Just because someone isn't skilled at the traditional, mainstream Western methods of conveying empathy doesn't mean they actually lack empathy. This ought to be obvious when considering persons on the extreme end of the autism spectrum, but as time goes on we're learning that the spectrum might subtly encompass far more people than we ever realised.

(With no small amount of irony, I find that many "normal" people have a very hard time truly empathising with the ways in which people on the spectrum are different.)

But it doesn't even have to be something as categorisable as the spectrum. Just as people don't choose their genetics or initial brain chemistry, it's equally true to say that nobody chose their genetic parents or their upbringing. People are the product of their environment; we would do well to keep this in mind even when we (rightly) castigate people for their misdeeds.

> but as time goes on we're learning that the spectrum might subtly encompass far more people than we ever realised.

The autism spectrum is a continuum that fades into normality, with no clear boundary. Part of that continuum is individuals with broad autism phenotype (BAP), who have significantly more autistic traits than the average person does, but not enough to reach the diagnostic cutoff for ASD. That cutoff varies from clinician to clinician, and is moving over time, which renders the boundary between BAP and ASD particularly fuzzy.

> (With no small amount of irony, I find that many "normal" people have a very hard time truly empathising with the ways in which people on the spectrum are different.)

Damian Milton speaks of the "double empathy problem" – it is claimed that a defining trait of autism is deficits in empathy, and yet very many non-autistic people are at least as deficient in empathy for autistic people.

Thanks, an interesting response. I will look into Damian Milton.

Based on my own experiences (which are very limited) I don't see a deficit of empathy in people on the spectrum. What I do see is someone who sees the world differently (has a different kind of "filter" to distinguish signal from noise) which causes the response to stimulus to be different. If you see the world differently, your internal model of what another person is is different, and therefore the way one expresses their empathy is different.

Arguably this isn't so different to how concepts of honour and respect can vary greatly between cultures.

What does this have to do with my comment?

This: "co-wrote several books on company culture that are glorified ads for basecamp" just doesn't seem too questionable to me. The readership made them popular books. His job, in part, is to promote his products - my interpretation of your comment was that your thoughts on his plight were swayed by him writing something that promoted his business. I find him a bit over the top, so I don't follow him on Twitter. I haven't read their books. I've used but didn't continue to use their products. But that doesn't really sway my thoughts on this recent episode.

I think there's a lot of cross-purpose arguing about it all. It's likely that they're a bit painful to work for AND that as founders they'd have concerns about their paid staff getting distracted from their mission at work.

Anyone who has written more than one book on their own company culture has zero idea what their company's culture actually is.