7 ms·

I think there's a non-malicious explanation for a percentage of this. As I grew up in the 80s, there were two kinds of gifted kids in school: The kind that wou

by hibikir 11mo ago

I think there's a non-malicious explanation for a percentage of this. As I grew up in the 80s, there were two kinds of gifted kids in school: The kind that would ace everything anyway, and the kind that, for a variety of reasons, lacked the regulation abilities to manage the school setting well, with the slow classes and such. A lot of very smart people just failed academically, because the system didn't work for them. Some of those improved their executive function enough as they went past their teenage years, and are now making a lot of money in difficult fields. So what happens when we do make accomodations to them? That their peaky, gifted performance comes out, they don't get ejected by the school systems anywhere near as often as they were before, and now end up in top institutions. Because they really are both very smart and disabled at the same time. you can even see this in tech workplaces: The percentages of workers that are neurodivergent is much higher than usual, but it's not as if tech hires them out of compassion, but because there's a big cadre or neurodivergent people that are just in the line where they are very productive workers anyway. So it should be no surprise that in instutitutions searching for performance, the number of people that qualify for affordances for certain mental disabilities just goes way up. That's not to say that there cannot be people that are just cheating, but it doesn't take much time in a class with gifted kids to realize that no, it's not just cheating. You can find someone, say, suffering in a dialectic-centric english class, where just following the conversation is a problem, while they are outright bored with the highest difficulty technical AP classes available, because they find them very easy.

