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> society is largely set up to favor neurotypicals at the expense of those with ADHD. As someone with diagnosed ADHD, I think this misrepresents ADHD. There's

> society is largely set up to favor neurotypicals at the expense of those with ADHD. As someone with diagnosed ADHD, I think this misrepresents ADHD. There's no form of society in which ADHD is an advantage; in a hunter-gatherer society, my tent would still be untidy and I'd still procrastinate fixing my spear before the hunt until the day before, and I'd still lose focus during the hunt and miss the deer walking past, because I was watching ants move sticks around. ADHD is a disability, not a difference of ability. It's not very enjoyable for me to accept as I'm reasonably bright, but I'm mentally disabled in a way that someone of equivalent intelligence without ADHD is not. They can more easily achieve what they want in life than I can. I don't think there's any task in which someone with ADHD is more suited to than someone without; there are tasks which are less difficult for the person with ADHD than other tasks, but ADHD doesn't bestow many, if any, advantages over a neurotypical person. There was a recent brief blog post[1] on this from Scott Alexander, if you're curious to read more, but I've come to the same conclusion independently. [1]: https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/contra-the-social-model-of-disability https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/contra-the-social-mode...

JonChesterfield 3y ago
Given the context of this board, hyperfocus goes really well with software dev if you can get the stars to align well enough.
gms7777 3y ago
I'm not the person you were responding with you, and I completely agree with you, but I think there is a more charitable reading of that statement which I also think is true. There is no form of society in which ADHD is an advantage. But I think there are forms of society in which ADHD is less of a disadvantage. Another way of putting it is that ADHD is inherently a disability on it's own, but there are ways that a lot of our society is set up that exacerbate those problems. Just as there are ways to improve accessibility in spaces for those with physical disabilities, and that doesn't stop them from being disabilities, there are also ways that there could be cultural shifts and choices made to improve accessibility for those with ADHD.
pwpw 3y ago
> There's no form of society in which ADHD is an advantage > I don't think there's any task in which someone with ADHD is more suited to than someone without; there are tasks which are less difficult for the person with ADHD than other tasks, but ADHD doesn't bestow many, if any, advantages over a neurotypical person. Your experience is totally valid! I can only speak for my own experience, but I find compared to my neurotypical peers, I am much more capable at learning a breadth of topics. My peers are significantly better at performing 40 three-way matches for invoices in a work day while I would totally fail at that. But let me make my own video game where I have to learn how to program it, design art, and create music, and I’m great at that! My power comes from the ability to bounce around things depending on what I want to focus on that day. I create an environment for myself where I have dozens of tasks I can do, so that I always have something that will grab my interest. The way this usually plays out in the actual working world is that I struggle with boring, repetitive tasks, but now that my boss knows how I work, he has let me set a more friendly set up and now frequently sees me deliver major changes that would have taken another developer weeks to accomplish given the diversity of tasks I have solved. Meanwhile the other developer is delivering on certain types of tasks I would be much worse at accomplishing. Our team plays to our strengths. I’m great at deeply learning various concepts then hyperfocusing and delivering significant code changes at work. Some days I’ll complete 3 major jira tickets complete with testing because I’m so focused. Now of course there are other days where it’s much harder to get things done. But setting up that environment where I have diverse things to work on lets that aspect of my ADHD shine. I will note that I’m properly medicated and have a great diet that helped a lot. School was always really tough for me. Then I discovered when I was studying for the CPA exam, that I learn much better from books than from a teacher in a classroom. I experienced this again when I self-taught CS. These days, I view my ADHD as less of a hindrance and more of a different approach. It’s true that it has downsides compared to a neurotypical, but I feel that it absolutely has its upsides as well when in a healthy state.
- sersi 3y ago
  I was going to write the same thing you did. I've been diagnosed with ADHD and while it is a disadvantage for certain things (I've lost quite a bit of money due to invoices not being sent on time to clients as a contractor, fines for not submitting tax on time, etc...), it's also been hugely beneficial in other areas. When I was in university, I quickly realized that I had a hard time paying attention to lectures but that I would be passionate about reading the reference books on the various subjects. So I skipped a lot of classes (it was a French engineering school, attendance is not mandatory if your grades are good) and I read all the relevant textbooks. I was studying CS so I was passionate and very interested in what I was reading so I could easily hyperfocus on those books and did very well. On the other hand, if I had been forced to attend lectures instead, I would have not done nearly as well. In my work life, I've been the go to person who solves the hard problems because when I find an interesting problem to work on, I can completely focus on it until I solve it. On the other hand, I have a very hard time dealing with boring repetitive tasks but that's why an effective manager makes sure each people play to their strength. So I do take issue with this statement "As someone with diagnosed ADHD, I think this misrepresents ADHD. There's no form of society in which ADHD is an advantage; " and "ADHD is a disability, not a difference of ability". On the contrary, ADHD IS a difference of ability and effectively managing ADHD means finding ways to adapt your life and work life to take advantage of the good sides of ADHD and find workarounds around the problematic aspects of it. I'm honestly not sure if I'd have been as successful without ADHD, I would have lost less money for sure but maybe wouldn't have earned as much as I did. It would have been less stressful though for the first 36 years before I got diagnosed when I didn't understand why I couldn't just do certain tasks.
carom 3y ago
I agree with GP. My apartment is a mess. I neglect serious notices from the government. I can't hold a job doing boring work. However, give me a programming project I'm interested in and I can work on it 14 hours a day. I'm not sure if it would be ADHD or autism but I'm quite happy with it.
tomjakubowski 3y ago
ADHD is so prevalent in the US, far more so than most (all?) other disabilities; I believe one of these must be true: - ADHD is severely over diagnosed - ADHD is a trait that was adaptive in the past, and is only pathologically maladaptive in modern life - ADHD the trait is caused by some aspect of modern life (this seems least likely to me) (saying this as diagnosed, with the usual problems)
- SimplyUnknown 3y ago
  Not all of these are mutually exclusive, but there is also a fourth option: - ADHD was severely underdiagnosed in the past and got more accurately diagnosed in recent years
  - frogulis 3y ago
    If I'm reading the parent comment correctly, I think they're saying that that the high rates currently being diagnosed require one of their three conditions to be true. That is, if ADHD is accurately diagnosed, and never had an evolutionary advantage, and isn't caused by some modern factor, then why would ADHD be so highly diagnosed today? Which is an interesting thought in my view
    - thfuran 3y ago
      It could share a root cause with something that was evolutionarily adaptive or simply not have been sufficiently maladaptive to be strongly selected against.
    - Clamchop 3y ago
      There are other conditions. There's at least a cultural component in that we haven't always embraced mental health care in the US as much as we do today. Many other parts of the world still don't. Whether over or underdiagnosed now, it was underdiagnosed in the past.
- pwpw 3y ago
  Entirely pet theories that may be untrue but worth considering: - Nicotine helps mitigate the negative symptoms of ADHD, but US society has seen a major drop in tobacco usage - Having access to a secretary greatly compensates for workplace related tasks that are difficult for those with ADHD. I have had a few conversations with people at my company much older than myself about how the number of secretaries has vastly shrunk. My boss’ secretary used to reach out to me about a meeting she had scheduled for us. Now my boss doesn’t have a secretary, and I have to schedule those meetings, update them, and communicate this with multiple parties while also having a full plate of my own dev work.
jaqalopes 3y ago
I’m a fellow ADHD sufferer and you’re 100% right that it is disabling in many contexts where “normal” function is optimal. But I want to encourage you not to despair entirely—-there are legitimate ways in which the ADHD mind has an edge. Mainly in recognizing lateral connections that neurotypical people might not see—-in essence, creativity, innovation. Not that neurotypical people can’t be creative, they obviously can be. But the ADHD mind has been shown to have this unusual quality. It’s why people with ADHD are often especially good conversationalists and jokers, even if they are terrible at getting their taxes done on time.

