As an autistic person, my problem with authority figures throughout my life has always been that authority figures were generally incompetent for the role they were fulfilling and they behaved in arbitrary and capricious way. Ironically, my best relationships in my childhood were always with adults who were competent authorities in their particular field, and I had zero issues whatsoever following their instruction, but I was labeled as "oppositional defiant" and "having a problem with authority" because most of the authorities in the school system and elsewhere were low IQ petty tyrants.
At no point have I ever felt that authority or hierarchy or rules are meaningless, in fact I revel in the clarity of well-written and reasoned rule sets and often wished for some clearly documented guidelines of behavior in many situations. I appreciate when authority originates from competence, and I am brutally introspective about my own areas of competence or lack there-of, and immediately submit and cede control if I encounter someone significantly more competent than myself in the situation of the moment. The problem has always been that authority is mostly exercised for authority's sake, to stroke the ego of petty tyrants who are incompetent and mean.
For me it was that those types of people didn't follow the rules, changed the rules, or couldn't explain why the rules existed. It wouldn't make sense because a system of rules were logical (or supposed to be), but they seemed to be acting "arbitrarily". Only later I realized that the arbitrary actions/rules weren't arbitrary once viewed through a political lens - they were violating the rules for their own power or safety. But yeah, I was always pointing out the inconsistencies and being called a smart-ass or future lawyer.
Yup, the "because I said so" type really isn't worth respect in the first place.
Authority figures are fine when they act with reason and respect. When they don't, that's when we have a problem. I will never understand why neurotypicals tolerate inept and abusive authority figures. They don't even question it most of the time!
As I've gotten older, my level of tolerance for disrespectful people in general has dropped off dramatically. If you disrespect me while demanding I respect you, I'm just gonna ignore you entirely. You are literally not worth the brainpower it takes just to hear you.
> I will never understand why neurotypicals tolerate inept and abusive authority figures.
Neurotypical people tend to pick their battles. Especially in the workplace, incompetence is quite often not your problem. I’ve seen autistic coworkers raise hell over perceived incompetence, eventuating in a lot of stress and ultimately losing their job. I tried to explain “who cares if they are making a bad decision that could affect the company. You don’t have any exposure to that risk, it’s not your problem if something goes wrong”.
As well as the fact that quite often it isn’t even incompetence from leadership but a failure to recognise that these leaders are often operating with more information or different incentives. They don’t to let you rewrite the product from php to rust because their incentive is to make the most money, not to build the most technically impressive program.
> authority figures were generally incompetent for the role they were fulfilling
The problem is: who judges competency? If you make yourself the sole judge, you're setting yourself up as the authority (meta-authority?) which can seem "arbitrary and capricious" to others. I say this because I've been there. I almost got fired once for using the exact phrase "arbitrary and capricious" too many times in a big public meeting. I've had feelings like you describe, and it often led to unnecessary conflict. One thing that reduced that conflict was the recognition that calling people incompetent - and particularly saying so to their faces - was a form of escalation. It literally never helped. See: almost fired.
> they behaved in arbitrary and capricious way
I think this is the part that really matters. They behaved. Not were. As you say, rules have value. Rules can even provide a level of comfort, if they are well justified, if they are applied fairly and consistently. The problems come when people act like they have the unilateral right to change or reinterpret the rules. Doesn't work for them, or for you, or for me. The productive response IMO is not to pit self-assumed authority (or meta-authority) against self-assumed authority, but to focus on the rules and the system and what needs to happen regardless of who is in what position relative to those.
Autism is not something you have - it's something you are. It's not an illness, it's just a set of characteristics that mean you understand and interact with the world in a way that's not the most common.
Honestly, that sounds slightly questionable. AIUI it's an absence or deficiency of theory of mind. It's something you haven't - it's a lack, like deafness. As to whether it's an illness or not, I suppose it's not but I've worked with an autistic/Asperger's person and was truly horrified when I started to understand the extent of how it affected him, and negatively, in his working relationships with us. From that POV it's a terrible debilitation.
> AIUI it's an absence or deficiency of theory of mind
This is become more and more a dated belief, especially as autistic voices are getting greater privilege to convey their own experiences. Autism may present as processing difficulties around interpreting body language and facial expressions, as a result of, or in concert with, sensory overload. These challenges don't exclude being able to empathize, but they do present obstacles. An autistic person might be confused for being self-absorbed as they're often dealing with these hidden struggles. I think also a lifetime of being misunderstood could manifest in either a combative or inward disposition.
This confusion between autistic and 'allistic' people is described by the "double empathy problem":
> AIUI it's an absence or deficiency of theory of mind
I'm not sure what that means.
> It's something you haven't - it's a lack, like deafness.
Erm, no. At least not necessarily. If you can't accept that, you're part of the problem.
> was truly horrified when I started to understand the extent of how it affected him, and negatively, in his working relationships with us
Guess what, relationships are 2-way. Your behaviour as a neurotypical was just as debilitating in your working relationship with him as the other way around.
From that POV, being neurotypical is a terrible debilitation.
>Erm, no. At least not necessarily. If you can't accept that, you're part of the problem.
Part of what problem? Frankly, this rebranding of mental disorders and disabilities as mere "neurodiversity" is incredibly frustrating an insulting to me, as I struggle with ADHD. My condition definitely stems from something I lack, it's called executive function. I lack, among other things, a sense of time, the ability to prioritize, the ability to concentrate without drifting off, and many other things that affect my life and relationships daily.
>Guess what, relationships are 2-way. Your behaviour as a neurotypical was just as debilitating in your working relationship with him as the other way around.
>From that POV, being neurotypical is a terrible debilitation.
I'm sorry if my comment was somehow triggering to you. It was never my intention to rile up anyone.
> Part of what problem?
Good question! I mean the problem of dividing people between non-autistics and autistics. The problem that causes autistics to mask sometimes painfully in order to not get picked on by non-autistics, but doesn't require non-autistics to behave "like an autistic person" if they're ever faced with such a situation.
Note that I'm not saying I think everyone should mask around people who are different from them. Hopefully the neurotypical behaviours that push autistics to mask can become more obvious and avoidable so the need disappears.
> this rebranding of mental disorders and disabilities as mere "neurodiversity" is incredibly frustrating
Agree. I think ND is too broad a concept to signify anything meaningful.
> insulting to me, as I struggle with ADHD.
Again, fair and I agree. I don't think ADHD should be classified together with autism. ADHD can have advantages if kept under control but generally can be quite debilitating - and keeping it under control can become a full-time job and a very demanding one.
I also think "autism" is too broad a concept. There are too many possible traits, each different in each individual, that aside from certain high-level characteristics.
> > Guess what, relationships are 2-way. Your behaviour as a neurotypical was just as debilitating in your working relationship with him as the other way around.
> > From that POV, being neurotypical is a terrible debilitation.
> This doesn't make any sense to me.
GGP said person A's autism was debilitating to their working relationship with GGP.
I was demonstrating that the reason it was debilitating was because of a lack of understanding and the need for person A to mask behaviour, and that need arises from GGP's and colleagues inability to comprehend person A. Which in turn is the very reason why person A masks: they don't understand the behaviours of the others, and try to mimic as best as they can given certain observed behaviours, actions and reactions, body language, etc. - all of which don't come naturally to person A, in the same way that simply answering to questions rather than avoiding them even when they might affect their social position probably doesn't come naturally to GGP and peers.
This might have been confusing - it's early morning for me. :)
If we stick to the OP, why is the autistic's behaviour in responding to authority problematic? Why is it not the unwarranted authority that's considered the problem?
>> It's something you haven't - it's a lack, like deafness.
> Erm, no. At least not necessarily. If you can't accept that, you're part of the problem.
Just saying No is not a response I either accept or can start to understand. Please explain why No, then maybe I can start to learn.
>> was truly horrified when I started to understand the extent of how it affected him, and negatively, in his working relationships with us
> Guess what, relationships are 2-way. Your behaviour as a neurotypical was just as debilitating in your working relationship with him as the other way around. From that POV, being neurotypical is a terrible debilitation.
Of course relationships are two-way, and he couldn't understand enough of other people to modify his behaviour i.e., the office was freezing every morning, don't come in and open the windows in winter, people don't like that. But he wouldn't change, windows opened, people freezing, rinse, repeat. As such, it wasn't really a proper two-way thing.
Or with a different person, thank you but I'm not interested in talking about your bicycle. Or with another person who would walk you backwards into a corner while unloading her problems on you, unable to appreciate that she was messing up other people's evenings, and that she was being shunned for it.
Autism is a disability. Society should definitely be more tolerant of it and more understanding, but regrettably we weren't and the guy suffered for it. He suffered, we didn't. That makes it his disability, not ours. In hindsight I hugely regret the way he was treated, but he didn't try to 'mask'and I don't believe he had enough insight to be able to. It is a terrible thing and I do not wish it on anyone. Don't try and make out that it is our problem because it wasn't, it was his.
Your constant view that it's a shared problem is about a helpful as a zebra complaining to a tiger that things really aren't equitable in their relationship. True, but...
> If we stick to the OP, why is the autistic's behaviour in responding to authority problematic? Why is it not the unwarranted authority that's considered the problem?
> immediately submit and cede control if I encounter someone significantly more competent than myself in the situation of the moment
I have the same tendency and it almost stopped me from earning Eagle Scout. My project was building a cabinet for my school and we were able to use on of the other scout's father's woodshop to do the work. Once there, I, without thinking, basically stepped aside and let him direct. I knew basically nothing about woodworking, and certainly nothing about his shop. Unfortunately for me a big point of an eagle project is to demonstrate leadership, which is hard to do from the sidelines. Fortunately I managed to make the case that I demonstrated enough over the course of the project, but it was definitely an obstacle to have deferred to the competent authority in that case.
> I appreciate when authority originates from competence, and I am brutally introspective about my own areas of competence or lack there-of, and immediately submit and cede control if I encounter someone significantly more competent than myself in the situation of the moment.
This, along with your "low IQ" comment, makes me wonder whether you have been easily swayed in the past by mid- to high-IQ scam artists or ideologues pitching intricate schemes.
Why are you so unwilling to accept the extensively documented phenomenon of an autistic person being more intelligent than average?
Some autistic people are genuinely ahead of the curve. Some individuals develop extreme talent/intelligence in certain areas. There is no question of whether this happens or not, it's a demonstrable fact.
Your quote illustrates something that self-aware and reasonable people do: recognize their limitations and yield to someone with more expertise.
If you think that's somehow a bad thing, you should have a really long think about what that says about you.
When you throw computers into the mix and have them control people's lives, then authority is no longer about a structured relationship towards a common goal and facilitating social behaviour.
I remember spending significant effort on a creative essay in highschool. I had been a high performance, motivated student who was willing to jump through every hoop and do the work.
My english teacher took the essay, gave it a C.
I asked them for clarification about the logic of how they gave me the grade. They simply couldn't answer. There was no explanation. It seemed to me that they just picked a random grade out of a hat and couldn't explain why (probably more than likely).
My teacher blew up and accused me of "grade grubbing."
At that point I realized that the grading criteria was arbitrary, probably based on how they felt and if they like you personally and decided that school didn't matter since there was no actual standard for grading.
I never recovered my ability to care about school and stropped trying.
My reasoning was: "Well...if I try really hard and do all the work, they will give me a random grade based on how they feel anyways so this is a waste of time."
It was entirely a disagreement and disrespect for institutional authority.
Likewise, I have had constant struggles with VPs and Directors and CEOs I have worked with, challenging them on their behavior and lack of analysis, strategy, deep thinking.
Pretty much I need to work for myself, it is usually only a matter of time.
God help you if you try to tell me what to do from an authority position and I don't agree with your plan. I just start fighting with people, can't stand it.
I think this really depends on the quality of the school.
I went to a Catholic school (in Australia). We had to write a year 9 religion essay on a moral issue. I wrote this lengthy essay on why drug prohibition was immoral, with copious references. Our religious education coordinator was some hyper-conservative Catholic, when he saw my essay, he took it off my religion teacher, and in his rage at it he gave me a mark of 1.5/20 and accused me of plagiarism. I appealed to the school principal, who was a religious brother (De La Salle brothers). He upheld my appeal, dismissed the plagiarism allegations, and ordered my mark changed to 19.5/20
I totally admit that my essay was designed to cause controversy-it was an expression of my anger at the school, by deliberately choosing a topic they would dislike. This was not a new thing for me - in year 2 I was asked to write a short story about a clown. I hated the task, so in my anger I wrote one about a clown that gives primary school children cocaine. At the end of the story, he was executed in the electric chair. The school was so disturbed by this they called my parents in for a meeting-why is an 8 year old writing stories about cocaine? My parents assured them they were respectable people who had nothing to do with drugs, and my knowledge of the topic came from watching the evening news
I had a college professor change my first grade in the class from a B to a D and give me a lecture about “subjective versus objective grading”, after I asked him for feedback. Apparently my B was supposed to be one of those and the D the other one. His rant didn’t have anything to do with subjectivity or objectivity so I’m not certain which was supposed to be which, but he acted like giving me the B was doing me a favor. This guy clearly grade-grubbed through school and assumed everyone else is just there for the grade too. I just wanted some feedback other than “B”, so I could, you know, learn.
