Just something I have anecdotally noticed occuring with more frequency. Several creators I follow have spoken about being diagnosed with ADHD in recent years, and their experiences with medication like adderall. When I was a kid, ADHD was something only kids had, and was famously overdiagnosed in America as an excuse to get a ton of kids on pills.
Is this just a more recent extension of that? Is it just as simple as big pharma looking for more addicts? I have definitely noticed that my own attention span has been eroded by the 24 hour news cycle and too much screen time, but I'd never think to go to the doctor about it.
They'll expand the terms for the diagnosis and then claim everyone has some level of ADHD spectrum. I've been watching it follow Autism.
Also watch how anyone with a gifted mind is immediately labeled one or the other, because you can't be gifted on its own.
Both are definitely overdiagnosed to the point of absurdity, but don't you find that brilliance is often attended by eccentric behaviours? Brilliant people certainly seem to sacrifice normal social operation in exchange for that extreme cognitive ability.
Normal is the ability to perceive things in the same way as others. So, similar experiences growing up or an IQ at the level of everyone else means normal. Unfortunately this causes a problem. Most very intelligent people perceive things in such an advanced way that the normal person seems retarded. The scene in Idiocracy with the white House cabinet is a common occurrence.
Keep in mind, someone who is normal can't tell the difference between the two, and usually the super intelligent don't think their friends are that dumb. So, the comparison gets made a lot, and the really smart people accept it because they can't argue against it.
Do you think that an average IQ person often gets genius confused with social ineptitude, then? Or does genius come with social ineptitude as a byproduct?
Depends on the type. "Genius" is a broad range and can refer to individual skills, which does lend itself to weirder behavior. For example, math geniuses can overspecialize and start looking at everything as math, or ignoring everything they can't solve with math. That is how you get "intelligent" scientists buying into climate change solutions, because they trust the numbers and don't see the manipulation going on behind the numbers.
The quiet consider the loud to be rude. The average consider not following the regular to be stupid. It takes a lot to ask actual questions and see new solutions.
HellsBells speaks truth. An expert in a field can often have no clue what something outside of their rangeifht be. I was once in a archaeological dog and the experts couldn't recognize a sepak chocrow ball in the dig. Even when I told them the people hired have been playing it regularly they wanted to drink wine and talk about it's religious aspects.
I think of it as the difference between a geek and a nerd. A geek gets into the information and tries to analyze it with limited skills. By where numbers and autism they figure it out. Nerds understand it and can do the math in their heads, but have a hard time explaining it.