often involves mental retardation and a lack of verbal skills, Asperger's syndrome is at the "high functional" end of the spectrum of autistic behavior, experts say. People with Asperger's syndrome have normal or above-average IQs and may even display savantism, or exceptional abilities in a specific skill. What they lack is human empathy, a deficiency sometimes called "mind-blindness, "which shows up as a distinct inability to read routine human nonverbal cues of attitude such as kindness, anger or love.
Good grief! I guess this explains Columbine, doesn't it - a bunch of those unfeeling geeks gone berserk. This sort of propaganda is usually reserved for when you want to dehumanise the enemy during a war.
I would rather think of the "mild autism" attributes as features rather than bugs! Maybe that's because I see some of them in myself.
That was a good analogy about black people being derided for "acting white" because they don't fall into the stereotypical activities -- speaking hoodrat slang (please don't say ebonics...it's so acedemic), wearing baggy pants, etc.
You're right. People should get to know someone before making judgements. I think people lose out by not opening their minds. Whenever I meet a cutie, I time her on the inevitable "What do you do for a living?" If it happens within the first half hour, I know that I have to end the conversation gracefully and exit the scene. I much prefer it when they ask "so...what interests you?"
Hates people who have stupid little sigs
I'm the only one in a high school of 1,600 that runs linux. I also am on the swim team and I'm not tooting my own horn but I'm damn good for a season swimmer. I use to be able to bench 175, that was :)
when I weighed 140, I think I can do pretty close to that now. However I weigh ten pounds more because of those damn summer munchies.
I also smoke weed religously. So their you go, I use linux, I'm athletic and I love drugs!
Yep.
Despite popularly 'correct' opinion, many stereotypes have a grain of truth in them.
Some are firmly based in truth. It will be left as an exercise to the reader which ones fall in this category.
- Darchmare
- Axis Mutatis, http://www.axismutatis.net
- Jeff
Of course, what ever toots your horn is fine. Me, I like a little peace every so often (take off and wander, leave the beeper/cell phone at home).
----
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
So what is your malfunction if you like "geek" stuff, such as computers, fantasy games etc yet you can catch a pass or run a 4.7 sec 40 and bench press more than your own wieght. Typical jocks look at you as a nerd. Geeks think you enjoy your sweating to much. Cruel world.
what's the difference between edison and your avg. pop star? he had the same concerns: making as much money as possible, ripping off customers and workers, and scamming off other people's pioneering work. you know the obvious comparison, so instead, i'll give you this one: paula abdul. love you all!!! xxx smooch!
Bollocks.
If people were allowed to home-school, in twenty years we'll have a significant proportion of kids who have never heard about Evolution. Not that don't believe on it, but that haven't even been given the chance to hear about it. And not only evolution, but whole tracts of science, politics and history will dissapear from many people's education. We'd have all over the country the Kansas situation, but cubed.
The school system is far from perfect, but it's infinitely better than the lack of it. With all its flaws, at least it gives kids the chance to learn...
"Be nice, veer left, and never stop thinking" Iain Banks - Walking On Glass
I have severe dyselxia. However I feel that many children who are being put in various Special-Ed programs or on Ritalin drug therapy are there because teachers are lazy! There are many teachers who do not want to have to deal with children who have special needs. Or in some cases there is a considerable financial incentive to label students as such. At one private school they hired a special ed. teacher. She went on to establish herself and create a department onto itself by 'recruitment'. Only after 80% of the student body had been declared learning disabled did they stop her. She needed to have students who had 'disabilities'. It did not matter that they were the vast majority of students had no problems, it was so easy to tag them with labels. The other teachers went totally along with it since they could get certified rather easily and make more $$$ as special ed. This makes me mad that children had to suffer being labeled and drugged. I think this is severe child abuse and endagerment, something that DOES RUIN THEM for LIFE. I however have the real deal. What I would recommend for people whose children have a serious problem is Acupuncture! I have been given ritalin therapy and acupuncture blows it out of the water. I say with all honesty that it works for some of the symptoms that we suffer from. However if school is boring we will misbehave because we are bored. If you want to try this acupuncture treatment out, go to an elderly (60+ years old) Chinese acupuncturist who barely speaks English {and uses brand new sterilized needles} /* Not trying to be racist or anything but some white guy who goes to acupuncture school for 4+ years or whatever can NEVER compete against some Chinese professor who has been teaching at Shanghai Traditional College of Medicine for 40+ years - Shanghai TCM is considered the best!!!!!!! */... other types of acupuncturists will not be able to do it. Also you have to do it regularly since the effects diminish over 3-4 days (in my case). After I get it done my dyslexia goes down tremendously!!!!!!!!! This REALLY works. Unlike ritalin there is no side effects! If you do not like it the first 3 times then just stop and you lost a bit of money. But give it at least a chance. For me it has been pretty much miraculous! Ritalin is very very effective for me but I hate it. The acupuncture is MUCH MUCH BETTER!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am writing this not to make money or plug anyone. Just trying to help people who suffer like me!!!!!!!!!
look at how easily you'all get swayed by some half-brained news article; this article doesn't claim to be scientifically credible, moreover all theories mentioned there are just this, theories. for all im concerned, you people running after labels and tags could start yr own International Party of Geex, and maybe i wud vote for you, but it is shallow to just tag and categorize people *there is no geek gene*. you are too proud to think that if they preserve yr dna your clone will be a geek too. grow up for ggodz'ssake, arghh! haven't we already trusted enough those mental theories; there are so many these days (which ever makes it to the news, wins) alex;
If obsessing over Magic, Star Trek and Linux is a sign of "genius," bring on the idiots.
There were a whole group of us at my high school a couple years ago - we were talking to each other constantly. And not the boring stuff teens are stereotyped for talking about, full of 'like's and repetetive smalltalk and meaningless banter. We constantly jumped from one interesting idea to the next, frequently immersing ourselves in imprompteau projects such as designing a triangle version of chess or a labor-saving gadget.
There was alot of spontaneous talk revolving around cosmology, origins of species, and even number theory. We would just get into this mode where we would intensely focus on something just like the article says we can - but not by ourselves. We can focus intently on something as a group.
As far as communication skills, I'd like to see so-called 'normal' people write ANYTHING at the level of discussions we often have online (by this I mean our geeky discussion forums in general. Slashdot, being big, has both extremes.)
--
grappler
Vidi, Vici, Veni
for get geeks and pop stars. what I want is my own heidi klum and i am sure other people will too. So what the world needs more of is supermodels(duh-- what else would be logical?)
as far as i can see it here, you all people are actually doing just fine; what is your little problem, ohh you aren't too sensitive or something, you think too much? don't you realize that the problem as such doesn't really exist? besides all this being a mere theory, you must have your own opinion about your condition, but why are you so fast to flock together in a nerd-herd, c'mon give everybody a chance, just because you didn't get to play with the kids in the yard in yr early teens doesn't mean you're a lesser being. we are all over it now. Go, embarquez on this trip/trend, this is can't hurt
This study caused a stir in the homosexual community because there is a double-edged quality to such a biological marker (assuming it's accurate.) On one hand, many anti-discrimination laws are based on biologically defined qualities such as race, sex, and age. Having a biological definition of homosexuality would give more weight to people trying to get homosexuality included in anti-discrimination laws since it would defeat the argument that homosexuality is a "deviant choice."
