Documenti di Didattica
Documenti di Professioni
Documenti di Cultura
Social development: of hypo- and hypersocial gifted, ASD and ADHD children
The evolutionary psychology of attraction and personality types: r/K selected mating
strategies according to subsistence economy
Normal sucks and why the levels of conformism are still so high
Bipolar Clowns and Borderline Comedians - Explaining the Sad Clown Paradox
Preface
I am one of those people who often get the feeling they were born on the wrong planet. I
have always been an oddball (albeit a nice one), never seeming to fit in entirely and what’s
more I have attracted quite a lot of weirdos as friends. My oldest, gifted son has been
considered a weirdo since elementary school. Weirdos are actually often really good
company. ASD people certainly can be. The majority of people are afraid of “different”, they
conform easily to whatever is the norm and regard everyone who is different with suspicion. I
call those people “farmer-minds”, whereas the weirdos are most often people with hunter-
gatherer minds.
The content of this book (and much more) is available for free on my blog The Bigger
Picture. In fact, I have put the post of my blog together to create this themed ebook. A lot of
the core ideas therefore get repeated over and over again. I apologize to the reader.
One of the most amazing experiences both for parents and scientists is observing how
children develop. Psychologists will tell you that already from kindergarten on children form
social hierarchies and the kids are aware of who the “alpha pups” are. Some time later, in
elementary school you will find the first cliques that are relatively impermeable to new
members and, in which kids who had previously been friends are suddenly excluded..
It is my hypothesis, however, that some children are not genetically programmed to form in-
groups and social hierarchies and that among these children the majority of gifted, ASD and
ADHD cases can be found. Gifted children notoriously hate authority and have a high sense
of justice. These children are often hypersocial, as they are less likely to have any group
boundaries such as “my team”. These children might have inherited a greater amount of
hunter-gatherer genes as egalitarianism and out-group sociality are typical features of
hunter-gatherer societies. On the other hand, these hunter-gatherer children can also be
extremely hyposocial. The difference is often determined by introversion or extraversion.
Hpyosocial kids: introverted hunter-gatherer children. Everyone has seen one of them. The
kid at the playground who is overseeing the other kids closely rather than participating in the
play. They are often extremely shy, completely reluctant to talk to strangers, and often take a
long time to “warm-up”. My oldest son would remain seated in the car for half an hour when
we visited friends - only then he was ready to engage in social activities. What makes kids
behave this way? Depriving themselves of childhood fun, learning possibilities and changes
to make friends? The feeling of being different and not being able to trust everyone. As
others are programmed differently it is hard to rely on them and predict their behaviour.
Hunter-gatherer children like real hunter-gatherers behaving in the presence of farmers:
● frequent tantrums
● frequently ask why they have to do something and question rules
● are often touchy and easily annoyed, angered or saddened by other people’s
behaviour
● frequent absent-mindedness, daydreaming, living in their own heads
● frequent nightmares and sleep problems
● often melancholic or phlegmatic
● imaginary friends
If the early years are difficult for hunter-gatherer children, the teens may be even worse.
There is considerable variation as to the onset of puberty. It is reasonable to assume that
this variation has at least partially evolutionary origins and I have argued that it depends on
our ancestral mode of subsistence and the expected lifespan related to it:
r/K theory and life history studies would predict the following traits (at least among males):
Shortest lifespan (pastoralist) medium (farmer) Long lifespan (HG)
As can be seen from this table pastoralist types are typically early bloomers, whereas
hunter-gatherer types are typically late bloomers. This pattern might be broken, i.e. by the
absence of a father, which typically accelerates the onset of puberty.
Here are some typical behavioural patterns:
Early bloomers: tend to neglect school and social norms due to high risk-taking potential,
become status aware and interested in status symbols (branded clothes, motorbikes, etc.)
and show off how cool they are (use of illegal drugs, etc.) tend to form cliques and gangs;
due to high in-group sociality tend to exclude “losers” (i.e. teens not cool enough).
