Uber-overlords you suspect have Aspergers

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I find there are people who are super successful, are somewhat eccentric, have bad ass attitudes and are ruthless and completely egotistical who come across as distinctly Aspergers. Do any of you find this or some variant of this generalised observation?

What I mean is there is a category of people out there who probably have Aspergers and who are succesful because of it and because they occupy positions of power, people around them must bend. There are a lot of posts where people relate how their Aspergers keeps them down. As a result it is these people who end up being diagnosed (mostly). If you are Aspergers but are super successful, why get diagnosed? So, its quite logical that the successful Aspies aren't aware they are aspie and if they are they don't care to be aspie and don't engage in forums like this one. What do you all think of that notion?

Its interesting to me because I am successful, but in a thoughtful sort of way where I want to understand myself and hence why I participate in this chat forum. I reckon I have ego issues, definitely am eccentric and can be ruthless when required. I meet people like me multiplied a few times.

If there are uber-aspies out there (probably aren't in this forum), I find that interesting and want to expore the concept.

I've heard that Albert Einstein is presumed to have had Asperger's. I've heard the same about Bill Gates as well.

There could be others as well - and maybe they aren't even aware of being Aspie. Or they are, but prefer to keep it secret.

Interesting idea, and there must be lots of undiagnosed people out there, but none of the traits you mentioned sound very aspie. There's a high correlation between between having a job like that and being a psychopath though, due to what it takes to get there.
I don't know if people can be both, but it's bad for everyone to get it confused.
Read "Snakes in Suits: When Psychopaths Go to Work". I haven't read it, learned it existed while watching these videos youtube . com/watch?v=6QJDLbrN9q4 , but it's probably right up your alley.

I've sometimes mistaken people with other diagnoses to be aspies.. Could have ended badly!

Sounds like what you call functional psychopaths (those who aren't functional are usually in jail, or on their way there).

Egocentricity is a key symptom of Asperger's, yes, but it tends to manifest as black and white thinking and lecturing about something without being aware of the other person's feelings.

Aspergers is a form of high functioning autism, so if you are high functioning you can operate at a high hlevel. The psychopath aspects related to extreme egotism would fit in with the lack of general empathy and general inscrutability aspects of being aspie. Thing is, if everyone had to dance to your tune, your aspie-ness would be their problem not yours. Thing is that psychology and psychologists generally get access to those who have serious trouble in society, not those who dominate society. This could easily skew their concepts of psychological phenomenon in a social context i.e our concepts of being aspie could be affected.

If my hypothesis is correct there may be numbers of aspie people occupying uber-overlord positions. Its a case of either you get to the top of the tree or you live right down at the bottom.

In my own life, I have a distinct sense of being quite capable of being "the boss" but just don't really care.

Thing is, are aspies capable of the aggressiveness required to be "the boss"? I reckon we have the ego but not necessarily the desire.

What I am interested in is what makes successful aspies successful. In this thread I am referring to psychopathic type of success; maybe I need a new thread on success in general?

Just latching onto this.

High-functioning in regards to autism doesn't mean someone functions highly in comparison to normal people, it's in comparison to those with Low-functioning autism. High-functioning in regards to the latter isn't saying much of anything, just that the person may be able to look after themselves, such as feeding and other essential points of self-help. Social adaptation is almost always severely impaired in comparison to the normal population. (The historical context is based on an IQ threshold; under 75 = LFA. Over equals HFA. Current evidence points to those with a normal IQ are well below what their IQ would show if they didn't have the disorder in question.)

One can say that this is a self-fulfilling prophecy, because they only diagnose those who're like that. Well, those who are like this actually display symptoms that the normal population don't have in abundance and severity, hence, you have a unique disorder that impairs someone in said ways.

Can you link to your sources, please? This is news to me, and I want to see how they conducted that research if it exists. I know that we have about double the amount of neurons though, and that most with Asperger's are smarter than average.

A true sociopath is someone who is good at manipulating others.

Aspies (successful or otherwise) are notoriously bad at manipulating others. Normal, non sociopathic, neurotypical (even dolts) are better at manipulation than are the most high functioning of aspies.

So this equating aspergers with sociopathy (psychopaty-same thing really) does not make sense to me.

Unless someone comes out as autistic, I'd rather spare them the stigma of having/being diagnosed with a cognitive disability, and assume they don't have autism. Same with sociopathy.

Do you need "sources" (and it is news to you) to know that people with AS/Autism have more difficulties in life than "normal" people with equivalent inteligence? This is the reason because the concept of "Asperger's Syndrome" exist as a diagnosable condition.



Sources, please?



Again.

True... but on the other hand, many Aspies have very high IQ's (off the charts sometimes) and that could put them in a higher position than normal people

Source: statistics. AS isn't known as the "Little Professor Syndrome" for nothing.

Where are these statistics? I remember of someone saying in this forum that the average IQ of Aspies is 102, who is not significativly different from the 100 in general population.

Yes, there is some paper from Gillbert saying that both genius-level IQ AND bordeline mental retardation are overrepresented in AS, but I think that it was a mostly anedoctal study, based in his own cases.



The "little professor" nickname is because of the tendency of aspies to"give lectures" about their favourite issues, like a professor talking to his students; there is not necessarly an association between these behavior and high intelligence.

[Moved from General Autism to Random Discussion]

Again - Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg.

Did I say we didn't have more difficulties than NTs? And how is that related to intelligence as you compare it yourself with " "normal" people with equivalent inteligence (sic)"? What? You claimed we would have been smarter if we did not have Asperger's, that is an impossible study to do as there is nothing that could turn us into NTs to test that, so I just questioned your sources and wonder how exactly they would be able to do that research.
Haha yes, I can link you to the study actually, but it is made by a completely autism-hating researcher (and backed by f*****g curebies) that also concluded, based on nothing, that it "must be probably making them dumber, because I hate them. What do you mean I base that on completely personal opinions and not research?" so you'll be pleased with it. If you actually take the findings on face value, and know enough about neuroscience to understand the results yourself and without being prejudiced against us, it paints a different picture.
And yes, everything I've ever read about Asperger's and intelligence says that we're smarter on average than NTs.
The team of psychiatrists that diagnosed me even said that. I shouldn't have to provide sources for THAT, as you think your opinion is valid without them, so.

The links you requested:
http://discovermagazine.com/2012/mar/07 ... NOYbqwpmXs
http://health.ucsd.edu/news/2011/Pages/ ... urons.aspx

Wait. You mean SMARTER but still having the exact same IQ-points? Why did you even bring up IQ if you don't think it reflects intelligence? (which is questionable if it does, actually.) [Comment redacted by moderator.]


(Sorry, didn't see there were two of you! My comment still stands though)