Is there some correlation with this insane low level understanding of software engineering and a mental health issues? A lot of the scene seems to be like this and good old Terry Davis (rest in peace you racist)
In my experience, mental health issues are epidemic. The only question is if someone has been assessed, and then had a professional admit to them they have a diagnosis. Mind you, it’s hard to be healthy, and most people are still functional (as much as our late-state capitalist society will let them) but we noticed that mental illness was epidemic in the 1990s, likely due to major societal shifts in the industrial age: We’re used to having more of a social support system than we do. So I suspect that we’re all mad as hatters, and it’s intergenerational.
Unironically, yes. Multiple studies dating back years have found a link between high intelligence and various mental health issues.
There was one particular paper I read about a decade ago, where researchers surveyed a bunch of collage students to find demographic trends based on their preferred operating system. From what I recall, the demographics of Windows users were not too far off from those of the university as whole, and Mac users were similar, aside from women being significantly over-represented. Linux users on the other hand, were almost all men, and nearly every mental health issue imaginable was over-represented by a huge margin.
Well there’s a million ways you can interpret that data. Apple usually makes very opinionated stuff (“this is how it works and this is how you’re going to use it”). Autistic folks tend to do have big issues with that sort of stuff, so it’s only natural they’ll gravitate to something else where they can use it whoever they feel is better.
And women in general have been pushed away from IT for a few decades due to how they’re treated in those groups, so it’s only natural they’ll be underrepresented among Linux users.
As a CS dude who uses Linux and is around way too many people who seem like they genuinely are in need of some therapy on a daily basis, this entirely checks out, tbh.
I’m now mildly worried for my own mental state