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

[Pablo Birmingham]

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

Spend time out in the real world instead of just on the internet.

You're welcome.

 

[Positron]

Why do you think there is a correlation between autism and trooning out, if autists weren't susceptible to emotional manipulation? And why is "tard rage" a thing?

The fact is they absolutely do. Autists aren't geared to detect the emotion of other people, but that doesn't mean they don't have emotional states themselves. To get an autist on your side you have to appeal to their emotions directly, by alluding to things that affect them personally, and not show how other people are feeling in hopes that the emotion rubs off on the autist.

 

[Slap47]

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.

Right Wing: Some autists want people to leave them alone or they're retarded racists.

Left Wing: Mommy told them that mean words are wrong and taught them to be non-judgmental to a fault.

There are plenty of sjw autists so I dunno where this meme comes from.

 

[Yop Yop]

Right wingers are autistic. Completely agree with you OP.

 

[Tragi-Chan]

If an autist hasn't been properly socialised, I'd say they're more open to being manipulated. The world is full of complex social cues that can help a person to figure out if someone's being insincere, lying or sarcastic, which can go right over an autistic person's head. Where a regular person would spot a really obvious appeal to emotion, an autist may not.

As for politics, I've met autists on the left wing and the right. It all depends what they feel best serves their interests.

 

[ToroidalBoat]

That being said, Ayn Rand's version of Objectivism is quite literally just Asperger's Syndrome as a political philosophy.

What is that about and how does it appeal to people with autism?

 

[Xetzyr]

It's the other way around, autistics are inherently easier to manipulate, primarily because they don't readily understand deception. Autistics tend to be truthful, even when it may come as a detriment to themselves and when they try to lie they generally can't ever tell the same lie twice. Likewise they have a big problem discerning the credibility and intentions of others, mostly due to their general inability to read other people's emotions through facial expressions, vocal intonation, vocal inflection, eye movement, mannerisms, etc, etc.

As a result autistics are very easy to manipulate and control and the more autistic a person is, the easier it is. Chris Chan obviously being the most notable example. As someone with severe autism he's been tricked and manipulated so much it's no longer even all that amusing.

The other thing is branding, autistics tend to gravitate towards childish depictions, over simplifications, colorful characters and so forth. So if you take a fun cartoon frog like Pepe and you start rebranding it with neo Nazi themes it doesn't take much to build up an audience of autistics who will suddenly buy into a bunch of bullshit. Of course it also works on the opposite end of the political spectrum as well, especially with current mainstream media like Steven Universe and My Little Pony.

 

[OneMillionRPM]

Maybe an autist who's aware of their condition might know that they're susceptible to deceptive tactics and read up on how to spot them. But even then, since the understanding they'd gain is more theoretical than practical, it isn't going to help them very much.

A right-wing autist is just like anyone else who picks a side and becomes deeply entrenched in their beliefs. The only "manipulation" they're resistant to is opposing beliefs their side tells them not to agree with.

 

[Steve Mayers]

I mean I refer to the alt-right as the aut-right.

 

[Replicant Sasquatch]

Yes, the people waving Kek flags, literally REEEEEing in public, and who fly into tantrums about how we only think Nazis are bad because (((They))) say so are totally immune to manipulation.

 

[Medicated]

As for politics, I've met autists on the left wing and the right. It all depends what they feel best serves their interests.

That's an interesting point you bring up though. Are autists, narcissists then? Appeals to empathy don't really work on autists, because they have supreme issues putting themselves in others shoes. But as others have said, they have to be manipulated within their own feelings and thoughts.

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