
My Life as an Autistic Wikipedian - edward
https://guillaumepaumier.com/2015/07/29/autistic-wikipedian/
======
zamalek
> One way to illustrate this is to use a computer analogy: in a way, my CPU
> runs at a higher frequency, which has allowed me to emulate with software
> the hardware that I'm missing.

I'm convinced that there is something here.

One notable thing out of my childhood is dyslexia. It has taken some things
away from me. Some of which I've figured out the 'emulator' for (handwriting,
spelling). I'm still working on other things (messiness, forgetfulness).

However, for as much as it has taken away it has also given. I'm absurdly good
at solving incredibly complex problems (both logical and sociological) and
good at making fast high quality decisions. I _think_ the reason is simple:
most people naturally see "J" and "T" as different things, I struggle to do
the same. That being said, while many people see two problems as different
things, I can see the similarity: solving N problems with 1 solution. Another
dyslexic once called it "intuitive reflection and rotation" \- a name that I
strongly agree with; the dyslexic mind automatically reflects and rotates both
images _AND_ concepts.

I strongly believe that many (likely not all) learning 'disabilities' are not
actually disabilities. They are merely trade-offs. Children who have these
'conditions' should really learn how to capitalize on their unique abilities
instead of being told that and treated like they are mentally disabled. So the
kid can't spell, _who cares?_

~~~
eyko
The brain (the tissue) is not the "hardware", with it's "contents" being the
software. I'd say that the analogy makes no sense. Whatever you can "emulate",
you're emulating because you've got the "hardware" to do it.

To illustrate my point: we can't emulate perceiving time at a much slower pace
or viewing a wider spectrum of light. Okay, that's a wrong example since we're
limited by our eyes - the peripherals/sensing devices. Perhaps try emulating
interpreting visible light as a color blind person would.

The separation between hardware (brain) and software (soul?) is practically
non-existent. It's closer to a state-machine.

~~~
lfowles
Hardware: Closer to autonomous functions. Require no thought, you just do it.
Example: Saying "Thank you" reflexively when someone does something kind.

Software: Have to mentally process the situation. Did this person do something
kind? Is there a response I should give? Oh! "Thank you!"

~~~
triangleman
Still a false dichotomy. Everything we do runs the gamut from autonomous to
executive. For instance, a relatively illiterate person will have to focus
purposefully in order to read a street sign, whereas your average literate
person will look at a street sign while holding 7 other things in his mind at
the same time.

~~~
lfowles
Sounds like a good dichotomy to me. You are agreeing that autonomous <->
executive are two extremes of a spectrum, no?

------
soneca
I often see people ridiculing diversity recognition among human beings as
"this political correctness is going too far". But i think is kind of
ridiculous assuming that 7 billion are essentially the same.

I know now that I am a neurotypical heterossexual cis white male (and I hope
to learn more ways in which my characteristics differ between humans). And it
is important for me to recognize this in me and others.

Recognize is the keyword here. I am not sayingn what is right ir wrong in
actions after this recognition (like affirmative policy and etc). This is to
be debated as a society. Also, not all these characteristics are the same.
Some of these, like gender and race, should affect our interactions less than
they currently do. Others, like sexual orientation and identification and
mental model , should affect our interactions more than they currently do (imo
of course).

But, as individuals, we should all recognize our diversity. And spend some
time reflecting about this should or should not affect our interpersonal
relations.

------
irremediable
Very well-written. It's funny... I've never thought I might be anything other
than neurotypical, but reading the article makes me realise how many of those
traits I have. I've always defaulted to taking people literally, to the point
that friends joke about it. As a child, I got bullied a bit for speaking in a
"weird voice" (monotone), and to this day people sometimes say my voice sounds
weird to them. My motor coordination is dreadful, and I've always been
fascinated by categorisation and ontologies. My family have remarked that I
seem unemotional, which I know is untrue, but a lot of it seems to be their
alienation by what I consider to be logical behaviour.

I suspect this is just hypochondria, or something like it, but I guess it
illustrates how subtle the idea of a spectrum can be.

~~~
badpenny
I think it's fair to say the most important/relevant/defining trait is quite
severe difficulties in social functioning, usually characterised by a lack of
friends. This is also the one that I nearly always see left out by people who
"think they might have it".

~~~
DanBC
And importantly it's not because people with autism do not want friends. They
are often desperately lonely.

