Oh shoot! I just realized this might be offense. Sorry but also I don't care. In this thought-provoking discussion, Malcolm and Simone examine the concept of autism and its prevalence among society's elite class, drawing fascinating parallels with historical court culture and contemporary tech CEOs. They delve into how certain aspects of autism, such as a desire for intense schedules and a dislike for touch, resonate with medieval court cultures and are reflected in the behaviors of some of the world's wealthiest individuals. Simone shares her personal experiences living with autism and how this has shaped her understanding of societal norms. The conversation takes an intriguing turn as they contemplate whether the prevalence of autism among the tech elite influences their ability to relate to the general population. If you're interested in understanding the intersection of autism, power dynamics, and societal change, this video is a must-watch.

Transcript

MAlcolm: [00:00:00] When I first met her for a long time, she really hates touching people. Just hates it. And so early on, she would even wear gloves when we go in public, so she didn't have to actually touch anyone's hands.

MAlcolm: It's the same as doors. She will sit and wait at a door for like eight minutes for me to open it for her because she. Hates touching door handles, knowing that a lot of other people have touched these door handles. She really likes like a intense schedules. She likes you know, ceremony in her daily life, like doing very structured things and I'm like, what does this sound like?

MAlcolm: This sounds a lot like court culture in, medieval Europe. You know, having to wear gloves before you touch people standing at doors. There's even accounts of nobles like standing at a door for 30 minutes because there wasn't the servant who was supposed to be there to open the door for them.

MAlcolm: And then the intense. , ceremonies and very specific things you had to do throughout the day and the ways you had to interact with people. Even the not looking them in the eyes thing. So much of it sounds like they've tried to create this little autistic paradise for themselves, or at least [00:01:00] similar to how autism is manifest in my wife, it's a little suspicious

Malcolm (2): Simone, I have heard this conspiracy theory that lizard people, I. Control our society. Now, when they say this, what they mean is there's a group of people who are like humans, you know, humanoid, but a little different, maybe less emotional than other humans sort of, uh, secretly controlling our society and.

Malcolm (2): The funny thing is, is we actually had a chapter we removed from our book on this subject saying that it might be true um, but not in the way that the conspiracy theorist made. Hmm.

Simone: There was an organization that, that I worked with for a while that I really like that would gather very high caliber people.

Simone: Like the, their criteria for membership was you have to be the best in your field. In order to qualify as a member. So this is bringing [00:02:00] together the top tech CEOs diplomats, politicians writers, journalists, activists artists, et cetera to have off the record conversations. And the funny thing about it is that it was very much.

Simone: A series of retreats really designed for autistic people where, you know, you're sitting, you know, every moment of the day is scheduled. When you sit down for a conversation with people, the subject is chosen, the people are handpicked for each other, and there's one moderator that is making sure the conversation, you know, stays on track and that everyone speaks and contributes.

Simone: It's like super, super structured. There's no stress about, okay, where do I need to be? Which topic should I attend? Like, no, that's all decided for you. It's like, I love it personally because I'm autistic and I love like the structure and the guidelines and the rules and the procedures and oh my gosh, it's dreamy.

Simone: So the, but I think it's telling, being is what's telling about it already. Get

MAlcolm: disproportionately the elite cast in our society is on the spectrum already.

Simone: Yeah. [00:03:00] Even if they don't admit it, that like that this kind of format would appeal disproportionately to. The top performers in the respective fields?

MAlcolm: Well, it's not an admit or not admit thing. We can just look, I can look at the richest people in the world. I can look at Mark Zuckerberg on a stage trying to give a speech and I'm like, oh, that guy is obviously on the spectrum. Elon Musk has admitted to being diagnosed with Asperger's, which now doesn't exist as a diagnosis and is just autistic.

MAlcolm: Just. In case people aren't familiar, the reason why the diagnosis of Asperger's doesn't exist anymore is because it used to be autistic, but high IQ and successful. And it's like, that's super unfair. Like imagine if there was like dyslexic and then dyslexic, but successful. Well, man, everybody who is labeled dyslexic, that's labeling you as also unsuccessful.

MAlcolm: So everyone's gonna assume that you're like barely functional if you're dyslexic. So it is really unfair that you would ever carve off. The successful people from a diagnosis. So, or high IQ at least, you know? And that's what you were seeing was that. So [00:04:00] historically Simone would've been diagnosed as Asperger's, but today she'd be diagnosed as autistic.

