(that was mid-to-late 1990s, the cocom was just in the process of being lifted, and the judiciary really did not have much knowledge about the technical aspects of computing)
mind, i know the type from my usenet days. in polish usenet we had that crank called, i kid you not, expert, who presented himself as expert in almost everything.
some time later one bored person did an official query, and learned that apparently the fucker managed to get himself onto the state-approved list of expert witnesses in the area of computing (unclear if that predated his usenet antics or not)…
oh goddess, he's already a bleeding muppet, and going to be a major crank. from the researchgate profile:
I am an aspiring polymath and a rōnin scholar. I also tend to look at questions, rather than fields of study, as a research question often does incorporate many disparate topics. Research interests include the psychological and anthropological nature of religion, vaccine efficacy and impact on asymptomatic carriage, and the application of paraconsistent logic to scientific research.
i think this is a common european misconception; the us is bloody religious, even compared to our polish parishes.
(and if you want to know how the salespeople think? remember the movie glengarry glenn ross? the movie about alienation and lack of humanity? this absolutely inhumane monster is thought by them as an example of the right attitude.)
(nothing wrong with that per se, i don't have any c. s. degree anyways and yet i work in the field for years. but the gall of a dude who has finished a few two-year courses to tell fucking law professionals that they don't know enough… this is indeed the threadnought-level of recklessness.)
fwiw i was mostly annoyed by the “his wife is doing what” in the comment i was answering directly – going after him just because of his wife would be like going after varoufakis just because his wife is supposedly the heroine of blur's “common people”.
and i happily agree that doctorow could dispense with his privilege, tone down the smugness and try for less shallow takes once in a while.
(if we were to question bonafides of leftist intellectuals[^1] just because they are supported by someone belonging to the moneyed class, or come from the moneyed class themselves, we'd need to start with certain mr. marx, comrades. and numerous others.)
[^1]: however you value doctorow's qualities as an intellectual.
adderall is an amphetamine (or a mix of its salts), but it is not the metamphetamine, and it's not what makes the eas racist, cultish or even overly verbose debating club dropouts. (and neither would speed, fwiw.)
(and i certainly hope that there's no need to explain basic organic chemistry here, so please do not use the “the difference is just a methyl group” argument)
also: what in “don't medicalise gobshittery” is unclear?
nah. i have a proper adhd and am medicated to my ears with medikinet (yeah, so it's metylphenidate, not adderall, but for the purpose of the reply it doesn't make a difference), but it didn't make me an adult debating club aficionado. can we please not medicalise gobshittery?
(that was mid-to-late 1990s, the cocom was just in the process of being lifted, and the judiciary really did not have much knowledge about the technical aspects of computing)