8 ms·

It's called narcissistic entitlement to expect the whole world to change their behaviour because of ones own inability to fit in. I'm not saying it is fair. Lif

• musingsole 4y ago
  You're reading more into this piece than is there. The author never advocates that the rest of the world should change. This post only claims that these miscommunication scenarios between experts on the autistic spectrum and allistic people HAPPEN. They happen to me too. Understanding the nature of the miscommunication is the first step towards averting it in the future.
  • denton-scratch 4y ago
    > They happen to me too. And me. I'm not autistic. I don't think I have any kind of Asperger's either. I didn't see anything in author's prose that suggested autism; it just sounded like a normie, perhaps with an autism diagnosis, who is fretting about communication with their boss. There seems to be quite a few commenters here making critical comments, as if author is failing to communicate effectively. I wonder if they'd have been so critical, if author hadn't self-identified as autistic. I wonder if some of these commenters have a bad attitude to self-identified autistics. I've never known an autistic person well; but I worked closely in an office with an autistic developer. I found his code over-complex and hard to follow. Pair-coding with this guy was a waste of time; he couldn't explain what he was doing. Author, however, seems to be able to explain himself fine.
    • shlant 4y ago
      what is the point of dismissing someones Autism purely based on a single blog post and one person you knew? Are you actually trying to convey something helpful here?
      • denton-scratch 4y ago
        I'm not dismissing anyone's anything. I believe autism exists. > one person you knew? I've only known one person who was diagnosed autistic. It's a rare condition; I've known a dozen people with bipolar, and half-a-dozen diagnosed schizophrenics (either I'm attracted to psychotics, or they're attracted to me!) My point was simply that author's account could be anyone's account, apart from the author's self-identification as autistic. Without that, this entire thread would just be about how to deal with a crap boss.
        • musingsole 4y ago
          >I'm not dismissing anyone's anything. >>I didn't see anything in author's prose that suggested autism You very much are dismissing someone's something. Worse, I don't think the author explicitly stated they were autistic in the piece...So, you're assuming someone's something just so you can dismiss it?
          • denton-scratch 4y ago
            > I don't think the author explicitly stated they were autistic in the piece "I have read similar experiences by other autistic people" suggests that the author considers themself to be autistic. > You very much are dismissing someone's something. ...And that's that, I guess. Can you please clarify what I am dismissing, and how? I don't want to dismiss anyone's anything.
            • musingsole 4y ago
              >>I didn't see anything in author's prose that suggested autism
              • atq2119 4y ago
                This doesn't read to me as dismissing the author's autism. It reads to me as observing that a non-autist could have written substantially the same article (minus making it about autism), and they then went off to observe that this comment section would likely have looked very different in that case. It's an interesting thought experiment, and at least to me it feels like you're the one who is reading dismissal into it for no good reason.
    • kderbyma 4y ago
      spectrum......
      • denton-scratch 4y ago
        I find the term "spectrum" problematic. Is Asperger's part of the spectrum? Wikipedia says it's an invalid diagnosis. So did all those people with Asperger's just get dumped in the "Autistic Spectrum" bucket? DSoes the spectrum run from ultra-violet to infra-red? Is this a spectrum for which every behaviour pattern has a slot? Does that mean we're all "on the spectrum"? If that's what it means, then that seems like dismissing Autism as just being one extreme of being an awkward person. I think a lot of devs wind up working with people who are awkward. They don't like it (who would?) Some of those awkward people self-identify as autistic. So the devs decide they don't care much for autistic people. I think that's a kind of bigotry; they should really dislike working with awkward people, whatever the reason for their awkwardness. [Awkward: apparently this is related to upward, downward, northward, etc. "Awk-" signifies "at an unusual angle". I know of no other word that starts with "awk-"]
        • faeriechangling 4y ago
          > Is Asperger's part of the spectrum? Wikipedia says it's an invalid diagnosis. So did all those people with Asperger's just get dumped in the "Autistic Spectrum" bucket? This is explicitly what happened. The DSM-V explicitly automatically gives you an autism spectrum disorder diagnosis if you had an Asperger’s diagnosis. I think it’s hilariously how blatantly political this criteria is. As for the legitimacy of spectrum disorders, the only thing I have to say about the subject is the parable of Chesterson’s fence. Think about the problems people were trying to solve with the concept of autism spectrum disorder. >is this a spectrum for which every behaviour pattern has a slot You aren’t far off but are missing th forest for the trees. It’s part of a diagnostic system where every disorder is meant to be discrete and non-overlapping and you either have it or you don’t and other good traits you would want in a diagnostic nosology. The spectrum is an artifact of it having to bend to describe what are actually several distinct similarly presenting conditions. It doesn’t have to describe EVERYTHING, it has to fit a hole in the nosology. Asperger’s was depreciated in large part because of the overlap with autism. If you want something to criticize take a few steps back and look at mental health and psychiatry as a whole. A lot of the assumptions underpinning autism underpin more of mental health.
