In our ever-changing world that we're facing these days, maybe someday I'll actually get back to doing a standard podcast format. But for this particular episode, I did something a little interesting. I had written a paper that was about four and a half thousand words long and knew almost nobody's going to read that long a paper. So I went and fed it into Google's Notebook LM and used its capability to generate a deep dive-style podcast where it dives in deep and has these two commentators, male and a female voice, who give a podcast presentation of the material. And it did a phenomenal job of it. I think it's just an amazing presentation and far more engaging than reading my four and a half thousand word paper. But it got everything down so well and gave such a great explanation of all the thoughts and ideas that I put into the paper. So I'm presenting here Notebook LM's report and deep dive on my paper that redefines neurodiversity and looks at it from a marketing and advertising perspective. Let's dive on in and I think you're going to enjoy it as much as I've enjoyed listening to it myself. 

Welcome to the deep dive, the place where we take complex topics and really try to distill them into the most potent and practical insights for you. That's the goal. And today we are undertaking something pretty fundamental, a re-examination of a word that honestly has become bedrock in modern diversity and inclusion conversations. That word is neurotypical. And we're going to argue, based on some really deep analysis from our source today, that the word is, well, basically meaningless as a neurotype. Yeah. Functionally useless in that context. Yeah. And that we need to maybe discard it or at least radically rethink it. Immediately. Yeah. That's the mission today. We're diving deep into the work of Tim Goldstein. He argues, quite powerful, I think, that the current language around neurodiversity. Yeah. Look, it comes from a great place. Excellent intentions. Absolutely. Tim found that by using terms that sort of emphasize separation, deviation, we inadvertently build this unnecessary us versus them boundary. Which is the opposite of inclusion. Exactly. If we genuinely want inclusion, Tim argues, the language itself has got to change. And what I find so valuable about Tim Goldstein's critique is where it comes from. It's not, you know, ivory tower academic theory. No, not at all. It's forged in the trenches of corporate life. And it's filtered through this really sophisticated marketing and advertising background he has. Right. He got his own diagnosis, Asperger's style autism, quite late in life, actually. He was 54. Wow. And he immediately did what he knew best. He applied his professional skills, his marketing brain, to his personal experience. So looking at how neurodiversity was being communicated. Yeah. He looked at how the neurodistinct community people like him were trying to explain their needs, their existence, their way of operating. And he basically saw a failed marketing campaign. That's a striking way to put it. Failed marketing. Well, think about it. The messaging, the words being used, were actually triggering resistance in the very people they needed to engage, not acceptance, resistance. So it wasn't fundamentally a clinical problem he was trying to solve or even just an HR problem. It was a communication failure. Precisely. Tim's motivation was intensely practical. It boiled down to, okay, how do I communicate my operating system, my brain's way of working, to my boss, to my coworkers, to the company? Yeah. So we can all work together better. And frankly, so I can keep my job and maybe even thrive. Exactly. Survival and optimization. Yeah. And he realized the existing language just wasn't fit for that specific purpose. It wasn't doing the job. And that really leads us to the core problem statement for this deep dive, doesn't it? It does. If the very language we use to advocate for inclusion, to explain Thanks. If that language immediately triggers defensiveness or judgment or makes people feel lectured. Makes them feel like you think you're smarter than them. Right, or makes them feel like you're accusing them of something. Then the actual conversation, the one about building a genuinely productive, inclusive society, it just stops dead in its tracks before it even has a chance to begin. Yeah, the shutters come down. Tim argues we need a complete reboot, a fundamental shift in vocabulary, one that's actually built for engagement in the real world, not just, you know, for academic papers or specialized clinics. It really comes down to utility then. If the current way we frame this is actually detrimental, if it hinders optimizing how different cognitive styles can collaborate, Yeah. then we absolutely need a better framework. We do. And Tim believes he's developed one. But first, we really need to dig into why the old one fails so badly in practice. Okay, let's unpack this, starting with those specific communication errors, the language barriers that just halt the inclusion conversation cold. So, Tim Goldstein's core premise, it's pretty straightforward when you think about it this way, treat neurodiversity like a product. It's something the corporate world, society in general, really needs to buy into. It's a necessary component for, like, optimized collaboration, better problem solving, all that good stuff. Right, it offers value. Tim says, our current marketing strategy for this product is failing miserably. Why? What's wrong with this strategy? Because the language we use is, well, he calls it clunky. It feels inherently judgmental, even if unintended. And it creates this immediate resistance in the consumer, the manager, the co-worker, the person you're trying to reach. And the main offender, the word that carries most of this negative baggage, according to Tim. Neurodivergent. Yeah. He famously, and I think brilliantly, describes it as a PhD-sized word. PhD-sized. I like that. Now, he's clear. If you're in a very specific academic setting, talking to other specialists who've all spent years debating and agreeing on the precise nuances and definitions of that term, fine, it works there. It has a defined meaning in that context. It's efficient. It's understood. Yeah. But the moment you step outside that specialized bubble, say you can do a general management meeting or an HR consultation or just a chat with your team lead, that same word, neurodivergent, becomes toxic. It backfires. Okay. Why toxic? What does it trigger? Well, think about it. We've all been in situations where someone uses super technical specialized jargon in a general setting. You can almost see the walls go up around the room. Yeah. People kind of glaze over. They get defensive. Exactly. And Tim learned this the hard way. He explicitly notes that using this kind of language, explaining his processing style in these academic-sounding terms, directly contributed to him getting fired. Multiple times. Wow. Okay. So there are real-world consequences to using the wrong words. Huge consequences. And this is where his marketing background provides such a critical insight. He analyzed the psychology of that interaction. When you use overly complex academic language, a PhD-sized word to explain a difference or request an accommodation from, say, a line manager? Someone who's already stressed, probably juggling deadlines, maybe doesn't have a background in cognitive science. Right. You're not informing them. You're triggering a basic human