121–130 of 172 posts
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Honestly I feel like having an Aspie Spectrum diagnosis is like a badge of honor to some people in Silicon Valley.
Anywhere on the Internet. Plenty of people in online forums who claim to have Aspergers and thus smart and not care about socializing. Same thing as saying you're INTJ.
Why not INTP?
With all the discrimination and bullying going around, I think it is good that someone has something nice to say about autistic programmers. Like Ian Murdock who founded Debian and recently committed suicide had Asperger's Syndrome. Despite obvious impressive technical skills, life probably wasn't easy for him. Most companies favor hiring average programmers that fit the mold over "weird people" even if they are amaz…
Life wasn't easy for Phil Katz (PKzip) either
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We call this dynamic the nerd vs. nerd exploiter dynamic. Jobs and Woz or Allen and Gates are good examples.
Ironically, it's Jobs that has all of the typical Aspy traits, not Woz—right down to deciding on one set of clothes and sticking to it. If you actually read an S. Jobs bio and are familiar with Aspy traits, he's a textbook case. What confuses people (if they are confused) is that most people with Aspergers are not artistic, don't like speaking in front of crowds, or running teams. However, it makes a ton of sense if…
I think the results are appreciated by-and-large by the people who haven't worked with them. For people who have, they might add the "...but he is an asshole" postscript/disclaimer.
> Proceeds to turn institution that works for people with autism into a game development company staffed by people with autism
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...That is literally what he just said.
And this error is ironically an illustration of the exact problem he was commenting on: our brains tend to work by association, and implication (A implies B) tends to be interpreted as association (A implies B means A and B are associated, which means they go together, so A implies B is a way to say B implies A).
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"Most companies favor hiring average programmers that fit the mold over "weird people" even if they are amazing at their work." Do they? At my company we half-seriously joke when programmers are too socially well adjusted, that they won't fit in. We prefer a bit of spergy. I don't have any idea what 'most' companies think, or if large companies even have consistent trends in their own thinking.
What's a "spergy"?
With all the discrimination and bullying going around, I think it is good that someone has something nice to say about autistic programmers. Like Ian Murdock who founded Debian and recently committed suicide had Asperger's Syndrome. Despite obvious impressive technical skills, life probably wasn't easy for him. Most companies favor hiring average programmers that fit the mold over "weird people" even if they are amaz…
Recognizing the strengths of autistic coders is great. Doing it specifically and explicitly because you think they're easier to abuse is a big problem.
I have a friend who was recently hired under Microsoft's autism hiring program, and is still really excited about it. I'm trying to decide if I should show her this article or not. It would almost certainly sour her feelings on the whole deal, and I'm holding out hope that her direct managers are more humane than this "they work like machines" motherfucker.
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Maybe its neutral or slightly better in adulthood, but only if the autism isn't accompanied by other problems that frequently accompany autism, such as language disabilities and anxiety.
Asperger is nothing like Forrest Gump or the Rainman characters, BTW. It is like Holden Caulfield or Travis the Taxi Driver, or the Deer Hunter, or Rocky the Bum.
some real abuse of psychological terminology here. most clinically autistic people don't hold down jobs, certainly not professional roles, even if they have a high IQ
Autism is a broad spectrum. I have hypersensitivity issues, even if loud noises don't make me fall down screaming. I tend towards obsessing over specific things, even if I don't block out all other stimuli for hours on end. I'm not naturally good at reading people, but I've been able to teach myself a fair bit over many years, so human emotions are no longer a closed book. I can look at a low-functioning autistic and understand what's going on in their head, as a magnification of what's going on in mine. And I've got a degree and a 13-year career as a coder.
I don't understand why so many people think that autism universally means needing help dressing yourself.