lostmsu 11mo ago
> The percentages of workers that are neurodivergent is much higher than usual Is it much though? 38%? I haven't seen one in 15 years across 5+ different companies. > there's a big cadre or neurodivergent people that are just in the line where they are very productive workers anyway Alternatively, it just became popular to label others or oneself that way. And tech elites have nothing better to do in free time. Also DEI benefits! Who else would be allowed a medical break due to a burnout and stress?
- jfindper 11mo ago
  >I haven't seen one in 15 years across 5+ different companies How does one even know this? Do you ask everyone you meet if they are neuro-divergent? That’s awkward as hell.
- MangoToupe 11mo ago
  > I haven't seen one in 15 years across 5+ different companies. I'm guessing you are blind, yea? Otherwise how could you otherwise justify such a statement?
  - MangoToupe 11mo ago
    > Alternatively, it just became popular to label others or oneself that way. And tech elites have nothing better to do in free time. Also DEI benefits! Who else would be allowed a medical break due to a burnout and stress? The person is clearly retarded themselves. Let's not judge too harshly
- OneDeuxTriSeiGo 11mo ago
  > Is it much though? 38%? I haven't seen one in 15 years across 5+ different companies. How do you know this? Do you have access to their medical records? Are you in HR and have access to any accomodations they may have filed? Do they even have accommodations filed at work? Neither I nor many of the people I knew in university who had accommodations needed them in the workplace because the structure of an undergrad course setting is wildly different from that of an actual workplace. I have told HR at basically every place I've worked that I had filed for accommodations during university and that I generally manage my disability well but that I may need to file for formal accommodations at some point in the future. This isn't something that I've necessarily told people I work with and it's not visible or obvious. Most disabilities aren't.
- LoganDark 11mo ago
  > > The percentages of workers that are neurodivergent is much higher than usual > Is it much though? 38%? I haven't seen one in 15 years across 5+ different companies. Just another anecdote, but where I work (tech startup) there are at least 7 other employees (that I know of) and I can identify every single one as autistic. Three are one type, another three are another type, and I think the one other as well as myself are the same type. Research in the space hasn't advanced enough yet for this to be consensus, but in my opinion this preprint is exactly correct, and is what taught me that there are even subtypes to recognize at all: https://www.thetransmitter.org/spectrum/untangling-biological-threads-from-autisms-phenotypic-patchwork-reveals-four-core-subtypes https://www.thetransmitter.org/spectrum/untangling-biologica... There are, of course, plenty of non-neurodivergent tech companies. These are typically boring corporate ones, though I think there are some non-flashy ones that are perfectly respectable. I don't think Microsoft would count, though; Asperger's can look a lot like a lack of neurodivergence if you don't pay close enough attention.
mapontosevenths 11mo ago
> Because they really are both very smart and disabled at the same time. I agree with almost everything you say here. However, I wanted to point out that you make the same mistake the articles author does. "Disabled" and "Diagnosed" are not actually the same thing, even though we do describe ADHD and the like as "learning disabilities." Being diagnosed with a learning disability or other type of neuro-divergency does not automatically entitle someone to special treatment. The vast majority of that 38% are likely just "diagnosed" people who are asking for no special treatment at all. That doesn't fit the authors narrative, or trigger the human animals "unfairness" detector though so it makes a far less interesting article.
- paulpauper 11mo ago
  This Is detail often left out of this debate . A diagnosis does not imply accommodations.
- powerclue 11mo ago
  The article is pretty clearly someone trying to drag disability on to the stage of the culture war because it's another group that's easy to other, imo.
  - skeeter2020 11mo ago
    This is the common gag reflex, but multiple things can be true at the same time; there can be a greater need for support of disabled persons AND a shocking abuse of the systems by priviledged students. Ditto for the need to support women & minorities at the same time as white males are doing poorly and need help.
    - powerclue 11mo ago
      I don't think I disagree, and I don't think I suggested that couldn't be the case.
  - AlexandrB 11mo ago
    Do you think the disabled are being helped by letting bad actors trying to get a leg up over their peers abuse accommodations meant for them? On pretty much every "culture war" issue the "left" fails to adequately grapple with bad actors and those that abuse empathetic policies to harm others or unfairly advance themselves. Long term this will be to the great detriment of marginalized groups because societal support for these accommodations will erode. It's really frustrating to watch. Edit: If you want a recent example of this coming full circle, take a look at service animals. Sometime around 2021-2023 there was a wave of people claiming their pets as "service animals" or "emotional support animals" and bringing them everywhere in public. At first this was tolerated or even welcomed by businesses but increasingly animals are being banned from these spaces because of badly behaved pets. Those with genuine need for a service animal are caught in the crossfire.
MangoToupe 11mo ago
