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."

Comments

Re:a potential "bad" thing about it

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

a potential "bad" thing about it

[Suydam]

Not to sound like Katz...but can you imagine the hardships some uber-geek has to put up with already. Add to that the thought that he/she is actually Autistic...and you can imagine people having a field day with it.

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.

Re:a potential "bad" thing about it

[Amphigory]

I"m sad to say that is a pretty common situation. For twelve long years I was pretty much excluded from the "gifted" activities because I was a "troublemaker". Never mind that my IQ was comfortably in excess of what was required and that I /knew/ more than any of the others in my grade level. I was a "troublemaker".

My offense? When mercilessly harrassed by bullies and other students, I would get angry and start screaming. I wasn't angry at the harrassment, I was crying out at the isolation.

Their response? Isolate me further.

*sigh* The american educational system sucks.

My article about Asperger's syndrome and geeks

[gary_latimes]

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

"Fear, fire, foes, Awake!"

[Signal 11]

I'm really getting tired of major news organizations slapping another label on "the geek phenomenon". Why don't you people just tell the truth - we're now a necessary resource and you're trying to make excuses up so you can exploit us. You're trying to convince all of us that being "geeky" is good. 10 years ago it wasn't. 50 years ago it wasn't... a thousand years ago it wasn't. What changed? We have something you want.

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!

--

Re:"Fear, fire, foes, Awake!"

[Wah]

Who, slow down there, Sig.

From someone who's website starts "Welcome, now go away" where do you get off saying you've been ejected by society. The biggest reason for that is the "I think better than you, therefore I AM better than you." philosophy. Which, BTW is the exact same as the "I can beat you down, so I WILL beat you down." philosophy. Geeks as a whole are VERY arrogant and the vast majority of people don't go for that, at all. As a matter of fact it causes people to shun you, and cast you out of their social circles. Much of this the article was discussing, just giving a reason for a phenomena. Add to that a bit of paranoia "All eyes are on us. We are under attack!" and you get a social outcast.

I see more of this as accepting of the geek culture. A culture based in thought, not physical action. (this thread is Katz's wet dream) Where people are judged (given Karma :) based solely on the ability to express thought through a counting machine, across some wires, and around the world. As more people come to realize the worth of this action, more will realize the worth, socially, of "geeks". Also, if you happen to believe in the real-world notion of karma, all the negativity you are spewing forth is bound to come back and bite you in the ass.

Just chill out a bit, go get yourself one of those super-cool Athlons.(and don't take this as a personal attack, it isn't, just some observations that your comments brought to the fore)

Re:"Fear, fire, foes, Awake!"

[Kaa]

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

Well, haven't you started the labeling by labeling yourself as a geek? People who program/admin/read Slashdot/etc. are not all geeky and are not all perceived as geeks. And don't get sick that easily -- it's just labels, nothing more. People who say that all geeks are socially inept generally have in mind a population of smart but socially inept people that they define as geeks. In that case of course all geeks are socially inept -- by definition!

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.

Well, yes and no. People who think are different (see .sig) and are not well tolerated by the unwashed masses. However you are making a logical error here: just because all geeks think, not everybody who thinks is a geek. I personally know a lot of very smart people who are not good with computers. Some of them are quite geeky (as in having deep knowledge of some esoteric subject and not caring much about social conventions), and some are not, but clearly just being able to think does not necessarily make you a 'geek' in the Slashdot sense.

Yes, smart people and smart kids especially are under a lot of pressure to conform and "be just like the rest". But that has always been so and is not limited to computer people. A kid who has a passion for Sumerian linguistics is going to be treated worse, if anything, than a kid who spends his time programming in assembly. And we don't burn weird people at stake any more, which is a bid advancement from my personal point of view.

Kaa

Autism consistent with our communications

[Chris Johnson]

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...