On the other hand, many people are afraid of having a biological marker. For example, parents might abort a fetus known to carry that marker. Or it could be part of one's medical record and potentially visible to one's employer, insurer, etc.
Since the Nazis, there has been a stigma against research associating biological qualities with social ones. These two studies (among others) suggest that this stigma is decreasing. That, to me, is the most interesting thing about this article.
Physical awkwardness/funny gait
;)
Ahem. My final year in college I was on the intramural championship football team when we beet the ROTC frat. Half the linemen were CS, the running backs usually business, and the QB was a math major. And I still trip over my own feet daily.
Besides that...
I believe that the article may be describing the "Geek Walk" which is the strange ability of (some) geeks to walk on the balls of their feet without their heels ever touching the ground. They kind of bounce along on their toes. It is quite funny when the geek in question has a cowlick 'cuase it bounces all over the place.
I personally have seen this many many many times. And I do feel that there is a direct correspondance to the severeity of the "Geek Walk" and the amount of pure genius the geek has. =)
When I was younger I trained myself to stop walking like this. Does that mean that i am now less of a geek?
Sig:
Barbeque is a noun. Not a verb.
Well, I can't think of any Edisons, but there are a few pop star geeks....:
Tom Scholz(excellent guitarist of Boston) was an engineer and certifiable geek (Mechanical Engineering, MIT)
before he hit it big, and has subsequently engineered a lot of cool sounding musical gear.
Tommy Tutone ("Jenny Jenny, etc...867-5309") is a software engineer.
I'm sure there must be others. Can anyone name some others?
Elvis Costello--A former computer programmer before becoming a musician. Has a very geeky appearance, no doubt.
Thomas Dolby--80's musician with hits like "She Blinded Me With Science" and primary developer of the Beatnik audio plugin.
Devo--Turned geekiness into a fad in the early 80's.
I am not hung-up on 'normal', I think it is more of a curse than a blessing in this world and the one of the future -- I'm definitely looking forward to what our Thomas is going to do as he grows.
thad
I love Mondays. On a Monday, anything is possible.
"Skipping class like everyone else, trying to prove you weren't interested in classes"
That sucks man. It is a STUPID culture where you have to pretend to be stupid.
At least the schools where I'm from, if you're smart, you're smart. Just a few of the "Erectus" types may cause a few problems (anyway one of those psycho teachers usually whips them into line), but at least our "normals" respected the smart ones. Being smart or knowing more was respected. Being good at something (athletics etc) was respected.
Your school culture probably headed that way when you had those "airhead" types who said that "Everybody is good", "We must make everybody feel good about themselves - even though they suck". "We mustn't say/show even indirectly A is smarter than B (even though that is true)". Lack of respect for truth and objectivity.
Heck, if you produce crap, it should be called crap. And if you produce something good, then by all means call it good.
So what about the tyranny of tests. Exams are NOT supposed to help you learn something. They are just to prove that you CAN learn something - so what if it's useless - everything is useless if you take a certain point of view. Look at exams as 100 metre races. Useless? Useful? They both can be useful if _used_properly_.
If you run 100 metres in 10 secs, call it great. If you run it in 40 secs call it crap. Kids HAVE to be taught that there are such concepts like "good and bad". That helps them categorize stuff usefully for our "Real World". You can't tell them that everybody is good even though some slacker decided to walk the 100 metres instead. At worst say "Good effort, but results not good enough".
If you don't teach them those concepts, don't grumble "nowadays kids don't know good from bad".
Hmm nevermind, if you keep that culture, the rest of us in other countries would be so much more competitive.
Cheerio,
Link.
I really appreciate your comments but I have no idea why you posted them in response to my post. Nowhere in my post did I disparage people with Asperger's syndrome in any way, nor did I go to great lengths to say I wasn't like some geeks who have Asperger's. I agree with you that people in certain groups have a tendency to want to be excluded from any and all categorizations that they don't feel fit them. I was trying to convey my feeling that by saying there is some sort of possible root cause to being a geek, there are some who try hard to "fix" that cause. Just as parents now seem to think that medicating away any sign of hyper-activity is good parenting, we could see a possible anti-Asperger's pill being perscribed to parents who see what they percieve as "geeky" qualities in their children. I agree with everything you said in your post, I did not mean to cause offense.
Also, if someone proved Asperger's was the root cause of "geeky" qualities I'd have to say I didn't exactly fit the profiles I've seen but I'd take the diagnosis and go on with my life.
I've never been good with math. I didn't discover computers 'till college. I'm an English major who can't code anything beyond HTML. I can't read people's emotions. I've always been a loner. Am I a geek?
Sure I am. Before I discovered computers, I discovered the library (before they got internet access). I used to spend hours wandering through the stacks, reading random books. When you think about it, The internet is just an enormous library.
I'm also a musician. In high school, I was a "band geek".
There are Physics Geeks, Sports Geeks, Art Geeks, Literature Geeks, History Geeks, the list goes on and on. What really makes a geek is an unquenchable desire for knowlege about something.
Put my clarinet beneath your bed 'till I get back in town.
"Rocking" Bill Gates viewed as one of the "smartest" people in America? Yikes!.. We don't need more of one (inventors) or another (artists).. (if anything, just fewer stoopid lawyers and politians:)
http://www.jaymuggs.demon.co.uk/bishop.htm
In talking of an autistic continuum, we imply a single dimension, in which a condition such as Asperger's syndrome constitutes a milder form of the same underlying disorder that is seen in autism. However, clinical accounts suggest that conditions resembling autism do not differ just in terms of severity, but also in pattern of symptoms.
Thus the label Asperger's syndrome is typically applied to clumsy children with circumscribed interests, whose early language development is not delayed, and who may have a verbal IQ well above performance IQ (Wing, 1981). In contrast, language-impaired children fitting the picture of semantic-pragmatic disorder typically first present with delayed language development and evident comprehension problems, and have a marked IQ discrepancy in favour of performance IQ.
if i had to become 'normal' and non-autistic, (if that is what indeed causes me to seek out thinking, introspective individuals from 'fratish' dumbasses) then leave me alone! if its not broken dont fix it, i like myself and i like who i associate with.
Edison may have given us the light bulb, but without some artistic and imaginative minds, how would we ever have Christmas lights, disco lights, chandeliers, etc.? It would be pretty sad if we only had plain light bulbs with simple on/off switches.
Likewise, the geeks may have given us the internet, but the imaginative and creative people have provided most of the content for it (news and sports columns, movie reviews, downloadable Southpark episodes, music files, porn, etc.).
Geeks and such scientific people may have given us the means to live on this planet with six billion people, but the more human humans actually give us a reason for living.
I wonder if the behavior that this article describes might not be an evolutionary step in the making... homosuperior or something?
Think about it - all indications of evolutionary momentum shows that our brains are going to continue to grow, and it's the frontal lobes, not the lizard-brain core that is growing.
Maybe we're all going to end up a little more savant-style (as well as a lot more asian) in the future. Hmmm... Sounds a lot like the little grey men archtype, doesn't it? Before long we'll be coming back to earth to pick up Richard Dreyfuss at Devil's Tower!
