Are Aspies more prone to being radicalised into terrorism?

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This just occurred to me today.

Maybe in cultures where terrorism is a well-known problem, Aspies are more vulnerable to being radicalised into such groups.

For instance, a lonely and niaive Aspie looking for people to like them, getting drawn in by a group of extremists. The extremists could take advantage of the Aspie's niaivety seeing that s/he was vulnerable convince them of their views which the Aspie would get easily drawn into.

I don't think so, while meny aspies are easly led(although this gets a little better after childhood I think) I think the aspie brain just works too independent to be brainwashed like that. I'm sure some have been brought into the fold however joining a large group, a social group and being told what to do and how to do it is not the type of thing I think most aspies good at, the aspies morles would have to be very messed up in all the right ways prior to being picked for it. Just don't see aspies being the ideal choice, we are not very moldable people.

I agree with rapidroy that brainwashing probably doesn't work as well on autistics.

However I could see how someone prone to obsessive behaviour could find themselves sucked into bad stuff if they become obsessed with a negative thing.

Is it always overt brainwashing though? The extremists are probably clever in the way they do it, and it's usually aligned with religion too, so the Aspie could be manipulated into thinking they were following their religion and not actually separate out the terrorist aspect of it. Don't forget that it's usually very young men who are recruited and at that age an Aspie hasn't yet found themselves so to speak, as we are often emotionally more immature than our same-age peers.

They couldn't even get me to join the debate team in high school.

I'm not really a "joiner."

Nor am I, however a lonely, obsessive person desperate to make friends could be "befriended" by terrorists and talked into things they wouldn't ordinarily do.

I'm not sure how useful especially an "active but odd" type of autistic would necessarily be to such an organisation though.

I don't really think so.
Autism and antisocial PD have just a very minor overlapp and it's not very common for autistics to be prone to violence.
Also some autistics very violent, but usually they were loners and not in terroistic groups.

Last edited by Raziel on 27 Apr 2013, 9:19 am, edited 1 time in total.

It might be difficult, if other Aspies are as resistant to hypnosis and sales pitches as I am.

I think Aspies are far too pragmatic in the long run to be controlled to that degree. I think the Aspie brain is too concentric to be manipulated to that degree. That type of conditioning could only be taken to such a degree, before it would collapse. Now, if the Aspie already had a predilection towards terrorism, then a fixation could probably be triggered.

What makes you think extremists are antisocial? My guess is most are not at all like sadistic psychopaths or typical con-men who completely lack a conscience. Those types of people are easy to demonize but I doubt most would be drawn to terrorist ideologies.

"With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. " - Steven Weinberg

However, I would replace "religion" with the more general category "ideology". All it really takes though is a feeling of rage at some perceived injustice and an ideology to channel that emotion. Psychopaths are so selfish that they aren't even all that bothered by injustice (unless it happens to inflict them of course) so they would be less likely to become terrorists and more likely to become con-men, petty criminals, or in the worst case sadistic serial killers.

No, people who become terrorists are angry and irrational people. They may not necessarily be bad to start with but get sucked in. Timothy McVeigh is a good example. I think he had good reason to be ticked off at how the FBI and US government handled the Waco situation, but it was absolutely sick and insane to think killing a bunch of completely innocent people who had absolutely nothing to do with that situation did anything for his cause.

Last edited by marshall on 27 Apr 2013, 9:36 am, edited 3 times in total.

I find the definition of terrorism quiet interesting. I am not sure however what people understand under such term. If terrorism is to mean an violent act against other humans in order to terrorise them, I think autistic people are uncapable of such thing. It needs to be pointed out that all people under certain circumstances can become violent. Like in case of assault an autist will defend him self. While terrorism has a very odd idealogy, I think in some cases an autistic individual may become terrorist. However I see it as very unlikely.

Maybe not antisocial, but I belief you need at least some traits to be able to kill inocent people.

I would imagine a "terrorist" would have to have a real sense of belonging to whatever the cause was, when do Aspies have a real sense of belonging?

I suppose there is a danger of the real producers of "terrorism" to give an Aspie a sense of belonging to a cause in order to get such a dupe to carry out their dirty work for them.

Or an Aspie who feels rather insignificant could feel important if the likes of the CIA or MI5 invite him to become part of a "terrorist exercise" were they have to carry around a rucksack containing a pretend bomb which turns out to be a real one that can be used to demonise whoever the real terrorists want to go to war with next which could well be the likes of us by the way, resistant as we are too their 1984 mold.

I don't know about other people with Asperger's, because I can't know what they think and I never talk on other people's behalf, but that wouldn't work on me.
As my mother says, it's easier to kill me than to convince me of something.
I don't remember being ever influenced by someone or changing my mind because of someone.

Surely from the very fact that there's so many borderline people with Aspergers ie people who dpon't even know they've got it and people who are unsure; this opens the field out to such a wide number of people that I'm sure before now there have been terrorists who have had Aspergers, whether they knew it or not.

Gary McKinnon did a form of hacking terrorism on American computer systems.

Generally when people with Aspergers commit violent crime it's usually on their own as by definition we are usually socially isolated

I don't buy this idea that we are in some way morally superior

people of all types have Aspergers and it's the less intelligent ones who often have less insight into their problems and are therefore more likely to not develop adequate coping strategies

Also, people who live in families/environments where mental health issues are stigmatised hence they are unlikely to ever get diagnosed like Shane Freer:-

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... nalds.html

Oh yes, I forgot - there has been an aspie terrorist - Nicky Reilly:-

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... ttack.html

"A brainwashed Muslim convert who tried to blow up a restaurant with nail bombs was jailed for a minimum of 18 years today.

Nicky Reilly, 22, who suffers from Asperger's syndrome and has a mental age of ten, was recruited by extremists over the internet before launching the bungled attack last year.

Carnage was avoided only because one of the devices exploded in Reilly's face as he prepared them in the toilet of the Giraffe restaurant in Exeter, just yards away from 20 customers.

Yesterday, detectives said they were still trying to hunt down the extremists who encouraged Reilly to carry out the attack, focusing on Pakistan.

Reilly, described as the 'least cunning' person ever to have been charged with terrorism, injured only himself in the blast in May last year.

He has since pleaded guilty to attempted murder and preparing an act of terrorism but sentencing was delayed for the preparation of psychiatric reports.

Reilly, of King Street, Plymouth, Devon, suffers from Asperger's syndrome and has learning difficulties"

So yes it can happen - it's when a person is less intelligent and easily led usually

What I want to know is how did he end up with an Asperger's Diagnosis with a mental age of 10?!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/oct/15/uksecurity1

This is one of my special interests! can you tell?

Better that I have an obsession with aspies who kill/try to kill than become one myself though surely?

Good handling of the subject, however the topic is a very sensitive one right now, and I'm pretty concerned about it being out on the "front page" of WP in General Discussion with a title like that.

It's a legitimate question to ask, but it could be asked about anybody, and I think casual browsers of the forum are more likely to see that and think "see, even THEY (Aspies) think they might be more likely to be radicalized, I knew I had a good reason to be afraid of them."

I hate how everything is framed in relation to terrorism now, isn't there more to life in this world?