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“Autistic people can’t acknowledge when they’re wrong”

the.scapegoat.dev

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Re: “Autistic people can’t acknowledge when they’re wrong”

#111

Post by JackFr »

trashtester wrote: post #63
Orothrim wrote: post #10

The issue with this article is how the author is approaching all of these discussions. There is no attempt to see the other person's perspective, or evaluate how the author should be approaching the discussion. This is very common among us Engineers but is a massive failure. If a manager comes over and suggests something to you, you need to understand their perspective for coming to that discussion, not asking questi…

> If a manager comes over and suggests something to you, you need to understand their perspective for coming to that discussion For someone having autism, this may be impossible. If they are open about their autism, one could argue that the manager should be the one trying to see the topic from two sides. One may also need to come up with a shared understanding where the manager has a way to inform the autistic perso…

I’m all for accommodating disability.

But in this case an obvious solution might be to do what your manager suggests simply because he is your manager.

As a non-autistic person I don’t find it difficult to voice my concerns about a particular course of action and then do it anyway if that’s what the boss wants. (I realize the sticking point is “voice my concerns” — doing that in a manner that doesn’t come off as confrontational or undermining can be hard.)

Re: “Autistic people can’t acknowledge when they’re wrong”

#112

Post by ZeroGravitas »

denton-scratch wrote: post #77
jiggawatts wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes the blame is with the other party. An uncomfortable truth we all pretend to ignore is that more than half the population is below average intelligence.[1] The comments in this blog post don't just apply to autistic people, but apply equally to people that are simply less wrong than average. An observation I made is that some people make correct statements approximately 90% of the time. This is waaaay above…

> more than half the population is below average intelligence. I guess I'm in the bottom half, then; I thought the average was that quantity for which half are below, and half are above.

Median Vs mean, median has exactly half above/below it, the mean can be nearer the extremes if the distribution is unbalanced.

Re: “Autistic people can’t acknowledge when they’re wrong”

#113

Post by midnightmonster »

I don't think I'm (very?) autistic. Still, I share all 4 points of experience with OP, most frequently with one person with whom I've worked off and on for 15 years. We've grown over the years and learned to some extent to accommodate each other's way of thinking and communicating.

As I wrote in another comment, I think it's very helpful to notice the mismatch between how I understand myself and how others perceive me. It's also worthwhile to find ways to bridge the gap. E.g., in the "rewrite the checkout in React?" scenario, OP might be perceived as more open to the question if they offered, "That's not a small project, but we could definitely do it" before asking questions or if they started with an open question like "What might motivate us to rewrite the checkout in React?" instead of a closed (yes/no) question.

Learning to speak in a way that helps people understand your intentions doesn't require compromising your truth-seeking values: it lets you enjoy the journey more with more companions.

Re: “Autistic people can’t acknowledge when they’re wrong”

#114

Post by prometheus76 »

larve wrote: post #18
korijn wrote: post #3

It's interesting to me that all four examples put the blame with the other party. I hope it's just worded poorly or I am reading too much into it. Edit: I'm not saying that invalidates the article's content (in fact I recognize the situations from personal experience), but it doesn't really put a positive spin on it.

thanks for reading, author here! the article is very much a response to a blame already expressed. People can be wrong about factual things, which can be verified. Otherwise it’s a difference of opinions. These are my thoughts on why differences of opinions get phrased as “autistic people just can’t admit when they are wrong”, when myself and most autistic people I know in fact readily admit when we are wrong and mov…

The biggest insight I have had in my personal life is that relationships are more important than facts. Building and keeping long-term relationships at work and in my family is, by far, more important than being right every time (even if I can verify being right). Verifying it just makes the abrasion to the relationship worse.

Re: “Autistic people can’t acknowledge when they’re wrong”

#115

Post by sputr »

larve wrote: post #18
korijn wrote: post #3

It's interesting to me that all four examples put the blame with the other party. I hope it's just worded poorly or I am reading too much into it. Edit: I'm not saying that invalidates the article's content (in fact I recognize the situations from personal experience), but it doesn't really put a positive spin on it.

thanks for reading, author here! the article is very much a response to a blame already expressed. People can be wrong about factual things, which can be verified. Otherwise it’s a difference of opinions. These are my thoughts on why differences of opinions get phrased as “autistic people just can’t admit when they are wrong”, when myself and most autistic people I know in fact readily admit when we are wrong and mov…

I hope you take this as constructive criticism, as it's not intended to offend:

Your post reads extremely arrogantly. It's a "I am very smart" type of communication style.