> I think there's a non-malicious explanation for a percentage of this. What on earth is a "malicious" explanation of this?
- apparent 11mo ago
  That people know they do not actually need/qualify for accommodations, but misrepresent themselves in order to get them?
  - deleted 11mo ago
    [deleted]
  - MangoToupe 11mo ago
    Ok but such a person who thinks this way is definitionally in need of help; who would waste any brain wattage caring about this? Do they also need government subsidies to pay attention to their own lives?
    - jlarocco 11mo ago
      So you're saying it's some kind of mental handicap causing people to cheat the system to get benefits, therefore people who fake a handicap to get benefits actually deserve those benefits?
- jfindper 11mo ago
  One example of a malicious explanation would be: people are lying about having a disability to get some sort of benefits they don’t need, likely at the expense of someone who does need those benefits.
  - teknopaul 11mo ago
    What they get is amphetamines, legally. 38% of stanford kids taking or selling drugs, legally, because they are rich kids: and the poor kids get jail time for buying it off them. Go USA. Wierd that no-one on this thread seems aware of it. There are two standard treatments for adhd: met & dexies midnight runners.
swatcoder 11mo ago
> people that are just in the line where they are very productive workers anyway Of course, that applies to everybody who achieves a stable career at all. Exceedingly few people (if anyone) are competent and capable at everything, even when you're just talking about basic skills that are handy for common, everyday work. Your doctor may be a incorrigibly terrible driver, your bus driver may pass out at the sight of blood, your Michelin chef might have been never made sense of geometry, your mechanic may need deep focus just to read through a manual, your bricklayer might go into a panic if they need to stand in front of a crowd, your bartender may never have experienced a clear thought before 11am. Struggling with some things, even deeply struggling, is normal if not universal. But once you age past the gauntlet of general education that specifically tests all these things, the hope is that you can just sort of flow like water into a valuable enough community role that you can take care of yourself and help some people. A lot of modern, aspiring-middle-class and online culture stirs up an idea that there must be something unusual about you if you find this thing or that thing difficult, when the reality is that everybody has a few things that they struggle with quite a lot, and that the people who seem like they don't have just succeeded at avoiding, delegating, or hiding whatever it is that's hard for them.
- qazxcvbnmlp 11mo ago
  Well put. > A lot of modern, aspiring-middle-class and online culture Theres also a pernicious way of identifying with the struggle. Instead of I have trouble focusing in certain situations, so maybe I should find ways to spend my time (careers, hobbies) that work well with that. We instead go to 'I have ADHD' and my 'job' should make special accommodations for me. Regardless of whether a job should or should not make accommodations. It's not a very helpful construct to think they should. It removes agency from the person experiencing the struggle. Which in turn puts them farther from finding a place that they would fit in well. For the vast majority of behaviors (ADHD, attachment issues, autism, etc) they exist on a continuum and are adaptive/helpful in certain situations. By pathologizing them, we(society) loose touch for what they mean in our life. It also makes discourse hard because the (this is causing me to truly not be able to function) gets mixed in with the (this is a way that my brain behaves, but I can mostly live a life).
vl 11mo ago
Have you tried Adderall? It gives extreme competitive edge. Just to get legal and easy access to performance-enhancing drugs in elite educational (aka competitive) setting it makes sense to get "disability". And given how loosely these conditions are defined, it's not even cheating in the true sense of the word.
- antupis 11mo ago
  If you have ADHD, for neurotypical people it might feel that you are performing better but results will not improve https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/smart-drugs-can-decrease-productivity-in-people-who-dont-have-adhd-study-finds https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/smart-drugs-can-decrease...
  - phainopepla2 11mo ago
    It's a small study and the "knapsack task" probably does not generalize to writing a paper or coding or something. Far from dispositive.
  - greygoo222 11mo ago
    Utter bullshit engineered to convince students not to do drugs. Adderall doesn't make you magically better at solving the knapsack problem, it's not NZT-48 from Limitless. That's not why anyone takes it.
    - astrange 11mo ago
      > it's not NZT-48 from Limitless Yeah, that's modafinil. (Or for social situations, bromantane.)
- barchar 11mo ago
  They really don't, and if they did then would it be so bad if people who didn't "need" them took them? Obviously if there's safety issues but for stimulants unsafe doses will 100% always decrease performance, because they'll affect sleep.
- 11mo ago
paulpauper 11mo ago
where just following the conversation is a problem, while they are outright bored with the highest difficulty technical AP classes available, because they find them very easy. Then accommodations should not be needed if they are so easy, unless I am missing something?
- eightys3v3n 11mo ago
  Accommodations don't have to be used in all classes. They might need accommodations in an English class and no accommodations in the scientific or math classes. Usually this isn't evaluated per class, it's evaluated per student and then it's up to the student to use or not use the accommodations for the various classes they take.
