Schneier on Security

thevoid • April 26, 2015 1:41 AM

@Anony-mouse

This is “what works” in the sense that it catches some bad people, but how many good people does it also sweep up?

My son is on the Asperger’s spectrum, and despite years of working with him on social interactions he is still incapable of looking someone in the eye, and always looks uncomfortable and is fidgety (“hinky”?) in conversations with other people. Will he always be under suspicion? Is he in for a life of additional questioning?

as an aspie myself, sorry to say, he probably will. this has been something that has weighed on my mind for a number of years now, and has even come up on this blog before (once was on a post about a ‘nervousness detector’).

especially as they use automated behavioral detection, i envision a future where i am always stopped, because some computer flagged me. “our algorithms say you are suspicious” (ie don’t act ‘normal’).

people have too much faith in technology (“but the computer said so!”), and as everything goes to hell, and shit-for-brains run things, i fear being caught up in this myself, because i am really incapable of acting ‘normal’, even if i wanted to (i don’t) and knew how.

i have a good deal of nervous control, but as i approach middle age i still get ‘nervous’ (but not necessarily anxious). sometimes i worry that people may even think i am on drugs eg coke, meth.

we do get better at some things over time, i couldn’t look people in the eye until i was about 17-18. i am still not comfortable with it nearly two decades later, but (slow) improvement.

(and a minor point, it is the “Autism Spectrum” that Aspergers is classified as part of.)

@sofakindb

In conjunction with what @BrentC said, it is not one thing. It is a totality of circumstances much like detecting lying. You need a baseline on how people answer questions truthfully based on reflective type questions. Then you probe and ask harder questions. Aspergers may account for some things but it will not account for all things.

i like your analysis of these mechanisms, it is really quite good, but only applies to non-autistics (neuro-typicals or NTs). i will address individual points below.

we are very different, really a subspecies (probably not the right term, but a natural variation, like a black leopard). our brains are actually structured differently physically.

these tests really would work on NTs, and asking questions as you say does work quite well. in fact, i believe good questions and observation are probably all a good interrogator needs (no need to ‘enhance’ the interrogation).

they all however rest upon the assumtion that, as you say:

When people lie there is so much to think about it creates increased cognitive load. There is more effort involved in lying than there is to tell the truth.

which is generally true, however…

if we (aspies) are just talking to someone we are probably already in cognitive overload (unless we are talking about one of our ‘special interests’ in which case we go on and on and on…)

in fact, in the post above, when Bruce relates the story of the potential LAX bomber, i was thinking at first “is this about Autism/Aspergers” until i read further. his behavior really does sound like typical autistic/aspie anxiety from un unstructured social situation.

we are taxed even trying to hold the most basic conversation. stress and anxiety are generally the normal condition for an autistic (in a social situation) so yes, it can indeed account for everything you mention.

nobody has a baseline for autistics and we are fairly rare (or at least uncommon). and that is a problem for us. noone seems to have any knowledge of autism, and there really are too few of us overall for a system of averages to care.

we have trouble with situations where there is nothing really at stake. being profiled is exponentially worse for us than for an NT. any non-structured conversation is stressful, and anything more could easily overload us, especially being singled out.

just saw a doc on pbs about autism/aspergers. one autistic fellow related that the ending of The Jungle Book (the movie) was the saddest thing he ever saw, since Mogli leaves with the humans (i guess into their ‘warm embrace’). it was sad to him because he was thinking “you don’t want to go with them, trust me” (he certainly would have liked the book though, pretty much the opposite ending, and opposite view of humanity).

many of us see the whole of humanity as basically predatory. we’re very often prey, so it is logical. probably one of the main reasons why PTSD is so often a comorbid condition.

the vast majority of people have an instinctual trust of humanity, and don’t see this problem (and even if you are the suspicious type, you still have that instinct). NTs take this for granted, you don’t know how much of your civilization is predicated upon a certain amount of blind instinctual trust. so you probably cannot understand this at all (though perhaps certain oppressed minorities may).

