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I have a bit of difficulty trying to understand what ASD means for such individuals as adults. If one is highly intelligent one can just spend time studying peo

I have a bit of difficulty trying to understand what ASD means for such individuals as adults. If one is highly intelligent one can just spend time studying people to determine how they respond to situations. I don't really grasp why understanding people is any different from analyzing any other kind of system. I wonder how many ASD diagnoses are made just because someone never learnt social skills properly due to circumstances or lack of effort/interest.

112233 4y ago
Huh, have you experienced, or have been with a close person experiencing shutdown because environment is too loud, smelly, or there is someone acting in a provoking, humiliating manner? How analythical knowledge of social skills can be of help in that situation? Suppose three armed persons draw a weapon and give you contradicting orders while threatening you. How will deep understanding of those individual orders help you reconcile them and decide how to act?
aleph_minus_one 4y ago
> I have a bit of difficulty trying to understand what ASD means for such individuals as adults. If one is highly intelligent one can just spend time studying people to determine how they respond to situations. I don't really grasp why understanding people is any different from analyzing any other kind of system. I personally see three points: - People often expect that one reacts "intuitively" instead of analyzing the whole situation first - Humans don't behave in an "easy" way like physical systems. So extracting the "hidden laws" is in my opinion nigh impossible. - Even if one tries to find possible hypotheses, one has to run a huge amount of "experiments" to extract rules. What does "running experiments" here mean? Behaving in very weird ways all the time just to obtain data on the behavior of the people. And the required data volume is insane, so it means behaving consciously weirdly rather for decades.
- majikaja 4y ago
  I genuinely spend a lot of time studying people offline and online. I think someone who can't do this from first principles is probably going to struggle if they try living in a very foreign country or amongst a different subculture of their own nation. Most people can't cope outside their comfort zone.
- nailer 4y ago
  > I don't really grasp why understanding people is any different from analyzing any other kind of system. It's not, but people tend to be able to spot the difference between studied and natural behaviour if you know them long enough. Studied behaviour is called 'masking' and has a tremendous mental toll. Over time, someone will eventually see you tired, and therefore unmasked. As a seven year old I studied Peter Curry (the most popular boy in school) and Michaelangelo (the most well liked ninja turtle) because it seemed everyone else had been given a set of social instructions and I had not, and that by adopting their behaviour I would be less isolated. It was still a nine year wait until I had a friend.
Jensson 4y ago
A person with balance disorder wont be able to walk straight and will trip a lot. You can't just study physics and fix your balance, those calculations are too hard to make quickly enough to be used in practice. Understanding physics might help a bit, but their walk will always feel clunky and unnatural. ASD is the same kind of problem but with social situations. No matter what they do their social interactions wont feel as natural and smooth as what normal humans do. And interestingly enough many with ASD also have unnatural and clunky walking styles as if they had a problem with balance, it is a known red flag to check for a diagnosis.
- majikaja 4y ago
  I guess, just feels weird that someone who is #2 on Twitter describes themselves in this way. Kind of a high bar
  - nailer 4y ago
    Autism can create success. Does Elon seem like someone who is fashionable and deeply prioritises the opinions of others over the truth?
  - Jensson 4y ago
    A person who got ahead even though their social skills are shit probably has a lot of other things going for them, not everyone judges a persons worth just based on their social skills.
    - majikaja 4y ago
      I would have judged him to have good social skills if he managed to drum up such a following to help raise money for his ventures. Obviously depends on the crowd
      - Jensson 4y ago
        And a person with a balance disorder can be great at physics, not sure what you think is strange here.
nequo 4y ago
It does mean that tactful social interactions require conscious mental effort for a person with ASD. If you’re busy using your mind for something else, tact might get lost along the way. Or so I understand.
niom 4y ago
Masking behaviors are strongly correlated with worse well-being and increased mental health issues (generally depression, suicidial ideation and attempts).

112233 4y ago

Huh, have you experienced, or have been with a close person experiencing shutdown because environment is too loud, smelly, or there is someone acting in a provoking, humiliating manner? How analythical knowledge of social skills can be of help in that situation? Suppose three armed persons draw a weapon and give you contradicting orders while threatening you. How will deep understanding of those individual orders help you reconcile them and decide how to act?

aleph_minus_one 4y ago

> I have a bit of difficulty trying to understand what ASD means for such individuals as adults. If one is highly intelligent one can just spend time studying people to determine how they respond to situations. I don't really grasp why understanding people is any different from analyzing any other kind of system. I personally see three points: - People often expect that one reacts "intuitively" instead of analyzing the whole situation first - Humans don't behave in an "easy" way like physical systems. So extracting the "hidden laws" is in my opinion nigh impossible. - Even if one tries to find possible hypotheses, one has to run a huge amount of "experiments" to extract rules. What does "running experiments" here mean? Behaving in very weird ways all the time just to obtain data on the behavior of the people. And the required data volume is insane, so it means behaving consciously weirdly rather for decades.

majikaja 4y ago
I genuinely spend a lot of time studying people offline and online. I think someone who can't do this from first principles is probably going to struggle if they try living in a very foreign country or amongst a different subculture of their own nation. Most people can't cope outside their comfort zone.
nailer 4y ago
> I don't really grasp why understanding people is any different from analyzing any other kind of system. It's not, but people tend to be able to spot the difference between studied and natural behaviour if you know them long enough. Studied behaviour is called 'masking' and has a tremendous mental toll. Over time, someone will eventually see you tired, and therefore unmasked. As a seven year old I studied Peter Curry (the most popular boy in school) and Michaelangelo (the most well liked ninja turtle) because it seemed everyone else had been given a set of social instructions and I had not, and that by adopting their behaviour I would be less isolated. It was still a nine year wait until I had a friend.

Jensson 4y ago

A person with balance disorder wont be able to walk straight and will trip a lot. You can't just study physics and fix your balance, those calculations are too hard to make quickly enough to be used in practice. Understanding physics might help a bit, but their walk will always feel clunky and unnatural. ASD is the same kind of problem but with social situations. No matter what they do their social interactions wont feel as natural and smooth as what normal humans do. And interestingly enough many with ASD also have unnatural and clunky walking styles as if they had a problem with balance, it is a known red flag to check for a diagnosis.

majikaja 4y ago
I guess, just feels weird that someone who is #2 on Twitter describes themselves in this way. Kind of a high bar
- nailer 4y ago
  Autism can create success. Does Elon seem like someone who is fashionable and deeply prioritises the opinions of others over the truth?
- Jensson 4y ago
  A person who got ahead even though their social skills are shit probably has a lot of other things going for them, not everyone judges a persons worth just based on their social skills.
  - majikaja 4y ago
    I would have judged him to have good social skills if he managed to drum up such a following to help raise money for his ventures. Obviously depends on the crowd
    - Jensson 4y ago
      And a person with a balance disorder can be great at physics, not sure what you think is strange here.

nequo 4y ago

It does mean that tactful social interactions require conscious mental effort for a person with ASD. If you’re busy using your mind for something else, tact might get lost along the way. Or so I understand.

niom 4y ago

Masking behaviors are strongly correlated with worse well-being and increased mental health issues (generally depression, suicidial ideation and attempts).