Autism is a “disorder” only because the world is neurotypical | Hacker News Reader

Autism is a “disorder” only because the world is neurotypical

andarilhoacordado.medium.com

20 pointsanandad65 comments

I'm fairly confident that non-verbal autistic people would be extremely happy to be able to effectively communicate with other people. And I'm sure autistic children with extreme touch sensitivity would love to be able to get a haircut without being in pain. My autistic relative would be much better off of they were able to learn how to live independently as easily as everyone else can, without having to take classes on it and live at home for much longer than everyone else.

Not every autistic person is like Elon Musk. Many (maybe the majority) have significant difficulties in their life, which are not just due to a personality difference.

Not sure why there is this push to make it not considered a disorder. Just because you have a disorder doesn't mean you are worth any less than other people, or that you can't accomplish great things. It just means you will have extra challenged in your life. Acknowledging that isn't a bad thing, in my opinion. I'm not autistic though, so my opinion is somewhat less informed, although even one autistic person can't speak for everyone.

I am autistic, my brother is too...I was raised by my self mostly (grandparents were guardians, but no rules/etc)...he had an IEP, people were aware he was "different" and it shows in his behavior now. I didn't go far in school after H.S. - but decided to learn to code and get a job programming. Paid off greatly.

My brother finished a degree in college, and lives with mom, and works as a stock-boy though he has a similar degree as my career in digital design, etc.

She cut his food for him last time I saw him when I was like 22, we went out to dinner...he seemed embarrassed but just let her do it.

I left home at 22, got married at 25, had kids at 38, found out I had ADHD and Autism at 38. I presumed I might, because a lot of people with it told me I did, and I guess it makes sense in retrospect...

Sure there's a lot of more severe cases, but most people with autism, you'd really not notice they had it...I don't give a shit about Musk, I used to be a fan, but lately he's become a bit of a jerk, so not a fan-boy any longer....I couldn't say with a surety he really is one, or just wants to pretend he's part of the self-proclaimed "autists" of WSB fame as his "group".

My point: The borderlines like myself, my son, my brother... I wonder if it's better we just hide in the cracks or something and blossom on our own than be stigmatized by IEPs, "oh you poor autistic reject of society"... my son is super smart, he's a freaking sponge, he just sometimes has outbursts, quirks, raging tempers, or the world becomes "too loud"... I get that too. I still have what feel like 2-year old overwhelming tantrums that bubble up when I'm over-stimulated...

I've thrown a Wendy's Frosty at the wall in one of my previous homes because I was upset about something... (not the first time either).

I got therapy and found out ways to cope with it as an adult, we had my son in therapy and they were using a dog whistle and training him with treats like he was fucking pavlov's dog....we fired the therapists pretty dang quick.

I think this is a Hollywood view of autism - its not like that in real life, sure there's some people on the spectrum that are genius, but there are a lot that aren't and have more significant life challenges.

Came here to say this. My best friends daughter is 10, and non-verbal. She can barely dress herself and can't tie her shoes. It's heartbreaking.

For every Elon Must there has to be a hundreds of thousands of kids like this.

But for every kid like this there could be 10 austistic people with average or even above average IQ.

Honestly I don't know but if autism is due to genetic differences then greater proportion will be with slight deviations from normal population.

In fact, Elon Must said that he has Asperger's. Some prefer to avoid this label but I find it very useful to actually distinguish autistic people with average IQ (or better) from really disabled.

I agree. I was diagnosed with high-functioning autism when I was younger, and assumed that autism referred to people fairly similar to me.

Then my daughter was born. She's extremely low-functioning with only basic non-verbal communication (pulling me to the door means "let's go outside"; pulling me to the kitchen means "I'm hungry"). We've done PECS boards, AAC devices, ASL, etc, and she'll use them occasionally but they frustrate her. She has almost no instinct of self-preservation and a fascination with water, so will eagerly jump into a body of water if she has the chance; likewise when we go for a walk she doesn't understand that she can't just run out into traffic. Screaming and self-injury are constant and extreme.