In my experience (and I've been around some very smart people), extreme intelligence very seldom comes without any strings attached. It seemed that most hightly intelligent people I met/meet are either socially or otherwise different than what's generally considered normal.
... sometimes I'm glad I'm average/normal.
Maybe that is the price of genious. You achieve great heights in one (or a few) things, but pay for by missing some very day-to-day 'talents' everybody else pretty much has.
Maybe this is a good thing. Great skill at something seems to require specialization (or at least extended learning) at the expense of other areas. Would you rather be average at a lot of things or brilliant at one or two and pay for that brilliance with other defects? Before you answer the question hastily, consider examples such as Mozart (died very young and impoverished), Stephen Hawking (suffers from MS) or Giordano Bruno (who simply held views not agreeable to the catholic church and thus was burned as a heretic)
So you have a disorder that has an amazing number of common personality quirks associated with it, and really, nothing that is all that unusal. That in itself promotes a little uncertainty in me about how good the research on the syndrome is....but then actually putting it on print that maybe a good number of geeks have this syndrome...now that's a bold statement.
I find a serious lack of connection in the article. From the people with Asperger's syndrome don't pick up on non-verbal emotional cues in person to person communication to And boy, are these people apt to play with technology. I can see there might be a connection with "these people are more likely to preffer more concrete forms of communication, like e-mail, or letter writing", but author failed to convince me of his point that Asperger's makes for a good geek, and that they are all around. Please correct me if I read it wrong.
- Dan
My sister has a more severe case and probable isn't employable. She has good language skills but lost math somewhere around learning about zero. So I don't think being a programmer is a possability for her.
Because, of the strange test behavior(high IQ) they didn't know what to do with her. So they gave her Haldol and hoped she would be quiet. I hope they can find better treatments.
cool I like edison even more. I always thought he was a wimp.
I'm technical. I have a bad hair cut. I drool. I wear an anorak. I live with my mum at the age of 40. I wear cardigans and slippers. Im a virgin. I once saw a girl. I find outside world frightening and too bright. I talk at 300 buad. and my name is aiwa.
"Follow your weird, ladies and gentlemen. Forget trying to pass for normal. Follow your geekdom. Embrace your nerditude."
"You may be a geek, you may have geek written all over you; you should aim to be one geek they'll never forget. Don't aim to be civilized. Don't hope that straight people will keep you on as some kind of pet. To hell with them; they put you here. You should fully realize what society has made of you and take a terrible revenge. Get weird. Get way weird. Get dangerously weird. Get sophisticatedly, thoroughly weird and don't do it halfway, put every ounce of horsepower you have behind it. Have the artistic *courage* to recognize your own significance in culture!"
(from "The Wonderful Power of Storytelling" From the Computer Game Developers Conference, March 1991, San Jose CA)
This reminds me of something..
According to my (little) knowledge about IQ-tests, they were written especially with "number-intelligence" in mind (ie. spot the pattern-type of tests). This would rank anyone that is bad at maths as a "vegetable". Unfair? - Yes!
Didn't Douglas Coupland mention something like this in Microserfs? I think he referred to it as Dyspraxia.
When I was in elementary and middle school, I was unfortunate enough to be placed in the 'gifted' program. It was condsidered a 'promotion' to better learning/teaching/whatever. In retrospect, I wonder if it was actually an initiative to remove people who thought somewhat differently from the regular population of the school. Although I did get something out of it, learning a little BASIC, I now question the overall effect of such programs. I read a lower post about being an outcast of such a program, and I must confess that I was an outcast within such a program. I never liked it, except for the fact that it got me out of regular school one day a week. The way I saw it, everybody in the 'gifted' program had problems. None of us got along with the normal kids very well. Public school serves one pupose == socialization. If you start to categorize kids, even that gets screwed up == screwed up kids.
I got this diagnos and it fits me perfect... I have no problem hanging on slashdot/icq/irc for hours, but meeting people in real live is plain difficult... when there are about 2-4 people it's okay but are there more people it's hard to "_hear_ between the lines" because I dont catch body language automatically, I have to compare every one's body language in my own dbase to match their expression to a attitude. when there is 2 persons and a given subject to communicate about it's no problem, but are their >5 persons or social chitchat than it's impossible to interact efficient more then say 5 minutes and i get very tired and restless. On the net you dont have to care about body language, it is not there. take knol take@lysator.liu.se
The Linux community has created an entire operating system that has big corporations shaking in thier boots solely through communication channels such as the internet and yet they are considered socially enept. Does socially enept mean that you don't hang out with Pot-Heads, and football stars and other such "cool" people. Just because our friends are people that share our interests doesn't mean we don't have friends.
And as far as this whole geek word stuff is concerned it is very annoying. You can't turn on ZDTV without some caller calling in and saying "Hey guys I figured out how the 'Start' menu on Windows 95 works, I'm a geek now! Hooray. duh-heee!" I find it odd that I could practically train a chimp to USE Win95, but not even MS technical support can tell us why it won't work. The problem is like my .sig says, Yeah, Linux is a bit harder to learn, but when you do learn it you KNOW it. If something goes wrong you have the fundamental knowledge required to diagnose it. The super ease of use that Windows provides IMHO is now necessarily a good thing because I for one believe that everyone should know how to fix there computer without having to spend $45 just to have technical support help them when the thing gets stuck in safe mode. (A real life incident that happened to a neighbor.) Aww well, I guess the less the users know and the more the company's tell them they are now "geeks" the more money the tech support people can make. I just wish that the average user would realise the connection.
Maybe I'm being premature but from reading /. it almost seems now that geeks drive important sectors of the economy and the media's instructing people to think that technology is cool, geeks are sort-of switching social polarity and getting very self-obsessed about defining their identity...
:) and have social problems for reasons completely unrelated to their intelligence. They *seem* especially clever because they use their intelligence, and that's something to be even more proud of than having extra IQ in the first place. Re the comment that geeks are outsiders because they think, I understand that. Anyone who thinks too much in this society is an outsider, but don't forget that you don't have to own a computer and run Linux, or even be interested in science to think.
I've heard this attitude that geeks are misunderstood geniuses, with social problems for XYZ reasons. IMO the truth is that most geeks are slightly above-average intelligence (just smart enough to use Linux
I believe many people would be happy if there was a cure. If not for the ability to communicate more freely, but because of the situations you encounter in everyday life. Even ordinary geeks that display some of the symptoms without having the actual disease are going though sheer hell being bullied in school and misunderstood elsewhere.
"The good die first." "Most of us are morally ambiguous, which explains our random dying patterns." --- MST3K
I'm not complaining about being labeled 'geek' or 'nerd'. Some geeks or nerds might even show some of these signs (but we all new that Bill Gates was crazy). I'm complaining first about being labeled at all. Second, that not all of this is true: I can see things faster than every 6 seconds (c'mon how many geeks play (and win at) doom), so I'm clumsy and have an awkward gait? I finished second when we ran in gym today. I cant clap simple rythms? sorry, I don't have time to awnser that, I am playing in a concert for tonight and need to get ready (top orchestra too! :-))
Evolution is based on survival of the fittest. Survival meaning growing up and managing to have kids of your own before you croak. Nowadays there is no survival of the fittest, nearly everyone survives. Evolution is not some mysterious force that mutates genes for the better and never for the worse. The only thing that is going to ensure the continued development of the human race is genetic engineering. Either that or some huge catastrophe that sets things back to where you actually do have to be fit to survive.