to us, being singled out by authorities may be about the same as a pack of wolves descending on us. i’d probably be less frighted by the wolves. i understand them, what they want, what the consequences are. life and death, violence. simple.

likewise, i find the rules of the underworld easier to understand, and i am less fearful around it (to be clear, i was born into/live around such elements, i don’t associate by choice). i find very real threats to my life to be less stressful than unstructured conversations, and that is not an exageration. i will relive the conversation in post-traumatic flashbacks, but not the life-threatening situations.

and i fear cops more than gangs. maybe the cop is a decent guy, maybe he is an asshole on a power trip. i can run from the gangs. cops not so much. i also have a fighting chance against gangs. once again i’d prefer the wolves (or gangs, this from experience). especially since such threats such as gangs/wolves are localized. with cops you have a whole system against you.

The truth also doesn’t change, it is the truth and that is all there is.

we’re into philosophical territory here. i believe in an ultimate truth, but as a skeptic don’t believe it is really attainable. there is also truth as we perceive it. yes, we do know when we are speaking contrary to belief, even if subconsciously, and it does show.

The truth does not need the almighty’s endorsement either, “I swear to god!” Lying on the other hand the stories do change.

my idea of what is essential and what another’s (NT) idea is are very different. we notice and pay attention to very different things. different things are important to us. “a normal person would have mentioned X” or “a normal person would have done Y” is not applicable to us, since, well, we are not normal. by definition.

and i have been accused of changing my story when i added data that i had not considered or thought necessary to relate originally. really their interpretation of the story changed with more data. they thought the new data should have been obvious for me to relate the first time since it changed the meaning for them, but we lack ‘social empathy’, and such ‘obvious’ things are anything but for us.

the biggest Autistic/Aspergers support site is wrongplanet .net. think about that name. (i say: men are from mars, women are from venus, and aspies are from vulcan.)

some of us also have Auditory Processing Disorder, and may completely mishear something. “interrogator: when i asked you X you said yes.” this has happened to me a number of times, thankfully in non-critical circumstances, but it has been an issue and caused problems.

There is an excess of words to attempt to sell the lies, “I’m gonna tell you how it went” or “Actually this is what happened, really?”

and aspies tend to be Verbose, and unusually honest (we lack filters). sometimes we just like explaining every aspect of something, in painful detail (pun very much intended.)

these are DIAGNOSTIC CRITERIA.

back to social difficulties/anxieties, we are often anxious because we don’t know exactly how to react, and we tend to over react, and…

for instance, if someone just stares at us, some of us may keep going on because we are nervous, because we don’t quite undstand what is coing on, and don’t know what else to do. we’re not anxious because we know we are guilty, but because of (normal) anxiety we will be seen as guilty.

The cortisol runs rampant through a person, they twitch, they itch, they try to hold themselves tight and not shake or leak damaging non-verbal communication. The skin turns red.

that sounds like the reaction of an aspie/autistic to almost ANY social situation, let alone one where authorities (wolves) corner you. many autistics even shake under normal conditions, let alone under stress.

we get nervous just being in public, moreso when having to deal directly with someone. and being interrogated?

the interrogator is unlikely to overcome his own instinct/conditioning, and probably believes, like most of the populous, that not looking into someone’s eyes automatically implies guilt, and we are treated as such.

and we know that this happens. and the fact that we don’t know what to do makes us even more anxious. it’s a vicious spiral.

Have them draw the story they are telling, it is much easier with the truth. Have them tell you the story they just told you backwards, it is much harder to tell a lie backwards accurately.

this is the one thing that MAY work on an aspie.

unless they are ultra-stressed and in fight/flight/freeze mode. brains on too much adrenaline don’t always work properly. that can chemically effect one’s brain, indeed one’s cognition (we can have ‘meltdowns’ where the logic centers of our brain may actually be affected).

