16 ms·

Autism and Invention Are Connected

183 points by jkuria 6y ago

SlipperySlope 6y ago
Autism is not a disability, it is a super power to be wielded to benefit humanity. Self made billionaires for example are more likely than the general population to be on the spectrum. Its obvious when you know what to look for.
neonate 6y ago
https://archive.is/dil8Z https://archive.is/dil8Z
- kylebenzle 6y ago
  Bless you people. I am amazed at how many pay-walled articles are posted on HN. Are most people here really well off enough that they can afford the dozens of subscriptions that are often linked to here?
  - xyst 6y ago
    There are some services that allow you to subscribe to a single service for ~$10 per month and you get access to a wide range of national papers like the WSJ.
    - gime_tree_fiddy 6y ago
      What is this service you are talking about?
      - gnicholas 6y ago
        Sounds like Apple News. I am not a subscriber but this is what I understand the offering to be with regard to the WSJ. I think it is not comprehensive, but it includes a good deal of WSJ content. I think it can also be purchased even more cheaply as part of Apple's recently announced bundles.
      - xyst 6y ago
        apple news
      - BlueTemplar 6y ago
        My ISP has/used to have one, and it was even given for free for some months. I would have preferred that they didn't, as this can easily turn into a conflict of interest.
    - cocoa19 6y ago
      Huh, I don't have an iPhone but the offer sounds very good. I pay much more than $10 for only WSJ subscription. Sounds like I'm getting the shaft.
  - acd 6y ago
    Different countries have different purchase power so subscriptions may be different expensive depending where you live. That said, paying for news is essential for our democracy. Paying for news allows news sites to pay journalist to research and write news stories. If we do not pay for news, news has to be financed through online advertising which is basically selling personal data for profit. Without paying revenue local news sites cannot afford to hire journalist. If there is not local journalist, there will not be controls, checks and writings on what elected officials do. Local news papers feed national news feed with articles and national news. So its essential for our democracy that we are willing to pay for news services which pays journalists.
    - dleslie 6y ago
      Part of that concept is the implied outcome that once media is paid for by readers it will no longer engage in undesirable practices for revenue, like advertorials and shock content; but this is somewhat of a myth. Those shady practices were common before the Internet, and they'll be common even if media returns to a subscription service model. What you need is a well-funded, and non-profit public news media. It's not without its faults, but it certainly shines where private news media consistently fails to.
      - BlueTemplar 6y ago
        Hmm, any examples of journalist-owned media engaging in such practices? I can think of at least 6 of them who don't (and don't have ads either).
        dleslie 6y ago
        I'd give examples of independent journalists, particularly vloggers, who produce shock content of questionable merit, or who regularly publish promoted content; but I think you can identify them yourself.
        BlueTemplar 6y ago
        Right, I didn't think about individuals... though b/vloggers that aren't already journalists generally don't have the pretension of following journalistic norms ?
  - mhh__ 6y ago
    Simpler explanation: People don't read the article. Why do you think people complain about titles so much even though they really don't matter
    - BlueTemplar 6y ago
      The worst issue with this is that titles are generally picked by different people than those writing the article, and are sometimes only tangentially related to its content.
      - dnissley 6y ago
        On the other hand: Most articles are pretty fluffy and don't bring much to the table, and so are just an invitation to discuss the topic at hand in the comments at what is usually a far greater depth than the original story.
        c22 6y ago
        Yeah, I often don't feel the need to click the link after reading the comments, but sometimes I do and I am frequently disappointed to find only a few paragraphs of content or a superficial introduction to the subject.
  - DyslexicAtheist 6y ago
    if you are using firefox then there is a great extension here which gets rid of many paywalls. works like a charm https://github.com/iamadamdev/bypass-paywalls-chrome https://github.com/iamadamdev/bypass-paywalls-chrome
    - phs318u 6y ago
      Another very useful add-on is Unpaywall which searches for free reprints of paywalled scholarly papers. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/unpaywall https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/unpaywall
  - godelski 6y ago
    Generally I don't get locked out of articles. The combination of uBlock, privacy badger, and auto deleting cookies seems to take care of 99% of cases. The rest are handled by outline.com and archive. But I'll be honest in those cases I'll read the comments first to see if it's worth reading.
  - every 6y ago
    I keep trimread[1] bookmarked. I works on most paywalled sites... [1] https://beta.trimread.com/ https://beta.trimread.com/
  - Viliam1234 6y ago
    It's like the often-proposed micropayments, except without the "micro".
- osdoorp 6y ago
  papa bless
programmerslave 6y ago
Mental disabilities are mostly adaptations that have huge upside. Technology is exacerbating that upside. You can’t have a majority autistic society, but you want some of them around
- primroot 6y ago
  That's an interesting take. I have seen the disability-as-adaptation idea in the past but nothing regarding Technology exacerbated upside. For instance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunter_vs._farmer_hypothesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunter_vs._farmer_hypothesis and https://slate.com/technology/2016/06/the-monkeys-of-south-america-evolved-to-be-colorblind-perhaps-because-its-actually-an-advantage-for-them.html https://slate.com/technology/2016/06/the-monkeys-of-south-am... .
  - 0b01 6y ago
    There's an entire field (although a small one) dedicated to this called Evolutionary Psychopathology. The idea is that mental illnesses are failure modes of adaptive phenotypes. For example high functioning autistic couple could produce a severely autistic child.
- cbozeman 6y ago
