When you have a real indication of dealing with a master manipulator, it's very understandable that you should use an abundance of caution. That's probably an instinct in us at this level.

Of course everyone is at least a little aware that they're putting on a bit of a ruse with their public persona, but that needs to be tethered to some level of authenticity or you'll just be sending out Patrick Bateman vibes.

    > When you have a real indication of dealing with a master manipulator

It is also autism vs psychopathy. Patrick Bateman is nowhere close to someone autistic trying to learn those socially successful behaviours. Patrick Bateman is a terrible human being not because they are inauthentic, he is a terrible human being because of the acts he did and wanted to do.

I think sometimes this is when we find our way to the middle of two relatively simple drives: "be an orthodox group member/ avoid being a social outcast" and "avoid the discomfort of cognitive dissonance / admitting hypocrisy".

If there aren't immediate consequences for inaction (especially if there ARE costs and/or social consequences for action) were very good at convincing ourselves to ignore it (or tell ourselves we will EVENTUALLY deal with it but just not right now)

If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.

I thought the article was more about leaning into their own style, becoming more intuitive over time.

So here is the skill of being able to cherrypick data to give the best representation of yourself as opposed to true average honest overview of oneself. Then the skill of avoiding answering questions you don't want to answer to by answering by talking about what you want to talk about (think politicians).

Same is with real life interactions. Among 1000s of things you could say or do there is always some that are more effective than others in reaching a certain goal, whether it is getting a job, making a sale, convincing someone, making a friend or whatever.

Is it manipulative only if you make up something or if you are able to get people to do what you want by being able to cherrypick the most convincing ideas, arguments, facts etc.

I have a friend who is somehow super good at that, it is fascinating to me. But he can't be bothered to do actual work. He performs extemely well in interviews, gets high paying job, and then stays there for 3 months, gets bored. Of course he doesn't put that on his resume. He doesn't really lie, but he definitely cherrypicks, embellishes etc. I am kind of the opposite of him. I have stayed at the same place for years and am naturally passionate about software eng, but troubled socially. He is very confident and has no shame.

But job applications aren't the same as normal life so this is probably a tangent. In normal life, though, I kinda assume I'm seeing what people want me to see. But if it looks really good it probably means they have good sample of experiences to cherry pick from.

Two different people can have the same achievement and one thinks it is the most awesome and special achievement ever, and embellishes it, the other thinks it is not even worth mentioning or words it completely differently.

E.g. for job interviews when are you considered to be "mentoring" someone? Someone might do few code reviews and claim they have mentored juniors, other one can have 1 on 1s giving valuable career advice, tech advice, but still not think of themself as a mentor.

That doesn't mesh with normal human behavior. It feels weird. But the corporate world and the private social worlds are disconnected. For me at least. So it's weird. Actually ... That's a weird concept.

I guess I recommend having two minds... One with friends and one with the corporate world. And they don't play by the same rules.

It's no coincidence that people always judged and shunned such overt manipulators, as well as tried to downplay the underlying mechanisms of manipulation in general (outside of the sales types, which are often looked upon as slimy and not deserving of trust).

A low-trust society is not fun a place to live in

Almost all honest signals are about a similar tradeoff.

If you're reasonably socially skilled, you can usually see it coming a mile away and react accordingly, but what gets you in trouble is the not-so-common case where you actually fall for it, since the consequences can be quite bad. None of this is describing ordinary social interaction, tough; these are really two entirely separate topics, and there's little reason to conflate them.

If you dig through the weeds of it you can argue just about everything we do socially is manipulation. We are social because we're social animals and will die without help from other humans (well, particularly thousands of years ago). At the end of the day, we are nice to people to get things from them that we need - food, shelter, knowledge, strength. It's always been like that. But because it makes us feel fuzzy and good, apparently that's not manipulation, that's being nice.

There are also white lies. Are you manipulating children if you are claiming santa exists? Are you manipulating a person if you either omit a truth or do a white lie because you know truth at that moment in time would be worse for their life.

Persuasion is honest. "Hey, I think you should do this thing because of reasons a, b, and c, there are some downsides like y and z. It may mean something to me peronally, so I may also to appeal to you to do it for me as a favour. I may even play up how important I think it is."

Manipulation is dishonest. "Hey, I'm going to use an underhanded technique to make you feel like you're missing out on something, or are inadequate, to get you to do this thing. Maybe I'll go overboard on flattery and inflate your ego to achieve my end. I also might lie or omit some of the downsides to give a distorted view of the risks"

Even if it's a win-win situation, it's still manipulation if you're seeking to bypass someone's agency.