Maintaining eye contact increases cognitive load, if they are already taxed by lying it adds to the problems they have internally.

and you didn’t read what Anony-mouse said. it is taxing for us aspies to look anyone in the eye, ever, for ANY reason. forcing us to keep eye contact is almost torture.

though somewhat strangely, i can look someone in the eye if i sense hostility. the rules are simpler, so i understand them, and know to reciprocate eg stare them down.

just a few months ago i read a scientific article where they causually mentioned eye-avoidance as characteristic of lying. i am a compulsive truth teller, yet have had difficulties in the past (particularly in childhood) with this. normal people seem convinced you cannot be telling the truth, unless you ‘look them in the eye’. i’m approaching middle age, and still am uncomfortable with eye contact.

personally, this issue of eye contact pisses me the hell off. that i am constantly judged to be a liar and lowlife, etc just because i have trouble looking people in the eye. and then they feel fully justified treating you that way. if you don’t look people in the eyes, in general, that is their automatic judgement (“he’s hiding something.” “he’s up to something.”) i would actually be better off staring them down, i really would be judged less badly, as humans/primates prefer assholes to oddballs.

on a (eye-contact) related note, the Wodabi tribe in africa considers looking too long into someones eyes a violation of privacy, and quite rude. they make short, sidelong glances at each other. i would get along well with them.

Think of it all like field sobriety tests. Some people cannot balance, no problem, some people cannot count, no problem, some people cannot do their ABC’s, no problem, but everyone can do at least a few of the tests unless they are impaired.

and aspies are almost automatically overloaded if they are even in public. it is taxing to be in ANY social situation, let alone something like an airport, which would tax our sensory sensitivies as well. some also are uncoordinated as well, which perhaps could be read wrongly.

Unless your are dead, there is something, or a few somethings, you can test to determine impairment. The same goes here. You are looking for things that don’t fit. Much like I believe you as a parent can tell when your own child is lying. It is not a checklist per se, but more of a collection of things to be aware of. It is easier to check for those from the outside observer, than it is to control them on the inside by the subject. This is why usually in interviews one officer talks and the other observes.

and if they have no idea that Aspergers exists, and how it functions?

we’re always going to be ‘off’. that’s how (most) people react to us. their ‘gut’ tells them there’s “something wrong with him/her.” and these are exact quotes, and while sometimes the later one has been said in jest, often it is not. often enough it is said with a sneer.

normal people speak a certain sign language that we are deaf (or rather blind) to, and because we don’t speak it, we are almost invarably judged badly. (and, btw, this is the REAL language people speak in. words don’t usually matter, this sign language does.)

so we aspies are always ‘hinky’ to NTs, since we don’t speak your ‘secret code’, or are not on what seems to us your ‘psychic network’. so we are outsiders, and many react with (unsurpising) hostility. this is basic primate psychology really, instinct. there is a hostility to anything that doesn’t fit in one’s ingroup. and we don’t know how to fit in a social group at all, so we are pushed to the fringe, bullied, etc. a lot of this is established science (evolutionary psychology).

wanna know why so many of us have PTSD? how many are on anti-anxiety medications?

do you know what it is like for whole groups of people to turn on you, because you don’t smile at the right time? or some other, equally stupid, meaningless gesture?

the fact that i am a veritable saint? doesn’t seem to matter. because ‘they know’ better, because their ‘gut’ tells them so.

the irony, some people who bother to get to know us, usually love us (i speak from experience). largely because we don’t have those primate/social instincts, of which for instance bullying is a part. we tend not to lie, we don’t play petty social games, etc. we’re often ‘childlike’ in the positive sense of that word (whereas the rest of humanity seems to me to be ‘childish’).

but because we can be marginalized, the system will pile on us even more, remorselessly, because nobody will really care, since “there is something wrong with you/him/her/them.” and since we’re rarer than any other minority, noone’s going to do shit for us. look how American Indians still get shat on, and there’s many more Indians than autistics. and despite some still extant latent racism, Indians are seen more positively than autistics.

but unlike other minorities, we don’t even have our own kind to fall back on, we have no support structures.

