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

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.

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

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.

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

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.