Late bloomers: typically continue their childhood, read comics while their early bloomer
peers already go out, smoke and drink alcohol. As they are cautious and non-risk taking,
they actually might become intimidated and socially withdrawn.
Late bloomers might typically lose their former early-bloomer friends who start to mock them
for not being cool, e.g. wearing the wrong clothes when girls, or being “gay” when male. The
late bloomers are typically out-group social, i.e. they are unlikely to be part of any group or
clique. If the late bloomers are introverts they might end up with no friends at all and become
easy victims for early bloomers, who enjoy displays of status to their peers. Often these
bullies are actually quite intelligent who start to do badly at school due to a lack of interest
and blame the nerds (typically late bloomers) for setting high standards in class.
Even when not being bullied, the hunter-gatherer types might become extremely insecure
and shy due to a feeling of not belonging or being weirdos not understanding mating
behaviour. As late bloomers tend to be more monogamous or at least more choosy, they
easily become disgusted by their peers’ mating behaviour, which often involves frequently
changing partners and might decide to stay out of the “mating-market” (at least for a few
more years).
Hunter-gatherer types are typically less sensitive to gossip and trends, they accentuate their
gender less and are cautious. These traits make them less attractive for teenagers who are
highly sensitive to social rejection and strive to have cool friends. Hunter-gatherer females
often don’t understand why their peers suddenly are so “bitchy and often start to feel more
comfortable around boys. The same is true for hunter-gatherer males who do not necessarily
share their peers’ passion for talking about girls, football and cars.
These developments usually take their toll on hunter-gatherer type self-esteem and
perceived reproductive potential. Being egalitarian other teenagers who are less so are often
perceived as a threat and social anxiety and depression might be a frequent outcome.
The life-history model of psychopathology (e.g. Del Giudice 2016) postulates that certain
disorders are associated with the fast end or the slow end of life-history strategy. Dark triad
traits (psychopathy, narcissism, and Machiavellianism) would be more typically found on the
fast end (early puberty) of life history (higher-risk-taking, less empathy). ASD people would
more typically be found on the slow-end of the spectrum (later puberty, and they are typically
the children of parents who started to have children comparatively late themselves, which
has led to the erroneous assumption that ASD is due to accumulated mutations).
In my model of the evolution of life-history hunter-gatherers are on the slow end, early
farmers (who had harder lives) in the middle and pastoralists, who probably had the most
violent lives, on the fast end of the spectrum. The further a person lies outside the band of
"normality" the less neurotypical they are and the risk of mental disorders increases:
Our (western) world is arguably a farmer world, with its 9-5 routine jobs (farmers like to get
up earlier, so 9-5 is actually a compromise with other types) and its focus on productivity and
status. Of course, some aspects are more shifted towards other personality types, e.g.
mainstream media and the tourist industry are often more shifted towards the high dopamine
pastoralists, whereas social values such as life-long learning, tolerance of diversity and
egalitarianism are more shifted towards the hunter-gatherer side of the spectrum.
Non-farmer types often struggle with typical “farmer jobs” (e.g. administrative, office jobs), as
they tend to get bored easily with repetitive jobs. So they have to carve out their own niches;
pastoralists types often become entrepreneurs (their own bosses), artists and performers or
go for jobs farmer types tend to avoid (irregular working-hours), whereas hunter-gatherers
often go for geeky jobs like software developers or university teachers, social jobs, or really
create something unique that suits them.
What is interesting to note, is that the conscientious farmer types are dominated by
serotonin, which makes people more aware of social norms and conform to them as well as
less open towards diversity. Unfortunately for the other two personality types that create a
rather narrow band of “normality”, beyond which people soon become outsiders. To name a
banal example, where I live, most cars are grey, typically expensive, elegant and restricted
to a few popular models. Another example: the almost uniform American suburbs.
My hypothesis is that people outside that narrow band of normality are more prone to mental
disorders for a variety of reasons, ranging from lower-income and lower status to less
acceptable to the point of feeling or becoming outcasts. It is therefore not surprising that
ASD people show high rates of comorbidity with social anxiety, depression, suicidal ideation,
and BDP.
