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0 pointsmchahn7y ago0 comments

> I relate to the author of the original article in that I'm a slow thinker.

I was going to say something like this until I saw everyone else saying the same thing. This leads to my theory, and some facts.

The geek population has a high percentage of mild autistics. I firmly believe my lack of social skills, and slow thinking, is related to a mild amount of autism. I can't play any games involving fast thinking but I have reason to believe I'm a genius (just saying).

I heard an interview on NPR with Temple Grandin, an autistic author (I highly suggest reading her stuff). One thing she said was that a high percentage of functional autistics were programmers (I know this doesn't mean the converse is true).

She gave a quick single-question test for people to roughly judge autism. I answered on the autistic side. I was at a company lunch with about 5 programmers and 5 marketing people. I asked everyone the question and all the programmers gave the autistic answer and all the marketing people gave the opposite (I know it was probably a bit of coincidence and only one data point).

The test is "Think of a church steeple". I will give the meaning of the answer in a day or so. You need to think without knowing what any answer means.

EDIT: I figured out a way to give the answer without prejudicing your thinking. Don't read the answer below until you have thought of a steeple. The answer is written in reverse.

.citsitua ton ylbaborp era uoy snaem ti elpeets gnitsixe lautca na fo thguoht uoy fi

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9 comments · 4 top-level

taeric7y ago· 4 in thread

I cheated and looked up some of the facets of that question. As someone that has aphantasia, I'm curious where you are taking that question.

I confess my original answer was to remember that old kids song where you make a steeple with your hands and then flip them to see the people. I then thought that I don't actually know what distinguishes a steeple from a plain roof.

ozzmotik7y ago

oh hey you suffer from the whole aphantasia thing too? i think that really made the process of answering what a church steeple is a bit more difficult; i was unable to actually construct the perception of a church from the past, though that isn't just due to the aphantasia but also the rarity with which I even am around a church. but that being said when thinking about the church steeple, my mind more represented it as an attribute of the architecture of the church, one that contextually refers to the ceiling as it were. and then after comprehending that my mind constructed the experience of processing some abstract church holistically and relating the steeple as a pattern of data within the data set of the church as a whole

taeric7y ago

I hesitate to say suffer. Pretty sure I have it, though. Similarly, I have alopecia. Hasn't progressed to universalist, but I do have spots all over my body. Still wouldn't call it suffering. Oddly, the aphantasia probably helps. I don't have a personal image.

Still, that is straying. I'm curious what the original aim was.

1 more reply

JanisL7y ago

Thanks for posting, I didn't realize aphantasia was a thing until now.

taeric7y ago

Always glad to introduce people to the idea. https://www.bbc.com/news/health-34039054 is a good article on it. https://www.facebook.com/notes/blake-ross/aphantasia-how-it-... is actually one of the first posts I had seen on it. I've known I don't have a visual capability compared to most people for a while, I didn't realize til recently just how pronounced the difference is.

throwawaymath7y ago· 1 in thread

I don't mean to sound demeaning when I say this, but I think it's better to be blunt for topics like this one. The majority of your comment seems like baseless speculation to me. There is a vast amount of pseudoscience and armchair ideation about autism on the internet. This ranges from outright hostility towards those who have it, to minimization of its very real impacts on quality of life.

I spent about ten minutes searching with the keywords "high functioning autism", "autism employment", "autism programmers", etc and could not dig up any studies substantiating the claims you've mentioned. This is not to say you're lying - I believe you actually did pick them up from somewhere. But I'm deeply skeptical of their clinical veracity and empirical provenance. Given how polarizing autism can be and how difficult it can be to research, I consider it harmful to be confidently describing "theories" like yours without much real support for the claims involved.

In particular, I would strongly advise anyone reading this to resist the temptation to self-diagnose or self-identify (one way or the other!) based on a strange question designed to see if you actually think of a church steeple. If you believe you may be autistic, personally see a professional and try not to read into the popsci promulgated by radio interviews.

mchahnOP7y ago

Did you read any of her writing? She is far from popsci.

Also in defense, I was careful to word everything as suspect, not fact.

mytaa7y ago

I couldn't remember what steeple means because English is not my first tongue so I googled it. I did see a picture instantly, but I didn't want to imagine this concrete picture so I had my own church in mind.

Thing with churches is I never really pay attention to them so I'm also pretty sure I would've thought of my own abstract version of it. I also have a lot of trouble navigating according to landmarks, any buildings or details. I can't remember directions or the path I came from when going again or reversing. I eventually do remember, but compared to people I know it's a lot worse. Everyone else seems to know where church with this and that name is, but I do not.

PakG17y ago

That's interesting. I tested on the autistic side with this question, which I'm inclined to agree with. Again only one anecdote though. I wonder how accurate this question actually is. I'd love to test it against my wife, but her English is not perfect, so I'm not sure whether or not she knows what that noun is. I wonder if you could replace that noun with any other generic noun that is more recognizable to non-native English speakers without affecting the identification mechanism, however it may work. If I have to define the noun for her, I wonder if it would affect the result.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

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