I think that at least part of the reason us diagnosed autistic/Asperger’s people are more prevalent on LessWrong is that those of us diagnosed as children spend a lot of time with adults who think that something’s wrong with our mental processes, often without telling us why.
I know that I picked up on this, and then when I heard about cognitive biases, I jumped to the conclusion “These are what’s wrong with me, but if I read more about them, then I can try and correct for them.” Then, I looked up cognitive biases, found the Overcoming Bias blog, decided it was more economics than I could handle, and then I ended up here, because it had less real-world economics.
Test: See if more LWs were incorrectly given a psychiatric diagnosis as children than members of the general population were.
We could try and get Yvain to include this question in next year’s survey, which is the best obvious way to get an unbiased sample. However, it does involve waiting months for data, so if you’re in a hurry, you could poll the forums now.
On the subject of potential causal linkages:
I think that at least part of the reason us diagnosed autistic/Asperger’s people are more prevalent on LessWrong is that those of us diagnosed as children spend a lot of time with adults who think that something’s wrong with our mental processes, often without telling us why.
I know that I picked up on this, and then when I heard about cognitive biases, I jumped to the conclusion “These are what’s wrong with me, but if I read more about them, then I can try and correct for them.” Then, I looked up cognitive biases, found the Overcoming Bias blog, decided it was more economics than I could handle, and then I ended up here, because it had less real-world economics.
Test: See if more LWs were incorrectly given a psychiatric diagnosis as children than members of the general population were.
Sounds useful. A survey, perhaps, or maybe a poll?
We could try and get Yvain to include this question in next year’s survey, which is the best obvious way to get an unbiased sample. However, it does involve waiting months for data, so if you’re in a hurry, you could poll the forums now.