Which is to say that I don't think she and I have the same condition. Maybe there's a common genetic basis, but her quality of life is unimaginably worse. I get annoyed often by the 'disability advocates' who more resemble me and want to speak for people like her.

Yeah, the mention of the "super brain" sure sounds like it.

I work in a caregiver setting for people with autism, I agree with this. Some percentage of high functioning people this would apply to, but many of them just wouldn't survive childhood in any other setting.

I was a volunteer in the place helping parents of autistic children. Sure, there are autistic people able to study / work / write books (I knew at least one), but for many just a gentle touch makes their nervous system short circuit. In their case sentence "Autistic individuals don’t have any difficulty communicating with another autistic" is just a lie, it's like there was an invisible bubble wrapping them and separating them from the world we know.

Autism has comorbidities like digestive problems, sleep problems, seizures, sensory issues, and weight control. One sees mental health issues like anxiety, depression, and increased rates of burnout which do not seem to be merely environmentally caused. You might be able to spin something like anxiety as a sometimes benefit, but it's hard to spin regular digestive issues as being some kind of useful variation.

The author gets it right that how autistic people work mentally isn't so much inferior as it is unpopular. You can go to a psychologist talking about how difficult digestive pain and sleeplessness are for you and they will mull about how awful it must be to be so socially awful since everybody must dislike me.

People are absolutely obsessed with the idea of the social inferiority of autistics, despite evidence that they're superior at social tasks like empathizing with other autistic people [1]. Autistics can regularly show bizarrely strong "social skills" like having an immense vocabulary, overall high verbal intelligence, or perhaps a steeltrap memory for personal facts about others. People give no value to these things arbitrarily. Nowadays I can go to a hirevue interview and be algorithmically denied a job because my eye contact is poor and my large vocabulary is actually a negative because it's unusual and thus not similar to the vocab of a companies "best hires". Rather than people going "what the fuck do we actually have legal minority filtering software being used by nominally reputable companies like major banks" people are more concerned that autistics are acting too different and should be more normal.

Yet the comorbidities which impact health makes me suspect that the disorder label is still useful especially because it can lead to accommodations regarding scheduling, workplace conditions, diet, and such. We don't have a conceptual alternative to disorder/disability that allows for the accommodations needed to help people succeed. I haven't even touched on the people who have severe issues and can't live independently or provide for themselves.

[1] https://www.autism.org.uk/advice-and-guidance/professional-p...

The problems related to eating are likely because culture around eating is very "neurotypical."

That's a pretty vague assertion. I definitely I know autistic people who just eat nothing but macaroni and cheese or something with tons of choice available to them. I don't think culture is forcing people into these problems.

One of the theories around autism and eating is that it's related to alexthymia, which also prevents you from feeling your own emotions, but also impairs non-emotional perception like hunger or digestive signals. I've heard theories such as that this could be caused by poor filtering autistic people have of information within their body and general information overload.

I've also heard the theory that autistic people having sensory abnormalities can have unusual food preferences that can lead them to have poor diets and that can cause other health issues. I've even seen this happen indirectly where somebody avoided buying chicken breast because they can't handle the sliminess while preparing it. Not only have I seen this repeatedly both online and in life experience it's something I sometimes see openly defended on the grounds that an autistic person forcing down a balanced diet may be tortoruous depending on the nature of their issues. This is one of those "hmm, perhaps some of these people may have some problems and maybe not everything is a cultural construct" moments I had that really formed these experiences.

Generally autism also correlates to low executive functioning which itself correlates to poor weight control and diet.

