<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>atoav</author><text>A thing to consider is that it is often not just about the facts. Often it is also about social convention and other things.&lt;p&gt;If (for example) that one struggling colleague is shining in front of a superior and you are the guy who rains on his parade by nitpicking some detail he said, you might be technically right, but you end up being perceived as an asshole because you acted like one.&lt;p&gt;If if that example you strictly &lt;i&gt;need&lt;/i&gt; to be right for some reason, you could also just talk to the guy afterwards etc.&lt;p&gt;And this is what all of it essentially boils down to: It is good to be right, as long as &lt;i&gt;the way&lt;/i&gt; you communicate it is adequate for the situation.&lt;p&gt;If people have a low effort chit chat and don&amp;#x27;t want to go too deep into things, it might not be wise to get all excited and monologoue about how everything they know is wrong.
If someone shows you something they have been working on for weeks, maybe it is wiser to aknowledge the good things first, before going into the bad things.&lt;p&gt;Generally it is better to have others discover facts themselves than spitting them out in front of them. Sure, if the boat is literally sinking and they claim punching more holes will help, this might be a good moment for a statement without nuance — but such statements have their time and place and should not be used everywhere.</text></comment>