It's officially frowned upon, but doctors still use the term "FLK" (for "funny looking kid") to describe babies or children with nonspecific facial deformities, which are pretty reliable indicators of cognitive or learning disability even if the doctor can't put his finger on what the deformity actually is.
> This only applies to high-functioning categories of behaviors. But I’ve found that more often than not, it’s the social reaction of groups that is the problem for high-functioning autists, and less the autism itself. Maybe neurotypical behavior or neurotypical mindedness is the disease because I don’t understand why or how some people find it so hard to think differently. Are they not individuals, are they zombies?
It's the uncanny valley effect. I'm convinced that one of our primal atavistic fears, besides snakes, spiders, and so forth, is "something evil or hostile disguised as one of our own". In the EEA this fear would have protected a community against spies, as well as profoundly sick (e.g. rabies) individuals who risked spreading their disease throughout the whole village. Different cultures give different names to creatures of this sort: vampire, zombie, changeling, skinwalker, bakemono, etc.
Profoundly autistic people are clearly disabled, and so attract nurturing and care; "high functioning" autistic people resemble humans who can function independently, but their behavior is different enough to trigger what I call the Kendrick Lamar response ("they not like us, they not like us") and hence are viewed with fear and suspicion. It's a flaw in the neurotypical mindset born of a trait that helped preserve neurotypical communities against invasion or outbreak, but it's not very specific so others get caught in its dragnet.
That's my idea anyway. Maybe I'm just steelmanning the NT perspective. There has to be a reason why the poor blighters are the way they are...
Maybe I am biased, but to me NT appear as cognitively lazy. They don’t question norms or standards, unless those norms or standards interfere with their feed-fuck cycles.
Expending large amounts of cognitive effort to better understand and deal with others can be exhausting. We do it because we have to just to survive. The benefit is we have a lot of uncommitted neural capacity potentially freed up for other things, like experimenting with computers. But it's a stiff price to pay, and in the EEA it's advantageous to be able to participate in a cohesive group without thinking much about it. Our brains are our most energy-hungry organs, and sustenance could get scarce...