Sounds great, how do you screen against someone who just hires someone to populate a repo for them?
The answer is you can’t. Repo activity isn’t a real way to measure anything about a person’s ability. The only reasonable thing is to hire and do 3-month probation period.
I am sorry, but if you’re saying there’s no biological, physiological or neurophysiological evidence of these conditions then you’re just plain wrong. I cannot emphasize that enough.
That’s not what GP is saying. He’s saying that a term like “autism” is a lasso trying to capture a gigantic number of individual traits and symptoms. This is true of any other “psychiatric disorder” as well. There is no “autism”, there is no “ADHD”, there is no “OCD”, any more than there are tables or chairs.
Something being a table is a label we slap on it to abstract certain attributes, that allows us to reason about it without having to think about all of the non-table-attributes it has. What do tables do? What can we do with them? We can put things on, eat off them. We can’t feed them to our pets. We can’t use them as a trampoline. The object being “a table” is just a categorization we make to allow us to think about the object; it isn’t something that the object is.
Similarly, people aren’t “autistic”. They’re just people, who have certain traits, which psychiatrists have decided should be lumped into a category called “autism”, because they’ve noticed a cluster of other people who have similar traits. So, from this standpoint, someone “being autistic” does not tell us anything. We can already see that person’s traits or characteristics. That categorization might be helpful to some people, and it might be harmful to other people; and they should use or avoid using it accordingly. But they can choose to do that, because “autism” isn’t a “thing” - it’s a mental construct.
It’s the same thing as any condition which deviates from the set of characteristics considered “normal” for a given population.
Eczema is a skin condition which happens to some people, it’s not something that happens in most people. But we can see evidence of varying degrees of severity of skin damage due to eczema. This condition can happen for any number of reasons, immunological, endocrinological, or some combination of factors. There are different types of eczema, but for ease for conversation with anyone other than a doctor, you just say you have eczema.
Same for mental conditions, they have their underlying causes, and some representative characteristics we found on average and grouped them as classes for ease of diagnosis and treatment.
I understand the folly of mischaracterizing, so it doesn’t make sense for researchers or medical professionals to not care about the categorical distinctions.
However, as far as the normal public is concerned, someone’s problem is their problem, and they don’t owe you a detailed explanation of their condition, or a doctors note because you’ve been socially offended (I understand maybe that’s not the point in either of your posts, but I thought I should say it now that it occurred to me in the flow of this post).
That tend to hold "on average" for a population but often don't hold for the individual within a population. This is the ecological fallacy [0], just one of the fallacies underlying psychiatry.
My argument isn't that psychiatric symptoms don't exist or aren't real and there is no real underlying phenomenon. My argument is simply that we've drawn the lines between the units of study too high up and we should be more granular. This level of nosology was chosen in 1952. Do you really think they got it 100% right almost 75 years ago? And what is the mechanism for defining and maintaining these categories? A bunch of committees get together every few years and decide on them, then they tell us all what's "true". Bullshit. What are the odds that a committee will define itself out of existence? Pretty slim. [1]
I have traits that could be considered as autism, ADHD, obsessive compulsive personality disorder, PTSD, bipolar II, social anxiety disorder, and probably a dozen more disorders. But by quantizing the disorder at the current level, by necessity, the other traits are cropped out of view. Relevant information is lost and irrelevant information is blurred together. And the level of overlap between disorders is absurd. They cannot possibly be "real" because the lines between them aren't even distinct.
The useful unit to study is the individual trait, not the cluster of traits that is different in each individual. The traits are more granular and map more closely map to underlying biology anyway. The current model is akin to what the geocentric model was in astronomy. It's outdated, wrong, and holding us back from a more accurate, detailed view.
> My argument is simply that we've drawn the lines between the units of study too high up and we should be more granular.
I agree with this, and your overall post. I’ll just add that if the purpose is treatment, it helps to find root causes, and maybe there’s a common thread in the underlying root causes, likely related to gene expression.
I understand the sentiment behind such projects, but I don’t equate being able to immigrate illegally as an inalienable right or human right of a person. How do people come to these conclusions, maybe I just don’t know how to think about this.
I think what works in OpenAI’s favor is realizing open source models, and if they can create a culture of collaboration and innovation out of it, like FB did with PyTorch, they would cement their lead and place in AI technological relevance.