estimator7292 11mo ago
I nearly failed high school and I flunked or dropped out of college four times. I just absolutely cannot work within the framework of modern schooling. I say this as humbly as possible, but still I'm one of the best engineers I know and working on some pretty advanced stuff. And yes, I'm rather autistic. The way my brain works is just fundamentally incompatible with school. Starting from fundamentals and building up just doesn't work for me. Especially when we spend six months on fundamentals that I grokked in the first three weeks. The way I learn is totally backwards. I start from the top, high-level concepts and dig down into the fundamentals when I hit something I don't understand. The tradeoff is that the way I think is so radically different from my colleagues that I can come up with novel solutions to any problem posed to me. On the other hand, solving problems is almost a compulsion. That said, if I had the option I'd choose a normal childhood over being a smart engineer. Life has been extremely unkind to me.
- paulpauper 11mo ago
  I say this as humbly as possible, but still I'm one of the best engineers I know and working on some pretty advanced stuff. And yes, I'm rather autistic. lol...there is nothing humble about this statement. >50% of people think they're above average.
  - nephihaha 11mo ago
    The average does tend to be skewed by the extremes.
  - op00to 11mo ago
    And pointing this out adds to the discourse here how?
  - pastage 11mo ago
    I have a friend like this he is absolutely the smartest I know, maybe not the most effective. My point is that most people have drawbacks. I much rather work with an autistic myself you learn to handle the quirks.
  - isolli 11mo ago
pessimizer 11mo ago
> As I grew up in the 80s, there were two kinds of gifted kids in school: The kind that would ace everything anyway, and the kind that, for a variety of reasons, lacked the regulation abilities to manage the school setting well, with the slow classes and such. A lot of very smart people just failed academically, because the system didn't work for them. Some of those improved their executive function enough as they went past their teenage years, and are now making a lot of money in difficult fields. Somehow it is impossible for people to blame the system, but instead they diagnose physical deficits in children based on their inability to adjust to the system. Maybe the random way we chose to mass educate children a couple hundred years ago isn't perfect, and children are not broken?
- bluGill 11mo ago
  Blame the system is only useful if there is a different/changed system that would be better. The current system isn't perfect, but if you can't handle it I'm not aware of any change that would be worth it - there are a lot of changes that would get worse results (sometimes for everyone, sometimes for a different subgroup of people). Remember results is not how well you do in school, it is how well you do in life after school that counts. (economics is only one measure of this, it is important because wealth is a good proxy for a lot of useful things like enough food)
- fwip 11mo ago
  If you're not familiar, you might like reading about the social model of disability: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_model_of_disability https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_model_of_disability TL;DR: Disability is not inherent in difference, but rather a combination of the difference and an environment in which that difference is not well-supported. For an analogy - a deep-sea fish is blind, but not disabled by their blindness. Similarly, a kid who "can't sit still" isn't disabled unless we put them in an environment where they have to.
IshKebab 11mo ago
> The percentages of workers that are neurodivergent is much higher than usual, but it's not as if tech hires them out of compassion, but because there's a big cadre or neurodivergent people that are just in the line where they are very productive workers anyway. There are certainly way more neurodivergent people in tech. But 38%?? I don't think so. And I think you're conflating HN nerdery with actual medical issues that mean you need extra time on tests. I'd believe that e.g. 30% of HN are pretty weird nerds, but there's absolutely no way that means they all need extra time on tests.
deleted 11mo ago
[deleted]
cryzinger 11mo ago
> Because they really are both very smart and disabled at the same time. There's a term for exactly this: "twice exceptional"! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twice_exceptional https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twice_exceptional
- skeeter2020 11mo ago
  Not only is this such a cringe term (we may describe poor aptitude in an area as an exception but exceptional?) it's also not accurate. If you want a milquetoast label call them "spikey" to denote the array of dimensions and the variance, or multimodal or similar.
  - cryzinger 11mo ago
    I mean, I didn't invent the term--but the literal definition of "exceptional" doesn't necessarily mean that something is positive, only that it's outside the norm.
snapdeficit 11mo ago
“Smart kid” who did “poorly at school” is a fascinating doublespeak. School is where you demonstrate you are smart. Skilled is different from smart btw. Not being able to do an integral but being able to tune a holly four barrel carb are not the same thing. It’s just baffling that you would make this claim.
- austinjp 11mo ago
  An example from my personal life: I aced many academic tests without effort, but couldn't remember which lesson was in which building on which day. I was often late, and discovered many distractions that were far more interesting than school, leading to truancy. So I was indeed a "smart kid" who "did poorly at school".

