Are we the bad guys in life, as well as in film?

I think the way neurotypicals react to us is because communication for them isn't only about exchanging information, they have this elaborate, complex, nuanced dance - a series of shibboleths both spoken and unspoken and patterns of behaviour to put each other at ease. They can tell in a few milliseconds subconsciously that something is "off" about autistic people.

Ironically, this method of detecting bad people is really easy for psychopaths to exploit. They know all the tricks and are able to exploit them to appear superficially charming and get neurotypicals worshipping the ground they walk on. Such techniques tend to not work on autistic people as well because we miss all those social cues to begin with, yet NTs think of us as weird or dangerous when we're not trying to harm them at all, we're just skipping the small talk, not using body language or making good eye contact, and speaking bluntly about what we really think without trying to mislead anyone. Yet that sets alarm bells ringing in the NT mind.

The fact that some autistic people have done bad things which appear in the news, I don't think this makes the public think autistic people are inherently bad. Mostly I think these are individuals doing things in spite of having autism, not because of it. Although I suppose in a few cases of diminished responsibility, someone with autism who has a low IQ may commit manslaughter due to not understanding it. It also may be easy for autistic people to be radicalised due to black and white thinking and a strong sense of justice.

I Sperg said:

Now to be honest, there are some people here, who lack my ineffably sunny disposition ( Oh that's funny! One of my best..) and may actually be bad guys, but would they know it? Certainly my experience is some of the worst things I've done, I was quite convinced were righteous at the time...

I think most "villains" and people who do bad things believe they are doing the right thing. In fact moral righteousness can make people be very sure of themselves and commit bad acts if they believe it's necessary to produce a desirable outcome or "fix" some aspect or injustice of society (plenty of examples in 20th century history).

You see this in both autistic people and neurotypical people and from the far left to the far right and everywhere in-between. Everyone thinks they are doing the right thing, they just have different motivations, such as correcting an injustice, helping their own people, or even harming their own people (virtue signalling to make themselves feel good and broadcast it to those around them with similar views to get the "I'm a good person" feeling), or just harming someone or some group who is perceived as bad for some reason - it's justified and "good" because the target is "bad".

That's how you can get people blowing things up, or harming others (who they perceive as evil), or blocking roads, or setting fire to a building, or throwing things at the police, or destroying works of art, or whatever it is.

We define our own side as good and the other as bad. That allows us to commit bad acts, and condemn the bad acts of others. But it's not usually an act of malice, we genuinely believe that we are right.

Do I believe that there is true evil - people who do bad things that they know are bad on purpose for some reason? Cartoon villains in other words. Well, I would exclude schizophrenics from the question because their actions are not rational. There are those such as serial killers who derive pleasure from harming others. People such as that tend to gravitate toward groups that allow them to do those things, so in a beheading video, there's a good chance it is just a horrible person who has found a group that allows him to do that, but in some cases it could be someone who genuinely think they are doing the right and good thing.

Some have sexual perversions that are very motivating and make them do things that they then regret (often killing to avoid being caught) and they feel guilt for what they do but keep doing it because they can't get away from this strong sexual desire. They are sick people at the mercy of their perversions which means they'll always become bad people whether they want to or not. And they typically also tend to be missing some aspect of empathy which would stop other people from being able to do these things.

I would say that many psychopaths have the capacity to be genuinely bad people, because they understand what others are feeling and the harm they cause, but they don't care or they even enjoy it. They act in their own interest for the pursuit of wealth, power, pleasure etc. Most politicians, billionaires and CEOs fall into this category and it's difficult to describe them as good people. They tend to act in their own interests but pretend they are doing good.

There are not many autistic billionaires or politicians or CEOs, because autistic people tend to be too trusting and avoid lying, cheating etc. But there are some, e.g. Musk or Zuckerberg who for the most part appear to have lucked into it by being involved in a profitable piece of tech at an early stage.

I think the way neurotypicals react to us is because communication for them isn't only about exchanging information, they have this elaborate, complex, nuanced dance - a series of shibboleths both spoken and unspoken and patterns of behaviour to put each other at ease. They can tell in a few milliseconds subconsciously that something is "off" about autistic people.

Ironically, this method of detecting bad people is really easy for psychopaths to exploit. They know all the tricks and are able to exploit them to appear superficially charming and get neurotypicals worshipping the ground they walk on. Such techniques tend to not work on autistic people as well because we miss all those social cues to begin with, yet NTs think of us as weird or dangerous when we're not trying to harm them at all, we're just skipping the small talk, not using body language or making good eye contact, and speaking bluntly about what we really think without trying to mislead anyone. Yet that sets alarm bells ringing in the NT mind.

The fact that some autistic people have done bad things which appear in the news, I don't think this makes the public think autistic people are inherently bad. Mostly I think these are individuals doing things in spite of having autism, not because of it. Although I suppose in a few cases of diminished responsibility, someone with autism who has a low IQ may commit manslaughter due to not understanding it. It also may be easy for autistic people to be radicalised due to black and white thinking and a strong sense of justice.

I Sperg said:

Now to be honest, there are some people here, who lack my ineffably sunny disposition ( Oh that's funny! One of my best..) and may actually be bad guys, but would they know it? Certainly my experience is some of the worst things I've done, I was quite convinced were righteous at the time...

I think most "villains" and people who do bad things believe they are doing the right thing. In fact moral righteousness can make people be very sure of themselves and commit bad acts if they believe it's necessary to produce a desirable outcome or "fix" some aspect or injustice of society (plenty of examples in 20th century history).

You see this in both autistic people and neurotypical people and from the far left to the far right and everywhere in-between. Everyone thinks they are doing the right thing, they just have different motivations, such as correcting an injustice, helping their own people, or even harming their own people (virtue signalling to make themselves feel good and broadcast it to those around them with similar views to get the "I'm a good person" feeling), or just harming someone or some group who is perceived as bad for some reason - it's justified and "good" because the target is "bad".

That's how you can get people blowing things up, or harming others (who they perceive as evil), or blocking roads, or setting fire to a building, or throwing things at the police, or destroying works of art, or whatever it is.

We define our own side as good and the other as bad. That allows us to commit bad acts, and condemn the bad acts of others. But it's not usually an act of malice, we genuinely believe that we are right.

Do I believe that there is true evil - people who do bad things that they know are bad on purpose for some reason? Cartoon villains in other words. Well, I would exclude schizophrenics from the question because their actions are not rational. There are those such as serial killers who derive pleasure from harming others. People such as that tend to gravitate toward groups that allow them to do those things, so in a beheading video, there's a good chance it is just a horrible person who has found a group that allows him to do that, but in some cases it could be someone who genuinely think they are doing the right and good thing.

Some have sexual perversions that are very motivating and make them do things that they then regret (often killing to avoid being caught) and they feel guilt for what they do but keep doing it because they can't get away from this strong sexual desire. They are sick people at the mercy of their perversions which means they'll always become bad people whether they want to or not. And they typically also tend to be missing some aspect of empathy which would stop other people from being able to do these things.

I would say that many psychopaths have the capacity to be genuinely bad people, because they understand what others are feeling and the harm they cause, but they don't care or they even enjoy it. They act in their own interest for the pursuit of wealth, power, pleasure etc. Most politicians, billionaires and CEOs fall into this category and it's difficult to describe them as good people. They tend to act in their own interests but pretend they are doing good.

There are not many autistic billionaires or politicians or CEOs, because autistic people tend to be too trusting and avoid lying, cheating etc. But there are some, e.g. Musk or Zuckerberg who for the most part appear to have lucked into it by being involved in a profitable piece of tech at an early stage.