A lot of people who believe that the problems in the Global South are due to western governments or regional histories are going to experience a rude awakening.
The order established by the Abrahamic faiths and western philosophies (which were heavily influenced by pre-existing middle eastern cultures or works) has been useful for demonstrating what ideas work and what don’t. People who want to believe in their own false narratives about alternatives will experience a rude awakening, and blame their failures on their “enemies”, like many in western cultures are doing now to their detractors. What hasn’t worked is pretending that oligopoly and monopoly are capitalism; too much influence is given to a few sources, and too many resources are spent or wasted on them.
U.S. the country will be fine because it has an arsenal of weapons, both military and otherwise, as long as it doesn’t let its debt issues overpower its economy. U.S. will need to remember that you have to spend money to make money, that means more grants and funding opportunities, and at the same time maybe that means less social programs, like public education.
Europe will be fine as long as it puts immigration quotas in place, and doesn’t let Russia overpower it.
Middle East and South Asian countries need to calm down with Israel because they really need to worry about India, which is positioned for supremacy after China. Russia seems like a distraction at this point, but it depends. Israel is more influenced by western democratic principles and philosophies than India, and so would make a better ally for most countries, as long as both countries can operate in good faith. You can never trust countries to operate in good faith, doesn’t matter which country it is.
LATAM and Africa will continue the blame and social manipulation games, as per usual. Oceania will be fine as long as it doesn’t let Europe’s migration issues target it.
The other global powers will find that they never should have wanted global supremacy, and they’re ill-equipped to deal with it. The UK will coast on via indirect manipulation as always since it gave up global supremacy.
Yes, this: "The order established by the Abrahamic faiths and western philosophies (which were heavily influenced by pre-existing middle eastern cultures or works) has been useful for demonstrating what ideas work and what don’t. People who want to believe in their own false narratives about alternatives will experience a rude awakening, and blame their failures on their “enemies”, like many in western cultures are doing now to their detractors. What hasn’t worked is pretending that oligopoly and monopoly are capitalism; too much influence is given to a few sources, and too many resources are spent or wasted on them."
is a potential flashpoint I think. Very sage as well! Excellent.
Also so true about India, and -- Indonesia. Russia, depends, exactly. It sounds ridiculous but it may make sense for Israel to become officially part of the US empire, it already functions similarly unofficially. Controversial and nuanced, yes. Apologies.
"LATAM and Africa will continue the blame and social manipulation games, as per usual." I don't think so. I think they are some of the wildcards. Things could change fast. US domestic fortification focused, China lacks reach to disrupt - could lead to grassroots populism that upends old orders, and combined with shifting fortunes and new tech, could be formidable. Wild card. Maybe you're right, but I just feel like there's more contemporary potential there that hasn't been expressed yet.
Oceania may end up pillaged. Or it may continue to be "less than relevant" lol. Idk. Indonesia is all important...probably.
"The UK will coast on via indirect manipulation as always since it gave up global supremacy." Sounds right, but idk, super interested to know more.
What’s dangerous about this idea? It’s simply wrong because let’s think back to why people formed nation states. The core ideas are related to cultural identity and protection for who you classify as your people. The Jewish people have always suffered by being targeted because of their religion or culture, that’s why it makes sense that they should have their own country. What do you think countries are for? It’s an establishment of collective will and power for navigating systemic forces. There’s a lot more to this, but then we’re just taking about political science and history. In general, groups of people with distinct characteristics need to have safe havens, they cannot rely on others for protections. People need to protect their countries, that’s where they’re safest.
True, that's the public motivating/organizing ideas. But the private/governing calculus about what's in the best interest may be different or larger. Small countries need protection, large countries need reach.
This fits in with another thread on an article about over-diagnosis.
I think it’s safe to say that if someone appears “weird” to the hive mind of a community, that person is more likely to be correctly diagnosed.
There are people who desire a diagnosis for special treatment, but if the first time you find out about a person’s diagnosis is after knowing them as “weird” the whole time, then they’re not acting weird on purpose, or saying they are X for attention or special treatment.
Disabled people, mentally or otherwise, usually like to keep their business to themselves, unless they absolutely don’t need to. Some mentally disabled people might even forgo getting special treatment via disability services at their colleges, or getting parking permits for disability because they’re not interested in bringing attention to their difficulties or differences, or using these issues as a cause for special treatment. Though, I’d advised that people who need accommodations should get them.
