[HN Gopher] Autism and Invention Are Connected
___________________________________________________________________
Autism and Invention Are Connected
Author : jkuria
Score : 52 points
Date : 2020-12-20 05:45 UTC (17 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.wsj.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.wsj.com)
| PlugTunin wrote:
| 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_.
| petercooper wrote:
| 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.
| neonate wrote:
| https://archive.is/dil8Z
| kylebenzle wrote:
| 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?
| acd wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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).
| mhh__ wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| DyslexicAtheist wrote:
| 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
| xyst wrote:
| 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.
| cocoa19 wrote:
| 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.
| gime_tree_fiddy wrote:
| What is this service you are talking about?
| BlueTemplar wrote:
| 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.
| xyst wrote:
| apple news
| gnicholas wrote:
| 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.
| ajarmst wrote:
| 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.
| username90 wrote:
| 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.
| amelius wrote:
| 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/
| wwright wrote:
| 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).
| SlipperySlope wrote:
| 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.
| programmerslave wrote:
| 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
| cbozeman wrote:
| > 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.
| layoutIfNeeded wrote:
| You could believe this if you have only ever saw mental
| disabilities in movies. Pay a visit to an actual mental ward
| and I can guarantee it will change your perspective.
| primroot wrote:
| 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 and
| https://slate.com/technology/2016/06/the-monkeys-of-south-am...
| .
| ksm1717 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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]
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2020-12-20 23:00 UTC)