JonChesterfield 3y ago

Given the context of this board, hyperfocus goes really well with software dev if you can get the stars to align well enough.

gms7777 3y ago

I'm not the person you were responding with you, and I completely agree with you, but I think there is a more charitable reading of that statement which I also think is true. There is no form of society in which ADHD is an advantage. But I think there are forms of society in which ADHD is less of a disadvantage. Another way of putting it is that ADHD is inherently a disability on it's own, but there are ways that a lot of our society is set up that exacerbate those problems. Just as there are ways to improve accessibility in spaces for those with physical disabilities, and that doesn't stop them from being disabilities, there are also ways that there could be cultural shifts and choices made to improve accessibility for those with ADHD.

pwpw 3y ago

> There's no form of society in which ADHD is an advantage > I don't think there's any task in which someone with ADHD is more suited to than someone without; there are tasks which are less difficult for the person with ADHD than other tasks, but ADHD doesn't bestow many, if any, advantages over a neurotypical person. Your experience is totally valid! I can only speak for my own experience, but I find compared to my neurotypical peers, I am much more capable at learning a breadth of topics. My peers are significantly better at performing 40 three-way matches for invoices in a work day while I would totally fail at that. But let me make my own video game where I have to learn how to program it, design art, and create music, and I’m great at that! My power comes from the ability to bounce around things depending on what I want to focus on that day. I create an environment for myself where I have dozens of tasks I can do, so that I always have something that will grab my interest. The way this usually plays out in the actual working world is that I struggle with boring, repetitive tasks, but now that my boss knows how I work, he has let me set a more friendly set up and now frequently sees me deliver major changes that would have taken another developer weeks to accomplish given the diversity of tasks I have solved. Meanwhile the other developer is delivering on certain types of tasks I would be much worse at accomplishing. Our team plays to our strengths. I’m great at deeply learning various concepts then hyperfocusing and delivering significant code changes at work. Some days I’ll complete 3 major jira tickets complete with testing because I’m so focused. Now of course there are other days where it’s much harder to get things done. But setting up that environment where I have diverse things to work on lets that aspect of my ADHD shine. I will note that I’m properly medicated and have a great diet that helped a lot. School was always really tough for me. Then I discovered when I was studying for the CPA exam, that I learn much better from books than from a teacher in a classroom. I experienced this again when I self-taught CS. These days, I view my ADHD as less of a hindrance and more of a different approach. It’s true that it has downsides compared to a neurotypical, but I feel that it absolutely has its upsides as well when in a healthy state.

