Since this comment is being upvoted, I have to ask, how would being autistic affect your decision-making in that situation?
I think (incorrectly?) that everyone, except maybe children and drunk people, would remain quiet, and would either get angry or not depending on what they care about and models of the situation that vary from person to person.
I mean, think of everything that would need to go wrong in order to scream “The emperor is naked!”:
They would need to be certain about what is going through the emperor’s mind. It seems more likely that the emperor is drunk than him being a nudist. You don’t know how a drunk person with so much power would react, so the best action is not to speak.
Even if they thought it was safe, it is obvious to everyone that the emperor is naked, screaming would not give any new information.
And even it they thought that it would be informative, how do they expect it to lead to good outcomes? Because it would increase their social status or decrease the emperor’s? That seems like something that autism would make less likely.
And after hearing him say that he thinks he is clothed, they might get angry if they care a lot about not lowering the emperor’s status, or they might pretend to be angry so that the child doesn’t put himself in potential danger again or to receive whatever benefits come from siding with the man in power. Everyone else would just find the situation amusing.
Me at age 25 (who didn’t know he was autistic) “I will say the emperor is naked. Other people will like me more after I have said the emperor is naked. That girl who I asked out yesterday and who said, ‘I’m busy maybe some other time’ might now agree to go on a date with me. I believe other people will like me more because I model other peoples’ thinking on my own and I would have greater respect for someone else who says that the emperor is naked.”
Me at age 54 (who does know he is autistic). “I really, really want to say the emperor is naked. I get this will cause most other people to think less of me. I emotionally believe that I should not care about anyone who would think less of me for saying the emperor is naked, but I intellectually know this isn’t true. I’m also aware that most other people would have some natural trepidation against saying the emperor is naked that I, being very weird, have inverted. This inversion can cause me to fail at social signaling games and hinder progress towards my goals. But I so very much want to say he is naked that I’m going to do it unless I can convince myself that the costs of doing so are very high and being a tenured professor means I probably won’t suffer too much by being honest in this case, and I have succeeded in having a few friends who would not abandon me for saying the emperor is naked. Indeed one such friend has a blog post up saying that the emperor is not only naked but also mentally defective”.
Since this comment is being upvoted, I have to ask, how would being autistic affect your decision-making in that situation?
I think (incorrectly?) that everyone, except maybe children and drunk people, would remain quiet, and would either get angry or not depending on what they care about and models of the situation that vary from person to person.
I mean, think of everything that would need to go wrong in order to scream “The emperor is naked!”:
They would need to be certain about what is going through the emperor’s mind. It seems more likely that the emperor is drunk than him being a nudist. You don’t know how a drunk person with so much power would react, so the best action is not to speak.
Even if they thought it was safe, it is obvious to everyone that the emperor is naked, screaming would not give any new information.
And even it they thought that it would be informative, how do they expect it to lead to good outcomes? Because it would increase their social status or decrease the emperor’s? That seems like something that autism would make less likely.
And after hearing him say that he thinks he is clothed, they might get angry if they care a lot about not lowering the emperor’s status, or they might pretend to be angry so that the child doesn’t put himself in potential danger again or to receive whatever benefits come from siding with the man in power. Everyone else would just find the situation amusing.
Me at age 25 (who didn’t know he was autistic) “I will say the emperor is naked. Other people will like me more after I have said the emperor is naked. That girl who I asked out yesterday and who said, ‘I’m busy maybe some other time’ might now agree to go on a date with me. I believe other people will like me more because I model other peoples’ thinking on my own and I would have greater respect for someone else who says that the emperor is naked.”
Me at age 54 (who does know he is autistic). “I really, really want to say the emperor is naked. I get this will cause most other people to think less of me. I emotionally believe that I should not care about anyone who would think less of me for saying the emperor is naked, but I intellectually know this isn’t true. I’m also aware that most other people would have some natural trepidation against saying the emperor is naked that I, being very weird, have inverted. This inversion can cause me to fail at social signaling games and hinder progress towards my goals. But I so very much want to say he is naked that I’m going to do it unless I can convince myself that the costs of doing so are very high and being a tenured professor means I probably won’t suffer too much by being honest in this case, and I have succeeded in having a few friends who would not abandon me for saying the emperor is naked. Indeed one such friend has a blog post up saying that the emperor is not only naked but also mentally defective”.