I have a lot of sympathy for education about neurodiversity and any form of spreading acceptance of those who are different than ourselves or what’s considered normal. However, as another comment mentioned, this seems overly reflective of a Hollywood depiction of autism and the supposed hidden intellectual super powers of autistic individuals. Autism is a wide spectrum and seems to only be widening as we understand more about neurodevelopment. Some people with severe autism will never be independent, complete a basic education, or even verbally communicate. Yet others may find themselves only being diagnosed as adults and/or achieve traditional metric of success. Not that one or the other, or being neurotypical, is an assessment of an individual’s value to their colleagues, friends, or family. I think Mark Rober’s recent video in reference to his son addresses this well.

What irks me about this article is that autism could be replaced with practically any other identity. Different perspectives, hard workers, curious individuals are always valued whether neurotypical, neurodiverse, or of any other identity.

“Let them…”, “Make them…”, etc. I get the impression the author thinks “neurotypicals” should handle autistic people like pets or slaves.

I think the author confuses a literal spectrum of behaviors with their clinical labels. The DSM is a diagnostic tool, not a catalog of identity labels.

That's kind of a hurtful thing to say about the author who I'm sure has good intentions. People who reach to medical literature for a sense of identity it's symptomatic of a deeper issue that deserves a certain degree of compassion, although in the case of aspergers syndrome I don't people would embrace it as an identity if they knew what it used to be called. Elon Musk was hiding it this whole time.

I think it’s “hurtful,” or at least ignorant, to imply that people with autism spectrum disorders need to be allowed or made to do anything. Good intentions aside, bad information doesn’t help anyone.

I was diagnosed as “borderline autistic” as a child and was later told I showed signs of Asperger’s. I’ve never thought of it as an identity, just a glitch in my personality. It’s a disorder in the sense that it sometimes interferes with how I deal with people and situations, but I wouldn’t call it disabling. I’ve known people with far worse symptoms.

The author claims “ Autistic individuals don’t have any difficulty communicating with another autistic.” That makes me wonder how much the author knows about severe autism. I agree with the previous posts about the author presenting a Hollywood version, equating often debilitating autism spectrum disorders with “Rain Main” superintelligence or idiot savants. It should be obvious that Elon Musk functions at a very high level. I don’t think he makes a good poster boy for autistics.

And how did people like the author treat you as a child?

I don’t know what the author is like, so I can’t say. I’ve shared all I’m willing to share about my life. Like everyone else, I’ve had to deal with my personality quirks. Like everyone else I’ve had to adapt and learn how to get along in the world. I don’t identify myself with diagnostic names attached to symptoms.

But that's exactly what makes you different, according to the medical literature. Normal people deal with their personality quirks without thinking about it. That's what makes them normal. With you, it required an act of willpower. Just like, if normal people wanted to innovate, it would require an act of willpower on their part; whereas for you, you've been doing it your whole life.

But I'm not different in that respect. Everyone has different abilities. No individual is "normal," that's a statistical artifact. Everyone has personality quirks, whether they are aware of them or not, and has to adapt their personality constantly. I don't think of my quirks and shortcomings as disabilities or medical issues, anymore than I would think a left-handed person has a disorder, even if they aren't (statistically) normal.

That's not to say everyone who suffers from autism or any other physical or mental disorder can just will themselves to overcome it, or adapt -- some people have seriously debilitating problems. I have been around severely autistic children and I can't compare my experience to theirs, like I can't compare my inability to dance to someone in a wheelchair.

"Normal" people innovate all the time, I imagine that takes an act of willpower for everyone. I haven't been innovating my whole life, just dealing with it one day at a time like everyone else does.

Not being able to dance is another thing the medical literature says people in your position can't do, along with orthography. Have you considered that willpower is uncommon in people, due to how willfulness is traditionally punished and killed by centuries of war? That seems to be why autistic people usually don't change and why neurotypical people usually don't innovate.

I think we’re going out into the weeds. I’m not looking for explanations or excuses. I can’t dance because I never cared to learn, not because I’m physically unable to do it. I have played sports and done other activities that require coordination. I got top score on my verbal/written SAT so orthography isn’t a problem for me either. The mistake would be saying to myself “I have Asperger’s so I can’t dance or write,” which would just be making excuses.

