Greetings.

I read your article about Bill Gates possibly being metally ill, and as I got further and further down the page, I found it harder and harder to tolerate the disgust that was growing in the pit of my stomach.

Allow me to shed some light on some things. First of all, Bill Gates is not retarded. None of the traits described in your article even slightly resembles retardation. I would have to assume that it is ignorance, or the inflammatory nature of the word 'retardation,' that makes you use it in reference to Gates. Retarded people don't get to be the richest person on the planet. Like him or despise him... but you have to admit that he has at least a modicum of intelligence if he has gotten to where he has. For what it is worth, the definition of retardation is having an IQ of less than 70.

Second, the rocking that Gates is known to do is called stimming. It is a perfectly normal behavior in autistics, and it is not an involuntary muscle spasm. It is just like neurotypicals like yourself to assume that behaviors that differ from your own are signs of being mentally defective or inferior to you somehow. Believe me, there are a lot of people with attitudes like yours, and they often abuse people like Gates and myself. Yes, I am autistic as well, and that is part of why I take offense when you underscore Gates' autistic traits and use them as the basis for an argument that he is mentally ill or defective. 

There is nothing inherently wrong with being introverted and socially inept, by the usual standards. This is very typical of autistics; we do not engage in social behaviors for their own sake, and being thrust into such situations by this neurotypical world (which is bigger and more powerful even than Gates himself) is unpleasant. I avoid situations where I would have to be introduced like the plague. Parties are torture-- I would rather work than go to a party, and I would rather sit at home alone than go out with friends. I do not introduce others or myself either. I see no need for it. If I had a neurotypical wife, she would probably feel the need to do the social protocols like introductions and what-not. If someone observed this, they would probably report it as me being so introverted that my wife had to introduce me. That is not entirely accurate. I simply do not care to introduce myself, as it serves no purpose for me to do. If it does serve a purpose, something that leads to a benefit to me, I may choose to inform people as to my identity. If not, I do not care to speak to people. If they serve no purpose for me, I do not even think of them as people. Humans generally are like moving objects to me. I do not particularly care to interact with them if there is no specific informational or other definite gain to be had by such interaction. Social chit-chat and other contentless communication is not something that makes any sense to my kind. 

Autism is far from the stereotyped condition that most people think of, and it is NOT a mental illness. Mentally ill people have normal brains that have abnormal chemistry or thought patterns due to some kind of trauma in life. Autistic brains are physically different from birth, with the areas related to social interaction smaller than average, and the areas devoted to logic and such built up much more than average. Only 15% of people on the autistic spectrum are retarded... the majority of the remainder are well above average in intelligence. Einstein very likely was one of us, as were Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Edison (and many more).

Higher functioning autistics (including those with the condition known as Asperger's Syndrome) are often aloof, socially inept, "eccentric," prone to stim behaviors like rocking, obsessive on areas of interest, and brilliantly intelligent... as well as being rather unconventional in thinking. Only an unusual mind would come up with something like relativity. While your kind is off thinking of the weekend's party or sporting event, my kind is thinking of things like computers or physics or inventing things. We may have to have a spouse to do the social crap that we dislike, such as introductions, but we excel when it comes to thinking about things. Neurotypicals are people-centered; we are thing-centered, whether that is a physical object or an intangible one, such as a given concept. Someone has to stay at home and think of the things that advance society while the neurotypicals are off partying their asses off. Then, after my kind have invented yet another wonderful thing that makes your life easier (while you were off partying), you and your cohort come along and do things like post web pages stating that those traits that identify someone as one of my kind really means that someone is mentally defective. I endured years of abuse from people that thought as you do when I was in school, and my only crime was being born autistic. 

A disproportionate number of brilliant people throughout history have been known to be eccentric. If you look at these eccentricities, you will see that a great many of these eccentricities are chapter and verse out of the autistic handbook. Genius itself is an abnormality. No genius ever had a normal brain. Now, it is very easy for those of you that are in the majority to assume that your ways are normative; that your ways are the "correct" ones, and that any others are not merely differences, but signs of some sort of mental or neurological defect. It is easy to think so, but not all that accurate or enlightened. Neurotypicals are not terribly logical, innovative, or original in their thinking. Of course, every one of them thinks he is, but until you have been on the outside of the norm, you cannot see how stifled NT minds are. I mean, come on, you see a guy that has built a software empire and accumulated tens of billions of dollars, and you think he is retarded because he rocks and spits when he talks and needs to be introduced by his wife. Don't think of the evidence that he is a genius... he's a little different than you, so he must be mentally ill, or retarded, or whatever other epithet you want to put in here. 

NTs are pack animals, and like any other pack animal, the line between the collective's opinion and their own opinion is very much blurred. Tell a dog to "sit" and he wants to sit, because pleasing the owner is so important to him. He can't tell his own desires from yours. That is why neurotypicals follow trends, fads, fashion, that which is "cool," et cetera. 

Autistics are more like cats. Cats are more intelligent than dogs, but a cat will not do anything just because it would please you. A cat is independent in his thought and actions. That lack of group mentality allows autistic thinkers to consider things that "everyone knows" are not worth examining. Convention is an impediment to innovation, and autistics have no concept of convention. Unconventional thinking, a talent for logic, super intelligence, and obsessive tendencies toward areas of interest, all add up to innovation and progress that a normal mind would have been very hard pressed to conceive. 

You are quite right that when someone is rich, he is called 'eccentric' if he is strange or unusual, but if he is not rich, he is called things far worse. That does not mean that 'eccentric' is an incorrect label; it shows that neurotypicals are two-faced... they accept rich, famous, or otherwise socially desirable people if they are unusual, but if someone that is of a lesser socio-economic level is unusual, he is met with scorn and disgust. Money and fame bring prestige, so much that it counters the un-prestigiousness of being strange. The fact that you brought this up in an attempt to impugn Gates is as much an indictment of your own lack of acceptance as it is of Gates for "daring" to be born different-- and using that outside perspective to build an empire for himself.

Finally, I will address your comments about Gates' ridiculously large house. If I had many billions of dollars, I would probably have a house the size of Rhode Island. The fact that YOU would not want such a house does not mean that anyone that would is mentally incompetent. Again, you are using yourself as the model for normalcy,and essentially stating that anything outside of that self-referenced norm is less worthy or damaged in some way. An autistic is not a "people" person. We're "things" people. A large fortune will buy one lots of things. If I had Gates' fortune, I would probably spend most of my time alone, and I would have a lot of neat stuff. I require very little social contact to be happy. A phone call or two and a few emails are all I need in an average week. I prefer solitude. And, you know what? There is nothing wrong with me. I am not like you, but that is okay; I do not need to be. I know most neurotypicals will not accept me, or my kind... most will not abandon the idea that we are inferior, or damaged versions of themselves. If they just kept their opinions to themselves, that would be fine; I am not too concerned about what people think. Unfortunately, many people do not stop at opinion... they seek to lash out and ostracize my kind. That is what I do not like. Your article heads in that direction. 

Frank