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Neurodivergent Brains Build Better Systems (2025)

blog.drjoshcsimmons.com

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Re: Neurodivergent Brains Build Better Systems (2025)

#41

Post by godelski »

ttul wrote: post #25

I’m actually neurodivergent. It’s not much of a gift, let me tell you. I fully count on my neurotypical teammates to ensure the company doesn’t go off the rails. If it were just me, cool stuff would definitely happen - randomly. And we would run out of money and fail.

  > If it were just me, cool stuff would definitely happen - randomly. And we would run out of money and fail.
I like to think there needs to be some distribution. Just like how there should be an adversarial process where the business people are only concerned about the money and the programmers are only concerned about the product [0]. You need code monkeys to build a product and make it something people want to use. But you need business monkeys to make it profitable and to get the money to build better stuff. If the code monkeys dominate then user interfaces suck, building takes forever, and is vastly outsold by products with worse features[1]. If the business monkeys dominate too much you just get enshitification because they only care about the product so far as people will buy it (even if they turn down future sales).

Turtles all the way down. Even on just the code monkey side you need some of those people that swing for the fences and miss a lot to get those big leaps but most people should no be doing this and instead keep things marching forward. Both groups are useful, just in different ways. An adversarial process can also be useful here. But everyone also needs to recognize they're on the same team.

[0] more accurately: the business people optimize for the money, conditioned on the product; the engineers optimize the product, conditioned on the money.

[1] throughout history the products that are technically better frequently lose to inferior ones. Because success isn't purely reliant upon features

Re: Neurodivergent Brains Build Better Systems (2025)

#42

Post by estimator7292 »

rafaelalb wrote: post #24

I wish people would stop talking so much about neurodivergency in this way. I think we just need to be aware of the differences, to help neurodivergent people where they need help, to adapt to what needs adaptation, and to give them the space they require, as is true to all human beings. Talking about neurodivengency as a general advantage (or disadvantage) brings no benefit and adds nothing but noise to the discussi…

Personally, I love it when my disability and source of lifetime trauma is treated as a capitalist fetish.

Perhaps ironically, it's one of the many things that makes being an autistic person even harder. As if baseline expectations of you aren't already too much, you're now a hyper-profitable 400x engineer. But you can't be one of the weird ones or your social awkwardness gets you canned no matter how good an engineer you are.

Re: Neurodivergent Brains Build Better Systems (2025)

#43

Post by holowoodman »

lexicality wrote: post #26

This sounds like my kind of hell. I actively enjoy going to work in a busy office and the primary reason to do so is to chat to my coworkers. I literally cannot work in silence. The best place I ever worked was at one CCC congress where someone had set up a bunch of desks in the corner of one of the raves. What even is the point of going in to the office if you're going to sit in silent ranks trying to increase share…

> I literally cannot work in silence.

That is different for many neurodivergent people, but not all. I know some who need silence. I myself need some noise floor, but something that is not distracting, like chatter than I cannot understand or make out, and without loudness spikes or recognizable names/topics/voices. For me, some kinds of music or soundscapes like waves on a beach or forest work best.

And generally, everyone who needs their personal noise in a quiet room can always use headphones. The opposite doesn't work, and the only available soundscape is "office noise" anyways.

Re: Neurodivergent Brains Build Better Systems (2025)

#44

Post by zahlman »

omnicognate wrote: post #36

I've grown to dislike the term "neurodivergent". People seem to think of it as equivalent to "neurodiverse", which is a valid and useful term, but it is totally different, and problematic. The difference is that a population is "diverse" whereas an individual is "divergent". To discuss the "neurodiversity" of a population is to recognise the enormous range of different aptitudes and ways of being across that group. I…

> (But no, while I did have vocal tics I did not "have coprolalia". Only around 10% of Tourettes "sufferers" swear compulsively, not that you'd think so based on the way it's portrayed in the media.)

I think this is largely streetlight effect (availability bias) rather than media bias. Of course other sorts of tics are less noticeable, and not readily thought of by laypeople as belonging in the same category.

But yes, I broadly agree with what you're saying here. (I feel much the same about gender identity issues, too.)

Re: Neurodivergent Brains Build Better Systems (2025)

#46

Post by estimator7292 »

lexicality wrote: post #26

This sounds like my kind of hell. I actively enjoy going to work in a busy office and the primary reason to do so is to chat to my coworkers. I literally cannot work in silence. The best place I ever worked was at one CCC congress where someone had set up a bunch of desks in the corner of one of the raves. What even is the point of going in to the office if you're going to sit in silent ranks trying to increase share…

Your last point tells me that you haven't experienced hyperfocus. The fact that you ascribe consequences to the act of prolonged focus means you don't experience the ADHD type of hyperfocus.

