This stereotype needs to die. For some reason, tech people have a superiority complex about their intelligence and inferiority complex about their social intelligence (neither of which is true from what I have observed). Tech people are normal people.
Then there is the stereotype that spent most of their free time on their computers out of passion and that's what made them end up in tech. That's the same stereotype that has a harder time forming social bonds for the simple reason that they tend to stay home to follow their passion rather than engage in social activities.
I'm also a rock climber. Last year I hiked up Mount Snowdon in Wales. I have done the Inca Trail in Peru to Machu Picchu. I have climbed in Brazil, England, Wales, Greece, France. I'm also a cyclist. I love playing football and basketball (despite being fairly short at 1m65cm). I have been trying to get into running lately, mostly because it's very easy and quick to get some exercise in, since I don't particularly like it. I have gone camping for weeks so I could climb in remote places and/or on the cheap, but also for the sheer enjoyment of it.
I have met friends on both camps, and I'm still quite socially awkward and relatively anxious. I still find it hard to relate closely to many people. That doesn't stop me from trying - and failing a lot.
The idea that those worlds are at odds on a fundamental level absolutely needs to die. It's not good for us nerds, it's not good for us athletes/workout enthusiasts, it's not good for us nature people.
In my opinion, it's crucial, in these conditions, to be self-aware and get a certain degree of control, as one can easily slide into, let's say, some negative patterns of the behavior in the spectrum.
That hero worship tells people that they're better programmers if they reject everything else. Not only is it not true, it's counterproductive.
Autism may be overrepresented among computer people but it's still rare. What's more common, I think, is neurotypical people trying to act autistic and failing.
Autistics do indeed need a different approach to a lot of things, but what most nerds need is to think of themselves as people who are fortunate to have a skill set that is well compensated even without being the 100x programmer who sleeps under his desk and eats only Soylent. That gives us the freedom to be interested in life outside of computers and jobs.
That's not easy when you have to see outside a culture that emulates a few highly successful individuals. Or worse, emulate the myth of their public persona without actually knowing their real lives.
The trick, I would say, is to stop telling each other that we're so different from other people, and that this is necessary to be good at our jobs.
This is in Scandinavia where people generally just work in a field they enjoy, nobody works in IT for the money, so it is probably different in a place like India or even the US.
Your comment seems to imply that non-asd folks entering tech are just in it for the money. Between the general popularity with Video Games, the changing Hollywood image of hackers (Neo, FSociety, Pied Pipper), the hero worship of Steve Jobs/Elon Musk, and the general societal acceptance of all things STEM we have a lot of people, especially young men, entering computer programming out of genuine interest.
Determining private medical data or motivations for a population is hard to do in any ethical empirical way.
I do think most people enter programming because of a genuine interest, hence the abundance of awkward introverts in the business. My point was just that in places like the US were there is such a strong focus on making money, there are probably more people getting in to IT for money, and hence more non-awkward people.
Mr Robot was fun too until it became too much of a Fight Club rip off, but I remember the protagonist as extremely awkward and weird, not someone that a mainstream person would aspire to be like.
The protagonists of Silicon Valley were displayed in incredibly high positive light. They received fame, fortune, drugs and sex. They were portrayed as a modern personification of American Independence, living life on their own terms and bashing heads against authority. They showed very strong social connections. Even scenes where Richard experiences social anxiety are shown in a highly relatable way.
I don’t think any normal, social person watches Silicon Valley and walks away wanting to be like these.
The only normal people in the show are Dinesh’ cousin and Monica.
https://neuroclastic.com/its-a-spectrum-doesnt-mean-what-you...
And I don't know much about autism in general, but it should be pretty uncontroversial to say that programmers and computer nerds are much more socially awkward than average.
"Normal people" is a lot harder to define and quantify than IQ or whatever that other one is and that might be uncomfortable. Nonetheless it is a more useful description for this purpose.
1. Tech people are of approximately average intelligence,
and we should be able to see this in IQ or other tests.
2. Tech people are of approximately average intelligence,
although IQ and other tests may say otherwise;
those tests are all bad.
3. Tech people are of substantially above average intelligence.
As for social awkwardness, I think that is less well-studied than intelligence, but you could imagine constructing a survey with questions that attempted to measure what you cared about. For example: "How many friends do you have?" "Were you bullied in school?" "Would you feel excited or apprehensive about attending a party where you didn't know anyone else?" "Do you find it easy to make new friends?" "Do you think others enjoy your presence at parties?" (Some questions like these have in fact been used to estimate "extroversion".) And I would ask a similar question here: do you really think tech people are average, and, if so, do you think this would likely be seen in the results of simple questionnaires?
But the person made a pretty straightforward assertion about us being, in aggregate, normal. And you pretty much went straight for the calipers, which I just don't think was helpful or necessary.
That's all that's happening here, I'm not trying to formally debate you about the truth of these different statements. Just pointing out that software devs are overall a pretty normal group of people.
You probably missed that this sub thread just concerns the intelligence part of the top post. It said that software engineers are neither superior with respect to intelligence nor are inferior with respect to social skills. The poster you argue with choose to argue against the first point, you try to say that he is wrong since the first point is valid. The points aren't really connected, so even if the second point is valid the first point might still be wrong.
On HN threads going off-topic is normal and should be expected. So just because the outer discussion only concerns social part it is still fine to poke hole in parts of people comments like this. The first person to bring up intelligence was the top post anyway, there was no reason to do so, but now they did so we have this subthread.
I'm the kind of person who really enjoys tinkering alone and I can get hooked on a good problem for days... Did the C++ grandmaster challenge in high school and built my own smartwatch. So I belive i qualify as a nerd.
But I'm also an extrovert who's good with people. At least my friends and family think so. Plus my wife thinks it's awesome that I can repair so much stuff.
The assumption that tech people cannot have great relationships is just wrong. Try not to let it influence you and instead just practice the social skills necessary to meet and get along with people. It'll make you happier. And having friends tends to make work easier, too.
But really, do the work. Even for us (lucky?) extroverts, conversation skills are still something that you need to practice if you want to be good at it.
I agree though that the mindset that because you are a tech person you are doomed to social awkwardness is destructive and silly. Social skills are simply skills you need to put extra work into polishing as it’s not a skill that will be much developed professionally.
I also think there's an urge to flaunt that intellect at all times, Especially when among non-peers. I think it's like someone driving their Mercedez up to the middle of the impoverished neighborhood and Counting loads of cash in the public.
I thought PG's essay was a West-Coast-centric breakdown of social strata.
In my school, our nerds were not overachievers (I should know because I was one and we were all slackers :). The overachievers were all savvy enough to find their place in the social pecking order.
I wonder if other East Coasters had that same experience or if it was specific to my town. I did have the opportunity to meet some people from California in high school at a national summer camp I attended who completely matched the Hollywood nerd stereotype, being highly intelligent, D&D-playing, slightly-snooty overachievers. That was the first time I realized it wasn't completely made-up.
The smart over-achievers of my days (the 2000s to 2010s) were all athletic (mostly tennis and basketball), popular and socially well-adjusted. And they trounced everyone else’s test scores consistently.
But Southern California isn’t typical or representative of the nation as a whole so I might be stuck in some kind of local maxima/minima.
Do you think this is a representative sample?
Because I’ve met plenty of otherwise on paper “smart” people who made/make horrendously unintelligent life decisions.
We do it on here where we assume a higher level of conversation compared to a facebook post so we leave a better message which reenforces the standard.