  > Mental disabilities are mostly adaptations that have huge upside. There is extremely scant evidence to support this claim, and conversely, an enormous amount of evidence to disprove it. The first part is questionable in its very premise. Mental disabilities as an adaptation? By what metric do you measure this? And having huge upsides? There aren't many upsides to someone being born severely mentally retarded. There aren't really even many upsides to severe autism. For every "House, M.D." you're thinking of, there's another totally non-functional person who requires an enormous amount of caretaking.
  - godelski 6y ago
    I think a big problem of this is that we don't actually represent these people and the way we talk about mental illnesses and disabilities is just strange. Like a lot of people were confused by Robin Williams and Chris Farley, but I don't think anyone that's ever suffered from depression was surprised at all. We think of depression as sadness instead of the existential emptiness or mundane that many experience. Autism is represented by geniuses like House or Sheldon Copper and no one understands the sensory overload aspect that is so common. It's also trendy in some circles to have illnesses because it represents struggle and overcoming obstacles. But the challenge is that many mental illnesses are extreme versions of the human condition and if you dilute it enough everyone has an anxiety disorder and depression and multiple personalities. I don't blame people for not knowing but maybe we should cool the jets on how woke we are because it seems like we're perpetuating misnomers more than recognizing nuances.
ksm1717 6y ago
The first sentence rubs me the wrong way. The claim that you wouldn’t expect autism to be coupled with invention because it is a disability only makes sense because of the semantics of labeling autism necessarily a disability. Not to mention the slight to disabilities as a whole
- chokeartist 6y ago
  I think their intention was to capture the attention of their target audience. Their target audience typically thinks of autism as something that mostly hinders someone, rather than elevate / enable them.
- DoofusOfDeath 6y ago
  One of my sons has Asperger syndrome. He's brilliant, happy, and has one of the sharpest senses of humor I've encountered. I'm not sure if his Asperger syndrome is a net positive or negative in his life, but it's certainly not a straight-up disability. Perhaps the author was thinking about a strong form of Autism that pretty unequivocally makes life difficult?
  - PlugTunin 6y ago
    Good point. The author of that article, Baron-Cohen, has previously written (debated?) about whether HFA/AS is a disability OR a difference. Speaking for myself, and many who identify as having Asperger's -- and your son, from what it sounds like (who sounds really cool!) -- it is indeed a difference, and by no means a disability.
    - novok 6y ago
      Low end ASD can make dating really hard for men, and their often inflexible nature makes them hard people to live with at times. I think from that perspective alone it's a disability.
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
PlugTunin 6y ago
Interesting read. Minor point of clarification: It's noted that many autistic folks struggle with empathy. There are two dimensions to empathy, cognitive and affective. Cognitive is more about perspective taking, or reading the feelings / intentions of others, while affective is the ability to share/understand the emotions of others, and respond appropriately. Putting aside that the two may overlap, it's often the cognitive aspect that challenges the autistic, leaving them susceptible to being tricked, or unable to pick up on, say, whether or not a person is interested in dating them. I point this out b/c it's important that this deficiency isn't construed as simply a predisposition to acting like an unfeeling jerk. There are many layers to empathy, as well as the related concept of Theory of Mind.
- epiphanitus 6y ago
  Put more simply, there is a big difference between the capacity to care about other people's feelings, and the capacity to understand them. Some understand but do not care, whereas some care but do not understand. It dovetails really well with creativity but it can introduce many challenges in life.
- petercooper 6y ago
  Sympathy vs empathy also adds another layer. If a certain event would cause me pain and that event happens to you, I can feel for you because I sympathize with your pain. This can easily pass as empathy. But if that same event would not cause me pain but it causes you pain, this can be difficult to resolve as it involves theory of mind which is often weak or missing in those with ASD.
- skissane 6y ago
  > as well as the related concept of Theory of Mind. On the topic of theory of mind and ASD, I think this is quite an interesting read: "Empirical Failures of the Claim That Autistic People Lack a Theory of Mind" – https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6959478/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6959478/ "We conclude that the claim that autistic people lack a theory of mind is empirically questionable and societally harmful"
ajarmst 6y ago
Note that the author is reporting primarily on his own research, not all of which is uncontroversial. Cohen's assertions have mostly been anecdote-based, without a lot of support from formal studies, even to quantifying what this "Invention" faculty even is.
- SubiculumCode 6y ago
  Cohen has tended to be a bit of a firebrand, and although he is given to overstating associations, it has usually pushed the field forward in crucial ways.
username90 6y ago
I wonder how much this is autism and how much it is people with low trait agreeableness being diagnosed with autism for being "bad with people". Refusing to do rituals without a good explanation makes people think you are autistic, but it could just as well be that they are disagreeable by nature and don't do things just because people tell them to. And refusing to do things the way everyone else does them obviously helps you find new ways to do things.
- akvadrako 6y ago
  Autism is a spectrum disorder, defined by just a list of traits, one of which you describe. So it is, by definition, autism.
  - skissane 6y ago
