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If you're interested in technology for technology's sake, then that will probably crowd out any interest in either communities or the plight of the less fortuna

If you're interested in technology for technology's sake, then that will probably crowd out any interest in either communities or the plight of the less fortunate. Both technology and libertarianism tend to draw from the high side of the autistic spectrum.

Iftheshoefits 13y ago
> Both technology and libertarianism tend to draw from the high side of the autistic spectrum Do you have a source for this claim? It seems quite extraordinary. Anecdotally, everybody I've ever met in technology who has claimed to be on "the high side of the autistic spectrum" has in reality merely been an average-intellect asshole who: a) thinks he's much smarter than he is, and assumes his inability to "get along" is because others are jealous of his abilities or just don't understand what it's like to be "on the spectrum"; b) is looking for excuses for his own boorish behavior.
- Stronico 13y ago
  It's a personal observation after many years of being acquainted with libertarians and technologists. My personal theory is that a low (relative to most) ability to see status/class relationships between people leads one to care less about relative social positioning - which leads to a rule based theory of politics.
mpyne 13y ago
As a father of a child with autism myself, I'd hesitate to leave the prevalence of libertarian and anti-authoritarian tendencies in tech to such a simple explanation... but I'll admit there are parallels. The "theory of mind" is a known challenge (not an impossibility) with those with autism [1]. This is basically the degree of awareness a person has on the fact that other persons have their own thoughts, prejudices, levels of knowledge, etc. Essentially the idea, can you put yourself in the mind or worldview of someone else? With the types of libertarianism followed in the U.S. there is simply no need to care what other people think: The idea is that the rules are simple and easy to follow, and as long as they're rigidly applied anything that happens must be fair. When you combine the difficulty of understanding why other people feel the way they do, with the very real awareness of how intelligent and knowledgeable our prototypical tech libertarian is, it starts to make sense why they believe that the outcome of these rules are fair. They are able to motivate to work, they are able to produce good work (at least, in their opinion), they follow the rules that respect others' things; why can't you? When you scale that up to the idea that a society of people all trying their best to do good work and live by the rules must obtain the ideal outcome, the appeal is more understandable, if not actually obvious. Why should the government tell a person how to live or what to do, when that person obviously knows best what's good for them, especially when government in general has long historical examples of failure. Even if you point out successes of regulation, the rejoinder is simply that such successes could be replicated with the simple set of rules, if people would only follow them. And either way, how difficult could it be to make rules that are good at an individual level also be good at a national level? The problem with the failure to understand the theory of mind is probably most pronounced with that last question... a difference in scale has always been a difference in kind, but how can you perceive that what's best for society is not always what's best for one person, when you can hardly understand that other individual people are not mirror images of oneself, let alone understanding societies at a macro level? All the same, this is all just a bunch of supposition. I am sure there are better explanations (though I should hope that it's not considered surprising that one's ability for empathy, sympathy and theory of mind may play a role in one's natural political tendencies). [1] http://www.autism.com/index.php/understanding_theoryofmind http://www.autism.com/index.php/understanding_theoryofmind
- Stronico 13y ago
  It's definitely the spectrum, not autism itself that I was refering to - I apologize for not being more specific. And I would recommend Jonathan Haidt's book "The Righteous Mind"(if I gave offence, I apologize) for how differing political mindsets define fairness - it was quite illuminating to me when I read it.
  - mpyne 13y ago
    I've been reading books like crazy recently but I might check that one out, thanks.

Iftheshoefits 13y ago

> Both technology and libertarianism tend to draw from the high side of the autistic spectrum Do you have a source for this claim? It seems quite extraordinary. Anecdotally, everybody I've ever met in technology who has claimed to be on "the high side of the autistic spectrum" has in reality merely been an average-intellect asshole who: a) thinks he's much smarter than he is, and assumes his inability to "get along" is because others are jealous of his abilities or just don't understand what it's like to be "on the spectrum"; b) is looking for excuses for his own boorish behavior.

Stronico 13y ago
It's a personal observation after many years of being acquainted with libertarians and technologists. My personal theory is that a low (relative to most) ability to see status/class relationships between people leads one to care less about relative social positioning - which leads to a rule based theory of politics.

mpyne 13y ago

As a father of a child with autism myself, I'd hesitate to leave the prevalence of libertarian and anti-authoritarian tendencies in tech to such a simple explanation... but I'll admit there are parallels. The "theory of mind" is a known challenge (not an impossibility) with those with autism [1]. This is basically the degree of awareness a person has on the fact that other persons have their own thoughts, prejudices, levels of knowledge, etc. Essentially the idea, can you put yourself in the mind or worldview of someone else? With the types of libertarianism followed in the U.S. there is simply no need to care what other people think: The idea is that the rules are simple and easy to follow, and as long as they're rigidly applied anything that happens must be fair. When you combine the difficulty of understanding why other people feel the way they do, with the very real awareness of how intelligent and knowledgeable our prototypical tech libertarian is, it starts to make sense why they believe that the outcome of these rules are fair. They are able to motivate to work, they are able to produce good work (at least, in their opinion), they follow the rules that respect others' things; why can't you? When you scale that up to the idea that a society of people all trying their best to do good work and live by the rules must obtain the ideal outcome, the appeal is more understandable, if not actually obvious. Why should the government tell a person how to live or what to do, when that person obviously knows best what's good for them, especially when government in general has long historical examples of failure. Even if you point out successes of regulation, the rejoinder is simply that such successes could be replicated with the simple set of rules, if people would only follow them. And either way, how difficult could it be to make rules that are good at an individual level also be good at a national level? The problem with the failure to understand the theory of mind is probably most pronounced with that last question... a difference in scale has always been a difference in kind, but how can you perceive that what's best for society is not always what's best for one person, when you can hardly understand that other individual people are not mirror images of oneself, let alone understanding societies at a macro level? All the same, this is all just a bunch of supposition. I am sure there are better explanations (though I should hope that it's not considered surprising that one's ability for empathy, sympathy and theory of mind may play a role in one's natural political tendencies). [1] http://www.autism.com/index.php/understanding_theoryofmind http://www.autism.com/index.php/understanding_theoryofmind

Stronico 13y ago
It's definitely the spectrum, not autism itself that I was refering to - I apologize for not being more specific. And I would recommend Jonathan Haidt's book "The Righteous Mind"(if I gave offence, I apologize) for how differing political mindsets define fairness - it was quite illuminating to me when I read it.
- mpyne 13y ago
  I've been reading books like crazy recently but I might check that one out, thanks.