I also saw a comment about disability becoming normalized due to late stage capitalism, which sounds like a thesis out of postmodernist thinking. The fact is that group behavior has always isolated “weird” behaviors and put undue negative attention on them, but it just happened to be the case that that weird behavior was evolutionary helpful, which is why it has persisted for millions of generations of humans across their evolutionary history.
This only applies to high-functioning categories of behaviors. But I’ve found that more often than not, it’s the social reaction of groups that is the problem for high-functioning autists, and less the autism itself. Maybe neurotypical behavior or neurotypical mindedness is the disease because I don’t understand why or how some people find it so hard to think differently. Are they not individuals, are they zombies?
Let’s also shed light on what behaviors neurotypicals usually have a problem with that they cast as negatives in high-functioning autists:
1) Not being mindful of hierarchy
2) Not being mindful of socially determined rules, that is rules which are not codified in any official language of conduct
3) Not wanting to socialize, or wanting to socialize differently
4) Trouble with emotional regulation, possibly due to social issues
Tell me, which of these points, and there are many more, point to this being an individual’s problem?
For high-functioning autists, the problem is other people.
People need to realize that they’re not great to deal with on average, and if someone chooses to not engage with you, don’t take that as an insult. Maybe you’re all better off not interacting with each other, but that doesn’t imply causing someone financial, emotional or physical harm just because they’re autistic.
Society both explicitly and implicitly punishes high-functioning autism.
It shouldn’t interfere with the job market, but the sad truth is that NTs need to make everything into a social game because otherwise they can’t compete or survive.
> I think it’s safe to say that if someone appears “weird” to the hive mind of a community, that person is more likely to be correctly diagnosed.
It's officially frowned upon, but doctors still use the term "FLK" (for "funny looking kid") to describe babies or children with nonspecific facial deformities, which are pretty reliable indicators of cognitive or learning disability even if the doctor can't put his finger on what the deformity actually is.
> This only applies to high-functioning categories of behaviors. But I’ve found that more often than not, it’s the social reaction of groups that is the problem for high-functioning autists, and less the autism itself. Maybe neurotypical behavior or neurotypical mindedness is the disease because I don’t understand why or how some people find it so hard to think differently. Are they not individuals, are they zombies?
It's the uncanny valley effect. I'm convinced that one of our primal atavistic fears, besides snakes, spiders, and so forth, is "something evil or hostile disguised as one of our own". In the EEA this fear would have protected a community against spies, as well as profoundly sick (e.g. rabies) individuals who risked spreading their disease throughout the whole village. Different cultures give different names to creatures of this sort: vampire, zombie, changeling, skinwalker, bakemono, etc.
Profoundly autistic people are clearly disabled, and so attract nurturing and care; "high functioning" autistic people resemble humans who can function independently, but their behavior is different enough to trigger what I call the Kendrick Lamar response ("they not like us, they not like us") and hence are viewed with fear and suspicion. It's a flaw in the neurotypical mindset born of a trait that helped preserve neurotypical communities against invasion or outbreak, but it's not very specific so others get caught in its dragnet.
That's my idea anyway. Maybe I'm just steelmanning the NT perspective. There has to be a reason why the poor blighters are the way they are...
> There has to be a reason why the poor blighters are the way they are...
Maybe I am biased, but to me NT appear as cognitively lazy. They don’t question norms or standards, unless those norms or standards interfere with their feed-fuck cycles.
They come built in with a set of heuristics that help them interact with other NT minds very well with very little cognitive effort, so why spend it if you don't need to? There's a certain perverse genius to it which you'd see if you spend any time around profoundly NT people: for example those who fit the "theatre kid" archetype, or even skilled marketers. They can shape the trajectory of an interpersonal relationship in real time as easily as we breathe.
Expending large amounts of cognitive effort to better understand and deal with others can be exhausting. We do it because we have to just to survive. The benefit is we have a lot of uncommitted neural capacity potentially freed up for other things, like experimenting with computers. But it's a stiff price to pay, and in the EEA it's advantageous to be able to participate in a cohesive group without thinking much about it. Our brains are our most energy-hungry organs, and sustenance could get scarce...
