this post was submitted on 04 Oct 2026
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Autism
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This isn't a neurodivergent thing. It's an intelligent / ethical person thing.
Yeah I agree.
I'm autistic, have a sense of justice being the result of reasonable clear fair and as objective as possible rules being consistently followed...
... but you don't need to be autistic to adhere to that. You can be ethical, moral, hold yourself to a standard, determine the reasonability of said standard, without being autistic.
Also... neurodivergence is more broad than just autism.
ADHD is a form of neurodivergence. On its own, I don't see that as being inherently relevant to rule comprehension, consideration or adherence, beyond maybe more complex rules or contingent rulesets taking more effort/exposure/practice to understand, consider or adhere to.
Schizophrenics are neurodivergent. Their ruleset often frequently changes considerably, due to reasons they often cannot explain coherently, and/or the rules they'll tell you they follow can be incoherent/contradictory.
DID is a form of neurodivergence. Each different identity often has its own significantly distinct ruleset / approach to rules.
Being bipolar is arguably a form of neurodivergence. Such people essentially have two rulesets that they alternate between.
Yeah, I've noticed a real problem on here with that. Claiming neurodivergency for something that some people do and some people don't.
This is a trait that some people have. Some people do it more and some do it less. If it's combined with many other symptoms and it makes it difficult for someone to function in society then it might be grounds for a diagnosis.
I think things like this are also just representative of a general shift in society. There's a lot more education online and elsewhere about the power dynamics in society that might have been ignored or not understood in the past. So this behavior is more prevalent which coincides with an increase in neurodivergency even though those two things aren't actually correlated.
I don't think it's necessarily "a problem on here", I think this type of assertion is just part of exploring neurodivergency.
Does something really need to make it difficult for someone to function in society in order to be part of a diagnosis? That seems unlikely.
I disagree that this is an "intelligent / ethical person thing", although I don't really believe that intelligence and ethics is really measurable in that way.
Yes. It does need to make it difficult to function. That's one of the core criteria for most diagnoses in the DSM. "Neurodivergency" as a meme and - I guess you can call it a subculture? - on the internet is wholly misunderstood.
It's really hard to categorize neurodivergency. Particularly in contrast to being "neurotypical". There isn't an "average human" that they compare people to on a chart and say "yep, you're not up to this standard" gavel bang "autism".
I mean, just think about it. If more than 50% of people exhibited this trait in one way or another, this behavior suddenly becomes neurotypical, since the "typical" person possesses this trait.
But the problem with this, just like your problem with intelligence and ethics is that it's all impossible to measure. Behaviors like this exist on a spectrum. This is part of my problem with this aspect of the subculture and posts like this. This behavior happens in "neurotypicals" as well. Autism isn't a switch flipped in your brain that suddenly gives you special traits that neurotypical people don't have. Autism is a diagnosis that happens when a person has a defined constellation of traits that are generally correlated and one or more of which are making it difficult to function.
I saw another post recently that went something like "neurotypicals don't understand having to take a day off after social events" and "neurotypicals don't rehearse social interactions in their head". Which is simply untrue. Many many people take a rest day after a social event or think about how to handle a social interaction, the only difference that the behavior isn't so severe that they are functionally impaired by it.
Couldn't agree more. I do not follow arbitrary rules unless compelled to, as long as it doesn't harm anyone or anything. If you want me to do something, there needs to be a logical reason for me to do it
I generally follow the rules unless I have a reason not to. The rationale is that just because I don't see the reason for the rule doesn't mean there isn't one. If everyone ignored every rule they didn't understand the need for the world would be even more of a shit show.
So I stop at the stop sign when no one is around. I know I would only do it when it was safe, but so does everyone who got hit by a car running a stop sign at a blind corner in the middle of the night.
I'm definitely asking about it if it's the least bit inconvenient though.
Plenty of stupid unethical rules have detailed explanations.
The tweet misunderstands autism (And vaguely calls it 'nuerodivergence'). Questioning rules in autism is, at least in my own experience, more about justice than merely understanding why the rule is. We're not asking why for the logic, we're asking why to make sure it's just. You don't usually loudly disobey an unjust rule unless you're making a stand, you do it quietly without acknowledgement because people who enforce unjust rules tend to be vindictive and cruel about it.
No
Maybe.
I don't know