[dpark]

Some people are just assholes. Most assholes are pretty normal, aside from being assholes. They are generally not socially unaware, or particularly awkward, or show difficulty with communication, or anything else that might indicate obvious autistic behavior.

And similarly, most people I might characterize as slightly autistic are not assholes. I've worked with some really awkward folks, and people who were really bad at picking up social cues, and people who were unable to express themselves well. I don't think any of them were assholes, even if they weren't always easy to work with.

I think it is really insulting to people with autism spectrum disorders that you would assume anyone characterized as an asshole is autistic. I also think this attitude contributes to some of the asshole behavior on our industry. We write some unacceptable stuff off as "geek behavior" when it's just people being assholes, which is an activity exclusive to neither geeks nor autistics.