Does Autism protect against manipulation? - Or why Autists are so right wing these days.

[mindlessobserver]

One of the major "symptoms" of Autism is being unable to process external emotion triggers. The usual queues people give off in order to convey the mood, or a desired emotion response. Like, I am in pain, comfort me. Or, I am angry, back off. People with Autism have a very hard time latching onto these queues and acting accordingly if they act at all.

However, many efforts of media manipulation and political manipulation in general are also huge appeals to emotion. i.e, look at all these suffering Arabs. Open borders, let them in! Or, children are getting killed, ban all guns! It seems to me autism is actually a defense mechanism against such blatant emotional manipulation. Which may explain why Autists seem to be so against the Left wing these days. After all, the Left is one huge appeal to emotion.

 

[GS 281]

Yeah, Chris has never been manipulated

 

[Strange Looking Dog]

One must also consider that their inability to process other's emotions might prevent them from detecting lies or other forms of manipulation. They are probably hardened against emotional appeals though.

 

[BILLY MAYS]

the political spectrum is like the autistic spectrum, all are autistic

 

[REGENDarySumanai]

It's a double edged sword. Sure, you might be protected against manipulation, but you can also be easily manipulated.

 

[Sperglord Dante]

 

[Pablo Birmingham]

Autists are (as a general rule) not non-binary troon queer, trashcan-kicking antifa, condom snorting indie game "developers".

Anything short of that seems pretty far-right these days.

 

[Trans Fat 41g]

I mean, what do any neurological/psychological quirks protect us against? That's just instinct working around our limitations. We're still "handicapped" but adapt to it, or don't.

 

[Sylvie Paula Paula]

From experience, no. Absolutely not. If anything, it can make it worse since autistic people won't realize if they're being manipulated or not. And then they won't exactly be affected by it like a normal person would, and they'd fall into the same traps over. and over. and over again.

 

[Coconut Gun]

It definitely doesn't protect against making bad threads.

 

[2al]

If anything, psychopathy does.

 

[IV 445]

Autists are stubborn and rigid, and that’s not necessarily a good thing.

 

[Iamthatis]

Autists are (as a general rule) not non-binary troon queer, trashcan-kicking antifa, condom snorting indie game "developers".

Anything short of that seems pretty far-right these days.

Only someone who was severely autistic would say something that retarded. Almost all autistics are non bianary queer trannys who want to live in sonic the hedgehogs foreskin here in the berenstain universe.

 

[Captain Smollett]

If that's the case, explain what happened to Chris numerous times.

 

[George Oscar Bluth Jr]

Autistic people might be less easy to manipulate with direct appeals to empathy and emotion, but they're easy as fuck to manipulate if you make up some pseudoscience and convince them their emotions are in fact rational while the other side's emotions are not.

 

[ThatManInTheTopHat]

The opposite. People with autism often can't 'read between the lines' on what someone could be trying to get across, they miss those subtle cues that would often be noticed by non autistic people.

Autistic people are more rigid to emotional manipulation but they're gullible if something sounds logical to them. https://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/jun/14/autistic-adults-abused-by-friends-survey

 

[Elwood P. Dowd]

Dunno what alternate timeline OP dropped from, but the last time I visited the discussion boards at WrongPlanet the place seemed very lefty to me.

Also, groups like ASAN are VERY hard left from what I've seen. Possibly might be some self selection there, since I'm pretty sure they were set up as a direct counter to Autism Speaks. But, the official blog features gems like this:

What Does a Black Autistic Man Look Like?

Intersections in Flesh

Like most people, I am an intersection of many different aspects of identity. I am neurodivergent because I’m Autistic, am a multiple personality system and have had minor brain injuries resulting from childhood abuse. (Because we’re a multiple system, I switch back and forth between singular and plural first-person pronouns in this essay.) I’m also disabled and chronically ill, thanks to type 2 diabetes and the aftereffects of a severe bout with Lyme disease when I was ten years old. I am also transgender, finally coming out at age 38 after two and a half decades of actively hiding this part of myself just to stay alive.

Autistic, black, tranny has the 'betes and is brain damaged. Plus is a "multiple personality system," whatever the hell that is.

 

[sperginity]

another major symptom is being socially naive. Maybe they are better at not recognizing emotional appeals, and so aren't swayed by them, but they don't recognize most deception for what it is. Most emotional appeals directly tell you what you are supposed to conclude so it works on them for that reason.

 

[Thelostcup]

The thing about autism is that the definition is now so sparse and the brain functions governing socialization are so incredibly complex compared to animals. Therefore now you get a huge range of symptoms from biters who play pokemon and shit themselves all day, to people with normal to high intelligence who just have trouble keeping pace with social interactions. While there are common symptoms, it's similar to schizophrenia in that it's a collection of different disorders and neurological wirings that all present similarly.

While you can induce that someone on the spectrum may be inclined to think or act a certain way, most of the time the only consistent thing I've really picked up on with aspies and HFA is a strict adherence to internal logic. Their conclusions may be incredibly factually incorrect and divorced from reality, but most autists are atleast able to link cause and effect.

I don't think any particular ideology attracts more autistics than others because I've seen them in every political sphere. That being said, Ayn Rand's version of Objectivism is quite literally just Asperger's Syndrome as a political philosophy.

 

[Slamerella]

People with high functioning or even low functioning autism can have some exceptions when it comes to certain things. I've seen people get visual and social cues immediately while being easily manipulated to do something for them to make them feel better, like people with breakups so they think about how they could make someone feel better. Recently, I've been helping a friend of mine with a breakup and she's been really upset with it and she has slight autism, but I realized that he had been manipulating her for gifts for her autismbux for about three years, giving her gifts to make it seem even. Dude had been lying for quite some time about his circumstances, and she told me that "he likes to go to Anime Expo" and then suddenly, I thought, since I remembered he's went the past two years, that he was homeless.

Doesn't help the guy took a redpill kool aid overdose. Dude has gone completely right wing. Just last night he posted a fucking satire article about a fisher price knife getting a toddler arrested and the fisher price knife looked so fake that I literally could not believe he posted it.

Back on the topic, sympathy can be very hard for some people who are autistic. Some will only feel that they're the ones that are worse off and feel bad for themselves and not others, thinking different things. For example, an autistic kid who has no job and is staying with his parents and his sibling who is better off and still lives with theirs too. They might be unhappy due to the inability to get a job and think that their sibling shouldn't be feeling bad due to having a good job and good pay. They might not know what goes on with them and their life.

But autistic people being right wing might just be an anecdotal thing. There's not many right wing people, ironically, in the part of the south I'm at.