To be fair, if someone really does produce useful code that none of their peers or coworkers can understand, I wouldn't dismiss the notion that they are somehow

To be fair, if someone really does produce useful code that none of their peers or coworkers can understand, I wouldn't dismiss the notion that they are somehow "different." I know you're railing against the Linus Torvalds man-child types, and I agree that I wouldn't really enjoy working with a person like that. The parent comment wasn't really about excusing poor treatment of others though, it was just describing the isolation that can be felt. What makes you think it would be easier for that person to develop the social skills than for their peers to learn to understand their work? Maybe those people just neglected to develop their reasoning/coding skills? Or maybe people's brains actually can work in profoundly different ways.