Serotonin deficiency in the brain also occurs in OCD and ASD patients.
The life-history model also explains similarities between gifted and ASD people, who both
tend to be on the slow end of the spectrum.
This model would also support Ruth Karpinski's "Hyper-brain/hyper-body" hypothesis, which
states that high IQ people (typically on the slow end of the life-history spectrum) would suffer
not only from some of the above mentioned mental disorders (ASD, ADHD, social anxiety)
but also more often from physiological problems such as allergies and asthma. My personal
assumption is that the physiological conditions are caused by heightened stress levels
(cortisol), that arise for hunter-gatherer minds living in a farmer society.
Evolutionary psychologists have been pointing out the problems with our monogamous
laws do not correspond to the more promiscuous human nature. The biggest problem,
however, has been explaining the variation in human behavior, as some people are clearly
more monogamous than others.
So, instead of assuming one monolithic human nature it makes more sense to investigate
mating strategies by personality type. Helen Fisher has just done that (quite successfully
IMHO), and found out that there are four personality groups and three preference
strategies: builders (traditional, family-oriented), explorers (freedom-loving) - both of who
prefer to find partners within their respective groups - and directors and negotiators who
prefer to bond with each other. Whereas Helen Fisher thinks that these personality types
have been present more or less equally since early humans arrived on the scene, I think
that their “genotypes” have been predominant in accordance with a particular subsistence
economy.
Hunter-gatherers are usually highly monogamous. Sexual dimorphism (a sign of
promiscuity) is largely diminished among hunter-gatherers, both compared to early human
ancestors and modern societies (e.g exaggeration of secondary sexual features and digit
ratio.
High divorce rates due to Lower divorce rates High divorce rates due to
partner mismatch and/or promiscuous tendencies
prioritizing self-actualization
Often dislike routine, playful Love routine, industrious Dislike routine, artful
and imaginative
From the first row, it can be inferred that the respective mating strategies are r/K selected
and it is therefore not surprising that pastoralists are the least whereas hunter-gatherers
are the most monogamous strategy.
Farmer is the majority personality type and they are also the most adapted to our capitalist
society (love routine and 9-5 jobs, making a career, etc.) and are the group of people who
are most likely to start a family. Farmer women are the most likely to sacrifice a career to
have children.
Pastoralists are freedom-loving and find it hardest to commit. They start early and often
change partners in their teenage cliques. They often do settle down once they have
children, however. Some, like Donald Trump and Hugh Hefner, might never do, though.
Hunter-gather mating strategies can widely vary. They represent the smallest percentage
in society and therefore find it hardest to find a matching partner. Extroverted individuals
may be very promiscuous until they find their soulmate and then become very
monogamous. Introverted hunter-gatherers find it even harder to find a soulmate and
might prefer to stay celibate if they can’t find a partner. In general, hunter-gatherers strive
for a high degree of self-actualization (e.g. becoming a scientist) before settling down.
They tend to be the last ones to have children among their peers. Once hunter-gatherers
have found each other they tend to be very monogamous and not even high status may
come in between (examples: Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates).
"It seems that for success in science or art, a dash of autism is essential"
Hans Asperger.
I suppose a lot of people who are labelled “weirdos” have at least a mild form of ASD. They
are in good company, there is a huge number of geniuses who are supposed to be on the
spectrum: Isaac Newton, Darwin, Tesla, Warhol and the list goes on and on. Autism is more
common in families of scientists, engineers and Silicon valley programmers than in the rest
of the population.
If hunter-gatherer children are different from farmer children, it should be expected that other
kids share similar developmental trajectories as gifted kids. Right from the moment when my
son started to read around age one I was both delighted and worried. I had read about a
symptom called “hyperlexia”, that is quite common in children with ASD, just as common as
in children who are gifted. The difference, hyperlexia in children with ASD is often
accompanied by learning problems (surprisingly also verbal) whereas hyperlexic kids without
ASD are generally bright.
