The fact exists that there is no singular autism gene. And there could never be a genetic test for autism. It could predict the likelihood, but it wouldn't be pass/fail. Because there are many autism-related genes but no single gene trigger like a light switch. And you could still have all of those genes turned on and not have autism due to environmental factors.

Side effects of living in a world where wealth and power have become virtues. I think we subconsciously judge our own value based on how many degrees we came to stepping onto the world's "stage".

The difference here is that in the US, children don't by default inherit the same legal rights as adults and instead have a different set of rights which often means they never had a legal right to, for example, privacy or ownership, in the first place.

Most people in developed countries are not in a situation where if they do not eat the food in front of them now, they will starve. Nearly every grocery store should have things like tofu, lentil, beans, etc easily available. It may be most convenient, or most delicious, or something like that but vegetarianism and plant based are both very viable options for most of the developed world at this point.

Voting for a candidate in a 2 party system is not comparable, as there is literally not another viable choice in most cases.

Depending on your fault tolerance and timeline, one will be better than the other. If you have low tolerance for faults, ChatGPT is bad, but if you are on a crunch and decide its OK to be confidently incorrect some small percentage of the time, then ChatGPT is a great tool.

Most industry software jobs, at least the high paying ones, are generally low fault tolerant and that's why ChatGPT is not entirely replacing anyone yet.

So, even in your example, and even if you write the code all yourself, there is still a risk that you are operating above your own competence level, do exactly as ChatGPT instructs, and then it fails miserably down the line because ChatGPT provided a set of steps that an expert would have seen the flaws in.

Also, you typically need to be unsupervised with friends to get into drugs, something teenagers no longer have access to compared to 10-15 years ago. If we look at the social decline due to the pandemic, what made experts think these kids would bounce back? They are forever changed, and will forever be less social than other generations because they missed out on formative experiences.

I don't do drugs (anymore) but I enjoy hanging out with people who can use drugs and be social.

Maybe this is controversial but it sounds like you just don't have good friends. I can't think of any of my friends that would respond to a request to hang out and then use their phone outside of a minimal amount once they got there. And honestly if they are doing this regularly as a force of habit, I probably am not asking them to hang out again.

Unless you are moving jobs to just do the exact same thing somewhere else (who wants that) you kind of have to take it on yourself to show up the the interview appearing like an expert in skills you hope to get to really grow comfortable with on the job. You may even need to exaggerate your experience.

Ultimately, specialization should be more about how you think than what facts you know, but the hiring market won't see it that way, meaning you need to just get really good at faking it and not be afraid to back it up later after some late-night study sessions.

The other half of this is that 'levels' don't always translate across environments. Just find work that resonates with you, and you will move up. Obsessing over the level (or even the pay) is probably limiting.