zuckerberg is "borderline autistic"????

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this is really starting to get on my nerves, first the banking thing and now the thing with facebook policies being unethical and bait and switch, this little 'meme' needs to be nipped in the bud

"A forthcoming Aaron Sorkin movie about Zuckerberg "portrays Zuckerberg as a borderline autistic, entirely ruthless conniver."

finance.yahoo.com - With Zuckerberg Privacy Controversy, Facebook's Bad Image is Getting Worse

"Conniving" equals autistic? WTF? Seems usually very, very much the opposite. More like "guileless."

Have to agree, this is really irritating, and I notice it's not even the same writer as was mentioned in the other thread. Where are the hell are these writers getting that notion.

Never in my entire life, has anybody that I've known, considered me to be conniving. I'm quite the opposite.

I'm not surprised at this. Not at all. The public is ill-informed about autism.

Autism is a horrible disorder afflicting cute 6 year old white boys who flap their hands, scream, don't listen to parents, and have to attend special schools.

Or at least that's the popular opinion. If they'd believe that, they'd also accept conniving autistics.

This is worse than just "autistic kids are brats that ruin marriages," though -- it's "autistic people are conniving liars and cheats. People with no conscience." It's as if autistic is a new synonym for "sociopath," according to these authors. I can't think of a characterization so perfectly backwards.

I've just finished reading a book (most of which I agree with) by a respected geographer about the financial crisis and general ills of society; lo and behold, there's a mention of bad guys (as in greedy pig bankers and corporate types) as behaving "in an almost autistic way" but it's alright because "autistic people don't have a choice" - after that point he generally refers to the bad guys as exhibiting "psychopathic" traits instead. It's becoming tiresome fast.

I just did a quick bit of research about this Sorkin chap. He defended what many are describing as a homophobic review by a theatre critic by claiming the problem is that the media and public now expect and pay too much heed to personal information about public figures. He has one paragraph in which he states the following:

link
The irony is that this could describe anyone with an Autistic Disorder and Mr Sorkin is sure not helping us by trying to pry into and portray in a very public manner Zuckerberg's neuro-status (or the suspicions of unqualified folk in respect thereof).

Why is it any more legitimate in Mr Sorkin's mind to serve up someone's (alleged or suspected) neuro-status as though it is the property and fodder of the public when he seems to think we should not do this with a person's sexual orientation, personal habits whether or not they are an alcoholic, or the current status of their love life? Indeed why is that when someone in the media asserts a homosexual actor cannot "play heterosexual" everyone gets up in arms, but when a different "journalist" suggests elsewhere that it is the public's business whether or not a Prime Minister is Autistic, because (to paraphrase) the public have a right to make (knee jerk and uninformed) judgements on this basis, no one raises so much as an eyebrow?

It's no longer trendy to discriminate and spew bile on someone for their ethnicity or their sexuality, but it's apparently more trendy and acceptable than ever to do the same on the basis of any neurological difference and, it would appear, Autistic difference in particular. In my opinion, people like Sorkin seem to want to think of themselves as tolerant of difference (and would probably be offended to be included alongside the Savages of this world), but to me it appears that they are only tolerant of difference that it is unpopular and currently "different" to discriminate against. If everyone else discriminates against a characteristic, all tolerance seems to fly out the nearest window.

Or maybe it is not Sorkin who is the problem, but Max Fisher. Who exactly is inserting Autism here? Is it a descriptive from those producing the film or something Fisher is inserting? Either way I think the above quote of Sorkin's is aptly applied to us and it's past time people stopped viewing us as an exception to the wrongness of discrimination, including public mischaracterization.

As an added irony, note that in the linked to (above) page, you are invited to use "Facebook" to connect in order to leave comments on Sorkin's article. I wonder if people will be invited to connect and purchase tickets to Sorkin's upcoming movie about Zuckerberg through Facebook.

Last edited by pandd on 14 May 2010, 9:46 pm, edited 1 time in total.

It is not so much the "connivingness" that I protest in associated him with the phrase "borderline autistic", as I do know that many of those with HFA/AS have a very rigid and literal understanding of laws and use those laws as their ethical framework.

However I'm skeptical of his supposed condition due to my inability to comprehend how someone with HFA/AS can posses the level of social aptitude that is required to promote and fund a social networking cite with such business connections as Facebook has.

I've had the opportunity to meet a few of the facebook/silicon valley people and they are all quite nice, lovely people, but they are also very socially in tune and able to form social connections and seem very well versed at the art of concept communication.

Wherease when I was trying to launch my web based company in the late 90's I was met with a bunch of people who didn't know what I was talking about, and the proverbial door slammed in my face.

As these very soon thereafter proved to be multi-billion dollar ideas, I'm faced with the considering only three options as to why I am still poor.

1. People think little of the intellectual and technological abilites of a 16 year old girl.
2. I'm lacking some type of ability in the realm of real life social networking.
3. All of the above.

Zuckerberg has no respect for or understanding of people's need for privacy. no way he is an aspie.

you've all covered how idiotic, damaging, and misinformed that statement was from all other angles, so i don't have anything else to add.

yeah the irony of that cannot be overstated.


I am still so pissed about this.

Society just CANNOT accept it's sociopaths. The sociopath is sexy and charming and ignites the fire in the britches so the sociopath gets off scot-free, and now autistics are being scapegoated because as per usual society doesn't want to believe the eyes can be so wrong about something. Zuckerberg is an a-hole, he's proven that time and again, and it has nothing to do with autism.

So the worlds No 1 socialising site is created by someone "autistic-like". The irony is delicious.

If I were to a conspiracy theorist, I would say Zuckerberg is a genius who knew very well that the social mind is an easily exploitable one and has got everyone addicted to the quaint notion of "Friends" and "Likes".

But I'm not a conspiracy theorist. Or am I?

If you are a journalist and you wrote that crap, please understand this.

Borderline Autistic is an inaccurate label. Please use Asperger Syndrome or High Functioning Autism as an tag, but don't ever use borderline autistic.

However, what do you care.... somone must have pay you to write crap.

well, that label was contrived just so they could deflect those negative anti-social traits onto autistics, i.e. not someone who has ever been suspected of it but just someone who has these sociopathic leanings and then society doesn't have anything in the wrong categories as usual (i.e. this horrible person is *very different* from me, i.e. 'autistic'...no he isn't, he is just you to the nth power, you magnified). I am seriously getting tired of this and I hate to see it become a trend, Zuckerberg to autistics is like Tom Cruise to gays, DO NOT WANT. Seriously, if this was a gay issue GLAAD would be all over this, (gay and lesbian alliance against defamation), is there any organization that functions as a kind of rep and media filter for autism, I know people aren't crazy about autism speaks but they need to get out in front of this garbage before it gets ingrained in the mind of john q. public that somehow all these ruthless greedy bastards that spring fully formed from the head of capitalism are actually 'autistic' and that is to 'blame' for their lack of ethics and morality. (...cue the Randians, lol).

Some people on the spectrum can be very conniving, even if you are not. I don't think being conniving is a bad trait for people on the spectrum to have - it certainly increases chances and opportunities...

I didn't do, or say anything wrong.