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
... I think we are in need of more rock stars than geeks right now.
The rock star genre is definitely hurting right now, and there has never been a better time for geeks.
I just wanted to say that couldn't agree more :)
thats all
This sort of thing is the kind of pop-science which drives wedges between members of society. This kind of "thinking" is what reinforces the stereotypes that leads "geeks" to believe that they are some kind of uebermenchen, and everyone else to believe "we" are arrogant technocrats who have little concern for other humans.
Like any priesthood, the technocrats wish to justify their reified position and protect them/us from the "unwashed masses". This kind of
psychobabble is being supported by a resurgent popularity in the pseudosciences of eugenics and biometric racism/classism, all in an effort (spoken or unspoken, conscious or unconscious) to justify the disparity in wealth and privledge which has emerged in the supposedly egalitarian, meritocratic, and democratic Western European style socioeconomic systems.
This sort of nonsense is a prelude to the sort of society, envisioned by such astute thinkers as Aldous Huxley, George Orwell, Philip K. Dick, and others in their various speculative fiction works, in which biological justifications are given for various forms of social manipulation, and social justifications are given for various forms of biological manipulation.
Go back and read some historical accounts of early 20th century biological racism (the book _The Legacy of Malthus_ is a good start), in the United States, Europe, and Japan, and see the parallels between these early works and current treatises such as _The Bell Curve_ and articles such as the one mentioned which put forth scientifically unsound theories on why one group or another is biologically predisposed to some superior status.
Shrouding high intelligence in a cloak of psychological mystery by portraying it as a disorder is an old trick (ask any artist), and it helps reinforce the distinction between the "normal" and the "abnormal" which helps keep intelligence in-check when necessary, and also helps keep "normals" resigned to stupid labors because they believe themselves to be biologically inferior.
At the highest levels of power, the tables are turned again on the intelligentsia, and claims are made that one must have "innate leadership ability" and "emotional intelligence" in order to be a true leader, and this is something which the highly intelligent are declared to have a biological predisposition *against*. Thus, the intelligentsia are wedged in-between the "normals" and the "true leaders" as a biological glass ceiling and handy store of scapegoats.
The scientific age has replaced the divine right of kings with a pseudoscientific justification of class heirarchy based on translating biostatistics directly into a blueprint for predicting individual behavior. We can then say that meritocracy exists, and works just fine, but that most of you are too stupid to take advantage of it...
How convenient...
o/~ we are pissed, we are pissed, we have to resist... o/~ - ec8or
It's really kind of sad that there is this stereotype that says if someone is intelligent and interested in scientific or technical things, then they are a social outcast with no ability to interact with others. Nothing could be further from the truth. While there are people out there like that, there are just as many people who have absolutely no interest in anything technical but who couldn't get a date from a calendar.
I personally believe that this whole business about "geeks" having some disorder or another whether it be autism or ADD or what have you, is socio-politically motivated. You take the best and brightest and any among them who you cannot control you label as defective. It's really very simple. Educators are the pawns of those who control the society. They want people who do what they are told and think what they are told to. Someone like me who laughs at them and tells them where to go is a threat. So they reach into a hat and pull out a diagnosis for a condition that I'm now supposed to have. You wouldn't believe the things they tried to tell me growing up. The only thing they couldn't say, at least not with a straight face, was that I was stupid. I was told I had ADD when I didn't. I was told I had a learning disorder when I was always one of the top three students in any class. I was told I had problems with basic skills when that was demonstrably false. I never really listened to any of it. I knew they were full of it and putting on a show, I just didn't realize why at the time. I think they thought that if they could convince me I was defective then I would try to be what they wanted me to in order to prove I wasn't. Psychological warfare is always facinating.
"Microsoft, the bugs go in before the name goes on."
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
In reading this article and discussion, i note that many of the dislikes people are having with the whole thing is that this autism classification is just a stereotype. Yet the poster of the mesasge that this is a response to completely contradicts the idea that stereotypes are not a good thing by being stereotypical. "fratish dumbasses" specifically being the contradiction. just my opinion.
Much of this is old news, but I noticed the article discussed one area that could offer some fun things in the future. There seems to be some bitter disagreement between those who see each syndrome as a unique, discreet and well-defined description of what is happening and those who think that each person's personality has a number of characteristics that can vary widely. For the second group, there is only a problem when those characteristics become sufficiently pronounced in a particular area to cause problems. Clearly gifted folks with some of the characteristic behaviors of Asperger's syndrome hardly are the same as a severely withdrawn child with a case of autism. The argument comes about whether it makes sense to consider the wide range of variation together in one place or consider each cluster separately without regard to similarities that other personalities may exhibit.
I understand each side and I generally agree with the spectrum of traits folks. I find that it is very difficult to get a person who thinks that all personality types and disorders are well-defined to comprehend, let alone agree with the spectrum of traits folks. Once they have heard a diagnosis, they map their understanding of the syndrome onto the child and treat them that way.
For kids, this can be a huge problem. If they have a smart teacher who is told that their learning style is this because they have some of these personality traits, the kids will be taught better than they might have been otherwise. If their teacher needs to pigeonhole them, they will probably suffer a far worse education than if the teacher just thought that the kid was lazy, distracted or disruptive. It can be even more difficult to get a school administration to avoid pigeonholes. They seldom understand that a talented and gifted program will be an integral part of the special programs that will have to be offered to meet the needs of this student.
If you've read "Enders Shadow", Card describes a curse for being intelligent. Your life span is toast. Bean is 'cursed' to be incredibly intelligent but to get that intelligence he never stops growing - until his body is no longer able to support itself at around age 25. That's a lot worse than being a little ADD or Autistic.
Two noteable exceptions come to mind- Linus Torvalds and Richard Feynman, both known for their personability. The silent (normal) majority are largely ignored.
I agree there is a problem with society in general, a lack of tolerance and understanding, you just have to take a look at the Hellmouth stuff here on /. What we need is to give everyone classes in understanding anothers point of view, and also explaining our points of view, it is difficult for non geeks to grok us at all, if they can better understand, and we can better explain then I think that would be a GOOD THING(TM). Any psychology students out there want to develop some communications strategies, do a project / thesis?
Any sufficiently advanced man is indistinguishable from God
I won't belittle autism - one of my closest friends has an autistic daughter, and I've learned a little bit about what makes her special at the same time as it hurts her. My friend and his wife are raising her wonderfully, and she has a good prognosis to be able to eventually function in society.
That said, it bothers the hell out of me that virtually everything outside of a tiny band of human behavior is now being described as a "syndrome", or a "phobia", or something abnormal. Ausberger's, "Social Phobia", compulsive behavior (not the extreme stuff), hyperactivity - these are, for the most part, all examples of behavior that isn't that far removed from the mainstream, but now they've all been reduced to just another disease, treatable (usually) by Ritalin, Prozac, etc. Differences in behavior are what make humans human, and not some collective Hive-Mind! Again, there are people out there with legitimate, and severe conditions, and I don't want to belittle that, but we've taken it to absurd lengths.
