Simon Baron-Cohen

We need to listen because they see that.

The fun thing about that is there was a study done with 23andMe and I think it was Baron Cohen.

And they looked at cognitive empathy and they realized that there's actually a genetic component.

I explained a lot about autism as well.

So I often joke about this as like the female boy autism.

That's like a joke that derives from Simon Baron Cohen's Extreme of the Male Brain, where what Simon Baron Cohen was really trying to describe when he dropped that was was a cognitive profile associated with the Asperger's phenotype, right? Like, he's not actually describing the extreme of the male brain.

He's trying to describe what... people with the like phenotypical characteristics of Asperger's were like.

And he used, unfortunately, the extreme of the male brain to describe it, which kind of messed a lot of things up.

You're going to learn something and be challenged in your biases.

This all actually connects to my upcoming episode with Simon Baron Cohen, so make sure you're subscribed to get notified when that's released.

And my conversation with Brian Kaplan on Uncomfortable Truths is already live.

You can go watch it now.

Please enjoy the episode, and always remember, you're not broken, just different, and you have always been enough.

[upbeat music] Sir Simon Baron-Cohen, welcome.

Thanks for inviting me.

I can't do this.

And I think we've learned a great deal about this.

First of all, I mean, there was the whole theory of mind, um, the Simon Baron-Cohen, uh, Sally Anne test that was done years ago that enlightened us to the fact that this is something that we should make sure that we're teaching to individuals on the spectrum, right? But I think we've all learned that it is a teachable skill and that when it is taught to individuals on the spectrum, they are often much better at it than their neurotypical, um, counterparts, and that this is something that the world needs to learn because if you stop and think about what's going on in this, this, uh, challenge to whether or not people should be included, um, it is a lack of perspective taking.

I have said many times, I just said this when we had Lori Unnamon a couple of weeks ago, if we could convince politicians...

Well, I'd like to make it required, not have to convince them.

In an autism, for instance, they're, they, we know that they have exceptional left brain skills, right? They're, like you said, you know, let's say reading, memory, math, numbers, the engineering type of brain.

Simon Baron-Cohen out of Cambridge wrote a book, you know, The Technical Mind, that, you know, people that are physicists and scientists and, you know, work in the IT industry are much more likely to have a child with autism.

Just like people in the creative fields are more likely to have people with dyslexia or are bipolar, which is the opposite, right? So this balance, and this relates to primitive reflexes.

Why do they miss a milestone? Why are they delay? Even pre-birth milestones, like a baby getting in the right position, turning upside down and backwards without the cord being wrapped around their neck.

Around this time we're talking about, twenty years ago, it was discovered identical twins reared apart tend to Be the same political party, like being left and the right is heritable.

The main personality distinction, to answer your question, comes from Simon Baron-Cohen, who studies autism.

There's a spectrum that we're all on, on systemizing, and systemizing is a tremendous strength.

Being able to synthesize information, see maps in your head, all of that.

And we've got back to that place where not only is the killing of a man seen in plain sight, but it is celebrated in certain corners of this algorithmic-infused world.

hate machine that is called x and i think x is very important because one of the things that um what was his name simon baron cohen did is he did a tweet saying there's a clear link towards suicidal thoughts and autism and we all need to be really careful this is whilst professor jason hardy was still with us

So let me take a step back so we can keep everyone with us.

The professor that you're talking about is an expert in autism.

And he retweeted that.

And there's pouring fuel on a fire and then there's just making it a nuclear weapon.

But how surprised should we be given he is also the man who decided to back one of the UK's, or in fact, the UK's leading anti-migrant, anti-Muslim activists, Tommy Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley Lennon.

And that connection between them isn't even hidden.