> Are you manipulating a person if you either omit a truth or do a white lie because you know truth at that moment in time would be worse for their life.

Yes, certainly, and that's why people often get upset about "little white lies" too. Maybe you are doing a good thing, maybe you're not, but removing agency from someone by keeping the truth from them is always manipulative.

The wiser question may be "is manipulation always wrong?" And I'd argue that if it gets your kids to calm down and go to bed on Christmas Eve, maybe not ...

I.e. biology gets what it wants... We want to survive, mother nature wants us to survive, society wants to survive.

I am absolutely not suggesting that outright jerkish behaviour is acceptable (although to suggest jerks have no social success is probably untrue; plenty of people who are attracted to jerks). I am arguing that if there was no personal advantage whatsoever to being social and nice to people, we wouldn't do it. We'd be lone animals, spread out across the land rather than concentrated in towns and cities. There's a spectrum of selfish behaviour, right? We are somewhere in the middle because it's advantageous to be.

If I get sad or angry when a friend tells me a story, this feeling is a expression of my inner state, not a strategic choice I make to get to a certain place. And this inner state usually translates into how people act later. So if I am enraged how my friend was treated I may be inclined to take steps that help them get even, for example.

Manipulation, however, is when I (feeling nothing), pretend to feel a thing with the goal of getting a certain response.

The border between the two is of course not totally clear-cut and people can manipulate themselves into truly feeling things without following through with any actions etc. So a complex topic, but the reason why the manipulation works in the first place is because the feelings people express towards us are more often than not an expression of how they will act towards us as well. If a guy on the street screams at you, your #1 interpretation won't be that he does it to manipulate you, but that that person is experiencing an actual feeling that may convert to physical action pretty soon.

And other similar things that increase someone's odds of being liked or convincing or getting someone to do what they want more likely?

Doing those things is not BSing, not lying, yet people can consciously be doing those to increase the likelihood of getting what they want.

Many people will obviously do it naturally. I personally have to make a conscious effort every time for such things.

Does having to consciously decide to do those things make me a sociopath? I certainly wouldn't bother saying someone's name if I didn't think it mattered for reaching my life goals. Extra same with small talk.

Then what about memorising some funny, self deprecating stories from my life to make people laugh so they would like me more?

Then what about asking questions, keeping up conversation etc, etc, even though I would rather be in my own thoughts doing my own thing?

I do it all consciously and intentionally for my own self benefit. Some to avoid bad things happening to me, some to make good things more likely to happen to me.

If I didn't do those things people might think I am awkward, weird, silent, boring, pass me on for promotion at work, etc.

When someone uses my name in conversation, it makes me think less of them, because it's so unnatural and clearly they might be doing it to manipulate me.

Names are dumb - we are people, not labels

Oh man, I always find it so slimy when people do that! I've also noticed it's mostly HR people or sales people who do this, so clearly it's a phony technique they learned somewhere. But I suppose it gets taught because it works, maybe for people who don't pick up on the fact that it's so forced?

Well, that depends, Mr. mewpmewp2. It's entirely possible that some people may view your using their name as a positive sign of respect and of wanting to make them feel like they're being heard, whereas others would object to what they feel as a breach of formality and politeness norms. So doing this "properly" might also be a matter of inter-cultural competence.

I think emulating things that a serious person discards is a step backwards.

When we win, by being a better collaborator with others, it isn't operating in a shallow or selfish sense.

It isn't treating others like instruments for our benefit over theirs. It isn't manipulation.

I don’t think collaboration, altruism, and other pro social traits are exclusive of instrumentalizing.

Whatever word you want to use that encompasses pro social behaviors, let’s use that word if you don’t like instrumentalizing.

Good point.

These words are unfortunately loaded. "instrumentalizing" is so close to "instrument" for me to see them as unrelated in meaning. But lots of similar words drift in meaning, or have several interpretations.

I don't have any issue with people doing things for "natural" reasons, vs. realpolitik analytical reasons, when the motive is still benefit-neutral, or benefit-benefit relative to ourselves-others.

