The Weird Nerd comes with trade-offs • Hacker News Board

Re: The Weird Nerd comes with trade-offs

#441

Post by banannaise » Mon, Jun 10, 2024, 2:44 PM UTC

sneed_chucker wrote: post #133

sctb wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being married and gainfully employed and able to build and maintain relationships as well as hold conversations with strangers when necessary can come at an exceptionally high cost for neurodivergent people in the form of masking (like a kind of mental tech debt). Instead of overt social difficulty, this might present itself as anxiety, depression, and suicidality—those conditions are worthy of medicalization IMO.

I agree with what you're saying, but also - everyone has problems. Is anyone truly normal or neurotypical? Why do some people's problems get the validation of the medical system and others don't? (These are non-rhetorical questions, I'm really not sure about the answers to them myself)

> Why do some people's problems get the validation of the medical system and others don't?

I'm going to give a pretty out-there answer for this: because they piss us off.

A problem is medicalized when the people who have that problem can no longer be ignored, either because the effects are so severe that their demands for treatment become loud on a societal level, or because the effects naturally bother other people.

We started treating HIV/AIDS only after years of the affected communities refusing to shut up about it.

We medicalize mental health issues because the people with them cause problems for the people without them. It is notable that many mental health conditions have names describing the experience of being around them rather than the experience of having them. Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder feels like neither, but people around someone with ADHD get annoyed that they don't pay attention and move around a lot.

For another example, we still diagnose some children with "Oppositional Defiant Disorder".

Re: The Weird Nerd comes with trade-offs

#442

Post by gavinhoward » Mon, Jun 10, 2024, 2:46 PM UTC

intended wrote: post #368

gavinhoward wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for your compliment! Blog post marketing, mostly. I am about to start a podcast for marketing as well. I would do conferences, but people have advised against that.

Just checking - have you considered switching projects, with your next project being social engineering your sales? (Cold turkey switch, not "let me get these features added, before I switch projects" etc.) Its quite possible you have thought of this, but I cant be sure. If you have thought or acted on it, how long were you able to sustain it? Being able to switch your obsession is something we are able to do, but it…

I have considered, but I won't.

I actually can't switch my obsessions. Not intentionally. I have tried.

It has taken me 7 years of marriage to go from uncanny valley social skills to appearing normal at first glance. Social engineering skills would probably take me another 100 years.

And on that point (and this is purely my belief, not objective truth), unlike most people, I want clients to choose my software because it actually is the best for them, not because I manipulated, er, socially engineered, them into thinking so. If people make uninformed decisions in my favor, then on some level, I am slightly scamming them. I don't want that.

Re: The Weird Nerd comes with trade-offs

#443

Post by bradleyjg » Mon, Jun 10, 2024, 2:50 PM UTC

AmericanChopper wrote: post #428

bradleyjg wrote: post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Congrats, the university you run just lost out on a Nobel Prize. The donors are going to love that.

I’m sure this is the threat that the brilliant asshole types would want you to believe. But there’s no limit to the amount of talent that one single toxically anti-social team member can deter from joining an institution, or that they can chase out of one for that matter. Especially if they’re a senior team member. There’s also essentially no limit to the amount of damage they can do in companies. Even if you put asi…

In general I agree with all that. And genius is a wildly overused term. But that doesn’t mean there’s none. TFA is talking about a woman that won a Nobel Prize.

Not every organization is going to have any opportunity to snag one but if you are running MIT, Google, or Lawrence Livermore you probably need to consider how to handle that edge case.

Re: The Weird Nerd comes with trade-offs

#444

Post by lazide » Mon, Jun 10, 2024, 2:53 PM UTC

lawlessone wrote: post #436

esskay wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's been a similar pattern with ADHD, it feels like its almost been turned into a trend. Although that being said we've had a number of people at our place been diagnosed with ADHD, Autism and in some cases both, all developers, all within the last 3-5 years, and you know what, they're absolutely correct diagnosis. It's a mix of romanticization and a change in acceptance and understanding of the two, and they do oft…

I had a very similar experience to yourself. Didn't investigate and get treatment until it imploded my career... The people that think it's trendy are young, they often live at home with parents so I think it's a case of their ADHD / austism not yet having serious repercussion's.

