Epistemic status: I’m diagnosed with autism. High risk of overgeneralising from my own experience to autists in general.
Intense world theory is the best explanation for Autism I’ve heard of. Thanks for spreading the word.
But I feel like this blogpost don’t explain it as well as the book, even though you quote the book. I think this is probaby because the sections you qoted are the ones focused on explaining why autists have worse social skills, and I have come to belive that having bad social skills are not very stongly linked to autism, at least in the narow sense of understaning nonverbal comuniction.
Sure many atusits have social dificulties. But I don’t think that’s because we have trouble reading faces or anything like that. I’m not saying I’m an expert, but have you noticed how bad most neurtypicals are correctly reading faces and bodylanguage? It’s mostly guesswork and overconfidence.
Autists run into socail problem becaue we act diffrently, (e.g. lack or eye contact) which makes the neurotypical nerouvs, which makes interaction harder. A lot of social interaction is about getting the other person to feel at ease in your company. Getting over stimulated and having a meltdown is also extremly bad for ones social acceptance (understandingly). But neither of these dificulties comes primarlely from lack of social skills.
I know I’m supposed to say things like “I’m fine” even when that is a lie. I know the rules as well as anyone. It’s not that complicated. But lying hurts! Most neurotypicals can not grok this simple fact, which leads to some rediculus theories about autism.
This is relatable. I’m was diagnosed ASPD as a child, but never had any follow-up treatment or therapy. One noteworthy aspect of my transition into adulthood is the sheer amount of deliberate practice that went into learning how to properly socialize. Standing on the other side of all that effort, I feel that I’ve become more empathic than half my neurotypical friends and family members, quicker to accurately and elaborately imagine (in a humanizing fashion) another person’s perspective. People regard me as eloquent and charming to be around, confident and outgoing, etc. Honestly, it’s just a lot of hard work. My tendency is toward seclusion, I’m strongly introverted, and social gatherings of more than, say, three-to-five close friends can easily spike my blood pressure.
When it comes to certain things, I’m definitely having a qualitatively different experience than some of my more neurotypical friends. You brought up lying and that’s one good example. I think that a common manifestation of neurodivergence is an obsession with the true shape of things, so that it’s easy to become hyperfocused, to a detriment, on distinctions that seem very important to the individual.
I think neurotypicals’ guesses are more accurate; that’s, IMO, the mechanism by which empathy works, a propensity to epistemically-unjustified intuitions which are in fact true for most other people.
Neurotypicals are more accurate for other neurotypicals. Autists are more accurate for other autists.
Since there are more neurotypicals (are there? or just more people pretending to be?*) neurotypicals are statistically more often correct**. But I would still not claim that that is a higher level of social skill. Having higher skill level at a more common task, is not the same thing as having higher over all skill. This detail is very important for understanding autism.
* Not saying that autism is the majority. But there are more neurotypes out there, and probably lots that are better at masking than autists.
** In a statistically representative environment. When autists are free to self segregate, we no longer have problems. This is the main point actually. If it was just a one dimensional skill issue, concentrating lots of autists, would go terribly, since no one have social skills, but instead is’s great. All the people I get along with the best are other autists (officially or self diagnosed).
that’s, IMO, the mechanism by which empathy works
Empathy is a very unreliable source of information though. E.g. I feel empathy with my plushies.
Empathy is a useful tool, I use it too to generate initial guesses about people. But I’m also aware that it’s untrustworthy. In my experience it’s common for neurotypicals to fail at this last step.
Autists are more accurate for other autists than they are for neurotypicals, but they are worse than neurotypicals at understanding neurotypicals and only about equal to them at understanding fellow autists, which is IMO reflective of a lower baseline aptitude somewhat compensated for by shared ground.
I agree that empathy makes one irrational about inanimate objects; I think this is because the most useful level of empathy for predicting other humans also produces many false positives when applied to things that are not other humans.
Actually, it’s probably true if you don’t confound for intelligence.
Autism is negatively correlated with intelligence, and if you’re not very smart, everything gets harder. But I think it’s wrong to see low intelligence as part of Autism. And even if you disagree, it’s weird to classify a general intelligence problem as a specific social deficit problem.
But if you compare high functioning Autists with neurotypicals, in realistic enough settings, I’m convinced autists will be better at understanding autists than neurotypicals are at understanding autists. Although “realistic enough” might require the autists enough time to interact to spot each other as same type of person.
I don’t put a lot of weight here on academic studies, over just all of my life experience. But in case you do: I did here of a study where autist worked better with other autists than neurotypicals with neurotypicals. I don’t have the liks, sorry. Just my memory of someone I trust telling me about it.
The reason I don’t trust academic studies on this topic, is that is really really hard to do them well, so most of them are not done well.
