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Comment by kushti | Hacker News Reader

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 "Cohen claims he has Asperger syndrome[3] based on a self diagnosis.[4]") just because that's trendy amongst infantile social media consumers.

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I think things like autism and other mental things are hard to diagnose externally; the self-diagnoses are probably "Yes, I feel the same way" - not so much "I have autism" but "I am similar in some ways". Like identifying as intro- or extroverted - there's self-tests for that (Myers-Briggs or something). But the personality traits in that one are spectrums too - you can be a bit or a lot of all of them.

TL;DR it doesn't really matter much IMO what someone says they are, but it does help if they understand themselves better and know that they're not the only ones with those traits or difficulties in life (if they perceive them as difficulties).

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

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

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.

"It took a bit longer (and a few tests) to get a confirmation from experts" and "the current prevailing hypothesis to explain this, based on an IQ test taken as part of the evaluation process". So not a self-diagnosis.

Yes, because it's most certainly required to upload and "prove" all claims about oneself on the internet.

Oh wait, it's not. It was a claim about his self.

You don't like it? Quit reading.

He posted that he was official diagnosed by a doctor.

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