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Comment by programmerslave | Hacker News Reader

Mental disabilities are mostly adaptations that have huge upside. Technology is exacerbating that upside. You can’t have a majority autistic society, but you want some of them around

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> Mental disabilities are mostly adaptations that have huge upside.

There is extremely scant evidence to support this claim, and conversely, an enormous amount of evidence to disprove it.

The first part is questionable in its very premise. Mental disabilities as an adaptation? By what metric do you measure this? And having huge upsides? There aren't many upsides to someone being born severely mentally retarded. There aren't really even many upsides to severe autism.

For every "House, M.D." you're thinking of, there's another totally non-functional person who requires an enormous amount of caretaking.

I think a big problem of this is that we don't actually represent these people and the way we talk about mental illnesses and disabilities is just strange. Like a lot of people were confused by Robin Williams and Chris Farley, but I don't think anyone that's ever suffered from depression was surprised at all. We think of depression as sadness instead of the existential emptiness or mundane that many experience. Autism is represented by geniuses like House or Sheldon Copper and no one understands the sensory overload aspect that is so common. It's also trendy in some circles to have illnesses because it represents struggle and overcoming obstacles. But the challenge is that many mental illnesses are extreme versions of the human condition and if you dilute it enough everyone has an anxiety disorder and depression and multiple personalities. I don't blame people for not knowing but maybe we should cool the jets on how woke we are because it seems like we're perpetuating misnomers more than recognizing nuances.

> if you dilute it enough everyone has an anxiety disorder and depression and multiple personalities. I don't blame people for not knowing but maybe we should cool the jets on how woke we are because it seems like we're perpetuating misnomers more than recognizing nuances.

My God, this is so well said. Thank you for this comment.

I could not agree with you more.

This is on the one hand a good point but on the other it is a good example of exactly what you’re pointing out. Your implicit dismissal of the idea that there is a spectrum invalidates the ones with the milder form, the highly functionals who feel extremely liberated when a diagnosys is made and why they want to share it that with the world.

> Your implicit dismissal of the idea that there is a spectrum

This was really not my intent. Would you care letting me know where I implicitly said that so I cannot make the same error in the future?

That's an interesting take. I have seen the disability-as-adaptation idea in the past but nothing regarding Technology exacerbated upside. For instance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunter_vs._farmer_hypothesis and https://slate.com/technology/2016/06/the-monkeys-of-south-am... .

There's an entire field (although a small one) dedicated to this called Evolutionary Psychopathology. The idea is that mental illnesses are failure modes of adaptive phenotypes. For example high functioning autistic couple could produce a severely autistic child.

You could believe this if you have only ever saw mental disabilities in movies. Pay a visit to an actual mental ward and I can guarantee it will change your perspective.

My family has multiple people who have spent extended periods of time in mental hospitals, I know what goes on there. But I still stick by my point

I think what you might be getting at is that having a minority of people with mental disabilities increases the overall diversity of thought within our species, which can sometimes prove beneficial. However, any given mental disability may not be beneficial for the individual.

So one explanation is that natural selection has found a balance that yields benefits for the group.

Where one is on a spectrum is key here. When you have high functioning autism or ADHD, sure, you think outside a box and provide a unique perspective, and there's a workplace you can bring that to. When you're too low functioning to hold a job, it's hard to see an upside.

Just world fallacy

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