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Autistic people challenge preconceived ideas about rationality

psyche.co

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Re: Autistic people challenge preconceived ideas about rationality

#101

Post by solarmist »

Lammy wrote: post #62
akvadrako wrote: post #3

It takes a while to get to the point, but this is what the page is about: As we explained in a recent review paper, researchers have repeatedly found evidence that Autistic individuals are, on average, more consistent, less biased, and more rational than non-autistic individuals in a variety of contexts. Specifically, many Autistic people seem to be less susceptible to cognitive biases, and therefore better able to m…

> it could indicate that at least mild Autism is a beneficial adaptation Not picking on you or your post, but it's interesting that we still consider this an adaptation. What if this is humanity's natural state and allistics are the adaptation?

I think you meant this tongue in cheek, but this seems highly unlikely.

The neocortex handles rational thinking and reasoning, so an increased reliance on it would put autism further from evolutionary predecessors. Also, you would expect the ratios of allistics:autistic to be reversed as well.

Also, as a mildly autistic person, I don't believe autism would be a beneficial trait in the wild. I would probably be fine, but some of my tendencies would lessen my likelihood of survival.

Re: Autistic people challenge preconceived ideas about rationality

#102

Post by Okx »

guerrilla wrote: post #90
mherrmann wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know what you mean by "mild autism" but an article [1] that was recently discussed here [2] explains that "mild" vs. (say) "severe" does not quite capture the nuance of the condition. Just pointing it out here because I found it interesting. 1: https://neuroclastic.com/its-a-spectrum-doesnt-mean-what-you... 2: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29682917

Weren't they just saying that the spectrum isn't a measure of severity, not that one can't talk about severity separately.

The article also argues that severity of autism doesn't really make sense.

Re: Autistic people challenge preconceived ideas about rationality

#103

Post by jiggunjer »

m_fayer wrote: post #67
seba_dos1 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a bad stereotype. It's far more common for autistic people to have the ability to relate emotionally to others cranked up to overwhelming levels (hyper-empathy), which makes them avoid situations that require relating to others out of severe stress it's usually causing on them - leading to other people perceiving them as unempathetic.

I almost wonder if empathy is the right word then, maybe this would best be described as something like "susceptibility to emotional contagion." Empathy as commonly defined includes an impulse to comfort and stand by, as opposed to avoidance.

Citation needed for your definition of empathy. Oxford disagrees.

Re: Autistic people challenge preconceived ideas about rationality

#104

Post by labster »

BizarroLand wrote: post #49
nicoburns wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Autistic people can have trouble accessing emotions, but a lot of the reason for that stereotype is just that they communicate their emotions and emotional reactions differently and/or that their emotional reactions to certain situations are different to those of neurotypical people: not that they're not actually feeling emotions at all.

It might also be that Autistic traits would be a good solo or small tribe survival adaptation. Highly logical, no breaking down in a fit of misery, less susceptible to loneliness, very useful for times when you're stuck in a survival situation.

I doubt autism correlates that strongly with resilience and grit. But I have long thought that groups benefit from having a portion of the population having autism. Variance in thinking means more potential strategies for success. Too much variance probably hurts group cohesion.

Re: Autistic people challenge preconceived ideas about rationality

#105

Post by guerrilla »

seba_dos1 wrote: post #87
TOMDM wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, the current utility is that most people do currently comfortably fit into the binary. We should introduce language to account for people that don't, and if demographics shifted such that most people didn't feel like the current binary fit them then we should adjust, but currently the majority of the population is happily self identifying within the binary and it's a great shortcut for them to communicate some a…

It's true that most people fit into binary, but I don't really see how that's relevant. 1) If we assume that it's essential to genderize pronouns, it doesn't really matter what the majority fits into because existence of other options does not influence that majority at all. The only case where it matters is when someone doesn't fit. The utility remains unaffected (in fact, it actually is increased because of better…

> It's true that most people fit into binary, but I don't really see how that's relevant.

It's relevant because it's efficient more than 99% of the time and removing it introduces ambiguity 99% of the time. The person you're responding to even said they didn't have a problem with adding more pronouns, just not making it worse by removing them.

Re: Autistic people challenge preconceived ideas about rationality

#106

Post by guerrilla »

nicoburns wrote: post #44
rajin444 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had an autistic coworker who could not understand using pronouns outside of the already established ones (he/she). She was otherwise very “progressive” but didn’t consider herself such. It had to do with he/she mapping to (99% of the time) defined biological features. It was a very awkward lunch.

In fairness, using different pronouns for different genders doesn't make a lot of sense in the first place.

It reduces ambiguity, increasing narrowing specificity by half the room on average. I suspect that efficiency trade off showed up in so many unrelated languages because it was useful. It didn't get more specific because that wasn't useful enough. Languages evolve too.

Re: Autistic people challenge preconceived ideas about rationality

#107

Post by seba_dos1 »

guerrilla wrote: post #105
seba_dos1 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's true that most people fit into binary, but I don't really see how that's relevant. 1) If we assume that it's essential to genderize pronouns, it doesn't really matter what the majority fits into because existence of other options does not influence that majority at all. The only case where it matters is when someone doesn't fit. The utility remains unaffected (in fact, it actually is increased because of better…

> It's true that most people fit into binary, but I don't really see how that's relevant. It's relevant because it's efficient more than 99% of the time and removing it introduces ambiguity 99% of the time. The person you're responding to even said they didn't have a problem with adding more pronouns, just not making it worse by removing them.

> and removing it introduces ambiguity 99% of the time

My whole point 2) was about how it does not (most of the time it just removes irrelevant noise), so I'd appreciate a counterexample.

Re: Autistic people challenge preconceived ideas about rationality

#108

Post by guerrilla »

Okx wrote: post #102
guerrilla wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Weren't they just saying that the spectrum isn't a measure of severity, not that one can't talk about severity separately.

The article also argues that severity of autism doesn't really make sense.

Alright, well I can't agree to that part. It all depends on your goals and some people are less able to accomplish their own goals than others due to those traits from the spectrum. There's no need for conceiving of utility to others to speak of grades of functionality.

Re: Autistic people challenge preconceived ideas about rationality

#109

Post by readthenotes1 »

nicoburns wrote: post #44
rajin444 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had an autistic coworker who could not understand using pronouns outside of the already established ones (he/she). She was otherwise very “progressive” but didn’t consider herself such. It had to do with he/she mapping to (99% of the time) defined biological features. It was a very awkward lunch.

In fairness, using different pronouns for different genders doesn't make a lot of sense in the first place.

My preferred pronoun is "the majestic one with no time for the nonsense of gendered pronouns".

It cannot be combined in a plural; I stand alone.

Re: Autistic people challenge preconceived ideas about rationality

#110

Post by readthenotes1 »

"Autistic individuals are, on average, more consistent, less biased, and more rational than non-autistic individuals in a variety of contexts. (We use identity-first language, eg, ‘Autistic people’, as it is preferred by many people on the autism spectrum.)"

Hmmm. What are they implying by that parenthetical comment placement?

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