Darold Treffert distinguishes between three types of hyperlexia:
Interestingly it looks like type 3 is on the way to developing autism and then takes the
trajectory of type one. I think all three cases are most likely to be found in hunter-gatherer
type children that take different trajectories. Even though a lot of ASD people favour a strong
genetic causality for ASD, I personally favour the hypothesis that all of these trajectories are
more dependant on (perhaps just subtle) differences in the environment.
At the time I tried to get answers to the question if my son was more likely autistic or gifted or
both by even writing to the world-renowned autism researcher Simon Baron-Cohen.
However, nobody could really give me an answer. I just had to wait. Fortunately, my son
didn’t show most of the typical struggles of autistic children. He even developed an acute
sense for puns, his favourite type of humour.
That, however, is not the end of the stories. Despite not showing any major disabilities
typical for children with ASD, such as learning disabilities and a supposed lack of empathy,
there were some striking similarities with ASD children, most salient of all his inability to
connect to other children and his “special interests”, which varied from numbers and letters
as a toddler to dinosaurs in kindergarten.
The Davidson Institute, a private foundation serving profoundly gifted children up to the age
of 18, cites observed characteristics common to gifted kids and those with ASD, which
include:
All of these traits were true for my son, too. And there were more, as I was able to observe
from an ASD child among my relatives:
● social anxiety
● gets easily frustrated
● sticking to routines and fear of change of environment
● lagging behind in emotional development
● lagging behind in motor development/clumsiness
● neotenous traits, including delayed skeletal development.
● fussiness
● picky eater
● being skinny
It turned out that the similarities between the gifted and ASD children did not only include
psychological and behavioural traits but also physical traits, such as looking younger. Both
my sons lag behind their peers in growth and skeletal development. A roentgenologist
confirmed to us that our oldest son had the skeleton of a 10-year-old at age 12 In online
forums I found a lot of high IQ people as well as ASD people (or both simultaneously) who
confirmed my suspicion: they often looked younger than their peer during their
developmental year, even into their twenties. I myself was constantly asked for an ID when
ordering alcohol in a bar in my twenties.
ASD is frequently found in families with high IQ members, e.g. engineers and university
professors. Silicon Valley has one of the highest rates of ASD cases in the world. Geeks and
aspies seem to be relatives.
Another interesting fact about children with ASD is that they tend to have fathers who were
already quite old at the birth of their first child (not necessarily the autistic child). This fact
has spawned the “mutation load” hypothesis of autism, i.e. that autism is due to increased
mutations in older males. This hypothesis, however, is most likely to be nonsense. Often the
mothers of ASD children are also older at birth and what is more significant, genes involved
in ASD are ancient. Many of them might even date back to the time of Neanderthal genetic
admixture 40.000 years ago.
“Here’s to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in
the square holes… the ones who see things differently — they’re not fond of rules… You
can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them, but the only thing you can’t
do is ignore them because they change things… they push the human race forward,
and while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius, because the ones
who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do.”
Most people are familiar with the above quote from a famous Apple advert. Reading
Normal Sucks by Jonathan Mooney and The Power of Different: The Link Between
Disorder and Genius by Gail Saltz I have been reminded how people who don’t fit in
have the power to change the world. People with dyslexia become innovative
entrepreneurs (e.g. Richard Branson), people with ADHD and ASD develop exciting
theories (Einstein) and people with bipolar and schizophrenia create outstanding
works of art (Vincent van Gogh).
On the flip side, the majority of people are actually quite conformist. Of course,
conformism has certain advantages like regulating social life, but more often than
not it serves no other purpose than not being different, like the uniformity of
American suburbs illustrates.