I don’t think willpower is uncommon, that’s not my experience. I don’t know what war has to do with it — consider the willpower required to participate in that kind of conflict, or survive it. What evidence do you have that “autistic people don’t change” and “neurotypical people don’t innovate?”

To pump up the meme that people diagnosed with autism or Asperger’s are geniuses stuck in a shell it’s become popular to retroactively diagnose historical figures. Da Vinci? Autistic. Lincoln? Aspeger’s. Elon Musk — clearly a successful and high-functioning person, may have some Asperger’s symptoms, or he may just say that because it’s cool and lets him off the hook for acting like a jerk sometimes. I don’t know. I don’t think every “innovator” is an undiagnosed autistic. It seems obvious that most innovation must come from neurotypicals because they are, by definition (in the frame of this discussion anyway) the large majority.

Autistic people do change. Children often grow out of autistic behavior at least partially. Not always, some never improve, but many do.

There’s no line between autistic/Asperger’s and neurotypical, those are phony boxes that insufficiently describe a literal spectrum of behaviors and personality gifts and deficits. At the extremes of the spectrum you find people who are seriously impaired, but along most of the curve people function well enough.

Think about physical abilities. Most people can walk and get around and do day-to-day things. Some can play basketball a few can play like Michael Jordan. Some struggle to stand up, a few can’t get out of bed. There’s a range of physical abilities and everyone is born with some gifts and some deficits. I think it’s the same with mental abilities and personality.

If you're comparing dancing to sports and orthography to written SAT, then I get the impression you might not even understand what either of things really mean. The medical literature says you're literally incapable of doing it, regardless of how hard you try. Now, that doesn't say anything about your value as person. No one cares if you're bad at writing wedding cards. In fact the sorts of people who are good at those things would probably feel excited to have the opportunity to feel useful if you were to delegate the task to them.

No medical literature says I or anyone else is incapable of dancing or orthography. A statistical average of autistics showing this or that impairment over a large sample says nothing about individuals. You should read the diagnostic criteria for autism spectrum disorders, which includes what is called Asperger’s. Here it is in case you don’t have the DSM-5 handy: https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/autism/hcp-dsm.html

A person who can’t dance or isn’t comfortable talking to strangers isn’t necessarily “on the spectrum,” and a person diagnosed with ASD isn’t “literally incapable” of doing those things.

I was going off the primary materials. It's pretty clear that you won't believe that being diagnosed with a disability (well, according to ada, or whichever word you feel most appropriate) means you can't dance and write wedding cards the same way other people do. Have you considered simply challenging the definition? Instead of all this big picture epistemology? You can change the culture so that dance for example includes that thing kraftwerk does. Then no one can laugh because the perception of what it means to be a dancer became more inclusive.

If I felt disabled or excluded I would take dance lessons or learn calligraphy, like “other” people do. I’m not incapable, just not interested. That isn’t a medical condition. I’m not interested in quixotic attempts to change the culture.

A diagnosis of something so vague and variable as ASD doesn’t imply specific disabilities, or an inability to adapt and overcome. It’s an artificial label, not an identity.

>But we can conclude, and with absolute confidence: Elon Musk is not more intelligent than I am, or you. We’re different.

Yeah okay.

I'm pretty sure Elon Musk is much more intelligent than I am. I don't know why there's such a taboo over saying some people are more intelligent than others. It's not a moral judgment or a be-all-and-end-all of a person's value.

> It's not a moral judgment or a be-all-and-end-all of a person's value.

But it is, even though it actually means nothing at all. Let me try and explain.

Our society prides itself on being both rational and egalitarian at the same time. Its most basic ideological paradigm basically says: "everyone is equal". Of course, that is a meaningless statement - people themselves are not quantities to be measured and compared; "everyone is equal" is just a shorthand for "everyone is just as much a human being as everyone else, regardless of the physical characteristics of their body, and deserves to be treated with equal dignity, because every person has a human mind."