This makes trying to figure out social cues difficult. After enough failures to connect, or being picked on to the point of feeling constant betrayal, we go to the safest place we can to try to play out interactions to avoid being hurt: our imagination. We make systems to predict behavior, we take to shallow taxonomies and try them on like tinted sunglasses. We are so masked, so protected, so... hardcore avoidant of the shame we feel just for existing, and we lean on this until we finally figure out that what we went through was really, really hard, and we find again the threads of our things that we never got a chance to develop, and start to grow them from the level they are, not where we pretend they are.

There's a lot of ways away from that, and those who instrumentalize might still be on the pathway upwards. Its hard to know where someone is from.

People who don't feel resonance between their label, treatment, and self-concept will question why that is, up to questioning aspects of their identity themselves. Once unmoored from a proscribed identity, people can find the ambiguity uncomfortable and untenable, and may adopt a concrete identity that fits more closely.

That doesn't make the adopted identities any less true, of course. Identity is socially-constructed, so deciding that you feel more comfortable presenting as a woman isn't any less justifiable than being assigned good ol' football-playin', roughhousin', English class-hatin', red-blooded American manhood at birth. Calling yourself a wolf or an orc is probably more extreme, especially in general contexts, but at a convention where you're surrounded by a thousand other people who find it easier to connect when they've thrown on a (literal or figurative) bear sark? Go ham.

In the end, of course, you're just you. All of the labels - even the ones you internalize and externalize - are just ways of trying to communicate, and to make being around you easier for other people, in part by giving them a box to put you in and to understand you by, because that's what our pattern-matching ape-brains like. The mask is a mask; it's a cover, not a substitute, for the totality of a person's being.

Identity is a lookup for a custom zlib dictionary, so communication compresses better! Which means we can pick and choose per communication channel. :) Thanks for that thought!

When autism meets sexism.

Parent says that "identity is socially-constructed", they defend trans people, they say it "isn't any less justifiable than being assigned good ol' football-playin', roughhousin', English class-hatin', red-blooded American manhood"

- but the fact they said "presenting" as opposed to "being" a woman is sexism, as if they're some "chauvinist pig"?

That's why we can't have nice things...

That being said, saying presenting instead of being is not ideal indeed.

Basically I think a lot of people's issues with social stuff starts with something analogous to a boy who never asks a girl out for fear that she'll say no. People don't engage in interactions, or try to be overly pleasing, to try to appeal to other people.

But that's never going to lead to a good relationship, because it's fake, and it'll feel exhausting. By contrast when you stop caring, you might be surprised to find people like you even more, it becomes even easier to form "real" relationships, and suddenly social interactions aren't tiring at all.

This becomes even easier after having kids because you're probably not really seeking relations in any meaningful way, so you completely genuinely just don't care. And then paradoxically it becomes so much easier. Well, at least it becomes wisdom you can hand down to your own kids, or random anons online.

If you do care what other think, you alter your behavior to make them think what you prefer, and it becomes inauthentic on your part and manipulation of others. That's not to say that all things for others are manipulation; if you find out that you don't listen to people well and improve that, they might like being around you more because being heard is an important core part of relating.

And what if no one likes me?

Either way, if you aren’t content with your situation in this regard, I would recommend study, introspection, and perhaps therapy. Dale Carnegie produced some excellent work in this regard, aiming towards win/win interactions. He’s more business oriented, but that context is easy to strip away, and the principles stand on their own.

How you go about figuring what bugs people is perhaps the hard part.

You speak as if you are an expert on everything in the universe at all times. Way too much black-and-white thinking. And many people often strongly disagree with your statements... a great deal of your comments are quite often downvoted and/or flagged.

There is a reason you have been banned from several different platforms now. Disagreeing/arguing with their actions is not how you improve yourself, and you can't explain your way out of it, you have to want to change how you act, and work hard at it. You have to be ok with being wrong. Your weaponization of logic has destroyed your empathy. You are craving validation through technical dominance, but this just further isolates you/alienates others.

I think real intelligence by definition requires empathy and humility, which is typically the opposite of such dogmatism in my opinion. "As a rule, strong feelings about issues do not emerge from deep understanding."

The Dunning-Kruger effect also applies to smart people. You don't stop when you are estimating your ability correctly. As you learn more, you gain more awareness of your ignorance and continue being conservative with your self estimates.

Also you seem to like to claim that almost everything is illegal and then not back up your claims with any useful sources, instead telling people to look it up themselves or give vague non-answers like "it's in the German law code". That and most of your comments are just plain negative in general, and I think this ultimately stems from some kind of childhood trauma that you have not dealt with.