by hibikir 11mo ago

lostmsu 11mo ago

> The percentages of workers that are neurodivergent is much higher than usual Is it much though? 38%? I haven't seen one in 15 years across 5+ different companies. > there's a big cadre or neurodivergent people that are just in the line where they are very productive workers anyway Alternatively, it just became popular to label others or oneself that way. And tech elites have nothing better to do in free time. Also DEI benefits! Who else would be allowed a medical break due to a burnout and stress?

jfindper 11mo ago
>I haven't seen one in 15 years across 5+ different companies How does one even know this? Do you ask everyone you meet if they are neuro-divergent? That’s awkward as hell.
MangoToupe 11mo ago
> I haven't seen one in 15 years across 5+ different companies. I'm guessing you are blind, yea? Otherwise how could you otherwise justify such a statement?
- MangoToupe 11mo ago
  > Alternatively, it just became popular to label others or oneself that way. And tech elites have nothing better to do in free time. Also DEI benefits! Who else would be allowed a medical break due to a burnout and stress? The person is clearly retarded themselves. Let's not judge too harshly
OneDeuxTriSeiGo 11mo ago
> Is it much though? 38%? I haven't seen one in 15 years across 5+ different companies. How do you know this? Do you have access to their medical records? Are you in HR and have access to any accomodations they may have filed? Do they even have accommodations filed at work? Neither I nor many of the people I knew in university who had accommodations needed them in the workplace because the structure of an undergrad course setting is wildly different from that of an actual workplace. I have told HR at basically every place I've worked that I had filed for accommodations during university and that I generally manage my disability well but that I may need to file for formal accommodations at some point in the future. This isn't something that I've necessarily told people I work with and it's not visible or obvious. Most disabilities aren't.
LoganDark 11mo ago
> > The percentages of workers that are neurodivergent is much higher than usual > Is it much though? 38%? I haven't seen one in 15 years across 5+ different companies. Just another anecdote, but where I work (tech startup) there are at least 7 other employees (that I know of) and I can identify every single one as autistic. Three are one type, another three are another type, and I think the one other as well as myself are the same type. Research in the space hasn't advanced enough yet for this to be consensus, but in my opinion this preprint is exactly correct, and is what taught me that there are even subtypes to recognize at all: https://www.thetransmitter.org/spectrum/untangling-biological-threads-from-autisms-phenotypic-patchwork-reveals-four-core-subtypes https://www.thetransmitter.org/spectrum/untangling-biologica... There are, of course, plenty of non-neurodivergent tech companies. These are typically boring corporate ones, though I think there are some non-flashy ones that are perfectly respectable. I don't think Microsoft would count, though; Asperger's can look a lot like a lack of neurodivergence if you don't pay close enough attention.

mapontosevenths 11mo ago

> Because they really are both very smart and disabled at the same time. I agree with almost everything you say here. However, I wanted to point out that you make the same mistake the articles author does. "Disabled" and "Diagnosed" are not actually the same thing, even though we do describe ADHD and the like as "learning disabilities." Being diagnosed with a learning disability or other type of neuro-divergency does not automatically entitle someone to special treatment. The vast majority of that 38% are likely just "diagnosed" people who are asking for no special treatment at all. That doesn't fit the authors narrative, or trigger the human animals "unfairness" detector though so it makes a far less interesting article.

paulpauper 11mo ago
This Is detail often left out of this debate . A diagnosis does not imply accommodations.
powerclue 11mo ago
The article is pretty clearly someone trying to drag disability on to the stage of the culture war because it's another group that's easy to other, imo.
- skeeter2020 11mo ago
  This is the common gag reflex, but multiple things can be true at the same time; there can be a greater need for support of disabled persons AND a shocking abuse of the systems by priviledged students. Ditto for the need to support women & minorities at the same time as white males are doing poorly and need help.
  - powerclue 11mo ago
    I don't think I disagree, and I don't think I suggested that couldn't be the case.
- AlexandrB 11mo ago
  Do you think the disabled are being helped by letting bad actors trying to get a leg up over their peers abuse accommodations meant for them? On pretty much every "culture war" issue the "left" fails to adequately grapple with bad actors and those that abuse empathetic policies to harm others or unfairly advance themselves. Long term this will be to the great detriment of marginalized groups because societal support for these accommodations will erode. It's really frustrating to watch. Edit: If you want a recent example of this coming full circle, take a look at service animals. Sometime around 2021-2023 there was a wave of people claiming their pets as "service animals" or "emotional support animals" and bringing them everywhere in public. At first this was tolerated or even welcomed by businesses but increasingly animals are being banned from these spaces because of badly behaved pets. Those with genuine need for a service animal are caught in the crossfire.

MangoToupe 11mo ago

> I think there's a non-malicious explanation for a percentage of this. What on earth is a "malicious" explanation of this?

apparent 11mo ago
That people know they do not actually need/qualify for accommodations, but misrepresent themselves in order to get them?
- deleted 11mo ago
  [deleted]
- MangoToupe 11mo ago
  Ok but such a person who thinks this way is definitionally in need of help; who would waste any brain wattage caring about this? Do they also need government subsidies to pay attention to their own lives?
  - jlarocco 11mo ago
    So you're saying it's some kind of mental handicap causing people to cheat the system to get benefits, therefore people who fake a handicap to get benefits actually deserve those benefits?
jfindper 11mo ago
One example of a malicious explanation would be: people are lying about having a disability to get some sort of benefits they don’t need, likely at the expense of someone who does need those benefits.
- teknopaul 11mo ago
  What they get is amphetamines, legally. 38% of stanford kids taking or selling drugs, legally, because they are rich kids: and the poor kids get jail time for buying it off them. Go USA. Wierd that no-one on this thread seems aware of it. There are two standard treatments for adhd: met & dexies midnight runners.

