SuddenDownpour

Crosspost from: https://lemmy.world/post/2776711

While the main focus of the article is actually human perceptions of AI, it also delves into the perception of the majority of people regarding those who cannot communicate in a socially accepted way.

This is a very basic fact of life that everyone should learn in school:

If you are forced to accept the bare minimum that is put on the table, your capacity to say no quickly crashes down, to the point that you may be vulnerable to accept a very unfavorable deal.

A scenario where the vast majority of us might find this reality at some point through our lives is the labor market. Whether you are applying for a job, or requesting a raise or a promotion, you are only going to have leverage to get the company to offer you a better deal if you have better opportunities on the table. In socioeconomic contexts where wages are depressed, this is usually not the case. This means that, for a lot of people, accepting a very bad offer means the difference between living a miserable life with a roof over your head and becoming homeless, so they do virtually have no choice but to accept, which only becomes more apparent if they have family members who depend on them.

It is interesting to note that this may be taught in detail to students of business, economics and law, although it is important information for everyone who participates in the economy: https://www.pon.harvard.edu/tag/batna/

In this context, a labor union that decides to initiate a strike isn't just provoking trouble for the sake of it - it is leveling the playing field by creating a situation where not only the livelihoods of the workers are dependent on the negotiation, but the profits of the company and even its capacity to survive are as well, whereas the latter usually wouldn't be.

Note that this applies to many other aspects of life as well. People often stay in abusive relationships because they do not have the means (or think they do not have the means) to leave them. It is difficult to leave the household you share with an abusive partner if you do not have the economic means to move out, and some people may stay in disfunctional friend groups because they think they aren't capable of making new friends, but need some social contact nonetheless.

Different configurations of society may protect people from these pitfalls or incentivize falling into them. The idea that people should find the means to leave their parents' household as soon as they turn 18 deprives them of an economic mattress that would otherwise allow them to be more aggressive when they negotiate for their salary, or even open up the possibility to dedicate time into trying to create their own business or projects. Different forms of social security, such as unemployment benefits, minimum guaranteed income or basic universal rent make working people far less dependent on the possibility of being laid off, which would motivate them to confront management about negative working conditions.

This article picks apart a bunch of biases by the researchers of a given paper. The object of study was the differences in behavior between a group of autistic people and a group of non-autistic people when choosing between prioritizing value for oneself or value for the community.

I recommend reading the paper itself too. If that is, understandably, too much for you, I suggest you go for the introduction, the conclusion, and the segments mentioned in the article.

They are not the same thing, even if a lot of people try to use them both interchangeably.

The modern form of autism as a diagnosis is born in the 1930s, when behaviorism is a dominant force in psychology. Behaviorism seemed pretty useful back then: while you can break a steam engine down to its individual pieces and study them individually, the study of the human brain presents 'a few' more difficulties. In that context, studying a person's behavior and their reactions to different interactions and environments did beat all other alternatives. The problem is that it's still a pretty limited approach. Is this person breaking down because they're tired? Or because they're sick? Or do they want to draw attention, or did they have a tough day before coming here, or are trying to manipulate their way out of-? You cannot truly know from the lenses of behaviorism, because you cannot (or could not) study the mind's internal state. However, the people working in the field still needed to justify their own salaries, so if they managed to get any results, they could claim they were making progress. We've been carrying a lot baggage from this period, one of the most harmful of which would be ABA therapy.

While the contemporary criteria to diagnose autism has improved somewhat, we can still find the traces of behaviorism everywhere through the psychiatric profession. I was recently watching someone take an online test (which, naturally, should only be used as an exploratory tool, but still points out to criteria used by doctors contemporarily or a few years ago, if you want to be optimistic), and a lot of questions are fairly questionable:

• Others have told me that I have trouble managing my anger.
• I have a tendency to yell at people when I feel frustrated or stressed.
• I am often beset by feelings of sadness.
• I rarely experience happiness or joy.

All of these questions make perfect sense for a behaviorist: all of these traits form part of a list of observed signs of a disorder widely studied, so they should belong to the same category as all the others. There is a significant problem though: how can you discern between traits inherent to the person's natural tendencies, and natural responses to a hostile environment? It can get pretty difficult for someone who suffers systematic discrimination to live a fulfilling life, but that's no reason to claim that ethnic minorities who suffer from racism are naturally predisposed towards anger or depression.

It is a given in autistic communities that autism is inherent to a person's personality. The scientific community has some trouble to take the last jump to that conclusion, because even though research often finds strong evidence of genetic inheritability, it isn't possible to predict an autism diagnosis in its current form from genetics alone. I posit that that just isn't possible, because the criteria to diagnose autism is an unholy amalgam of traits inherent to the individual and social/environmental maladaptation, which is not the same thing that we here refer to when we speak of autism as a neurotype.

Sorry for the external link, but Lemmy wouldn't allow me to post the whole text. As mentioned at the start, feel free to contribute or debate as you see fit, I might update this post later on.