Still, agree with others, seems like you're generalizing what is good for the average person is also good for those with personalities that are more at the extremes. Yeah, know a couple of people who just don't understand what people are thinking or feeling, ever. And so they have to learn a system of cues to look for to figure out whether a person is angry or sad or happy... These people need to create systems to make socialization work.

That's definitely not true if we include "work" as a "social interaction".

I can see why someone not understanding the “dance” could easily mistake it for “innocent” manipulation… but when it’s basically a scripted give-and-take that serves as a symbolic representation of a persons willingness to cooperate and their advertised intentions, it isn’t really manipulation at all, but rather a type of communication that allows (hazy) inferences about a person’s character and intellect in the guise of insignificant banter.

I don’t think that’s a fair comparison to what’s describe in this blog post.

The writer describes taking on different personas and trying different tricks with other people portrayed as subjects of some sort of experiment.

The casual mentions of how they tried some conversational trick and got someone into full on sobbing was particularly striking because there was hardly a mention of concern for the other person. The only discussion was about the trick used to elicit the response.

That is what I do not agree is consistent with normal interactions. Most people would feel some degree of guilt or dirtiness, for lack of a better word, if they used some of these tricks to lure random interactions into a false sense of connection and feigned friendship, especially if for no other reason to experiment on the other person.

It’s typically not done quite so intentionally, but this sounds like most folks’ junior high and high school years. Sometimes also college.

I know I totally changed in those years, and it was mostly by noticing what “worked” and leaning into it.

As I recall, the section this came up was when they were coaching.

This does feel like another instance of how people have a deep instinctual grasp of social interactions, but a shallow ability to articulate the moving parts in detail.

I think the analogy was “everyone know how to use the flush, but they can’t explain the mechanisms behind it”

- yes, I was consciously trying different ways to fit in

- yes, I felt uncomfortable that it was forced and unnatural

- no, it didn’t occur to me at all this was a deeper issue; I had all kinds of naive explanations: oh I’m not as confident because I because I started school a year earlier than the other guys; girls don’t like me because I’m not as handsome as other guys; I’m not as social because I don’t have an older brother to learn it from, etc.

- over the years, as I got better at what I now know to be “masking”, I just subconsciously embodied the idea that consciously working on every little aspect of social interactions is “normal”

- it took me 30 years to realise, wait a minute, it’s probably not normal that I had to put so much effort into all of this, and got myself a brand new shiny autism diagnosis at 40

Like you I was disgusted to see OP's link posted to these hallowed grounds, a bunch of filthie normie jibber jabber waxing poetic about how great it is to have cracked the normie code

I have to say this strikes me as a very distorted perception. I don't know about 'normal,' but a socially successful person isn't intuiting their behavior subconsciously, they have learned it, and are actively mindful of it as they engage in it. Otherwise I think socializing would be excruciatingly boring. I think the distinction is that they had the capacity to learn from interacting with others, and had the confidence to iterate until they became comfortable with their social skills (which to others may appear 'unconscious').

I also don't think normative social interaction has much tolerance for manipulation. Maybe in the scope of a night out socializing or a business transaction, but in the context of actual relationships, those people are often ostracized or avoided in my experience.

For instance if you wanted a security guard to help you find your way in a shopping mall, there would be approaches that are more effective than others. For instance making it sound more like you have something important to do and they'd save your day by helping isn't specially abusing the person. They might feel pretty good about helping you, it's still somewhat part of their job so you're not tricking them either.

Or, were allowed to learn it from others.

>and had the confidence to iterate

Or, the safety to iterate.

This seems to be just shifting where socially-successful people received uncommon benefit-of-the-doubt.

Lots and lots of, if not most, social behaviors are intuited subconsciously.

And that's even if the person has actively studied and learned them (and most are picked up by osmosis, not consciously learned anyway).

>I also don't think normative social interaction has much tolerance for manipulation. Maybe in the scope of a night out socializing or a business transaction, but in the context of actual relationships, those people are often ostracized or avoided in my experience.

That's either oblivious to 90% of social interactions out there, or just understands "manipulation" at the con artist or sociopath level.

Even wearing nice clothes to make a better impression is a kind of manipulation. Same for using different manners of speaking and language in different social contexts, and lots of other stuff.

If I wear nice clothes and make a good impression on someone, I am creating an outcome we both wanted at the outset. If we are meeting socially, they probably wanted to like me, and I wanted them to like me. That was the shared goal. That is cooperative, not manipulative.