even medical professionals who are supposed to work with autistics are amazingly ignorant of autism. how much less understanding are you going to get from some rent-a-cop? (or even a real one for that matter.)

i don’t envisage anything getter better, and as things get worse overall, once again it will effect we autistics exponentially. do you really think authorities care enough to train their agents properly? not bloody likely.

and i’ve seen little evidence that institutions can improve on people, and less so now than ever, so i don’t see society ever ‘wising up’ and becoming any more thoughtful and tolerant.

i understand the greater point that Bruce is trying to make, as he’s said before, basic detective work is still the best method. but as much i respect Bruce (and he’s one of the few sensible people i’ve read over the years) i cringe when i hear this particular idea of his. i would think a mathematician wouldn’t trust people’s ‘guts’, which is what this all boils down to. be on the recieving end of this for a few decades and decide for yourself if their ‘guts’ have any fucking sense at all. maybe they are right sometimes, some people’s might be better than others. but i KNOW i am a saint, by objective criteria. yet what do their ‘guts’ tell most of them? outsider! enemy! victim! prey! (or sometimes even: predator!)

as Anony-mouse said:

Will he always be under suspicion? Is he in for a life of additional questioning?

sadly, yes. and i would know.

“and many a one who fled into the wilderness, to suffer pangs of thirst amongst beasts of prey, did so in order to escape MAN.” -Nietzsche

@Martin Walsh

If the shit designed systems work so well, then why can’t they catch the psychopaths that don’t appear nervous, EVER?

this is a great point, although the official psychological designation for what you are refering to are “sociopaths” (not psychopaths). indeed, they are incapable of fear or shame (or even pain, btw). they may plant bombs and such, though not the type to be suicide bombers (they are about pure self interest).

some informal studies have found CEOs present at about 4x the rate of the average population.

on a personal note, this bothers me greatly, as sociopaths are generally well liked by the populus, because they can do all those social things. we aspies, who cannot, are generally despised, despite the fact that we have far superior character to socios, by the standard humans SAY they value (ie truth, justice, etc). humans value smiling, lying sociopaths more than blunt, truthful aspies.

thevoid • April 27, 2015 3:34 AM

@Thomas_H

Now that kind of behaviour also exists with normal people, up to a degree (I personally don’t believe in the extreme “neurotypicals vs. aspies”-thing that some people with autism seem to wish to use to put themselves apart from “normal” humans – and thus mostly convince themselves that they really can’t get any better),

i think you are over generalizing here. aspies are people too, and have human frailties, so maybe some use it as an excuse. but in many ways we do not ‘get better’. i dismissed many of my social incapacties for years as being merely psychological, until i found out about Aspergers. and if that was all there was too it, then maybe you could argue that it doesn’t exist. the sensory sensitivies however are VERY real, AND DO NOT GO AWAY. Auditory Processing Disorder doesn’t go away (and that is one of the characteristics that clenched the diagnosis for me– besides the main criteria). maybe we get better in social situations, we can look people in the eyes (to a degree), etc. but our brains ARE structured differently, and there is scientific evidence for this.

i have been saying many of things said re ‘aspie vs neurotypical’ for many years before i knew i was an aspie, and before i ever heard those terms. i am clearly non-normal. any one of my NT friends could tell you that. now they have a term for it too. and there are many things i classed as being ‘normal’, as opposed to characteristic of myself/my family. now i have a term for that too (neuro-typical). i and others have always recognized these differences, long before any of us knew what Aspergers was. my mother has always said she is “wired differently than normal people”. she’s on the edge of retiring and knew nothing of any of this until i told her.

now i use these terms fairly regularly regarding this subject matter, and except for the actual words used, the phrases are still quite the same as before. instead of “my brain works like X” i know i can say “an aspie’s brain works like X”. frankly it was quite a shock to me to find that people think pretty much exactly like me. before i just thought it was me and my family. so did people who know us.

while there is some middle ground, some whose symptoms are not so extreme, there is no doubt that aspies exist, and that we are not ‘normal’, as anyone who knows us will testify. neurotypical is just a way of saying non-aspie (although it is used to mean non-sociopath sometimes as well).