Social phobia my ass! Some people are shy, some are gregarious. Ausberger's - so a lot of hyper-smart people can't relate to the idiots around them - that's a problem? Hyperactivity? That used to be known as "sit down and shut up, or else".
I'm not sure what's right here, but I know the way we're headed is wrong. To continue my rant theme from some of the recent threads I've seen, whatever happened to responsibility? To call all non-standard behaviors "disorders" keeps people from taking responsibility for their behavior and their lives.
Grumble!
- -Josh Turiel
-- Josh Turiel
"2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
How is this off-topic?
:)
From the article...
"we need more edisons, not more pop stars".
Is echoed by the song lyrics I posted, while I also stated that I was glad to be different from normal, much as the article talks about that being the fate of geeks.
I put up with being called a geek all through elementary school, middle school, and high school, and most of college thinking it was because i was poor and brought up quite a bit differently from all my classmates, and not because i actually thought differently because of possibly being slightly autistic. this article made me wonder about a lot of those things and i wrote that i was glad to be different, regardless of the cause. and for that i'm branded off-topic. doesn't make sense to me
burn the computers. go back to the abacus.
I was labeled as Gifted when I went to High school (they actually gave me this WISC-R test to try and prove I was slow, but it backfired because the result came back that I was actually a Genius, and just too bored to bother doing homework)
Anyways,
I was in this special "Gifted" group all through high-school, and I noticed a thing or two. Many of the "socially Inept" people were typically really lopsided in there abilities (Math brainiacs, but couldn't string a sentance together, in the literary sense) but there was a large number of us in the class that actually had very high aptitudes across the board (Math, logic, pattern-recognition, verbal, written, hand-eye co-ordination, etc.) and while there were milder "spikes" in their various skilsets, many of these people were very well adjusted, and quite popular in school (even with the "gifted" albatros around the neck).
I'm not sure linking computer saavy with "geek-autism" is neccesarily the answer. It might have been early on, with the "Mega-spike" geniuses, but as the world gets more and more computerized, and the "overall" geniuses start moving into IT jobs, (which they are) then this seems to be disapearing...
based on over generalization and a poor understanding of psychology. The author basically did not have much too say. What a waste of good electrons....
What we need is not more people like Edison but more like those whom few people have ever heard of -- Cox, Dijkstra, Hoare, Knuth, McCarthy, Stallman, Torvalds, Wirth. Edison was a technologival pop star and prototype for Bill Gates according to this essay.
Edison ripped off most of his 'inventions' what we need is more people like Tesla.
This AC seems to be making a good point.
I might add that it seems people are driven to use their intellegence because they have social problems.
This isn't news really, but it is a well written article. The real interest I have in this is the insistance, even among researchers who should know better, that some people are 'normal' and others deviate from that normalcy in some way. In this case by having a 'mild form of Asperger's syndrome'. One scientist mentioned in the article even goes so far as to discount the idea on the basis of the fact we Geeks are not horribly impaired. Meaning we are normal I guess...
So, just what is normal? I used to wonder that a lot when I was a kid, because I knew for a fact I wasn't 'normal'. I even wondered if I smelled different from everyone else in some way, although the truth was simply that I could not socialize in the same manner other kids did -- and had an intuitive understanding of math, could read at a college level and had a better volcabulary than my teachers. These simple facts were enough to isolate me; an isolation so common among geeks that we have already discussed it at length here on /.
The thing is, I have come to understand that none of the other kids were 'normal' either! They were just better at pretending. At picking up the little cues that control flocking behavior in the schoolyard. Inside most of them were wondering the same thing I did, and hoping like hell they didn't have to go through the hazing I lived with on a daily basis. Those few who felt no doubts at all probably lacked the intelligence and imagination it takes to see yourself as the victim, or else they were true sociopaths. Doubt what I am saying? Talk at length with your spouse or your 'normal' siblings...
So, what is normal? Aren't we all really part of a continuum? On the one hand you have highly disfunctional people who cannot even feed themselves and on the other you have highly socialized individuals who -- as they are often lawyers, salesmen, politicians and actors -- don't really contribute that much to society themselves. The rest make up the middle of the bell curve, and those of us blessed with an ability to concentrate to extremes, remember seemingly inconsequential details and avoid wasting time with dumb stuff like style and appearance are the prime movers of the new era.
Geeks of the world unite! You have nothing to loose but your propeller beanies!
More seriously, perhaps the real need here is to avoid discussions of 'normal' versus geek and focus more on ways each person can maximize their effectiveness in the world. For some of us this means computers and programming, our natural skills and inclinations make us good at it. Others are particuarily good hairdressers. We are each born with a mix of talents and abilities that, together, make up our IQ. The really good thing about being a geek, and this I know from personal experience, is that we can actually apply many of the traits that make us what we are to becoming good at the other stuff if we decide it is important enough. I once took the time to seriously study body language, basic psychology and public speaking. Now I have those skills when I need them, even if I choose not to exercize them most of the time...
Jack
- -
Are you an SF Fan? Are you a Tru-Fan?
I just hate wondering how many amazing artists, musicians, programmers, and thinkers, who have had their potential skewed by being given mind-altering drugs as children. The growing dependence of phychiatrist to fix "problems" (anything outside the norm) with drugs is bad. Not to mention extemely hypocritical in our current (US) society.
Remember, alchoholism is a *disease* (that you get from drinking lots and lots of alchohol over a long period of time)
+&x
I assume I'm not the only one here who read through the list of "symptoms" thinking "Yep. That's me. Sounds familiar. Uh-huh." But what's wrong with any of that? Treating an interest in so-called arcane subjects as a psychological disorder could be downright dangerous, especially considering how poorly history is often taught in American high schools. And viewing an excellent rote memory, facility with math and science and an ability to focus on interesting problems for hours at a time as a problem is just plain silly. The short attention span of the typical American teenager is something often critiziced in the media, and now they tell us that it's just as bad, if not worse, to be able to maintain the opposite? As for the more truly negative things mentioned in the article, such as clumsiness, hyperactivity, poor social understanding, hyper-verbal activity but without the ability to make contextual connections in conversations, and an appearance of insensitivity and eccentricity, many of these things don't seem to me to add up to something that would truly cause a person to be considered "sick". Being a little eccentric makes life fun. The only part of Asperger's syndrome that seems truly concerning is the part obout how they (we?) are commonly victims of teasing in school. One needs only to glance at the Hellmouth articles to realize how bad that can get, and that it's not just the students that fail to have any understanding for such people, but teachers and others in positions of authority as well. However, classifying geeks as "mentally ill" just because of interests and abilities beyond the societal norm would only cause more damage than it would set out to prevent.