Also - ADHD and Autism both appear to be very inheritable, so if someone is at home with their parents chances are they spend all their time around at least one person who is also ADHD/Autistic, and anyone else who is there or coming around is very used to being around ADHD/Autistic people.

So they’re ’normal’ in that environment.

Re: The Weird Nerd comes with trade-offs

#445

Post by lazide » Mon, Jun 10, 2024, 2:56 PM UTC

itsoktocry wrote: post #440

CalRobert wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This bizarre romanticization of autism is frustrating for those who are or have loved ones who are nonverbal, stim all day, etc.. I almost wonder if nerfing autism to the point where it's a fun thing to talk about having on tiktok is a way to demonize effective interventions so insurance companies won't have to pay for them.

> This bizarre romanticization of autism is frustrating for those who are or have loved ones who are nonverbal, stim all day, etc.. Look at every thread about the subject on these boards: it's filled with people claiming to be "on the spectrum" (aren't we all?). > nerfing autism...is a way to demonize effective interventions so insurance companies won't have to pay for them What a bizarre conspiracy. Are treatments e…

In some cases yes, they are expensive - years of person on person specialized therapy, and specialized environment/education. Depending on how much difficulty they have functioning.

It’s much easier to pretend it’s all a scam and not do anything, or penalize/force people to ‘act normal’. At least for insurance companies, teachers, employers, and often parents.

Which is why a lot of folks with ‘actual’ ADHD/Autism have a lot of PTSD from their childhoods. (And no, not a joke.) Severe, triggering, legit PTSD. Objective, causes the same physiological symptoms as those in war zones type PTSD. Except for it being around ‘weird’ things like school, childcare, interactions with their parents, teachers, peers, instead of when their buddy got blown up by an IED.

To make things even more complicated, persistent and repeated traumatic events that a person is powerless to prevent (usually in childhood, but not required) tends to cause Complex PTSD - which has a lot of overlap with ADHD and Autistic symptoms. Like 80-90% depending on which set of definitions one uses.

A really good way (in my experience) to get Complex PTSD is to be around someone like a parent/caregiver/partner with Antisocial Personality Disorder/NPD/BPD and suffer repeated adverse events because of it that they can’t escape. Something that if it’s a Mother doing it, Society will actively prevent someone from escaping.

Fun times, eh?

As to how to stop or get out of this? Who knows. A big underlying problem (and why society defers to the Mother in most cases here) is that there is no chance there will ever be enough resources to actually figure out the underlying truth for most of these situations.

That is because the real problem cases fundamentally work via manipulation and hiding abuses, so good luck. It would require an objective, unbiased expert (if such a thing is even possible) to follow the kid around 24/7 to see what is actually occurring. For months, or even years. And frankly, in my experience a large portion of scientists, engineers, medical doctors, nurses, police, special forces, and firefighters have backgrounds like this. So maybe this kind of thing is actually essential for society to function.

And regardless, solving this may be like solving the obesity crisis by getting everyone to run on treadmills and get fit or the like. That just ain’t happening.

Re: The Weird Nerd comes with trade-offs

#446

Post by banannaise » Mon, Jun 10, 2024, 2:56 PM UTC

alistairSH wrote: post #277

rustyboy wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Out of curiosity, given it is a spectrum, what's at the other end of "really" autisitc (if that's even the right word) or does that just go from 0 being "normal" to 1 being that "really"?

The problem with this line of labeling is there are multiple possible “spectrums”. I’m not sure what the best visualization would be… Like a starburst, with the center being normal, and all possible disorders going away (except they can be combined, so this isn’t perfect either). But, if you’re asking about the typical autistic inability to communicate with others, then yeah, 0-1 works as well as any. Just don’t take…

Light is a spectrum generated by emitting three colors at varying intensities. Autism might similarly be a spectrum generated by emitting some number of traits at varying intensities.

