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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

#211

Post by jjk166 »

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.

Empathy is seeing the world from someone else's perspective. While it's common to comfort and stand by someone you empathize with, particularly if they are going through tough times as you presumably recognize that they want to be comforted and stood by, that impulse isn't itself empathy.

Re: Autistic people challenge preconceived ideas about rationality

#212

Post by jjk166 »

zepto wrote: post #139
throwawaygh wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nah. The "but" differentiates a positive trait from a neutral trait, and the parenthetical phrase clarifies that the neutral trait isn't necessarily bad.

Yes. The fact that you have to qualify that the ‘neutral’ trait isn’t ‘necessarily’ bad implies that you think people might think it was bad. You wouldn’t need to qualify it otherwise.

People might think anything is bad.

Re: Autistic people challenge preconceived ideas about rationality

#213

Post by jjk166 »

seba_dos1 wrote: post #183
PeterisP wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because in the world I live in, there's a strong correlation between a previous price and a future one. While it's not always the case and all kinds of factors apply, previous price is a quite relevant signal. In the absence of any additional specific information, if I know that ticket to city A was cheaper than a ticket to city B, then it's reasonable to assume that a future ticket to city A is a bit more likely to…

That doesn't answer my question at all - the statement was that it's "easier", not "cheaper" to go to that city at later time. Price is just one single factor that may influence how easy it will be later compared to now. Maybe a significant chunk of your motivation to visit city A was to see it covered in snow and do some winter sports, so if you cancel it now you'll likely have to wait a whole year to do it again? O…

The two options are the cheap and the expensive one. If we're making the determination of which one to drop based on price, and are given no information about the options besides price, presumably price is the determining factor. All else being equal, cheaper means easier.

Re: Autistic people challenge preconceived ideas about rationality

#214

Post by emsy »

solarmist wrote: post #88
Zenst wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As somebody who sits upon the autistic scale, I personally have a deep rooted ethic of fairness, even if it means I yield an advantage, I'm just as uncomfortable being unfairly treated as I am being over fairly treated and to empathize I just look at the others position as if that was mine and how would I feel about that, at least that is how I empathize. Also tend towards common sense slanted bluntness over diplomat…

Yup! One time during an exit interview I pointed out (some concrete feedback they could take action on, aaah, how naive of me) how bad the DevOps team had it (80+ hour weeks, constant weekend work, all hours on call, etc) as one of my reasons for leaving and the CEO could NOT understand why I would care about this at all. His response was about how our team (BI) had it so good, which we did, so why would that matter!…

I don't know if you meant this to be an example of "autistic" perception, but fairness is deeply embedded in a lot of animals, including humans. It sounds more like the CEO was sociopathic. Also, of course it makes sense to care for another team for a multitude of reasons, starting from group harmony and ending with self-care, because you never know when you or your team will be at the short end of the stick.

Re: Autistic people challenge preconceived ideas about rationality

#215

Post by chucksta »

zepto wrote: post #208
bryanrasmussen wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

well you can have a benign tumor or one that is killing you, by that theory we should say the one that is killing you shouldn't really be called a tumor.

No. You presuppose autism to be a disease, like a tumor.

I think you are showing bias, there is nothing in that comment to suggest the point of the comment is calling autism a disease. I see it as juxtaposing the same condition to different outcomes.

Re: Autistic people challenge preconceived ideas about rationality

#216

Post by jjk166 »

NaturalPhallacy wrote: post #136
nicoburns wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Sure it does. We're a sexually dimorphic species that can only reproduce with one XY and one XX. Differentiating between them is vital to the continued existence of the species. Talking with your buddies of the same gender about how you were hanging out alone with one of the opposite was a tribally significant thing in the early days of speech. It still today implies you might be mating! And babies might be forthcomi…

We're sexually dimorphic, but linguistic gender is not based on biological sex, and sex identification is merely one of a literally infinite number of potential bits of information that one may wish to convey with language. The fact that an attractive woman in her reproductive prime is referred to with the same pronouns as your grandmother and the Titanic is indicative of how useful pronouns are for identifying who may be mating.

Re: Autistic people challenge preconceived ideas about rationality

#217

Post by solarmist »

eftychis wrote: post #166
solarmist wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup! One time during an exit interview I pointed out (some concrete feedback they could take action on, aaah, how naive of me) how bad the DevOps team had it (80+ hour weeks, constant weekend work, all hours on call, etc) as one of my reasons for leaving and the CEO could NOT understand why I would care about this at all. His response was about how our team (BI) had it so good, which we did, so why would that matter!…

To sound perhaps a bit weird now I guess but: isn't empathizing with another team normal? I would not want to be in a company that was OK with some team taking the short end of the stick continuously... It says a lot about people and well I would/do feel bad. The response of the CEO of course might be one of avoidance or narcissism... (Of course nobody can't psychoanalyze people from a distance.)

Oh totally, but this is where it sunk in that I didn’t judge things relatively like others. I have a pretty rigid moral scale and I have a hard minimum.

My coworkers were sympathetic or empathetic, but would just shrug and agree saying there were “culture problems”.

Re: Autistic people challenge preconceived ideas about rationality

#218

Post by solarmist »

emsy wrote: post #214
solarmist wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup! One time during an exit interview I pointed out (some concrete feedback they could take action on, aaah, how naive of me) how bad the DevOps team had it (80+ hour weeks, constant weekend work, all hours on call, etc) as one of my reasons for leaving and the CEO could NOT understand why I would care about this at all. His response was about how our team (BI) had it so good, which we did, so why would that matter!…

I don't know if you meant this to be an example of "autistic" perception, but fairness is deeply embedded in a lot of animals, including humans. It sounds more like the CEO was sociopathic. Also, of course it makes sense to care for another team for a multitude of reasons, starting from group harmony and ending with self-care, because you never know when you or your team will be at the short end of the stick.

No, not really. It was a game company, and the justification he used was that it was SOOO much better than the studios he'd been at before.

The only “autistic” part would be the degree I cared compared to people around me. This was where it sunk in that my moral scale wasn’t relative like most people’s.

Re: Autistic people challenge preconceived ideas about rationality

#219

Post by seba_dos1 »

jjk166 wrote: post #213
seba_dos1 wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't answer my question at all - the statement was that it's "easier", not "cheaper" to go to that city at later time. Price is just one single factor that may influence how easy it will be later compared to now. Maybe a significant chunk of your motivation to visit city A was to see it covered in snow and do some winter sports, so if you cancel it now you'll likely have to wait a whole year to do it again? O…

The two options are the cheap and the expensive one. If we're making the determination of which one to drop based on price, and are given no information about the options besides price, presumably price is the determining factor. All else being equal, cheaper means easier.

From the article:

> In this case, many people will cancel the cheaper trip regardless of which one they would prefer to go on

"All else" is explicitly not equal, there's a difference in preference for some reason other than price. This is not a puzzle with a correct answer, this is an example of specific behavior in specific cases observed in specific people who have all needed information available to them.

Re: Autistic people challenge preconceived ideas about rationality

#220

Post by solarmist »

PeterisP wrote: post #159
solarmist wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

If that would be the case, then it would also then manifest in behavioral traits of non-human primates, since they would not yet have this relatively recent adaptation.

I'll bet it does. We don't have a generic description of what autism means yet. I'm sure what we describe as autism is a cluster of differences.

So it's hard to imagine what it would look like in other primates.

Like these[1] loners in slime mold colonies. We don't even know if these kinds of variation are common or not. Autism-like variations might be like this or it could be human specific.

[1] https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/slime-molds-sh...

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