<story><title>“Autistic people can’t acknowledge when they’re wrong”</title><url>https://the.scapegoat.dev/autistic-people-cant-acknowledge-when-they-are-wrong/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>larve</author><text>Author here, thanks for reading.&lt;p&gt;I didn’t give much information about my life, but I am pretty adept at playing all these games. So much so that I thought there was no way I could be autistic because of how many friends and business relationships I had. Until it hit me that I spent my 20ies doing what you suggest, which is studying the heck out of these things.&lt;p&gt;But it stops at engineering, where I try to be very open-minded and learn as much as I can. I have to readily accept I am wrong on most of my assumptions because I just couldn’t be a good engineer otherwise. I can be perfectly suave and agreeable discussing anything else. That means I probably know how to play the “acquiesce when you should” game quite well.&lt;p&gt;But I’m at work because I am blessed to have a job where I get to do what I care about: good engineering. I deliver great value when people understand my way of thinking, and thankfully I have plenty of colleagues that get it.</text></item><item><author>dusted</author><text>I read this as being strongly opinionated and egocentric..&lt;p&gt;I want to call it &amp;quot;ausplaining&amp;quot;, this tendency to go &amp;quot;no no, YOU don&amp;#x27;t understand ME (because I&amp;#x27;m special, not because I&amp;#x27;m wrong)&amp;quot; whenever we get ourselves into situations like the exemplified.&lt;p&gt;I do this  A LOT as well, and when people do stick with me for long enough, I often find that I&amp;#x27;m either getting my point across by re-framing my explanation, or discover that what I&amp;#x27;m pursuing as oh_so_important is in fact not important for the question at hand (then I feel even more stupid, because, not only did I find this of paramount importance, but everyone else didn&amp;#x27;t even consider it (because it so clearly didn&amp;#x27;t matter)).&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; Because I value learning, I read about 50 technical books every year&lt;p&gt;If the author reads this, I&amp;#x27;d congratulate them on finding the time to do that, but also advice them to maybe read 40 technical books every year, and then read 10 about the topics they clearly do struggle with (social interactions, politics, negotiation, psychology)..&lt;p&gt;The opinion reads as &amp;quot;I&amp;#x27;m right and the world is wrong&amp;quot; to me, maybe because I can strongly relate (except the parts about reading tons of books and being really smart).&lt;p&gt;I think the author would benefit from realizing that these things they dismiss as irrelevant (mind games&amp;#x2F;politics) are actually important and beneficial to understand and master (I am not saying it should be that way, but merely point out that it is, in fact that way).&lt;p&gt;The author may also benefit from investing some of their mental capital (I&amp;#x27;m not being sarcastic, they&amp;#x27;re obviously very intelligent) into learning how to play the games, to figure out neurotypicals enough to communicate with them on their level&amp;#x2F;terms.&lt;p&gt;Yes, workplaces need to be accommodating, but in the end, no matter who we are, it&amp;#x27;s our ultimate responsibility, to ourselves, to learn how to function in this world.&lt;p&gt;As for the situation where the other party is factually wrong.. Well, yes.. I always imagine this situation, where I have the right of way on my bicycle, and it&amp;#x27;s the semi-truck that must yield.. There are a fair number of times where being right does not matter.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>rendall</author><text>Given the headline, I thought it would be an article about what it looks like when you acknowledge that you are wrong and why people might not understand that you are, in fact, acknowledging when you are wrong.&lt;p&gt;Instead, it was an entire article that not once acknowledged that you could be wrong, nor what it looks like when you do acknowledge it. It detailed about how, actually, you&amp;#x27;re not usually wrong.&lt;p&gt;This article appears to underscore the accusation.</text></comment>
