Seems like the article is making fun of these claims more than anything.
> The plurality of worlds debates provided wonderful opportunities to make definitive pronouncements without the inconvenience of providing solid evidence: after all, it was impossible to be proved wrong.
I think Fifty Shades of Grey has had more commercial success than The Martian. It was originally published as an episodic piece of Twilight fan fiction (Master of the Universe)
Regular occurrence here in Austria as well. Funnily enough back in school when we watched "Der Untergang" (Downfall), we were escorted out of the movie theatre by policemen right after the movie ended because they'd just found a big WWII bomb nearby at a construction site.
I'm pretty sure the majority of people on the internet who claim to be "neurodivergent" and/or have a diagnosis for some sort of ASD or ADHD do not show "actual, neurological differences in connectivity" though. For my little brothers it seemed like half the school suddenly had ADHD, mostly the kids who would in the past have been described as lazy, which I find hard to believe to be based on actual neurological differences.
The key part here is "related to general intelligence" (not sure how they measured that as I haven't read the whole study). They obviously don't have 6.5 times more gray matter as a whole.
Doesn't your last point support OP's point? If you call it the "language of maths" instead of "skill", it would appear that they were indeed limited by their language. At least basic mathematical ability is ingrained in the language one experiences and uses everyday. Just think of a shopping receipt, or discussion of wages among colleagues, personal expenditures and budgets, poker games, recipes, etc.
> so newly discovered likely you didn’t learn about it in school.
So with the slow pace knowledge makes it into the school curriculum, you likely wouldn't have heard about it in school unless you just left the system a year or two ago (if even then).
I wouldn't attach too much weight to negative comments. People love to complain, and on the other hand those who are perfectly content often don't feel the need to advertise that. That is not to say that Linux DEs are perfect, mind you, but maybe not as bad as comments on HN would suggest.
I don't like this trend of using the label "neurotypical" to describe one's idea of the most boring, unimaginative person one can think of, and then applying it to pretty much everyone that isn't on the spectrum. "Neurotypical" people range from absolute rebels who reject any kind of authority to people happily working for and supporting a fascist regime, and then everything in-between. There is no less of a variety of opinion and thought in them than in "neurodivergent" people.
I don't think GTA is the best example for "alternate navigation" through "destructibility". Apart from a couple of fences and lampposts, what can you really destroy that gives you new navigation possibilities? There are games that took this way further (e.g. Red Faction)
After completely losing my sense of smell and taste during COVID it took around two months for it to return to a level that was bearable, but more than a year (maybe even two in total) until I really felt like my sense of smell had mostly recovered. So don't give up hope yet, even without new medication.
Interesting. It could be that I never noticed before because I wasn't as active (and have gained a couple followers in the meantime, thus becoming a slightly more attractive target). In any case it's now bad enough to make me reconsider using the platform at all (that and the promoted replies and tweets by blue checkmarks). Related to your remark about reports: my last few spam reports got the reply that the tweets didn't violate the "sensitive content policy", even though I reported them as spam, not sensitive content. So something seems to be broken about the report system now too.
I paradoxically only really started heavily using Twitter when it seemed to decay under Musk (because I wanted be along for the fun ride). But I can hardly imagine that there could have been more bots before than there are now. Almost all my tweets are immediately liked by some catfishing bot and there are crypto spam bots under every slightly popular tweet.
I don't think we are necessarily in disagreement here, so I'm not sure how to respond. I never said that Stallman was exerting power over me to get me to live by his standards, just that I would have to change and restrict the way I use software and which software I use if I (voluntarily) followed all his recommendations. As I've said in my original post I even respect his commitment and perseverance in this regard and think they lead to a better outcome for everyone, but I'm unwilling to follow his example out of laziness and convenience.
> The plurality of worlds debates provided wonderful opportunities to make definitive pronouncements without the inconvenience of providing solid evidence: after all, it was impossible to be proved wrong.