I used to volunteer for an organization that helped people with mental disabilities. One of the primary symptoms of Asperger's Syndrome is a demonstrated lack of empathy for other people, which makes social interactions very difficult.

This is one common reason why someone with Asperger's can come across as an asshole: they are literally incapable of understanding how their behavior will hurt other people's feelings. For example, 15-year-old suffering from Asperger's can come to you and say, "that shirt makes you look really fat" and in their mind they're just making an innocent, normal statement that they think is helpful (i.e. you should wear something else tomorrow), but from your perspective they're being a total dick.

So when you come across an asshole, you should ask yourself: are they willingly hurting other people's feelings (i.e. intentional disregard) or are they totally unaware? After having worked with people with mental disorders, I tend to give everyone the benefit of the doubt until proven otherwise.

I don't have any hard evidence that the GamerGate community has a disproportional number of people with Asperger's (or similar disorders) compared to the rest of the population, but it does seem to have a disproportionate number of people who come across as total assholes. That's how I connected the dots.

As someone who has been diagnosed with aspergers syndrome before:

The problem with this line of thought is that it's quite possible for us to atomize and quantify the causes of assholery. That doesn't make the people involved any less jerky.

For any human flaw we can probably put the person in question under a microscope and diagnose the exact causes, but the behavior is still hurtful and offensive. I guess the point of your comment is that the people doing the hurting might be innocent in the mens rea sense, but I think that's a fairly high bar of charity towards people who use tactics like SWATing and obviously enjoy the pain of their victims.

Moreover if improvement is possible, you won't get it by not holding people accountable for the things they say and do.

All boobacks are red.

Are all red things boobacks?

You see assholes, and you say they are probably people with Asperger's, even though of the two statements:

"this person is an asshole" and

"this person is an asshole, and also has Asperger's"

the first is more likely.

It's nice that you give people the benefit of the doubt. It's not nice that you slur people with Asperger's by saying that assholes are likely to be people with Asperger's.

EDIT: Specifically, there are many people with Asperger's who are appalled by the hateful idiots in GamerGate or the worst bits of 4chan, and who really dislike being associated with them.

I'm not saying that assholes are "probably" people with Asperger's, or that assholes are "likely" to be people with Asperger's.

I'm just saying that, before we lash out at people we perceive as assholes, we should ask ourselves whether they are willfully being assholes, or simply can't help it.

edit: apparently this is a controversial statement. Consider this: our justice system distinguishes between criminals who commit crimes willfully, and those who do so due to a mental illness. The two are treated differently. I'm saying we need to do the same in our social interactions.