    All of the traits of ASD also occur in people who don't have ASD – people with other disorders, people with broad autism phenotype (BAP), and just "neurotypical" people in general. Kamp-Becker I, Albertowski K, Becker J, Ghahreman M, Langmann A, Mingebach T, Poustka L, Weber L, Schmidt H, Smidt J, Stehr T, Roessner V, Kucharczyk K, Wolff N, Stroth S. Diagnostic accuracy of the ADOS and ADOS-2 in clinical practice. Eur Child Adolesc Psychiatry. 2018 Sep;27(9):1193-1207. doi: 10.1007/s00787-018-1143-y. Epub 2018 Mar 20. PMID: 29560529: > There is an obvious symptom overlap between ASD and emotional and anxiety disorders documented by several studies [24, 52–56]. Both disorders involve profound social interaction and communication defcits, problems in emotion recognition, insistence on sameness, infexible adherence to routines, or ritualized patterns or verbal/non-verbal behaviour. 30% of children with an anxiety disorder (but no known diagnosis of ASD) were above the cutof of the ADI-R in at least one domain [57]. Other disorders are likewise associated with “autistic traits” of profound amount, such as ADHD, conduct disorders, intellectual impairment, and language disorders (see above) Since none of the traits of ASD is unique to ASD, none of those traits can be said to be "by definition, autism". One only should be diagnosed with ASD if one has enough of a broad enough cross-section of those traits, and those traits cause clinically significant dysfunction. (A person with a broad cross-section of those traits but without clinically significant dysfunction doesn't have ASD, they have BAP, but the boundary between ASD and BAP is unclear and varies from clinician to clinician.)
amelius 6y ago
Please don't take this the wrong way, but there is a 3-to-1 male-to-female ratio in autism prevalence. Does this mean that males invent more things than females? Or is the percentage of people with autism too small to have an effect here? https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28545751/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28545751/
- wwright 6y ago
  I know that there is at least some speculation that autism in women is under diagnosed v men. Does this paper account for that? Edit: yeah, that’s the conclusion of the analysis. I wonder if there is still more to be found there (ie if it is still closer to 1:1).
- PlugTunin 6y ago
  There was a time when society relegated women to pursuits that frequently deprived them of many opportunities to invent. Fortunately, society has changed.
  - hnracer 6y ago
    This is definitely a large part of the picture but it's also possibly partly genetic when it comes to the science and tech fields. I'm talking about interest and not competence. Women tend to self select out of science and tech in richer societies where they have the freedom to do so, and self select into disciplines that serve the empathic personality better. There are persuasive studies on that topic.
    - BlueTemplar 6y ago
      A significant factor seems to be that the way (not only STEM) academia is currently organized means that women have to pick between a career or having any children (at ages favorable to childbearing): https://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=4522 https://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=4522 And I kind of have the impression that the situation here actually got worse during the last decades?
BlueTemplar 6y ago
Some autistic nitpicking : > our ancestors started inventing things 70,000 to 100,000 years ago. Erm, and what about the other 200k-230k years of homo sapiens? Not to mention that Homo erectus invented the handaxe and domesticated fire about 1700k years ago, both of which were a pretty big deal! https://tauromachy.org/2018/07/18/the-handaxe-the-thunderstone-the-ouroboros/ https://tauromachy.org/2018/07/18/the-handaxe-the-thundersto...
- cma 6y ago
  I have no opinion on this, but some think the hand axe was genetically transmitted rather than culturally: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5066817/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5066817/ And that modern humans had some kind of creativity explosion substantially after they were anatomically modern.
  - BlueTemplar 6y ago
    Sadly I didn't have the time to read it all, but I note that your authors also talk of a cultural-based "shift in speed of artifact change 300‐200 ka" and maybe (or maybe not) also another (?) cognition-upgrade based shift 100-45 ka, which would be that "creativity explosion" that you are talking about ? They also talk about individual learning as a third mode, which somewhat ironically seems to be what the autism article is talking about... except the conditions for it are genetically based ! (But I guess so is the transition to mostly social learning?) EDIT : Hmm, and since autism is "anti-social" (and also probably generally anti-survival and anti-reproduction), may it be that it was only once that large, stable, strong social groups were put in place starting with 300-200 kya, that the conditions for "autistic specializations" could emerge starting with 100-45 kya, and this is what in turn turbocharged inventions leading to the "creativity explosion" ? The autism article would make a lot of sense under this light ! Anyway, perhaps we can't cleanly separate nature and nurture, see also recent discoveries somewhat rehabilitating Lamarckian inheritance. Also, my author in a parallel article says : https://loukeep.substack.com/p/vagaries https://loukeep.substack.com/p/vagaries > The first modern human bones are in Jebel Irhoud, Morocco, 300 kya. H. rhodiensis - the African variant of heidelbergensis - disappears at around this same time. There are just-about-simultaneously collections found in the Rift Valley, Kenya, that point to incredibly “modern” behavior[1], including pigment production and obsidian distant enough to suggest trade networks. Once, I think, it could be maintained that some kind of “great leap forward” in human behavior took place some 60,000 years ago or so. I don’t particularly understand how one can keep that up now. [1] https://science.sciencemag.org/content/360/6384/90 https://science.sciencemag.org/content/360/6384/90
golemotron 6y ago
I never felt Richard Stallman was treated fairly.
Threeve303 6y ago
For something with such a large spectrum, it doesn't make sense to assign broad generalizations. The lack of empathy in particular is almost too close to implying criminality as a common occurrence. Code perhaps? Some people play the social games more than others and if you're not interested in playing along, you're labelled as the 'other'. Then all of the negative stuff builds from there and it tends to become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Positive generalizations are harmful too, like it being a super power or you're going to be a wealthy inventor. Autism would be just one factor among many for all of these things.
Kharvok 6y ago
How much of autism diagnosis is just people misunderstanding people with high IQ? Obviously autism != intelligence, but I'd wager a fair amount of people are thought to be "on the spectrum" when really they just have an incredibly high IQ compared to their peers. Obviously not coming at this from a medical background.
- solarmist 6y ago
  Why not both? For the longest time people viewed high IQ (as much as it is an actual distinct thing) as a pure blessing. But more and more is coming out saying like everything else high IQ is a trade off and by increasing IQ you decrease other factors so it would not be at all surprising if major issues are strongly correlated with high IQ. That said I believe autism specifically occurs up and down the range of IQs and there are generally more people with autism on the low end of the spectrum (it could be equally likely that this is because of the diagnosis bias from the above).