<story><title>“Autistic people can’t acknowledge when they’re wrong”</title><url>https://the.scapegoat.dev/autistic-people-cant-acknowledge-when-they-are-wrong/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>larve</author><text>Author here, thanks for reading.&lt;p&gt;I didn’t give much information about my life, but I am pretty adept at playing all these games. So much so that I thought there was no way I could be autistic because of how many friends and business relationships I had. Until it hit me that I spent my 20ies doing what you suggest, which is studying the heck out of these things.&lt;p&gt;But it stops at engineering, where I try to be very open-minded and learn as much as I can. I have to readily accept I am wrong on most of my assumptions because I just couldn’t be a good engineer otherwise. I can be perfectly suave and agreeable discussing anything else. That means I probably know how to play the “acquiesce when you should” game quite well.&lt;p&gt;But I’m at work because I am blessed to have a job where I get to do what I care about: good engineering. I deliver great value when people understand my way of thinking, and thankfully I have plenty of colleagues that get it.</text></item><item><author>dusted</author><text>I read this as being strongly opinionated and egocentric..&lt;p&gt;I want to call it &amp;quot;ausplaining&amp;quot;, this tendency to go &amp;quot;no no, YOU don&amp;#x27;t understand ME (because I&amp;#x27;m special, not because I&amp;#x27;m wrong)&amp;quot; whenever we get ourselves into situations like the exemplified.&lt;p&gt;I do this  A LOT as well, and when people do stick with me for long enough, I often find that I&amp;#x27;m either getting my point across by re-framing my explanation, or discover that what I&amp;#x27;m pursuing as oh_so_important is in fact not important for the question at hand (then I feel even more stupid, because, not only did I find this of paramount importance, but everyone else didn&amp;#x27;t even consider it (because it so clearly didn&amp;#x27;t matter)).&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; Because I value learning, I read about 50 technical books every year&lt;p&gt;If the author reads this, I&amp;#x27;d congratulate them on finding the time to do that, but also advice them to maybe read 40 technical books every year, and then read 10 about the topics they clearly do struggle with (social interactions, politics, negotiation, psychology)..&lt;p&gt;The opinion reads as &amp;quot;I&amp;#x27;m right and the world is wrong&amp;quot; to me, maybe because I can strongly relate (except the parts about reading tons of books and being really smart).&lt;p&gt;I think the author would benefit from realizing that these things they dismiss as irrelevant (mind games&amp;#x2F;politics) are actually important and beneficial to understand and master (I am not saying it should be that way, but merely point out that it is, in fact that way).&lt;p&gt;The author may also benefit from investing some of their mental capital (I&amp;#x27;m not being sarcastic, they&amp;#x27;re obviously very intelligent) into learning how to play the games, to figure out neurotypicals enough to communicate with them on their level&amp;#x2F;terms.&lt;p&gt;Yes, workplaces need to be accommodating, but in the end, no matter who we are, it&amp;#x27;s our ultimate responsibility, to ourselves, to learn how to function in this world.&lt;p&gt;As for the situation where the other party is factually wrong.. Well, yes.. I always imagine this situation, where I have the right of way on my bicycle, and it&amp;#x27;s the semi-truck that must yield.. There are a fair number of times where being right does not matter.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>dusted</author><text>Thank you for answering.&lt;p&gt;I very much relate.. I&amp;#x27;ve been so bitter as to keep a small list of &amp;quot;told you so&amp;#x27;s&amp;quot; that I&amp;#x27;d update when my rejected ideas were finally proven to be the better path (though it may have been months or even years after the fact (most agonizing when someone else suggested exactly the same thing, but explained it in other terms,focusing on things I didn&amp;#x27;t find central to the point).&lt;p&gt;In the end I deleted the file. Some of the &amp;quot;told you so&amp;#x27;s&amp;quot; were petty things anyway, and.. Now I try and take it as part of my responsibility to work a bit harder at finding arguments against my point of view, as well as work a bit more politically to get it through when I&amp;#x27;m ready to put my head on the line that I&amp;#x27;m right and everyone else are wrong.&lt;p&gt;P.S. I&amp;#x27;m closing in on the big 4-o and I&amp;#x27;m still working on myself, still trying to learn politics, how to talk with nontechnical superiors and how to accept that sometimes, we go with the wrong solution because someone else tells so.</text></comment>