On Asperger's Syndrome, Ethics, and Mass Murder

A lot of people will be becoming very afraid of people with Asperger's Syndrome now.  Suddenly "Aspies" are scary people who might kill you.  Well, I've got news for you.

First, most aspies are a lot more like they guys on "The Big Bang Theory" than they are like the Sandy Hook shooter.  I don't use his name because I want those who might follow in hopes of becoming famous, pause.  If we don't speak their names, then at least we deny them that motive and they may choose a less destructive form of suicide.

Most aspies are quiet, introverted, highly focused (some would say obsessive) people with one remarkable interest.  Most have useful, or at least harmless interests.  You will find them most commonly represented among college professors - who else could put up with a decade of Ph.D. studies on a single subject like "vibration in flexible drive shafts?", engineers, and other intensely specialized fields where day-to-day one-on-one personal interaction isn't the main job requirement.

We don't know yet if the shooter's obsession was shooting people, but maybe it was.  I can't say.

What I can say is that I am obsessed with the connections between things: the interactions of forces; the ties that bind us together; and the roads on the map rather than the cities; the grammar more than the words.  That's the second bit of news: I have Asperger's Syndrome.  I am an aspie.  I am a software engineer, and I'm very good at it.

I spent six years in the Marine Corps, where having order maintained rigorously was comforting.  That life was easier than the chaotic civilian life I now lead... even the day I had to draw my pistol on someone carrying a rifle.  I won that exchange without any shots fired, and for that I remain grateful.

I own a few guns, but almost never get to take them out to the range for a little exercise.  I like the discipline, the simplicity, and the immediate results that come with shooting targets.  The sound is good, too: the "pop" of the rifle and the "crack" of the target.  Yet I haven't fired them in years.  Why?  I'm too busy with the things that occupy my attention to make time for it.

What occupies my attention are my job, my family, my post-2008 finances, my insatiable appetite for new information (demon Interweb), and my duty to others.  I mention duty last because it is what underlies all the other interactions.  The connection between me and the rest of my world is duty.  In all things, I seek the solution that works best for the greatest number while doing no harm to any.  Normally, I get the lowest return - often it's negative.

In 2002/2003 I wrote a book on the subject of ethics.  I finished it 3 days before the Space Shuttle Columbia broke up on re-entry.  I never found anyone who cared about the ethical musings of someone with a "syndrome" and no Ph.D. in ethics or philosophy.  Thanks to my sister, I've finally gotten some editorial review and I'm looking for a publisher again.

I tell you all of this because there are a lot of frightened people because one aspie went bad and you need to know that most of us aren't like that guy.  Most of us care deeply for the rules - far more so, in fact, than "neurotypical" people.  If the rules make sense to us, then we uphold them... sometimes quite inflexibly.  We expect everyone else to play by them, too, and we get very confused when they don't.

I was going to be more careful about revealing my condition until the media circus died down, for my own protection, but duty demands otherwise.  Please don't judge us - or any group of people - by the one very noticeable example.  I can guarantee you that any one very noticeable example is noticeable precisely because it does not fit in.  "One of these things is not like the others," and I do not speak its name.