You are a disagreeable person. I love working with disagreeable people, but I avoid them after work. On Saturday, I don't feel like being lectured to on how hamburgers are supposed to be cooked. Other guests find it rude to called out on their own occupation.
"Your problem is being such a punchable face and you can stop being autistic and get 99% of your problem solved instantly"
^ process this in warm peroxide for 15 minutes to obtain an analogue for GP.
That said, software engineering had moved away from praising "autism", towards a model of warm and communal, wall-free workplace, over the past decade or so. That had supposedly improved (averaged)throughput, overall productivity, and turned software field into a more mature and modern space. It should be generally a good thing that innocent regular people are less likely to be psychologically, or sometimes physically, harmed engaging in software work.
At the same time, it seems that it shifted power held by independent kind dictators to monopolistic corporations amplifying power by herding those people, accelerating techno-feudalism. And as such, maybe it's just me but, I'm not sure "autist go away" attitude is good for the future of computing, and also future of the human society by extension.
It was said that the person has the “disagreable” personality trait. Not that the comment itself is disagreeable. (But maybe that’s what you mean by “disagreeable” in this context.)
No damned idea if I’m autistic, but I do view humanity like an alien anthropologist.
I have had the misfortune of spending my school years in the company of many people who are now politicians, captains of industry, princes, doctors, lawyers, and all the rest. I say misfortune, because it means that I absolutely distrust all of the above, as every exemplar I have personally known has been one variety or another of common-or-garden idiot.
Doctors - I cannot fathom how people put their faith in these unimaginative individuals who followed a default career path and squeaked their way through medical school on charisma alone.
Politicians - every one a self-serving charlatan.
Captains of industry - daddy bought me a newspaper.
Lawyers - see also: doctors.
Princes - thankfully harmless, but good lord, what they used to have run countries. Pudding between the ears.
I can’t trust any authority, as I have seen behind too many curtains - although I never did, even before the denouements - I never respected any rule or order which couldn’t be reasonably and justly explained.
I wonder how others look upon you. Especially from your school days. And what they say about the entirety of the populace who've chosen to enter your occupation, on the basis of you as a teenager...
My chosen occupation is hermit, and I honestly don’t give a damn. Why would I care about the judgment of someone who I deem contemptible?
Unfortunately, my life since my schooldays has only exacerbated my cynicism - I have yet to encounter a competent medic, a lawyer whose work I didn’t have to check and correct, tradespeople who know the first thing about their erstwhile craft, or a business leader I didn’t run rings around. When I see people who I knew on television talking about the glorious future for their party and the country, and recall their proclivities for self-aggrandisement and shameless dishonesty, my toes curl.
When I do encounter competent and able people, they are invariably being used by someone with more Machiavellian tendencies than themselves.
The world is almost entirely run by blowhards - not the most competent or qualified people, yet those who shout the loudest.
So I am a hermit. My world is 20 hectares of woodland and endless projects, where I am well away from the ship of fools, and have scarce dependence on the competence of others.
This article is a bit maddening. I find the beginning encouraging....
I’ve written before about how autistic people often
struggle to know how to act around authority figures.
Actually, that’s not true– we don’t seem to *care* how
we act around authority.
I like the distinction between unknowing and uncaring. I like the level of personal responsibility that this suggests and I wish the rest of the article continued in this vein.
It makes us *really weird* to neurotypical people,
who seem to accept authority happily.
This is not correct at all in my experience. I don't think anybody loves submitting to authority just for the fun of it.
Certainly there is a lot of personal calculus that goes into whether or not we accept a given authority. Cost vs. benefit. Whether we see a reason to respect the authority. Whether we see value in it. Social pressure. Of course this calculus will be different from person to person and from situation to situation, and of course neurotypicals and folks on the spectrum will tend to have a different view.
But, "seem to accept authority happily?" Yeesh. It seems to imply an absence of thought rather than different criteria weights.
I think that "seem to accept authority happily" is exactly how it looks to a neuroatypical person. With emphasis on "SEEM".
Autism and ADHD both bring a lack of executive control. A lack of executive control limits our ability to comply with demands, including the demands of authority. The demands of authority generally include following the dictates of authority, while convincing authority that you're happy to do so.
People with poor executive control can only act this way out of desire. We have to really, really want to. And so a neurotypical person's ability to do what they should (regardless of how they feel) looks to us like something you're doing because you want to. No matter what the truth might be.
Yes, your internal experience may be entirely different. But, particularly with autism, neuroatypical people are often not very good at judging internal experience from external appearance. And so we may be fooled by the appearance.
> A lack of executive control limits our ability to comply with demands, including the demands of authority. The demands of authority generally include following the dictates of authority
I'd say this framing is upside down. Lots of people can "demand" lots of things. The only thing that gives the demands of "authorities" any import is their possible consequences - they're only privileged pragmatically. Furthermore I wouldn't say that a brain that grants priority to someone else barking orders has "executive control" - in fact I'd say it lacks executive control, likely due to sustained abuse of being forced to act (comply) first and think later.
I would say what makes "seem to accept authority happily" ring true is not the fact that most people straightforwardly comply. Rather it's that when someone does not comply, most people line up in support of the authority even when the authority is clearly wrong. This points to a dynamic of not merely pragmatically following authorities, but rather seemingly being in support of authorities for authority's sake.
Consider a police officer detaining two people who were fighting in public, when one of them was acting in self-defence. This is the kind of thing I imagine when I hear "clearly wrong", but the authority figure is acting on the higher principle of maintaining public order, and may not have the necessary proof to let one person go. It could be more important to prioritise the immediate safety of everyone involved and sort out the details later, even at the cost of detaining the victim for a short time. There's not always time to explain what's going on, and an explanation would be a distraction from calming down the main conflict.
On the software side, consider a presentation given by a co-worker who recently got off bereavement leave, where there's a significant error in one of the slides that makes it seem like the design of the whole component is fatally flawed. Your boss tries to move on from the slide without giving you time to criticise it, because she knows your co-worker is emotionally vulnerable right now and wants to address the flaw in private. Your boss can't necessarily explain this in public because doing so would cause the same problem she's seeking to avoid.
When people talk in the abstract about authority being clearly wrong, I'm never sure whether it's a case like these ones where higher moral principles are at stake.
> It could be more important to prioritise the immediate safety of everyone involved and sort out the details later
I'd say there is a higher principle involved, and per your justification the authority's action is not clearly wrong. I deliberately avoided specific examples due to the inevitable lines of people that will jump in to justify authorities' actions, but surely you can imagine some of what you consider to be clearly unjust by authorities that people will nevertheless defend?
> even at the cost of detaining the victim for a short time.
I'd say this is where things start to go wrong, as people start to defer to unjust authority and just accept its collateral damage, rather than demanding eventual justice. In this situation, the victim has been harmed by the officer and the state, regardless of the officer's actions being the most prudent from their perspective. Justice would be that victim being made whole, rather than externalizing the true cost of policing in a perverse reverse lottery.
There are a lot of situations in which I'd argue in favor of what you're saying.
Breaking up a fight isn't one of them. Not sure how many fights you've seen in real life but they are not professional boxing matches with relatively evenly trained matched opponents. Somebody is usually losing and losing badly. Somebody could be hurt or killed with even a moment's hesitation. Should firefighters have to pay restitution for trampling your garden while preventing your house from burning down? Or paramedics for slicing off your clothing while attempting to save your life?
Do you think that paying restitution for these sorts of situations would have unintended negative consequences such as making emergency situations more expensive or even thwarting them entirely by making them unsustainable?
We should aggressively police our police, and the whole system is kind of broken in general, but I think we should save the restorative and punitive action for situations in which police or emergency services have actually done something wrong.
In the examples you've given, no. But let's say those firefighters got the address wrong, or are responding to a less-than-truthful 911 call made by someone else, then seemingly yes. Or paramedics slice off your clothing because you were sleeping on a park bench and they imagined you might need medical intervention.
I'm talking about the entity running the services being responsible, and not the individual firefighters/paramedics/cops/etc, assuming they are following department policies in good faith and all that. These things are true costs of providing the services, and should be correctly attributed to avoid perverse incentives. Should we allow firefighters to roll up to a gas station, fill up with diesel, and then declare it's just part of responding to an emergency and not pay?
Of course, examples involving firefighters and paramedics are somewhat limited, as their actions are generally helping rather than interpersonal aggression. In the original example, there is the immediate response of breaking up the fight, which I don't take issue with (assuming it's not a staged fight on a movie set). The victim of the attack being arrested/detained while the police sort things out is where the anti-justice starts to happen - from the victim's informed perspective it is clearly wrong. Only from a limited-information perspective is it necessary. The authorities have limited information at the time, and thus choosing that course is reasonable. But that choice still causes harm that is apparent after all the details are known. And post facto it's not reasonable for authorities to shrug off their responsibility for that.
Furthermore the situation is fraught with perverse incentives and properly assigning responsibility is necessary to minimize them. For example, cops casually resenting the victim for some interpersonal reason and keeping them in jail overnight as extra-judicial punishment.
Yeah, it's an interesting moral quandary and you run into questions of who, exactly, is responsible for making a victim whole again. I was talking more about the immediate issue of the arrest rather than the follow-up, though.
An impression I have from some autistic former co-workers is that, when faced with a situation where there was a surface-level injustice and a more abstract justification for the injustice, that they would often not see the justification. This was particularly bad if it involved social cues like "that crowd of drunk people looks unpredictable and the police need to stop the fight so nobody else gets involved, so I shouldn't argue with them now", or "Bob looks like he's about to cry and is getting defensive, so we should back off this line of questioning". If you miss the murky social details then you're going to read those examples as clearly unjust.
People can certainly be wrong, and following authorities will actually get you the right answer most of the time. Like I've gone somewhat critical of police in a sibling comment (and very critical elsewhere), and yet I still recognize that the large majority of what police do is prudent, proper, and justified. IMO it's important to hold both of these perspectives in one's head.
So your common imagined autistic case doesn't really speak to my general point - cases where authority is actually wrong and yet people line up behind it anyway with all sorts of justifications. These topics tend to get highly politicized as one tribe lines up behind the injustice and the other lines up behind the authority, but surely regardless of your latent tribe you can see that the phenomenon exists.
Your reference to "barking orders" shows a major misunderstanding. The demands we face may not be simply barked orders. They may instead be reasonable requests to work on the tasks assigned in the sprint, rather than helping out a random coworker whenever the whim strikes. Or to work on a test during the allotted time so you can get a good grade. Both are demands, and both are problems for a person with poor executive control.
You may well be right that a neurotypical person who simply follows barked orders is doing damage to their executive control. I have no opinion on that. I just know that doing so consistently requires more executive control than I have.
That said, you have a point that I find it outrageous when people fall into ranks behind stupid authority. Particularly when I know that the people doing so should know better. I intellectually know what's going on. But my natural emotional response against it is pretty strong.
I was talking about "hard" authority that one cannot really avoid, because at this point in my life that's what I think of when I hear the word authority. By adulthood it feels "soft" authority relationships are much more opt-in (even if calling them full choices is somewhat fallacious). So I'm not respecting soft authorities simply because they're "authority" but rather because I've personally decided that their direction is reasonable in service of some larger goal.
I didn't mean to say that someone following barked orders is actively damaging their executive control, but rather saying that if the barked orders are directly affecting the prioritization of their executive control, then in a sense that control has already been damaged. Executive control and obedience to authority should really be seen as orthogonal aspects, and I'd say conflating the two is a shortcut preferred by those seeking the easy route of authoritarianism (eg a schoolteacher wondering why a "problem kid" doesn't "behave" when attempting to make them sit still for hours on end)
Those are two clarifications. I feel there is definitely some constructive synthesis here but can't quite wrap my head around it right now.
Ruminating on this today - I think it runs even deeper than what I've said, even for "soft" authority. We're all familiar with the archetype of the person who had overbearing parents giving them strong direction, and then has a harder time in the real world without this direction. That's a case where over-reliance on deferring to authority ends up destroying independent executive function.
It's also a little weird to me to assert a dichotomy between "executive control" and "want to", when the two seem quite tied. Sure, we all use the rhetorical device of saying we have to do something that we "don't want to", but fundamentally we generally do actually want to do those things, but based on larger non-immediate concerns as opposed to immediate enjoyment.