MAlcolm: But anyway, and I think this is where we got that negative stigma for autistic with the older generation. But you know, you can look at so many of these high profile, you know, super wealthy billionaires talk, and you're just like, oh gosh. Like if you've been around a lot of people on the spectrum, you're like, these people are obviously on the spectrum.

MAlcolm: But

MAlcolm: what I find most. Fascinating about this theory is that this may not be a new phenomenon.

MAlcolm: It may have been around for a very long time. So let's look at some of the ways that Simone is weird in her autism. When I first met her for a long time, she really hates touching people. Just hates it. And so early on, she would even wear gloves when we go in public, so she didn't have to actually touch anyone's hands.

MAlcolm: It's the same as doors. She will sit and wait at a door for like eight minutes for me to open it for her because she. Hates touching door handles, knowing that a lot of other people have touched these door handles. She really likes like a intense schedules. She likes you know, ceremony in her daily life, like doing very structured [00:05:00] things and I'm like, what does this sound like?

MAlcolm: This sounds a lot like court culture in, medieval Europe. You know, having to wear gloves before you touch people standing at doors. There's even accounts of nobles like standing at a door for 30 minutes because there wasn't the servant who was supposed to be there to open the door for them.

MAlcolm: And then the intense. , ceremonies and very specific things you had to do throughout the day and the ways you had to interact with people. Even the not looking them in the eyes thing. So much of it sounds like they've tried to create this little autistic paradise for themselves, or at least similar to how autism is manifest in my wife, it's a little suspicious What if society, but, okay, so here's where this whole theory gets a lot more interesting.

MAlcolm: Which is, does that mean that if it is true that people who are running these major tech companies are more likely to be autistic, do you think that means that they can't relate to the general population as much and they're trying to push things that maybe the [00:06:00] general population wouldn't like?

MAlcolm: Like is there genuine merit to this lizard person accusation where if these people are different does that mean they can't understand people?

Simone: So I've heard this critique from people also who have worked in very senior roles in Silicon Valley, for example, like, I've heard this critique of, oh, these people who are completely tone deaf, who don't know how to relate to other people are here.

Simone: So confident that they're making solutions for the rest of society when they can't even begin to model the rest of society. And I try to come in and I try to explain these things to them and they just look at me blankly and just do what they were gonna do because they either don't get it or don't care.

Simone: And you know, I hear that argument and I'm just thinking. Well, you're wrong. Like these people are doing what's optimal and like I know they're, I thought he was like,

MAlcolm: no, you don't know what's best for you. Yeah.

Simone: Autistic rather, I'm like, these are the men tats of society. They are calculating and they're [00:07:00] making the correct decision.

Simone: Sure do. And you know, they're, you know, Trying but also, like I know that I'm biased and like if I am also one of these supposed lizard people, or as they just saw these like autistic non-empathetic people who can't possibly understand what it's like to not be one of those people, then of course I would say that, and of course I wouldn't get it right.

Simone: So I don't know. You're more on the non-autistic. Neuro atypical under the spectrum. Like what would you say is correct? Like, is that right? Are these people wrong to be running society? Are they and would society be better if run by people who are like, I. I don't know, more socially empathetic cuz I I kind of

MAlcolm: feel like, I don't think it would be, I don't think it would be I don't know if this is the best scenario.

MAlcolm: I mean, I do think whenever you get a subgroup of the population that's disproportionately represented in positions of power that leads to negative consequences often. Right. You wanna, however, if there was a population that was gonna be differentially selected, I [00:08:00] can see it. I, I Well

Simone: here, I mean, here's the thing and this is of course of a highly criticized view that, you know, these people built these organizations.

Simone: They made it obviously, like if you think you, whoever it is you are with your worldview are so good and so, so perfect at running things. Why are you apparently incapable of building the thing that runs things like. If you can make it like you know, Do it then. Like why haven't you built it? You know?

Simone: Because you can't, because you are not capable, because you, hey,

MAlcolm: the lizard people are now lecturing you. Why you non lizard people can't become rich.

Simone: What is the wrong it's bad. Right? Because, you know, I guess, you know, an outsider that I'm a very poorly trying to model and I admit that I'm not very good at this, would be like, oh, systemic bias.

