
George Church ascribes his visionary ideas to narcolepsy - sndean
https://www.statnews.com/2017/06/08/george-church-narcolepsy/
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Mz
I have two 2xe sons. One of the metaphors we came up with is that they aren't
legless lizards who need a bunch of prostheses to replace their missing limbs.
They are snakes and they need to be allowed to travel by slithering, as they
were intended to. Adding prostheses would be an active hindrance to their
ability to be themselves.

Hopefully, the neurodiversity movement will come up with better ways to
convince people that they are different rather than broken and with better
framings for how to help them interact effectively with the rest of society
without trying to force fit them to some mold of "normal."

~~~
millisecond
What is "2xe" in this context? Google wasn't helpful.

~~~
Mz
Twice exceptional aka gifted and learning disabled (though I also use it to
mean gifted and disabled in any manner -- I do not have a _learning_
disability, but I do have a medical disability).

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mythrwy
Sleeping whenever you want is a good idea IMOP.

I do it (not narcoleptic, just like to sleep whenever the mood strikes).
Sometimes 2 naps during the working day, almost always at least one. 10-15
minutes tops usually, just barely fall asleep then back awake.

This should be tolerated at work I think.

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jaggederest
Unfortunately as far as I am aware the studies of various mental disorders and
neurological issues all seem to indicate that, comparing two identical people
with or without the disorder, the disorder is purely a handicap.

If you could eliminate the disorder while leaving the remainder of the brain
untouched, they'd be better off, full stop.

Of course you can't, we all have to work more or less with the neurology and
physiology we've got, and given that, it's good to build in flexibility and
understanding and the accommodations that we see in modern society.

I think there's huge value in being compassionate for every kind of person -
imagine if Mr. Church were kept from his work by the disorder?

~~~
jacquesm
I think a whole generation of slightly autistic computer programmers would
disagree with you.

Another way to look at this is that some perceived handicaps persist in the
genepool because they have some non-obvious advantage.

[https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/09/autism-
hi...](https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/09/autism-hidden-
advantages/406180/)

~~~
vkreso
Nice article. You are right in implying that we do not fully grasp the
dynamics of this whole play, however that genepool argument is not a good one.
Just beacuse something exists does not mean it's good or useful or
advantageous in some way. Of course, that may happen but that conclusion
simply does not follow the premise.

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dnautics
I think the general reputation among the, say, postdocs (generally intelligent
and creative but cynical and past the naivete of the grad student) in
synthetic biology whenever Professor Church makes an announcement, is that
yes, that was something we had mused about but we know already culled it as a
bad idea or an idea not worth pursuing at the moment ("I can't believe he
actually had the audacity to propose doing that"), and a generally feeling of
pity for the grad students and postdocs who are obligated to work on it. Of
course that limits the pity to the _seen_ ; think of all the poor souls
tirelessly working on the project that either totally failed or were a just a
cog in the machine on a giant effort that would probably have taken less time
and less effort if only the community had _waited_ for the tools to become
marginally more sophisticated.

Of course when you are as politically connected and as well known as Professor
Church, you can afford to burn people on these impractical efforts, which of
course cements your reputation as being successful at doing the marginally
possible (or unuseful but with a wowworthy headline), which attracts grad
students and postdocs who either blindly or cynically chase working for
someone who will improve their reputation, and also makes it possible to
further secure funding for crazy projects that anyone else would be laughed at
for pursuing (if they were unsensible enough to do in the first place).

~~~
comstock
Right... I don't know if he's even the worst though (personally I think Craig
Ventor is way worse the Chruch).

I don't think he's all that bad overall. I think he helps direct effort to
interesting problems. Much academic work is something of a moonshot these
days, and your job is to also carve out some useful incremental advances.

People who put too much stock in what he says are likely to be more to blame.
For example, if you see him on the board of a company or as a scientific
advisor I wouldn't think much of it. That's because he's on the board of
practically everything.

But personally, and from people I've spoken to, I've found him to be friendly
and helpful and basically a good guy. That's about as much as you can ask.

~~~
thingification
Can you expand on "Much academic work is something of a moonshot these days,
and your job is to also carve out some useful incremental advances."?

My own assessment is that there is too much low-risk low-reward work in
medicine (and its intersection with biology), and I want to hear/read about
how I'm wrong.

~~~
comstock
You need to make grand claims, state grand objectives to get funding.

The easiest route to publication is then incremental advances. Ideally with a
story around them that makes them sound like part of a grand plan.

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dnautics
Clearly you've been one of the chosen ones, so that's not a biased perspective
at all.

Question: What happened to those companies you've helped to start?

~~~
dang
Whoa. Crossing into personal attack (a) will get you banned here and (b)
discredits your original argument. Please don't do this again, and please
(re)-read the following:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html)

We detached this subthread from
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14533894](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14533894)
and marked it off-topic.

~~~
dnautics
Apologies. I reacted poorly to being accused of slander, which I did not do.