- ThrustVectoring 6y ago
  Autism diagnoses should be inversely correlated with IQ at the same level of symptoms. For what it's worth, this correlation should hold for every mental health diagnosis. Pretty much all diagnosis criteria include some form of "and these things cause some sort of problems in the patient's life". Even if it doesn't, if someone's school/life/career is going OK, they don't seek out a mental health diagnosis. And IQ is one thing that is positively correlated with all sorts of desirable life outcomes. Like, one notable anecdotal example of this is Bill Gross, the "Bond King". He found out that he was on the spectrum when he was in his seventies. Basically a psych was talking about Asperger's at a dinner, Bill was like "that sounds like me", and his wife was like "of course, dear".
- auganov 6y ago
  Of course they do. Most mental/developmental conditions are nothing more than glorified personality quizzes created by PhDs. Unless you have the most boring personality in the world you're guaranteed to meet the diagnostic criteria for a whole slew of stuff they came up with. The only escape hatch to maintain some kind of legitimacy is to add a criterion of maladaptiveness - if you're doing well in every area of life you cannot be "diagnosed". That and you only consider "diagnoses" made by "professionals" to be valid. This way anybody proving how ridiculous these conditions are is wrong by default.
jariel 6y ago
+ I'm wary of these things being pop culture memes, and having weird expectations of people. 'Rain Man' all over again. + I wonder if people with these 'differences' really at the end of the day just have 'different viewpoints'. If 'everyone' were autistic a person that we might consider to be 'normal' ... would literally be an 'empath' - someone with uncanny magical powers to read emotions. That person would probably seem 'innovative' for having such a worldview.
ddmma 6y ago
While I was reading the ‘The Patterns Seekers’, managed to put together a basic concept of crowdsourcing patterns. I suppose this will look interesting eventually into a graph later. Here is a preview: https://why.social/default.aspx https://why.social/default.aspx
Taniwha 6y ago
Hmmm ... written by Borat's cousin (seriously) ... not a good or bad thing, just an interesting one
solarmist 6y ago
Non-paywalled https://www.universalpersonality.com/how-autism-and-invention-are-connected/ https://www.universalpersonality.com/how-autism-and-inventio...
- solarmist 6y ago
  Erk. This seems like it was ran through google translate twice. I hope the original article isn't this badly written.
Shmebulock 6y ago
Reminds me of Peter Thiel's view that autism is useful because it leads to less herd-like thinking/peer-pressure succumb-tion/mimesis. This aspect might be more important than the one this article puts forward i.e. that autists thinking itself lends itself better to being inventive.
junyoon 6y ago
This gives more data points to the whole tongue in cheek, Autism causes Vaccines. (more poignant now more than ever)
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
sjg007 6y ago
The research study behind the book is about autistic traits and not necessarily clinically diagnosed autism. Yes it is a spectrum and yes you can be "high functioning" and have "milder symptoms" but it is way more than that. Autism has a wide range of clinical subtypes and there are extremely debilitating ones. At its worst, you have kids who are non-verbal and can't communicate. If they don't get therapy they can be become aggressive and violent as they get older. A screaming hitting 5 year old is far different than a screaming hitting 15 year old. Spinning in circles, flapping, repetition, sensory issues, the requirement of definite routines. It's a whole different world and exhausting. You can identify signs of autism as early as 18 months. At age 2 or 3 it can be reliably diagnosed. I've personally seen autistic non-verable young kids go through intensive therapy and develop into kids who can attend kindergarten or 1st grade. What is really sad is that for the kids that don't get early intervention and where schools and states are not able to identify these kids. These kids end up with behavioral IEPs, might get kicked out of school and have no friends. Not that the kids necessarily want to play with other kids. Also the UK is seriously behind in autism therapy services and while it is good to focus on positive traits that might be associated with autism it is not helpful to those who really need the help. And in many cases you need a lot of help. But if you invest when the kids are young you can really make a difference. In the US, Obamacare really opened up services in the US and even then its hit or miss. For example, federal employees have no early intervention/autism coverage. And before that you had to go to specific states or school districts or be really rich to get any type of help. Even then it takes 6 months to get your kid in somewhere and the wait lists are huge as demand is so high. Kids with autism basically need 1:1 therapy 8 hours a day with positive reinforcement either ABA, AVB etc... I am a fan of center based programs but you do need to find a good program. https://www.autismspeaks.org/signs-autism https://www.autismspeaks.org/signs-autism Also I am not sure what Baron-Cohen is suggesting here but saying that there is a "scientific rationale" behind the kid flipping the light on and off or staring at the fireplace or a ceiling fan wondering how it is just nonsense. I mean maybe its true but did the kid tell you that? The kid is presumably not able to ask someone as to why the light turns on when he flicks the switch or if told, integrate the response. I think it is more consistent with the need for stimulation. Also his comment on a savant with autism is really not helpful. Savant syndrome is probably co-morbid with autism, development delay, and intellectual disability... but to say that's an autistic trait is just irresponsible. His book is basically a generalization based on autistic traits focused on systematizing and pattern matching and guess what the major confounding variable is ... we are all humans. Humans are pattern matchers + more. We also all respond to stimulus/response. And even animals are pattern matchers.
formk 6y ago
Dave at Forever Group (https://www.forever-group.co.uk https://www.forever-group.co.uk) here. My brother is on the autistic spectrum (Asperger's Syndrome). I don't know about invention but he has always been musical and loves to play the guitar. Perhaps music composition is deemed invention?

