People with Autism Solve the World's Problems?

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So I had an idea and I'm curious to know what others think. Us Aspies have obsessions, right? And there are things we tend to be better at than NTs are. I just found out I have Asperger's about 5 weeks ago, what I'm wondering is can you control those obsessions? I've never really been able to but I didn't know I had this, I'm thinking maybe now that I know, I could. What if a bunch of Autistic people pointed those obsessions and gifts at some of the world's problems?

I'm a software engineer and I've done web design. What I'm thinking is a website structured like a forum but structured around particular topics / problems. Within each topic people could post their research, chat with others who are interested in the same problem, and just maybe solve something that NT's haven't been able to solve. I could build this quite easily in a couple weeks, would it be worth my time? Would anyone else be interested in participating? I'd want the management of such a site to be much more democratic than it just being my site, although I could pay for it.

Thanks for any thoughts or advice.

Why don't you just start up such a Site?

By the way: I am of the belief that NT's need autistic people, and autistic people need NT's in order to solve the world's problems.

That's what I was thinking of doing, I just thought I'd get others opinions first. If others think it's a good idea, I'll get started on building it.

It's a good idea. But you do have to moderate it extensively. Forums, by their very nature, attract the trolls.

You've been an Aspie for 5 weeks. When you've been an Aspie for five months you'll realize how futile your endeavor is. Aspies and NTs trying to mix is like oil and water. Aspies and Aspies trying to mix is like fire and dynamite. Have you ever seen the vitriol spewed on WP? Our extreme sense of strong wills and inflexibility makes working together challenging.

In other news, the suspected Aspies who were huge contributors to the world pretty much worked alone - Turing, Tesla, Einstein, Mozart, DaVinci, etc. Yeah, we're definitely pioneers, just solitary in nature.

http://rosieclaverton.com/2014/04/25/in ... riley-asd/

I've had Asperger's for almost 43 years, not 5 weeks. I've only known it had a name for five weeks. And I understand I don't know much, which is why I asked.

Plus, maybe it could be designed in a way that allows individual work, research, experimentation on a given problem or solution but provided the tools needed to easily review others work on the subject and collaborate if you want to.

You should start the site and see what happens.
In my opinion, it may be successful as a discussion forum, but unlikely that people will do much concrete stuff to solve a problem.
Concrete doing usually requires offline action and cooperation, but perhaps your site could start something offline, if a few motivated people do something.

If you've had AS for 43 years and not solved the world's problems so far, why will you manage it now just because you have a label?

The problem with such a forum would be that it's too diluted. People will gravitate toward forums dedicated to the things they are most interested in anyway, and I doubt many serious problems have been solved on a forum so far. Pretty sure the cure for cancer will come from a lab, not from a forum. If you want to use your skills then maybe you can come up with other ideas that may work better. Everyone and their dog has their own forum, people get burned out with forums, it's hard to get them off the ground.

Never hurts to try, I always say.

I've been autistic for 55 years.

I don't see any reason why this would or should be autism specific. Open source collaborative research is the way of the future and is already happening. I understand your vision, but would recommend some change of direction.

1) Emphasis on neurodiverse collaboration. No single subset of humans is as effective as the whole scope.

2) An addition of a wiki style page for members to fill in. Research scattered to the far ends of a growing forum is useless.

3) Seeking prompt formal connection with an institution or professor. Without an authority and/or built in userbase, it'll just be another dead web project. This will also help you with #4

Edit:

4) A formal vetting and peer review process. A hub of poorly constructed and performed research is just a formal sounding cesspool of misinformation. The current peer review process is extremely flawed, but the basic idea is essential to good science.

I find the idea interesting. If you end up making this website please notify.

Just going to let you know that most if not all of the world's problems have already been identified and the solutions have already been presented. The real issues are in psychological-resistance to changes for the better, the greed within humanity, and the "sin" (i.e.: Negative-Emotions) that still exist within the vast majority of the human-species (such that the Emotions over-power Rational-Decisions). With that having been said...

...just put together your own tutorials/lessons/lectures/educational-materials for free public-access.

It is quite unlikely that any one Forum will solve the world's problems.

But isn't it better to least make a little scintilla of an impact? Than to make no impact at all?

Really good advice, if I move forward, I'll definitely keep in mind. Thank you. A type of Wiki was part of what I was thinking, I love the expansion beyond just Autism and I could easily build in a peer review system, I've managed the creation of some pretty large workflow / project management / approval software packages in the past. Also, I was thinking some sort of membership system would eliminate the troll problem, or at least reduce it. I'd have to give it more thought though as it would create issues as well.

As for partnering with an institution or professor, that would probably be much more difficult. I'm good with software, not so much with people or organizations. I agree it's a fantastic idea, just don't know if it's something I could accomplish. I'm also not always great at coming up with practical ideas (like the peer review system, I wouldn't have thought of it) so there would be areas I'd have to find help with. I can make a computer do just about anything somebody wants it to do, but coming up with the ideas and features isn't necessarily my thing. I may have friends who are willing to help, I just started thinking about this today.

And back to the point of trolls, in regards to others comments...at what point in my previous post did you see where I said I thought I could solve the worlds problems? All I said was I thought I could build a website, and even that, I asked for help and advice for because I know I'm not qualified to solve any of the worlds problems on my own. I'm just trying to find something positive I can do with my time.

Any other thoughts or suggestions about the idea would be greatly appreciated. Feel free to keep your comments about me personally to yourself.

In addition to peer-reviewed research articles, I would also make a provision for there to be anecdotal accounts which either prove or debunk the articles. And which also serve as a complement to the formal research

I believe, in order for it to have the desire effect, one would have to insert into your proposed Forum more than just research articles.

One of the problems pertaining to autism awareness is that it has not trickled down to the general populace, by and large. Part of the reason is because "the new autism" has not been presented, by and large, in ways comprehensible to the general population. Instead, the general population has been given doses of the "old autism" as one disorder, rather than a Spectrum of disorders.

There should be a glossary which explains certain research terms, like ANOVA, for example. In case somebody reading the forum is interested, but has not had access to formal research.