I’ve long had problems with open-mindedness since I am on the autism spectrum and it does

not come naturally to those of us on the autism spectrum, but I have gradually gotten a lot
better at it over the years. I have noticed that a whole lot of very closed-minded people who I
would consider meta-ignorant who are on the alt-right also happen to be on the autism
spectrum like me and they have similar life experiences to me.

Except for whatever reason, I chose to have a completely opposite worldview from them as a
democratic socialist who believes in tolerance, equality, justice, helping the needy, and all of
that good stuff. Whereas both I and they feel quite put-upon by the rest of society, we have
quite different reactions to it, with them becoming very right-wing and me becoming very left-
wing.

Of course people on the autism spectrum are very black-and-white thinkers generally, very
much all-or-nothing, and tend to be one extreme or the other, either far right or far left, either
religious fundamentalist or atheist, not very often anything in between. Open-mindedness is
thus something incredibly difficult for us on the autism spectrum although I think I have
improved over years of gradually getting better at social interactions, when I used to pretty
much never have any positive or productive interactions with anyone back when I was a
teenager or kid, along with talk therapy and psychiatric treatment for my emotional issues.

I think I have now reached a stage in life where I am more open to new ideas that conflict with
my preconceived notions than at any time earlier in life and I am in my 30s. But only now am I
even starting to really be open-minded at all, I used to view being open-minded as a bad thing,
as being gullible and foolish, in keeping with the saying that if you are too open-minded your
brain will fall out of your head. I am getting less like that now.

Anyway these videos are all quite good. I just wanted to mention the autism spectrum thing to
you because for people on the autism spectrum, open-mindedness is more difficult, as is
empathy, as is seeing things from somebody else’s point of view, as is seeing things in shades
of gray rather than black-or-white, all-or-nothing thinking. These autistic thinking traits, I have
found, are not just confined to people on the autism spectrum. A whole lot of people have
them to varying degrees, but do not have enough other symptoms to be diagnosable as on the
autism spectrum. Actually a majority of people have maybe 1 or 2 of the symptoms of autism,
that is why you have to meet a whole bunch of them to actually meet the diagnostic criteria
well enough to be able to get diagnosed with it officially like I did.

But your videos, and many other YouTube videos I have seen by other people, have helped
make me more open-minded. Along with a number of other things like various things I have
read, various interactions I have had with people in real life, really all sorts of things that have
influenced me in a positive way. Being gullible and foolish, which I mentioned earlier, is
actually a separate issue and I suffered from that even when I was quite closed-minded.
Someone who is totally full of themselves and thinks they know everything and cannot be
outsmarted is quite an easy mark, I got used by people a bunch of times because I was so easy
for anyone to manipulate into doing almost anything they wanted. So actually it is closed-
minded people who are the most gullible! It happened to me when I was a closed-minded self-
important prick, people could trick me into doing almost anything, I know this firsthand! I had
things completely backwards about open-mindedness. Plus my lack of understanding of other
people really was quite disabling. I have changed since then, now I know what to watch out for
and what all of my psychological weak points are and how to defend against them and how to
tell if someone is trying to use me.