sersi 3y ago
I was going to write the same thing you did. I've been diagnosed with ADHD and while it is a disadvantage for certain things (I've lost quite a bit of money due to invoices not being sent on time to clients as a contractor, fines for not submitting tax on time, etc...), it's also been hugely beneficial in other areas. When I was in university, I quickly realized that I had a hard time paying attention to lectures but that I would be passionate about reading the reference books on the various subjects. So I skipped a lot of classes (it was a French engineering school, attendance is not mandatory if your grades are good) and I read all the relevant textbooks. I was studying CS so I was passionate and very interested in what I was reading so I could easily hyperfocus on those books and did very well. On the other hand, if I had been forced to attend lectures instead, I would have not done nearly as well. In my work life, I've been the go to person who solves the hard problems because when I find an interesting problem to work on, I can completely focus on it until I solve it. On the other hand, I have a very hard time dealing with boring repetitive tasks but that's why an effective manager makes sure each people play to their strength. So I do take issue with this statement "As someone with diagnosed ADHD, I think this misrepresents ADHD. There's no form of society in which ADHD is an advantage; " and "ADHD is a disability, not a difference of ability". On the contrary, ADHD IS a difference of ability and effectively managing ADHD means finding ways to adapt your life and work life to take advantage of the good sides of ADHD and find workarounds around the problematic aspects of it. I'm honestly not sure if I'd have been as successful without ADHD, I would have lost less money for sure but maybe wouldn't have earned as much as I did. It would have been less stressful though for the first 36 years before I got diagnosed when I didn't understand why I couldn't just do certain tasks.

carom 3y ago

I agree with GP. My apartment is a mess. I neglect serious notices from the government. I can't hold a job doing boring work. However, give me a programming project I'm interested in and I can work on it 14 hours a day. I'm not sure if it would be ADHD or autism but I'm quite happy with it.

tomjakubowski 3y ago

ADHD is so prevalent in the US, far more so than most (all?) other disabilities; I believe one of these must be true: - ADHD is severely over diagnosed - ADHD is a trait that was adaptive in the past, and is only pathologically maladaptive in modern life - ADHD the trait is caused by some aspect of modern life (this seems least likely to me) (saying this as diagnosed, with the usual problems)

SimplyUnknown 3y ago
Not all of these are mutually exclusive, but there is also a fourth option: - ADHD was severely underdiagnosed in the past and got more accurately diagnosed in recent years
- frogulis 3y ago
  If I'm reading the parent comment correctly, I think they're saying that that the high rates currently being diagnosed require one of their three conditions to be true. That is, if ADHD is accurately diagnosed, and never had an evolutionary advantage, and isn't caused by some modern factor, then why would ADHD be so highly diagnosed today? Which is an interesting thought in my view
  - thfuran 3y ago
    It could share a root cause with something that was evolutionarily adaptive or simply not have been sufficiently maladaptive to be strongly selected against.
  - Clamchop 3y ago
    There are other conditions. There's at least a cultural component in that we haven't always embraced mental health care in the US as much as we do today. Many other parts of the world still don't. Whether over or underdiagnosed now, it was underdiagnosed in the past.
pwpw 3y ago
Entirely pet theories that may be untrue but worth considering: - Nicotine helps mitigate the negative symptoms of ADHD, but US society has seen a major drop in tobacco usage - Having access to a secretary greatly compensates for workplace related tasks that are difficult for those with ADHD. I have had a few conversations with people at my company much older than myself about how the number of secretaries has vastly shrunk. My boss’ secretary used to reach out to me about a meeting she had scheduled for us. Now my boss doesn’t have a secretary, and I have to schedule those meetings, update them, and communicate this with multiple parties while also having a full plate of my own dev work.

jaqalopes 3y ago

I’m a fellow ADHD sufferer and you’re 100% right that it is disabling in many contexts where “normal” function is optimal. But I want to encourage you not to despair entirely—-there are legitimate ways in which the ADHD mind has an edge. Mainly in recognizing lateral connections that neurotypical people might not see—-in essence, creativity, innovation. Not that neurotypical people can’t be creative, they obviously can be. But the ADHD mind has been shown to have this unusual quality. It’s why people with ADHD are often especially good conversationalists and jokers, even if they are terrible at getting their taxes done on time.