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Comment by Loughla | Hacker News Reader

The phrase "weaponized autism" used to be a thing on 4chan when I cruised that back in the day.

It honestly opened my eyes to a severely under-tapped resource in the job market. Individuals with autism tend to be able to focus on tasks more, and tend to see things in a way that lets them analyze systems and logical steps phenomenally well. In the social-sciences fields, they tend to be overlooked, because of either the stigma or actual lack of interpersonal abilities, depending on the specific individual.

It is because of 4chan that when I am hiring for technical positions (now, this is higher ed, so I'm talking about the interpretation of federal legislation or state mandates, or systems and process evaluations, not programming) I target individuals on the spectrum.

What a weird thing to see written out.

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I love the phrase "weaponized autism" as well, speaking as someone on the spectrum. A previous manager of mine once told me I am great with coming up with unique solutions to problems.

Like you said too, some of these people lack good interpersonal abilities. I know a friend who is also on the spectrum and is one of the smartest people I know, and excellent when it comes to math. However his lack of interpersonal and social skills has made it difficult for him to find meaningful employment.

As someone with ADHD, I'm kind of a kissing cousin to autism (they share some genetic indicators [https://www.spectrumnews.org/news/risk-genes-autism-overlap-...] and some but not all symptoms; I certainly don't claim to understand the unique struggles of being a person with autism of course) and can relate to the benefits of different types of intelligence. I can be smart as a whip when it comes to finding solutions to technical problems, and if you find me the right project I can (unintentionally) hyperfocus and tear through it. But man, I am not your person for organizational skills or planning skills.

I wish there were a way to be more open about this. On the one hand, you have things like ADA really dictating from a legal perspective how companies can discuss these sort of things; on the other hand, you have very real stigmas that people have against neurodiverse people. (For instance, I have not and will never tell my boss I have ADHD; I have heard far too many stories of people being lulled into thinking it was safe to do so and then finding their professional relationship irrevocably changed.) It's a shame because I think it could be a net positive for all if done in a healthy way.

I've started to just own my ADHD as a way to destigmatize it. I'm your go-to for breadth-first search, latest tools and frameworks, creative solutions, and wielding everything from soldering irons to cloud deployments. But you might need to ride my ass a bit to stay on task.

It also has pushed me to a very CI/CD-centric and statically typed workflow (in a python-heavy AI/CV department), because I need to be able to reason about stuff I wrote on a bad brain-fog day. My philosophy is if it's easy for undermedicated me to reason about it, it's easier still for my coworkers.

Just a heads up that that phrase has been heavily adopted by the QAnon conspiracy community, and using it without context might give the wrong impression.

As someone on the spectrum I really loved the phrase "weaponized autism". I've been telling people most my adult life that high functioning autism is kind of like having a weird super power, but that was the first time I ever saw so many people understand the unique abilities that some people on the spectrum have.

Exactly how I describe it! A super power but one most people can't even recognize.

As someone on the spectrum, I approve this message. I wish society was a meritocracy.

Or just more understanding of different types of intelligence.

Just a heads up the term meritocracy was actually coined to describe an impossibility, since all judgement of worth in society is subjective.

Even if you pick an objective metric, it was decided upon subjectively and with bias.

I can appreciate wanting society to be more egalitarian, but perhaps you’re in search of another word.

So is egalitarianism.

Some agencies are well aware of the benefits of neurodiversity!

https://www.gchq.gov.uk/information/daring-to-think-differen...

60 Minutes had a segment on this exact topic of employment for people with autism and their talents

https://youtu.be/YnAUy4BM0w8

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