Now imagine a trait, "intelligence", which basically says "this person has more mind than that person". This is in contradiction with the premise of equality; in the rationalist paradigm, this is more or less equivalent to saying "this person is inherently superior than that person". So either differences in intelligence do not exist and intelligence is a meaningless signifier (perhaps a performative role ascribed by particular situations)... or rational egalitarianism is in contradiction with itself (and therefore factually wrong by the rules of its own logic).

Either option is enough of a bummer that a normal person would be driven to ignore the matter entirely. Hence, the taboo.

This definition of "rational" strangely excludes values such as reliability, endurance, initiative, charm, beauty, or leadership. But when has it ever been the case in any society for people to simply bow down to geniuses? Hasn't intelligence often taken a backseat to charm and beauty?

Intelligence is but one value competing in an ecology of values.

After someone died, it's ok to revere a person. Generally, it's unhealthy to put alive people on pedestals too.

I'm not trying to redefine rationality. I'm referring to [Rationalism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rationalism), a system of values which is fundamental to the modern Western world, and trying to point out that it is inherently flawed and essentially self-contradictory exactly because its hinges on notions like "rationality" and "intelligence" but in practice anyone is free to redefine those to whatever suits the situation.

I'm not trying to put "intelligence" or "geniuses" on a pedestal, though I would argue they're already being put there by our culture's norms. If they were really so important, wouldn't people be a lot more outraged about faulty definitions and fallacious reasoning?

Instead, we get sarcastic variants of the "well, ackshyually" meme any time anyone insists that correct reasoning is a prerequisite for a meaningful conversation, and indeed colloquial language doesn't really optimize for the use case of honest, unambiguous representations of reality

> this is more or less equivalent to saying "this person is inherently superior than that person"

Strong disagree. Intelligence is not a more valuable attribute than any other.

Concrete example: there's no point being a more intelligent officer in the Army if you aren't able to physically get yourself to the fight in time and someone else who's less intelligent but is more fit is there on time to have an impact.

>a more intelligent person is inherently superior

I also disagree with this statement.

>a "more intelligent" person is defined as "having more consciousness" which, in a system that ascribes value to humanity and consciousness, is equivalent to saying that a more intelligent person is "more of a person", and therefore inherently "superior in value"

This is what I meant. Do you still disagree with this statement?

And, well... should I make my posts more detailed or less, considering they fail to communicate the idea? Or should I go back to just saying nothing?

> I don't know why there's such a taboo over saying some people are more intelligent than others.

Makes it easier to seed resentment and division. There's a notable cohort of ideologically-possessed individuals whose mission in life seems to be flatly denying the existence of meritocracy. If everyone is as smart as the smartest people in the world (and we'll repeat this until it's accepted as true), then some injustice logically must be taking place. Our ideology just so happens to have a solution to address this, so you should give us power. It's a pattern that's been playing out for a while now.

> I'm pretty sure Elon Musk is much more intelligent than I am.

Just wondering - what exactly makes you think so?

Very long stream of very successful business decisions.

So what you're saying is that given the exact set of capital, connections, knowledge and market conditions that Musk initially had you wouldn't be able to make business decisions like he did because you're not intelligent enough?

I doubt it. It takes intelligence to make the best of those resources to create a success.

What's so unlikely to you about the idea that he's relatively intelligent and that's played a part in his success?

People want to pretend it's all luck and connections. I don't think it is, and I think people pretend that to make themselves feel like they could have done it if only they had the same resources.

> What's so unlikely to you about the idea that he's relatively intelligent and that's played a part in his success?

Nothing, I haven't even questioned his intelligence or said anything about him at all.

I just don't have a slightest clue in how to assess his intelligence and compare it to mine based on what I know about him, which makes me wonder what's making it so obvious to you. Especially when talking about things so blurry as "business decisions", since there are so many outside factors at play in any business that one's intelligence is never a single thing that determines business success.

