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PaperclipPerfector  4mo ago (text post)   29059 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 18, 2023

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I've met plenty of extremely intelligent women in the tech industry. They exist, but I think their efforts are spent on things other than the sort of mental masturbation that mottizens like to participate in.

One thing that I have noticed, and should really give you pause, is the frequency with which these high-g women with similar spouses have autistic children. It's not necessarily an awesome idea to breed two shape rotators in an attempt at creating an uber-rotator.

I think the frequency of autism diagnoses in tech couples has more to do with income than tech - as in, highly motivated wealthy parents watching for every single child learning milestone are much more likely and able to take their kid to a shrink if/when they perceive a lag in achievement. Since shrinks are motivated to find something wrong, most of them will find something wrong, and since autism covers a spectrum from "throws feces at the wall all day and is nonverbal" to "sometimes feels slightly awkward with new people" it's a nice safe diagnosis to feed the type A parents. Same with ADD.

I think a lot of normal variation in personality has been pathologized.

I didn't really mean "extra smart, quirky" autistic. Pretty much everyone here checks enough boxes that if we fought to get it, we could get that ordained title. I'm talking about serious problems functioning in society autistic. Better get a bunch of friends while your parents can negotiate your life for you autistic. This is a lot different than "I read a lot of words on the internet and feel awkward in public" autistic.

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