One of the authors of the "Shadow Syndromes" book -- the start of this whole brouhaha -- is also the author of "Driven to Distraction", a book about ADD. Ratey has ADD himself and is interesting because he sympathetic without being condescending. Having ADD myself, I found him to be the only author to take a sensible view of the matter. Face it, we know we're different; what's being "normal" got to recommend it? Isn't that the same as being "average"? And who wants to be just "average"? And if some of the stuff that makes it hard for other people to get along is the same stuff that gives us our unusual abilities, then big deal. Psychologists are still trying to figure out how the brain is wired. It wouldn't be at all surprising that wiring that causes problems in one situation actually helps in another. Even something as simple as being tall or short can be a help or a hinderance, depending on whether you're playing basketball or doing the limbo. When I researched ADD, I found a lot of things about it that explained features of who I am. Weirdly enough, two of the indicators for this "disability" are high intelligence and high creativity. It's also accompanied by the attention shifts and hyperfocus that are usually what people think about when they speak of ADD. Do I "suffer" from my ADD? Nope, but my wife sometimes does. The bottom line is simple: I'm manging my life and doing just fine, "disability" or not. If it makes feel better that I have a "disability" and you don't, then feel free. But I'm not dropping my billing rate because of it.
===== Murphy's Law is recursive. =====
The root of the problem is that EVERY SINGLE PERSON on the planet is different. There is no such thing as two people who think exactly alike. White guys with shaved heads aren't necessarily racist. Trenchcoats keep people warm, not hateful.
A friend of mine (who is not the most smooth-talking person I know) told me not long after she met me "You know, I thought you were a real geek when I met you, but you're pretty damn cool." Coming from her, that's a compliment. (You have to know her.)Why did she think I was a geek? Well, I use words with more than two syllables. I program computers. I play RPG's. Heck, I'm a raving geek by anyone else's definition. Screw their definitions. And screw people who label me to protect their own rabid insecurities. I am a human being. Maybe I act like a jerk, maybe like a saint. Accept me, or go bother someone else. You don't like what I do? Fine, we can't all have the same opinions or preferences. I promise not to call you a fool for living your pathetic lives around sports you will never play, around Hollywood lives you can never live, around music written for money, not for the love of music.
Who's living in a fantasy world?
"We...are no longer the knights who say 'NI!'"
The article a week or so ago mentioned that the part of the brain that allows for "social" functioning in an autistic person is smaller than that of the average person. I would ahve to say that it does make sense that maybe autism should simply be defined as a non-average distribution of brain functions. Basically, we got 100 points to allocate to our character, and autistics only used 10 towards user interface, and the other 90 went toward processor power. Sound right to you?
People see the world as they are, not as it is.
Doesn't this mean I qualify for disability on top of my $100k/yr programming job?
"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've known plenty of people who "dumbed down" their behavior in order to become more accepted by a group. It makes sense to me that those aren't accepted might better spend their time learning instead of worrying about their popularity or appearance. Why does it always have to be their genes dictating their actions?
This article is just another misguided attempt to find some sort of "genetic root cause" for people's behavior. There may be people for whom this holds true, but I think environment is a much bigger factor than any genetics would be...
Mike Caprio, mikecap@nospamldbw.com
Mike Caprio, mikecap@nospamworld.stdspam.com
Digital Renaissance Man - Writer, Coder, & Artist
It has always been true that there have been some kids with retarded social skills who are good at music, math, chess, art, etc. This is not news, and we don't need any educational revolution to nurture it.
As for Bill Gates being "regarded as one of the smartest people in American industry" (according to the LA Times article this is following up), he doesn't strike me as particularly intelligent or insightful. He strikes me as very rich, somewhat savvy, lucky, and opportunistic. Not even marginally ingenious. He has the social defects that are sometimes associated with genius, but I've never heard him say or do anything creative. Windows, Word, IE, Outlook, etc. Not a shred of creativity in any of them, and it's not as though Gates designed any of that. It doesn't take creativity or genius to get extremely wealthy. If it did, wouldn't more rich people be smart or creative?
As for needing to cure geekiness or not, it's not simply a matter of economics, of figuring out how much profit the geek can add to the cosmic bottom line. It strikes me wrong that some may decide that the social misfit benefits society with his creativity, and that somehow outweighs the fact that the geek suffers social ridicule.
Geekiness has never tended to be an attractive social attribute, and that is not likely to change. Software hackers have risen in the food chain during the past 25 years - once we were on the edge of the social circle by default, now we are a good bit more mainstream. But I contend that the anti-social geeky geek will always remain an outcast, because the average person in the street doesn't have the interest or insight to evaluate a person by digging any deeper than clothes and skin or fame and fortune.
A term - and one adopted from terms available in the unabridged dictionary of modern psychobabble, to act as a sort of 'anti-concept' - to equate, in general opinion, that behavior known as 'abnormal' with 'dysfunctional', which is not necessarily based on fact. Behavior that is removed from the mainstrean can be dysfunctional when it restricts or retards the livelyhood, abilities, and happiness of the person in question, and especially when it damages that of his/her peers..., but in the specific case of geekiness, the behavior examined is actually that of demonstrated higher intelligence, and is therefore superior.
The fact is - 'mild-autism', or more properly, geekiness, is simply nothing more than the first signs of the modern evolution of the human psyche, and of the relative intelligence capacity of the species.
As we cast off the old skins of barbarism, mysticism, collectivism, and emotionalism, and move towards objectivism, science, and logic, our behavior will obviously evolve as well, and seem a bit odd to those who have not caught up with us.
As we have a strong disregard for things of a trivial nature, such as sports, fashion, or celebrity worship (barring Linus), and move towards a higher state of intense thought and intellectual persuit (and play), we are sure to be looked upon with puzzlement and misunderstanding by our less evolved friends.
I suggest that we do not accept their terminology, nor their false diagnoses, for they can in time, if we keep an historical perspective, turn more coersive and confining. In fact, the way in which we behave as 'geeks' is much more refined for the timely acquisition and redistribution of relevant facts and knowledge within and concerning the world around us. For 'scientific' inquiry as applied to every area of life. For curiosity, fascination, and wonder towards those things that provide intellectual challenge and stimulus. And our way of life promises to promote advances in every area of interest that can actually make beneficial alterations to our lives as a whole (known as 'progress'). A love of arcane facts, and ideas that reveal new and interesting ways of looking at things. And a general distaste for unimportant things, such as the petty and superfluous expression of mundane emotions, or the usage of flowered speech which does more to conceal than to reveal, and so on.
I say, our geekiness is a *gift*, not a disorder. And so too is our eccentric behavior. We are the pioneers - exploring that psychic territory into which hopefully the entire species will eventually evolve. Yes - our brains are different... they're BETTER. (Unless, of course, we wish *not* to evolve, not be dynamic, and leave the pinnacle of civilization to stagnate upon the intellectual entropic heap of the MTV generation... ; )
Geeks, the world IS OURS.
LOL! This is great! People can't explain how we computer geeks can do our jobs, so we must be defective some how. Yes! That's it. A "normal" person would never want to spend 8 to 16 hours a day in front of a computer. They must be "abnormal" somehow. "Hey, look! Here's a syndrome that looks similar. Why, hell! Those geeks are autistic!" I love this! Not only can I get paid big bucks programming, I can draw disability too! Get some of those tax dollars back! WOW!
Proverbs 21:19
Please join me in supporting the Geek Reproduction Project! For one month (October) we will take to the streets in our best clothing, shirk our responsibilities to society at large, and do nothing but get laid. We will invade the bars to conquer those of the opposite sex! We will clog the personal ads of every major newspaper in every major city with our entreaties. We will show the non-geek jock and ex-jock masses that by our higher brain functions we can beat them at their own game of Precious Bodily Fluids Roulette! We are superior, and now it is time to prove it and spread our superiority to the world. We have already conquered the intellectual sphere, and now as a logical extension we must conquer the sexual if we are to see our precious revolution survive beyond our own lifespans! The Geek Reproduction Project is vital to the revolution. The revolution needs you! But more importantly, the revolution needs you to get laid!
