I think the question shouldnât have been so ambiguous. Thatâs bad writing. You shouldnât have to do so much guessing for a math question. It should be easy to tell whether youâve answered the right question.
I think anyone trying to take the question seriously would see how itâs confusing, and not just someone diagnosed with ASD. I think there is just a legit problem with the question that most people I guess ignore.
The situation in the video seems quite contrived. Itâs trying to come across as a candid thing. But itâs like theyâre both acting. Thatâs what my intuition says at least.
I think you donât know what the world is like. I donât think theyâre acting. Tons of math questions are way worse. And this is not the kind of thing that âanyone ⌠would seeâ.
Disagreeing about things like this will get you called autistic because a lot of people donât see it this way and dislike it being pointed out.
You donât have to answer but did you take a ton of math and other tests in school? Did you notice many more ambiguous or illogical questions? Did you have lots of illogical classmates?
I donât think I wouldâve recognized that the question could be interpreted that way. Maybe I wouldâve recognized it if I had made many tests and encountered such a problem before, which I wouldâve.
Confusing/typo.
Confusing then.
If I made the test or took the test then it wouldnât have occurred to me that the question could be interpreted the way the woman did.
If I had made many tests then I wouldâve adopted a mindset to look out for other such interpretations, because I wouldâve come across people making such interpretations before. I think I maybe wouldâve caught the error in the question from the video if I had such a mindset.
Hmm I didnât mean to suggest that anyone would see the problem like this. I think I misspoke. I think that most people would understand what the question was asking and not immediately see an issue with it.
I meant something more like that anyone who tried to analyse it carefully could find that out, and not just asd people? Like ânormalâ people could understand why itâs a bad question and that theyâre reading it in an imprecise way, and be concerned about that. And that perceiving that the question is bad could happen from just learning more about thinking precisely, not necessarily from having asd.
I think thatâs true.
Regarding what I meant by âactingâ, my intuition strongly tells me the following:
That theyâre trying to amplify certain autistic mannerisms or play into certain autistic tropes to create autistic content for fans. That not all her body language and what she says in the video is sincere. That we arenât getting a candid video of an interaction with an autistic person. That weâre seeing stylised autistic content. It feels like what it feels like to watch a bad actor.
I donât really know how to defend all that though. I donât know how to analyse things like that explicitly and argue for it. So I donât know how to go about correcting errors in that.
I wonder if you didnât like the idea that if you saw the problem then you have ASD. But you can deny that while still believing that many people without ASD (and some with ASD) wouldnât see the problem.
Iâm not clear on exactly what you mean by âcouldâ but Iâm confident lots of people would not even if they spent time thinking about it or you argued with them a bunch. Iâm also confident that thereâs a correlation where people with âautisticâ traits are more likely to see the issue.
FWIW I think the video showed genuine âautisticâ mannerisms (note that there are a wide variety of mannerisms compatible with the âautisticâ label).
Yes, I donât like that idea. But I agree yeah.
I think what I donât like about mental illness content in general, is that I donât believe in it. I donât think itâs the right explanation. I donât think illness is the right way to characterise whatâs going on. I think mental illness labels are about stigmatising behaviour.
I meant it like in principle they could. Like how everyone is a universal knowledge creator. I agree that itâd be really hard and youâre probably right that lots of people still wouldnât see it.
I agree with that.
There is a lot of pro-autism content on TikTok, including from people who identify as autistic. âAutismâ has purposes other than stigmatization. Labels can be about more than one thing. Some people find that explanations about and from âautisticâ people can help them understand themselves, their partner, or someone they know, and can help navigate some situations better. Most pieces of advice, example stories and explanations about behaviors and emotions arenât connected to specific theories about the underlying causes of âautismâ.
Also, âautismâ may involve physical differences. That has long been a mainstream hypothesis. For example, read these headlines (I didnât read the articles, just the headlines):
âAutismâ might involve having more neurons in oneâs brain. Although some people who consider it an illness have been quick to come up with ways that having more neurons could be bad, itâs not hard to frame it as an advantage rather than an illness.
Overall, imperfect people with imperfect terminology and biases are trying to talk about issues that seem partly real. One day âautismâ will be understood better and I think the answer will not be âautism was totally made up and there was nothing going on there, just superstition and biasâ.
Physical differences, mental differences that arenât âillnessâ, or both, are all compatible with Szasz.
