James_D._Miller comments on Lonely Dissent - Less Wrong

34 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 28 December 2007 04:23AM

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Comment author: James_D._Miller 28 December 2007 05:47:25AM 17 points [-]

"What takes real courage is braving the outright incomprehension of the people around you,"

I suspect that autistics are far more willing than neurotypicals to be true iconoclast because many neurotypicals find autistics incomprehensible regardless of what the autistics believe. So the price of being an intellectual iconoclast is lower for autistics than for most other people.

Comment author: dmh_phoenix 07 October 2009 01:06:45AM 6 points [-]

Yes -- I was going to reply to "There are certain people who have no fear of departing the pack" with "there are some people who <i>can't</i> stay with the pack!".

These (not just the autistics, but also other neurodiverse folks) are the true "natural outsiders". As demonstrated by the OP's comments, their presence in a group (or contrariwise their exclusion) has nontrivial effects on how a group acts, and especially how it deals with challenges.

Comment author: TobyBartels 26 May 2013 08:26:24PM 3 points [-]

Thanks goodness for the neurodiverse, then!