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CuSithBell comments on Autism and Lesswrong - Less Wrong Discussion
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Comments (29)
Excellent. And of course, any poll thread on lesswrong will be 10% poll and 90% arguing about bias and rigor.
Since you volunteered the info, do you have any particular notions about how lesswrong and/or rationality have interacted with your autism? Though I personally suspect this sort of thing is in general difficult to analyze in that manner.
It's a very noisy question. I can speculate wildly, if that's what you want. Hrm...
Autism correlates with geekiness correlates with internet use. Internet being the delivery mechanism of LW content (to the point where there's no other way to get into LW - unlike, say, a knitting site, which could attract people who got into knitting through an offline meme source), that's a filter. You have to be somebody who's willing to acquire online hobbies.
LW is not a haven for dreaded "small talk". (I don't dread small talk anymore, but I used to.) Jokes and so on happen, but it's not a site where a bunch of people get flung together and Have Social Interactions: instead, there's a topic. This is probably more comfortable for autistic types. The only other online community I've become heavily involved in was one based around play-by-post D&D, which, again, is a topic.
The design is good. LW has an inoffensive color scheme. Nothing flashes or animates at me. It doesn't change layout in a visually noticeable way often. It's the website equivalent of a comfy chair in a quiet room.
There are several angles from which one can become a competent LWer. This allows people with various niche interests to congregate and pool skills. It's a common autistic trait to pick up special interests like that, so any community with a topic one could approach via (say) math or philosophy might attract a similar crowd. However, once someone's attracted, rationality is sufficiently applicable to miscellaneous topics that it can maintain a hold on someone whose interests change. (This is not personal speculation, since I don't think I really do the "special interest" part of my diagnosis unless you really squint.)
This is all that I want in the world.
These are some interesting points. I'll particularly have to consider #2 at greater length.
I think that the association between autism and literalism may relate to reason as a memetic immune disorder. My speculation is that autistic individuals are more likely to notice something wrong with belief as attire and mysterious answers, because they expect beliefs to say something concrete and comprehensible about reality.
The reasons that Alicorn provided probably also have something to do with it.
Interesting. I certainly get the feeling that there is a general perception of some sort of connection here. According to my own vague touchy-feely personal-experience speculation, I expect autistic individuals to be more likely to think of themselves as more rational. As to whether they are, I'm much less sure.
If they're like some of the smarter people I know (myself included), then they may be spectacularly less rational than they think they are.