The âautismâ trait cluster is broad enough it may involve several separate things that have been incorrectly lumped together. But itâs also specific and visible enough in many examples that it seems like people are trying to understand one or several real phenomena they encounter in life. Being dismissive because people say âmental illnessâ, which isnât the right answer, doesnât help understand whatâs actually going on.
EDIT: I should have said synapses not neurons above.
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I am quoting this to add extra emphasis, as I think this happens a lot and itâs a really important positive result of people sharing these stories.
If you have a positive relationship with someone, and respect/like them a lot, you could still experience friction with them sometimes. This is a well known thing. Sometimes, that friction can come about as a result of you not understanding what the heck theyâre thinking in some specific subset of interactions.
For example, your friend is generally smart and kind and patient, but in very specific situations they seem to struggle a lot and often get more upset. That would be really frustrating to deal with, and might seem unpredictable⌠why are they so good at dealing with most problems but then they struggle a lot when dealing with a few seemingly random problems? It can be confusing and it might feel like your friend is just being difficult for no reason, or lead you to some other negative interpretation.
But maybe if you see people sharing stories of autistic experiences you might notice some similarities, and maybe the situations your friend struggles in are not as random as you thought. Maybe they follow some predictable patterns based on autistic trait clusters. That could help you (and maybe help your friend, if they are also unaware of this link) to better predict when a situation will be difficult. That could help you to have more patience for your friend in such a situation, or help your friend avoid those situations, or develop new strategies for dealing with them. Or some other positive outcome, I think there are lots of possibilities.
But you would miss out on all of those opportunities if you just shut down the discussion immediately by doubting that autistic traits are real, or by doubting that autistic traits could possibly apply to your friend (or apply to you.)
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If you watch the TV show Love on the Spectrum, and ignore how condescending it is, I think you may agree there is something going on with the majority of the participants called âautisticâ that merits some kind of word or label. Thereâs some sort of pattern where they do seem to have some things in common. And for a lot of people on the show, partly they do seem to have some problems; there seems to be something negative going on that I donât think can be fully blamed on society mistreating them.
There are also positive patterns like they tend to approach dating with more honesty than you see on âallisticâ shows like The Bachelor or Love Is Blind. They also show more concern for consent but Iâm not sure how much thatâs due to the coaching theyâre getting. Though I bet a ton of âallisticâ people would be unwilling to show that much concern for consent even if they had received recent coaching.
There also exist âhigh functioning autisticâ people who have some âautisticâ traits but also come off as very smart and able to navigate adult life without special help. A fair amount of computer programmers, including highly paid successful people at companies like Google and Meta, have some âautisticâ traits. Can any âautismâ concepts be useful or relevant to those people? Yes. Just like the less successful âautisticâ people, they more often get overstimulated (e.g. at loud concerts or in big crowds), have some âOCDâ type traits (like wanting to keep things organized and being kind of âpickyâ about it), are bothered by uncomfortable clothing including tags or sock seams, take things literally, try to follow rules, want to discuss things in clear, explicit ways or find social dynamics confusing. I doubt I did a great job describing the trait cluster here briefly from memory; I bet I forgot some notable things; I think other content that talks about the trait cluster can have some value.
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Hereâs a conjecture I just thought of, which is kind of big and bold and may be false, but I thought it was interesting enough to be a worthwhile conjecture even if itâs false. If itâs false, investigating it and learning itâs false could still be interesting. Iâll split it into 3 parts:
Conjecture part 1: Most people who come up with important new knowledge have some âautisticâ traits. This applies to science, math, philosophy, etc.
Conjecture part 2: A lot of good new knowledge is rejected by mainstream society for years, for decades or indefinitely. (This is a pre-existing belief I had, which lots of people believe, and which there are lots of examples of.)
Conjecture part 3: A lot of good new knowledge is rejected because the person who came up with it has stigmatized, disliked âautisticâ traits.
Maybe one of the reasons that many great discoveries and discoverers are treated poorly for a long time is because it keeps being âautisticâ people doing the discovering.
The mechanism could be direct dislike of discoverers or indirect via the discovers having weaker social networks (because of not being well-liked, etc., as a long term element of their career separate from their discovery and peopleâs direct evaluations of them related to the discovery).
Intuitively perceiving people with autistic traits as inauthentic is a common bias. Itâs one of the reasons theyâre often treated poorly and disliked.