Look, if I have to give up my shit to get where I want I’ll damn well make sure you will too. If there is anything I hate more than following arbitrary rules it’s dealing with people that think they are above them.
I think it’s less “supporting the paradigm” and more “if I am going down we are all going down here”.
My original comment was going to reference the "crab bucket" phenomenon but I toned it down a bit. Whether such support is reasonable or not is highly dependent on the specific rule/topic under discussion, and some of them are certainly not reasonable. And often such times such discussions don't even center around rules per se, but rather whether someone was "respectful" enough to said authority figure on a personal level.
> Autism and ADHD both bring a lack of executive control
It’s not this but what I’ve heard labeled as ‘integrity as an obstacle’^. Many neurodivergent people (myself included) are governed less by social norms and more by authenticity. Conforming is counter to their very beings, and grotesquely undesirable
^ I’d call it a strength, but it’s a matter of perspective
I’ve had the experience of being a neurotypical partnered to someone with (well concealed) asd.
That experience has left me instinctively wincing at the notions of integrity and authenticity. I now associate them with interpersonal and legal conflicts, professional upheaval, inappropriate “real talk”, putting out one fire after another. And every fire is accompanied by, “yes you were in the right, but tact, but choose your battles, but can we really afford the consequences?” I was always the one who was unprincipled, and exhausted.
I think marital conflict of this intensity arises in absence of ASD too.
And the usual caution goes when speaking about ASD, the individual differences are great. Even though many ASD find conforming antithetical to their will, there are also many high-maskers who make a sport of conforming. Many unwittingly as a survival instinct. Underneath, they're treading water.
> And every fire is accompanied by, “yes you were in the right, but tact, but choose your battles, but can we really afford the consequences?”
From as much as I've witnessed, this is a feature (and common plaint) of many relationships.
As a parent of two now adult special-needs kids: Most neurotypical people don't really care either and are frequently extremely abusive as a group to anyone different, a la Mean Girls.
The best thing I did to prevent my kids from turning into awful people was pulled them out of school so they could not be roundly abused by dozens of people daily and blamed for it because of "being weird."
Superficial empathy and actually being good and kind are not the same thing and plenty of people who can perform superficial empathy are horrible people who use their social skills abusively.
Well, I certainly support the idea of the autistic as differently-abled rather than fundamentally broken, and I think there's just a shortage of empathy in general.
Not sure it's an ADHD(confirmed) thing myself or some mild form of the above(has been suggested to me)
I always found following some instructions hard, not because I disliked it but because I would genuinely misinterpret them, miss a word or get stuck at a point where a part of an instruction could be interpreted multiple ways, this was always awkward because then ruminate on if I should make a decision or ask for clarification.
Biggest one I noticed last year in a temp retail job is when people asked me "have you done X?". I'd hear "are you working on X?" or "will you do x?"
From the outside it didn't look great that I was apparently saying I finished X, when clearly X wasn't done yet or I was clearly in the middle of doing X.
From the outside it just looked like I was blatantly lying, and sometimes it was easier to lean into that. Than try to explain there might issue related to condition some people don't believe is real, and that it wasn't at all in my interest to disclose.
Once I made enough mistakes to know what was expected though I had no trouble.
I wouldn't hazard a guess. But it is absolutely true that ADHD can go along with inattention when people are talking to you, which can cause misunderstandings.
My daughter particularly struggles with that when she reads, and will often have to re-read a passage several times until she can pay enough attention to understand it. (The more boring the passage, the harder she finds it.)
That is probably what is happening . Before I knew what it was , friends , family and myself just called it zoning out. Made for very awkward work meetings when asked what I thought on something.
I wish I could give some useful advice. But all I can really say STAY ON TOP IT. My big issues have been.
What's interesting today is often boring tomorrow.
Lateness.
Anything even slightly bad will keep getting genuinely put off until "tomorrow"
That goes for all aspects of life, bills, car maintenance. It doesn't matter that I have they money sitting there to pay a bill , I'll still sit on it until I'm told it's overdue.
Or in the cars case the gear that's dodgy for year will no longer work.
edit: i'll also mention avoid short form social media video. I think all the anti-tiktok stuff is overblown. But (just my opinion) it's ADHD kryptonyte.
I don't know much about autism. I can say though, that while I might appear to "accept authority", that's not really true. In each case, I'm weighing the benefits and drawbacks of that, and choosing what to do.
Often, if I disagree with an authority figure's position on something, there's more efficient ways to get what I want than public disagreement.
Yeah, that might be the best way to come to an agreement with the statement - I feel I’m very much the same. Plenty of non-spectrum people are ‘playing the game’ in a way that I imagine someone on the spectrum may not even realise is happening.
Of course, different people are better or worse at picking up on this, but I find often the people who want to wield arbitrary power are usually worse at picking up subtle manipulation (a pretty strong correlation), and those who aren’t as arbitrary you can be more direct with!
Consider that forcing people to hear, consider, react and "vote" on something in public might be the "snake like" behavior.
Some topics require quiet reflection. Some topics do better with a secret ballot. Some objections are heard better in private, etc.
Or, sometimes, it's just poker, and revealing your hand too early puts you at a disadvantage to someone else that's also manipulating the circumstances to benefit themselves.
It's all regrettable, but that's the human condition.
Which part? Sometimes the right thing to do is to speak up in public and offer a different opinion, sometimes the right thing is to have a private conversation.
Maybe I'm misunderstanding, which part do you feel is snake-like?
I suspect the author meant something more like, "neurotypical people live contented lives holding the belief that arbitrary authority actually exists." But I can't truly speak for them.
Even before I fully reasoned it out, growing up I always knew that arbitrary authority doesn't exist for me. Sure a SME should be given more weight discussing their subject, and a parent understands dangers of the world that their young child literally can't comprehend. But many of us experienced "listen to me because I said so" as children, and continue to experience that in school and into adulthood in the workplace. It's meaningless, but many neurotypical people neither notice that it's wrong or understand why it's wrong, perhaps because their brains aren't wired a way to unconsciously detect those red flags.
I don't like this trend of using the label "neurotypical" to describe one's idea of the most boring, unimaginative person one can think of, and then applying it to pretty much everyone that isn't on the spectrum. "Neurotypical" people range from absolute rebels who reject any kind of authority to people happily working for and supporting a fascist regime, and then everything in-between. There is no less of a variety of opinion and thought in them than in "neurodivergent" people.
Well, ok, but that's not what I'm doing. I'm using neurotypical to describe people who don't have neurodivergent brains. I think there's arguments that there is no "neurotypical" at all, but it should be clear that when we're discussing autistic people, everyone who's not autistic is in the "other" group.
Either way, there are many other ways to "handle with" authority, notice also my quotes. These are even on different axes: understanding or not there's something going on, accepting or not what's going on, agreeing or not with what's going on, acting or not on what's going on... anything you simplify there between the two groups, will be wrong.
I don't know if I'm being argued with/downvoted because I said "all neurotypical people are this way" (which I did not, explicitly) or for some other reason. None of this thread makes sense to me.
If the autism spectrum were represented as an input paradigm it would be a color picker rather than a number range.
It is not from 0 autism to 100 autism, it's more like a combination of sensory processing, language, social communication and executive functioning differences.
> It's meaningless, but many neurotypical people neither notice that it's wrong or understand why it's wrong,
That’s a very bold claim and I don’t think it’s that accurate. Rather maybe “neurotipical” are less willing to challenge “authority” when they have nothing to gain from that.
You know, that may be true. In my experience most NT friends/colleagues don't seem to think about it all but it may be they're simply brushing it off, whereas instead it's unignorable to me.
I'm usually the first to notice and verbalize that someone with authority is a useless sociopath and things are going to turn out badly.
This is never a remotely optimal strategy.
Can't tell if other people see it, but realize they can't do anything about it and that talking about it is only going to be negative, or if they're really unaware (or just keep it in a "subconscious" unexamined box because they know that opening it up won't be useful).
I'm generally shit at politics, although from time to time I've been able to figure out how to fake it.
You've... had lots of positive experiences promptly deciding that your leaders are "useless sociopaths" before anybody else has, and being very verbal about it?
> But many of us experienced "listen to me because I said so" as children, and continue to experience that in school and into adulthood in the workplace. It's meaningless, but many neurotypical people neither notice that it's wrong or understand why it's wrong
This would not be perhaps the most-universal example of arbitrary authority, played with in countless pieces of mainstream media, if neurotypicals were as you suppose they are.
I think you need to go back to the drawing board on this one.
Ok, somebody else explain why neurotypical people are content to obey arbitrary authority when they don't have to.
I surely shouldn't have included that bit of speculation because all the replies to my comment have nothing to do with the actual point of the comment.
"Content" is an assumption on your part. Higher tolerance for bullshit is also a plausible explanation. Or a difference in emotional intelligence and the corresponding understanding of (and willingness to play) the political game to get through the day. I'm not "content" with my management, but I know it's temporary and that I don't want to be unemployed in the interim and my pay is good enough that I'm not ready to nope out of here (if the pay was worse, or my fu funds weren't spent a couple years ago and not yet recovered, it would be a different situation).
> are content to obey arbitrary authority when they don't have to.
There’s two assumptions in this sentence that are frequently unwarranted.
Additionally, sometimes it’s both easier and less costly to let certain things go. This is may be one of the areas of, well, neurodivergence: “it’s going to be a pain in the ass to fight whatever the hell this is, and I don’t care enough to do it.”
Consider the possibility that, as someone who is not neurotypical, you may not be accurately reading the contentment level of people who are neurotypical.
One problem have with your statements is that blind subservience to arbitrary authority is something I see more of in “on the spectrum” types than “normies”.
I see it in both groups, and I don’t think being “on the spectrum” or not has anything to do with this trait.
> and a parent understands dangers of the world that their young child literally can't comprehend
As an adult I find that my perception of danger was actually much more correct as a child than the adults around me.
They were, and are, paranoid and driven by moral panics. For some reason they were unable to comprehend that me walking a mile across an upper middle class suburb at 12 years old was perfectly safe, but I was. They feared edge case dangers like pedophiles and school shootings while us children made jokes about them.
When there were a handful of shark attacks on the east coast and it made the news, the school banned students from swimming in the ocean on school trips. Driving for hours on the interstate was, of course, deemed safe as always.
To me, this sometimes seems like a first order response to a 2nd (or higher) order problem. Some neurodivergent people I've worked through this with have definitely unconsciously/consciously detected "red flags" and responded to them, but their modelling of what was going on was clearly reductive and sometimes obviously incorrect.
I'm in no way suggesting it's universally true, but it's happened enough times to feel like it's likely, if that makes sense? Sometimes neurotypical people are seeing exactly the same data, but interpreting it differently.
Context: I've never been formally diagnosed, but based on informally discussing things with therapists and various self-assessments it seems pretty likely to me that I'm somewhat on the spectrum, probably on the shallow end. Maybe this means I understand both the neurotypical and neurodivergent worlds a bit, or maybe it means I understand neither.
But many of us experienced "listen to me because I said so" as children,
and continue to experience that in school and into adulthood in the
workplace. It's meaningless, but many neurotypical people neither notice
that it's wrong or understand why it's wrong, perhaps because their brains
aren't wired a way to unconsciously detect those red flags.
I feel extremely confident in saying that everybody hates this. Honestly, it might be the first thing I've been certain of all day long.
I'm less confident in this, but: I certainly also think it's possible that many on the spectrum underrate how much literally everybody hates because-I-said-so's.
I know one other thing.
If a person is in the upper N% of intelligence, "gifted" if you will, they will have a natural curiosity about how things work, and have probably improved many things in the past, and will naturally tend to chafe at doing things in sub-optimal ways for unexplained reasons, and will therefore tend to hate "because I said so's" even more than most people.
Does autism sort of act like a force multiplier when combined with that trait? Maybe. Probably? I mean, one of the traits of autism is that we tend to need our own ways of doing things.
growing up I always knew that arbitrary authority doesn't exist for me
I think one possible issue is that neurodivergents can't understand the reasons why neurotypicals (sometimes) like authority, or seem to like it.
Imagine Bubba, a guy with USA and police and military stickers all over his pickup truck. This guy just loves the imaginary absolute authority of the USA, right?
It's probably more complicated than that. In the micro sense of things, he probably hates being told what to do just like the rest of us. He probably grumbles when paying taxes just like the rest of us.