defense mechanism. Their immediate internal reaction isn't, oh, I don't understand this concept. I need to learn more. No, it's not curiosity. No, it's not curiosity. It's... It's ego protection. They immediately shift the blame to protect their own sense of competence. How does that shift happen? Their internal monologue flips. It goes from, I feel confused or I feel ignorant to, you are deliberately making me feel stupid. And the conclusion from that is... Therefore, you must be an arrogant jerk. Bingo! And once that firewall goes up, communication is finished. It doesn't matter how valid your point is, how reasonable your need is, or how much value your different perspective could bring, you, the speaker, have just become the problem. You've basically self-sabotaged the entire conversation. Any chance of building collaboration or understanding just evaporated. Gone. You've halted it. That interaction is over before it began. That insight alone is huge. Because it separates the speaker's intent, which is usually just to inform or explain from the perceived effect on the listener. Which is feeling lectured or condescended to. And people just inherently resist being lectured, right? Especially by someone they see as a peer or potentially a subordinate. Absolutely. So the complexity of the word is one problem. But Tim insists it goes deeper. Yeah, he argues the problem isn't just the complexity. It's embedded in the very sound, the phonetics, and the historical weight of the word neurodivergent itself. Okay, how so? He actually had training with a top vocal coach earlier in his career. And that taught him something really important about communication. The texture of a word, its tone, how it feels in the mouth, where it comes from historically. All of that can engage or disengage people on a subconscious level, below conscious awareness. Interesting. So let's break down neurodivergent from that subconscious perspective. What signals is the word sending, even if we don't consciously register them? Well, Tim argues it's reinforcing the very binary concept, the U. S. versus them, that we desperately need to escape if we want true inclusion. The word itself is loaded. How is it loaded? Look at the parts. The prefix di, or dis, often implies separation, moving apart, difference in a potentially negative way like discord or disagree. Okay. And the averge. To verge means to turn, to incline, or often to stray or deviate from a standard path or course. Ah, like diverge on a road. You're turning away from the main route. Exactly. So subconsciously, the term neurodivergent whispers that there's a single correct central path for neurological function. And the person being described as actively turning away or straying from it. It inherently suggests an aberration, a deviation from a norm. It immediately sets up a reference point of normalcy that this group isn't meeting. Precisely. Think about that road analogy. When you diverge, you take an exit. The exit is, by definition, separate from the main flow of traffic. Now, that exit might lead somewhere fantastic, somewhere better even. But the word itself signals separation from the established consensus route. So the very word designed to, you know, define and maybe empower a group. Is structurally, phonetically, and historically designed to reinforce the idea that they are other. Separate. Different from. Oh, okay. So we have a word neurodivergent, that is, according to Tim Goldstein. One, too complex and academic for everyday use in the places that matter, like work. Right, triggers defensiveness. Two, it subconsciously reinforces the idea of deviation and being separate from a standard, which is the opposite of inclusion. Undermining the core goal. Which is why Tim felt he couldn't just tweak the existing vocabulary. He had to basically throw it out and start over. Exactly. He needed a completely new foundation. Something built on an analogy that was instantly relatable, inherently nonjudgmental, and could be grasped and accepted by anyone without needing a degree in neuroscience. And crucially, without making the listener feel like their own way of thinking was being attacked or questioned. That was the challenge. Find a new way to talk about human variation itself. So Tim Goldstein's first big step, after identifying the problems with the old language, was to find a unifying image, an analogy. Something that could convey inherent messiness, constant dynamic change, and most importantly, radical interconnectedness. Something that instantly showed that separation, that us versus them, was just an illusion, not real. Exactly. And he found inspiration in a perhaps unexpected place. Remember those glass cases you sometimes see at state fairs or arcades? You mean the ones with money flying around inside, like a wind tunnel full of dollar bills. That's the one. Often there's someone inside trying to grab them, or sometimes it's just air blowing them chaotically. That image stuck with him. Why that image? What did it represent? Think about the dynamics. It's a single and closed system. The bills are swirling, crashing into each other, constantly moving, interacting randomly. You can't just pause the machine and neatly separate the money into distinct static piles based on, say, when they entered the airflow or what serial numbers they have. Hmm, okay. It's all one dynamic mess. It's all one dynamic system. That visual, that kinetic energy, everything interconnected, governed by the same forces within the same space that evolved into the core concept he calls the neuro cloud. The neuro cloud, okay, I like the imagery. A cloud. It immediately suggests something without sharp edges, right? Precisely. That's key. Think about a real cloud in the sky. It definitely has distinct areas. Some parts are dense, dark, maybe producing rain, while other parts are light, wispy, translucent. But you can't take a marker and draw a hard line around it and say, okay, this molecule is officially in the cloud, and that one just next to it is out. Impossible. It's constantly shifting, merging, evaporating. Yeah. It perfectly reflects, for Tim, the indistinct, fluid, interconnected nature of human perception processing and thought. There are variations, absolutely, but no hard, fixed separations. So, this neuro cloud analogy isn't just a nice visual. It's the foundation for a completely new model for understanding how human minds vary. Yes. And it's built on three absolutely critical principles. These principles are designed to completely demolish that old, unhelpful, binary way of thinking. Okay, let's break them down. What's the first, most fundamental principle of the neuro cloud? Principle one. The neuro cloud is everyone. This is the non-negotiable starting point. The axiom. Everyone. Meaning? Every single human being exists within the neuro cloud, period. There is no outside. There's no separate normal group standing apart looking up at the cloud or looking in at the strange workings of the people inside. So, if you are human, you are in the cloud, full stop. You're in the cloud. You're sharing the same conceptual space. You're part of the same dynamic system, constantly interacting with everyone else in it. Wow. Okay, that immediately dissolves the U. S. versus M, the normal versus divergent thing. We're just talking about variations within one shared Exactly. Which leads directly to the next question. If we're all in the cloud, what accounts for the variation? What is the cloud actually made