Re: The Weird Nerd comes with trade-offs

#447

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Jun 10, 2024, 3:36 PM UTC

pyrale wrote: post #61

bee_rider wrote: post #44

Academia is just messed up because the path to the top is to become an absolute expert in some topic, (PhD, postgrad), then become a performer/people manager/grant writer/office politics master (professor). It is really dumb. You are rolling the dice twice for expert level skills, and the second roll comes after huge personal investment. Not really sure what the solution is. Maybe a huge increase in the number of nat…

The alternative would be that public performance/management/grant writing/office politics are handled by someone who has absolutely no clue about what science is. It doesn't take very long to find corporate examples of this alternative, and why it's not great either.

[deleted]

Re: The Weird Nerd comes with trade-offs

#448

Post by me_me_me » Mon, Jun 10, 2024, 3:37 PM UTC

CalRobert wrote: post #384

esskay wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's been a similar pattern with ADHD, it feels like its almost been turned into a trend. Although that being said we've had a number of people at our place been diagnosed with ADHD, Autism and in some cases both, all developers, all within the last 3-5 years, and you know what, they're absolutely correct diagnosis. It's a mix of romanticization and a change in acceptance and understanding of the two, and they do oft…

My sister didn't say her first word until she was almost 5 and would bang her head against the wall. Hearing people say that autism "isn't a disability, it's a differentability lol!" or "oh I must be autistic because I'm awkward", or worst of all "don't try to treat people with autism it's cruel!" (aka don't force insurance companies to cover ABA, which is the only reason my sister can even talk now) is really upsett…

The biggest problem is that they rolled up the asperger syndrome up with autistic spectrum. So any psychologist is forced classify functional and non-functional together.

Its a disservice to both worlds and I am not sure why was it done.

People with asperger syndrome need guidance to navigate the world, while traditionally autistic people need to be taken care of, why lump both together with a single term

Re: The Weird Nerd comes with trade-offs

#449

Post by _yb2s » Mon, Jun 10, 2024, 3:37 PM UTC

mattgreenrocks wrote: post #251

_yb2s wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Caring about something deeply above external motivations, especially external validation is by itself neurodivergent. At the very least, you have to be highly introverted, which is rare.

I want to check that I’m parsing this correctly. Caring about something beyond a typical amount for intrinsic reasons is a neurodivergent marker? Is this really the HN I grew up with?

There are many types of neurodiversity. I am arguing that being very introverted is itself fairly rare, and a type of neurodiversity- however not at all rare among the HN crowd. I would think it goes without saying that the HN crowd is a lot more neurodivergent than the general population.

I'm not sure why people are so upset about this suggestion... I'm not sure if they just disagree, or if they don't like being labeled neurodivergent.

Different types of neurodivergence are highly correlated- a quick google search suggests introversion, left handedness, autism, dyslexia, and ADHD are all highly correlated. Left handedness is also a type of neurodivergence that goes a lot deeper than which hand you write with.

Re: The Weird Nerd comes with trade-offs

#450

Post by mwigdahl » Mon, Jun 10, 2024, 3:38 PM UTC

harimau777 wrote: post #421

CalRobert wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This bizarre romanticization of autism is frustrating for those who are or have loved ones who are nonverbal, stim all day, etc.. I almost wonder if nerfing autism to the point where it's a fun thing to talk about having on tiktok is a way to demonize effective interventions so insurance companies won't have to pay for them.

I think that there's a big difference between high functioning and low functioning autism. It's not surprising that people with high functioning autism want it romanticized in order to help protect themselves against discrimination or being thrown away for not being useful.

For sure there is a significant difference between what is referred to as "high functioning autism" and traditional ("low functioning" autism). But I feel that if those folks want to differentiate then it would be much smarter to come up with a different term and romanticize that.

The only reason to appropriate the term "autism" and associate with that condition is to medicalize one's psychology and obtain funding and services that previously were reserved to "low functioning" autistics (before that term was even necessary).

(edited to clarify)