<i>But what happens if you create a concentration of left brain thinkers? Imagine if an industry sprang up that relied on such people, resulting in a dense population of super-geeks. So dense that they started breeding little geeks. If autism is genetic, as it we are starting to believe it is, would this not cause an increase in the cases of people being born with traits from the autistic spectrum?</i><p>This theory was proposed in a paper by Simon Baron-Cohen (ref: <a href="http://www.bio-medicine.org/medicine-news/Systemizers-Have-A-Higher-Risk-Of-Children-Suffering-From-Autism-7432-1/" rel="nofollow">http://www.bio-medicine.org/medicine-news/Systemizers-Have-A...</a>). His study showed that children of "high-systemizers" were more likely to be autistic. If this is true, it would explain quite a bit. The rise in autism rates seems to match the growth of the tech industry and the value of "knowledge workers."
This whole autism-geek connection is a useless myth. I have a son with autism, and we know a lot of parents with autism. Parents come from every income range, social class, profession and "geek orientation".<p>And contrary to another myth, most autistic kids (the vast majority) have no savant skills. It is a disease. The ones who recover do tell how they felt trapped inside.<p>For those of you who have young children or planning to have children, here is a suggestion: investigate just how many vaccines we are giving kids these days, and compare that to how many were given 25-30 years ago. Educate yourself - I wish I had. I trusted the "system" implicitly, without realizing that the average doctor and certainly the average pediatrician is an unthinking protocol pusher. The average pediatricians typical workload could be automated. Enough said.
<i>Lou has to have the right music in his head to spot his patterns and I, like many developers, have experience of getting into the zone with the help of familiar ambient music. It’s as if the regularity of the music, it’s lack of surprising contrast, drowns out the rhythmless noise of our environment. The alternative is to completely remove all noise...</i><p>Any suggestions on this kind of ambient music? Thanks!<p>EDIT: I'm looking for specific suggestions of which artists/collections/radio channels worked best for you. Thanks to all who replied!