Narcissism—um, here it is important to point out that low self-confidence, social awkwardness can also be a form of it (“everybody is looking at me and I am ugly!”). Or: the classic “naked at school” nightmares. But this is debatable.
Self-sufficiency—check
Sense of superiority—heh heh heh
Loss of affect—understood as cynicism mainly
Depersonalization - ?
Regression—inward, as in: fantasy, D&D etc.
Regression—backward, as in: enjoying childhood things like simple console games
I don’t know how well it describes the LW community, it does describe me, and it generally does a good job of describing the Reddit type nerd-neckbeard community who are IMHO at the very least could be seen as the less intelligent “cousin” of the LW community in general (well, closer to to LW than a fantasy football community is close to LW)
This is just a hypothesis but may worth considering. Are you often described as emotionally cold and withdrawn?
Oh, dear. Let’s not go into the pop-psy favourite pastime of diagnosing oneself with a variety of psychiatric disorders. Or, even better, diagnosing various people on the ’net.
I remember going to the British Museum one day to read up the treatment for some slight ailment of which I had a touch—hay fever, I fancy it was. I got down the book, and read all I came to read; and then, in an unthinking moment, I idly turned the leaves, and began to indolently study diseases, generally. I forget which was the first distemper I plunged into—some fearful, devastating scourge, I know—and, before I had glanced half down the list of “premonitory symptoms,” it was borne in upon me that I had fairly got it.
I sat for awhile, frozen with horror; and then, in the listlessness of despair, I again turned over the pages. I came to typhoid fever—read the symptoms—discovered that I had typhoid fever, must have had it for months without knowing it—wondered what else I had got; turned up St. Vitus’s Dance—found, as I expected, that I had that too,—began to get interested in my case, and determined to sift it to the bottom, and so started alphabetically—read up ague, and learnt that I was sickening for it, and that the acute stage would commence in about another fortnight. Bright’s disease, I was relieved to find, I had only in a modified form, and, so far as that was concerned, I might live for years. Cholera I had, with severe complications; and diphtheria I seemed to have been born with. I plodded conscientiously through the twenty-six letters, and the only malady I could conclude I had not got was housemaid’s knee.
Oh, dear. Let’s not go into the pop-psy favourite pastime of diagnosing oneself with a variety of psychiatric disorders. Or, even better, diagnosing various people on the ’net.
While I share the sentiment, recognizing that their are multiple psychological issues that lead to lower social skills is an improvement over simply thinking of everything as autism.
Fair point, but actually I think these are disorders only in the extreme case, and simply personality types in more moderate cases. I think e.g. most poets had to be a bit schizoid.
Alternative hypothesis: schizoid personality.
I find https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schizoid_personality_disorder#Guntrip_criteria matches me well, but what is ever more important that it sounds like a description of “nerd culture”:
Introversion—check
Withdrawnness—check
Narcissism—um, here it is important to point out that low self-confidence, social awkwardness can also be a form of it (“everybody is looking at me and I am ugly!”). Or: the classic “naked at school” nightmares. But this is debatable.
Self-sufficiency—check
Sense of superiority—heh heh heh
Loss of affect—understood as cynicism mainly
Depersonalization - ?
Regression—inward, as in: fantasy, D&D etc.
Regression—backward, as in: enjoying childhood things like simple console games
I don’t know how well it describes the LW community, it does describe me, and it generally does a good job of describing the Reddit type nerd-neckbeard community who are IMHO at the very least could be seen as the less intelligent “cousin” of the LW community in general (well, closer to to LW than a fantasy football community is close to LW)
This is just a hypothesis but may worth considering. Are you often described as emotionally cold and withdrawn?
Oh, dear. Let’s not go into the pop-psy favourite pastime of diagnosing oneself with a variety of psychiatric disorders. Or, even better, diagnosing various people on the ’net.
(Three men in a boat)
While I share the sentiment, recognizing that their are multiple psychological issues that lead to lower social skills is an improvement over simply thinking of everything as autism.
a.k.a. Medical student syndrome
Fair point, but actually I think these are disorders only in the extreme case, and simply personality types in more moderate cases. I think e.g. most poets had to be a bit schizoid.