14 ms·
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
by akvadrako 5y ago
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 make judgments and reach decisions in a more traditionally ‘rational’ manner.
Interesting if true; it could indicate that at least mild Autism is a beneficial adaptation. Though those biases probably came about for good reasons, it could be they've become obsolete and are no longer worth it.
- bopbeepboop 5y agoIsn’t this why there’s a correlation between Asperger’s and engineers? The same kind of logical, exacting thinking necessary for mastery of physical systems is in tension with the kinds of thinking used in social games. Some brains are better at one than the other — and we have disorders at both extremes. I’ve always wondered if autism and dyscalclia are something of “polar opposites”.
- AussieWog93 5y ago>I’ve always wondered if autism and dyscalclia are something of “polar opposites”. I don't think they are. Plenty of autistic people are bad at maths (you just don't meet these people in engineering circles!), and plenty of "social butterflies" are good at it.
- georgestephanis 5y agoYes hi, "aspergers" is an unfortunate nomenclature and many autistic folks (myself included) strongly resent it. It was named after a Nazi doctor (Hans Asperger) and used to classify autistic folks into "useful" and "non-useful" people -- as Nazis and Eugenicists are known to do. When you think of it, if you could refer to folks on the spectrum as such, without referencing the outdated nomenclature (the DSM-5 replaced it for diagnostics, now everything falls under the Autism Spectrum, rather than viewing the "higher functioning" folks as having a distinct diagnosis) Thanks!
- AussieWog93 5y ago
- IAmEveryone 5y agoA perfectly acceptable term outside some circles is, by definition, not acceptable, at least not “perfectly”. And the (undisputed) fact that Asperger was quite the Nazi should, just by itself, disqualify the term. OPs comment linking the dual terms to the similar binary classification into useful/useless human beings goes even further by showing that usage of the term doesn’t just glorify someone who doesn’t deserve it, but shows how that practice derives from and continues the namesake’s hateful ideology.
- fao_ 5y agoSorry... are you arguing for a term that separates autistic people into "productive" and "non productive" that was created by a literal Nazi? I am autistic, pretty much all of the people I know are autistic, and even most of the people I know through my workplace are autistic (it's explicitly a neurodiverse workplace), and I've pretty much never seen anyone need to use the term "aspergers" in general conversation. As in, when talking about symptoms, when talking about diagnosis, when talking about anything to do with it, people just talk about the thing, rather than branding it as "aspergers versus autistic". I'll go further and say that, not only is it not in general parlance, but also that if you used the term "aspergers" in or around these circles, you would be lightly corrected, looked on disfavourably, or given a side-eye, at the least.
- fragmede 5y agoPre-Godwinning the discussion doesn't raise discourse, it dumbs it down. Yes that's the history of the term but it was also the accepted term until after its removal from the DSM in 2013, and not everyone that grew up with that term is as plugged in as you and gotten the memo to moved over to the new term yet. It's fine to be angry at neurotypical people who use it as a slur, but you won't win many converts attacking people who aren't, especially using an anecdote about how you don't use the word as supporting evidence. Btw, the plural of anecdote is not anecdata which is not data.
- TT-392 5y agoProbably also related to a lot of other factors, like probablems with social interaction making people with aspergers more likely to for example spend evenings nerding out in their own room.
- nathias 5y agoIt doesn't mean that at all, its but that real world is not made for rationallity, and even if we have created special contexts where it is, it doesn't mean it can be generalized out of them.
- kragen 5y agoI would argue exactly the contrary: the real world, the seasons and stars and seeds, is pitilessly rational. It cannot be tricked, pleaded with, or emotionally manipulated. It is harsh, but equally so to everyone, and according to an inexorable logic that cannot be altered but can be exploited. It is the special contexts the humans have created, like churches, courts, and tribes, where the laws of rationality can be imperfectly and temporarily suspended, replaced by a "virtual reality" that is merely a social consensus.
- nathias 5y agoAh yes, in the long run it's all rational, but in the long run we're also all dead. Even if that were the case, you are not a star, you are not near equilibrium, you are alive and don't have time to play long term rational games.