But he probably likes to imagine the USA as a superpower that will crush its/his perceived enemies. But maybe Bob just kind of wants an identity to cling to. Also maybe he and/or many of his friends and relatives are in the military, possibly because it's one of the few stable career paths for people without higher education, and he would like to think there is some kind of positive thing being done. Maybe he's sending a dog-whistle signal to "liberals" or immigrants. Or hell, maybe he does just have pride in the cool things that do happen in America. Maybe he's an American history buff! But for all of the complex factors in Bubba's enthusiasm for America, actually doing what America tells him to do probably isn't the part that delights him.
> I'm less confident in this, but: I certainly also think it's possible that many on the spectrum underrate how much literally everybody hates because-I-said-so's.
Maybe. I've always been surprised at how little other people (mostly NT) will actually say that they don't like the situation they're in, especially if they have the ability to change it by doing so.
> Reasons to stan the USA
Oh, I understand all of those reasons. What I struggle to understand is why people-who-hate-being-bossed-around by people-with-no-business-bossing-them-around still do it and often never say "This is bullshit." That's why I said "contented" was probably a better word than "happy."
> I've never been formally diagnosed, but based on informally discussing things with therapists and various self-assessments it seems pretty likely to me that I'm somewhat on the spectrum
One of the most helpful things I ever heard was "If you think you might be autistic, it's likely you are." Even if you get a formal diagnosis and it turns out you're not, you can have many traits of autism. (Technically, you have to have at least 1 trait from an array of specific categories to be diagnosed, so you can have many traits and still fail the test.)
Maybe. I've always been surprised at how little other
people (mostly NT) will actually say that they don't
like the situation they're in, especially if they have
the ability to change it by doing so.
Hmmm. I'm tempted to say that NTs maybe tend to express things in more subtle and less literal ways, but I think the limiting factor here is that I certainly don't have a complete catalog of which people in my life were NT and which were ND, so I can't really make that guesstimate with any confidence!
One of the most helpful things I ever heard was "If you think
you might be autistic, it's likely you are." Even if you get a
formal diagnosis and it turns out you're not, you can have
many traits of autism.
Hah! I think I like that statement.
Question.... I would welcome and be grateful for your advice!
I guess my thinking has always been that whether I get the a spectrum diagnosis or not, it's going to come down to working with those little individual traits anyway, so from a practical standpoint I haven't focused on whether or not an overarching "autism" label makes sense. (I'm also dealing with some other things in life, and therapy hours have been limited, so a spectrum diagnosis hasn't been a priority)
So my question (finally, lol) is: did you find value in that diagnosis? Practical value, and/or more intangible values?
> I certainly don't have a complete catalog of which people in my life were NT and which were ND
Ok you're definitely not autistic then, that's basic stuff! (I kid - I only have assumptions about most people in my life)
Personally, yes, I found a formal diagnosis extremely valuable for two reasons:
1. All of my nagging worries about "not really being autistic" and taking up space reserved for "real" autistic people vanished. This also "allowed" me to talk about being autistic more openly. You may not have the same anxieties at all though - I specifically had a really big setback years ago when an ex said they didn't believe I was autistic.
2. I found it much easier to deal with the individual traits, both because I learned about some I wasn't aware of during diagnosis, and because I now have the ability to identify anything that's upsetting me and ask, "In what way is my autism affecting this situation?" At the very least it's a useful framework or jumping-off point for introspection that might have been difficult otherwise, because it isn't always true that some autistic trait or another is involved.
> One of the most helpful things I ever heard was "If you think you might be autistic, it's likely you are." Even if you get a formal diagnosis and it turns out you're not, you can have many traits of autism. (Technically, you have to have at least 1 trait from an array of specific categories to be diagnosed, so you can have many traits and still fail the test.)
Maybe. But that can be easily abused. You can barely throw a stone on Discord without seeing PluralKit and others, bots ostensibly aimed at helping people with DID effectively communicate their alters.
Perhaps it started that way, but there's an entire generation who seem to have decided something similar with DID, and it has become much more "every mood or feeling is an identity". One general Discord server I saw recently had easily 20 people who claimed to have 40-50 distinct identities (numbers which would place them in the very upper echelons of DID, and quite likely having articles written about them in Psychology Today). "John is my angry alter, and Sam is my quiet alter, and ..."
I'd say if anything, "if you think you might be autistic, maybe you should find out".
As it is, I think the neurodivergent label is becoming almost "cool", and there is certainly a subset that sniffs a little at the concept of neurotypical.
This article should probably be read through a more emotional lens than one of hard facts. Articles like this are littered with very specific details that don't accurately apply to many of the people in the group being described, but are perhaps accurate in spirit. It's also a common pitfall to advocate for ones own group at the expense of another group.
Well the inherent framing of neurodivergent/neurotypical really lends itself well to those kind of arguments. If it's a spectrum and we are all on it with only two words to describe it then we are bound to get that kind of low-quality discussion.
You'd be surprised. "All men are created equal" was a radical statement, almost blasphemous, when penned; the idea that authority and hierarchy were inherent was just something about the world that was accepted, like the sun or even the existence of God, because how could the state of things be otherwise? And post hoc, we rationalized this implicit assumption by inventing the theory that differences in authority were not arbitrary, but based on the quality of the individual. More powerful people were better somehow. The word "aristocracy" means "rule by the best".
The historical context for this was the belief that those in positions of authority were put there by God's will. And so to question the rightness of them being placed over you was to question God.
With the most extreme form of this being the idea of divine right of kings. Because kings were given the most extreme authority, they must have the strongest sanction of God supporting them.
It would be a mistake to think of this as a purely Christian notion, either. Divine right very closely parallels the Chinese notion of the Mandate of Heaven for the emperor. And Christian notions owe a lot to Plato. In particularly the Neoplatonic idea of the Great Chain of Being. Which (though the phrase has a separate history) can be summed up with, "As above, so below." So we are reflections of our rulers. If our rulers are just, we will be. If our rulers are unjust, we will also be unjust. If we upset the natural order by overthrowing our rulers, chaos will descend upon the land. Shakespeare did a great job of capturing the mindset in The Tempest.
> I’ve written before about how autistic people often
struggle to know how to act around authority figures.
Actually, that’s not true– we don’t seem to care how
we act around authority.
I call bullshit. Autistic people can figure out how to operate around authority figures just fine when it MATTERS.
If some autistic person is fucking around with an ATM in front of a cop that they know is there, but don't care, that's being stupid, not being autistic.
I don't have to give a shit about how authority and power is granted to certain individuals, but it doesn't take a genius to realize that insulting the CEO in front of the company is not a good way to keep your job..
Insulting the CEO is rude, because insulting anyone is rude. There's nothing special about the CEO that makes it rude only to insult him.
The article even gives a better example here: casually introducing yourself to the CEO and making a joke. If the CEO feels insulted by this, it's because he has "Authority" and you are "not respecting it" - but wait, the other CEO I met really appreciated this! Suddenly it makes no sense. There's a special rule that this CEO insists I should know, but it's not even consistent with other CEOs. How am I supposed to know which authorities it's okay to make jokes with?
The article even gives a better example here: casually
introducing yourself to the CEO and making a joke.
[...] How am I supposed to know which authorities it's
okay to make jokes with?
Well, it's a good example.... but not in the way you or the author necessarily intend.
The answer is right there in front of you: you don't fucking know!
You -- spectrum or no spectrum -- don't know who you can joke around with until you actually know them. Humor is hard, even for comedians, and successful humor relies on some kind of rapport or shared sensibility between parties.
Walking up to a stranger, CEO or otherwise, and cracking a joke immediately is actually fairly bizarre behavior and there's a good chance the joke is going to fall flat. Also sometimes you'll get lucky and make a friend for life or something, but it's a total dice roll and it is frankly an idiot move to risk your professional standing on it. I think that's a thing you can just learn and memorize whether you're on the spectrum or not.
That said, I as a lowly engineer have successfully joked around with a lot of C-level types at large-ish companies.
More than anything else, circumstances matter. Is this a social situation? Are you interrupting them? Are you introducing yourself out of the blue and expecting them to laugh at a joke like a total weirdo? These things matter.
Assuming you're actually interacting in a social situation...
As a general rule they love to laugh and pal around like normal humans. Getting along with people and being personable is actually a pretty big asset when it comes to climbing the ladder and more often than not these people have it. If you're skilled at humor you'll know how to feel out what kind of humor they're gonna laugh at and which kinds of humor are safe. If you're not good at humor and intuiting things, just fucking know that and play it safe.
I am likely a bit "on the spectrum myself" but have also had pretty good success socially in general. I was a super awkward kid and then worked hard on it. Maybe my self-assessment is off, I dunno.
But anyway....
I use pattern matching in my head to develop patterns for specific people!
I don't know if this is, in principle, that different from what neurotypicals do? I think it's typically harder for those on the spectrum, perhaps especially so when it comes to initial encounters. Or maybe I'm misunderstanding what you're saying?
I'm not sure what you're asking, so I'll go into detail.
With initial encounters, I use patterns learned in the military: be excessively polite, speak only when spoken to, listen and observe.
It's a pattern set that is designed to offend as few people as possible.
(I do have different starting pattern sets for different things, such as one for church where the military one would seem weird, but point being, I use carefully-crafted starting sets.)
If I don't interact with a person much, I'll keep using the same pattern set with them.
But if I interact with a person enough, I get an idea of what they want, and I start developing a custom pattern set for that person.
Example: I'll call people "sir" or "ma'am" by default. But my wife...hates that. So I never call her that. Ever. Not even when she's mad at me, and I fall back on excessive politeness.
Having custom pattern sets can help me deal with a boss, or a difficult neighbor.
The neighbor is a good example. She and I have different politics. So I will only make small talk and will not engage in controversial conversation topics with her. And I will end conversations quickly.
> How am I supposed to know which authorities it's okay to make jokes with?
With experience over time.
I think what I’m getting from this conversation is part of what’s being expressed here is a lack of awareness of social danger (don’t take that as a value judgement, just a statement). The way this looks to the rest of us is “how would I know which predator will attack me and which will not?” - and for the most part, the answer is: you don’t, so act accordingly.
> I think what I’m getting from this conversation is part of what’s being expressed here is a lack of awareness of social danger
You're confusing "being aware of" and "caring about".
Autistic people are acutely aware of "social danger". It's something we deal with every moment of every day since we're old enough to realize we're different. For most, it's a deeply traumatic experience to deal with as a child. And by most, I mean nearly 100%. Common wisdom is that there are no un-traumatized autistic individuals.
> for the most part, the answer is: you don’t, so act accordingly
This tells me you fundamentally do not understand autism. "Act accordingly" is one of the defenses we have to learn. And we learn it totally alone. What behavior is and is not appropriate is one big stochastic experiment that lasts your entire life. We learn to observe people around us, but that's not enough. It's easy to mimic behavior, but we don't get the context or reasoning behind it until we get it wrong.
Knowing how to act accordingly is the core problem in most autistic people's lives. It's incredibly challenging and very dangerous. We have a lifetime of trauma built up around this problem, which makes it extremely stressful to be in a situation where you don't know what to do.
And we learn it totally alone. What behavior is
and is not appropriate is one big stochastic
experiment that lasts your entire life
This is heartbreakingly true.
But for the specific case of this hypothetical example, and the slightly more generalized example of "what kind of humor might appeal to strangers to whom I've just introduced myself" it's actually kind of an easy lesson.
The answer is that you have to know somebody before you know what kind of humor is going to be cool with them.
And the answer is also that interrupting strangers to tell them jokes or even to simply say "hello" is likely to be rude, unless it's an social situation as opposed to just like, stopping your CEO in the hallway at 2PM on a Tuesday.
Those are the sorts of lessons everybody has to learn, autism or no. As somebody who's probably a bit on the spectrum himself I understand the struggle to an extent, but also it feels like the actually relevant lessons here in this specific case are pretty learnable even if we might learn them the hard way at first.
There's a high correlation between smart people and being on the spectrum.
You can likely replace the word "autistic people" with smart people. Just playing the cards here, but if my IQ is 155 and yours is 120. Why should I listen to you?
Especially when I see you making what seem to be plain mistakes, which not only hurt yourselves, but create a society where your kids will be less satisfied.
Its not like I have the ability to make people do things, that would be a position of authority. Me not accepting me not being responsible for actions with plain evidence I was not in control. Not only proves the point those individuals are responsible for what happened to me, but their inability to accept they should be listening to me makes me most concerned.
> Just playing the cards here, but if my IQ is 155 and yours is 120. Why should I listen to you?
Off the top of my head:
- I may know a fact that you do not. Your IQ does not make you aware of things you do not know.
- I may have a relationship with someone that you do not.
- I may have past experience that you do not.
- I may have different values than you. Your higher IQ does not dictate that we should make decisions according to your values.
- I may have access to resources (money, engineering teams) that you do not.
A meta comment is: If despite your higher IQ you were unable to consider these possibilities then IQ may not be a good proxy for the kind of intelligence a business may value.