of? Right. What are the components? Principle two. It's made of human traits. Standard human traits. This is another radical departure. Kim argues that phrases we use all the time, like autism trait or ADHD trait, are fundamentally misleading. Misleading how? Aren't there specific traits associated with those diagnoses? Associated, yes. Exclusive to them. No. Tim's point is that there are no proprietary traits that belong only to one specific neurotype. What exists are standard human traits that every single person possesses to some degree or another. What kind of traits? Things like sensory sensitivity, how much input you take in, pattern recognition ability, sociability, the drive or ease in connecting with others. Focus the ability to sustain attention, executive function planning, organizing, verbal processing speed, emotional regulation. These are all just human things. Okay. Hang on. If there are only standard human traits and we all possess them, why do we even have a diagnosis like autism or ADHD? Doesn't this model risk, I don't know, simplifying or dismissing the very real challenges and differences associated with those diagnoses? That's a really important challenge. And the model absolutely addresses it. Yeah. It doesn't deny the reality or the necessity of diagnoses at all. What it does is redefine what the diagnosis is actually describing. Okay. So what is it describing in this model? It's not describing the presence of some unique special trait that other people lack. It's describing the extreme functional consequences, both the strength and the challenges that arise from the intensity of those universal human traits. Intensity. Ah, okay. So the difference isn't about having totally different ingredients in the recipe. It's about the mixing ratio, how much of each ingredient you have, the volume knobs, basically. Exactly. Which brings us perfectly to the third, and maybe the most crucial, principle for understanding variation within the neural cloud. Which is? Principle three. Variation is about intensity. The key differentiator between any two people isn't which traits they possess, because we all possess the same basic set. The key difference is the intensity of those traits for that individual. How high or low the dial is turned for each trait. Precisely. And Tim illustrates this brilliantly with his core analogy here. Imagine a giant audio mixing board, like you'd see in a recording studio. Okay, got it. Lots of sliders. Millions of sliders. Right. One slider for every conceivable human trait, sensory filtering, processing speed, need for social contact, emotional resonance, logical reasoning, sequential thinking, associative thinking, everything. And each person walking around, you, me, everyone, has a completely unique, customized setting on their personal mixing board. Unique, yes. And Tim argues, largely fixed. This is your fundamental wiring. Now, let's play with a couple of sliders to see how intensity creates difference. Take sensory filtering. Okay, filtering out background noise, lights, smells. Right. For a lot of people, maybe most, that slider sits somewhere in the mid-range, let's say a five or six. They automatically filter out the annoying hum of the HVAC unit, the flicker of the fluorescent lights, the visual clutter on a busy desk, it doesn't really register consciously. Okay, standard filtering. But for some individuals, that sensory filtering slider is cranked way, way down, let's say it's at a one or two, meaning they filter almost nothing. They perceive everything. The lights buzz, the fan whirs, they feel the tag on their shirt, they notice every tiny movement in their peripheral vision. That sounds exhausting, overwhelming. It can be, absolutely. Especially in a typical, stimulating modern environment like an open-plan office. That low-filter fitting becomes a significant functional impairment due to constant overload. But is there an upside? Potentially, yes. Imagine that same person works in quality control on a high-precision manufacturing line. 

That low-filter intensity now becomes a massive strength. They're like a detailed super detector. Ah. So, the environment interacting with the intensity determines whether it's an asset or an impairment. It's not inherently good or bad, it's context-dependent. Let's take another slider, focus intensity. Okay. Some people might have that slider set very high, say nine or ten. They could achieve incredibly deep, prolonged concentration on a single topic or task that interests them. Hyper-focus. That sounds like a string. It absolutely can be for complex problem solving or mastering a skill. But the flip side might be that they struggle to shift focus, or to multitask, or to pay attention to things outside that narrow beam of intense interest. Again, strengths and challenges determined by the intensity. And someone with the focus slider set low. Like a one or two. Might struggle with sustained concentration on one thing. Easily distracted. Maybe flits between tasks. That could be a challenge in roles requiring deep, long work. But they might be brilliant at brainstorming. Making rapid connections between diverse ideas. Noticing things others miss because their attention is broader. Again, intensity defines the landscape. Okay, this mixing board analogy. It's powerful. Because it completely destigmatizes behaviors that often get labeled purely as... It's symptoms or deficits. Exactly. Let's take that classic example. Difficulty with eye contact. In a clinical setting, for certain diagnoses, that's listed as a symptom, right? Right. But Tim forces us to ask, is difficulty with eye contact exclusively an autistic trait or an anxiety trait? No. It's a standard human behavior modulated by intensity and context. How so? Well, some people avoid eye contact simply because they're shy. In some cultures, avoiding direct eye contact, especially with elders or authority figures, is actually a sign of respect, not impairment. Investigators look for avoidance of eye contact as a potential indicator of deception. Okay, so the same observable behavior in not making eye contact can stem from completely different internal reasons or cultural norms. Exactly. Right. It's the same slaughter, maybe social gaze intensity or something, but the reason for its setting or temporary adjustment varies. When that avoidance is driven by an intense, perhaps overwhelming sensory or cognitive response to the input from another person's face, as it often is for neurodistinct individuals, then we tend to label it a symptom. But the underlying trait variation is human. That reframing is really useful. And it applies perfectly to the special interest phenomenon, too, doesn't it? Oh, absolutely. This is one of Tim's favorite examples, and it perfectly highlights the societal double standard, a deep, passionate, sometimes all-consuming, fixated interest in a specific topic. That's literally a diagnostic criterion for autism. Okay. But step outside the diagnostic framework for a moment. Think about the dedicated PC gamer who can spend hours detailing every component of their build, the thermal dynamics, the overclocking potential. Or the diehard sports fan who knows every player's stats going back decades, analyzes draft picks with incredible detail. Or the serious hobbyist photographer obsessed with vintage lenses. Or the collector who knows every detail about stamps from a specific era. Or the Wall Street analyst who develops an intense focus on one particular