Because man, consequences do not connect that way. When I hyperfocus for hours, the primary emotion is satisfaction. We fixate due to a malfunction in reward centers, which happens to override negative consequences for long enough that your stiff back is no longer correlated at all to the fact that you've sat motionless over a keyboard for hours.

Even raising the question of avoiding hyperfocus excludes you. Hyperfocus is generally not something that can be avoided or controlled. The chemical gradients hit a tipping point and you're committed whether you want to or not-- and without your awareness or consent.

You appear to be suffering from bad work ethic/balance, not ADHD. Because this is not in any way how an ADHD person experiences hyperfocus. It's not a choice or a consideration, it is an event that happens without your input or control.

Re: Neurodivergent Brains Build Better Systems (2025)

#48

Post by cj »

slibhb wrote: post #38
rafaelalb wrote: post #24

I wish people would stop talking so much about neurodivergency in this way. I think we just need to be aware of the differences, to help neurodivergent people where they need help, to adapt to what needs adaptation, and to give them the space they require, as is true to all human beings. Talking about neurodivengency as a general advantage (or disadvantage) brings no benefit and adds nothing but noise to the discussi…

I strongly agree. It's particularly grating when someone who claims to be neurodiivergent talks about what an advantage it is (as in the linked article).

Aren’t a lot of these diagnoses also based on whether they impact your work/personal/school life?

E.g. if you have ADHD and it benefits you in those areas, you may no longer meet the diagnosis criteria IIRC?

Re: Neurodivergent Brains Build Better Systems (2025)

#49

Post by lexicality »

estimator7292 wrote: post #46
lexicality wrote: post #26

This sounds like my kind of hell. I actively enjoy going to work in a busy office and the primary reason to do so is to chat to my coworkers. I literally cannot work in silence. The best place I ever worked was at one CCC congress where someone had set up a bunch of desks in the corner of one of the raves. What even is the point of going in to the office if you're going to sit in silent ranks trying to increase share…

Your last point tells me that you haven't experienced hyperfocus. The fact that you ascribe consequences to the act of prolonged focus means you don't experience the ADHD type of hyperfocus. Because man, consequences do not connect that way. When I hyperfocus for hours, the primary emotion is satisfaction. We fixate due to a malfunction in reward centers, which happens to override negative consequences for long enoug…

> Your last point tells me that you haven't experienced hyperfocus. The fact that you ascribe consequences to the act of prolonged focus means you don't experience the ADHD type of hyperfocus.

What a strange thing to say

> When I hyperfocus for hours, the primary emotion is satisfaction

Lucky you. Are you in your 20s? I thought it was great when I was in my 20s.

> which happens to override negative consequences for long enough that your stiff back is no longer correlated at all to the fact that you've sat motionless over a keyboard for hours.

And your stiff back magically fixes itself the moment you stop concentrating?

> Even raising the question of avoiding hyperfocus excludes you. Hyperfocus is generally not something that can be avoided or controlled. The chemical gradients hit a tipping point and you're committed whether you want to or not-- and without your awareness or consent.

Avoiding it is easy, you simply prevent yourself ever having enough focus for it to hit, or have external stimuli that can cut through it. I have a bunch of alarms and reminders set up throughout the day that are generally enough to jerk me out of it and remind me that I need to breathe properly, sit up straight, drink water and attend to bodily functions.

> You appear to be suffering from bad work ethic/balance, not ADHD.

Thanks for the armchair diagnosis, maybe I should stop taking these pills the doctor gave me

Re: Neurodivergent Brains Build Better Systems (2025)

#50

Post by danaris »

cj wrote: post #48
slibhb wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I strongly agree. It's particularly grating when someone who claims to be neurodiivergent talks about what an advantage it is (as in the linked article).

Aren’t a lot of these diagnoses also based on whether they impact your work/personal/school life? E.g. if you have ADHD and it benefits you in those areas, you may no longer meet the diagnosis criteria IIRC?

As someone with ADHD, but who hasn't kept super abreast of official developments in its diagnosis:

My understanding is that while this may have been the case at one time, it is not now.

I believe that there are something like nine symptom clusters for ADHD, and a standard diagnostic measure is whether you have at least X of them at a moderate level, or Y of them at a severe level. Something along those lines, anyway. And the clusters include things like "time blindness", "task initiation", "task perseverance", etc.

(Again, this isn't based on any recent and specific knowledge, but amalgamated recollections of some things I've read on the subject over the past several years.)

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