It depends on the task at hand, that unspoken understanding can work against your best interests. In general, the NT way leads to stagnation and complacency for building and maintaining systems as conditions change. I am not saying one way of thinking is better than the other, you bring up a great point about conserving resources. I think survival pressures have always necessitated a balance of human cognitive abilities. I guess only time can tell how things may transpire, and what’s actually useful. Maybe there’s a way to simulate this in silico…
For thousands of years, the way humans lived changed so slowly as to be imperceptible. That's no longer the case. Starry-eyed types who think of their autistic children as "indigo" or "crystal" children may wax poetic about autism being the next phase of human evolution, but recent scientific work lends a kernel of credence to that: autism is now thought to be one of the side effects of rapid changes to our brains that were evolutionarily necessary to cope with our rapidly changing world and circumstances.
I think people misunderstand stress and distress, where the latter is personally inflicted on you, like being abused by a family member. In general, I think experiences due to systemic issues are different from experiencing personal issues, i.e., someone targeting you with specific intent and focus to inflict emotional or physical harm on you.
Lived experiences can add to stress, but everyone has a stressful nature to their lived experiences, as this article is saying. Being in distress, where you’re the particular target of a person or a group, is different.
Who do you think isn’t being targeted by large scale manipulation attempts right now in the US?
Everyone can definitely tell. Even the cult followers. They just can’t get their heads out of their asses enough to do anything but follow with the manipulation, but it’s a very rare person indeed right now that is going ‘oh yeah, everything is actually fine’.
Oh okay, that’s what you meant by “target”. I make two distinctions here from my understanding: 1) if group A targets group B, then that’s not a personal attack, but a social or system issue, which I would count as a source of stress, not distress. 2) If group A targets a person, then that is a personal attack, and not a social issue, which is a source of direct conflict, and therefore distress.
Absolutely no way are people arguing here that being targeted for one's race, religion, sexuality etc, or being the personal victim of a targeted campaign of harassment and / or violence, is 'just as stressful and distressing' as being targeted by ads.
I do think being targeted for protected characteristics is stressful. But let’s examine two types of people: 1) a gay person with normal socioeconomic background, 2) a person with a normal socioeconomic background who becomes the target of group bullying.
Both people experience stress in their own way, only one of those people experiences distress due to a specific set of circumstances. Is the gay person’s lived experience of being discriminated against invalid? Of course not. Is it the same situation as the person who was the target of group bullying? Definitely not.
I am not trying to make any determinations about who has struggled the most, and is most deserving of sympathies. I am making a distinction between societal pressures and specific instances of harm.
You’re simply wrong, if you can’t tell the difference then you’re unqualified to even say anything on this. Not because you don’t have lived experience or something, but because you cannot use simple logic and reasoning.
No, you're simply focusing on the wrong things in the discussion's context. "There’s a difference between feeling targeted, and being targeted in actuality" - like, sure, obviously, there is a difference, they're distinct things. And it doesn't matter.
Now apply basic logic and reasoning to find out why.
Okay I did, now let’s enumerate some similarities and differences.
Here’s the setting: A is gay, and B is hetero. Both exist in a secular, democratic society where the majority religion has a damning view about being gay, but there are anti-discrimination laws in this society, and there’s a subculture that’s welcoming to gay people.
A lives a normal life, and has a mix of positive and negative experiences, but is otherwise never bullied, abused, harassed or emotionally or physically harmed on a personal level due to being gay, but has seen gay people be bullied and harmed on social media. A can move to a new town, and no one would know that A is gay, or maybe even care about that if they did find out because there are allies and other gay people. A can change jobs and not worry about being discriminated against because there are laws that protect against discrimination based on identity. A can make friends in A’s subculture or with allies.
B lives a normal life, but has an overwhelming negative experience when B starts getting bullied by C and D (two new people for this scenario). C and D take a personal interest in B, and want to make B’s life a living hell because B rubbed them the wrong way, let’s say. C and D use their network of friends to do the following: 1) they hack into B’s personal phone and computer to get private information, 2) they use that information to steal B’s secret cooking recipes and start selling a best selling chef’s book under their own names from those recipes, 3) they find out who are B’s friends or enemies, and use that information to either socially isolate B from their circle by saying socially negative things about B, or by using gossip from enemies to drive new people away from B, 4) they pretend to be “concerned citizens” and email B’s employers about B’s character, 5) every time B starts something new, they try to get into that new thing to undermine B, or somehow disadvantage B on a personal level, at the same time helping other people like B, 6) they use their network to spread gossip about B, and undermine B’s work or achievements. So B cannot make friends or relationships of any kind, and does not have a support network. B cannot find employment of the kind B likes, and cannot move to a new town because it won’t make a difference since B is being targeted on a personal level.
