Gender, and Aspergers judgementality

Post Reply New Topic

Love will do strange things to a man's mind, such as denying any obvious flaws in the object of his love.

"Cognitive Dissonance", I think it's called (?).

If it was someone else maybe i wouldn't question that he may be self diagnosed, but he has a history of grandstanding.

It may be completely innocent, just self analysis but we just don't know.

The Ukraine thing, he was asked by Ukraine to allow Starlink to cover Crimea & he was told an attack on Crimea may risk Nuclear war so he refused on the grounds that it would put US cities & people at risk.

I believe he still allows coverage for the rest of Ukraine.

The root of most resentment is all the envy towards the privilege envy, and the survivors in the survivorship bias' lack of admittance to their luck.

To boil it down, comparison.
'X had it easier, Y had it harder.'

Whether it's because of genders' dating pool or a celebrities' wealth and all the nurture it gave to that particular person -- and the other doesn't.


I can admit a lot of things.
Envy is not one of them because they're rare to me.


I envy people who were raised an easier life with more accessible opportunities, and happened to be competent enough to maintain it.

I envy people who can play their cards right or that their cards favor them to not need to play at all.

I envy people who can just work hard, then will be rewarded for it -- that's not the reality for some people, let alone those who never had to work harder to achieve something at all.

I envy people who are free, unbound by their circumstances. Whether it's the lack of handicap, or having a workaround at all.

And no, not 'attitude', it's belief.
And beliefs... Like luck, it's questionably voluntary.

Doesn't matter if the person is a saint or an opportunistic bastard. They 'have' it, others don't.
Could care less if they're autistic or not -- they have something many others want.

Validating the Old Adage : " Beauty is in the Eye of the beholder" ....?

Carlos,
Yes, he is indeed doing a lot of good things.
About the grandstanding. I don´t think it is grandstanding to admit being on the spectrum. This like reverse pathology of diseases and conditions, that walfare societies have become. That is a problem. The system is always finding new ways to validate itself. The newst fab being that there are plenty of genders.



Edna,
Yes, its tempting just to say it´s envy, or a belief.
The resentment is another thing.
Of course it matters if he has Aspergers syndrome. Why should anybody try to understand ASD, if not even people with ASD dont want to do that?

I'm not even talking about the person named Elon Musk...

I don't know him except that he's privileged and one of those lucky ones, like many others featured by the media because those people are the survivors of survivorship biases, attaining whatever influence and power.

I could care less if he's autistic or not. I'm not involved in his life and I'm not involved in his.
To me he's no different from anyone. Nothing to me stands out about him.

As for his influence...
I could care less if he's hell bent on burning the world for pleasure and commit terrorism, or some zen person who contributes to more than 80% of charity and aspiring for world peace.

I'm not obsessed with anyone else's life and what they did or will do to the world.
I do not speak for anyone else. I could care less if a mob if aspies decided to lynch anyone.

I'd just say, being out of the spotlight is a blessing, so no fool would go obsessing my life about.


The sense of right and wrong -- is also to do with beliefs. Think of all the common circumstances that lead many aspies into such thought.

Sympathy might not be one of them traits to nurture in such circumstances.

Unless many aspies were all taught to forgive, not put up with crap, having to fight dehumanization and discrimination, on top of refusing to be listened to because of sh***y comorbidities mistaken for "being autistic".

Understanding and common connections do not necessarily foster sympathy -- it can turn something even worse.

In the end, to me, there are only two people in such categories of being judgemental; those who can afford to, and those who don't.

I largely agree with funeralxempire. He's an arrogant pillock. He's clearly autistic, I see my younger self in his awkwardness, but that is not a free pass to behave like a jerk, especially when you own a media empire. He's not a genius, just lucky. At his age he should have learned by now when to speak and when not to. But money gives you license to behave badly.

But I feel sorry for him, he seems to be a very lonely and sad person. My father used to say (and I firmly believe he was autistic, looking back), "Think before you open your mouth." I'm sure Musk regrets much of what he posts online, as many people do.

If Elon was a supermarket shelf-stacker called Dave, nobody here I think would criticise him for saying the things he does or behaving as he does. The salient characteristic about him is not his autism, it's his bank balance. I have no problem with Billionaires, untill they abuse their position of prominence.

I don't think Elon Musk is a nice guy. The majority of powerful and financial successful people are not nice guys if you ask me. What sets Elon Musk apart is that he shows autistic traits while most other powerful people in the public sphere shows more psychopathic or narcissistic traits. He is not superficially polite or charming. I prefer someone like him, a straight talking guy with some troublesome views and behaviours, over some smiling bullshitting guy saying political correct things for the camera.

Will the persecution of poor helpless Billionaires EVER end?