Simone: And, you know, I've been kept down and I'm not given a place in the room. But I also don't feel like. Awkward autistic people are given a place. Oh, another thing I've heard, [00:09:00] which I think is really interesting, is they're like, you know what? Also, these are all very sad autistic people who were bullied throughout their childhoods and rejected by all their friends, and now they're taking out their aggression.

Simone: They were b***h fantasy. Yeah. The revenge fantasy upon society with these startups, which I also think is really interesting because I genuinely, my understanding of life as an autistic person. My understanding of other autistic people is they like legit, don't care really about like what other people are saying about them.

Simone: Like I remember as a kid, like people saying stuff to me that I just didn't like, that kind of went over my head and then getting in really big trouble and like, You know, being like benched during swim practice or whatever. Well, the

MAlcolm: other people were benched, so, so the way you said that was a little confusing.

MAlcolm: I think what she means is people would be making fun of her. Sh didn't realize they were making fun of her. Yeah. They didn't feel mean or hurtful

Simone: to her, but then I would know that they had done it because they got [00:10:00] punished for it. Yeah. For

MAlcolm: the context of the way the adults reacted to it, it was clear that they had been really mean.

Simone: Yeah. And so that's, so my experience As an autistic person. I mean, I didn't know that until like, we got diagnosed way later. But anyway, like my experience is such that I don't even think that these people are bullied in the way that the socially empathic people think that they were. So there really isn't this revenge.

Simone: Like they, they legit don't care what these people think. And I think it's in, it's interesting that these, well, we'll just say the empaths, right? Like the socially. Like good people or whatever. The non lizard people are like, they're modeling. The lizard people as though the lizard people were empaths, but just evil.

Simone: You know what I mean? Like, yeah. Oh, I'm gonna take revenge. I really care what you think. Whereas like instead they're like legit more like, like mentate. So just like beep boop. Like I'm gonna build a thing. And then they do it really well, maybe because they're not tied down by all this empathetic social positioning nonsense, right?

Simone: Like they just wanna [00:11:00] like build my computer thing, whatever. Right? And then they do it. So I don't know. And I, like, I wish I must find an opportunity when I find someone making this critique again to ask them, okay, like, what do you want the lizard people to do? Like, what do you want these tech bros who are like running the world to do differently, aside from?

Simone: And the only answer I've heard so far, and please, someone correct me in the comments here is, Well, they should give my group more power, which

MAlcolm: do

Simone: it, it just doesn't sound like a, an encompassing solution. Right? Like, I want to hear what you would do with that power then. Like what would you do once you have that power?

Simone: Because the thing I hear after that is, well, I would put more of my people in power and then I'm just like, ugh, like this isn't going anywhere. This just sounds like I just want more people like me in positions of power. In which case my answer would be, okay, build the next thing and own it. So, I don't know, I don't know where to go with this.

Simone: Pro lizard people, obviously very [00:12:00] biased. Well,

MAlcolm: I do have another place to go with this, which is, okay, if this is a problem right now, it's a problem that is likely going to get bigger in the future, uhhuh with autistic people having. In a world because we're reproducing the artist is king and in a world of work from home.

MAlcolm: And this is something that we've really seen, you know, with in our own family since we started predominantly working at home, is your productivity differential to my productivity has gone up astronomically more. Yeah. Not having to have other people interfering with your daily routines. Has really just made you go so much faster.

MAlcolm: And I really like the analogy that was made about what it's like to be autistic that I wanna share with the audience here because I think it's a really powerful one. It's as if you are a race car. That is optimized for a race car track. And so if you try to live like normal life, like you try to [00:13:00] go on normal roads or worse go offroading, like have your schedule disrupted, you perform astronomically worse than other cars.

MAlcolm: But when you are able to control your entire. Routine from top to bottom when it's the perfect track and you have a pit crew, which is, I guess me you're like the handler, basically. You can perform really astronomically and I mean this as somebody, you know, I work with my wife because I work with a lot of other people who work for us and stuff like that.

MAlcolm: I have never worked with somebody who can output anywhere close to you, Simone. Aw. Your daily output is just, Bananas. And the core reason is because, and I don't know what this is about you, but you don't take breaks like you are able to consistently work. I. For a five hour period, even when you're not like off the chain passionate about something.

MAlcolm: That is not something I can do. Realistically, I can work for like 30 minutes and then [00:14:00] I take like a two hour break and then I work for 30 minutes and then I take like a two hour break. I mean, I'm not trying to do, and unless I'm just like really passionate about something and it's like 2:00 AM .