market sector. What are they demonstrating? The exact same thing. A high-intensity human trait of deep focus, passionate engagement, and detailed knowledge accumulation on a specific, sometimes restricted, subject. Precisely. It's the exact same setting on the interest intensity slider. But look at how society labels it. We call the gamer, the sports fan, the investor, the collector, an enthusiast, a fanatic, sometimes admiringly, a specialist, maybe even a genius if they monetize it well. But when that same high-intensity interest profile shows up in someone who gets a formal diagnosis... Suddenly, we often label it a fixation, obsession, a restricted interest, a symptom of their condition. That's quite a contradiction. We're judging the same intensity differently based purely on whether there's a diagnosis attached. And the NeuroCloud model, because it grounds everything in shared human traits and variable intensity levels, forces us to confront that judgement head-on. It pushes us away from classifying and correcting behavior and towards understanding the underlying trait profile. And crucially, towards environmental optimization. Instead of asking, how do we fix this person's weird fixation, we should be asking. How do we tune the environment, the job role, the social expectations, the communication style? To best leverage this person's specific intensity profile, both their strengths and their challenges. Okay. So this NeuroCloud foundation everyone's in, it's made of human traits, variation is intensity. This sets the stage for a much better, much more useful language for actually talking about these differences in practice. Exactly. It clears the ground so we can build something useful. All right. We've laid the foundation. It's unifying, non-judgmental, based on varying intensities of shared human traits via that cool audio mixing board analogy. Right. We're all in the cloud just with different settings on our boards. Right. So now, we need the new vocabulary to actually describe the different types of profiles we encounter within that cloud. We need to replace that flawed, problematic, neurotypical versus neurodivergent binary. We do, with something purely descriptive, not implicitly judgmental. Yeah. So what's Tim Goldstein's replacement for neurodivergent? His term is neurodistinct. Neurodistinct. Okay. Functionally, it's intended to cover the same group of individuals whose brains perceive, process, and interact with the world in ways that differ significantly from the common pattern. Yeah. But, and this is crucial. Yeah. It has infinitely better marketing. Okay. Here's where it gets really interesting. Because distinct versus divergent, it seems like a subtle shift, but you're saying the impact is huge. Absolutely huge. Think about the subconscious connotation. When you hear the word distinct, what comes to mind? Wow. Unique. Standing out, having special qualities, different in an interesting way, maybe. Exactly. It doesn't inherently imply straying or deviating from a correct path the way divergent does. It suggests possessing unique characteristics that differentiate you. It leans towards value, individuality, maybe even strength. Less like an error, more like a feature. Precisely. It's far more positive, or at least neutral, and much less inherently judgmental than neurodivergent. So, definitionally, in Tim's model, a neurodistinct person is someone whose profile on that giant audio mixing board is highly asymmetrical. Or asymmetrical. Maybe spiky. They have trait sliders pushed way, way up, maybe to an 8, 9, or even 10 in some areas, indicating massive intensity and often incredible strength or aptitude in those specific domains. Okay, like superpowered in certain ways. Potentially, yes, but at the same time, other sliders, perhaps representing traits considered essential for typical functioning in society, might be pulled way, way down maybe to a 1 or 2. Indicating significant challenges in those areas. Exactly. It's that spiky profile of the extreme highs coupled with extreme lows that defines neurodistinctness in this model. So, we can visualize this for different recognized neurotypes. For someone with an autism profile, for example. You might see sliders like pattern recognition, systemizing, logical analysis, detail focus cranked up to 10. Incredible strengths there. But maybe sliders for processing social nuance, reading implicit cues, handling ambiguity, or sensory filtering bandwidth are down at a 2 or 3. Right. Creating those well-known challenges in unstructured social situations or overstimulating environments. That's the spiky profile. And for, say, an ADHD profile, different spikes. Different spikes. Same principle. You might see creative associative thinking, rapid idea generation, problem solving under pressure, hyper-focused potential, pushed way high. Amazing innovative capacity. But then the sliders for executive function, sustained attention on non-preferred tasks, working memory, organization, impulse control, might be significantly lower. Leading to challenges with planning, follow-through, time management, etc. The core idea remains. They possess massive, potentially disproportionate strengths, tightly coupled with massive, potentially disproportionate challenges stemming from that uneven intensity profile. So, the category neurodistinct basically just becomes a descriptor for anyone with a spiky profile. It would include individuals with diagnoses like autism, ADHD, dyslexia, dyscalculia, dyspraxia, Tourette's. Yes. All those named conditions, and potentially others characterized by significant, functionally impactful deviations from average trait intensities, would fall under the umbrella category of neurodistinct. It describes the shape of their profile. Okay, that makes sense. It's descriptive, less loaded. Now, crucially, we have to address the other half of the old problematic binary. If neurodistinct covers the spiky profiles, what replaces the equally problematic term neurotypical? Kim needed a parallel term, also descriptive, also nonjudgmental. He coined the term neuro-iniform. Neuro-iniform. Okay, I confess, my first reaction is a bit of skepticism here. We just spent all this time talking about getting rid of the U. S. versus them dynamic. Isn't calling a group uniform just a slightly politer way of saying normal? Aren't we accidentally recreating the separation? How does calling people uniform avoid making them the default standard again? That is the critical question to ask here. And Tim thought about this very carefully. The key difference lies in how neuro-uniform is defined. It's not defined by being correct or standard or better. Yeah. It's defined, just like neurodistinct, purely by the shape of their trait profile on the mixing board. Okay. So if neurodistinct means spiky profile, neuro-uniform means? Uniform profile. Relatively flat, or at least much less spiky. Their trait sliders across that vast mixing board tend to cluster within a much narrower band. So their highs probably aren't hitting 9 or 10, and their lows probably aren't dipping down to 1 or 2. Exactly. Maybe most of their sliders fall somewhere between, say, 4 and 7. There's still variation. Of course, they have unique personalities, skills, interests, preferences, just like anyone else. But the underlying intensity of their core cognitive and perceptual traits is more balanced, more, well, uniform. Less extreme variation from the average intensity on any given trait. Right. And this relative uniformity often translates, functionally, into greater social resilience in varied contexts, easier adaptability to changing expectations, and a kind of generalized competence across a wider range of common tasks and environments. So they might not have the laser beam deep-dive strength of a neurodistinct specialist in one area. Perhaps not. But they might have a more robust, generalized operating system that handles a broader diversity of standard inputs and outputs pretty well without hitting those extreme highs or lows. Okay. I see the distinction now. It's not about being the standard. It's about the pattern of intensities. Spiky versus uniform. Precisely. This pairing, neurodistinct, spiky profile, and neurouniform, uniform profile, aims to be purely descriptive of the internal configuration, the settings on the mixing board. It deliberately avoids the inherent judgment baked into words like normal or typical or divergent or disordered. It just describes two broad categories of trait profiles, both existing equally, both legitimately, side by side within the neurocloud, no inherent hierarchy implied. That's the goal. And by establishing these two descriptive categories based on internal wiring profiles, Tim effectively clears the deck. He removes the need for neurotypical as a descriptor of wiring. Which then frees up that word neurotypical for a completely different, and Tim argues, much more accurate and useful definition. Exactly. Now we can finally tackle the big one. What is neurotypical if it's not a neurotype? So Tim Goldstein's whole journey towards the neurocloud model, towards neurodistinct and neurouniform, really began when he hit this fundamental logical wall. He realized that trying to position neurotypical as a neurotype, defining it as a specific, fixed category of brain wiring or processing, just didn't hold up, it was fundamentally contradictory. Contradictory how? What was the core issue? He looked at established neurotypes, conditions like autism or ADHD. While our understanding evolves, the core diagnostic criteria aimed to describe relatively fixed internal neurological wiring. Yeah, the idea is that the underlying neurology is consistent. An autistic person diagnosed based on core criteria in, say, Shanghai, would likely meet the same core criteria if assessed in London or Rio. Exactly. Allowing for cultural expression differences, the underlying neurotype is considered universal and relatively fixed for that individual, regardless of their environment. It's about their internal hardware and operating system. Okay, that makes sense for neurotypes like autism, but how does neurotypical compare? That's where it falls apart. Because the standard of what constitutes neurotypical behavior and interaction is anything but universal or fixed. And this is the killer logical contradiction that, for Tim, proves it cannot be a neurotype. Because the standard changes dramatically depending on where you are. Radically. It varies wildly based on the environment. Okay, give us some concrete examples of that variation. How does the neurotypical standard shift? Let's start with broad culture. Think about communication norms. In a culture like Germany, the generally accepted neurotypical consensus often values directness, explicitness, low-context communication. Getting straight to the point, even if it involves critique, is seen as efficient and normal. Right. Assertiveness, logical flow are prized. But shift to a culture like Japan. The neurotypical consensus there relies heavily on the concept of maintaining a social face and extremely high-context indirect communication. Preserving group harmony often trumps blunt honesty. Direct critique might be seen as deeply inappropriate. So, a communication style considered perfectly neurotypical and effective in Germany could be seen as awkward, aggressive, or socially inept. Definitely not neurotypical in Japan. And vice versa. Precisely. The expected norm is completely different. And it's not just broad cultures. Think about workplaces. Okay. Like different company cultures. Absolutely. Imagine the expected neurotypical communication consensus at a super fast-paced, flat hierarchy tech startup. Norms might encourage instant messaging, rapid-fire brainstorming, challenging ideas openly and immediately, maybe even interrupting as a sign of engagement. High energy, low formality. Now contrast that with a neurotypical consensus at, say, a large, highly regulated traditional institution, maybe an old bank, a utility company, or a government department. Much different. Formal memos, strict adherence to hierarchy, carefully scheduled meetings, deliberate layered decision-making. Interrupting your boss might be unthinkable. Totally different set of unwritten rules for what's considered normal, acceptable, neurotypical interaction. So Tim asks, if the standard for neurotypical behavior changes so drastically based on country, based on company, based on industry, even based on generation, how can it possibly be a single, fixed, internal neurological type? It can't. If the definition isn't stable and universal, it doesn't fit the definition of a neurotype like autism or ADHD. Exactly. It fails the test. Yeah. Which led Tim to his profound game-changing realization. Neurotypical is not a neurotype. Okay. So if it's not a type of brain wiring, what is it? Tim's definition is this. Neurotypical is a social consensus. A social consensus. Like an agreement. Sort of. But maybe less formal than an explicit agreement. It's an emergent quality. It's the constantly shifting, largely unwritten set of rules, expectations, and norms that a specific group, whether that's a national culture, a company, a team, even just your family at the dinner table, implicitly holds as the desired, expected, and appropriate way for people within that group to interact, communicate, and behave. Ah. So it's not about the internal wiring. It's about the external expectations of the group. Exactly. It deals primarily with interactional things, observable behaviors, communication styles, the stuff that allows a group to function relatively smoothly together. Tim uses an analogy here, right? The political party platform. Yes. And it's a really helpful one. Think about people who support, say, the Republican Party or the Democratic Party in the U. S. Do they all agree 100% with every single plank in their party's official platform? No. Of course not. There's huge diversity of opinion within each party. People might strongly disagree with certain points. Right. But they align with the party. They support the platform generally because it represents a broad consensus that aligns more or less with their overall worldview or priorities. The platform itself is a kind of social construct, a negotiated agreement that allows millions of people with different specific beliefs to organize and act together somewhat cohesively. Okay. I see the parallel. The neurotypical consensus is exactly like that party platform. Yeah. It's the set of interactional expectations, how you handle conflict, how quickly you respond to emails, how much small talk you engage in, whether you make eye contact, how you participate in meetings that the group implicitly has settled on for organizational efficiency or social harmony within that specific context. As Tim apparently put it, your boss doesn't really care how your neurons fire internally. Nope. What they care about is, do you meet deadlines? Yeah. Do you reply to emails in a timely manner? Do you navigate disagreements according to the company's unwritten rules? Do you fit in enough to not disrupt the team's flow? It's about conforming to the local social consensus. This redefinition is huge. It completely separates fixed internal wiring, which is described by neurouniform or neurodistinct profiles, from variable external behavior, which is judged against the local neurotypical consensus. Exactly. The neurotypical consensus becomes a target, a set of external expectations. And now anyone, regardless of whether their fixed internal profile is neurouniform or neurodistinct, can aim for that target. Which brings us to the crucial missing piece of the puzzle. Which is? Conformity. The effort required to meet the target. So we now have this clean three-part model operating within the neurocloud. Right. One, your fixed internal wiring profile, either broadly neurouniform or broadly neurodistinct. Yep, you're mixing board settings. Two, the external target, the specific neurotypical social consensus of the group you're currently in. The local rules of the game. And three, the amount of effort, the cognitive load, required for you with your specific wiring to conform to that external target. Exactly. Conformity effort. Now let's analyze how that plays out for our two profile categories. Okay. Let's start with the neurouniform individual. The person with the relatively balanced even treat profile sliders, maybe mostly between four and seven. How much effort does conforming typically cost them? For most neurod animate individuals, conforming to the typical social consensus of their surrounding culture or workplace is relatively easy. Their natural balanced treat profile already aligns pretty closely with the group's average expectations for interaction, communication, and behavior. So it doesn't require much conscious thought or energy expenditure. Generally, no. It's like operating in your native language. It feels natural, intuitive, low effort. They just do it. Okay. Now, contrast that with the neurodistinct individual. The person with the spiky profile, the extreme highs and lows on their mixing board. What about their effort to conform to that same social consensus? For many neurodistinct individuals, conforming is often possible. They can learn the rules, imitate the expected behaviors, follow the social script. But it requires massive, sustained, cognitively taxing effort. And this is the act we commonly call masking or camouflaging. Precisely. Masking is the high effort act of conformity required when your natural neurodistinct wiring doesn't automatically align with the prevailing neurotypical social consensus. Tim apparently used a powerful analogy for masking, comparing it to living your life speaking a second language. Yes. A second language that you're not fully fluent in, but you have to use constantly in almost every interaction. Think about that. Okay. You can do it. You can attend the meeting in your second language. You can understand most of what's said. You can formulate responses. You can follow the conversation flow. But the mental load is enormous, right? You're constantly translating in your head, searching for the right words, monitoring your grammar and pronunciation, trying to catch subtle idioms. Exactly. You're consciously processing things that native speakers do automatically, unconsciously. You can make the eye contact, interpret the facial expression, modulate your tone, suppress your natural impulses, filter your intense focus to stay generally engaged with the group's topic. But the cognitive energy drain is astronomical. And that drain has consequences. It's not free energy. Absolutely not. Tim emphasizes the measurable cost of masking. If a neurodistinct person burns huge amounts of cognitive energy, just performing conformity in, say, a two-hour high-context social meeting, what happens later in the day? Their batteries are drained. They have less capacity for other things. Right. They experience decision fatigue sooner. Their processing speed for their actual core tasks might slow down. Their tolerance for frustration plummets. Their ability to regulate their emotions is compromised. Their error rate on detailed work might increase. It becomes a zero-sum game of cognitive energy. The mental fuel spent on high-effort conformity on masking is fuel that cannot be spent on innovation, problem-solving, deep work, or even just basic functioning. Precisely. Which is why Tim's model is so practically useful. It shifts the entire conversation away from just accommodating difference as a cost, and towards optimizing energy expenditure for everyone's benefit. If the cost of conformity to a specific social consensus is chronically too high for an individual, both the individual and the organization are losing valuable capacity and potential. Wow. Okay. So this redefinition of neurotypical as a flexible environmental social consensus, combined with understanding conformity effort based on fixed wiring, neurouniform versus neuroresisting, gives us a much clearer picture of the dynamics at play. It does. It explains why neurotypical seems so variable and why masking is such a central and often exhausting experience for many neurodistinct people. And it opens the door to thinking about other factors that influence how we present, like stress. So once we have this neurocloud model with neurouniform and neurodistic profiles interacting with a fluid neurotypical consensus, the real practical utility starts to emerge when we consider dynamic factors, things that can temporarily shift how someone presents or functions within that cloud. And Tim Goldstein puts a huge emphasis on one major factor, stress. Stress, yeah. We all know stress impacts performance, makes us less patient, maybe less focused. Right, but Tim argues it's much more fundamental than that. He sees stress as the great modulator within the neurocloud, a force so powerful it can actually temporarily push someone's trait profile out of its natural state. It can make someone appear to shift categories almost. Shift categories, how so? You mean stress can make a neurouniform person seem neurodistinct? Potentially, yes, in their presentation and functioning. And critically, Tim emphasizes that stress isn't just one thing, it stacks. Stacks up, meaning multiple sources add together. Exactly. He talks about different types. Yeah. Obvious ones like financial stress, family stress, illness, relationship issues, job insecurity stress, environmental stress, like chronic noise, poor lighting, lack of sleep. Okay, the usual suspects. But he adds a crucial one. Perceived stress. The stress that comes from feeling constantly judged, misunderstood, inadequate, or like you're always failing to meet expectations. The stress of high effort masking itself. And the brain doesn't differentiate. Perceived social threat is just as real as actual danger. To the nervous system, absolutely. Perceived stress is real stress. It activates the same survival circuitry, the same fight, flight, freeze responses. So imagine you have these different stressors piling up on someone. Now consider a person whose natural baseline wiring is neurouniform. Their sliders are relatively balanced, maybe hovering between four and seven across the board. They usually navigate the world quite smoothly. But what happens when they get hit with three, four, five stacked stressors simultaneously? Like massive pressure at work, a sick parent, money worries, and they haven't slept properly in weeks. Exactly. That balanced, resilient neurouniform system becomes completely overloaded. The cognitive resources are overwhelmed. And what happens to that nice, uniform trait profile under that extreme load? It breaks down. According to Tim, yes. The uniformity shatters. And the person's function or presentation can suddenly become intensely spiky, temporarily resembling a neurodistinct profile. Can you give an example? Okay, think of that normally flexible, adaptable neurod territorial manager. Under extreme stacked stress, they might suddenly become incredibly rigid, fixated on tiny rules and procedures, unable to cope with ambiguity, rejecting any input that deviates even slightly from the established plan, demanding absolute order. They might present almost like a caricature of certain autistic traits, that intense need for structure and predictability as a coping mechanism. Precisely. It's like the overwhelmed brain desperately trying to regain control by imposing rigid structure. It's a transient autistic-like presentation emerging under duress from a neurouniform baseline. Or could it go the other way? Absolutely. Another typically organized, reliable neurouniform person under similar intense stacked stress might suddenly become completely scattered, incapable of prioritizing. Yeah. Highly distractible. Forgetting implantments. Losing things. Unable to focus. Their executive functions just collapse. So they might present with transient ADHD-like traits. Exactly. Hyper distracted, overwhelmed, disorganized. The point is, this temporary emergence of spikiness under extreme stress shows that the line between the neurouniform and neurodistinct categories isn't some impenetrable wall. It's much fuzzier, much more fluid, and highly dependent on internal cognitive load and external pressures. Stress acts like a system equalizer, potentially revealing the latent spikiness that exists, maybe to a lesser degree, in everyone's profile. That is a fascinating implication. It suggests that understanding neurodistinct challenges might actually help us understand human cognition under stress more broadly. Tim certainly believes so. And this realization that we're dealing with a dynamic spectrum influenced by factors like stress pushes the whole conversation beyond just human diversity. It moves it into the realm of overall cognitive strategy and optimization. Which connects to another term Tim uses, coined by his friend Dr. Lutza. Yes, the term neuroversal. Neuroversal. What does that encompass? The neuroversal concept takes a step back and recognizes a fundamental truth about modern humans. For all practical purposes, we are already cyborgs. Cyborgs? You mean like sci-fi? In a functional sense, yes. Yeah. Think about how deeply reliant we are on external technology as extensions of our biological minds. Our smartphones hold our memories, appointments, social connections. James Johnson: Search engines are external knowledge bases. Organizational apps manage our executive functions. Spreadsheets augment our calculation abilities. Kate DiCamillo: Okay, yeah. We offload a lot of cognitive tasks to technology. We're biologically integrated with it. James Johnson: Right. So if we accept that reality, that human cognition is already technologically augmented, then to optimize performance and collaboration in the 21st century, we need to optimize the interaction, not just between different human brains, but between human biological intelligence and these external non-biological intelligence we rely on. Kate DiCamillo: Like artificial intelligence. James Johnson: Exactly. And if we accept that, the neuroversal perspective forces us to acknowledge something else. AIs also have distinct interactual styles. You can almost see they have neurotypes or operational personas. Kate DiCamillo: Oh, so? AIs don't have brains? James Johnson: No, but they have programmed architectures, training data, and alignment protocols that result in distinct ways of processing information and interacting with users. Think about the big large language models right now. Kate DiCamillo: Okay. Like ChatGPT versus say, Gemini or Claude? James Johnson: Perfect example. Kate DiCamillo: Changing MPT, especially in its earlier iterations, was often perceived as being designed to be highly agreeable, almost gratuitously verbose, a real people pleaser. Its output is often padded with qualifiers, validations of the user's prompt, social cautious phrasing. You could say it presents as high context and amiable. Kate DiCamillo: Okay. And other models? James Johnson: Other models might be engineered differently. Maybe they prioritize logical fidelity, conciseness, and directness above all else. Their interactional style might feel much more blunt, focus purely on delivering the most accurate information or logical response, sometimes even challenging the user's premise directly if it's flawed, like, 

Kate DiCamillo: Much lower context, logic driven, less focused on social niceties. Kate DiCamillo: Exactly. So you have demonstrably different intelligence interaction styles Kate DiCamillo: right there in the AIs we use every day. Now, put this together with the NeuroCloud model of human variation. What does this mean for workforce optimization? Kate DiCamillo: The goal can't just be the old question anymore. Kate DiCamillo: Which was? Kate DiCamillo: How do we accommodate the neurodistinct people so they fit into our standard workflow? That seems totally inadequate now. Kate DiCamillo: Completely inadequate. The new, much bigger, much more strategic Kate DiCamillo: question becomes: How do we get the best, most efficient, most productive, and most innovative interaction between all forms of intelligence available to us? Kate DiCamillo: Human to human across all neurotypes. Kate DiCamillo: Yes, neurouniform interacting with neurodistinct, neurodistinct with neurodistinct. Kate DiCamillo: Kate DiCamillo: And human to AI matching the right human profile to the right AI interaction style. Kate DiCamillo: Exactly. And eventually maybe even optimizing AI to AI collaboration. Kate DiCamillo: Wow, that reframes everything. Kate DiCamillo: It's a massive strategic shift. Tim Goldstein argues Kate DiCamillo: that to get the highest quality output, the best result from any form of intelligence, whether it's your human colleague or your AI assistant, you need to approach it, communicate with it, and structure the interaction in the way it best perceives, processes, and responds. Kate DiCamillo: Suddenly understanding neurodiversity isn't just some niche HR initiative or a nice to have for inclusion's sake. Kate DiCamillo: No, it becomes the absolute core competency for 21st century communication strategy, productivity, and innovation. It moves Kate DiCamillo: out of the HR cost center and right into the center of strategic operations. Kate DiCamillo: And interestingly, this neuroversal perspective focused on optimizing interaction with all intelligences naturally starts to value neurodistinct traits in new ways. Kate DiCamillo: Oh, so. Kate DiCamillo: Well, think about interacting with those direct, low-context, logic-driven AI, as we just discussed. Who might actually be better at getting good results from them? Kate DiCamillo: Hmm. Maybe someone who isn't expecting or needing a lot of social padding. Kate DiCamillo: Someone who focuses primarily on the logical structure of the prompt and the factual accuracy of the output. Kate DiCamillo: Exactly. Perhaps some neurodistinct individuals, those whose wiring makes them inherently less reliant on subtle emotional cues, maybe more focused on textual logic, patterns in Kate DiCamillo: might find interfacing with certain AIs much more intuitive and effective than some neuro-oniform individuals do. Kate DiCamillo: Their cognitive profile might be uniquely suited to tasks like prompt engineering, debugging AI logic, or extracting highly specific, unbiased information from models that others might find cold or difficult or unhelpful because they aren't communicating in a neurotypical human way. Kate DiCamillo: So the fundamental question really shifts away from how do we fix or normalize the people who think differently? Kate DiCamillo: And becomes, what is the appropriate, tailored, most effective interaction strategy for this specific intelligence human or AI, neuro-distinct or neuro-uniform or digital, to yield the highest quality result in this Kate DiCamillo: That feels like the future of productivity. Recognizing, valuing, and strategically deploying every type of trait intensity, every style of processing. Kate DiCamillo: That's the neuroversal vision. And Tim argues that achieving that kind of sophisticated, optimized interaction absolutely requires us to ditch the old, flawed, judgmental language and adopt his clearer, more functional framework built on the neural cloud. Hashtag tag outro. Okay, so let's try to synthesize the really big shift that Tim Goldstein's model achieves. What have we actually unpacked here? Well, we started by seeing the current language, particularly neurodivergent and neurotypical, as fundamentally flawed for practical use creating division instead of inclusion. Right, a failed marketing campaign for a crucial product. Then we moved away from that unhelpful binary, that implicit idea of normal versus broken or standard versus deviant. And anchored ourselves instead in the unifying concept of the neural cloud. Remember everyone is inside the cloud. Everyone's in. It's made of standard human treats, and the variation comes down to intensity, the spiky versus uniform profiles on that giant audio mixing board. Which gave us the descriptive non-judgmental categories. Neurodistinct for the spiky profiles, and neurouniform for the more balanced profiles. Both just describing internal wiring. And that, crucially, allowed us to completely redefine the old troublemaker word neurotypical. It's not a fixed neurotype. No, it's a fluid variable social consensus. It's the set of unwritten interaction rules, specific to a particular group, culture, or company at a particular time. Which then highlighted the importance of conformity the effort required for someone, given their fixed internal wiring, neurodistinct or neuro-iniform, to meet the demands of that external social consensus. 

Right. Exactly. So we've effectively separated fixed wiring from variable external expectations and the effort needed to bridge the gap. Okay, so what does all this mean for you, the listener? How can you use this? Well, fundamentally, this new language, this new model offers you a vastly better, clearer, and less confrontational way to communicate about cognitive differences and needs, especially in the workplace. Instead of potentially getting bogged down in complex, maybe alienating diagnostic terms or disability language-- Which can trigger those defense mechanisms we talked about. You can now focus the conversation on observable trait intensities and preferred interaction styles for optimal performance. It empowers you to analyze why communication might be breaking down, or why a certain environment feels draining. Is it because of a deep, fundamental difference in fixed wiring between, say, a neurodistinct individual and the prevailing neuro-iniform consensus? Or, could it just be, as we discussed, a normally neuro-iniform person who is under immense stress and therefore temporarily presenting with spiky, atypical behaviors? This model helps distinguish those situations. And it gives you very specific, practical language to advocate for yourself or to understand your colleagues better, focusing on maximizing efficiency and reducing unnecessary cognitive load. Can we give a concrete example of how someone might use this language? Say, instead of saying, "I'm autistic and I need an accommodation for meetings" Okay, using TIM's framework, you could rephrase that request purely in terms of optimization. You could say something like, "My cognitive profile is neuro-distinct, which means I have some real strength but also some processing differences. For example, my detail focus and pattern recognition sliders are extremely high, which is great for my analytical work." Start with the spranks, the value. "However, my auditory processing speed under pressure slider is quite low, and my sensory filtering is also very sensitive. This means that in fast-paced, verbally-dense meetings, especially with background noise, a significant amount of my cognitive energy goes into just trying to keep up and filter distractions, which reduces my ability to contribute my best analytical insights in real time." Okay, you're explaining the mechanism clearly and neutrally. Therefore, to optimize my contribution and ensure you get the full benefit of my analytical skills, could we try ensuring meeting agendas are sent out beforehand with key discussion points, maybe prioritize written communication for complex instructions, or allow me to use noise-canceling headphones during group sessions? That whole request is framed around mutual benefit, efficiency, and leveraging strengths by mitigating specific processing load issues. It's not framed as a deficit requiring fixing. Exactly. It shifts the power dynamic away from "I have a problem, please accommodate me" towards "here's how we can optimize our interaction for the best possible outcome." It becomes a collaborative, problem-solving conversation. That feels much more constructive. Tim believes it is. And it leads us directly to our final provocative thought for you, the listener, to maybe mull over after this deep dive. Okay, let's hear it. We've established that the neurotypical standard, that social consensus on interaction, isn't fixed. It changes dramatically based on your company, your specific team, your national culture, maybe even your generation. Right. The rules are different everywhere. So, the question for you is this. Take a hard look at your primary environment right now. Probably your workplace or maybe your family or main social circle. What specific neurotypical social consensus are you currently expected to conform to there? What are the unwritten rules about communication, interaction, emotional expression, work style? Get really specific about what normal looks like there. And then ask yourself honestly, given your own natural trait profile, your own internal mixing board settings, how much cognitive effort, how much energy, how much masking is conforming to that specific consensus actually costing you on a daily or weekly basis? What's the real energy drain of fitting into those particular rules? Is it low effort, high effort, somewhere in between? And is that cost sustainable for you long term? Because as Tim's work suggests, understanding the cost of conformity might be absolutely vital for your productivity, your well-being, and ultimately your cognitive survival. That is definitely a question worth spending some time thinking about. A lot to unpack there