> makes me wonder what's making it so obvious to you

Occam’s Razor. Maybe it’s possible it’s all sheer luck? But most likely - he’s a shrewd and intelligent business man.

Cannot answer for the parent commenter, but I know I wouldn't be able to make decisions like he did.

Just for one specific example: even if I was in his exact situation back then, I wouldn't mortgage out my house, ask friends and family for loans, cash out all of my savings, and then dump it all into my failing green energy startup during its "make it or break it moment". But he did, and none of what Tesla/SpaceX are presently would have been possible if he didn't make that decision.

And that's just one extreme thing that he did that I know for a fact I wouldn't have been able to do, even with the resources and everything else he had.

All you talk about in your example is risk-taking, which is orthogonal to intelligence and is heavily influenced by one's economic situation anyway.

Would you characterize Donald Trump as smarter than yourself? I mean, he made it all the way to President of the United States, have you ever been President? Hell, Einstein never was President, nor was he ever a Billionaire...

Trump was smarter than Einstein apparently. (Well, Einstein was German, bad example...

They never made it to president, or billionaire status though I don't think... It could be said Trump was more "successful"...

Does success === intelligence? God, I hope not or we're doomed as a species.

I think you're making a silly argument and you already know it. Einstein and Trump weren't working in the same fields so you can't compare their achievements.

Is Donald Trump smart? Well I think it's a non-partisan fact that he outsmarted the entire US political establishment in 2016. You decide how smart that is for yourself.

> You decide how smart that is for yourself.

His campaign has been purposely based on lies and hate, which to me seems like an exact opposite of "smart" even if successful.

I think you're confusing 'smart' with 'moral'.

An immoral person can be smart. And in fact it's a common and dangerous mistake to assume someone's stupid because you think they're immoral.

I don't. I believe that such immoral strategies are in fact easier to pull off than legitimate ones, that's why I called it "exact opposite of smart". It seems to me that it's you who's confusing "smart" with "successful".

What could be more smart than doing the thing that makes you successful?

Are you arguing it would have been smarter to do something that was unsuccessful?

Absolutely. Fouling and breaking the rules does not make you a better football player just because the referee did not notice. You won, but you're not smart, you're a cheater. Playing by the rules requires more effort - you need to be smarter to win.

I find it really weird that you even ask.

> Fouling and breaking the rules does not make you a better football player just because the referee did not notice. You won, but you're not smart, you're a cheater. Playing by the rules requires more effort - you need to be smarter to win.

A smart person dutifully operates as best they can within the rules.

But a smarter person realises that actually the rules aren't what everyone thought they were in the first place.

There's lots of examples in history.

Navies originally thought that submarine warfare was unfair somehow or against some unwritten gentlemanly rule. The less smart thing to do would be to take that rule and not use submarines. The smarter thing to do would be to say 'don't care' and build submarines anyway.

Football isn't a good example because you're volunteering to play by the rules in the first place.

Operating inside someone else's artificial rules is not smart.

So, basically your point is that saying "don't care" about "unwritten gentlemanly rules" is an indicator of one's intelligence.

I'm pretty sure that it certainly is an indicator of several personality traits, but it doesn't tell you anything about being "smart".

If everyone is just mistakenly assuming that these rules are important or were ever really rules at all... and you're the sole person to realise that actually these were never rules all along and you don't need to follow them... then yeah I think that's a really smart insight to make.

Challenging assumptions, thinking outside of constraints, re-assessing the foundations of the way we do things, redefining what is possible... smart.

Galileo had to break the 'rules' to model the solar system. Do you think he would have been smarter if he'd followed the current thinking instead?

Thanks, I understand now. There is a grocery store near me which has a spot that seems poorly covered by security cameras. So far I thought that I shouldn't just grab things from there into my pockets and leave without paying, but I see now that it wasn't smart - I don't need to follow these rules.