- kragen 5y agoI'm not sure what you're talking about. If you try to walk across the desert without drinking water you will be dead in two days. That's not "the long run." If you carry water and salt with you, you can make it a week or more, but not if you strategize poorly: walking during the day instead of at night will deplete your water much more rapidly, and if you treat your canteen carelessly you will lose the water. If you have the knowledge to navigate to places with drinkable water along the way, or the knowledge and materials to distill water from crushed plants, you can make it for months, longer if you brought food or can find it. (Me, I caught and ate raw grasshoppers.) You cannot emotionally manipulate the desert; you cannot trick it; it will not treat you more gently because you beg it for mercy. Rationality (knowledge, skill, heedfulness, and above all epistemic humility) is your only hope. It's no guarantee, because a rattlesnake or a hailstone may strike you at random, but it's your only hope. It's not just the desert. The same is true of the ocean, of mushroom hunting, of wasp's nests, and of the frozen North with its alpine sweetvetch. Nature's ways are subtle and merciless, but they are amenable to understanding, and rationality permits you to order your life in harmony with them and thus survive and prosper a little while; though not, as you say, in the long run. The whole world is like this, all except for tiny special contexts humans have created where the ruthless laws of Nature are suspended a little bit, where mercy and humanity and fellow-feeling hold sway.
- mjevans 5y agoThey probably came about for good reasons; and the current world is doing a poor job at utilizing the full ability of it's people, of many different types.
- mherrmann 5y agoI 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-think/ https://neuroclastic.com/its-a-spectrum-doesnt-mean-what-you... 2: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29682917 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29682917
- alexvoda 5y agoI remember when that article was trening on HN. I wonder how supported by data that article is, because if it is scientific it would be a wonderful quick and easy reply to people using autism and the spectrum for various arguments. Higher resolution (of concepts) is better.
- guerrilla 5y agoWeren't they just saying that the spectrum isn't a measure of severity, not that one can't talk about severity separately.
- Okx 5y agoThe article also argues that severity of autism doesn't really make sense.
- guerrilla 5y agoAlright, 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.
- zepto 5y agoSure, but the point is that the thing that is ‘severe’ isn’t ‘autism’. An autistic person can be severely disabled, but the disability is itself a trait they only some autistic people have, so it doesn’t make sense to call the disability ‘autism’.
- MisterBastahrd 5y agoOn the flip side, many autistic people have trouble understanding neurotypical people because they miss nuance in their communication that other neurotypical adults would find to be obvious. Autism isn't some reasoning superpower, it's just a difference in processing stimuli.
- nicoburns 5y agoThis is also true the other way around however: neurotypical people miss nuance in autistics communication that other autistic adults would find to be obvious. I would agree with your characterisation as a difference in processing stimuli.
- rackjack 5y agoYeah, I suspect the fact that Autism reduces a person's ability to relate emotionally and socially to themselves and others allows them to dedicate more brain power to thinking rationally. In a mild enough case, with a supportive tribe, they could be a useful advisor. No autistic members = tribe has trouble making good collective decisions. Too many autistic members = tribe can't collaborate. That's just my armchair psychologist theory though.
- nicoburns 5y agoAutistic 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.
- BizarroLand 5y agoIt 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.
- labster 5y agoI 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.
- PeterisP 5y agoIMHO the most effective adaptation for "solo or small tribe survival" that we and other primates have is all the factors that decrease one's chances of being put in the very disadvantageous solo or tiny tribe situation. (For example, various submissive behaviors and the quite interesting concept of crying seem to be adaptations towards that - continuing to live in a larger tribe instead of leaving) It's simpler and more effective to try and avoid or fix that problem in the first place, instead of trying to optimize for tolerating the problem.
- ben_w 5y ago> Though those biases probably came about for good reasons, it could be they've become obsolete and are no longer worth it. I suspect (but don’t know how to test the hypothesis) that cognitive biases are why human learning can produce good results with dramatically less data than machine learning. More rational, yes, when you get there; but harder to learn at all.
- riwsky 5y agothing is, those cognitive biases are themselves the result of eons of learning via evolutionary optimization
- ben_w 5y agoNo disagreement there! But, at the risk of cargo-culting, it might be interesting to see the effect of deliberately trying to reproduce such biases in an A.I.
- wavegeek 5y ago> biases might help You might like the book "Simple Heuristics that make us smart" which explores this idea https://www.amazon.com/Simple-Heuristics-That-Make-Smart/dp/0195143817/ref=sr_1_1?crid=VP0SIUM7MVJU&keywords=simple+heuristics&qid=1641534722&sprefix=simple+heuristic%2Caps%2C263&sr=8-1 https://www.amazon.com/Simple-Heuristics-That-Make-Smart/dp/...
- kragen 5y agoOh, it's obviously true. I have a lot of experience with "high-functioning" autistic people, and the rationality is like the most obvious thing to me. Or maybe #2 after sensory overload.
- Zenst 5y agoAs 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 diplomatic word dancing more than not and with that, Greta Thunberg does some good examples of that. One finally aspect, my thinking is more wider in scope still as a child and with that, will happily ask that awkward question and equally see things from a perspective others tend to overlook.