On the other hand, autism also has its advantages. A lack of outward expression can hide nervousness (they feel excessively nervous yet don’t show it) and may also make it nearly impossible for other people to actually read the autistic person’s face. Simply not bothering with attempting to read the other person’s social signals (body language) is a good way of reducing nervousness in public (much of the nervousness is caused by an inability to properly understand those signals), and in turn may reduce to tendency to fidget.

this is true of some of us at least. while there are common characteristics, there are many things that can present at either extreme. for example, some can have oversensitivity, some undersensitivity. except that i am a bit hyper, i don’t present as obviously as others. in fact, superficially, i may present as a sociopath, due to my lack of reaction to many things. Delayed Processesing isn’t always so, but it can be a benefit.

thevoid • April 29, 2015 12:31 AM

@Sofakinbd

There is difference I think for what you describe. Lets assume yes all of what you said is true.

it is quite true, every single word of it. more for me than others, but unless indicated otherwise everything i said applies generally. until less than a year ago, i thought it was just me and my family, now i know there are many others like me who have had all the same experiences, down to almost every detail. read the wiki on Aspergers. go to wrongplanet. net where you can hear it in their own words.

It is very easy to explain it with a little deeper investigation. Just as being blind means things take longer to get around and do certain things or being deaf means you miss out certain things, the same applies to being autistic.

theoretically. but people naturally understand blind/deaf people, they don’t understand autistics. you obviously haven’t lived it. until you’ve experienced most of humanity turn on you because you “don’t act right” i doubt you will understand it.

especially when the average person is conditioned from birth to believe things like “if you can’t look someone in they eye you are lying.” Nick P mentioned the idea of cops planting evidence, and this reminded me of situations from my childhood, when children would tell adults on me for things i didn’t do (that i couldn’t possibly have done simply as a function of time and space). they picked on me of course because i was different, and vulnerable. evolutionary psychology in play again.

i was always ‘guilty’, since i had trouble looking in their eyes, and was otherwise unable to defend myself. the adult would say “yeah you did it” with such certainty, and if, as commonly happened, i got angry for being accused of things i KNOW i didn’t do, this just reinforced their pre-existing beliefs (“methinks thou doth protest to much”, more common ‘wisdom’.) wanna know why i (and others) don’t trust people? that’s a start, but only just.

see, they are so certain of what eye-contact means, it’s automatic. they’ve heard it their whole life, and never question it. most people get their ‘knowledge’ from what they’ve heard, somewhere, that they cannot even identify. “society says.” and after all, “if everybody says it, it must be true!”

so, how are you going to overcome a lifetime of conditioning? (on both parts, the issue of eye-contact, and the conditioning of us autistics that humans are merely predators.)

You probably will trip the sensor more, once they investigate and affirm the diagnosis, or the medication again there will be no problem.

and that is the fucking problem here. why should a whole group be singled out? ESPECIALLY a group that would be extremely traumatised by it? and most especially, one that’s not even a target! read Nick P’s post, he does a fine job of expanding on this, and i can’t think of anything to really add to it at the moment.

and why should we have to get diagnosed? i am extremely high functioning for an aspie. sure it would be helpful to ‘show my credentials’ in cases where this could cause a problem in society, but i don’t want anything to do with that society anyway, and that label could be used against me later.

and i don’t trust people, i don’t trust the system (which seems to inherit only the worst of its components–people). hell, i don’t trust scientists (i read textbooks, and it is obvious to me many scientists are quite ignorant of even their own subjects. who first proposed the sun-centered solar system? it wasn’t Copernicus, it was two millenia earlier. go read an astronomical encyclopedia, since you are unlikely to hear it from an ‘astronomer’. don’t get me started on the farce that passes for medical ‘science’).

and maybe that lack of trust starts with not having that social instinct, but it has been continually reinforced over a lifetime. it is LOGICAL.