Doubt. IQ gives meaning to gaining access to additional information. If each individual piece of information reaffirms my previous claims then you were in the wrong from the start.
Just playing the cards here, but if my IQ is 155
and yours is 120. Why should I listen to you?
A few possible reasons, some overlapping to various extents, not applicable to all situations.
- The person with 120 IQ is a subject matter expert in this particular matter and you are not.
- IQ is an approximation. It is probably the best one we have, but it is a very blunt and generalized metric. It is not evenly distributed across all areas of reasoning and functioning. A person with a 155 IQ or even a 200 IQ is going to be great at many things and awful at others. A person with 120 or even 80 IQ may be better in specific areas.
- Both you and the 120 IQ person might be overqualified for the matter at hand, so your "extra" intelligence is irrelevant.
- The person with 120 IQ is representing something larger than themselves, the accumulated wisdom of which dwarfs yours (imagine, I don't know, a 120 IQ forest ranger telling you how you should/shouldn't interact with particular flora and fauna)
- It may be a situation where it is impractical to have individualized rules for highly intelligent or highly capable individuals.
There are many high IQ people who are not able to proverbially tie their shoelaces. Or, more literally, shower. So yes, please do listen to your not so smart colleagues. Thanks.
Yeah, I actually live near ones of the finest establishments for studying the human brain and there are structural reasons why. Plenty of techniques to get those people working. Problem being it's pretty experimental.
It's more complicated than that. Autistic people are spread more widely, they are more likely to have very high or very low IQs, and it's not all that useful to generalise.
It's a little strange to me that everyone accepted the premise of this claim since it's really, really obvious that the situation isn't a straightforward jump in IQ.
a) because other people listen to that person, and one person's smarts only outstrips the strength multiplier of followers in extraordinary circumstances
b) because they're part of the tribe, and like it or not you're gonna be working with them. More useful to everyone to invest resources into figuring out what makes them tick than tuning them out.
c) because responsibility is rarely as divestable as one might hope. If my team lead doesn't listen to me and then sets up the team to shit the bed, I can certainly document "I wasn't involved in this decision; I would have done it differently," but the response upper management's gonna give me is "If you knew a better approach, why didn't you coach the team lead to take it?"
b) maximum doubt, it seems most of the people I've met are very agreeable. Especially when introduced to additional information. The problem being the ones who bully people into getting more information instead of asking. It's just rude.
C) You are rights, easy to fire the new guy instead of owning up to your own mistakes.
Maximum doubt after I got an IQ test you wouldn't believe the doors that opened for me. Kind of feel like I got left out of a club I should have been the owner of.
It's hard to talk about anything sometimes, because with 8 billion people on the planet there are always some counter-examples.
But to the point of the linked article, I think the author misses the point and insults neurotypicals and neurodivergents alike with the his assertion that normals just love them some blind submission as a default way of being, and autists just can't do that
I think you may be underestimating the size of the population who are into control and submission. but I don't disagree, see my comment from yesterday where I say something similar[1]
When my respected boss retired and was replaced by an outside hire, I had a lot of issues accepting the authority of the new guy at face value which may have contributed to me being fired later.
The other engineers would go by his office to make small talk, chat about great projects they're working on, and sports they both like. I never did any such thing and stayed in my office working.
Then when we all went out for drinks at the end of the week, I chatted as I normally would but I felt like the new boss kept shutting down my stories to get a laugh from the others. I felt like I was already being judged. That's when I reached negative respect for this new guy.
Over time I would see him going to all the other engineers' offices to chat and catch up on projects, but never mine, and that further cemented the feeling that this guy doesn't like me.
I felt that if my boss isn't going to make any effort to get to know me or respect me, then I'm not going to kiss his ass to make him like me. I'm sure he felt the same way, especially since he previously held a position of authority in the US military so he probably saw boot kissing as mandatory.
Once performance reviews came, even though I had met all the quantitative goals that were set, he gave me a bad rating because of qualitative reasons which I felt were injected into my review to make it negative to match his bias.
Once the pandemic hit I was fired, but I have a better job now. It doesn't pay as much, but is more interesting and is work from home, so suck it Scott!
> The other engineers would go by his office to make small talk, chat about great projects they're working on, and sports they both like. I never did any such thing and stayed in my office working.
> Over time I would see him going to all the other engineers' offices to chat and catch up on projects, but never mine, and that further cemented the feeling that this guy doesn't like me.
So... you took it as a sign that he doesn't like you when he didn't come and talk to you, but you don't consider it reasonable that he took it as a sign that you didn't like him when you didn't talk to him?
I'm not required to be friends with my boss, only to do my job and be respectful and friendly to all co-workers. He was not managing me, he was just wielding the power that came with the title.
Whenever we talked, it was because I came to him. He never came to me, I was ignored. The more I felt that he disliked me, the less frequently I went to talk to him and resorted to emails. I felt that he had already written me off.
In the performance review, one of the things mentioned was that I wasn't communicating with him enough. I pointed out how one-sided our relationship was, I would come to him and rarely the reverse. He said that he was very busy and doesn't always have time to come by my office but couldn't explain how he did that for all the other engineers.
I knew that I should suck up to him if I wanted to succeed there but the circumstances caused me to detest working there so I cared less and less about the threat of being fired.
> In the performance review, one of the things mentioned was that I wasn't communicating with him enough. I pointed out how one-sided our relationship was, I would come to him and rarely the reverse. He said that he was very busy and doesn't always have time to come by my office but couldn't explain how he did that for all the other engineers.
In case it's comforting to you, I'll let you in on a secret: For guys like Scott, there's always going to be a made-up excuse. You were his chosen scapegoat, and there was literally nothing you could do that would be right. I've had a manager like this, and it's hopeless. They'll choose 1+ people on the team as their "Can Do Nothing Wrong" golden boys, and they'll choose 1+ people as their "Can Do Nothing Right" scapegoats, and that's just the way it is. You unlucked into a bad manager.
That's not a contradiction, is it? Selective engagement and non-engagement are different things. It's reasonable for some individuals to be generally less sociable than others. That doesn't mean it's OK to explicitly exclude them.
Nobody expects the teacher to bring in candy, but it's kind of awful if they only bring it in for the students they like.
"Rule of law" is ideal, even for laws you don't agree with.
> Nobody expects the teacher to bring in candy, but it's kind of awful if they only bring it in for the students they like.
I hated teachers who insisted on treating everyone exactly the same. Ideal would be treating everyone according to their need. Which might mean candy for some, the freedom to set their own workload for others, understanding of chattiness for yet other, etc. Admittedly candy is fairly universal in terms of how it affects people.
> "Rule of law" is ideal, even for laws you don't agree with.
I'd rather have exceptions be able to made where appropriate. I'd see "rule of law" as a least-worst fallback where that can't be achieved.
Managers should put in effort to reach out to their reports, even ones who don't initiate chatting/small talk. People get nervous about the new boss - would the chatting be viewed negatively (wasting time or whatever)?
Further:
> Then when we all went out for drinks at the end of the week, I chatted as I normally would but I felt like the new boss kept shutting down my stories to get a laugh from the others.
Work isn’t high school. A manager or lead, if they’re doing their job right, are a force multiplier for productivity. If they’re not, it’s time to jump ship
> Then when we all went out for drinks at the end of the week, I chatted as I normally would but I felt like the new boss kept shutting down my stories to get a laugh from the others.
If that's an accurate characterization (and your stories weren't tone deaf, or going on too long, or something), then the new boss might have already decided to put you into an "other" group, and was using that to try to build rapport with a different group, in a juvenile cliques kind of way.
I've seen execs doing things like this. In one example, at a team-building dinner, where I suspected that the exec had already decided they didn't like one of the shy/nerdy engineers there, as the engineer was walking away from the table, the exec made a crude sexual comment to the table about the person's figure. (I don't know why the exec thought that a table of diverse engineers would go for that kind of locker room 'camaraderie', nor why the exec would expose themself and the company in an open&shut case way like that, except maybe they didn't think that through.)
If you imagine that people will sometimes revert to grade school or high school, some behavior makes a lot more sense. Also, alcohol at company events is risky.
I think you're right. I left out some context which is that this was a conservative oil company and I was a liberal city slicker environmentalist who hates oil but was willing to put up with it for a few years for the paycheck. My boss was the tough ex-military country guy, and my co-workers were somewhere in between - nerdy engineers, but more country types.
When out for beers, he said his wife does horseback barrel racing and I said I used to do that as a kid and it's a cool sport. He just replied, "Hah, I find that hard to picture" and got some chuckles from the other guys before changing the subject, not following up to learn more. He asked what our favorite movies were and everyone received approval except when I said A Clockwork Orange, he said that was weird.
I was already masking HARD to fit in at this company. Another coworker had already outted me as an atheist as a joke at a weekly meeting. I didn't find that funny, my boss's boss in the room had previously invited me to his church as had another coworker.
I used to like this job under my old boss. Now it hurt and I didn't want to be there anymore, but the paycheck was so good I knew I'd never earn that much again in my whole life. Once I started hating my boss, I may have been "silent quitting" without realizing it. I blame him and he blames me, I don't know.
It wasn't OK for that boss to be dissing you. I'm glad you're out of that situation, but it shouldn't have happened.
If no one spoke up for you in the moment, I hope they came to you afterwards with support, and/or spoke with the boss, other managers, or HR on your behalf.
I suspect it wasn't so much a country-towards-city thing, though, but an individual being jerky. You'll find plenty of country people who are neighborly and welcoming, follow the best of Christian charity teachings, etc. Jerky non-inclusiveness in companies also often happens city-towards-country, one-ethnicity/caste-towards-another, one-gender-towards-another, rich-kid-careerist-towards-traditional-nerd, one-school-alumni-towards-others, etc.
In hindsight I should have lied but I was constantly 'masking' in this job, pretending to be someone I wasn't, I just wanted to get beers and try to get to know each other.
Just because I'm different doesn't mean they had to treat me like that. The film has awful things in it but that's kind of the point, and there is a deeper meaning!
I read the book in highschool and found it thought provoking. The movie is by Stanley Kubrick, has fantastic cinematography, and is on many lists of best movies of all time, so I thought it was mainstream pop culture.
> Once performance reviews came, even though I had met all the quantitative goals that were set, he gave me a bad rating because of qualitative reasons which I felt were injected into my review to make it negative to match his bias.
This is actually the real reason many jobs stayed work from home indefinitely. There is a significant productivity boost from making it difficult to socialize with coworkers. So many places were struggling with this problem.
I would be surprised to hear that Scott is still working there either. This style of management is pretty much dead at all but the crappiest and most miserable small businesses that don't know better.
As someone who is non-neurotypical, it's not authority I have a problem with, it's arbitrary rules. The extent to which authority is heavy handed in enforcing the rules is the extent I have issues with authority. A big contributor to my divorce was my wife's objection to me not following the rules. She became an authority to me.
I don't think I need to go into the senseless rules that govern our lives and social interactions, because the 'rules and order' people won't see them and those who know what I'm talking about already know.
I learned early in my life that passing as typical was important. Learning to pass is all about learning which arbitrary social constructs people value personally. You can learn that by paying attention to their mannerisms. You can then tailor your behaviors to that person.
It also helps to establish a reputation as a boundary pusher who will maliciously comply with stupid rules.
Higher education is a great field to work in, because everyone expects a certain amount of that sort of thing from you anyways.
Right or wrong it has kept me gainfully employed for decades. Ethics and personal identity are very funny things when you have to eat.
> arbitrary social constructs people value personally
Can you list a few examples?
I've never encountered a bonafide example before on HN that did not serve at least some purpose(s)/benefit some group(s)/etc..., after a careful analysis. So I'm a bit skeptical as to the claim.
My least favorite example is the classic, "and what do you do?"
Yes, it's a place filler nothing question for some people. BUT For others it's a very clear indicator of worth and status, which are important to them.
Both groups are exceedingly put off when you answer honestly with, "my work does not define who I am."
Arbitrary social construct that people take seriously. So you learn who is using it as a Dick measuring contest and which are just filling space. The first you engage aggressively with and the second you change the subject to them or their family or whatever else they are interested in.
Not the person you're replying to, but I think they're referring to situations similar to the "classic" case - an inquisitive student in class may learn it's "better" to keep quiet in presence of an unreasonable/angry teacher, than to ask questions.
A neurotypical kid might quickly pick up that asking questions get you scolded. Or worse, saying the teacher is wrong gives you detention. A neurodivergent kid may fail to understand that these actions hurt the teacher's ego. (Teacher can be replaced by parent/adult). All this leads to masking.
Yes but those 'social constructs' did not develop arbitrarily or randomly.