------
reitanqild
Would not consider myself an autist but this seems like a very good
explanation:

    
    
      By autistic standards, the normal human brain is easily 
      distractible, obsessively social, and suffers from a 
      deficit of attention to detail.

~~~
luck87
So all of us are a bit autist :-)

------
greggarious
>Most of those issues arise because you don't have a way of knowing that the
person in front of you is different. At least Spock had his pointed ears to
signal that he wasn't human. His acceptance by the crew of the Enterprise was
in large part due to the relationships he was able to develop with his
shipmates. Those relationships would arguably not have been possible if they
had not known how he was different.

That can be a problem since telling people you have a mental illness is
usually a career limiting move at most companies.

~~~
Jemmeh
For Spock, he's supposed to be different, he's an alien. So it's ok. If Spock
had a tentacle, it's fine, he's an alien.

When humans are different, you're doing being human wrong. If a human has a
tentacle, something's definitely off.

At least that's most people's view of psychology as of current. I think the
field is changing and embracing difference a little more though. But! Big
pharma wants everyone to think they're broken so they can sell more pills, so
that is counteracting the progression towards accepting diversity.

------
moron4hire
Maybe stuff like "inability to focus" is not the fault of the person but of
the task. What if there are truly boring tasks that one would be better
discarding than forcing themselves to focus on?

Maybe there really are people with whom you can't have a well-adjust
relationship. Maybe it's not your fault you can't empathize with what that
person is feeling. Maybe it's their fault for getting bent out of shape over
stupid stuff.

What if it's okay to get angry in bad situations and is not an anti-social
disorder of some kind? What if, when someone screws you over, it's completely
legitimate to yell at them and not trust them again?

Who got to decide that not wanting to work on boring work, not wanting to
socialize with vapid people, not wanting to be nice to awful people, equaled
mental disorders?

Especially when it comes to work, our culture sees it as "more normal" to
bottle up your emotions at work and act them out in self-destructive ways at
home. Yes, we criticize such people--as Mitch Hedberg pointed out, alcoholism
is a disease, but it's the only disease that you can get yelled at for having
--but we don't criticize them anywhere near as much as we criticize the people
who quit their toxic jobs to become artists or to travel the world.

Maybe it's the world that is sick. Maybe it's the world that belongs in a
mental institution.

------
luck87
Reading the article, I find some analogy as the writer, but I think I am not
the only one. The writer said that he discovers to be an Autist, but he didn't
say what kinds of exams or diagnosis he performed. Google result about ASD:
"There is currently no medical test that can confirm a diagnosis of autism. A
diagnosis of autism is based on observed behavior." Because (I think) the
following reasons are not sufficient to say that you have a sort of autism:
having social disease, linking Star Trek novels, feel always alone, high IQ
level, bad childhood, love pc, no sense of fashion.

~~~
gpaumier
(I'm the author.) You're right that there isn't (yet) a medical test like a
blood test or an MRI to detect autism. In France, the official "diagnosis" is
established by a psychiatrist based on interviews and questionnaires with the
person, and some of their family members if possible.

That's how it happened for me, and at the end of the evaluation process, they
said I met "the criteria (CIM 10 and DSM IV) for a diagnosis of autism
spectrum disorder, and in particular for Asperger syndrome (CIM 10: Axis I,
F84.5)". I haven't looked into what those numbers refer to exactly, and I
don't like all the medical connotations, but that's how it's done in France.

There's a screenshot of the report in an post I published earlier this year
(in the "self-discovery" section:
[https://guillaumepaumier.com/2015/02/22/2014-in-
review/](https://guillaumepaumier.com/2015/02/22/2014-in-review/) ).

~~~
luck87
So I think that you are not alone :-) I don't really know how, but we should
take the better side of this situation. Your story was really interesting. PS:
have you just learn piano?

------
noir_lord
[http://archive.wired.com/wired/archive/9.12/aqtest.html](http://archive.wired.com/wired/archive/9.12/aqtest.html)
no idea on it's accuracy but interesting nonetheless (For the record I scored
37 and I'm not (afaik) autistic).

~~~
pmelendez
> (For the record I scored 37 and I'm not (afaik) autistic).

The "AFAIK" is key here. These days there is an "increase" of ASD cases mostly
because the diagnostic was extended to cover Highly Functional cases. The
thing is that individuals with High Functioning Autism can live normal lives
and go undetected (Just as the author) which begs the question... Should it be
detected at all?

~~~
SolaceQuantum
I received a 35 and I'm actually on the schizophrenia spectrum with a disorder
that actually requires ruling out ASD.