I have argued before that a lot of those misfits and creatives have hunter-gatherer
minds (intuitive types in Myers-Briggs), whereas the majority of people, in particular,
the ones who are conformist have farmer minds (SJ types in Myers-Briggs). Intuitive
types also happen to have the highest rates of gifted and high IQ people. Studies
have shown that it exactly high IQ people tend not to be conformist: Majority Rules:
We Tend To Conform, Unless We Have A High IQ
High IQ people aren’t inherently antisocial or rebels, but they can become rebels when
their values are threatened. Sometimes it is about banal things, like traditional music, for
which high IQ people often have a distaste. Why? High IQ people tend to be freedom-
loving hunter-gatherer types whereas the majority of people are farmer types, who are
more likely to conform, because a high degree of conformism was likely necessary when
early farming started, whereas hunter-gatherer bands consisted more of independent
collaborators.
“[…] when the Spanish began their conquest of South America, one of their earliest
settlements was at the site of modern Buenos Aires. The settlement was a colonial failure
and soon abandoned because the local hunter-gatherers refused to work for the Spanish,
even under extreme duress. When the Spanish ventured farther inland and encountered
agriculturalists in Paraguay, they easily subjugated the local people by conquering and
replacing the aristocracy […]” (from: William von Hippel The Social Leap)
What was the difference between the hunter-gatherer and agricultural societies the
Spanish met? Agricultural societies are hierarchically structured. Conformism is an
absolute must in order to avoid hierarchical conflicts. The Paraguayans agriculturalist,
therefore, didn’t find it too hard to live under Spanish domination (after some initial
resistance). However, the egalitarian hunter-gatherers could never have lived as slaves
for the Spanish.
You will find the same pattern over and over again in history - the Native Americans, the
Aborigines, the Hadza, who were offered land to farm, they don’t easily integrate into
“farmer” societies.
Early farmers, on the other hand, needed both hierarchy and conformism to accomplish
the required levels of productivity. Conformism and status-thinking go hand in hand. It’s
playing keeping up with the Joneses. Interestingly, out of all companies exactly Apple -
who two decades ago used their think different campaign - has become a poster child
for this level of conformism and status-thinking.
Bipolar Disorder (BD) and Borderline Personality Disorder (BDP) are common, not only for
the fictional stand-up comedian Arthur Fleck (aka The Joker, 2019), but also for real-life
comedians like David Walliams (BD) and Pete Davidson (BPD).
What about comedians is it that makes them depressed? First of all, comedians are often
outsiders, rarely belong to a group and detest herd mentality. In terms, of the Big 5 inventory
comedians are (source see):
I have argued before that the traits high openness and low conscientiousness are associate
with hunter-gatherer minds as compared to farmer minds who are high on trait
conscientiousness and low on openness (early farmers needed to be able to do tough
routine work from dawn to dusk, whereas hunter-gatherers worked in brief bouts and rested
a lot). Here are some differences between these two personality types:
Less interest in small-talk and gossip Higher interest in small-talk and gossip
It is, therefore, this combination of hunter-gatherer personality types and early childhood
adversity that produces the most talented comedians. And the Sad Clown Paradox. Like
David Walliams wrote in his autobiography Camp David, the one thing he craved for most as
a child was his father’s appreciation. Billy Joel tells a story in his song “Leningrad” that has
always deeply touched me. It’s the story of Victor, a boy who lost his father in the battle of
Leningrad. He later became a clown to make sad children happy:
Of course, it’s not only early childhood adversity that causes depression. It’s having a
hunter-gatherer mind in a farmer society and a life-long feeling of not belonging. Hunter-
gatherer minds have higher stress-reactivity, are more likely to use substances as a coping
strategy and are more likely to suffer from depression and anxiety in our world.
So, what is it like to suffer from imposter syndrome? I have personally experienced imposter
syndrome when I started winning prizes and awards for digitally created work I did with my
students in high school. The first few times I or my students won an award I was convinced
that we had just been lucky. This is a typical reaction. After all, creative people are among
the first to explore new domains, in my case, there were simply not enough teachers doing
the kind of “experiments” I was doing (creating videos, wikis, and multimedia projects with
my students). There was simply not a lot of competition (true) and therefore I was among the
lucky winners. Except, that wasn’t the whole story. 10 years later and the majority of
teachers still aren’t doing the kind of “experiments” I was doing, even though the tools for
doing so have become progressively more simple to use.