Now tell me, are these two circumstances the same? One is societal indifference/discrimination, and the other is targeted bullying, stalking and harassment. If you say, yes, then explain how.
If you don’t understand, then put this scenario in ChatGPT and ask who is experiencing more stress, or is it the same level of stress.
Putting the logical fallacies you just committed aside, now imagine that E is a schizophrenic who believes that everyone out there is conspired to bully, abuse, harass and emotionally or physically harm him due to being straight. E cannot make friends or relationships of any kind, does not have a support network, can't find employment, may receive some health care or not.
It really doesn't matter whether this feeling is imagined or not. Even merely a threat that never gets actualized may be enough of a stressor to cause serious issues.
I admit the scenario is contrived, but that’s to make a point. Feel free to construct your own scenario that’s not a non sequitur.
But the E scenario is also fallacious, doesn’t matter if E is schizophrenic if the conspiracy is real. Maybe E’s detractors would like others to think E is schizophrenic, or the symptoms they want to cast as schizophrenic are a stress response to the targeted harassment.
One could make a completely opposite point just by slightly editing your scenarios.
Make B be charming and charismatic enough that C and D's attempts get laughed off and backfire. Make A be so affected by having to live in secrecy that it puts a real strain on the relationship with the person they care about the most. Now surely it would be A who ends up under "more stress", right?
Except you can't even say that, because "level of stress" is not an objectively measurable quantity that exists somewhere in the environment. You can be stressed out by things I get excited about. Someone else will shrug out a risk that makes me terrified. You could be under distress because some lights have blinked too fast, yet it doesn't mean that these lights have targeted you with their harassment.
Sure, but what’s the point of these adjustments? You were making a false equivalency between two different circumstances, and saying that there’s effectively no difference between them. I presented a scenario where the difference between them is indisputable, that is person B has an objectively worse situation and potential outcome. Experiencing stress and being in distress are not the same. If you’re still having a hard time admitting this, then imagine you have a child. Which situation should that child live under, A’s or B’s?
If you still don't see the point of these adjustments, I'm afraid it may be beyond my abilities to teach you to see it. Each of the scenarios presented can lead to either experiencing stress or being in distress, ability to take it varies between individuals and there's no category of scenarios that always leads to "objectively worse situation" (whatever it means) as you're trying to present it, making it a distinction without a difference in this context as for whatever you'd try to argue, you can find an example from the other category that fulfills it too and that has potential to lead to the same outcomes when it comes to health.
I think some people fear that the political or social status of protected classes may diminish by admitting that someone could have a worse life than them despite not being of a protected class. It doesn’t diminish for me, so I have no problem saying that there could be instances where being a protected class isn’t as bad another circumstance for someone who isn’t such a person. It truly depends, everyone’s life is different, and there are indeed worse lives than others, even if it’s someone you normally wouldn’t consider as worse off.
It’s not the same thing as a different way to say the same thing if the implementation of two sources of conflict is different. One is a societal conflict, and the other is personal conflict.
This move makes sense in the context of content moderation on social media forums. There are numerous forums where mods shape and influence culture and discourse, and often that discourse is geopolitical in nature. I don’t think HN necessarily counts as a forum where there’s censorship based along geopolitics.
> In 2015, I had a lot of interaction with a startup incubator you know well, and ended up sitting in the discussions and planning around banning and erasing a young programmer we considered a threat to our financial interests, due to his concerns about authoritarianism in technology. In retrospect, he was harmless, but an example had to be made. The decision was made to ban him here, try to get him fired though I don't know if we succeeded, and attack him with sockpuppets on Reddit, and it seems to have worked because you don't hear his name much.
You should set this right while you still can. God or the afterlife isn’t a reason to try and be less shit. The reason is that our shit accumulates and makes a hellish cesspool on Earth if we don’t. Good luck.
The answer is you can’t. Repo activity isn’t a real way to measure anything about a person’s ability. The only reasonable thing is to hire and do 3-month probation period.
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