Simone: Yeah. 2:00 AM key. I love that you start working then. I appreciate that. I think, yeah. What, and what I saw too of parents we know who have autistic children in various ages, like especially we have adolescences. Yeah. And we have an autistic kid. But when I hear about parents whose autistic kids are going through what we call the industrial school system, you know, either like public or private schools, but where they're taught by teachers and they're being.

Simone: Forced taught instead of self-taught. They just thrive during the pandemic when they got to direct their own education, work from home, not sit around peers, not work on other people's schedules. So I agree with you that especially like as more parents are shifting their children to work from home and as more businesses are shifting to work from home it's, I think it's really going to give autistic people a leg up.

Simone: I also think that a lot of like. Internet communities and cultures, and we've talked about this in the past, like [00:15:00] four chan being the male autistic ID online and Tumblr, and it's now diaspora being the female autistic ID online that like autistic people have very much been empowered online and that maybe that means that autistic people will also be able to form.

Simone: Relationships and have kids at higher rates than they did in the past. Maybe meaning that we'll see more autistic people. Well, I think that

MAlcolm: this is also worth double clicking on what you were saying right there, is people are like, oh, it's only the elite in our society who are top down enforcing autistic culture on us Uhhuh.

MAlcolm: And it's like, not really. I mean, four Chan is the creator of most online culture , whether you're talking about MAGA or Broy or you know, the. What's that foundation where they capture the like, spooky thing, foundation? What, anyway so much of all culture, so many mean formats, you know, Pepe, et cetera.

MAlcolm: You know, all of this is coming from four chan and this is the space that self-admitted. Has a higher than normal autistic [00:16:00] population to majority autistic population. And then you can look at the progressive memes that have taken over the progressive meme plex. A lot of these came from Tumblr culture, and Tumblr was self-professed again, really heavily autistic, especially back in the day.

MAlcolm: That when all of these things were really bubbling up. And so why is it that these. Autistic spaces are generating the culture that ends up dominating the rest of our society, both bubbling up from the bottom and being enforced from the top. I think what you said is right, is that it is this ability to thrive within an online environment.

MAlcolm: And when we said that historically, you know, we've talking about at least yeah, high performing autistic problems. It was more that we were forcing them to live in an environment that was not conducive to [00:17:00] like the level of. Self-care is the wrong word. Self tuning. They needed to be optimal all the time.

MAlcolm: And that's what, when you see autistic people, do the things that we often associate with autism, like ticks and stuff like that. Right. So, th these behaviors are happening when we're forcing them into environments where they're not, they don't work for them. Yeah. They don't work for them.

MAlcolm: Yeah. And this was one of the things when we're creating the Collins Institute, which is our school system that we really focused around, is how do we create a school system that, knowing what you went through and , that you almost ended up dying in the traditional public school system.

MAlcolm: How do we. Help our kids not have to go through that and help other people who think like you not have to go through that. So that's something we've really tried to build into it.

Simone: Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting. Well, and then there's the phenomenon that may or may not be there of autistic people now.

Simone: Coalescing in certain zones, like around Silicon Valley because it seems to select for more autistic friendly careers and [00:18:00] social spheres. Yep. So, you know, yeah. I mean, it does seem like we're moving in a direction of, I if not numerically, at least in terms of influence and reach. Autistic people are gaining influence though again, and we're not super invested in this theory, but it does seem like maybe autistic people in the past also were disproportionately represented in leadership. So like, maybe this is an always thing, but it also seems to be an increasing thing, wouldn't you say?

MAlcolm: Yeah. Well, yeah, so you could say not gaining influence, but consolidating influence. Yeah. And well, I love having you here to talk about this cuz this is one of those things that I could have noticed, but if I didn't have an autistic wife, I would never, I. I probably would. I'm that level of stupidly walking through third rails.

MAlcolm: Well, no, but

Simone: I also, I don't think you would've noticed these subtler patterns if you hadn't had to deal with me, like

MAlcolm: open, I didn't really understand autism before, looking at how you are weird and being like, oh that's what it is. And again, we should clarify not like self-diagnosed autistic.

MAlcolm: Our kids and her have been [00:19:00] diagnosed you know, by medical professionals and everything.

Simone: Well, and yeah, that's also not to say that like. My autistic experience represents everyone's autistic experience. Exactly. Everyone has a unique experience. Um, Yeah, you're, but I do.

