...which means I'm actually neurodivergent.

Theres an incredibly wide spectrum in human minds, and theres probably a total of three people on the planet who are perfectly at the average point of every single parameter. Im not denying the troubles that profoundly neurodivergent people face, but it turns out that nearly everyone is a little bit off the mean, one way or another.

When everyone is neurodivergent, no one is.

I'm reminded of the 90s crisis where we put kids on Ritalin because they were being kids.

We'll look back on this in the future and say WTF.

[1]Requisite South Park [youtube.com]

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OhMiYV04Q2k

Unless you broaden "typical/average" enough, most people are [1]height-divergent [wikipedia.org] too.

How far do you want to zoom in or zoom out from average (assuming a mostly-bell-curve distribution) when declaring what is and is not "typical?"

How many people are within a few millimeters of the average/typical height for their country? How many are +/- a few decimeters?

Granted, test scores on autism, dyslexia, ADHD, etc, don't follow a bell curve, but the point is similar: Unless the particular measurement has a clear-cut

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Average_human_height_by_country

So, way, way back in the day, the Air Force (might have still been the Army Air Force - that's how old this anecdote is) decided to standardize cockpits. Making them highly adjustable is a huge pain in the ass, and very expensive.

So, they brought in thousands of volunteers for measurement. They measured torso lengths, the lengths of shinbones, the lengths of upper arms, the lengths of fingers, etc. Virtually every body part that had a length was measured.

They compiled tables of statistics for all of these data sets. As expected, each measurement had approximately a normal distribution - a bell curve. The plan was to build a cockpit with minimal adjustment that was still able to fit the vast majority of people in the wide middles of these bell curves.

Punchline: Their new cockpit didn't fit anyone .

That's an exaggeration, of course. It fit a few people. But not many, and certainly not the majority of pilot applicants like they hoped it would.

It turns out that even though almost everyone is basically normal in most measurements, almost everyone is also highly abnormal in at least a few measurements. You have stubby fingers. Joe has unusually long thigs. Bob has short forearms.

The moral of the story - and the way it ties in to the article - is that if you have enough dimensions, it is very normal for everyone to be abnormal in some way.

Our ability to gather and reference information has drastically exceeded our ability to process it in the last 20-30 years. Not only do we have information overload, but our standards and expectations are rapidly rising, so you can't ignore it. Your job wants you to drink from the firehose and if you don't, a younger, more ambitious person will get promoted over you and you may find yourself laid off. The computer literacy and expertise we expect from a gig worker, like an Uber driver, is enough that you would have been labeled a computer genius in 1989. If you could meet your 1995 counterpart, their mind would be blown by how much is expected of them.

I see it all around me, but I live near MIT and am a software engineer (most of my coworkers are problematically on the spectrum) my children are diagnosed with ADHD and ASD and I have Asperger's. My wife also has diagnosed and medicated ADHD...I'm more immersed in it than most of the world, but I think we're just the tip of the sphere.

You have infinite information for free on the web. You have infinite content to read, with no delay through your kindle. You have pretty much every TV show and movie ever created available for on-demand streaming, often for free. There's too many sources of information competing for your attention.

Even jocks are in on it. I have a literal degree in biochemistry. The average gymbro on Reddit knows more about cellular biology and nutrition than my professors in the late 90s. I've learned more from the internet in the last 5 years, for sure, than I did in my classes and I got straight As. That level of learning was an A on a curve in the late 90s...today, it's pretty standard from the roided out macho UFC-wannabes & insurrectionists with "interesting theories" on crypto and the age of consent (to steal 2 jokes from people funnier than me).

In order to adapt to the inflow of info and increase in expectations, you have to adapt...and that adaptation to information overload and insane expectations is to optimize your brain...focus your young plastic brain on learning (ASD) and ADHD is clearly a result of more demands on your attention than you have bandwidth to address.

you'll find that the majority of numbers aren't average.

yay?

"Once you take autism, ADHD, dyslexia, dyspraxia and all the other ways that you can developmentally be different from the typical, you actually don't get many typical people left,"

You keep using that word... I don't think it means what you think it means.