None of the points you bring up are specific to autistic individuals. I'm allistic (as you put it) and, realistically, not that intelligent, but I experience the first two of your points on a regular basis. But I've learned to modify my handling of these types of situations so that, most of the time, I get a positive/productive response.

Now I obviously can't know how you communicate outside your blog posts. But it may be prudent to think about it – if you come across as arrogant or a "know it all", then the "you don't acknowledge when you're wrong" is just a nicer way of saying it.

And when people get a “vibe” of arrogance/know-it-all-ness from a person, they will be much less willing to accept, well, anything. And for good reason. This especially applies to corrections, "let's play 20 questions" and long-winded explanations of context (especially if you explain something they already know, even partially).

Re: “Autistic people can’t acknowledge when they’re wrong”

#116

Post by Bedon292 »

stkni wrote: post #28
korijn wrote: post #3

It's interesting to me that all four examples put the blame with the other party. I hope it's just worded poorly or I am reading too much into it. Edit: I'm not saying that invalidates the article's content (in fact I recognize the situations from personal experience), but it doesn't really put a positive spin on it.

This was my take too. The break-down in communication might not be WHAT is being said but HOW it's being said. This is certainly my experience of being a dev and a manager, sometimes people just seem a bit rude and it's hard to get past. Is the rudeness excusable? I guess. Especially if I understand where it's coming from. Otherwise it's just rudeness. And I guess that the point of the article, but you need to get to…

This reminds me of a time, many years ago now, another engineer and myself ended up in a debate with one of the executives. We seemed to be in a very strong disagreement with them. After well over an hour of getting nowhere we ended up going back and essentially starting over breaking everything down into little pieces and ensuring our definitions of everything lined up. Turns out we agreed the whole time, but how each side was saying it made us think we did not. I believe it provided me a valuable lesson in this but it was so frustrating at the time and that certainly didn't help the cause. Sometimes I have to remember back to it and to take that step back take a breath and reframe things. How things are being said can really affect the conversation.

Re: “Autistic people can’t acknowledge when they’re wrong”

#117

Post by Nursie »

Adverblessly wrote: post #92
denton-scratch wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> more than half the population is below average intelligence. I guess I'm in the bottom half, then; I thought the average was that quantity for which half are below, and half are above.

Not the person you responded to, but the quantity for which half are below and half are above (+-1) is called "median".

Which is one of three forms of averaging ... ?

Mean, median and mode. Though it's true that people usually mean 'mean' when they say 'average'.

Re: “Autistic people can’t acknowledge when they’re wrong”

#118

Post by bsenftner »

prometheus76 wrote: post #103
q-big wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The author may also benefit from investing some of their mental capital (I'm not being sarcastic, they're obviously very intelligent) into learning how to play the games I am not aware of any good systematic textbooks on this topic. (of course not the author)

The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene is a good place to start. Even if you don't want to turn to the dark side, this book will at least reveal to you how some of your competition is thinking and maneuvering.

And if you have any interest in the history of power struggles, the 48 Laws of Power is an incredible historical reference of the thinking, attitudes and abilities available to the elite power brokers throughout the ages.

Re: “Autistic people can’t acknowledge when they’re wrong”

#119

Post by mort96 »

crabbygrabby wrote: post #51

My little brother is autistic and admits he's wrong all the time. The title of this is trash.

The title is a quote from other people, and the content of the article is an attempt to explain why the quote is incorrect; that it's just a different style of communication that's being interpreted as not admitting you're wrong.

Re: “Autistic people can’t acknowledge when they’re wrong”

#120

Post by ZeroGravitas »

This seems a good place to ask if other people have issues when people ask them "Is this possible?" but really mean "Would you recommend we do this/is this feasible enough to consider/is this a good idea?".

I have to stop myself and mentally translate every time.

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