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Comment by weberc2 | Hacker News Reader

I relate to the author of the original article in that I'm a slow thinker. I really envy people who can vocalize intelligent, confident decisions or opinions on the spot. I don't like feeling stupid because I can't articulate moderately complex thoughts on the spot. It feels like I don't think in words anymore, but rather in something like abstract math (not like a savant, mind you), and translating back to words accurately is laborious and time consuming. I like the pace of commenting on an Internet forum like this one, where I can be thoughtful and take my time and rewrite a bit before sharing.

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I am a fast thinker.

It's good for situations where the bottleneck is sheer processing speed---math problems on standardized tests, for instance---but many problems in the real world have bottlenecks of perspective, or information. I'd have been a good medical student, but probably a terrible doctor.

I've hammered a lot of screws in my time.

Getting sharper takes practice. I like to unwind on forums too but it's not pushing you to think faster. Also, getting your thoughts, actions, and words all in alignment will help, as there will be less hesitation on each front.

I think a key aspect to the situation though is that you won't get faster by trying to get faster. Of all places, I learned this while working in a grocery store, but have since verified the phenomenon in other domains (for example, reading; and it also just makes psychological sense).

I had been stocking groceries for about a month when I had an interesting conversation with two senior employees (20 or 30 years a piece at the job). One of them was telling me that I was doing well but that I needed to start going more quickly. The other saw the mistake in this advice and said something along the lines of, "Well, hold on, though: you know speed comes naturally with practice. He'll get faster once he knows the work better." The other senior employee thought about it for a second, and then agreed in full and admitted their mistake. As a consequence, I focused on learning my work well instead of trying to be fast—and I became one of the fastest stockers in the store within a year.

I don't think you can will speed to happen, or train it specially: it's a consequence of already having solved the problems at hand before, already knowing the solutions and not needing to figure things out in the moment.

So you aren't going to 'get sharper'; you'll just learn particular domains better or not, and the ones you know better you'll be perceived as sharper in.

Well, I've gotten a lot sharper over the past year. And comparing myself to five years ago, the difference is night and day.

Hmm, I see I got downvoted. Whatever.

How did you get sharper?

This is very much the case when learning to play string instruments.

When you start out, you are told to practice your scales by making sure the notes are clean and even in volume.

Doing it fast comes later.

> 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

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.

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

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.

perhaps suffer wasn't the right term in terms of subjective expression becsuse i wouldn't say I distinctly suffer per se, i was just more using the term "suffer" in the sense of "suffering a condition" implying having to live through it, or rather being subjected to it. as far as actual negative side effects and the sensation of suffering in the context of struggling though, I wouldn't say that applies so much except when it comes to visual art. I've never been a very visual person thanks to the aphantasia thing and I've always kind of wanted to be because I practice several other forms of art and creative expression, but it's like, with the analogy of a sculptor, I don't see the sculpture inside the block of marble; i don't manifest these complex visual and spatial ideas about a thing before I try to go into creating it, I more just rely on first principles and the synthesis thereof, but that being said there is a distinctly abstract quality to my visual art that isn't exactly intentional; my grasp of perspective is kinda bad as well. I'm sure I could overcome these limitations if i put my mind to it but I just haven't figured it out quite yet. im thinking i need to approach things more mathematically though

as far as what the aim was , I'm not sure exactly. just nice to know people who experience the same thing as me and then musing on it and rambling like i always do

Ah, I should have made clear the admonishment about straying was intended to be self directed. Fun side topic, but I didn't want to miss on the original question. I see the OP updated with their answer backwards. Not sure what the answer says for the way we interpreted it. As you, I am just not around that many churches. So, I expect that has some influence on the answer.

Per the word choice in suffering, I know it is the common word to use for things like this. I'm sure I use it some myself, I just try and avoid it when I can. I have no doubt this affects my methods of thinking. But, having never known the other ones, really, I can't say much else about it.

It is funny how I always thought of myself as just not visual. Never really considered it was because I don't see as much with my eyes closed, per se.

The really mind blowing experience for me, is how I can find things I did in the past and have almost zero memory of the visual aspect of it. I knew I spent time on something, but I don't remember how it looked as a finished thing.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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