183 points by jkuria 6y ago

Autism is not a disability, it is a super power to be wielded to benefit humanity. Self made billionaires for example are more likely than the general population to be on the spectrum. Its obvious when you know what to look for.

neonate 6y ago

https://archive.is/dil8Z https://archive.is/dil8Z

kylebenzle 6y ago
Bless you people. I am amazed at how many pay-walled articles are posted on HN. Are most people here really well off enough that they can afford the dozens of subscriptions that are often linked to here?
- xyst 6y ago
  There are some services that allow you to subscribe to a single service for ~$10 per month and you get access to a wide range of national papers like the WSJ.
  - gime_tree_fiddy 6y ago
    What is this service you are talking about?
    - gnicholas 6y ago
      Sounds like Apple News. I am not a subscriber but this is what I understand the offering to be with regard to the WSJ. I think it is not comprehensive, but it includes a good deal of WSJ content. I think it can also be purchased even more cheaply as part of Apple's recently announced bundles.
    - xyst 6y ago
      apple news
    - BlueTemplar 6y ago
      My ISP has/used to have one, and it was even given for free for some months. I would have preferred that they didn't, as this can easily turn into a conflict of interest.
  - cocoa19 6y ago
    Huh, I don't have an iPhone but the offer sounds very good. I pay much more than $10 for only WSJ subscription. Sounds like I'm getting the shaft.
- acd 6y ago
  Different countries have different purchase power so subscriptions may be different expensive depending where you live. That said, paying for news is essential for our democracy. Paying for news allows news sites to pay journalist to research and write news stories. If we do not pay for news, news has to be financed through online advertising which is basically selling personal data for profit. Without paying revenue local news sites cannot afford to hire journalist. If there is not local journalist, there will not be controls, checks and writings on what elected officials do. Local news papers feed national news feed with articles and national news. So its essential for our democracy that we are willing to pay for news services which pays journalists.
  - dleslie 6y ago
    Part of that concept is the implied outcome that once media is paid for by readers it will no longer engage in undesirable practices for revenue, like advertorials and shock content; but this is somewhat of a myth. Those shady practices were common before the Internet, and they'll be common even if media returns to a subscription service model. What you need is a well-funded, and non-profit public news media. It's not without its faults, but it certainly shines where private news media consistently fails to.
    - BlueTemplar 6y ago
      Hmm, any examples of journalist-owned media engaging in such practices? I can think of at least 6 of them who don't (and don't have ads either).
      - dleslie 6y ago
        I'd give examples of independent journalists, particularly vloggers, who produce shock content of questionable merit, or who regularly publish promoted content; but I think you can identify them yourself.
        BlueTemplar 6y ago
        Right, I didn't think about individuals... though b/vloggers that aren't already journalists generally don't have the pretension of following journalistic norms ?
- mhh__ 6y ago
  Simpler explanation: People don't read the article. Why do you think people complain about titles so much even though they really don't matter
  - BlueTemplar 6y ago
    The worst issue with this is that titles are generally picked by different people than those writing the article, and are sometimes only tangentially related to its content.
    - dnissley 6y ago
      On the other hand: Most articles are pretty fluffy and don't bring much to the table, and so are just an invitation to discuss the topic at hand in the comments at what is usually a far greater depth than the original story.
      - c22 6y ago
        Yeah, I often don't feel the need to click the link after reading the comments, but sometimes I do and I am frequently disappointed to find only a few paragraphs of content or a superficial introduction to the subject.
- DyslexicAtheist 6y ago
  if you are using firefox then there is a great extension here which gets rid of many paywalls. works like a charm https://github.com/iamadamdev/bypass-paywalls-chrome https://github.com/iamadamdev/bypass-paywalls-chrome
  - phs318u 6y ago
    Another very useful add-on is Unpaywall which searches for free reprints of paywalled scholarly papers. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/unpaywall https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/unpaywall
- godelski 6y ago
  Generally I don't get locked out of articles. The combination of uBlock, privacy badger, and auto deleting cookies seems to take care of 99% of cases. The rest are handled by outline.com and archive. But I'll be honest in those cases I'll read the comments first to see if it's worth reading.
- every 6y ago
  I keep trimread[1] bookmarked. I works on most paywalled sites... [1] https://beta.trimread.com/ https://beta.trimread.com/
- Viliam1234 6y ago
  It's like the often-proposed micropayments, except without the "micro".
osdoorp 6y ago
papa bless

programmerslave 6y ago

Mental disabilities are mostly adaptations that have huge upside. Technology is exacerbating that upside. You can’t have a majority autistic society, but you want some of them around