BTW. Did you even notice that you just compared Trump's campaign to Galileo's work?

> Thanks, I understand now.

I don't think you do. You've just made a moral point. But we're talking about how smart people are, not how moral they are.

It could be very smart to find a way to steal something. That doesn't make it moral to do so.

> BTW. Did you even notice that you just compared Trump's campaign to Galileo's work?

But again, that's moral not smart.

See if you can rephrase your point without any reference to morals, and I think you'll see where you're confused.

I haven't even referenced morality at all. I just applied your own definition of "smart", no more no less.

Just taking things because nobody's looking is not "smart" regardless of its morality, of course. Even if you were doing it to steal from the rich and feed the poor, there's nothing smart in it, even when it's successful. You don't need exceptional intelligence to do that. Just like you don't need exceptional intelligence to build your political capital on xenophobia. That's just dumb brute force, not smartness. Everyone knows you can do that if you're willing to get dirty enough, it worked many times in the past already. What could be smart is to successfully build that same capital without resorting to such lazy and harmful tactics, as that would require much more wit to pull off.

> You don't need exceptional intelligence to do that.

You need the intelligence to see which rules really impact you and which don't. That requires insight.

> What could be smart is to successfully build that same capital without resorting to such lazy and harmful tactics

Often being 'lazy' is the smart thing to do. Why do extra work that you don't need to do?

What's why I think you're confusing it with morality. You're saying it's better to do it without being lazy... but why? If being lazy gets you the same or better result, then surely it's the smart thing to do?

> Why do extra work that you don't need to do?

Because of the consequences.

Tesla had used customer-grade components for control & entertainment systems in their cars. Nobody else did that, what a smart thing to do! They recognized that there's a rule to break to cut costs!

...unfortunately, the customer-grade touchscreen panels in their cars were breaking so often for exactly the reasons why you don't use them in cars and go for more expensive and harder to obtain industrial-grade components instead that they were fined and forced to recall whole production runs.

Now, if you actually did figure out a thing that nobody did before in order to put less work or cut costs and achieve the same or better results - you'd be indeed smart. Neither Trump's campaign nor Tesla's use of customer-grade electronics were examples of that. They just did something that others did not because of other factors than their intelligence.

Some rules are there for a reason and breaking them does not make you smart.

> Because of the consequences.

The smart thing was to realise that in fact there were no consequences to breaking some rules.

> Some rules are there for a reason

And others are not. Telling the difference requires you to be... smart.

> Telling the difference requires you to be... smart.

...which is exactly my point of why your examples of "smart" fall short ;)

Anyone who concludes anything fuzzier than formal algebra with "absolute confidence" is probably not pushing the end of the bell curve anyway.

Reading the article I had a sinking feeling that people haven't been honest with this writer (particularly their interpretation for why they are not as rich as Elon Musk seems incomplete). It's like when kids on a bad soccer team play against kids on a good soccer team and get their asses kicked to the moon and back... and then they still all go and get ice cream. Sure, that avoids hurting anyone's feelings, but it also removes valuable signal (eg: whenever I play soccer other kids get ice cream and I get none, so screw this and let's find something else that's a better fit for me, like music, science, art, whatever).

> Confront them with the current problems that the human species currently faces: the ecological, political, and social crisis, and they will not only solve these challenges but will create heaven here on earth, and very quickly.

I don’t think that is a great idea. One thing I have noticed with autistic people is the ability to really concentrate on a problem with full attention. However, the downside is that they can be so focused on that one problem, they end up ignoring other factors.

The danger is that they single mindedly try to solve the problem and try to create “heaven on earth” and inadvertently turn it into hell on earth.

Isn't the world "neurotypical" by definition?

Under a critical reading, the idea that "the world is neurotypical" is useful to say for someone who wants to gain power in the world by problematizing society and prescribing their own "fixes."

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