7 ms·
I'm a huge fan of the hacker angle, but I really deplore their use of the Mad Genius trope. In real life, when people are as tormented by schizophrenia and PTS
by ocschwar 10y ago
I'm a huge fan of the hacker angle, but I really deplore their use of the Mad Genius trope.
In real life, when people are as tormented by schizophrenia and PTSD as Mr. Robot is, their talents are of no use and of no threat to anyone. We're surrounded by such people in every city, and the only threat they pose is to themselves.
- bitwize 10y agoYeah, but a series about the TempleOS guy wouldn't make for such compelling television
- larsiusprime 10y agoI kind of want a TV producer to see this comment and go "challenge accepted."
- cmurf 10y ago[God/OS/user's imagination] has the voice of the MCP in Tron.
- zaphar 10y agoSadly if current reality shows are any indication it probably would make for compelling television. But I wouldn't wish that on the TempleOS author in any fashion.
- RUG3Y 10y agoIf the truth were embellished I bet Terry would make a good basis for an interesting fictional character.
- yarou 10y agoHave you actually seen any of Terry's streams? They're actually quite instructive about topics like OS design. Barring the occasional rants against "CIA ni*".
- AlexCoventry 10y agoI wouldn't call Mr Robot compelling television. If it killed the Hollywood Hacker, he or she probably died of boredom.
- Rebelgecko 10y agoI agree that it's an overused trope, but don't think it's fair to say that schizophrenia keeps people from accomplishing impressive things (eg TempleOS)
- ubercore 10y agoTempleOS may be impressive, but it's not especially effective
- cmurf 10y agoIt's an effective example of the possible benefit having a double major in psych and computer science. However, that is impressive psychopathology. I had no idea.
- throwanem 10y agoIt's impressive, to be sure. Is it useful?
- aoeu345 10y agoIt is a tool to learn about how your computer really works by providing an extremely simple operating system. It's so simple you can draw circles on the screen with one line at the command prompt. It is very dumb to argue it has no usefulness because it does not work with modern dev tools or environments
- socmag 10y agoI don't think generalized comments regarding any mental illness are welcome to be honest. I don't need to point out the broad and varied spectrum of disorders a lot of us in Comp.Sci are prone to do I? Most of us are pretty damn functional (despite them).
- socmag 10y agoAnyway personally I'm trying to hit up as many categories from within DSM V as I can. It's all good training for my ML side project :P
- avg_dev 10y agoJohn Nash anyone?
- boomboomsubban 10y agoHe accomplished very little while suffering from schizophrenia, most of his work occurred years before he became ill.
- astrodust 10y agoYou mean suffering more in his later years. He always suffered from it.
- boomboomsubban 10y agoNo, he may have had a disposition towards schizophrenia earlier in his life, but he developed it around 1959.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- Broken_Hippo 10y agoNope, I truly think it is suffering later in life: Before it took hold, he had some symptoms - but he wasn't suffering. I watched such a disorder do its stuff to my ex-husband. He always showed signs of it, but neither of us knew. It was more like a slew of personality quirks. Stress would get to him and he developed quite a temper. It got fairly bad before the diagnosis. I thought he had a drug problem (partially true, but you know). And then one night he was convinced his spit melted concrete. And so on. Finally a diagnosis: A few years later he couldn't work. Sometimes, even while medicated, he had a flimsy grasp on reality, but most of the voices stopped, which helped tremendously. The suffering after it takes hold can be a beast of suffering, which was so much differnt than before it really 'took hold'. The hardest period was the time between it becoming serious and the diagnosis.
- 10y ago
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- youdontknowtho 10y agoThis is a fantastic point.
- __jal 10y agoEh. I'm sure everyone here remembers the term 'suspension of disbelief' or related. The reason a Hollywood virus or universal decryption key doesn't allow technical people to suspend disbelief is because both are immediately absurd in multiple ways, often to the point of being unintentionally funny. It isn't hard for me, at least, to suspend disbelief that people with psychological challenges can do big things, because there are examples in which people with psychological challenges have accomplished big things. Suspension of disbelief is tricky when approaching domain-specific knowledge. Really, the "hacker's complaint" is no different than lawyers complaining about, well, every courtroom drama ever. I won't argue whether "Elliot's" PTSD is so severe that he couldn't function. It is fiction, and arguing about personal investment in fiction is a mug's game, outside of friendly bar talk. I will simply note that you're vastly overgeneralizing the range effects of both PTSD and schizophrenia. PTSD, for instance, has in fact led to horrific violence, and, well, go google 'famous schizophrenics' if you'd like to see what people have accomplished.
- ocschwar 10y agoThe issue with suspension of disbelief is that while smart people do it, weaker minds on the left hand of the bell curve just internalize the notion that the fiction they're watching is an accurate reflection of life. So when the movies and television shows portray mad geniuses who threaten to destroy life as we know it, it covers up the sad reality, which is severe schizophrenics are only a challenge to our sense of decency, and little else.
- __jal 10y agoCitation needed. I don't think it is anywhere nearly so simple as "dumb people believe fiction is real." There is a complicated interplay between lived experience, class, personality, education, desires and other priors driving how people process both fiction and nonfiction. Or as a brief counterfactual, sure is nice how the murder rate has dropped now that we've banned violent video games, amirite?
- int_19h 10y ago
- espeed 10y agoINTPs are most prone to mental disorders, esp schizophrenia, e.g. see http://psychologyjunkie.com/2015/11/02/mbti-and-mental-illness-part-2-the-rationals/ http://psychologyjunkie.com/2015/11/02/mbti-and-mental-illne...
- RUG3Y 10y agoThanks for posting the link. I recently discovered what an INTP is and that I am one. I don't believe that I have a mental disorder but I definitely struggle with severe depression and mood swings, I'm trying to figure myself out.
- Odin78 10y agoYou might want to be careful with that. The Myers Briggs test is most likely pseudoscience and you shouldn't base any important-ish life decisions on it. Mediocre source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5pggDCnt5M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5pggDCnt5M
- RUG3Y 10y agoI am skeptical. I don't take it as fact. I did find it interesting that the INTP profiles I read described me with painful accuracy, which is why I've begun exploring this stuff a little more. Still, it's good advice to take everything with a grain of salt.
- wolfgke 10y ago> I am skeptical. I don't take it as fact. I did find it interesting that the INTP profiles I read described me with painful accuracy, I don't claim you are wrong, but be very careful about the Barnum/Forer effect when reading such descriptions: > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barnum_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barnum_effect BTW: I'm personally rather immune to this effect, since I'm not a person who fits "the profile of a typical citizen".
- espeed 10y ago
- hrehhf 10y agoWhile you make a fair point, he does not have schizophrenia. He has dissociative identity disorder (also known as multiple personalities).
- riazrizvi 10y agoAs a literary device, it is effective though. "He was so obsessed with X it drove him mad", is more pithy than "he was obsessed with X".