Aspie businesses for Aspie employees - Is it ethical?

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There are already some businesses like this. I remember the name of one:

http://aspiritech.org/

That's great too. It's awesome you are learning more about this all. I recently diagnosed myself and told my mom and she refuses to even read about it for some reason.. she's very old fashioned though and just thinks you are supposed to rub some dirt on it and get on with your life and be like everyone else.

I tried to tell my dad I thought I had ADD before I knew about aspergers a long time ago he did the same thing haha... Just acted like it was a copout...

That's awesome.. we could learn from them and use their methods. I think this model would work for all kinds of businesses.

I will read their site. I am curious if they have any training programs etc.

That;s what I want to do with an aspie community... get all the autistic people and find their individual genius and special abilities. Develop them. But how to make that work exactly is tricky.

Sorry they reacted that way. It sounds like you have a great attitude to life though!

Thank you for the support back to me.

Here is the page where you cna contact them about employment. They are located in Chicago... I wonder if there is a growing aspie community there?

Maybe we could get them to sponsor some other programs in other cities?

http://aspiritech.org/contact-us/intere ... -our-team/




Opportunities at Aspiritech

Software Testers
You should:
Be diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome or High-Functioning Autism
Be able to commute to Aspiritech’s office in Highland Park or client sites (Northern Chicago Area)
Be willing to work for at least four hours a day, five days a week
We do not require prior knowledge or job experience of software programming and/or testing for software testers.

Unfortunately, we have many more applications than spots right now for new trainees. However, if you meet the above critera and would like to be placed on a waiting list, please complete the following applications and return them to Aspiritech, 1950 Sheridan Road, Suite #206, Highland Park, IL 60035.

- See more at: http://aspiritech.org/contact-us/intere ... E5dGK.dpuf

I think our best bet is to start out as a news site. That way people can focus on their strengths and areas of interest.
We could cover tech/ politricks, entertainment and so on...

We do not need to be over zealous about making sure only aspies are included. If a couple of NTs slip through the net that's fine.

Lets start by creating a register of volunteers, their email addresses and create an online form for them to list their choice of input.

Lets set a cap for how many people we want to directly employ at 100 for now, leaving provision for 'freelancers' and extra researchers.

Lets then list the business as a limited international company and allocate our 100 employees, say 1000 shares each.

We will purchase a domain such as www.aspienewsnetwork.com or something.

I don't think it would be hard to get the ball rolling.... What do we think?

Projectile, I think that is a truly brilliant idea... This seems to be the strong suit of many aspies - research. I definitely do a lot of it. But I am not the greatest writer so we may need a lot of editing and rewriting. But in time all of our writing skills would improve as well so it could be like a training system for aspies. Like an online education program but where people make money, too.

I am a bit concerned about NTs slipping through though.. because I think the group could possibly get hijacked.

If that were to happen then things could end up reversing and we are right back where we started. But how we govern this community/business is a huge dilemma... I think it is the toughest aspect. But my goals might be too extreme. I am envisioning something really revolutionary... it might not be possible.

Has anyone heard of Bleacher Report? It's a site where fans write sports articles. They have a system where they have more experienced writers edit the less experienced writers to make their work more sophisticated.

I think we could use this same model for the Aspie News Channel... the people who edit could work on a bonus system where they get a cut of the article's profits they edit. Maybe we could work a tip system in like they use in waiting tables or something like that as well.

Ya know, it would probably take a group of Aspies to pull this idea I've had for a while off.. sure, it's a bit fanciful, but anything is possible..

After playing around with a stock market simulator account the past several months (my USD account fluctuates between 30-39% effective.. too bad it isn't real money!) I was reminded of an idea inspired by protests against banksters by the Occupy movement.. I propose this as the only way to truly Occupy Wall Street:

1. Get a group of geeks together. Aspies with the required specialized knowledge would be prime candidates. I'm sure I could contribute mathematically/investment philosophy wise, but I'm not a programmer. I suppose I could learn, but why? Others of us are coders. I could just learn what I needed to.

2. We write high frequency trading algorithms to capitalize on the financial markets the exact same way as the biggest banksters in the world are doing - only better, since we'll code better math.

3. Raise the funds required to rent a trading server in a rack on Wall Street. Kickstarter campaign, perhaps?

4. Occupy a server on a rack with a bunch of 0's & 1's designed to beat those as*holes at their own game.

5. Use the money for everything they won't. Ourselves, charity, research, _____ whatever.

This could be the most efficient way to go from Aspies + ??? = Profit.

Goldfish21, I wish I could offer some good insight here but I am not knowledgeable about hose fields. I am probably one of the worst people to spearhead some kind of business initiative.. I guess I just see the potential in so many aspies including myself and I think if we all work together we could accomplish great things.

But we need people to come out of the woodwork and participate to get this to work.

Aspies not being capable of doing this may be why this hasn't happened already so how we get beyond that I don't know. Maybe we could try to get some help in this way?

