[solarmist]

I have what you would deem mild Autism and it CAN be a beneficial adaptation, but it's is highly context-dependent. I think it's only in the last couple of decades when that's become true, specifically information, knowledge work, or science.

Think of the cartoons where the "nerds" are trying to fight/play sports and are trying to calculate optimal trajectories, etc. The additional rationality slows down coming to conclusions significantly and I'd argue in most cases the added accuracy is of marginal value.

Basically, I believe a lot of those biases are shortcuts that give a good enough answer in significantly less time. I.e. Newton's method over actually computing derivatives.

[lamontcg]

Society is getting so complicated that spending the time to find the actual right answer is supplanting various "going with your gut" heuristics since its about 50-50 as to if picking the simple answer is right or the counterintuitive answer is right. The whole "blink" thing of knowing the right answer is deeply busted.

We still value people who strongly assert what they think is the correct answer quickly though and view that as a sign of intelligence (and to be fair it is, but its more about the intelligence of knowing how to convince rather than the intelligence of knowing what is correct).

[AnthonyMouse]

I'm not sure it's so much about shortcuts.

Suppose you're a judge in a contest. The contest has rules. If you apply the rules the same to all the contestants, that might be considered a disadvantage when you have the opportunity to apply the rules more favorably to your friends. Whereas the other guy who interprets the rules to favor his friends creates the expectation that the friends will return the favor someday.

But the advantage isn't always an advantage. If the other participants view you as biased then they won't even show up or pay entry fees anymore. Then there is no more contest and your friends lose even the possibility of winning.

It's kind of like asking if there's a disadvantage in not being a sociopath. Turns out, maybe not.