In fact there is so much amateur speculation into the likely causes behind their development, the beneficiaries, etc., that such writings occupy thousands of corners spread across the internet.
It's difficult to imagine any 18 year old with internet access in the last decade or two could even have avoided encountering any mention of it.
>> It also helps to establish a reputation as a boundary pusher who will maliciously comply with stupid rules.
That, and it's also good to know that every boundary has gaps, either through policy, implementation, or both. When you find a useful gap there is no point in drawing attention to it since you are just following the rules.
I'm not autistic, and I have the same issue with arbitrary rules, airports or other security theatre are a classic example. I'm sure there are many people out there that feel the same way
Security theater is one of those things everyone is familiar with. I'm talking about the more subtle rules. I'm a fan of "Curb Your Enthusiasm" because Larry David is always rebelling against these rules or making up new rules that actually make sense ("chat and cut is not allowed").
To give you an example from the show that actually happened to me, I went into the men's room. The stalls were full so I used the wheel chair stall. I didn't see anyone in a wheel chair in the building. I got yelled at by someone, a 'rules and order' person, who claimed I was never under any circumstances to use the wheel chair stall if I wasn't in a wheel chair, which is stupid. There are a lot of rules like that and neurotypical people just accept, but I can't.
Non-wheelchair-bound, neurotypical people happily use those stalls too because it's not an actual rule (at least anywhere I've ever been). At best, if an actual wheelchair-bound person shows up in line you let them use it first because that's courteous. It's also often used by people with small kids because it affords room for them to go in there with the kids to make sure they don't make a mess or help them clean themselves (if they aren't quite potty trained yet).
Neurotypical people are as aware as anyone else that many (if not most) rules are arbitrary and not all rules make sense and that not all people insisting a rule exists are worth listening to.
Thanks for this. It's hard for me to distinquish between the spirit of a rule and someone telling me I'm not following the rule because I'm not following their interpretation of the rule. I know I don't think like other people so if someone tells me I'm not thinking like other people I tend to believe them. My intuition tells me I'm doing ok, but need to improve my perception of when a person is being unreasonable and let it go.
That was my biggest problem with jail and prison. As Piper's lawyer told her in Orange is the New Black, prison is "chickenshit rules enforced by chickenshit people."
> I don't think I need to go into the senseless rules that govern our lives and social interactions, because the 'rules and order' people won't see them
Maybe those from our own culture. There are “rules and order” people in every culture, but the rules are different.
One other effect of this fact is that we (e.g. me) recognize who the rules-and-order people are based on how they follow our society’s rules. In another culture, we may peg someone as a free-thinker, only to find out that they are very conservative, just conservative in a way we don’t recognize. We have to recognize what rules people care about in a culture before we can really identify which people care about “the rules”.
There are a lot of Asperger's sufferers on here talking about their jobs; meanwhile my cousin with autism doesn't have a job because she can't form sentences properly and is unable to navigate any relationships at all.
I find the DSM V alterations to the terminology jarring; they seem to have somewhat erased the original autists. It's a bit like if mild epilepsy suddenly became fashionable and the people having callosotomies had to sit in hospital watching TV stars talking about how their fugue states gave them special powers.
None of this makes anything in the article incorrect, of course.
I have a cousin in exactly the same boat. I think people don't realize that a third of actual autistic people functionally can't speak and 75% of them are unemployed. They would rather have a normal life, and probably don't enjoy hearing about "quirky" celebrities who got diagnosed by some monkey psychiatrist.
The self diagnosers sort of forget that you're supposed to have all of the things listed: persistent communication deficit, repetitive behaviors, symptoms present in childhood, and symptoms that limit and impair everyday functioning. You can't just only have one because it's a "spectrum."
Looking at the DSM-5 list: when I was little I made eye contact with almost nobody and refused to go on play structure equipment if there was someone else on it. I still like having a "schedule" all the time and am sensitive to sounds - who isn't? But I don't have autism: I can hold a conversation fine and don't have impaired function in everyday life.
Another way to phrase this from an Autistic PoV to an authority figure:
You are no better than I.
Does a person really have to be "better" than you to act as some sort of authority in a particular context?
How about the gate agent at the airport, who boards and deboards people from the plane?
I don't necessarily love listening to that person, but I accept that we probably need somebody doing that job so that we can hopefully get the plane boarded and deboarded in some sort of nonchaotic way.
The thought of whether or not this person is "better" than me seems rather bizarre. They probably know how to board a plane better than me, and even if they don't, it's generally still going to be better than 200 arriving and departing passengers devolving into a free-for-all because they have 200 competing opinions of how things should work.
Generally, most sorts of "authority" I experience on a daily basis fall into this sort of mental bin for me.
Obviously that's a rather trivial example.
What's the logical endpoint of "nobody is better than me" or "nobody is better than anybody?" Just like, no rules whatsoever for anybody, unless you explicitly opt-in to some specific rule or authority figure you happen to like?
And how does this even relate to autism and/or one's (lack of) empathy?
> Does a person really have to be "better" than you to act as some sort of authority in a particular context?
No. And you're correct, IMO, that people can swap into roles without being jerks about it. And I don't think many Autistic folks have a problem with those kinds of people.
But there are also those who gravitate to positions of power and authority just for the power and authority. They're the ones who will say "I won't respect you until you respect me," and mean "I won't treat you like a human until you treat me as an authority (as your better)."
And if you haven't run into that kind yet... good. May you be lucky enough to never run into them.
But there are also those who gravitate to positions
of power and authority just for the power and authority.
They're the ones who will say "I won't respect you
until you respect me," and mean "I won't treat you like a
human until you treat me as an authority (as your better)."
And if you haven't run into that kind yet... good. May
you be lucky enough to never run into them.
No argument here, and you said it very well. The world's crawling with these creeps.
But bringing things back to the points made in the linked article, I haven't seen a compelling case made for how the recognition of such creeps is a specifically autistic trait, or how "blind" subservience to them is a neurotypical trait.
>people can swap into roles without being jerks about it. And I don't think many Autistic folks have a problem with those kinds of people
Oh ho ho that's not always true. I've witnessed a usually normal-ish appearing autistic spectrum acquaintance flip out on a poor service worker over very little. He had his preconceived notion of how a service was going to proceed and let everyone know loudly when it didn't meet his expectations.
I think you're looking at it backwards. The problem is people with authority who think that it makes them better than you. The autistic person rejects that idea completely.
You seem to be arguing that autistic people also reject the idea that some people have authority because they are better than you in some context. This isn't the case.
At the airport, the staff has authority because they are following a higher ethical directive to protect everyone. The pilot has authority because they're responsible for dozens or hundreds of lives. The pilot is more important than you, they are a better person in this context, and thus have authority.
As a counterpoint, America is having a crisis about the authority of the police. People are rejecting the authority of the police because they assume authority makes them better, and therefore entitles them to whatever they want. Whereas police who do follow the directive to protect everyone tend to be respected and have authority because of that.
I think that most neurotypical people also reject the idea that authority makes you better. But they tend to play along with it, for some reason. The discussion here is about the autistic people who don't play along and just flatly reject the idea.
To answer your question, these types of autistic people tend to have a very strong idea of right and wrong and a rich code of ethics. Something wrong shouldn't be tolerated and should be set right. But I think most people in general feel that way.
Where autism comes into play is that an autistic person's notion of what is intolerable is often quite different. An autistic person is also more likely to lack or not care about the social inhibition against challenging or rejecting something that they feel is wrong.
Certainly, people on power trips are odious and we should all reject that behavior. Let's set that aside because I think it's uncontroversial and we all agree.
The problem is people with authority who think
that it makes them better than you.
To summarize: we've got people who (by definition) have a hard time understanding the motives of others, and they have made some pretty assertive decisions about the motives of those in authority ("they must think they're better than me!") and have decided that they don't like those motives that they, the people who are bad at ascribing others' motives, have ascribed to others.
That is not great or accurate thinking in my opinion. I'm saying this as somebody likely on the spectrum to some extent himself, for whatever that's worth.
I think that most neurotypical people also reject the
idea that authority makes you better. But they tend to
play along with it, for some reason.
I don't think this "some reason" should be very mysterious. What are some of the defining traits of autism? A lack of awareness/valuation of social intangibles such as peer or societal pressure. Another typical one is a discomfort with change from one's desired routines. Another typical one is sensory overload. Three common things off the top of my head that can make it tough to jive with authority.
Neurotypicals therefore don't typically have these barriers to successful interactions with authority. I realize that this is difficult or even impossible for those on the spectrum to intuit, but when seemingly intelligent people on the spectrum who seem very well versed on how autism relates to neurotypicalism declare this to be some super mystery, and proclaim that neurotypicals seemingly just looooooooove themselves some authority, my eyes roll so hard that I'm afraid they're about to fall out of my skull. It's insulting, and just incorrect, and just not very good thinking. And again, I'm not even particularly neurotypical myself.
Where autism comes into play is that an autistic person's
notion of what is intolerable is often quite different. An
autistic person is also more likely to lack or not care about
the social inhibition against challenging or rejecting something
that they feel is wrong.
I think you nailed this, hard. More succinctly than me, and certainly better than the linked author. Amen.
The problem is when authority figures act like they're better than you. This is colloquially referred to as a "power trip". The effects of this can range from annoying (some assistant manager at a store on a power trip) to potentially life-changing or life-ending (a cop on a power trip).
Imagine the gate agent has called Zone 1 and Zone 2 who are almost finished processing. You, looking at your Zone 3 ticket, start queuing but the gate agent asks you to go back to your seat as your zone has not been called. Do you defer to their authority on principle or trust your own expertise? I think the logical endpoint is rules and obedience are evaluated in context rather than with an authority bias heuristic.
I'm not exactly sure what process you are referring to, but if you are explicitly asked to leave a queue by some sort of administrator, what could you possibly gain from staying in it? If they do not want you to queue for whatever reason, they are hardly likely to serve you if you do stay in the queue.
Imagine the gate agent has called Zone 1 and Zone 2
who are almost finished processing. You, looking at
your Zone 3 ticket, start queuing but the gate agent
asks you to go back to your seat as your zone has not
been called. Do you defer to their authority on principle
or trust your own expertise?
In your example, the Zone 3 protagonist hasn't actually decided that his boarding process is "better." It sounds like he is just disobeying rules (or maybe made an unintentional mistake) and no reason is given. So taking this purely at face value, Mr. Zone 3 should go back to his seat rather than causing an argument and delaying the boarding process for himself and all of the other customers.
Let's make some additional assumptions based on what seems to be your intent. Let's assume that Mr. Zone 3 has expertise in this area, and has decided that he knows a better way to board the plane. (This might be true! Airlines are experimenting with this stuff all of the time. I don't think the "best" way to board is a rigorously settled matter...)
However, in that case, Mr. Zone 3 is still wrong and should STFU and sit back down.
He might be the world's premier expert in plane boarding, but his superior method is not going to realize any gains if one rogue passenger attempts to implement this new procedure in the god damn middle of boarding. Certainly, the premier expert in plane boarding should realize this. And the gate agent is not in a position to make changes, even if he shows up to the gate early and Mr. Zone 3 makes a really great case ahead of time.
There are zero short-term scenarios in which Mr. Zone 3 is going to get this plane loaded any more quickly relative to the (in his view) suboptimal routine already in place.
He should get some kind of job working for or advising airlines if this is truly a passion project for him.
Also, in reality....
I've seem people honestly make this mistake and have made it myself. Because the boarding agent has no idea what zone you're in until you actually reach the front of the line they are not going to notice or even give a shit that you're boarding at the wrong moment. They will do their own calculus if they do notice and will surely just let you board anyway because sending you away (and risking an argument) is not going to get the plane loaded more quickly and will almost certainly slow things down. They just want the plane loaded, and their day to go smoothly, and not have to deal with complaints and look bad to their boss.
I think the logical endpoint is rules and obedience
are evaluated in context rather than with an authority
bias heuristic.
Sorry to semi-humorously pick on your example. I know it was just an example.
To your actual point I often have violated rules that I felt were simply dumb or shouldn't apply to me, when I felt that there was no downside to doing so for myself or others.
But:
1. That's not an autism-specific thing, by a longshot.
2. I didn't get the impression the linked author was talking about the sort of nuanced decision-making you describe. The linked article was a way dumber, less correct, and more harmful assertion that NeuROtYPicaLS LoooOOOOveeeEEe AUthorITY and that those on the spectrum just can't handle authority ever and can't be expected to, maaaaaaaaan. The author hedges his bet by saying those on the spectrum can't handle "blind" authority, but never defines what it means, and it seems to just include all authority more or less.
> What's the logical endpoint of "nobody is better than me" or "nobody is better than anybody?" Just like, no rules whatsoever for anybody, unless you explicitly opt-in to some specific rule or authority figure you happen to like?
