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

the.scapegoat.dev

81–90 of 521 posts

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

#81

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…

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

#82
> Because I tend to think holistically, my questions may seem unrelated to the original question. I reason in terms of systems, networks, interfaces, communication patterns, and feedback loops (...) Often, people will be surprised, not understanding why I am asking a certain question. Queue frustration and the dismissive "you're not getting it."

I get this a lot (relatively speaking), or I used to, especially when I was more active on places like reddit. Don't think I'm autistic, but it baffles me nonetheless. I mean, of course that a on-point and very focused discussion may be of value, in many cases it actually may be quite interesting, but imo the point of a internet forum (or of a general discussion, more largely speaking) is to try and reason exactly about these "holistic" approaches, no matter how bad or good the respective takes may be.

If it matters I find that people here on HN are a lot more open to that type of holistic/"let's take a step back and look at the bigger picture" discussions, without necessarily resorting to accusations of "you're not getting it" or "you're changing the subject" (which is partially true, of course).

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

#83
post #68
post #19

I read this as being strongly opinionated and egocentric.. I want to call it "ausplaining", this tendency to go "no no, YOU don't understand ME (because I'm special, not because I'm wrong)" whenever we get ourselves into situations like the exemplified. I do this A LOT as well, and when people do stick with me for long enough, I often find that I'm either getting my point across by re-framing my explanation, or disco…

Author here, thanks for reading. I didn’t give much information about my life, but I am pretty adept at playing all these games. So much so that I thought there was no way I could be autistic because of how many friends and business relationships I had. Until it hit me that I spent my 20ies doing what you suggest, which is studying the heck out of these things. But it stops at engineering, where I try to be very open…

Thank you for answering.

I very much relate.. I've been so bitter as to keep a small list of "told you so's" that I'd update when my rejected ideas were finally proven to be the better path (though it may have been months or even years after the fact (most agonizing when someone else suggested exactly the same thing, but explained it in other terms,focusing on things I didn't find central to the point).

In the end I deleted the file. Some of the "told you so's" were petty things anyway, and.. Now I try and take it as part of my responsibility to work a bit harder at finding arguments against my point of view, as well as work a bit more politically to get it through when I'm ready to put my head on the line that I'm right and everyone else are wrong.

P.S. I'm closing in on the big 4-o and I'm still working on myself, still trying to learn politics, how to talk with nontechnical superiors and how to accept that sometimes, we go with the wrong solution because someone else tells so.

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

#84
post #55
post #19

I read this as being strongly opinionated and egocentric.. I want to call it "ausplaining", this tendency to go "no no, YOU don't understand ME (because I'm special, not because I'm wrong)" whenever we get ourselves into situations like the exemplified. I do this A LOT as well, and when people do stick with me for long enough, I often find that I'm either getting my point across by re-framing my explanation, or disco…

> 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)

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

#85
post #32
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 don’t think of blaming anybody here, that is you reading things into it. Alright, thanks for responding directly to that. In my personal experience, people don't typically conclude that I would refuse to admit I'm wrong. The only conclusion drawn in my experience (usually) is that we're unable to get our points across, in both ways, and we should probably try to come back to the same topic again later and maybe p…

That’s what I think is happening indeed, and I’m almost never the one shutting the conversation down. I didn’t go into “strategies” to address the issue in this article, mostly because I just don’t have enough experience to back it up, but I think recognizing that something is spiraling, saying “let’s continue in writing/retable this/i will try to understand your point of view” is something to try.

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

#86
> 1. The allistic (non-autistic) person is not hearing what I'm saying.

> 2. I need to ask questions before forming an opinion.

I'm not considered as being on the spectrum (except when "everyone is on the spectrum" for inclusivity reasons of not alienating a socially inept person) and I've had an experience distinct with workers at big tech firms

when I offer a perspective they say I'm being defensive and impossible to help. I think I'm having a conversation, and they think I'm being defensive.

does anybody else have this experience? like, I'm presented with a unilateral view/criticism of something I did, and I'm still forming an opinion of it gathering more information and open to correcting myself or the perception, but any response is seen as defensiveness

given who this comes from, it makes me think that conversations within these firms go this way

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

#87
post #19

I read this as being strongly opinionated and egocentric.. I want to call it "ausplaining", this tendency to go "no no, YOU don't understand ME (because I'm special, not because I'm wrong)" whenever we get ourselves into situations like the exemplified. I do this A LOT as well, and when people do stick with me for long enough, I often find that I'm either getting my point across by re-framing my explanation, or disco…

I cringed reading the article because of how much it reminded me of my younger self in my software engineering career 30 years ago.

For what it’s worth, I think your assessment and advice are both spot-on.

I know the original author is far into his career as well but I think especially as we get more senior that humility and valuing other’s perspectives become as important as the technology. Some of the biggest mistakes I’ve made in my career were from dismissing the ideas of peers.

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

#88
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.

And the OP is never actually wrong, he just couldn't explain himself

That could be your ego talking? Always re-interpreting reality to put yourself on a pedestal? It is a bit silly talking in circles with people that have theory of mind deficits. You just have to avoid the "correctness conversation" and try to point them in the right direction, but it's honestly like pulling teeth.

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

#89
post #19

I read this as being strongly opinionated and egocentric.. I want to call it "ausplaining", this tendency to go "no no, YOU don't understand ME (because I'm special, not because I'm wrong)" whenever we get ourselves into situations like the exemplified. I do this A LOT as well, and when people do stick with me for long enough, I often find that I'm either getting my point across by re-framing my explanation, or disco…

I didn’t read it as egocentric. The author cares a lot about correctness and delivering high quality work, but the definition of quality or good is very limited in scope.

I don’t doubt the veracity of what the author wrote, but I would guess that if we spoke to the counter-parties, their recollection of certain things would be very different.

How people perceive the world and express themselves vary, and some people don’t jive well. I have a developer on my team who is very literal person, if I say “I could kill that guy”, he doesn’t capture the nuance. But he is brilliant, a friend and trusted colleague. A good leader should get that and adjust.

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

#90

Oof. This is black and white thinking at its worst. The author perceives only two possible outcomes, one where things go Right (correct according to his perceptions) and where they go Wrong (correct according to the other party's perceptions). There's so much missing from this view of the world it's hard to know where to begin. - The author could be missing some key facts. - The author could be unaware of other prior…

I read the outlined scenarios differently. They each speak to me as the other party engaging in black or white thinking while the author is attempting to maintain an open mind.

This causes the allistic person to perceive pushback. Neurotypicals expect tribemates to follow along, few questions asked. Every question an autistic mind asks to understand the scenario when the other party is looking for political alliance is a reminder to that other party: the autistic person is OTHER -- or at least more OTHER than Fred in Shipping & Receiving.

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