swatcoder 11mo ago

> people that are just in the line where they are very productive workers anyway Of course, that applies to everybody who achieves a stable career at all. Exceedingly few people (if anyone) are competent and capable at everything, even when you're just talking about basic skills that are handy for common, everyday work. Your doctor may be a incorrigibly terrible driver, your bus driver may pass out at the sight of blood, your Michelin chef might have been never made sense of geometry, your mechanic may need deep focus just to read through a manual, your bricklayer might go into a panic if they need to stand in front of a crowd, your bartender may never have experienced a clear thought before 11am. Struggling with some things, even deeply struggling, is normal if not universal. But once you age past the gauntlet of general education that specifically tests all these things, the hope is that you can just sort of flow like water into a valuable enough community role that you can take care of yourself and help some people. A lot of modern, aspiring-middle-class and online culture stirs up an idea that there must be something unusual about you if you find this thing or that thing difficult, when the reality is that everybody has a few things that they struggle with quite a lot, and that the people who seem like they don't have just succeeded at avoiding, delegating, or hiding whatever it is that's hard for them.

qazxcvbnmlp 11mo ago
Well put. > A lot of modern, aspiring-middle-class and online culture Theres also a pernicious way of identifying with the struggle. Instead of I have trouble focusing in certain situations, so maybe I should find ways to spend my time (careers, hobbies) that work well with that. We instead go to 'I have ADHD' and my 'job' should make special accommodations for me. Regardless of whether a job should or should not make accommodations. It's not a very helpful construct to think they should. It removes agency from the person experiencing the struggle. Which in turn puts them farther from finding a place that they would fit in well. For the vast majority of behaviors (ADHD, attachment issues, autism, etc) they exist on a continuum and are adaptive/helpful in certain situations. By pathologizing them, we(society) loose touch for what they mean in our life. It also makes discourse hard because the (this is causing me to truly not be able to function) gets mixed in with the (this is a way that my brain behaves, but I can mostly live a life).

vl 11mo ago

Have you tried Adderall? It gives extreme competitive edge. Just to get legal and easy access to performance-enhancing drugs in elite educational (aka competitive) setting it makes sense to get "disability". And given how loosely these conditions are defined, it's not even cheating in the true sense of the word.

antupis 11mo ago
If you have ADHD, for neurotypical people it might feel that you are performing better but results will not improve https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/smart-drugs-can-decrease-productivity-in-people-who-dont-have-adhd-study-finds https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/smart-drugs-can-decrease...
- phainopepla2 11mo ago
  It's a small study and the "knapsack task" probably does not generalize to writing a paper or coding or something. Far from dispositive.
- greygoo222 11mo ago
  Utter bullshit engineered to convince students not to do drugs. Adderall doesn't make you magically better at solving the knapsack problem, it's not NZT-48 from Limitless. That's not why anyone takes it.
  - astrange 11mo ago
    > it's not NZT-48 from Limitless Yeah, that's modafinil. (Or for social situations, bromantane.)
barchar 11mo ago
They really don't, and if they did then would it be so bad if people who didn't "need" them took them? Obviously if there's safety issues but for stimulants unsafe doses will 100% always decrease performance, because they'll affect sleep.
11mo ago

paulpauper 11mo ago

where just following the conversation is a problem, while they are outright bored with the highest difficulty technical AP classes available, because they find them very easy. Then accommodations should not be needed if they are so easy, unless I am missing something?

eightys3v3n 11mo ago
Accommodations don't have to be used in all classes. They might need accommodations in an English class and no accommodations in the scientific or math classes. Usually this isn't evaluated per class, it's evaluated per student and then it's up to the student to use or not use the accommodations for the various classes they take.