I wouldn't give this or any other online test anything more than extreme
skepticism.

~~~
pmelendez
> I wouldn't give this or any other online test anything more than extreme
> skepticism.

Completely agreed.

------
cubancigar11
Everytime I read such articles I am reminded of my stay in Germany. In those 5
years I behaved exactly the way the author behaves, and shared same thoughts
as the author.

And then I came back to India and I am so totally different man now, I wonder
if the whole autism spectrum has society as an influential input too. Being in
India I just have so many friends with whom I can discuss very intimate doubts
or facts about life that you can arrive at a peaceful state of mind very
easily and function as a normal member of society without ever having a doubt
about yourself, while in west in general the focus on individualism means most
people don't talk to each other and are always expected to behave a certain
way otherwise they will get 'what is wrong with him' look all the time.

------
RobertoG
A very interesting read.

One question comes to my mind: If autism is a spectrum, and Rain Man is in one
side, what is there in the other?

~~~
roel_v
It's an n-dimensional spectrum, but just the concept of 'spectrum' as already
too difficult for many people to grasp, hence a generic use of 'spectrum'.

~~~
JohnBooty
Thank you! I've never seen/heard this expressed so well and so succinctly
before.

------
nraynaud
Funny, I clearly have some troubles, and every times I read a description of a
head condition, I wonder if I don't have that.

~~~
10dpd
What are you describing is 'confirmation bias', a tendency to search for or
interpret information in a way that confirms one's preconceptions.

~~~
nraynaud
Let's say it's a confirmation bias from someones who has 2 shrinks (and no
clear diagnostic appart from depression), some medicines and not been employed
for 3 years.

------
brobdingnagian
Guillaume, I do not think you are autistic, I think you are probably an ISTP.
Rodney Mullen, also an ISTP, thinks he is autistic. No - that's just normal
human variability. There's no use in unnecessarily psychopathologizing
yourself.

~~~
jpatte
Reading the article I was also wondering if most traits weren't simply due to
the author's personality rather than to a form of autism.

~~~
Raphmedia
The thing is, this is not a self diagnostic. See:
[https://guillaumepaumier.com/2015/02/22/2014-in-
review/#atta...](https://guillaumepaumier.com/2015/02/22/2014-in-
review/#attachment_8324)

------
drewolbrich
I am not autistic, but for me, maintaining eye contact is like trying to stare
at the Sun.

------
socrates1998
This makes a lot of sense, because Wikipedia editors have a lot of problems
with flexibility.

They don't like newer sources even when they are clearly better and more
accurate than older sources.

They don't like people who are experts to contribute to articles because it
infringes on their territory and they don't like to admit they know less than
the professional.

The wikipedia editing system is Byzantine and there are a lot of layers you
have to go through. This eats up a lot of time and prevents a lot of experts
from contributing because they don't have the time to deal with it.

Wikipedia is good for basic definitions, but it needs more flexibility.

~~~
genericuser
While I agree with your criticisms of Wikipedia, I do not think it is
appropriate to make the connection, which your post seems to strongly imply,
between Wikipedia editors with these traits in general and Autism.

------
guard-of-terra
I don't think there's such thing as neurotypical.

"Neurotypical" means "person who haven't got enough attention to be examined
nor a name for their specific neural features". Because everyone got some.

~~~
AndrewDucker
Neurotypical seems to mean a mixture of "Near the centre of the bell curve,
for all attributes" and "Is able to mentally cope with the world without
unusually large quantities of external support".

~~~
badpenny
Or, in short, somebody who doesn't have Asperger's.

~~~
AndrewDucker
Or Schizophrenia. Or ADHD. Or any one of a massive host of things that can
affect the brain and make it harder to cope.

~~~
badpenny
I thought this was a discussion about Asperger's, not every single mental
disorder under the sun.

------
kushti
What's the official diagnosis? Cant' find it in the article. Unfortunately, we
have a lot of freaks calling themselves "autists" (e.g.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bram_Cohen](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bram_Cohen)
"Cohen claims he has Asperger syndrome[3] based on a self diagnosis.[4]") just
because that's trendy amongst infantile social media consumers.

~~~
badpenny
You seem to be familiar with Wikipedia so I'll draw your attention to the
article on there dedicated to the subject.

~~~
kushti
The question remains the same: are we talking about "self-diagnosis" or a real
problem.

~~~
badpenny
I'm not sure I understand your question, or rather it seems to be more than
one question. Yes, Asperger's is a real problem. Yes, some people self-
diagnose themselves. Yes, some of these people would not be diagnosed with
Asperger's were they to undergo diagnosis by an expert.

------
Udo
_> the English How are you? or the German Wie geht's?_

As a cultural aside, I would like to point out that the German " _wie geht
's?_" is used to actually prompt a superficial answer about one's state. It's
perfectly acceptable to reply with information like " _meh, I 'm having some
trouble_". The same goes for almost every other country.

But the (US) American " _how are you?_ " does not afford this. Like the
article describes, anything but " _fine, thanks, and you?_ " is not considered
a valid response. This _still_ trips me up when talking with Americans...