At the time, however, I wasn’t aware of that, of course. I started to have self-doubts and told
myself that these achievements were nothing to pride myself for. I must be running out of
ideas (no, I wasn’t the ideas kept coming) and I finally came to the conclusion I must be a
fraudster. The other teachers weren’t doing the kinds of things I was doing because the kids
were clearly learning less. I was just playing instead of teaching and the other teachers were
aware of that. What I was doing was not even legitimate. It took me some time to understand
that most of the other teachers just weren’t aware of all the possibilities of digital media in
the classroom for the simple reason that they never felt a need or desire to use them.
So, what makes people susceptible to imposter syndrome? The Dunning-Kruger effect can
help explain this phenomenon. These two scientists found out that less competent people
tend to overestimate their skills, whereas more competent tend to underestimate their skills
up to a certain degree when it becomes really hard not to understand that one is far
advanced compared to the majority of people.
The takeaway, people with moderately high intelligence are actually the ones most likely to
underestimate themselves. For imposter syndrome to occur two personality traits must be
present: high openness to new ideas and humility. I have argued before that in human
evolution our ancestral environment:
hunter-gatherer farmer-herder
High on personality trait “openness”, High on personality trait
(often) low on “conscientiousness” “conscientiousness”, low on “openness”
What this doesn’t mean, is that hunter-gatherer personality types can’t overestimate
themselves. They might easily do so, when narcissistic, for example. However, hunter-
gatherer types would typically feel uneasy when they suddenly feel that they are somehow
“above” the others as they are programmed to be more egalitarian and therefore also more
humble.
Many geniuses in history were oddballs and/or outcasts. Geniuses have a variety of traits
and it is not always easy to find a common denominator. However, many researchers will
come up with a similar list of traits like the following:
● open to experience
● driven, but not by money or status (idealistic)
● hyposexual or hypersexual
● surprisingly humble
● great sense of humour
● playful
● individualistic/rebellious
● often very reclusive
● sleep less, like to stay up late (and/or get up in the early morning hours)
● less stereotypically male or female
● frequently suffer from mental issues like depression and Aspberger’s
● frequently had difficult childhoods and/or disliked school
This bundle of traits can be explained with a single hypothesis have argued before that
personality types have evolved from our ancestral mode of subsistence:hunting-gathering,
farming and herding. The vast majority of historic geniuses will be found in the hunter-
gatherer group. Early farmers evolved the following genetically determined traits as opposed
to hunter-gatherers:
hunter-gatherer farmer
Higher physical and/or social sensitivity Lower physical and/or social sensitivity
highly rebellious when feeling personal status-seeking, but also more conformist
freedom and values are threatened and highly loyal to their core group(s)
Less interest in small-talk and gossip, high Higher interest in small-talk and gossip,
interest in ideas less interest in ideas
Many of the traits in the hunter-gatherer category correspond directly to traits of geniuses.
Early farmers had to become more conscientious, focussed on routine work (often having to
rise at dawn) and hard-working, but they also became more in-group social (doing away with
the sharing/caring hunter-gatherer mentality) and status-seeking as higher material
productivity ensure more offspring. Farming required higher levels of collaboration Sticking
to tradition, social rules and social rank ensured a relatively peaceful collaborative
environment, copying the individuals with higher rank ensured their status.
Hunter-gatherers, on the other hand, never needed to work as hard as early farmers and
thee was less routine work. Being able to hyperfocus during short intervals of hunting and
gathering was much more important that steady focus on routine work. Moreover, hunter-
gatherers needed to keep an open mind (openness also correlates with IQ and creativity) to
changing conditions and environment and maintain childlike playfulness up to adulthood.
Play, laughter and heightened social senses (among the caregiving/female personality
profile) are important social kit. Hunters always have to remain humble to avoid conflict and
a hunter typically downplays the importance of a catch. Hunter-gatherers are also likely to
have sharper, more sensitive physical senses to help them survive in the wilderness as
opposed to a farmer village.