My description is based on extensive observation and to a lesser extent personal experience, and was not intended to focus on those with low intelligence; while it’s difficult to assess intelligence over the internet, I haven’t especially noticed a correlation between high intelligence and increased social skill.
To bring in some concrete examples of places autists fail to impress (this list is far from complete, but hopefully at least gestures in an informative direction):
Things allists are generally better at:
-correctly inferring my mood from nonverbal cues
-executing the social graces which make me feel safe and welcome; not defecting by accident (note, ironically enough, that—while I’m sure his algorithm does play better with normies—the author of that post also demonstrated himself in the comments to be terrible at picking a tone which wouldn’t insult lesswrongers; this IMO ties into a common autistic tendency to have difficulty with code-switching and with real-time adjustment to social feedback)
-understanding the gist of what I said when I didn’t use precisely the words they consider correct; understanding what I say when I happen to use imprecise words because my desired level of abstraction does not contain more precision
-sending positive phatic signals in the event they happen to like me (and, note, IRL I don’t generally look at people when they’re talking to me at all; if I did, I expect the difference would be far more pronounced due to allists’ generally higher inclination to express emotion in their faces and bodies)
-both groups have a deeply unpleasant tendency to demand one spell oneself out to them in excruciating detail, but autists generally require a higher level of detail and have a lower threshold of confusion
Things they’re about equal at:
-allists are likelier to impute an emotional tone to their interlocutors’ words which wasn’t there whilst autists are likelier to impute spurious implications, but both groups routinely fall into both failure modes
-both groups also have a strong tendency to dig their heels in if it’s suggested they might’ve misunderstood something, arguing that their interlocutor obviously meant X and was using words wrong or is lying about their intent (autists are likelier to use the former excuse whilst the latter is more often heard from allists, but again, both groups commit both errors)
-autists have a tendency to assume that which they can’t immediately see the point of is objectively irrelevant or useless, rather than their having failed to understand something; allistic self-centeredness and overconfidence does produce similar results in many cases, but doesn’t usually manifest in this precise fashion
-both groups also tend to assume that if they’re confused it’s because their interlocutor is talking nonsense, rather than because they’ve failed to parse their interlocutors’ words correctly and/or gather necessary context
-allists aren’t discernibly worse at reading all the words I said and assuming I chose them deliberately, although this is more because autists are surprisingly bad at it than because allists are any good at it
Epistemic status: I’m diagnosed with autism. High risk of overgeneralising from my own experience to autists in general.
Intense world theory is the best explanation for Autism I’ve heard of. Thanks for spreading the word.
But I feel like this blogpost don’t explain it as well as the book, even though you quote the book. I think this is probaby because the sections you qoted are the ones focused on explaining why autists have worse social skills, and I have come to belive that having bad social skills are not very stongly linked to autism, at least in the narow sense of understaning nonverbal comuniction.
Sure many atusits have social dificulties. But I don’t think that’s because we have trouble reading faces or anything like that. I’m not saying I’m an expert, but have you noticed how bad most neurtypicals are correctly reading faces and bodylanguage? It’s mostly guesswork and overconfidence.
Autists run into socail problem becaue we act diffrently, (e.g. lack or eye contact) which makes the neurotypical nerouvs, which makes interaction harder. A lot of social interaction is about getting the other person to feel at ease in your company. Getting over stimulated and having a meltdown is also extremly bad for ones social acceptance (understandingly). But neither of these dificulties comes primarlely from lack of social skills.
I know I’m supposed to say things like “I’m fine” even when that is a lie. I know the rules as well as anyone. It’s not that complicated. But lying hurts! Most neurotypicals can not grok this simple fact, which leads to some rediculus theories about autism.
This is relatable. I’m was diagnosed ASPD as a child, but never had any follow-up treatment or therapy. One noteworthy aspect of my transition into adulthood is the sheer amount of deliberate practice that went into learning how to properly socialize. Standing on the other side of all that effort, I feel that I’ve become more empathic than half my neurotypical friends and family members, quicker to accurately and elaborately imagine (in a humanizing fashion) another person’s perspective. People regard me as eloquent and charming to be around, confident and outgoing, etc. Honestly, it’s just a lot of hard work. My tendency is toward seclusion, I’m strongly introverted, and social gatherings of more than, say, three-to-five close friends can easily spike my blood pressure.
When it comes to certain things, I’m definitely having a qualitatively different experience than some of my more neurotypical friends. You brought up lying and that’s one good example. I think that a common manifestation of neurodivergence is an obsession with the true shape of things, so that it’s easy to become hyperfocused, to a detriment, on distinctions that seem very important to the individual.