I am not sure if Baron-Cohen has improved regarding his bias of autism being an extreme version of a male brain which is nonsense, but given the amount of women who come out as diagnosed very late in their life clearly shows that there is so much more to autism than just one gene on the X or Y chromosome. I am not saying this research isn't important, but the conclusions drawn in this thread about this research and how autism impacts men and women seem to be strenuous at best.



I genuinely don't understand why you are apologetic of Elon Musk just because he's said he's autistic. Being autistic does not make you less responsible for acting harmful to others, especially since Musk is an adult man in his 50s and has led a very successful life up to this point. I dare say the only kind of people who get a pass when they're acting like as*holes and blame it on a potential mental health-related problem are men, and more notoriously, influential white middle-aged men. Somehow we should pity them when they screw up in life as if they're not adult enough to take responsibility of the harm they're causing others. Elon Musk is literally allowing far right extremism on Twitter to fester, and the harm this causes to the democratic foundations of our society and the minorities the far right targets which includes us btw, cannot be understated.

I don't care that Elon Musk's father was also an as*hole to his son, because that does not excuse Elon from being an as*hole himself. If his father was an as*hole, he should have learned by working on himself and do better. Also, a lot of Elon's successes do not come from him. His work on PayPal shouldn't be completely ignored, but he's mostly used his inherited wealth to buy himself into further wealth, which is usually how wealthy people become more wealthy, btw.

Finally, I want to add that the narrative that we should excuse Elon Musk's unethical behavior just because he's diagnosed with autism is exactly the infantilizing narrative that's used against autistic people in all other spheres of life, where you're considered unable to make decisions for yourself and care for yourself. Being a person with agency does not just mean that you have the capacity to make your own decisions, but it also means to have the capacity to deal with the consequences of them.

You write of Elon as if he's a big manchild and you're right, he is acting like a big manchild, but whereas you want to excuse him acting like a mindchild because he has autism, I say he should be held responsible for acting like a manchild by telling him to grow up, autism or not. Again, he's a grownup man in his 50s. He has adult children. Cognitively speaking, there's nothing that actually stops him from being able to deal with the consequences of his social faux pas outside that he just doesn't want to. But not wanting to is not a good enough excuse, not when it harms other people. He could stop harm other people by actually take responsibility and fix things like an adult person would, but he refuses.

I've seen a lot of white dudes like Elon blow up the way he does btw. This is explicitly a white dude problem because white dudes are so damn insecure in their role as white dudes while acting super entitled because they're white dudes they can't accept a situation where being a white dude isn't good enough anymore in order to get what they want. This becomes very obvious the moment you actually begin to look at what opinions Elon tweets about say, South Africa.

Tl;dr autism does not prevent a person from being an as*hole and it does not automatically excuse a person from being an as*hole.

Simon Baron cohen is not really a neuroscientist rather a psychologist so his biological knowledge of the brain lacks that of his peers.

Much of his ideas about autism can be summed up as armchair pipe smoking theories with little scientific evidence.

He recently said we should thank autism for giving humans the ability of systemising.

I’m eagerly awaiting his next likely theory of thanking serial killers for giving humans the ability to suspend empathy

While male / female autism can display differently you cannot discount societal gender norms where some autistic traits like shyness were considered a virtue in females.

Also until fairly recently female expectations didn’t extend beyond reaching a minimal education and finding a good husband so again autistic traits were never picked up as no one listened to opinions of women on serious matters.

I absolutely agree with you. I think Devon Price summed it up well in "Unmasking Autism" how it doesn't just hurt women with autism, but it also hurts boys who are less typically masculine. Being unable to separate gender from a mental health diagnosis is just harmful at every level, especially when the only purpose of a mental health diagnosis serves is to ensure that the patient receives the right treatment.

From Chapter 2 of his latest biography: "He was never diagnosed as a child" says his mother, "but he says he has Asperger's syndrome and I'm sure he's right.". I was sure he was ASD after listening to his first biography (by Ashlee Vance). He did not come out as ASD in the first biography, but wink-wink nod-nod it was made obvious to anyone who knows ASD.

I too am dismayed by the harsh rebuke Elon gets from autistic people. And I don't think people even know the half of his people-skill problems. I see his biggest fault as not knowing his limitations. Everyone who knew him well tried to dissuade him from buying Twitter but he wouldn't listen.

I don't doubt Elon can have some quite strong autistic traits and still have achieved what he did. I wonder if that is what even autistic people cannot accept. I don't call him a "genius" either. I think he is a visionary who can think outside the box and also very intelligent.

Genious at using others ideas and money ...with the help and influence of his dad ..??. ..?.

Are we supposed to give an insufferable as*hole a pass simply because they also have ASD?