Autism not consistent with our communications

[Bruce Perens]

For autistics, we sure do spend a lot of time on IRC, Slashdot, with publications, and in general just talking to each other. The fact that we do not do it face-to-face has to do with our geographicaly distributed nature. We'd be talking to our next-door neighbors if they had the slightest concept of what we do.

We are both alienating and alienated, but not autistic.

Bruce

Animals don't feel pain

[SpinyNorman]

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.

Re:Edison?

[JohnG]

Lot's of Telsa's inventions didn't become big because science considered him an outcast. His electric engine that powered the Model T (A?) at 90 miles and hour for a week without being recharged was called "Black Magic" by the scientists that couldn't explain it. His Tesla coil is still one of the most amazing electrical devices today and his life has been mimicked by authors for their character for years (Remember the Professor on the short lived Richard Dean Anderson show "Legend"?)

I would say the crap that the other scientists put him through would definetly earn him the title of what they are calling a "geek". It is just sad that now that society realises we need geniuses like him, he's not here.

Autism and 'normal'

[Thagg]

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.

thad

Here's an actual paper on Autism, Asperger's, etc.

[Lucius Lucanius]

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.

Sterling on Geeks

[StefanJ]

I've always liked this rant, from Bruce Sterling's speech to the computer game developer's conference:

"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)

More Separatist Crap

[LHOOQtius_ov_Borg]

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...

We're heading in a bad direction

[jht]

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

Geeks not normal? Who is?

[Jack William Bell]

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

Re:Sounds familiar

[Hobbex]

I can just see it now, the nervous parents waiting in a doctors office. A doctor steps in through the door with a serious face and clipboard full of readings:

doctor: I believe I have some difficult news,
mother: oh god..
doctor: the tests are in and it looks like your child is going to a...
father: It can't be!
doctor: I'm afraid so, it will be a geek, no doubt about.
mother: oh god...
father: But, this can't be..
doctor: I'm afraid..
father: But I was varsity football, my wife was a cheerleader. I never touched a compute...
mother: We took precautions, they said it couldn't happen.
doctor: Sometimes it just happens, thats all. There was nothing you could have done.
father: Is it bad?
doctor: I'm afraid so. The reading is one of the highest I have seen. We are talking a /. Karma of 100+ and patches to the Kernel class of geek here.
mother: oh god...
doctor: Of course, we understand if you choose not to take on the burden of raising such a child...


-
/. is like a steer's horns, a point here, a point there and a lot of bull in between.

Normal a mild form of Retardation

[Think about it]

Have you ever noticed how normal people are mildly retarded.

Re:Edison was a sick bastard

[mmontour]

It takes nearly 100 times the electricity at 14 Hz to kill a man than it does at the peak dangerousity of 60Hz.

Maybe, but transformers would have to be a lot larger and heavier to handle AC at 14 Hz. Higher frequencies mean smaller transformers, which is why switching power supplies (>20kHz) are much smaller than equivalently-rated linear supplies. On the other hand, radiated interference and transformer core losses go up with frequency. 60 Hz might have been a decent compromise at the time.

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!

Yes, but does this invention work? Really? And if so, why not build one today, now that Edison is dead and gone? There is a lot of pseudoscience surrounding Tesla, and not all ideas credited to him would actually work. Some of his other ideas, like beaming power from huge antenna towers, would work but are impractical for other reasons (people are worried about cancer from cellular phones; imagine the panic from a Tesla-style power station that lit up fluorescent tubes 10 miles away!).

However, in general I agree that Tesla was a genius and Edison probably was a mean bastard. He's certainly why most people believe that patents are good for society.

Edison was mistaken, but so was Tesla (you too).

[Tau Zero]

(mmontour beat me to some of this... posting anyway...)

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.

Actually, we use 60 Hz because it's more efficient than 14 Hz. The size of the transformer is inversely proportional to the frequency it carries; that's why the toroid in your PC's 300 watt power supply is so small compared to the same size isolation transformer. Europe runs on 50 Hz.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.