There seem to be a lot of posts coming at this from another angle—working on more effective social skills, and the like—and this sort of objection never comes up there! Regardless of the precise demographics, there’s a stronger tendency than in the general population, and the rationalist “character” seems to have some trouble with social navigation.
Social skills are skills—a learned body of knowledge. You can fail to develop a body of knowledge for all sorts of reasons, not limited to a specific spectrum of neurological dysfunctions.
Sure, there’s a stronger tendency than in the general population, but I think for an entire community to have a blind spot, you need either a much stronger statistical skew, or a pervasive tendency for people without ultraviolet-sight to dismiss ultraviolet-sight as evidence.
There seem to be a lot of posts coming at this from another angle—working on more effective social skills, and the like—and this sort of objection never comes up there! Regardless of the precise demographics, there’s a stronger tendency than in the general population, and the rationalist “character” seems to have some trouble with social navigation.
To be fair, though, Eliezer didn’t know this, but he was talking about me when he said “‘But if I could never try anything clever or elegant, would my life even be worth living?’ This is why cleverness is still our chief vulnerability even after its being well-known, like… tempting a Bard with drama.”.
Social skills are skills—a learned body of knowledge. You can fail to develop a body of knowledge for all sorts of reasons, not limited to a specific spectrum of neurological dysfunctions.
True, though I’d hesitate to characterize social skills as “a learned body of knowledge” precisely.
Perhaps I should have been speaking of “social inelegance”, rather than autism? Have I conflated unjustly?
Yes!
I’ve changed it, and I’m open to changing it again, or scrapping it.
Sure, there’s a stronger tendency than in the general population, but I think for an entire community to have a blind spot, you need either a much stronger statistical skew, or a pervasive tendency for people without ultraviolet-sight to dismiss ultraviolet-sight as evidence.