This was all so Edison could continue his mini-empire of local DC-based electric monopolies, as he feared Tesla's abilities to transmit AC over very long distances through extremely arcane devices known as 'transformers' which Edison's small mind could not grok.
We continue to use, to this day, AC running at 60 Hz, due to Edison's twisted marketing. While all electricity is dangerous in foolish hands, 60 Hz is one of the most dangerous base frequencies for electricity due to it being near the operating frequency for nerve cells. It takes nearly 100 times the electricity at 14 Hz to kill a man than it does at the peak dangerousity of 60Hz.
It's sick that Edison is taught to the children to be some kind of genius hero, when in actually he was a scheming, theiving, murderer. And Telsa is nearly forgotten. Primarily for his invention that would have allowed for nearly free electrical generation by installing very very tall towers around the planet which would use the Earth's magnetic field to generate pollutionless electricity! That was severely beaten down by the energy moguls of the late 1800's - Edison and the Rockefellers (Standard Oil) who would have lost millions/billions. Standard Microsoftian practices - look how much work they are putting into knocking down Linux - a free OS that can do nothing but make the world better at the expense of some of Mr Bills fortune. Same shit, different day!
Assume that this so-called 'autism' exists, and it is at least partially genetic. In today's society, those that posess it are at an advantage. Now remember back to elementary evolutionary science; those members of a species with even a slight advantage will tend to outnumber those without over time. If society as we know it continues indefinitly, geekdom will expand until those without the trait of mild autism are the minority. At that point, we (the geeks) will have a great laugh when the tables reverse and we discover 'Neandertalism', and ostracize the 'over-emotional', 'low-IQ' throwbacks to the 19th century over it.
.sig: Now legally binding!
When a child acts out it should be a clue to the teacher that something is wrong, but not that something is wrong with the student. Learning shouldn't be a one way street, but with the current ratio of teachers to students there is a lot more take than give.
I'm sure I'm not the only poster on this forum who spent more time in school dealing with boredom than on any other subject.
Using Microsoft software is like having unprotected sex.
Bite the hand.
Has anyone thought that maybe the reason "geeks" (like myself and many other /. readers) have an aversion to reality is because the norm is just plain boring?!? I like computers (and most anything technical for that matter) because they expand my mind with thoughts of what is possible. I cannot stand it when I'm forced to occupy space with some "normal" guy who just talks about the weather, the game last night, or some woman he just de-atomized. None of that really gets me to think. When I put time into my computer, I get something back-- knowledge and a process of logical thought. Unless I'm in front of a PC, or speaking with another technically-minded person, I don't get that knowledge in return. I feel like I'm wasting my time.
:-)
I think its like the idea of scientific circles, where scientists converse with each other in their area of expertise (BTW-- spelling is definitely not mine). Only computing is a scientific circle that has most every area of contemporary humanity. We can communicate with each other at the speed of type. We can live in a world where there are no geographic or political boundaries, only the boundaries of human thought. Is it not in our best interests to do what we do best?
Besides, having a girlfriend that is not at all interested or learned in computers (she's still freaking over the media's Y2K hype) can be a calm window into the mundane world of the normal. Maybe I'll break up with her and sever all my normal ties forever!
Fully licensed blockchain psychiatrist
I think one thing that has often been overlooked is that being sensitive and having empathy for others is not the same as being good at social situations. I know several people (my girlfriend for one) who are extremely sensitive and empathetic but are bad at mixing with others in standard social situations, due to introversion and other reasons.
In fact, being too aware of the feelings of others can be a hindrance when it comes to getting to know other people: you're too worried about what other people think of you, or whether you're offending someone,etc. On the other hand, the people in the "popular" crowd are rarely in nicest or most sensitive people.
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Sorry. The jingle was stuck in my head.
You know what? I read the article. And I read the article that prompted the original discussion last week. I read them because I wanted to know "why" and for the most part the findings make sense to me.
This topic and others have brought up some various negative and paranoid statements from the slashdot community. And the reasons elude me. One day there could be a post about, say, images of electron clouds (the pics are rather pretty by the way). Yay! says slashdot. Three cheers for the researchers who figured it out!
But then an article like the autism one comes along, and suddenly its Boo! Your Wrong! Bad Scientists!! And a huge argument ensues.
Someone please enlighten me. Why is it that it is wrong for society to ask "why is the geek a geek?" but it is ok to ask "Why do atoms react like they do?" Is understanding the human psyche as a whole less important to the future of humanity? How can we understand the universe if we cannot understand ourselves?
So basically, Why ask why?
Really. of all the classes in the world to be in, being a geek isn't so bad. Sure people will want to label us, and group us. But do away with us? Oh, Please. They like their playstations too much. Who's going to fix it for them when it breaks?
Of course they could put us all in playstation work camps. Until we figure out the wire mod to get us past the security system at the gate.
Sig:
Barbeque is a noun. Not a verb.
http://english-www.hss. cmu.edu/cyber/sterling/computer.txt
Nothing a bit of Google can't find.
Kandinski is just too lazy to log in.
IIRC, the study found a correlation between the size of the hypothalamus gland and the sexuality of the patients.
I believe the study was done on people who had died of AIDS. The doctor who did the study was himself a homosexual. He did the study "blind", measuring the sizes of the glands first, and *then* checking the sexuality of the patients.
I *think* he hit on it because he noticed the hypothalamus was smaller in certain of the AIDS victims, but not in all of them, and the ones it was smaller in happen to be homosexuals, so he did the blind study.
Disclaimer: This is just from memory, I don't have any sources, the study was a few years ago. Anybody else remember?
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-- Will quantum computers run imaginary-time operating systems?
Have you ever noticed how normal people are mildly retarded.
I know programmers who are DJs, captains of footie teams, mountaineers, mothers, artists - all sociable human beings.
The geek-pride assumption that it is somehow cool to spend fourteen hours in front of a screen, eat junk food and have no human contact except with other Jolt-addled spods on IRC creates a stereotype which tars all techies with the same brush - which I for one do not welcome.
If you're a sad bastard in desperate need of some exercise, fresh air, a bath and a lay - fine. But don't go around broadcasting this as some kind of geek ideal - you give all us normal techies a bad name.
Nick
-- "It's a sad day for American capitalism when a man can't fly a midget on a kite over Central Park" - Jim Moran
I got a few comments about all of this crap about
mental disorders having to do with nerdism and
geekism. I have OCD and ADD and I am a computer nerd, but it's most likely because when i was little I didnt have a whole load of friends and my dad brought home a nice IBM XT before most had computers, and I played games on it, and liked it. I have always been a game fan. So I got more into it (mostly for games) and now I am a somewhat shy computer nerd. I have many friends who are computer nerds but don't have any mental disorders, some are shy, some are not, it's really personality, not disorder. Put 2 and 2 together, kid with not many friends, looking for something to do, and sees a computer. TADA! Sorry for running on, I tend to do that, I guess it had to do with one of my disorders!
