undefined | Better HN

0 pointsd0mine4y ago0 comments

You are trying to reduce human mind to one bit: broken/working. Humans have strong general intelligence and therefore are capable of solving many different tasks. There are many different tasks in the world where different characteristics may be useful in addition to pounding nails (though if you are a hammer, it may be hard to imagine) The existence of screwdrivers shouldn't be considered a disorder.

0 comments

haswell4y ago

> You are trying to reduce human mind to one bit: broken/working

Not at all! That’s why I mentioned CPU binning, which takes varying results of the manufacturing process, and categorizes each according to what it is capable of. I still think this is an imperfect analogy, but felt closer to the topic than wizards and fairly primitive tools.

> The existence of screwdrivers shouldn't be considered a disorder

I think I’ve lost you here - this analogy is stretched pretty far at this point.

But if the screwdriver is missing it’s handle, and the head of the screwdriver is deformed and unable to make contact with screws, a pretty good case could be made that this screwdriver has some serious problems.

d0mineOP4y ago

CPU binning assumes just one axis: from 100% working (perfect) then various degree of broken to 0% (completely broken) which leads to the wrong attitude of thinking in terms of "disorder" (from perfect human to completely broken).

My examples tried (unsuccessfully) to show that there can be more than one axis: whether a tool is considered working/broken can depend on specific task you are trying to apply it to. Use the right tool for the job. It is not that the tool by itself is broken, it is the combination tool+job can be inadequate (but it doesn't mean that the tool by itself has a disorder):

    | tool        | job          | good fit |
    |-------------+--------------+----------|
    | hammer      | pound nails  | yes      |
    | hammer      | drive screws | no       |
    | screwdriver | pound nails  | no       |
    | screwdriver | drive screws | yes      |

There can be broken hammers, screwdrivers too that are not suitable for any job. There can be situations where you see only nails around you and you'll be having a hard time if you are a screwdriver. Screwdriver by itself is not broken.

Obviously, human minds/tasks people do have many many aspects to them and therefore different types of humans can find a good fit to their abilities despite the differences. The symptoms of ADHD can often be considered adaptive to their specific environment (and of course, they can be crippling too):

"How a gene associated with ADHD may have been adaptive: an example

About one-seventh of a Kenyan tribe, the Ariaal, have the long version of the DRD4 gene, which is associated with novelty-seeking. Pastoralists, some Ariaal still lead a nomadic life, moving from place to place, whereas others now have a more settled way of living. A study found that men with the novelty-seeking allele who lived a nomadic life were well nourished and healthy. In contrast, those with this same allele living a settled life were on average less well nourished (Reference Eisenberg, Campbell and GrayEisenberg 2008). It seems that having the ‘ADHD-inducing’ variant might well be a better option when living a less settled kind of life, and that different genetic variations aid survival or success in some environments but not others." https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/bjpsych-advances/art... (most of the paper is psychobabble but the example stands by itself)

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse