There's another little DS girl. Very cute, a few weeks younger than Ellie. She seems younger than that though, because she's developing more slowly. So I guess that's what retardation is, just slower development. But it doesn't make her any less lovely; I mean, you be with people where they are, not where you are. Most people seem retarded to me. It's boring.

So there's all these people, exhibiting all these behaviours which indicate their development is at different points on different scales. And some people are probably behind other people on all these scales. But so what?

Our attitudes are more about our society, than about Ellie. We value certain things, and don't value others. And we don't even really value some of the things we say we do-- logical/mathematical intelligence, linguistic intelligence-- we value our own, but we don't value higher levels in other people; eggheads, no common sense, intellectuals. So it's about fitting in, more than about personality traits. Normativity. Smart people get good at downplaying how much smarter they are than average. Probably really smart people don't think much about it at all; cause it's not that important. I'm not there yet.