Your Momma's so fat she makes emacs look like nano!
Sorry, but anyone who uses the word "skillz" while not mocking script kiddies or brags about such an absurd thing as "taste in clothes" is of questionable geekiness.
why cant geeks be pop stars?
musicians made it big, how about if scientists, thinkers, dreamers, and coders get a shot at the mad cash, groupies, and stretch limos? instead of cafe hollywood how about cafe silicon?
is selling out the answer tho?
the question is the same that haunts the interenet.... be underground and cool? or be way out in the open and make the money, but lose some of what you are trying to hold onto?
many of us felt enough like outcasts without having to deal with this stoooooopid autism label as well.
i think the message that is going to end up coming out is "respect us, yet leave us alone"
yes, i think i like that.
Hey, man, that's the whole point - I totally love my job AND make plenty of money, just like most of the geeks I know; it's not OR, we don't need to choose. Of course, there are second-generation Silicon Valley'ers, who came here exclusively because of money, like all those Stanford MBA's - but they're not geeks! So there is no "real problem with geeks today"
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-- The word "woman" is not politically correct any longer.
The word "woman" is no longer politically correct.
You should use "Female-American" instead.
Then there are at least 2 articles that mention dehumanizing nazi propaganda and separatist bullshit.
Are you guys paranoid or what? Of course you don't fit in. You won't so long as you believe that crap. Don't autistics have a false sense of an incorrect sense of themselves? They're egocentric, they don't relate to others, they don't have fully developed social models. I'm not sure where or when the war started you're in started but you're fitting the bill perfectly if you really believe that. Simply because someone pulled the "autism" label out of the dictionary they are trying to limit your freedom or dehumanize you? They are simply trying to understand us, "austistic" may be the best label for us right now. Big deal, they're right! They are trying to understand us, I repeat, they are trying to understand us, say that to yourself a few times. We don't fit in, never have, we're socially inept, socially impaired, what ever. Some of us have rationalized it to and believe that "we don't need society or social interaction" (psychologists have a word for that too, "denial" and in some cases "delusional") They are trying to understand us, we're a little pop culture fasicnation right now and what do some of us do? They freak out. The society we never fit in with is trying to understand us, they're trying to figure our why we don't fit in, they're extending the open hand of "we know what it's like," they're try to fit us in.
Is that so bad? Do you really want to fit in? We never will as it is but I'd rather not fit in and have everyone know why than just not fit in at all. Hell, pop culture is fascinated by us right now, enjoy it.
This is my signature. There are many signatures like it but this one is mine..
No, it's I who am sorry. "Skillz" is a reference to the "mine's bigger than yours" mentality displayed in the previous post. In other words, I'm mocking the previous poster. It looked obvious to me, but again, I guess you didn't grok it, huh?
As for the taste in clothes, there are those who have it, and those who don't. There are those who leave the house looking like a slob, and those who practice proper hygeine. The stereotype geek exists, but if you think you have to conform to it to be a geek you're way off.
This kind of reminds me of black people who are derided for being too "white". "You're no geek. You're clean shaven!" "You're no geek. You have short hair!" "Real geeks are autistic, so I guess you fail the test." Please! You're missing the whole point!
What's my point? Well, I think the media is missing the fact that some of us are damn good at what we do, but don't let it consume us. That's not healthy, no matter WHAT your occupation/hobby/etc. I get the feeling that the only people who get noticed are those who are slightly abnormal in terms of POPULAR ACTIVITIES, and are noticed BECAUSE of their "abnormality". Hardly grounds for suggesting ALL or even MOST or even A HIGH PERCENTAGE of "smart" people are disabled. Sure, there's autistic computer people out there. Just like autistic artists or musicians. But the percentages are damn near enough to equal. Fact is, a lot of computer nerds just don't get out much - that doesn't make them autistic, just antisocial; and it's their loss to be living in a shell rather than experiencing life. My point of view on it, simply put, is "who the hell cares?" If they don't wanna ever leave their bedroom, more power to 'em. They're big boys and girls; they can live however they chose as long as they stay confined by the laws of their country. If talking about DSL and C++ and kernel development floats their boat, I couldn't care less.
Come on, folks. Anyone know the names Saul Hudson, or James Hetfield? Y'all should... Guitarists and vocalists for Guns 'N' Roses and Metallica. Spent 10 hours a day as kids playing guitar, and nobody called THEM autistic. Just because someone has a hobby doesn't make them "strange", so long as they do other things, too. Everybody marches to a different drummer, but it doesn't make them disabled, or even "strange". Nobody critizes the kid who spends 5 hours a day shooting hoops (Michael Jordan ring a bell, anyone?). Or for playing guitar. Or for lifting weights for hours on end. Why go and suggest that people who -do whatever- are diseased just because YOU don't like their hobby? As long as they get out a bit, who cares, and who has a right to say anything?
I've also gotta wonder if we're not responsible for some of this ourselves... some of you older slashdot readers prob'ly remember me... I've pretty much drifted out of the discussions here, because they've taken on a dangerous "me GEEK! me BETTER than you" tone. Come on, put down your caveman clubs and open your eyes to the fact that other people are allowed to have other interests... in my not-so-humble opinion, it's no damn wonder that people tend to label you, persecute you, and suggest that you're mentally ill... you've got to drop the eleetist attitude, and join the real world... there's more than enough room for everybody. Except for snobs, and you all are just not welcome. Respect the rights of others to have other interests, and realize that they probably don't care about yours, AND THAT THIS IS OK, and the world will be a much better place. Those of you who scream "dumb jock, dumb business major, dumb dumb dumb" are as bad as those who scream "hey, hit the dork, hit the dork!" Get over yourselves already.
/rant
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Just lurking, thanks!
The real limitations are due to physics and engineering. Europe uses 220 volts for house current, which saves money on wiring. We don't use frequencies much higher than 60 Hz for most things because the eddy-current losses in the transformer laminations get too high, and the reactance of long-distance power lines gets out of hand.
Oh, you mean that the name of the unit of magnetic flux intensity has been forgotten? (1 Tesla = 1 Weber/m^2.) Every double-E learns about Tesla's work in detail. And even if most do not know Tesla's name, their lives are influenced far more by Tesla's fractional-horsepower induction motor than by Edison's DC empire. Look at the legacy. Sorry, that's not correct. Tesla's work was primarily involved with transmitting power (rumor has it he melted down one plant's generators trying to power one of his wireless experiments). As proof of the bankruptcy of the "suppressed-free-energy" conspiracy, look at the facts: despite almost a century of improvements in science, you still can't point to the physics that would make such a device work. Nature's laws are there for everyone; you can't stop people from discovering them.There are whole nations with lots of scientists, plenty of know-how, and nothing to lose by taking a free-energy machine (or a 200 MPG carburetor) to the world. Imagine how competitive Japan would be if they didn't have to import fossil fuels. If it could be done, they'd be doing it. The truth of the matter is that even genuises sometimes wind up barking up the wrong tree. Einstein goofed, Tesla goofed. Just proves they were only human.
Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
I like them french fried 'tators, biscuits and mustard, and S.U.S.E. Linux mmmmmmhmmmmmmmm