Very inspiring account of your own transformation!
I think the concept of the fixed personality has done a lot of damage to people for the sake of predictability. That we're moving closer to embracing freedom of self on such a fundamental level is one of the truly encouraging things about this time.
> That we're moving closer to embracing freedom of self on such a fundamental level is one of the truly encouraging things about this time.
This has been done and done again for as long as there have been societies. The surveillance state will seal this freedom away for good. Then we will have order and we will "like" it.
Are you sure? I assume you mean they can't observe the mind. But they can. We can now identify psychopaths with brain scans. There are also pro-social psychopaths. Do you think they will continue to have total freedom to live as such when everyone knows what they are? We've already decided ADHD is a disorder. If you want to institute industrialized education and 75% of the population adapts to it then what is the other 25%? I would argue ADHD is adaptive in some other context and that is why it exists. I absolutely love the "hyper-focus" aspect as a programmer. That won't stop the powers that be from assuming there's some mistake in the way I'm configured. This is especially scary when you can detect mental "disorders" via behavior on social media. Also when your boss is spying on everything that you do. Which is basically a thing at every major corporation now. Alternative configurations of the self are a risky endeavor and getting riskier. It makes me sad but I don't want false hope. Whatever idealogical awakening seems to be happening, it isn't being translated into the social structures that control us. Of course the former must precede the latter. But the former keeps popping up with increasing frequency and the latter is always further from reality.
Although I don't like all the spying that goes on either, I don't believe that there is a conspiracy to remove ADHD from the population. If ADHD or another personality disorder is helpful for some reason, eg for programmers, then it will remain.
As long as people can do their jobs well enough and better than someone without ADHD, the "powers that be" will allow them to remain.
Bosses aren't giving psychological diagnoses, they are simply monitoring that the battery hens are still laying enough eggs.
I didn't suggest there was a conspiracy to remove ADHD. Only that it was seen as a disorder. That has effects. They've learned to accept it in programmers because it's so common. But what if I were something else? If my boss was able to diagnose me via behavior on corporate monitored hardware he could fire me and I'd have no way of knowing if it was bigoted. He may not even really know. It's hard to control subconscious stuff like that. Employers are already doing these things in other ways. They have people take morality questionnaires that arguably measure nothing at all. Ultimately it won't take an obvious form like conspiring to eliminate ADHD. That actually makes it far scarier. We're going to subject the entire population to an arbitrary and systematic prejudice of correlates. Simply because it's good for the bottom line of each individual business to win the hiring competition.
I think the concept of the fixed personality has done a lot of damage to people for the sake of predictability. That we're moving closer to embracing freedom of self on such a fundamental level is one of the truly encouraging things about this time.