Intelligence

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I agree that schools are built around one style and those of us who do or did not fit in suffer. Like you, I had a single year in a classroom where I could thrive, and the rest of the time I just failed.

I just don't think it's "asking questions" that gets students pegged as autistic or having ADHD.

I think too often people are painting teacher intervention as a conspiracy to label gifted children - usually boys. I don't think it's like that at all.

As far Edison's thinking style, he established a basically prototypical corporate culture, so I think it actually was kind of typical.

Again, whether Edison was a scumbag or not does not have anything to do with the fact that much of the technology we enjoy today would not be possible without his out-of-the-box thinking. Like it or not, Edison played a huge role in the development of modern Western society. Almost nothing in life is black and white, you cannot look at one aspect of a person and define him based on a narrow view. I've done some pretty awful things in my life, but I've also done many good things. I would hope that people don't define me based only on those awful things, but would take the good into account as well.

A lot of that modern western society development was in spite of him not because of him. Like Hollywood being in LA to get away from him and his patent lawyers.

He's not a good example.

The fact is that the teacher of Thomas Edison thought that Thomas Edison was a dumb ret*d and that he should be fired because he was not worth the time and money that it would take to educate him. The truth is that Thomas Edison was a genius. Even today geniuses with autism are labelled by the educational and medical establishment as attention deficit disorders and are considered diseases that should be sent to ret*d schools. Autistics are constantly fired at work and are never given training opportunities.

Neurotypical teachers do not like students asking questions because a neurotypical does not like to be held accountable for his obsolete technology. A neurotypical thinks that if an invention could be so easily constructed it would have already been invented therefore inventions are impossible and we need to focus on existing tried and true technology rather than pipe dreams that come from diseased minds like Thomas Edison.

Thomas Edison's crazy autistic idea that everyone should use electric lighting would be just as crazy as someone who has autism suggesting to a neurotypical teacher that someday all cars will be electric rather than gasoline.

Edison wasn't really a genius in my mind. Closest comparison I can make to someone still living would be to Bill Gates. Edison used the court system and patents to bully his way to where he wanted to be. In my mind, Tesla was the real genius of the time and I believe that history has bore that out. Just as Edison did invent the first vacuum tube in the form of the light bulb. He only understood it as a light bulb and didn't see the wider implications. Armstrong did and basically made radio a practicality due to the vacuum tube (valve for the English here). He was another genius whom RCA basically destroyed as well.

Sadly, history is full of those that garner the glory and the true geniuses are never acknowledged until later if at all...

Yeah, because we've been picked on so much and we feel like outsiders, we want to take some pride in something about ourselves. And solitary intellectual pursuits are ideal for Aspies, since we can live in our heads and avoid working in teams.

As for my own intelligence, I would put it this way. If I were actually as smart as my I.Q. says I am, then I'd be a monster genius. But I'm not. I'm just great at those completion puzzles. In normal life, my mind can get caught up in details to such a degree that I no longer know how to think or construct an argument. Thinking can hurt my head.

I recall writing one of my first papers in college, and the instructor told me she didn't know what grade to give me, because the paper had moments of brilliance but on the whole was a mess. Yeah, I guess that's another way to describe my Aspie brain. Not so useful, really.

You are more likely to be labeled as gifted and then berated for failing to live up to that standard while going otherwise undiagnosed than you are to be incorrectly labeled as autistic or having ADHD because you are gifted.

This stuff you're writing is just finding a way to be a victim. There's nothing here.

Plus your use of the word "ret*d" is bad and you really should stop doing it. Plus, hey, the fact that you're throwing lots of developmentally disabled people under the bus to construct your "geniuses are oppressed" fantasyland is not remotely cool.

And yes, autistic people have a hard time at work - losing jobs, never getting jobs, etc. That does suck, but it doesn't reflect oppression directed against geniuses. It reflects the messed up ways social skills are valued more highly than relevant work skills, and how awful businesses are at accommodating autistic employees. The problem isn't people getting diagnosed with disorders so they can receive needed assistance in school. The problem isn't being sent to schools for developmentally disabled and/or learning disabled children so they can hopefully learn and function better. The problem is that as far as dealing with disability goes, society sucks and puts too much of the onus on disabled people to deal with these problems, and those who cannot have an extremely difficult time.



I don't think this is true. I think some teachers are bad and don't really deal well with student questions and I think other teachers are not. I also think that in a lot of ways teachers are hamstrung (in the US) by the way things like No Child Left Behind demands certain useless benchmarks of performance.

The rest of your stuff about inventions and tried and true technology makes no sense.



Thomas Edison wasn't autistic - that's wishful thinking on your part. He also very likely wasn't talking to teachers about the potential benefits of electric lighting. What Edison did was enthusiastically participate in anti-competitive monopolistic business practices that define modern corporate culture, and as such a fervent capitalist, should not be praised for doing so.