Negotiation as equals and on the merits of the matter at hand. For example, rather than a senior colleague telling a junior colleague to do something "because I say so", the expectation would be that they actually provide justification for their decision, and to persuade you rather than simply overrule there is disagreement. Ditto for a parent, teacher or other authority figure.
And that where there is unresolvable disagreement (and one persons decision has to be followed despite lack of consensus), that there is accountability around that decision, and that the results of it are taken into account when resolving future disputes. In other words, authority is earned not decreed.
rather than a senior colleague telling a junior
colleague to do something "because I say so"
Sure. Agree 1,000% in this specific example.
There are a lot of other contexts where it seems wildly impractical.
Should Linus have explain to you and negotiate your right to be (or not) a Linux kernel committer? Should a crossing guard at an intersection negotiate with every car?
Should an air traffic controller negotiate and explain with every given aircraft? Okay, maybe we could treat the role of ATC as an education issue during pilot training and certification, so nobody has to "blindly" obey. But what if I don't want to obey even in an informed way? What if I think the certification process sucks? Why submit to the FAA's authority in the first place? They don't own the sky!
Ideally, we should all have individualized speed limits on roadways, too, based on our skill, the weather conditions, and the vehicle we're driving at the moment. And yet we recognize that this is just sort of impractical.
There are a lot of issues with negotiation that get awfully intractable if we scale them up past much more than two people.
You will perhaps be surprised to know that there is a speed limit on the autobahn.
There is a minimum speed limit and a strict set of laws governing your driving behavior.
So no, you don’t get to pick your own specially negotiated arbitrary driving speed or negotiate your own special individual set of driving laws.
German driving requirements (exams, licensing, etc) are said to be quite strict as well relative to many other countries and again, I am not aware of any part of this process where you are permitted to set your own personalized driving laws (but only if you have deemed your assigned personalized negotiator to be worthy of that authority)
In short, a spectacularly poor choice of example (on multiple axes) to illustrate your point.
If it’s any consolation this is a common mistake. I suspect people in Germany are often amused and baffled by others’ tendency to point to the Autobahn as some sort of lassiez-faire libertarian “do whatever you want” zone.
This is a very reasonable default way of operating, and the effort that goes into helping those you're leading understand and build agreement with the path we're taking together is IMO one of the key traits of a good leader - but anyone who has been in a leadership role for a long time will probably have had an interaction with a colleague where someone they're leading either lacks so much of the bigger picture that the nuances can't possibly all be explained in sufficient detail right now, or for situations involving personnel perhaps aren't allowed to be explained, and the answer in those situations will sometimes be "I need you to trust me even though you don't feel like you fully understand or fully agree".
Hopefully those situations are extremely few and far between. But some of the hardest conversations any leader will have, especially when the default _is_ to keep discussing until everything is mutually transparent and understood, are going to be on this theme. I've had some colleagues handle that handle that situation well, and others for whom it has been a real challenge and sets the relationship back.
That's very well said. Thank you. I agree so much.
But some of the hardest conversations any
leader will have, especially when the default
_is_ to keep discussing until everything is
mutually transparent and understood, are
going to be on this theme.
Yeah. And ultimately, it's just a maturity and practicality issue, quite honestly. It is not practical for 100% of team members to be in 100% agreement 100% of the time. And even the most egalitarian manager can't necessarily explain 100% of the reasoning behind 100% of decisions to 100% of the team members 100% of the time. And hopefully each individual team member will realize they are not correct 100% of the time either. Even if those are the ideals to which we aspire.
There are times when we should dig in and defend our decisions to the death (hopefully, figuratively speaking!) but these battles should be chosen and fought carefully and not reflexively.
I think most people generally understand this, most of the time. Spectrum or otherwise.
Which is why I find the linked article so misguided and even insulting. The notion that those on the spectrum are hardwired to be incompatible with authority and everybody else just needs to accept this is just so wrong.
> How about the gate agent at the airport, who boards and deboards people from the plane?
I've seen law enforcement used as an example of Authority a couple times, but I'm not convinced the author has any idea what they're talking about (yes, I am dismissing his authority as an expert).
To him, "Authority" seems to mean social status-- i.e. how do you react when you meet a celebrity or billionaire CEO at the supermarket. These people aren't better than you because they're older than you, famous or have money. Despite everyone else bowing to them, that isn't Authority. Those people who value such traits are simply fools.
Autistic people aren't retarded. Airport personnel and law enforcement have leverage over you-- if not the risk of getting shot, maced or tased, they are what stands in your way of getting to your flight on time. You will respect their authority or you will miss your flight and/or suffer pain and inconvenience.
The autistic are perfectly capable of reasoning their way through this while simultaneously recognizing that the airport cop is Just Some Guy. Whether you recognize him as an agent of the state is irrelevant; right now, he's just an obstacle in your path that compliance happens to be the simplest path around.
Someone with antisocial personality disorder may decide that confrontation for the sake of belligerence is worth it though.
> Autistic students (and I speak from long experience) will not bow to authority for authority’s sake. [...] They will respect it, if respect can be had, and they’ll do what they’re told— if it makes sense; but they won’t blindly accept authority.
This is literally the exact same advice you find in the opening pages of any book about Huskies.
They are a pain in the ass to train because they don't respect human authority, but the most you can hope for is fostering a mutually-beneficial relationship where they'll stick around and do what you say for as long as you make it worth their while. When you stop paying them in treats, they chew up your furniture and run away. They don't give a shit about you.
We don't just call dogs autistic, declare them unreasonable and let them have the house while we live under the porch. Somehow they still serve as cooperative work animals despite their independence. Somehow they can still be trained to be useful to us.
Autistic people aren't retarded. Airport personnel and
law enforcement have leverage over you-- if not the risk
of getting shot, maced or tased, they are what stands
in your way of getting to your flight on time. You
will respect their authority or you will miss your
flight and/or suffer pain and inconvenience.
The autistic are perfectly capable of reasoning their way
through this while simultaneously recognizing that the
airport cop is Just Some Guy.
Absolutely. The linked article, while clearly wanting to be some kind of rallying cry for neurodivergence, is ultimately just super insulting.
No reason to stop there. Unless you believe in some form of metaphysical soul, our entire existence, even our personal inner thoughts, is just vibrations in quantum fields acting according to their intrinsic mathematical nature. I couldn't type this message if the universe wasn't capable of performing self-reflection inside small bubbles of itself, based entirely on its physical nature.
Yeah - honestly the hardest part about having a discourse on homelessness here (or anywhere else).
People just need to believe that homeless people are inherently bad in some way. It makes it really hard to discuss solutions, since they’re all “drug addicts who should be in jail.”
What's being discussed here looks a lot like one of the three negative individualisation types: by striving to be better than peers in order to look down upon them, by imitating the greater ones for personal gain, and by the fear of the greater ones.
I haven't seen this as a hard rule in people. My experience of people on the spectrum is they often just want a good clear reason to follow rules that seem like nonsense like bowing to authority. Neurotypical people just intuitively know the pros and cons of certain social rules in a way that might take neurodiverse people more active thinking to get. In geekier cultures you run into a lot of people on the spectrum so if I remember something could be a problem then it's not a big deal for me to explain this kind of thing ahead of time in a respectful way that makes sense ("I bet if we suck up to this guy well enough we'll get more funding for our team") so we're on the same page even if they think it's dumb. It takes effort on both sides to bridge the gap.
> My experience of people on the spectrum is they often just want a good clear reason to follow rules that seem like nonsense like bowing to authority
I think that's usually correct. However, I would point out that does not constitute respecting the authority. The extra reason is needed because the authority is not respected unless judged to have earned that authority. Which is a very different attitude to the one I typically see from neurotypical people where it is often seen as a moral duty to respect an authority figure just because they have been given a position of authority by society.
I worked with a very autistic chap once. The most incredible mind and considering his levels of autism he was very self aware.
He said that he should be treated like a computer when it came to work. Clear instructions, no ambiguity and with a clear reason.
If the reason did not make sense then that could be an issue and we would discuss.
The fact that he wanted to be given clear reasons means he did not in fact want to be treated like a computer. Computers do whatever they are told exactly with no thought to reason whatsoever.
In general, respect needs to be earned, so I don’t quite agree that authority automatically implies respect for “neurotypical” people. To the degree that it is true, it might be because the fact that the person was put into a position of authority is taken as an indication that the person probably earned that authority, so is taken as a prior for their credences regarding that person. Also, respect doesn’t necessarily imply obedience or subservience.
> To the degree that it is true, it might be because the fact that the person was put into a position of authority is taken as an indication that the person probably earned that authority, so is taken as a prior for their credences regarding that person. Also, respect doesn’t necessarily imply obedience or subservience.
Seems like a weak prior to me, as people are very frequently put into positions of authority despite not deserving it. To be fair, I think I would also start with such a prior, I would just weight it very weakly and would expect the person's behaviour and decision making to live up to the position they have been given.
Some of the time it’s because the rules can’t be said.
“I picked him for the job because he is more attractive and has the same hobby as me”
“I want you to do this thing which is illegal to knowingly do but if I don’t explicitly say it then it’s permissible”
“I feel like you are faking sick days or being lazy but I don’t have any proof for this accusation so I just want to subtly imply it to pressure you in to changing”
Although, sometimes (usually) the benefit to an unwritten rule is so much more mundane and benign, right?
Like, "we do it this way because it is just easier if all 500 employees don't make up their own individual rules on how to do it, because that cohesion has its own benefits and now we always know where the mop bucket is instead of looking in 500 different places, some of which are possibly a little more optimal"
Generally a lot of jobs are pretty receptive to process improvements (they are a win for your boss, too) but it takes some social skill to sell those improvements and this is an area where those on the spectrum can struggle more often than average.
Yeah that's another big one. I'd think the neurotypical person is more likely to think "We put the bucket there because Jane said so, I don't really care" while the autistic person might be more likely to demand an explanation for why it's being put there when there is a seemingly more useful spot from their perspective. To which they might get a response of "Because I said so" as Jane doesn't feel like having to explain and argue every detail to everyone.
Just putting the bucket in that spot is likely more productive than having a company wide debate on it's placement. There might not be any logical rules for it but it doesn't matter since it's placement is largely inconsequential.
Yeah. And in a lot of cases Jane might actually be open to a better placement! The average Jane just wants things to go smoothly.
But the autistic person might "demand" an answer or call the current placement "stupid" and actually just make an enemy out of Jane, and then everybody loses.
This is in many ways unfair to the autistic person, because they don't know the unwritten social rules of how to bring something up constructively and helpfully.
On the other hand, the relevant social rules are not terribly complicated here either and they're kind of learnable. Make an effort to understand (but don't demand) the current way before suggesting a change. Don't insult everybody by calling the current way stupid. Etc. And also Jane can't be an expert in every neurodivergent special need her reports might have.
I used to work with a truly brilliant programmer with no filter. Surely he was on the spectrum though I don't know that for a fact. He would insult everybody else's work. Honestly, his was that much better. I swallowed my pride and learned to work with him and I like to think I helped him with some social aspects. He was actually a very sweet guy and we benefitted from his brilliant work. That is how it should always work, but unfortunately it's not, and to be honest (as terrible as this is to admit) if he was not a true 1-in-1000 unicorn engineer I really don't think I would have cared to make the effort.
>It’s not that we’re deficient, after all. It’s more that this authority business is a neurotypical notion that we don’t seem to share, and thus we tend to ignore it.
I'm neurodivergent and always find it off-putting when people talk of things like "neurotypical values". neurotypical people are no more of a monolith than neurodivergent people. I've personally met plenty of neurodivergent people with a sense of hierarchy or authority, and plenty of neurotypical people who don't. if you want to make claims like this, at the very least back it up with a study. don't just say how you feel and assume that applies to everyone
This may be true in kindergarten, but as he writes:
>So another example: an autistic person meets their company’s CEO. They know who they are, but they greet them as an equal. They say hi. They crack a Chandler-esque joke. They are relaxed and unfazed by the massive authority that is shrinking their peers down.
>This may be great! The CEO might think, Wow! Here’s a go-getting individual, if they’re nice and positive. But they may also think, Who is this worm with no respect for my status?
I didn't make it of high school (still undiagnosed) without the understanding that many people "in authority" are incompetent, vicious, spiteful authoritarians, and best to avoid authority at all costs because I have no ability to kiss ass even if it seemed like a good idea game-theory wise.
Not all of us. I have a friend who I swear is ASD2 that waltzes up to CEOs all the time, and he seems to do fine. My mind screams "what are you doing????!!!" at him, like he's standing up in a foxhole, drawing fire. YMMV I guess.