I mentor a bunch of high school students on a robotics team. One thing I've noticed, particularly post-COVID, is that the students have a tendency to stand around and tell each other their diagnoses, and each one gets some attention for it from their peers. If you're the only one in the group who doesn't have a diagnosis (even a self-diagnosis) then you can either stand there and be quiet (and watch while everyone else gets attention), or you can say you're "just normal" (which kind of comes off like an a-hole and gets you labeled an able-ist), or you can just say you're neurodivergent too, and join in with the fun. I do appreciate that mental health doesn't carry the stigma it once did, but it's clearly swung crazy in the other direction now.

It reminds me... in recent years in Hollywood, production companies apparently had a diversity quota on the films they were making. There's a story from a cameraman who said when the diversity person comes around on set and asks him if he's a part of any marginalized group, he just says he's "non-binary." It's impossible to prove otherwise, and doesn't require you to act any differently. He said he thinks it's stupid, but this makes sure he's not at the bottom of the list when they start calling people for the next production.

Its become pretty clear that this has all peaked with Gen Z and it's starting to wane. It's pretty easy to buy into that stuff when you're 14 years old, but a few years later in your 20's it's pretty easy to look around and roll your eyes at anyone still playing up their neurodiversity as a badge of honor. It doesn't garner as much attention once you're in adulthood.

ADHD is more squishy than dyslexia and autism. I have family members with all of these and I have ASD. ADHD can be acute. Also, there's a MASSIVE difference between severe ADHD, like my son, and higher functioning ADHD, like my wife. Both qualify for a diagnosis and the medication for it is largely harmless when taken correctly...in fact most think of it as an intellectual performance enhancer, hence why so many take it in college casually. Therefore, there's little consequence for giving a diagnosis and little motivation for getting off the meds or changing your diagnosis when it no longer fits. . I imagine there are a lot more people identifying as ADHD than ASD/dyslexia.

ASD? Well, as most know, we got a lot better at diagnosing it. When I was a kid, only non-verbal children or those with knowledgeable and wealthy parents got a diagnosis. I grew up in poverty and my ASD WAS NOT high functioning back then....mine was treated with severe bullying by peers, including a lot of violence...like many kids my age who grew up in poverty. For my dad, his ASD was treated by the Marine Corp reshaping his habits and thus his brain.

If we had the same understanding in 1980 that we had in 2000 or 2010, I would have been diagnosed and put in ABA. Trained therapists would have explained to me that my harmless behavior was really off-putting and if I wanted to make friends, I would have to do things that are not very intuitive. It would have helped me drastically to make friends and understand my teachers better and learn more.

I am used to hearing people bitch about the explosion in ASD diagnosis. I get why they feel that, but they need to consider the alternatives.

Back in their day, it wasn't called ASD. Your peers just bullied the shit out of them. You made fun of them constantly and even if you were a "good boy" and weren't mean to them, your peers did. I was pretty suicidal because every day was being made fun of systematically, no matter what I did.

Kids need someone to make fun of to establish their identity...to define what they "aren't" with their friends as a bonding experience, so they project insults of their insecurities....thus some kid in you class was labeled gay, dumb, smelly, whatever the kid sending the insult was insecure about...regardless of their behavior. Typically that kid had some learning disorder and was identified by the group as safe to pick on. It's shitty, but natural...but because back then it was not only tolerated, but they weren't getting help from trained professionals to function in society better. Life was hell and never getting better until I moved from home.

So before you bitch about "back in my day...."...take a closer look at how shitty things used to be.

Sic.

So what? The only inacceptable defects are the ones that lead to intentional lack of respect for others.

At least in Canada according to my psychologist friends. They tell me that if you can get yourself diagnosed as "on the spectrum" you are entitled to $X from the Canadian government. As they described what qualifies, deep concentration, dislike of noisy environments, ability to focus, all qualities you need to do programming, I thought, Hey! I'm neurodivergent! I wish I knew earlier!

I'm sure there are people who suffer from being too far down the spectrum, so God bless them, and I wish no insult, I'm sure there are real challenges for some people, but as far as my life is concerned, all of those traits from the DSM that would make me "on the spectrum", were huge advantages over .. you know.. chumps and dummies... aka 'the average person'....?

80% of people believe they are above average.

They are British after all.....