Would the world be better off if it was run by autistics?

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Only superhuman autistics are superhuman.

ruveyn

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Last edited by SpiritBlooms on 04 Dec 2012, 2:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Its difficult for me to get this ASvNT paradigm out of my head, really hard.

Especially when i look at my facebook wall or TV and there are hundreds of 'normal' people screaming at X factor or American Idol like laboratory rats clawing the side of their cage for a treat.

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Last edited by SpiritBlooms on 04 Dec 2012, 2:08 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Society functions because of relationships between people.

Autistic people suck at relationships. We're not even good at relationships with each other. Even an all-Aspie society where most communication is based around emails would probably fail.

The geneticist Steve Jones of UCL wrote about an all-autistic society in his book Darwin's Island. He concluded we'd fail drastically because we wouldn't we able to communicate. I reckon we'd work around the communication barrier and do some things better (as said above, the Aspie politicians would be better thought of, and we'd also probably give science more consideration than the general population), but we would struggle to an extent. I don't think we'd be any better.

Such a world would be ravaged by traffic accidents. Given how literal minded Aspies are what do you think will happen at intersections with the following sign:

No, U turn here.

ruveyn

We are communicating with each other now arent we? What else is needed for a functioning society.

If anything I think we beat ourselves up too much because we feel compelled to follow NT social conventions and inevitably fail at them. Theres no right or wrong way in that particular sense, just difference. On the whole though i think autistics make better specialists.




I dont see why that should be a problem either, just develop a system of 'literal' communication.

Or even just use pictures where possible, ASD people seem to understand these better.

Evidence, please?

Better yet, just wake up ... you're dreaming again ...

Einstein

Bill Gates
Temple Grandin
Nikolai Tesla
Isaac Newton
Mark Zuckerberg
Richard Branson
Andy Warhol

Many of the people on the list are simply speculated as autistic, and some of them are very likely NOT autistic.

This isn't good evidence of anything, especially given the sloppiness of the method.

I don't think the problem is communication. It's going to more likely be politics. In order to settle conflicts, there is an intense need to create power-groups that can override the opposition in a manner that seems legitimate. This requires a lot in terms of theory of mind, and clever communication techniques. Aspies and high functioning autistics are not going to be masters at this process.


Yeah, Steve Jones's idea sounds too black and white and questionable.

I don't think better follows from the evidence we have though, even if some flaws are avoided.


A lot. It is one thing to communicate, and it's another thing to achieve social goals. Societies need to coordinate towards common goals. This involves politics, and submission to authorities in many cases.


Well, there are reasons to think that some of our variances are a lack of recognition of NT social conventions and not anything wrong. The problem is that there are also a lot of.... issues that are harder to understand.

So, if I said to someone "Hey, you're getting heavy", there's a few different things I could be doing:
1) Informing them of their weight issue.
2) Trying to hurt their feelings.
3) Trying to put them down in front of their social peers.
4) Other. (A catch-all for things I didn't think of)

Now, NT's are very aware of reasons 2 and 3, and they recognize 2 and 3. Now, maybe society needs to be less sensitive, so 2 shouldn't matter. However, 3 is always going to matter. If there is a game-theoretic gain from using words that "seem" innocuous, but that really aren't, then there will be beings that will try to exploit this so long as they have the intelligence to do so. And there are game-theoretic gains from undermining the status of others, as in many political games, status is zero-sum.

So, part of the problems that Aspies and NTs have is that Aspies really do tend towards deficiency in many theory of mind issue causing poor communications on their part, while the more politically aware NTs can see the text and subtext in a lot of dialogue very quickly.

Of course neurotypicals will say that there are no autistic geniuses.

I think you might be a bit mistaken there. If they were superhuman they would excel both socially and academically.

Once autism becomes accepted then autistics will excel socially.

No they won't. That's insane, and many autistics have been recognized as geniuses by NT organizations.

So, for instance Vernon Smith, a reported autistic, is the holder of a Nobel Prize in Economics.(well, it's given a slightly different name but whatev) Now, Vernon Smith is autistic. A Nobel Prize is, in all but name, a recognition of genius. The Nobel Prize in Economics probably mostly involves NTs, and it's certainly recognized as relevant by NTs.

Not only that, but there are a number of tropes we have that appear to match autistic personality traits. Like the eccentric professor. Also, there are figures in popular TV that appear autistic, like Sheldon Cooper on Big Bang Theory is very often considered to portray autism due to his intense literalism, obsessiveness, need for routine, and a large number of other traits. He's also usually portrayed as the smartest guy on the show, a literal genius.