In my experience, most CEOs actually like someone who will treat them like an equal and who will give them an honest opinion. It can become hard to come by once you have a position of authority.
> I didn't make it of high school (still undiagnosed) without the understanding that many people "in authority" are incompetent, vicious, spiteful authoritarians, and best to avoid authority at all costs because I have no ability to kiss ass even if it seemed like a good idea game-theory wise.
We learn different coping techniques from different experiences. (Also, of course, autism presents differently in everyone.)
I often cow before CEOs et al because I sense them to have beliefs of immense self-importance. But internally, I know they're either not more important than me or they're more important in limited, specific ways. If I'm talking or acting in a situation where I don't think I have to appease them, I will talk about them as if they're just an ordinary person... because they are.
The management class are easy to manipulate and you can either play the game and get ahead, or you can refuse and be angry about the guardrails you erected for yourself. At the end of the day, the only person who is ever going to recognize the sacrifice you made is you, so you better be happy with your choices, because nobody else is going to care.
It's closely related and perhaps entirely falls under the umbrella of Persistent Drive for Autonomy.
The thing I like about PDA is that it has this framing duality. Depending on whether it's framed by a neurotypical perspective or a neurodivergent perspective the behaviors are either pathological or virtuous.
For example, not perceiving social hierarchy, vs dismantling unjustified hierarchies.
I stand to be better versed in the topic, but I hope this gives a taste of how framing can pathologize or praise the same behavior.
We're pretty sure our daughter has PDA. It's relatively mild, but when it strikes there's nothing virtuous about it. She would fight us continuously on almost everything from the age of 2.5. After 5.5 or so she settled down a bit, but it's still rough pretty frequently.
People would often tell us things like "oh, it's great to have a girl who knows her own mind", and the virtuous framing sort of implies that way of thinking. But that's not it at all - the PDA society in the UK say that it should be treated like a panic attack, and that's basically what it is, at least in her case. It's not her carefully considering the options and rejecting the "normal" one, it's that when a demand triggers it (and not all do, for reasons that we can't work out) her brain completely shuts down due to crippling anxiety. We cannot talk her down, we can't reason with her or apply logic, discipline, bribery or anything else. We basically just have to wait a bit until it passes, and then discuss it afterwards.
I know it's more fashionable these days to refer to it as Persistent Drive for Autonomy rather than Pathological Demand Avoidance, but at least in her case it is absolutely pathological. She is now aware that it happens and hates it and the conflict it provokes in her life. She'd do anything to change it but realistically can't, especially since any sort of therapy feels like a demand and is almost impossible to follow.
This doesn't seem like actual research? This seems wrong. Autistic kids tend to like rules and structure and tend to be very worried about breaking the rules. They are more likely to "tell" on people for breaking the rules. Miscarriage of justice (ie, getting punished when you haven't broken the rules) is hugely upsetting. Rules that don't make sense and seem really arbitrary also are upsetting. But authority figures tend to be secure anchor points. My son is Autistic and this is often talked about by experts and through support groups.
I don't think your view and the article's are mutually exclusive. I think that one of the article's points is that a lot of non-autistic people will go along with a rule that is clearly nonsensical if an authority figure tells them to, break a rule if an authority figure tells them to, and even do whatever they want if they think that nobody is watching. But for the autistic person, the pre-existing rule is possibly much more important than the authority figure, which makes miscarriages of justice, as you mention, upsetting. The autistic person is perhaps more likely to question an act or rule made by an authority figure if that act or rule violates some more fundamental rule.
No, the fact that one autistic person acts like this does not mean that all autistic person acts like this.
However, it is a common enough trait among enough autistic people and being able to navigate social interactions with autistic people is a skill neurotypical people should learn.
This is a case where maybe we should be using our ears more than our mouths, because it seems like several people in this post want to dismiss this piece of advice with "well, not all autistic people". But that's been the struggle of neurodivergent people from the start, the desire for others to dismiss anything that may make them slightly uncomfortable or inconvenienced.
There are many different things that can add up to a diagnosis of autism. Some people on the spectrum lack prosody and this routinely gets them in trouble with authority figures who literally "don't like your tone."
Subconscious tone matching is a means of signaling who is in authority and who is being deferential. If you can't tone match, cashiers and other "servant class" type roles won't care and may think you are wonderful for not being verbally abusive like a lot of their customers, but authority figures -- teachers, police, etc -- will hate you the second you open your mouth and there is no remedy for it.
They don't even consciously know what their issue is with you. You just grate on them and they just feel disrespected and can't put their finger on it.
No amount of coaching or trying to use more politically correct language fixes this, just like you don't stop being blind or deaf from coaching. It's a disability, a thing you just cannot do, and it can have disastrous consequences in some situations, like when dealing with the police.
As I have gotten older, only now do I realize that the most effective way in navigating a situation is by 'playing a role'.
I need to teach my children this skill as they can then focus on fitting the pattern rather than proposing a conjecture in order to initiate a philosophical conversation.
I find this article interesting because I've often had a different view on authority and social norms than my peers growing up. I think there's a lot to be gained by identifying what qualities in a leader and society are actually pragmatic. However, I really dislike how it leans into autism vs neurotypical. It sounds like an "us vs them" assessment where "us" is smarter than "them", which is hard to ignore and represented in many of the comments here.
Although there are many things I continue to push back on, I've begun to appreciate the value of some norms as I get older. I don't think my acceptance of any of things in isolation is a good indication of how smart I was at any given moment in time.
Not idolizing, but respecting authority, is just a trait of smart people. The article doesn't provide any references linking it to autism? And common sense would suggest that knowing what others can do to you and how to treat them is a kind of social intelligence.
The article is saying that autistic people DO know how they should respect authority, however they won't necessarily do all of those things just for the sake of boot licking (feeding the authority figure's ego).
For example, when I got a new boss and all the underlings went to them and start chatting about the boss's favorite sports teams and hobbies to get on their good side. I refused to do that. I'll be friendly, like any other new hire.
Another example might be if an officer asks for your ID, most people might blindly give it to end the situation. An autistic person may choose to refuse based solely on the morals of the situation. If it isn't legally necessary to present an ID, then one shouldn't have to, and they will have lost respect for the police's authority because they are not playing fairly and didn't earn it.
> For example, when I got a new boss and all the underlings went to them and start chatting about the boss's favorite sports teams and hobbies to get on their good side. I refused to do that. I'll be friendly, like any other new hire.
I don't know if I would consider this to be only getting on their good side. In many cases, if I am going to spend a significant amount of my life working with someone, I do want to get to know a bit about them and that includes their hobbies and interests outside of work. To me, that is being friendly and I also do that with new hires.
When we went to get drinks the first week, he told a co-worker that his wife is into horseback barrel racing. I saw some common ground and said how I used to do barrel racing when I was a kid and how it's a cool sport. He looked at me funny and said, "heh, I find that hard to picture/believe" or something like that.
In every interaction, I felt like I was being put down. Maybe he thought that criticizing everything I did was going to make me try harder, or suck up more, but for me it did the opposite. Encouragement is what makes me try harder.
I also had my own internal bias. I was the nerdy city slicker and he was the tough ex-military, country guy. I think we both projected stereotypes on each other.
I know I didn't do myself any favors with my behavior, but I continued out of principle.
Anyone who is putting you down for being genuinely interested is not someone worth your time. Sorry you had to go through that.
A good manager will find ways to communicate with each individual, usually in an individualized fashion (I say this as an ex-military, but nerdy city slicker guy). Sometimes it takes me a few tries to figure it out for everyone, but it's been helpful to connect with everyone on my team and even outside collaborators.
The way I would apply "not idolize, but respect" to drug use is that the people who made the drug laws don't have your best interest in mind. So you shouldn't factor their wishes/opinions into whether you personally use drugs. They don't know better just because they are an authority.
However some drugs are still illegal, and there are people paid to find people in possession of these drugs and ruin their lives. You would do well to respect those people and their capabilities. I don't see many smart people smoking weed in front of cops. Although I would guess many smart people have experimented, as you suggest.
Not sure I entirely agree with that premise. Author paints with far too broad a brush. I'm on the spectrum and I was raised to give deference to authority figures in school settings. I never had run-ins with teachers growing up. Half the problem nowadays is that people have diagnosed everyone with everything and parents are willing to ignore obvious behavioral issues because of a diagnosis rather than handling the thing head-on.
A diagnosis doesn't justify the shitty behavior, it's simply a convenient thing that dumbass parents use it as an excuse. They probably would have used something else a few decades ago. (Boys will be boys, etc.)
The problem is the untreatedness, not the diagnosis. Everyone was laughing how Americans have too many psychologists, ha-ha. Yeah, also too many MDs too, and that led too many diagnoses of obesity, right? Ha----ha. (Yes, they are not necessarily both true, but maybe it's time to listen to both types of professionals.)
> Half the problem nowadays is that people have diagnosed everyone with everything and parents are willing to ignore obvious behavioral issues because of a diagnosis rather than handling the thing head-on.
Disagree. Diagnosis is the only tool for properly handling behavioral issues. Diagnoses are more common because more people are getting tested.
Diagnosis is in fact NOT the only tool for properly handling behavioral issues and absolutely never has been, because most children are neither autistic nor on the spectrum. Kids are enrolling in classes today with more behavioral and aptitude issues than ever before because their parents aren't raising them with any real structure. The autistic kids get hurt even worse because they NEED that structure more than regular kids, but millennial parents in particular have largely decided that their kids' school issues are for schools to deal with.
In schools, I'm not convinced it's always the autistic kids that have the behavioural issues. More often than not it's the teachers that don't know how to treat kids (with respect, as equals).
I have absolutely had the issue with being in authority, up to the point of allowing a staff member to work from home for extended time and assuming they were doing everything they said they were doing because why would they lie about it?
Later it took months to fix the damage and I realised that some people will absolutely take advantage even at their own future expense.
In my opinion, that's not really related to autism; that just seems like a new manager's mistake. Every manager will at some point learn that they've had too much trust in their employee and that that trust was taken advantage of. It's unfortunate but true.
This is also true of neurotypical students who grew up in equitable households. Having been told that “respect is mutual and earned” is not conducive to a child respecting authority figures in school. None of the school authority figures try start off by earning respect, efforts to enforce unearned respect will understandably be met with resistance.
Ugh, you just explained my 20 year career. It’s not that we don’t see authority, we do. It’s that we don’t see the trust yet that the authority sees us. Too many times we were told we’re failing to meet expectations or we aren’t good enough when we go above and beyond what is required. In school this is often helping others or tutoring or being that kid in computer club who figured out how to interface with the dot matrix printer, in the teachers break room, from the computer lab in the library.
We are curious. We are confident in our ability. We heard good things about you but until you show us you can be trusted with authority, you’ll always be on the outer ring.
Come to think about it, I think a lot of us are just traumatized from their experience growing up to ever blindly accept authority. Mainly because authority figures have lied to us.
“Autistic”, “we” - how the author can speak for everyone if there is no one single diagnosis. There is an Autism Spectrum Disorder, and people might have very, very different symptoms. He even mentions it, but still posts his own impressions to explain what feels and thinks every ASD person.
You're right that there is a lot of differences in how autism expresses itself, but I would just add a counter-opinion that it is quite refreshing when people are confident to express a view on a topic like this and not adding "maybe", "sometimes", "with certain people" to every sentence. This does however require the reader to digest the content as anecdote and not fact.
I am in the process of getting diagnosed and I relate very much to wanting to understand the reason for things before doing them, and will only respect competence and good personality traits, not authority.
".. will only respect competence and good personality traits, not authority."
Thanks for this phrasing. Very much same here, I guess. For me, the added emphasis is really important, though. I tend to feel deep distrust towards competent people without good personality traits.
Even though... thinking about it (when they're not around!), I almost always conclude that they probably cant help being arrogant. It seems to be a generic lack of empathy of some sort. But I still tend to avoid them.
Demonstrating competence requires the ability to discuss and explain decisions. Otherwise someone's actions are indistinguishable from them following a simple flowchart or even a broken clock. So I'd say that arrogance is essentially directly opposed to competence. This however doesn't stop many people (techies included) from using arrogance or other bullshittery as a substitute for demonstrating competence, which seemingly fools enough people due to the authoritarian dynamic described in the original post.
At no point have I ever felt that authority or hierarchy or rules are meaningless, in fact I revel in the clarity of well-written and reasoned rule sets and often wished for some clearly documented guidelines of behavior in many situations. I appreciate when authority originates from competence, and I am brutally introspective about my own areas of competence or lack there-of, and immediately submit and cede control if I encounter someone significantly more competent than myself in the situation of the moment. The problem has always been that authority is mostly exercised for authority's sake, to stroke the ego of petty tyrants who are incompetent and mean.