Asperger's - Stupid and Smart at Same Time

"The problem with Asperger's," she says, "is you're stupid and smart at the same time."

"I feel people's eyes are always saying something," she says. "It's very intense for one thing, so it's overwhelming. The other thing is I don't know what they're saying."

Nomi Kaim tells the Boston Globe that living with Asperger's syndrome means taking everything one step at a time.

'I didn't know where people like me were'

Kaim's brain is wired differently from most people's. She has Asperger's syndrome, a mild autism recognized as a disorder only since 1994. Those with Asperger's are verbal and as intelligent or more intelligent than average individuals . They have problems processing the myriad cues around them -- trouble understanding social situations and communicating in social settings, trouble distinguishing what's important from what's not, trouble with sensory overload or understimulation, trouble organizing their lives, trouble, as the saying goes, seeing the forest for the trees.
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Kaim is 23, fast-talking and slow-walking, smart and curious, serious and self-absorbed, bad at multi-tasking and good at pouring herself into whatever she does. She's uncomfortable socially and comfortable, when not depressed, with solitude. She craves structure and resists uncertainty. She longs for human connection but cringes at being touched and balks at the reciprocity of friendship

1 in 500 have Asperger's according to the Asperger's Association and the numbers are growing.

From eMedicine
Individuals with Asperger disorder have normal or even superior intelligence, and they may make great intellectual contributions, while demonstrating social insensitivity or even apparent indifference toward loved ones. Published case reports of men with Asperger disorder suggest an association with the capacity to accomplish cutting-edge research in computer science, mathematics, and physics. .... Persons with Asperger disorder have exhibited outstanding skills in mathematics, music, and computer sciences. Many are highly creative, and many prominent individuals demonstrate traits suggesting Asperger syndrome.

The Assistant Village Idiot has put his finger on something I couldn't articulate when I wrote  Radical Life Extension about Joel Garreau's book on Radical Evolution.    I was extremely discomfited at the way Ray Kurzweil talked about extending the human life span to 140.  It gave me the creeps.

In Your New Masters Will Have Asperger's , AVI writes about the rigid and childish assumptions exhibited by Ray Kurzwei and others like him that all new technology will be good, bringing us a Heaven on earth.  But such men lack the width and breadth of human experience or apparently recourse to any religious or philosophical thought and so they have  trouble understanding the implications for society as a whole.