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Comment by MangoToupe | Hacker News Reader

> If we just accepted, "hey, some people are like that" more, I think we'd have a lot fewer problems.

This is how much of the world works. Johnny doesn't have autism, he's just really into trains. It would be incredibly rude to say much more.

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That's more like how the world is said to be working, but not how it actually works. There is a huge difference between how people express their tolerance and expectations and what they actually okay with, with no extra internal feelings. It really would be incredibly rude to say much more, and so it's not said, but it's all there in inside, coded in unspoken feelings and expectations.

I'd like to draw a parallel with disability. I don't think anyone in their right mind would express that they actively work against people with disabilities, and I'm sure most people would express support if asked directly. But this doesn't translate to actually accessible infrastructure and culture. That takes a lot of special work - and regulation actually, without which the work wouldn't have happened.

All this to say that intentions and expressions are a great first step, but there is much more to acceptance than that.

I encourage you to examine how much of this is specific to western culture, and in particular business-oriented western culture. Expectations and tolerance vary widely from community to community even in the US, but I submit autistic individuals are likely to struggle the most in highly atomized cultures. It's a very deep and broad topic so I don't expect you to see much at a glance, but I do believe there's a reason such a label emerged from western, white supremacist culture with a very, very high degree of commodified labor.

Of course, what you point out is universal, so there are limits to this perspective. But in more collectivist cultures, I suspect that the burden of adjusting to people who struggle to conform can be more easily shouldered by more than just the nuclear family, or even celebrated more, erm, naturally.

> but I submit autistic individuals are likely to struggle the most in highly atomized cultures.

For those who don't know the term "atomized culture": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomism_(social)

That's an interesting intersection that you brought up, I have not considered it at all. I'm sorry that this comment doesn't bring anything to the discussion, but I wanted to give feedback that it made me think.

There's a standup comedian's bit about this: "That's José and he likes to sweep."

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DCzopOfSWjc/

Hacker news (or social media in general) echo chamber

yeah HN isn't very good about that.

well off educated people looking to rationalize whatever they think about society, interactions, etc. lotta people here living in a bubble.

great tech discussions sometimes, tho.

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