primroot 6y ago
That's an interesting take. I have seen the disability-as-adaptation idea in the past but nothing regarding Technology exacerbated upside. For instance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunter_vs._farmer_hypothesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunter_vs._farmer_hypothesis and https://slate.com/technology/2016/06/the-monkeys-of-south-america-evolved-to-be-colorblind-perhaps-because-its-actually-an-advantage-for-them.html https://slate.com/technology/2016/06/the-monkeys-of-south-am... .
- 0b01 6y ago
  There's an entire field (although a small one) dedicated to this called Evolutionary Psychopathology. The idea is that mental illnesses are failure modes of adaptive phenotypes. For example high functioning autistic couple could produce a severely autistic child.
cbozeman 6y ago
> Mental disabilities are mostly adaptations that have huge upside. There is extremely scant evidence to support this claim, and conversely, an enormous amount of evidence to disprove it. The first part is questionable in its very premise. Mental disabilities as an adaptation? By what metric do you measure this? And having huge upsides? There aren't many upsides to someone being born severely mentally retarded. There aren't really even many upsides to severe autism. For every "House, M.D." you're thinking of, there's another totally non-functional person who requires an enormous amount of caretaking.
- godelski 6y ago
  I think a big problem of this is that we don't actually represent these people and the way we talk about mental illnesses and disabilities is just strange. Like a lot of people were confused by Robin Williams and Chris Farley, but I don't think anyone that's ever suffered from depression was surprised at all. We think of depression as sadness instead of the existential emptiness or mundane that many experience. Autism is represented by geniuses like House or Sheldon Copper and no one understands the sensory overload aspect that is so common. It's also trendy in some circles to have illnesses because it represents struggle and overcoming obstacles. But the challenge is that many mental illnesses are extreme versions of the human condition and if you dilute it enough everyone has an anxiety disorder and depression and multiple personalities. I don't blame people for not knowing but maybe we should cool the jets on how woke we are because it seems like we're perpetuating misnomers more than recognizing nuances.

ksm1717 6y ago

The first sentence rubs me the wrong way. The claim that you wouldn’t expect autism to be coupled with invention because it is a disability only makes sense because of the semantics of labeling autism necessarily a disability. Not to mention the slight to disabilities as a whole

chokeartist 6y ago
I think their intention was to capture the attention of their target audience. Their target audience typically thinks of autism as something that mostly hinders someone, rather than elevate / enable them.
DoofusOfDeath 6y ago
One of my sons has Asperger syndrome. He's brilliant, happy, and has one of the sharpest senses of humor I've encountered. I'm not sure if his Asperger syndrome is a net positive or negative in his life, but it's certainly not a straight-up disability. Perhaps the author was thinking about a strong form of Autism that pretty unequivocally makes life difficult?
- PlugTunin 6y ago
  Good point. The author of that article, Baron-Cohen, has previously written (debated?) about whether HFA/AS is a disability OR a difference. Speaking for myself, and many who identify as having Asperger's -- and your son, from what it sounds like (who sounds really cool!) -- it is indeed a difference, and by no means a disability.
  - novok 6y ago
    Low end ASD can make dating really hard for men, and their often inflexible nature makes them hard people to live with at times. I think from that perspective alone it's a disability.
    - deleted 6y ago
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PlugTunin 6y ago

Interesting read. Minor point of clarification: It's noted that many autistic folks struggle with empathy. There are two dimensions to empathy, cognitive and affective. Cognitive is more about perspective taking, or reading the feelings / intentions of others, while affective is the ability to share/understand the emotions of others, and respond appropriately. Putting aside that the two may overlap, it's often the cognitive aspect that challenges the autistic, leaving them susceptible to being tricked, or unable to pick up on, say, whether or not a person is interested in dating them. I point this out b/c it's important that this deficiency isn't construed as simply a predisposition to acting like an unfeeling jerk. There are many layers to empathy, as well as the related concept of Theory of Mind.

epiphanitus 6y ago
Put more simply, there is a big difference between the capacity to care about other people's feelings, and the capacity to understand them. Some understand but do not care, whereas some care but do not understand. It dovetails really well with creativity but it can introduce many challenges in life.
petercooper 6y ago
Sympathy vs empathy also adds another layer. If a certain event would cause me pain and that event happens to you, I can feel for you because I sympathize with your pain. This can easily pass as empathy. But if that same event would not cause me pain but it causes you pain, this can be difficult to resolve as it involves theory of mind which is often weak or missing in those with ASD.
skissane 6y ago
> as well as the related concept of Theory of Mind. On the topic of theory of mind and ASD, I think this is quite an interesting read: "Empirical Failures of the Claim That Autistic People Lack a Theory of Mind" – https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6959478/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6959478/ "We conclude that the claim that autistic people lack a theory of mind is empirically questionable and societally harmful"

ajarmst 6y ago

Note that the author is reporting primarily on his own research, not all of which is uncontroversial. Cohen's assertions have mostly been anecdote-based, without a lot of support from formal studies, even to quantifying what this "Invention" faculty even is.

SubiculumCode 6y ago
Cohen has tended to be a bit of a firebrand, and although he is given to overstating associations, it has usually pushed the field forward in crucial ways.

username90 6y ago

I wonder how much this is autism and how much it is people with low trait agreeableness being diagnosed with autism for being "bad with people". Refusing to do rituals without a good explanation makes people think you are autistic, but it could just as well be that they are disagreeable by nature and don't do things just because people tell them to. And refusing to do things the way everyone else does them obviously helps you find new ways to do things.

akvadrako 6y ago
Autism is a spectrum disorder, defined by just a list of traits, one of which you describe. So it is, by definition, autism.
- skissane 6y ago
  All of the traits of ASD also occur in people who don't have ASD – people with other disorders, people with broad autism phenotype (BAP), and just "neurotypical" people in general. Kamp-Becker I, Albertowski K, Becker J, Ghahreman M, Langmann A, Mingebach T, Poustka L, Weber L, Schmidt H, Smidt J, Stehr T, Roessner V, Kucharczyk K, Wolff N, Stroth S. Diagnostic accuracy of the ADOS and ADOS-2 in clinical practice. Eur Child Adolesc Psychiatry. 2018 Sep;27(9):1193-1207. doi: 10.1007/s00787-018-1143-y. Epub 2018 Mar 20. PMID: 29560529: > There is an obvious symptom overlap between ASD and emotional and anxiety disorders documented by several studies [24, 52–56]. Both disorders involve profound social interaction and communication defcits, problems in emotion recognition, insistence on sameness, infexible adherence to routines, or ritualized patterns or verbal/non-verbal behaviour. 30% of children with an anxiety disorder (but no known diagnosis of ASD) were above the cutof of the ADI-R in at least one domain [57]. Other disorders are likewise associated with “autistic traits” of profound amount, such as ADHD, conduct disorders, intellectual impairment, and language disorders (see above) Since none of the traits of ASD is unique to ASD, none of those traits can be said to be "by definition, autism". One only should be diagnosed with ASD if one has enough of a broad enough cross-section of those traits, and those traits cause clinically significant dysfunction. (A person with a broad cross-section of those traits but without clinically significant dysfunction doesn't have ASD, they have BAP, but the boundary between ASD and BAP is unclear and varies from clinician to clinician.)