~~~
deanCommie
That's not exactly true.

It's completely proper to say "Fine, thanks", "Great, fantastic", "meh, not
bad", "uggh having the worst day" or anything in between to "How Are you" in
the US or Canada.

Sure, you wouldn't say that to a perfect stranger but if a friend or family
member leads with "how are you", there is nothing weird about giving an actual
response.

~~~
bshimmin
Isn't this the key point, though? The answer to that question depends entirely
on the context of your relationship with the person asking it.

If a client calls me up and asks how my day is going, the socially acceptable
answer is "It's going great, thanks!" with the addition of some remark about
the weather, that one is looking forward to the weekend (if it's a Thursday or
Friday), etc. My client doesn't really care about my day, they're just asking
because it's a social nicety. (They probably do care to the extent that if I
break down and start sobbing, or there's just a choked gurgling sound at the
other end of the phone, then they may well not get their money's worth that
day...)

On the other hand, if my wife asks me how my day has been, I can reply
honestly and candidly - though, again, if she's busy or she's had a bad day
herself or she's asking this question whilst spooning food into my son's
mouth, maybe I will temper my response accordingly.

An understanding of these sorts of social niceties based around context is
something that the socially-aware take for granted and, clearly, the author of
this article and people like him find very difficult.

~~~
deanCommie
It's not easy but it's not cultural. I was responding to the commenter who
claimed that other countries other than the US expect or allow for a real
response to the question.

And I think that's simply false. A stranger in the middle of the street in
Berlin is just as uninterested in your day than one in Boston. And a friend is
just as interested.

------
comrade1
I've jokingly referred to Wikipedia moderators as autistic for, for example,
diligently reversing changes to articles even when done by experts in that
field. I guess I'll try to come up with something else...

~~~
mahouse
If you spent some time editing Wikipedia in a serious way, you would notice
how a high % of the regular editors/admins are more than obviously affected by
a wide spectrum of mental problems. Although I guess this topic is a taboo
because of how the society has been trying lately to “normalise” mental
illnesses.

~~~
DanBC
It's a little bit frustrating that you describe behaviour you don't like as
either mental illness or neuro-diversity.

Sometimes an asshole is just an asshole.

~~~
mahouse
"Neuro-diversity" just means "mental illness". And I don't believe there are
many assholes around. Most people that act like assholes regularly are just
affected by some illness, even if it's only a depression. Nobody wants to be
an asshole, believe me.

~~~
DanBC
Hang on: Autism is not a mental illness!

> And I don't believe there are many assholes around.

okay, I don't have any research so I'll accept this for a moment.

> Most people that act like assholes regularly are just affected by some
> illness, even if it's only a depression.

Neither of us have any research, so I wonder how strongly you feel that?

And maybe if you swap "depression" for "stress" I guess I'll agree.

> Nobody wants to be an asshole, believe me

Wait what? Plenty of people who don't have anything like a diagnosable mental
illness enjoy being assholes just because. I guess we're disagreeing about
definitions of asshole and mental illness here though.

~~~
mahouse
> Hang on: Autism is not a mental illness!

"A serious developmental disorder that impairs the ability to communicate and
interact." Would you not call that an illness?

> Neither of us have any research, so I wonder how strongly you feel that?

I feel it very strongly, as someone who has been affected by it.

> And maybe if you swap "depression" for "stress" I guess I'll agree.

I agree on that too.

> Wait what? Plenty of people who don't have anything like a diagnosable
> mental illness enjoy being assholes just because. I guess we're disagreeing
> about definitions of asshole and mental illness here though.

I don't believe in that. Someone who is a chronical asshole is probably
depressed, stressed, an autist, a psychopath, etc.

~~~
pmelendez
>"A serious developmental disorder that impairs the ability to communicate and
interact." Would you not call that an illness?

First that is not an appropiated definition that would cover the whole
spectrum. It is not "serious" for people with High Functional Autism (Umbrella
term that covers deprecated labels as Aspergers, PDDNOS, etc).

Second, "Illness" is not the preferred term in this case:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disease#Concepts](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disease#Concepts)

"(Medical condition) As it is more value-neutral than terms like disease, the
term medical condition is sometimes preferred by people with health issues
that they do not consider deleterious. On the other hand, by emphasizing the
medical nature of the condition, this term is sometimes rejected, such as by
proponents of the autism rights movement."