• brainwipe 4y ago
  Neuro diverse people can't necessarily change their behaviour because it's how their brain is wired. It's like asking a visually impaired person to just see better. Many neuro diverse people have to force themselves to "fit in" causing untold stress and trauma. That's not for their own good, it's forcing their brains to work in a way that they don't.
  • MichaelZuo 4y ago
    I'm fairly sure everyone alive has a neural plasticity above zero.
    • xSxY3fj5gVCmvWE 4y ago
      Ingenious. Groundbreaking. Whitepaper-worthy. If only people on the autistic spectrum would just simply learn their way out of it. Even better idea: use your neural plasticity and get some empathy.
      • MichaelZuo 4y ago
        Are you trying to mock autistic folks? Anyways judging by your posting history, try reflecting on your own empathy.
  • Beltalowda 4y ago
    That is essentially saying that autistic people can't learn. That's not really the case. Furthermore everyone has to adjust to the people around them, often causing untold stress for everyone. This is one of the aspects of the neurodivergency movement I am less impressed by because I feel it's just handwaving away any issues as "suck it up, not my problem, deal with it". I've worked with a few people like this over the years, which also caused untold stress for the entire team. To give an example from this post, "is our checkout page not performing well?" to the React rewrite manager comes off as a rather dismissive "why would you want to do that?" While certainly a valid question – and I wasn't there and I don't know if it was phrased like that exactly – but I'm sure those questions could have been asked in a way that came off as less challenging and dismissive, resulting in a more constructive conversation. You really can learn these things. Or, maybe the manager was just an asshole/idiot and the unconstructive interaction is all completely unrelated to the author's autism. Could be too. The first point – "the non-autistic person is not hearing what I'm saying" – sounds like the author might benefit from trying to understand why that is, and adjusting the way they say things. Sometimes small changes can make large differences, and it really doesn't need to cause untold stress. Effective communication is hard and also something everyone has to learn.
• scotty79 4y ago
  > It's called narcissistic entitlement to expect the whole world to change their behaviour because of ones own inability to fit in. Is it not exactly what allistic people are doing? Autistic people communicate just fine with other autistic people. It's allistic people that don't fit in and want to change everybody around them because they can't suffer a bit of diversity in thinking and communication.
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  • stkdump 4y ago
    I think in the end people who are different (no matter if autistic, bipolar, whatever) need to learn to get along with each other. Whenever one side says: "I am right, I don't move a bit to accomodate anyone else", he is doing the opposite. This piece reads exactly like that. It calls people who communicate and think differently indistinctly bullies. If you claim to be a complex thinker, you also consider people in your analysis, then that should also apply first hand, not just as a part of the solutions you propose. If you are unable to do that: fine, nobody is expected to be perfect. But don't claim to be perfect.
• shlant 4y ago
  > expect the whole world to change their behaviour Who is saying this? The article provides a perspective that is not discussed very often as a way of helping people understand these situations from a vantage point they might not have considered. Nobody is demanding anything.