amelius 6y ago

Please don't take this the wrong way, but there is a 3-to-1 male-to-female ratio in autism prevalence. Does this mean that males invent more things than females? Or is the percentage of people with autism too small to have an effect here? https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28545751/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28545751/

wwright 6y ago
I know that there is at least some speculation that autism in women is under diagnosed v men. Does this paper account for that? Edit: yeah, that’s the conclusion of the analysis. I wonder if there is still more to be found there (ie if it is still closer to 1:1).
PlugTunin 6y ago
There was a time when society relegated women to pursuits that frequently deprived them of many opportunities to invent. Fortunately, society has changed.
- hnracer 6y ago
  This is definitely a large part of the picture but it's also possibly partly genetic when it comes to the science and tech fields. I'm talking about interest and not competence. Women tend to self select out of science and tech in richer societies where they have the freedom to do so, and self select into disciplines that serve the empathic personality better. There are persuasive studies on that topic.
  - BlueTemplar 6y ago
    A significant factor seems to be that the way (not only STEM) academia is currently organized means that women have to pick between a career or having any children (at ages favorable to childbearing): https://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=4522 https://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=4522 And I kind of have the impression that the situation here actually got worse during the last decades?

BlueTemplar 6y ago

Some autistic nitpicking : > our ancestors started inventing things 70,000 to 100,000 years ago. Erm, and what about the other 200k-230k years of homo sapiens? Not to mention that Homo erectus invented the handaxe and domesticated fire about 1700k years ago, both of which were a pretty big deal! https://tauromachy.org/2018/07/18/the-handaxe-the-thunderstone-the-ouroboros/ https://tauromachy.org/2018/07/18/the-handaxe-the-thundersto...

cma 6y ago
I have no opinion on this, but some think the hand axe was genetically transmitted rather than culturally: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5066817/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5066817/ And that modern humans had some kind of creativity explosion substantially after they were anatomically modern.
- BlueTemplar 6y ago
  Sadly I didn't have the time to read it all, but I note that your authors also talk of a cultural-based "shift in speed of artifact change 300‐200 ka" and maybe (or maybe not) also another (?) cognition-upgrade based shift 100-45 ka, which would be that "creativity explosion" that you are talking about ? They also talk about individual learning as a third mode, which somewhat ironically seems to be what the autism article is talking about... except the conditions for it are genetically based ! (But I guess so is the transition to mostly social learning?) EDIT : Hmm, and since autism is "anti-social" (and also probably generally anti-survival and anti-reproduction), may it be that it was only once that large, stable, strong social groups were put in place starting with 300-200 kya, that the conditions for "autistic specializations" could emerge starting with 100-45 kya, and this is what in turn turbocharged inventions leading to the "creativity explosion" ? The autism article would make a lot of sense under this light ! Anyway, perhaps we can't cleanly separate nature and nurture, see also recent discoveries somewhat rehabilitating Lamarckian inheritance. Also, my author in a parallel article says : https://loukeep.substack.com/p/vagaries https://loukeep.substack.com/p/vagaries > The first modern human bones are in Jebel Irhoud, Morocco, 300 kya. H. rhodiensis - the African variant of heidelbergensis - disappears at around this same time. There are just-about-simultaneously collections found in the Rift Valley, Kenya, that point to incredibly “modern” behavior[1], including pigment production and obsidian distant enough to suggest trade networks. Once, I think, it could be maintained that some kind of “great leap forward” in human behavior took place some 60,000 years ago or so. I don’t particularly understand how one can keep that up now. [1] https://science.sciencemag.org/content/360/6384/90 https://science.sciencemag.org/content/360/6384/90

golemotron 6y ago

I never felt Richard Stallman was treated fairly.

Threeve303 6y ago

For something with such a large spectrum, it doesn't make sense to assign broad generalizations. The lack of empathy in particular is almost too close to implying criminality as a common occurrence. Code perhaps? Some people play the social games more than others and if you're not interested in playing along, you're labelled as the 'other'. Then all of the negative stuff builds from there and it tends to become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Positive generalizations are harmful too, like it being a super power or you're going to be a wealthy inventor. Autism would be just one factor among many for all of these things.