It may require chats more often but that seems ok.

no, it is not ok. reread everything i said about this. read Nick P’s post. you are completely ignorant of this subject, and it is obvious you wish to remain that way. MANY autistics have PTSD, and it’s fine for you, to add to it? most humans are social, far from this being traumatic, you need it. it is the opposite for autistics.

I have a club foot and a handicap placard. When I park I call it “taking the stares” because many people look. It is very fortunate that “looking” handicapped is not one of the criteria for obtaining that placard. People with heart conditions and situations like my own would never be allowed if that were the case. My orthopedic surgeon felt differently and I’m very grateful. People don’t understand that but only rarely do they comment or I get stopped by the police. When that happens the police very the placard is issued to me, I have the paper in my wallet that says it is mine legitimately and everything is fine.

that’s not an accurate comparison.

first, i gather you don’t look suspicious unless you are in the handicapped zone. we look suspicious in almost any interaction with other people. second, police likely have more experience with physically handicapped people than autistics. i said before, we are rare enough that a system of averages won’t care.

and if you want a better analogy for autistics, imagine you have a broken leg, but some sort of test requires you to run, which you HAVE TO DO (or else). it would hurt like hell and get even more damaged. autistics are traumatized by social situations, and you suggest this isn’t a problem?

i wasn’t joking when i said i’d rather deal with gangs and underworld scum. chances are that i have been through things that would make most people shit their pants, and that doesn’t traumatize me. i’ve gotten better as i get older, since i understand more what is going on and the true consequences, but i would have post-traumatic flashbacks of conversations for days afterward, reliving them over and over, including the fear and anxiety. reliving it would make me shake. i guess that’s how people normally react to life threatening situations, but i wouldn’t know because it’s the social situations that have most disturbed me.

besides, autism is not actually a ‘protected’ handicap, like physical disabilities. there’s debate in the autism communty whether or not we want to be classified as handicapped (there are ways where we don’t actually meet the normal criteria of ‘handicapped’, despite all).

If I were high-functioning and autistic and had a meltdown over the perceived attack the same net result would probably occur, everything would check, although it most certainly would take longer and I may miss my event or plane because of it.

really? there are news stories of autistics being executed by cops during a meltdown, where the cops only made it worse. in fact, they do everything you SHOULD NOT DO when an autistic is having a meltdown. their tactic of trying to dominate the situation is only going to backfire. for instance, one thing you should NEVER DO is touch an autistic, ESPECIALLY during a meltdown. Nick P already dealt with this, and so did i. i called it a vicious spiral, he called it a vicious circle.

american cops are some of the worst trained in the world, and too many are trigger happy when ‘they feel threatened’. american cops killed more people in the last month than the Brits have in England for 100 years. how am i supposed to trust that?

how many cops themselves have PTSD, and shouldn’t be on the beat? but that’s another issue.

A meltdown may occur, but that is the cost associated with having a condition.

[sarcasm]yep, just a price we have to pay for being born different. just like the 3x greater suicide rate Nick P mentioned.[/sarcasm]

so we have to pay a greater price? not only do we pay a price by being singled out more, we pay AGAIN having to deal with these situations.

but ‘normal’ people get a free pass? as William_H said above:

but with autistics all that potentially suspicious behaviour
comes together in a single person at the same time.

despite the fact the we are LESS prone to violent crime?

and meltdowns especially will be misinterpreted. most people will think we are ‘violent’ and ‘dangerous’. people have said of autistics having a meltdown that we are ‘SCARY’. i am sure i fit in that category as well, despite the fact that i will not harm a fly (LITERALLY), even in that state.

on a side note, i can understand how people unfamiliar with us may interpret it badly. one case where i don’t (entirely) fault people for their misunderstands. (not cops or other authorities who for the sake of their job should know better)

It would not mean you have policy to leave all autistic out of the scanning would it?

irrelevant. never even suggested that. i merely addressed the techniques you listed and explained how they are flawed (for autistics, but others as well, as Nick P mentioned).