I know that my education & what I know, can think/calculate/do etc is drastically under utilized at virtually every job I've ever had.. so I'm with you on that completely. Thing is, due to crippling anxiety I've never really pursued a proper job applying what I know.. so, I don't really know if I'd be selected and employed to apply what I know in the work world or not. I've been my own single biggest constraint to finding that out.

Anyways, maybe there are plenty of platforms that already exist that technically inclined Aspies could utilize for online employment/contract work? ie a site like this, which I've only ever browsed when a friend was contracting out some logo design work or something: https://www.elance.com/ People go on there and post their talents/portfolios and others contact them with contract job offers. Alternatively, as I understand how it works, potential employers post project details and then freelance contractors can contact them with a quote for the work and see if they're awarded the job. If you're good at what you do, and quick about it, there could be money to be made.. but the worst part about it would be that you're likely competing hugely on price due to people in different parts of the world working for much lower wages, so you either really have to set yourself apart somehow in order to charge a fair price, or be able to compete with whoever the lowest cost guys are by being very very fast. Nonetheless, people use this site and I'm sure there are others like it. Maybe this is where some of us need to find our niches?

The problem with this is you need investment capital, and it's high risk.
I know a company that did exactly what you describe and they pretty much went from nothing to a multi-million dollar business with dozens of employees within five years or so. But I also remember a news story about such a trading company that lost a _huge_ amount of money in a short time span because of a buggy algorithm (not sure if they went bankrupt, but if not, it was certainly close enough).

I guess it might be possible to reduce the risk by starting with very small investments and using existing trading platforms instead of direct access (although I don't know enough about trading platforms and their APIs to understand if this would be feasible).

Ultimately, you'd still be late to the game, and the existing HFT companies have a lot of expertise, so I'm not sure it would be so easy to break into the field as a newcomer with little experience. But the idea has a certain charm to it, I have to admit.

In Canada, it is perfectly legal to hire a specific group if they are considered a disadvantaged minority. Autism would fall under that law therefore such a company would be allowed and encouraged in Canada.....they might even get government funding to boot.

Like you said, unless you're able to work for $10 / hour (those seem to be typical rates for people with experience, so it may be less for quite a while), it's not really an option.

You have stated what I think is the key to the whole problem -

Aspies have great strengths but they aren't utilized because we also have great weaknesses... what we need is some way to overcome our weaknesses...

This is why I think if all aspies worked together and help each other then we can achieve our true potential.

For example.. if we take 2 or more aspies with weaknesses and strengths that complement each other I think that group could at least equal if not outperform a group of neurotypicals. So what we need to do is devise a system to solve the problems each aspie faces... but it needs to be a highly efficient communal thing where we all share in the rewards of all our work.

You mean sort of like this forum?

And don't think any of us aren't working on that.. I know I have been. Just not with regards to work/career/finance so much lately. I've spent a ridiculous amount of time researching autism and various diagnoses, and treatments, and figuring out what things amplify my symptoms... and am now onto what I hope is a more root cause of the other things I've figured out. Info online, from doctors, and from searching this very forum says I'm spot on and this next round of treatments/experiments on myself should yield greater results than the last - which was huge, already. It's going to take another 4-6months or so to find out for sure, but even after changing things up again the last 5 days or so I'm already feeling better for it.

Since I haven't been able to focus my thoughts and energies on productively working in any specific field in order to be productive, earn money, be self sufficient etc I've been applying my problem solving education, knowledge, and obsessive nature to figuring out the cause/effect chain of my own autism/adhd/ocd/tourettes symptoms and have so far done a rather fine job of it. From a few searches, others have already figured out each of these things.. but I haven't read any single story quite like mine yet, figuring things out in a natural progression as I learn and experience more. It's as if I've gone up the row of toppling dominoes and may have just determined what the "tipping finger," root cause of my symptoms going haywire is. I may go for some western medical tests for confirmation, but I've already begun natural treatments that already seem to be working. IF this is it it's going to change e v e r y t h i n g for me for the better, again just as previous discoveries have, and possibly heal various other ailments I didn't previously realize were correlated. It's like the analogy I've used of stars and autism signs.. you see one sign or symptom here, another there, but don't realize they're connected until finally you can zoom out far enough and see things from the right perspective and BAM! there's the whole constellation you didn't realize you were looking for.

So, I've been doing this.. but for something much more valuable than money. I've been doing this for health.. because health is wealth. And sure, I'm certainly being self serving in wanting to treat and heal myself so that I can get back to work and life and so forth, and while I haven't shared the details of my story in full here yet, I will do so, completely transparently, on the chance that what I've learned over the last several months can fast track any of the rest of us to better health. Then the work/money etc daily grind stuff can fall into place and sort itself out.. as pain stakingly slow as this process has been for me, everything happens for a reason and I think it'll all come together when it's supposed to. I have the whole rest of my life to work and make money and live etc, and I want to be doing it in good health w/o the negative symptoms of all of this flaring up and ruining things. So, health first.. then perhaps I won't have that crippling anxiety that constrains me from doing bigger better things with what I know.

One thing at a time.. I just think that we need to focus on Autism before business. Get that under control better, then work/business will become much much easier again. That's what we're sort of all here to collaborate on, no?