Kharvok 6y ago

How much of autism diagnosis is just people misunderstanding people with high IQ? Obviously autism != intelligence, but I'd wager a fair amount of people are thought to be "on the spectrum" when really they just have an incredibly high IQ compared to their peers. Obviously not coming at this from a medical background.

solarmist 6y ago
Why not both? For the longest time people viewed high IQ (as much as it is an actual distinct thing) as a pure blessing. But more and more is coming out saying like everything else high IQ is a trade off and by increasing IQ you decrease other factors so it would not be at all surprising if major issues are strongly correlated with high IQ. That said I believe autism specifically occurs up and down the range of IQs and there are generally more people with autism on the low end of the spectrum (it could be equally likely that this is because of the diagnosis bias from the above).
ThrustVectoring 6y ago
Autism diagnoses should be inversely correlated with IQ at the same level of symptoms. For what it's worth, this correlation should hold for every mental health diagnosis. Pretty much all diagnosis criteria include some form of "and these things cause some sort of problems in the patient's life". Even if it doesn't, if someone's school/life/career is going OK, they don't seek out a mental health diagnosis. And IQ is one thing that is positively correlated with all sorts of desirable life outcomes. Like, one notable anecdotal example of this is Bill Gross, the "Bond King". He found out that he was on the spectrum when he was in his seventies. Basically a psych was talking about Asperger's at a dinner, Bill was like "that sounds like me", and his wife was like "of course, dear".
auganov 6y ago
Of course they do. Most mental/developmental conditions are nothing more than glorified personality quizzes created by PhDs. Unless you have the most boring personality in the world you're guaranteed to meet the diagnostic criteria for a whole slew of stuff they came up with. The only escape hatch to maintain some kind of legitimacy is to add a criterion of maladaptiveness - if you're doing well in every area of life you cannot be "diagnosed". That and you only consider "diagnoses" made by "professionals" to be valid. This way anybody proving how ridiculous these conditions are is wrong by default.

jariel 6y ago

+ I'm wary of these things being pop culture memes, and having weird expectations of people. 'Rain Man' all over again. + I wonder if people with these 'differences' really at the end of the day just have 'different viewpoints'. If 'everyone' were autistic a person that we might consider to be 'normal' ... would literally be an 'empath' - someone with uncanny magical powers to read emotions. That person would probably seem 'innovative' for having such a worldview.

ddmma 6y ago

While I was reading the ‘The Patterns Seekers’, managed to put together a basic concept of crowdsourcing patterns. I suppose this will look interesting eventually into a graph later. Here is a preview: https://why.social/default.aspx https://why.social/default.aspx

Taniwha 6y ago

Hmmm ... written by Borat's cousin (seriously) ... not a good or bad thing, just an interesting one

solarmist 6y ago

Non-paywalled https://www.universalpersonality.com/how-autism-and-invention-are-connected/ https://www.universalpersonality.com/how-autism-and-inventio...

solarmist 6y ago
Erk. This seems like it was ran through google translate twice. I hope the original article isn't this badly written.

Shmebulock 6y ago

Reminds me of Peter Thiel's view that autism is useful because it leads to less herd-like thinking/peer-pressure succumb-tion/mimesis. This aspect might be more important than the one this article puts forward i.e. that autists thinking itself lends itself better to being inventive.

junyoon 6y ago

This gives more data points to the whole tongue in cheek, Autism causes Vaccines. (more poignant now more than ever)

deleted 6y ago

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sjg007 6y ago

The research study behind the book is about autistic traits and not necessarily clinically diagnosed autism. Yes it is a spectrum and yes you can be "high functioning" and have "milder symptoms" but it is way more than that. Autism has a wide range of clinical subtypes and there are extremely debilitating ones. At its worst, you have kids who are non-verbal and can't communicate. If they don't get therapy they can be become aggressive and violent as they get older. A screaming hitting 5 year old is far different than a screaming hitting 15 year old. Spinning in circles, flapping, repetition, sensory issues, the requirement of definite routines. It's a whole different world and exhausting. You can identify signs of autism as early as 18 months. At age 2 or 3 it can be reliably diagnosed. I've personally seen autistic non-verable young kids go through intensive therapy and develop into kids who can attend kindergarten or 1st grade. What is really sad is that for the kids that don't get early intervention and where schools and states are not able to identify these kids. These kids end up with behavioral IEPs, might get kicked out of school and have no friends. Not that the kids necessarily want to play with other kids. Also the UK is seriously behind in autism therapy services and while it is good to focus on positive traits that might be associated with autism it is not helpful to those who really need the help. And in many cases you need a lot of help. But if you invest when the kids are young you can really make a difference. In the US, Obamacare really opened up services in the US and even then its hit or miss. For example, federal employees have no early intervention/autism coverage. And before that you had to go to specific states or school districts or be really rich to get any type of help. Even then it takes 6 months to get your kid in somewhere and the wait lists are huge as demand is so high. Kids with autism basically need 1:1 therapy 8 hours a day with positive reinforcement either ABA, AVB etc... I am a fan of center based programs but you do need to find a good program. https://www.autismspeaks.org/signs-autism https://www.autismspeaks.org/signs-autism Also I am not sure what Baron-Cohen is suggesting here but saying that there is a "scientific rationale" behind the kid flipping the light on and off or staring at the fireplace or a ceiling fan wondering how it is just nonsense. I mean maybe its true but did the kid tell you that? The kid is presumably not able to ask someone as to why the light turns on when he flicks the switch or if told, integrate the response. I think it is more consistent with the need for stimulation. Also his comment on a savant with autism is really not helpful. Savant syndrome is probably co-morbid with autism, development delay, and intellectual disability... but to say that's an autistic trait is just irresponsible. His book is basically a generalization based on autistic traits focused on systematizing and pattern matching and guess what the major confounding variable is ... we are all humans. Humans are pattern matchers + more. We also all respond to stimulus/response. And even animals are pattern matchers.

formk 6y ago

Dave at Forever Group (https://www.forever-group.co.uk https://www.forever-group.co.uk) here. My brother is on the autistic spectrum (Asperger's Syndrome). I don't know about invention but he has always been musical and loves to play the guitar. Perhaps music composition is deemed invention?