The traits of geniuses that aren’t directly related to hunter-gathers are a result of them living
in a society of a majority of farmer minds. They might find adapting to a farmer world hard
starting from early childhood on, including schooling, which many geniuses found to be a
prison-like experience. Being more sensitive they find it easier to focus at nighttime and
might easily become night owls (or very early birds).
ADHD is linked to the DRD4-7R allele, which is associated with novelty seeking. This variant
has a much higher occurrence in nomadic populations (hunter-gatherers and pastoralists)
than among sedentary farmer populations.
Hyperfocus is not only common in ADHD, but also in ASD (special interests) and gifted
children. My gifted son wouldn’t stop learning about a new special interested until there
wasn’t much left to learn about it. He was hyperlexic as a toddler and learned three different
alphabets around two years of age. He was so focused on learning each alphabet that it took
him merely a few days to learn the Russian and Greek alphabets:
My hunter-gatherer hypothesis had come full circle and ADHD was only another piece in the
puzzle. ADHD is often comorbid with
You often hear stories about six-year-old gifted children who find the world extremely unjust
and they wish they had never been born. Gifted kids are more prone to commit suicide as
teenagers of adults and above all gifted kids are often “orchid children”, i.e. they may turn
into beautiful flowers or just wither away. There is also a high incidence of "twice-
exceptional" gifted kids, i.e. kids who are both gifted and have learning disabilities (typically
ADHD, dyslexia and ASD).
In my work as a teacher, I have found that “hunter-gatherer” kids tend to be among my star
students, as well as being overrepresented in special education. Here is the motley crew of
hunter-gatherer kids in schools:
● The gifted (i.e. excellent grades plus tend to choose difficult college majors after high
school)
● the creative kids (interested in writing, creating videos and animations, etc.)
● Special ed kids (ADHD, ASD, ODD, etc.)
● The outcasts (isolated kids with social anxiety)
● The “weirdos”: Emos, Goths, geeks, and nerds
● Teens with self-harming behaviour (cutting, substance abuse).
All of them non-neurotypical hunter-gatherer minds. Not all of them suffer from ADHD, but
symptoms tend to overlap. If you think of Einstein you can assume that many of them would
have applied to him, like ASD, early speech disorder, dyslexia, ADHD and depression.
ADHD has also some other surprising links. When two of my hunter-gatherer students were
talking about their iron-deficiencies recently, I was reminded that I had the same condition
myself as a kid. A few minutes of googling later I found out that there is a well-known
connection between ADHD and iron deficiency. While this article here claims that iron
deficiency causes ADHD, I think it is more likely that there is simply a correlation. Hunter-
gatherer kids (gifted, ASD) tend to be picky eaters in childhood.
I have to note here, that high risk for ADHD is not restricted to hunter-gatherer types. Thom
Hartman does not make a distinction between “farmer” and “pastoralist” types. A lot of the
cases he discusses as “hunter-gatherer” cases are really “pastoralist” cases. From my
experience as a teacher, the “impulsive” types tend to be “pastoralist” types, whereas the
inattentive and mixed ADHD types are most certainly hunter-gatherer type children.
In the past they probably often became crazy and the village idiot:
If male INTPs have if rough in this world, female INTPs are even worse off. They are turned
off by macho behaviour and are absolutely clueless when it comes to dating conventions.
They are the type that least corresponds to social norms of “femaleness”. In the past, they
might have been easily burned as witches, living outside social conventions and knowing
stuff nobody else knew.
This, in brief, is the curious case of the INTP. It is a sad story because INTPs are good
people. They have highly egalitarian, altruistic (if they can afford to be), idealistic beautiful
hunter-gatherer minds.
In memory of my grandfather Heinrich and my uncle Erwin, two INTPs who struggled with
alcohol addiction
Read more about hunter-gatherer minds in my book: The hunter-gatherer neurotribe: gifted,
geeks, aspies and other aliens in this world