- Security researcher (drawing a blank right now.. Kaspersky maybe?) went off the deep end as well.
I feel like a lot of really smart people around me are on the autism spectrum or are somewhat odd.
I mean, I've noticed some of the same issues as the subject of the article... social anxiety, tendency to over imbibe.
Having said all that, I wonder if there's a prevalence (or distribution?) of certain traits in a population and there are enough IT folks around now where every characteristics is represented.
It seems like his biggest problem was alcoholism. I don't know that addiction is over-represented among smart people or people on the spectrum. It looks like it can be a vicious cycle though. Abuse alcohol or drugs, make bad decisions, bad decisions have negative consequences, abuse alcohol or drugs again to forget about negative consequences, rinse and repeat. It's a hard cycle to break. Many people can't admit that they have a problem to begin with.
I’m open about my past Heroin addiction on here, and get a tonne of emails from other HNers. Anecdotally I’ve no idea whether it’s more than should be expected, but a lot of people on here suffer the way I suffered, so it’s definitely an undercurrent at least.
For sure it's more common than people think. I think it's good to de-stigmatize both mental health and addiction. IMO shame gets in the way of people asking for help.
I’m pretty convinced there is at least a subset of smart people who are very (i.e. above normal rates) prone to addiction problems, it accept this is anecdotal and subject to sample bias.
dont forget the guy who created debian. his life also came to a sad and tormented end a few years ago.
a lot of smart people you know are on the spectrum, and they also have asthma. its no coincidence that katz did. it isnt fully appreciated yet but there is a connection between inflammation and the dysfunction of the brains metabolic budgeting.
> I feel like a lot of really smart people around me are on the autism spectrum or are somewhat odd.
What about the groups of people known to be in prisons? They are not autists.
I think it's a fine line discussing that while not putting people into a bad light. Also FWIW many people have stopped using ReiserFS - me included - despite its quite novel set of features.
- Founder of zappos ended up badly just recently.
- ReiserFS, Hans Reiser killed his wife.
- Security researcher (drawing a blank right now.. Kaspersky maybe?) went off the deep end as well.
I feel like a lot of really smart people around me are on the autism spectrum or are somewhat odd.
I mean, I've noticed some of the same issues as the subject of the article... social anxiety, tendency to over imbibe.
Having said all that, I wonder if there's a prevalence (or distribution?) of certain traits in a population and there are enough IT folks around now where every characteristics is represented.
Anyway, sad article. I had no idea.