- int_19h 5y agoFairness is deeply rooted in humans in general. Ethological studies show that even kids as young as 7 will anonymously distribute candy in a more egalitarian way even if they have an option to take it all for themselves. (https://www.zora.uzh.ch/id/eprint/3833/3/2008_Fehr_NatureV.pdf https://www.zora.uzh.ch/id/eprint/3833/3/2008_Fehr_NatureV.p...)
- solarmist 5y agoYup! 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! He literally could not understand that I had empathy for another team and it affected my perception of the company.
- emsy 5y agoI 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.
- Lammy 5y ago> 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?
- solarmist 5y agoI 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.
- PeterisP 5y agoIf 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.
- solarmist 5y agoI'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-show-us-the-perks-of-being-a-loner https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/slime-molds-sh...
- lazyasciiart 5y agoInteresting thought. Are autistic traits also seen in animals?
- solarmist 5y agoI have what you would deem mild Autism and it CAN be a beneficial adaptation, but it's is highly context-dependent. I think it's only in the last couple of decades when that's become true, specifically information, knowledge work, or science. Think of the cartoons where the "nerds" are trying to fight/play sports and are trying to calculate optimal trajectories, etc. The additional rationality slows down coming to conclusions significantly and I'd argue in most cases the added accuracy is of marginal value. Basically, I believe a lot of those biases are shortcuts that give a good enough answer in significantly less time. I.e. Newton's method over actually computing derivatives.
- lamontcg 5y agoSociety is getting so complicated that spending the time to find the actual right answer is supplanting various "going with your gut" heuristics since its about 50-50 as to if picking the simple answer is right or the counterintuitive answer is right. The whole "blink" thing of knowing the right answer is deeply busted. We still value people who strongly assert what they think is the correct answer quickly though and view that as a sign of intelligence (and to be fair it is, but its more about the intelligence of knowing how to convince rather than the intelligence of knowing what is correct).
- bobthechef 5y ago
- AnthonyMouse 5y agoI'm not sure it's so much about shortcuts. Suppose you're a judge in a contest. The contest has rules. If you apply the rules the same to all the contestants, that might be considered a disadvantage when you have the opportunity to apply the rules more favorably to your friends. Whereas the other guy who interprets the rules to favor his friends creates the expectation that the friends will return the favor someday. But the advantage isn't always an advantage. If the other participants view you as biased then they won't even show up or pay entry fees anymore. Then there is no more contest and your friends lose even the possibility of winning. It's kind of like asking if there's a disadvantage in not being a sociopath. Turns out, maybe not.
- nomoreusernames 5y agopersonally i think both are needed in the genepool. just as handicaps during a economic boom during peace time make the tribe learn about compassion, which has a group benefit for the offspring. nature is a higher order system. we are not the sums of our parts. most discoveries are mistakes or roadblocks in the path of another objective. like sperm the best approach is the shotgun approach. in space legless people use less space oxygen and food.
- bawolff 5y agoHasn't this been the sterotype of autism for a long time? What's the preconcieved idea they are challenging?
- coldtea 5y ago>Interesting if true; it could indicate that at least mild Autism is a beneficial adaptation. This assumes that being less rational (and e.g. more passionate, optimistic, etc.) is not more beneficial, which might very well be the case.
- KerryJones 5y agoThis seems rather obvious to me, but glad it's being directly said (I have made a habit of studying biases for the last couple of years). Emotion is a known irrational effect on decision making, autism is often associated with the lack of emotion in certain contexts (or inability to understand the emotion). Having less of the thing that makes you irrational would make you more rational by default. Similar to Charlie's Munger devotion in life isn't to be smart, it's to figure out how to not be dumb. How can you not be irrational? Don't let emotion impact your decision making. * To be clear, I'm not saying those on the spectrum don't have emotions (they do), though in my experience it comes across quite differently. It feels more like "another factor to be analyzed", which can easily be disregarded in some contexts, than an "invisible hand" behind the scenes influencing decisions.
- yeetaccount4 5y ago
- eftychis 5y agoI am curious if this lack of bias stems from the imposed way of life or some other effect and not the mild autism itself. E.g. Certain professions instill in you biases. Or force you to pick them. Examples: police officers, medical, politicians, social workers. And I bet those are professions that people with degrees of autism avoid. I am curious if the lack of bias exists in other conditions that end up acting in a short of unempathetic way (for different reasons as noted).
- pieter_mj 5y agoI've mentioned this before, but this is why I believe it's "easy" for RMS to be so single-mindedly incorruptible, and why he can be trusted to never waver.