estimator7292 11mo ago

I nearly failed high school and I flunked or dropped out of college four times. I just absolutely cannot work within the framework of modern schooling. I say this as humbly as possible, but still I'm one of the best engineers I know and working on some pretty advanced stuff. And yes, I'm rather autistic. The way my brain works is just fundamentally incompatible with school. Starting from fundamentals and building up just doesn't work for me. Especially when we spend six months on fundamentals that I grokked in the first three weeks. The way I learn is totally backwards. I start from the top, high-level concepts and dig down into the fundamentals when I hit something I don't understand. The tradeoff is that the way I think is so radically different from my colleagues that I can come up with novel solutions to any problem posed to me. On the other hand, solving problems is almost a compulsion. That said, if I had the option I'd choose a normal childhood over being a smart engineer. Life has been extremely unkind to me.

paulpauper 11mo ago
I say this as humbly as possible, but still I'm one of the best engineers I know and working on some pretty advanced stuff. And yes, I'm rather autistic. lol...there is nothing humble about this statement. >50% of people think they're above average.
- nephihaha 11mo ago
  The average does tend to be skewed by the extremes.
- op00to 11mo ago
  And pointing this out adds to the discourse here how?
- pastage 11mo ago
  I have a friend like this he is absolutely the smartest I know, maybe not the most effective. My point is that most people have drawbacks. I much rather work with an autistic myself you learn to handle the quirks.
- isolli 11mo ago

pessimizer 11mo ago

> As I grew up in the 80s, there were two kinds of gifted kids in school: The kind that would ace everything anyway, and the kind that, for a variety of reasons, lacked the regulation abilities to manage the school setting well, with the slow classes and such. A lot of very smart people just failed academically, because the system didn't work for them. Some of those improved their executive function enough as they went past their teenage years, and are now making a lot of money in difficult fields. Somehow it is impossible for people to blame the system, but instead they diagnose physical deficits in children based on their inability to adjust to the system. Maybe the random way we chose to mass educate children a couple hundred years ago isn't perfect, and children are not broken?

bluGill 11mo ago
Blame the system is only useful if there is a different/changed system that would be better. The current system isn't perfect, but if you can't handle it I'm not aware of any change that would be worth it - there are a lot of changes that would get worse results (sometimes for everyone, sometimes for a different subgroup of people). Remember results is not how well you do in school, it is how well you do in life after school that counts. (economics is only one measure of this, it is important because wealth is a good proxy for a lot of useful things like enough food)
fwip 11mo ago
If you're not familiar, you might like reading about the social model of disability: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_model_of_disability https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_model_of_disability TL;DR: Disability is not inherent in difference, but rather a combination of the difference and an environment in which that difference is not well-supported. For an analogy - a deep-sea fish is blind, but not disabled by their blindness. Similarly, a kid who "can't sit still" isn't disabled unless we put them in an environment where they have to.

IshKebab 11mo ago

> The percentages of workers that are neurodivergent is much higher than usual, but it's not as if tech hires them out of compassion, but because there's a big cadre or neurodivergent people that are just in the line where they are very productive workers anyway. There are certainly way more neurodivergent people in tech. But 38%?? I don't think so. And I think you're conflating HN nerdery with actual medical issues that mean you need extra time on tests. I'd believe that e.g. 30% of HN are pretty weird nerds, but there's absolutely no way that means they all need extra time on tests.

deleted 11mo ago

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cryzinger 11mo ago

> Because they really are both very smart and disabled at the same time. There's a term for exactly this: "twice exceptional"! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twice_exceptional https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twice_exceptional

skeeter2020 11mo ago
Not only is this such a cringe term (we may describe poor aptitude in an area as an exception but exceptional?) it's also not accurate. If you want a milquetoast label call them "spikey" to denote the array of dimensions and the variance, or multimodal or similar.
- cryzinger 11mo ago
  I mean, I didn't invent the term--but the literal definition of "exceptional" doesn't necessarily mean that something is positive, only that it's outside the norm.

snapdeficit 11mo ago

“Smart kid” who did “poorly at school” is a fascinating doublespeak. School is where you demonstrate you are smart. Skilled is different from smart btw. Not being able to do an integral but being able to tune a holly four barrel carb are not the same thing. It’s just baffling that you would make this claim.

austinjp 11mo ago
An example from my personal life: I aced many academic tests without effort, but couldn't remember which lesson was in which building on which day. I was often late, and discovered many distractions that were far more interesting than school, leading to truancy. So I was indeed a "smart kid" who "did poorly at school".