Personally I'd prefer that "spectrum" individuals just be themselves. I take it as my own shortcoming if I can't establish a dialog. I like the challenge of interacting with someone who does things very differently. This of course assumes there's a genuine desire to connect. I knew someone who had some techniques like this, and it was weird interacting with him. The techniques put up a barrier and it didn't feel authentic.

Maybe I'm jaded but I see it as a failure of the "normal" person if they can't deal with someone who communicates differently. All their issues just get triggered, not the fault of the spectrum individual, and not their responsibility to overcome. As a practical measure for just dealing with these people, I could see using techniques. But not when you actually want to relate with someone.

Society at large teaches them this is not safe and they will be excluded (e.g. no friends, no dates, etc) if they do not adapt.

As a neurotypical person (I don't think the term "normal" is appropriate) I'm probably doing or did the same things the article is talking about. And I never thought about negative consequences, except when I was extremely anxious.

If anything, people on the spectrum, introvert, or just awkward are probably thinking about the consequences (positive or negative) way more than someone like me.

I also agree with the sibling post. The failure of most (?) neurotypical people to accept people on the spectrum as-is shouldn't be a burden on them. If society can't make them safe, they should do whatever is best for them. "Authenticity" (which is just an illusion anyway) be damned.

So this is about you?

The Elephant in the Brain: Hidden Motives in Everyday Life

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/28820444-the-elephant-in...

It's the same with genetics. Getting lucky with looks is fine but working for the same goal (eg surgery) is somehow bad and people often hide it.

Same for the motivation of surgeries. You might not be comfortable with yourself, and want to change something, and that's perfectly fine, but again to changing appearance signal something to benefit you and harm others with less effort, it's immoral again.

And, I believe, if you need to change how you behave or look to get acceptance from a circle, this means the circle is toxic and you'll be far happier elsewhere.

I was more talking about judgement of people who did just to still look normal but better, similarly to the judgement of people who learn "social skills" like the TFA discusses.

The people doing the judging certainly aren't gonna reproduce with 99.99999% of the people being judged, and I'm being extremely generous here.

If you steelman the argument you can see the point, but it’s also unreasonable to assume that a person is living the steelman version of life (and being a deceptive person) just because they had a facelift.

OTOH, if you are admiring people’s genetics using their appearance as a proxy, I can see why it might seem like “cheating”

The problem is clearly with the bullying. And the assumptions around character. And basically using "changing yourself" as a proxy for hallucinating all sorts of completely unrelated bad characteristics. And the rationalizing around it.

It's the same for behavior: people are fine with the behavior of "naturally charming" people but as soon as someone mentions "learning how to do it" people immediately jump to conclusions and call it manipulative.

The linkage isn’t as strong for unconsciously or subconsciously developed ulterior motives. Hence the huge gap in how people behave towards that.

Being better at socialization is virtually demanded by society. "Not looking good" is also punished. There is nothing ulterior about anything.

The fact that a certain chunk of society demands both perfection and authenticity already makes it necessary for people to not be transparent about such things.

Once again this is just a rationalization for horrible behavior.

(Don't approve doing this or anything, just pointing the blind spot in your dichotomy, interested in the argument on a purely technical manner).

The world isn’t just. People like people with good genetics, because being friendly with the strong gets you benefits more than it gets you costs. Especially if you’re able to influence (or even pathologically manipulate) them.

Most people just know this, subconsciously. So they would probably even deny it. But it’s transparently easy to test, and even easier to see evidence of by just looking around.

Also, most attractive people work to be attractive because it’s often mutually beneficial (assuming they can counter manipulate or influence appropriately). Having people attracted to you gives you the ability to use other people’s resources for your benefit.

Most attractive people just know this, subconsciously. So they would probably even deny it. But it’s transparently easy to test, and even easier to see evidence of by just looking around.

This is generally kept covert, because like most covert power, it attracts negative attention if brought to conscious awareness - as then it’s perceived as manipulation, not influence, or encourages more jealousy, etc. as it’s not fair.

But life isn’t fair, except where we make it, and making something fair requires power.

And acquiring and maintaining power is fundamentally unfair.

I'm just saying I can call a spade a spade.

If anything, it's the rationalizations around certain behaviors that are claiming the world is perfect and just as is.

And yes, it is horrible, but if you want to solve a problem, you must first understand the problem, and ‘some people are just born with Evil in their hearts’ is not a very good sociological model.

