“The fundamental weakness is empathy,” Musk recently told radio podcast host Joe Rogan. “There is a bug, which is the empathy response.”
As Musk has established himself as at least the second most powerful person in an administration seeking a wholesale remaking of institutions, rules and norms, what he said matters, because it encapsulates a political plan. What the Project 2025 report set out in over 900 turgid pages, Musk’s remark captures in a simple pithy mantra for the social media age.
First, I didn’t write all of them.
Now on the subject of autism and empathy, empathy is widely misinterpreted and misunderstood in autistics. The lack of empathy stereotype is based on the deficit model of autism and therefore on the lack of theory of mind. This model has roots in eugenic and neocolonialism (also known as neurocolonialism) and is deeply ableist.
We have great research with good methodology and ethics (the opposite is true for the deficit model) about autistics not lacking theory of mind and being empathetic (often hyper empathetic). They just show empathy differently than the neurotypical. This is in fact true for many stereotypes about autism. Autism is a different cognitive style to process information, communicate (including emotions) and learn.
It’s where the Double Empathy Problem of Dr. Damian Milton comes in. It’s the difference and not the lack between two or more individuals/group of individuals that makes the understanding issue.
We are plenty of autistics on Lemmy.