MAlcolm: You're the hot autistic woman. The, that, which is quite a fine.

MAlcolm: I'm telling all the guys here. Being married to a autistic woman makes things much easier because, okay, yes, she has a lot of rules, but the rules are consistent. I know.

Simone: I don't know. I think there's also a weird, and I'm a five. Let's be honest here. Like, I'm not, you are not a five.

Simone: I'm average. I'm not unpleasant looking and I'm not like a model. But I would say that like, I also think that among hot. But also very smart, competent women. Autism, mostly undiagnosed would be like way overrepresented. Way overrepresented. And that

MAlcolm: would mean it's a sign of genetic fitness because signs of genetic fitness often correlate with [00:20:00] each other.

MAlcolm: Like the more attractive somebody is, is a higher iq, they're likely to be the taller they're likely to be. The more the face is likely to be you. You typically see any sign of genetic fitness correlating with other signs of genetic fitness, if that's the case. Then all you're saying is autism is genetically

Simone: optimal.

Simone: Well, or this is one of those things, and I think this is a really interesting theory that you have or that I guess many people have, but you were the one who introduced me to it, of that things traits like autism or slight disorders like autism or schizophrenia. Manage. To persist in people's genetic lines because like in moderation, they're useful, like in moderation.

Simone: Someone who's more on the schizophrenic end is useful because they model people really well on the autistic end are useful in a society because they, you know, I don't know, build, this is

MAlcolm: something you can be fairly sure of given how quickly sociological profiles changes at the genetic level.

MAlcolm: If you see a trait, and it is common across all cultures. especially if you know that it's not something that's being selected for, because , it, [00:21:00] it's associated with something else.

Simone: So something that's really cool when you talk about like intelligence and autism and the genetic component of this is that Simone, you know, compared to me, if you look at her genes, she should only be about a half a standard deviation above the general population in terms of her iq. Which is, , something when I'm talking about her being really productive, where she is off the charts genetically at the 99th percentile is in systematizing.

Simone: Which is a common trait within the autistic population. So I wonder if that is specifically the systematizing, what's giving you this advantage?

Simone Real: I wonder too, I think there's something really interesting going on there. And might explain why autism is like seemingly disproportionately associated with people who are like inventors or scientists, , like Darwin or Zuckerberg, if he is autistic, , that kind of thing.

Simone Real: And that like, these are people who. Have this deep desire to organize [00:22:00] in their minds logistically and categorize things. Yeah, I mean, keep in mind like Facebook started out as like a. Ranking kind of thing. Like a sorting thing, didn't it? Oh yeah.

Simone: Well, and I remember just something that the general population didn't know is you did a, when you were getting diagnosed with autistic they did like a IQ test on you and you got in the top 0.5% in terms of the IQ test.

Simone: So you are outperforming people even within IQ tests, even though you don't have this a genetic role of the dice there, that's giving you an advantage. So it must be the systematizing or it could just be. That none of jeans matter. Wouldn't that make our detractor so happy if it turns out jeans don't matter?

Simone Real: I don't know. I don't care. You know, what we care about is outcomes and not what shows up on paper or tests. So I don't care if someone has the highest IQ in the world, if they're not doing, if they're not making a meaningful impact on the world vis-a-vis their values, or if they haven't thought through their values, like zero respect for them versus someone who's [00:23:00] like, Tech technically, you know, super low iq, but they do something meaningful with their lives.

Simone Real: So, well, anything they deserve more respect, I guess. I mean, I don't even think so because you're technically low. I think that intelligence and the various pieces of baggage, it's same with beauty. That come with, it can be just as much of a hindrance as it can be a help that you know, there are many people who are super intelligent, who may like overthink things, who may be bogged down by their,

Simone: I think that's an excuse.

Simone: The, The mentally lazy used.

MAlcolm: Well, Simone I, I am so lucky that I found an autistic woman to marry.

Simone: I am so glad that you deal with me, that you don't look at me like I'm crazy when I attempt to open doors with my butts in an elbow all the time.

Simone: And freak out and just stand in front of them and wait for you to get them. Thank you. Um, And all the other things. All the other things. Um, I know I'm not easy to live with, but.

MAlcolm: Oh I, I think so. You're weird, but you're predictable. [00:24:00] Yeah. You never, You never get upset about something I can't predict.

Simone: And isn't that nice?

Simone: Well, um, yeah. Love you. Thank you. Bye MalcolM.

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