Nay, artificial physical attractiveness is also a signal of reproductive fitness. It isn't a given. It's the subject's genes that made a brain that was able to design (and to arrange to pay for!) the improved attractiveness.

It's not qualitatively different from brushing hair.

There is no "rule" in life that says that people have to be judgmental assholes to each other. Using a card game to justify the behavior is just a rationalization.

Apparently there is, which is why this judgement you speak of happens.

It just happens to be a social rule, and you don't like it, but it's a rule nonetheless. Doesn't have to be an official rule, agreed upon, and signed by each participant, or some physical law.

Hence, the card game metaphor has some merit. Like people think you shouldn't cheat in a card game, many people also think you shouldn't cheat with cosmetic surgery.

Most people don't care, and I'm willing to bet that the ones rationalizing the behavior here don't go out of their way to care or talk about any of this.

Of course that's not as bad as people who try to rationalize bad behavior behind a veil of pseudo-intellectuality.

Once again: rationalizations don't make something true.

On the contrary, since many (if not most) people do it, they're on the social side.

>Once again: rationalizations don't make something true

When it comes to social truths, what most people do make them so.

If most people think X bad, X is bad is a social truth. Doens't matter if you think X is "not bad in reality". Reality doesn't care about good or bad anyway, it doesn't have a morality.

Also this post has the classic logical error of assuming that because something is a certain way, it should be that way.

> Reality doesn't care about good or bad

Likewise: What you call "social truths" are real in that they shape behavior and consequences, but they’re conventions, not objective moral facts, and they can be unjust or oppressive.

That's a modern dellusion.

Sociology (and common wisdom) tells us that judgment "that shames, excludes, or hurts" is necessary for the development of morality, social cohesion, and cooperation.

Note: not any random judgment "that shames, excludes, or hurts" has this possitive role, but plenty of judgements that "shame, exclude, or hurt", meaning that judgement that "shames, excludes, or hurts" is a useful social tool.

Refusing to be an asshole to someone being an asshole just enables them being an asshole.

Refusing to judge if someone is being an asshole, ensures that someone being an asshole will see no consequences for being an asshole.

But to be fair I'm mostly criticizing useless HN post-hoc rationalization.

> Refusing to be an asshole to someone being an asshole just enables them being an asshole.

I have nothing to do with this.

> Refusing to judge if someone is being an asshole, ensures that someone being an asshole will see no consequences for being an asshole.

I also have nothing to do with this.

Or do you think anti-social assholes do not exist or are not common? Or that any system of identification of people should not attempt to understand them?

I'm just saying that there is no game anywhere, except in the head of people who are pretending to play a game.

Isn’t that…. Every game?

We also tend to hide how hard we work to make our success look natural, but we reveal how hard we work on the extremes of success. For example, if I work hard and take a score of 17 out of 20 in a test people will say "I barely read last evening, phew", but if you're consistently scoring 19-20/20 people may even approach you to learn your studying methods and for tips, because they assume there are important takeaways that they can adopt.

It's my pet peeve with how society recognizes that someone is talented, which is blatantly flawed because all you can do is see what they're capable of doing. Someone may be talented yet unable (or unwilling?) to tap into their talent, but since we recognize talent by the output you can't really tell the existence of talent unless it's at the extremes of success, like the 8 year old who can solve mathematics that are a grade or more above the current grade.

I see talent like a genetic predisposition that can be appropriately cultivated to attain success. It's not much different than my height, because I didn't choose it, yet I can guess that there are men out there who hate the fact that I have their desirable height yet I never hit the gym, cultivate my social skills, or take advantage the fact that I look younger than I am. I am willing to bet everything that I met at least one person who thought of all of these things the first moments they looked at me.

But at least genetic predispositions like height are visible to the naked eye and no one can dispute the differences. When it comes to differences in the brain it's where we ignorantly proclaim that things are obscure therefore they can violate the very facts of observable nature.

In sort, not only I fully agree with you, but I also agree with the obvious double standards in society around it. If I take ADHD medication and that helps with my focus to improve my performance in school or work then I deserve that success as much as someone who naturally had no problems with ADHD. Why is this different for looks (like hair transplants, etc.) is beyond me.

Interestingly not current corporate banking work, where this would be true but then this is highly sociopathic environment with dominant culture that doesn't do direct honest feedback generally. But generally finance attracts the worst of the (smart) crowd so thats not in any way a reference of mankind.

So its cultural quite a lot. I presume you meant some rather extreme situation of above by describing it as autistic-spectrum.