I think neurotypicals’ guesses are more accurate; that’s, IMO, the mechanism by which empathy works, a propensity to epistemically-unjustified intuitions which are in fact true for most other people.
Neurotypicals are more accurate for other neurotypicals. Autists are more accurate for other autists.
Since there are more neurotypicals (are there? or just more people pretending to be?*) neurotypicals are statistically more often correct**. But I would still not claim that that is a higher level of social skill. Having higher skill level at a more common task, is not the same thing as having higher over all skill. This detail is very important for understanding autism.
* Not saying that autism is the majority. But there are more neurotypes out there, and probably lots that are better at masking than autists.
** In a statistically representative environment. When autists are free to self segregate, we no longer have problems. This is the main point actually. If it was just a one dimensional skill issue, concentrating lots of autists, would go terribly, since no one have social skills, but instead is’s great. All the people I get along with the best are other autists (officially or self diagnosed).
Empathy is a very unreliable source of information though. E.g. I feel empathy with my plushies.
Empathy is a useful tool, I use it too to generate initial guesses about people. But I’m also aware that it’s untrustworthy. In my experience it’s common for neurotypicals to fail at this last step.
Autists are more accurate for other autists than they are for neurotypicals, but they are worse than neurotypicals at understanding neurotypicals and only about equal to them at understanding fellow autists, which is IMO reflective of a lower baseline aptitude somewhat compensated for by shared ground.
I agree that empathy makes one irrational about inanimate objects; I think this is because the most useful level of empathy for predicting other humans also produces many false positives when applied to things that are not other humans.
I do not believe this.
Actually, it’s probably true if you don’t confound for intelligence.
Autism is negatively correlated with intelligence, and if you’re not very smart, everything gets harder. But I think it’s wrong to see low intelligence as part of Autism. And even if you disagree, it’s weird to classify a general intelligence problem as a specific social deficit problem.
But if you compare high functioning Autists with neurotypicals, in realistic enough settings, I’m convinced autists will be better at understanding autists than neurotypicals are at understanding autists. Although “realistic enough” might require the autists enough time to interact to spot each other as same type of person.
I don’t put a lot of weight here on academic studies, over just all of my life experience. But in case you do: I did here of a study where autist worked better with other autists than neurotypicals with neurotypicals. I don’t have the liks, sorry. Just my memory of someone I trust telling me about it.
The reason I don’t trust academic studies on this topic, is that is really really hard to do them well, so most of them are not done well.
My description is based on extensive observation and to a lesser extent personal experience, and was not intended to focus on those with low intelligence; while it’s difficult to assess intelligence over the internet, I haven’t especially noticed a correlation between high intelligence and increased social skill.
To bring in some concrete examples of places autists fail to impress (this list is far from complete, but hopefully at least gestures in an informative direction):
Things allists are generally better at:
-correctly inferring my mood from nonverbal cues
-executing the social graces which make me feel safe and welcome; not defecting by accident (note, ironically enough, that—while I’m sure his algorithm does play better with normies—the author of that post also demonstrated himself in the comments to be terrible at picking a tone which wouldn’t insult lesswrongers; this IMO ties into a common autistic tendency to have difficulty with code-switching and with real-time adjustment to social feedback)
-understanding the gist of what I said when I didn’t use precisely the words they consider correct; understanding what I say when I happen to use imprecise words because my desired level of abstraction does not contain more precision
-sending positive phatic signals in the event they happen to like me (and, note, IRL I don’t generally look at people when they’re talking to me at all; if I did, I expect the difference would be far more pronounced due to allists’ generally higher inclination to express emotion in their faces and bodies)
-both groups have a deeply unpleasant tendency to demand one spell oneself out to them in excruciating detail, but autists generally require a higher level of detail and have a lower threshold of confusion
Things they’re about equal at:
-allists are likelier to impute an emotional tone to their interlocutors’ words which wasn’t there whilst autists are likelier to impute spurious implications, but both groups routinely fall into both failure modes
-both groups also have a strong tendency to dig their heels in if it’s suggested they might’ve misunderstood something, arguing that their interlocutor obviously meant X and was using words wrong or is lying about their intent (autists are likelier to use the former excuse whilst the latter is more often heard from allists, but again, both groups commit both errors)
-autists have a tendency to assume that which they can’t immediately see the point of is objectively irrelevant or useless, rather than their having failed to understand something; allistic self-centeredness and overconfidence does produce similar results in many cases, but doesn’t usually manifest in this precise fashion
-both groups also tend to assume that if they’re confused it’s because their interlocutor is talking nonsense, rather than because they’ve failed to parse their interlocutors’ words correctly and/or gather necessary context
-allists aren’t discernibly worse at reading all the words I said and assuming I chose them deliberately, although this is more because autists are surprisingly bad at it than because allists are any good at it