What is Reddit's opinion of The Pattern Seekers: A New Theory of Human Invention?

From 3.5 billion Reddit comments

There's a newish book that is actually about this. It's called The Pattern Seekers, which has had positive reception from notable intellectuals like Steven Pinker and Brian Josephson.

You just need to understand that it's not all black and white. There is tons of nuance. It can be beneficial in some people up to a certain point but over a certain threshold can lead to intellectual disability. The book makes the case that the reason humans are different from other species is because we have a systemizing mechanism, which is believed to be tuned up unusually high in autistic people. This is backed up with research showing that people who work in STEM are several times more likely to have autistic children, which is believed to be why silicon valley has significantly higher rates of autism than anywhere else in the world. It also overrepresented in the families of the world's richest people. There is something called systemizing quotient (SQ), which people on the spectrum tend to score higher than average.

You also have to consider that the criteria is (rightfully) slanted towards people who are less adjusted as there is not much point in pathologizing people lucky enough to be content and have done well for themselves.

It is known that for people on the spectrum have diminished degrees of synaptic pruning so we hold onto more information. The plus side is that many of us have good memories and sometimes notice things that others don't but there are also obvious trade offs to this because it means our minds are more bloated and fragmented, which can make us less efficient at piecing the world together. Reduced synaptic pruning can be useful to a point, particularly for technical aptitude, but if reduced too much can make it near impossible to make sense of the world, like a million piece jigsaw puzzle (it's unfortunate the puzzle piece is associated AS because it's pretty good analogy); having too many synapses can cause all kinds of sensory issues too. From the angle of autism being information overload, it's manifestation is also going to depend on secondary characteristic like IQ, socioeconomic status, social experiences/trauma and interests.