It is also very clear that authorities need better training in dealing with mental health issues,

indeed. though even the people already trained to work with autistics are surprisingly ignorant of it.

and obviously they aren’t going to have a semester of psychopathology to learn the in’s and out’s of the DSM-V.

AND WHY NOT? this is EXACTLY what need to happen. look at Denmark, and how much training you have to have in order to become a cop (hint: it’s ALOT).

they are thrust out to deal with the populus, with powers over life and death, but don’t need to be educated about that populus? ludicrous– even from the perspective of their own safety.

However, they could be doing much better still.

AND THEY SHOULD BE. how can they say they are there to ‘serve and protect’ otherwise (and yes i know that the supreme court said that’s essentially a lie).

Autism is another subset with unique constraints but it is manageable all the same.

maybe you should read up on the subject before blindly trying to defend this.

sometimes i forget what my ‘condition’ is like, because i am so high-functioning, and have adjusted, but my life is ENTIRELY DOMINATED by it. bright lights, like in almost every building are searing to my eyes, and give me headaches, and that is just one of my sensory sensitivies. perfumes people wear burn my eyes, throat and lungs. a whiff of many cleaning products can make me taste it, and i cannot get the taste out of my mouth. i use a particular soap, as it’s one of the few that i can wash off enough that i don’t smell it. i am incapable of tasting food otherwise since the smell of my hand (with soap on it), over-powers my senses– and that at a fork/spoon distance. i cannot eat food i have touched if there is any soap residue on my hands AT ALL. i am a night-owl partly for these reasons as well (much quieter). whenever i go out in public, i time it to be when fewest people are around, and stores are not crowded.

i also have some nervous control, so i can control my reaction when touched, for a while at least, as long as it’s not sustained. if it is sustained, i really ‘want’ to snap, and say “god damn it don’t you DARE touch me you [expletives deleted]”

i have to help my grandmother get up sometimes, which requires physical contact (mostly just hands.) if prolonged, that can give me a nervous shake for hours, make me twitchy, and this is even in non-threatening situations with people and circumstances i am familiar with. (i’ve learned to shake hands too, but that is largely because that is easier to deal with that than what may result by refusing.)

and i am fortunate (i suppose), many others like me CANNOT do this.

i mention all this particularly because these are things i seriously doubt many understand, and are relevant. our surrounding environment seriously affects us besides the social elements.

now for myself, it is simple, i can usually work around things, and if i can’t i do without. and since my desires really don’t extend much past foraging mushrooms, rock hunting, reading books, and being left the hell alone (a just world would be nice too, but…) i don’t have to interact with the system all that much. i’ll never get on an airplane, and that’s fine with me. i’d rather be in a forest anyway. it is HELL living in society and civilization. almost everything affects my sensory sensitivities. but not the forest. unfortunately i still have a mother and grandmother to take care of, so i am somewhat bound. (i intend eventually to be a farmer.)

others don’t adjust so well.

i can take care of myself in every essential way (better in fact than the average person), but that is not the norm. many aren’t as high-functioning, and though Aspergers is defined as a high-functioning form of Autism, even then many aspies have difficulties functioning.

so what you propose is essentially to sacrifice a whole group, for no real benefit. consider where your civilization would be without ‘us’. Newton almost certainly had Aspergers (indeed this was just on Smithsonian Channel). people on the spectrum are represented at a far higher rate than the populus in Nobel Prizes too. and less violent crime. the one who is different is typically sacrified by society, so there is really nothing new there, but i mention this primarily so that you know the group you would sacrifice.

should they all give up on society too? that’s society’s choice. society doesn’t give much of a damn about us anyway. for now we can avoid airports, but as the system’s noose becomes tighter, we are less able to escape it. what happens when they start ‘securing’ everything else? what happens when they start to use their automated algorithms looking for ‘suspicious behavior’?