Traits that may be beneficial in milder versions can often be detrimental if too expressed. If you are working with software developers then there's a good chance that some of your colleagues falls on the spectrum. It's probably not something they go around telling people about, assuming they are even themselves aware.
I guess it is less bad for them to be in programming then in marketing, but normals still have it better.
Also, they are good in some thigs - great with routine, rarely make mistake, rarely inattentive, great memory. Then again, as a rule, they have less good abstract thinking which limits them a lot, goes into rage because programmer on unrelated project used slightly different code style.
If we are talking about people who are normally diagnosable, diagnosis is not exactly shock for people who work with them. You may not be able to guess diagnosis, but you are aware that the person is off.
People on the spectrum are clumsy systematically - agains bosses, against customers, and time it hurts them.
Alpha geeks act like jerks to get ahed - put down opposition without needing to argue, protect their social status or raiser popularity by being fun. People on the spectrum are not fun. They act like jerks unintentionally - they don't understand what they are doing.
General population for men is approx 1 in 42 boys are on the autism spectrum (https://www.autismspeaks.org/what-autism/faq)
There are roughly 2 million Americans on the autism spectrum and roughly 3.6 million software developers.
So for the counter claim to be true pretty much every single person with autism in the US must work in Software development.
Right, and if you read the link you provided, you will see that they said that number constitutes a ten-fold increase over the past 40 years, which can be at least partially attributed to improved diagnosis and awareness.
So the actual number is probably much higher.
Why? Can you please walk me through your reasoning?
Autism is now well known and fairly easily identifiable.
Child care centers, schools, etc all have staff who can identify development issues and will refer to a trained medical professional to diagnose. At least in moderately sized cities.
That was not the case 40 years ago.
Nevertheless, majority of those diagnosed are not particularly talented at programming or it just happened that they became obsessed over something else.
I'm merely asserting that the parent comment also likely isn't backed by enough information to make their claim either.
I'll happily be proved wrong by citations in either direction.
If you act angrily after being interrupted, then people will interrupt you less. People with high social skills do that intentionally for exactly that reason. The difference is in inability to control the bad reaction. Merely being rude and self centered is not enough (autistic come across like self centered, but that is oftentimes unfair).
Consider how we as humans treat other non-human creatures. Do we consider the intelligence of a chicken, for example? It's inconvenient to do so, as it would suddenly thrust upon us ethical considerations to how we treat them. We (some) would rather just factory farm and eat them.
Perhaps because of our own limitations (culling less likely useful streams of thought) we tend to disregard things we don't understand. That does not mean they are lacking in value. It just means we have not made much effort to ascertain their capabilities.
Consider this perspective. If you were a stock investor, how would you value a modern Beethoven? You might try to determine the potential value of sales of his creations, but you would likely disregard the non-financial value of his music. Does that mean his music was not worth much?
Humans have a tendency to disregard that which they do not understand.
This is not necessarily a counter-argument since it is limited to the sample size of those you know.
The argument supposes that there would be enough benefit to the upside traits of autism disorders to keep the genes in the gene pool.
Also, it's not clear how the genes work or how the spectrum of autism-related conditions might have offered beneficial side-effects to group survival.
Interestingly, I think it follows that only in animals with "culture" would we find such selection. I wonder if it occurs in dolphins or primates, etc.
It is serious condition. Most would simply die young.