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Comment by go_elmo | Hacker News Reader

I am asking myself sometimes to what extend CS-based work increases autism-typical behaviour, simply by enforcing similar thinking patterns (maybe). I kind of get into a "tunnel" when having a well focused day of code and feel like Im on the spectrum afterwards. Maybe this enforces this stereotype even if there is no correlation..?

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It's called "flow". Most people do it. It's how artists work and rock climbers climb and everyone else who gets focused on a moderately complex task. Programming is a great form of art, one that is more lucrative than other art forms, but it's not different from other human experience.

I have a similar observation. My motivation to start programming as a kid was to build cool stuff but it turned out that just learning to code was so crazy difficult and such a big effort. Eventually I became good at it but I feel like it took a toll from my creativity. Similar with studying, I studied Physics. This was a pragmatic choice since I was naturally good at math, curious about philosophical consequences and job perspectives were supposed to be solid. But the studies were really hard and eventually I started to not care about any philosophical aspect, just accepting everything is state of the (pragmatic) art. Not to mention how often I had to tell people I have to leave early because of studies. Also later on especially in some startups pressure can be insane, one boss once suggested I could work in nowhere land for some months to focus better. (Luckily I didn't do that) But yeah, this certainly does something to you I think. Good to not forget there's also this other life. (I think that's also the point in the pg article) Also I must say social life really became much more difficult over time. When I was younger not meeting anyone in a week felt strange, now I'm happy when I can socialize once a month.

I think it's 90% the other way around. Clearly people that are slightly (or very) autistic will gravitate towards computer work, since computers are like a wet dream for autistics.

I confirm (for my own case) this phenomenon - the circularity of the behavior. The more I think in a structured way at work, the more I do it outside, the more I do it at work, and so on. I'd say that there is simply a tendency to do that, that gets reinforced by the (work) conditions.

In my opinion, it's crucial, in these conditions, to be self-aware and get a certain degree of control, as one can easily slide into, let's say, some negative patterns of the behavior in the spectrum.

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