I'm going to be rude now, but I don't mean it to be taken that way.

"I know a guy with a leg missing, and he can still run, so clearly someone who has lost their legs is able".

I have had the discussion a bunch of times, I'm beginning to think that nobody other than me has spent a significant amount of time with severely autistic people.

Yes, some autistic people can mask quite well, and, some are mild cases.

But the crucial issue that most autistic people have is: they don't even become aware that they're being rude unless they spend active effort in first identifying, then understanding, then trying to fix it.

I'll tell you something else too: most people are uncomfortable with criticism, it makes them defensive and clam up. If you make someone defensive, enough times, then the situation becomes infected and very emotionally charged.

Now, imagine you have an illness that prevents you from processing your emotions properly, and the whole world is unkind to you, and you can't really understand why, but people call you rude.

It takes a lot of bravery and integrity to really reflect on that soberly.

Please, I implore you all to stop pretending you understand autism because you know someone- or a bunch of self diagnosed people, I keep seeing it[0], autistic people have great difficulty controlling how they're perceived, that's the whole issue.

[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37200502

Please consider that your nephews are growing up on a world with a lot more awareness and empathy towards autism.

I know somebody who smoked a lived to be 90 years old, therefore all that they speak about harms of smoking are lies.

You realize people are different, and your knowledge of tiny number of data points tells you very little about people who aren't those people you know?