Kingdom of Autisticland

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Qaddafi, Idi Amin, Hitler, Stalin and Mussolini all had one thing in common they were all neurotypicals.

They were also very successful (if monstrous) for much of their political careers. Go and name leaders who are remembered well and you'll find the same thing; no aspies.

Well that's due to a number of reasons and in no way means aspies are hopeless at governing. An aspie for instance will in most cases have deficits in communication meaning if an aspie wanted to run for political office it would be made extremely difficult to relate to the public.

As for Aspies being bad leaders well that is not necessarily the case you see Bill Gates for instance is suspected by many people to be on the spectrum.I don't support neurodiversity but Ari Ne'eman is another example of a successful leader in the autism community. Thanks to his lobbying he was able to ensure that disabled Federal employees in the United States were no longer being paid below the minimum wage.

It's more than that. Politics requires being able to multitask and to quickly adapt to changing situations. It requires keen social awareness. We don't have these things. I don't think it would be impossible to have autistic politicians, but I do think it would probably be rare enough to find a suitable person that a concept like an autistic nation is laughable to me.

Well thats kind of what Bill Gates had to do when he was CEO of Microsoft for decades adapt to changing situations. Not mention imagine all the sheer amount of effort it would take to send charity overseas. It shows elements of leadership that Aspies are capable of.

Its kind of patronizing to assume that Aspies can't adapt to changing situations. For many aspies its what they have had to do their entire life. Their is no reasons why aspies wouldn't amount to it in the political arena. Not to mention many Asperger's people also have a clear passion, love, knowledge and interest for politics attributes that could also become useful in that field.

In regards to social awareness you kind of sound black and white like people either have it or they don't, the fact is with Aspies like many people, they have social awareness to an extent. And when an Aspergers person becomes president or ruler they are likely to be an adult meaning they will already have had years of experience behind them when it comes to interacting with others.

I don't believe Bill Gates has autism. In any case, the symptoms of autism include rigid thinking, difficulty breaking routine, and impaired social skills. These things do not preclude an autistic person being involved in politics, but they create a lot of additional hurdles and put us at a disadvantage. Issues with seeing other people's perspectives are perhaps more damning. Taken together, this all sounds like the type of person I would never want to see in charge of the fate of a nation. Aspies can be involved in politics. I have been. I just do not believe it is a good idea for them to be in a position of leadership like we're talking about.

But here is the thing. You are forgetting that these kind of autistic traits actually get more milder as you begin to adapt more. What's more or less you are mentioning rigid thinking and not seeing the other perspective as if it is a universal symptom of autism, that isn't the case. I for one have an autistic friend who when he sees conflict does not jump to conclusions but tries to understand what each person is going through. As for social skills, I would say that they are not totally important, what is important is that you genuinely care about the people you are responsible for and that you can get along with advisers and legislators, the kind of people you need to get stuff done with, and quite frankly I do not see how Asperger's people would be bad at any of those two roles.

I think you honestly sound quite black and white on some of this, like Aspies suck at this, Neurotypicals are good at that, I have seen enough to know that those kind of thinking is not always accurate. The fact is all these traits are different for everyone across the spectrum as they are for neurotypicals.

I am speaking in generalities, as that's all we can go on here. There will obviously be outliers and exceptions, but the direction I'd expect these things to go on average is as I'd describe; I'd expect an NT chosen at random to be better suited to these tasks than an aspie chosen at random. I'd expect that a greater percentage of NTs would be suited for these tasks than aspies.

My experience with other aspies is such that I do think most would struggle with the social roles you describe.

Again a bold statement, I know many Aspies including myself who understand the workings of government better than many neurotypicals and where most of us lack skill in social skills we can make up in knowledge and intelligence. You got to remember that the vast majority of Trump supporters are neurotypicals as well yet here they all are following a braindead demagogue. Being a neurotypical somehow make you the sense to you make a more effective ruler that's just not the case.

Understanding a system does not mean you know how to operate it effectively, or else auto mechanics could all be skilled race car drivers. Yes, many aspies can make up for some deficits using knowledge and intelligence. NTs though do not have those deficits, and can also improve their skills using knowledge and intelligence.

If you made a Venn diagram of "diagnostic criteria for autism" and "undesirable traits in a political leader", the circles would overlap pretty heavily. That doesn't preclude someone doing well in that arena with autism but it does make it long odds, and to expect an entire country to function led by such people seems like folly to me.

Yes but the thing is you only need a few competent people for society to work.

I was intending for this to be a roleplay. How did this therefore turn into a back and forth and about Aspie leadership skills.

I think I accidentally hijacked your thread.

Should have let me emigrate!

I have told you over and over you can't emigrate from autism.

Well that kind of highlights one issue. You wanted this to start as a roleplay: "there's a country." A physical place, right? So I go "I'd like to leave." Then it somehow turned into a metaphor for autism and here we are.

Well we could still do the roleplay. You could be the representative of the autistic people that wish to become part of normal society.