The key to the future is the past. That is, to determine what will happen, we have to determine the patterns of what has happened. Societies fluctuate, but there are always two broad patterns: equality and technology both increase over time. Eventually, the exponential growth of computing technology and artificial intelligence combined with ever-increasing social awareness of marginalized groups will add up to more respect for people with autism and other neurological differences.
Computing technology is already improving rapidly. Drones are becoming more and more common as the technology to fly a plane from thousands of miles away gets cheaper. Everything from banking to teaching can be done online these days, and even phones can access the Internet. “Smart” (driverless) cars and “smart” houses are in development. Who knows what kind of technology we’ll have by 2041? But behind every technological advancement and propagation, there are brilliant, detail-oriented minds. This is where the autistic population comes in.
It’s growing.
Long ago, only 1 in 250 newborns were autistic; now it’s 1 in 88 ; maybe it will be 1 in 20 in another 20 years. And their talents (which include diligent focus, memorization skills, mathematical thinking, the ability to find patterns and anomalies in data, and the ability to do high-quality repetitive work) are perfect for the tech industry. Translation: autistic individuals will be a key part of our technological future. Firms like SAP, CAI and Microsoft are already starting to recognize their potential and making concerted efforts to hire them.
This is excellent news for autistic people, who are currently at a distinct disadvantage when it comes to being employed. “Soft” skills, like networking, interviewing and small talk, are even more difficult for them than they are for everybody else, and employers have been known to use personality tests to actively discriminate against their way of thinking. But as their skills become more and more necessary in our increasingly technology-oriented workforce, employers will have to overlook these biases if they want to stay competitive.
The same thing happened with industry in World War II: while all the men were away fighting, factories had to hire women if they wanted to stay in business, and structural and societal biases started to crumble once women proved themselves capable. Similarly, when autistic people prove themselves as capable employees, structural and societal biases will be on their last legs.
Personal, not just economic, attitudes will also shift as society marches further towards equality for all. Racial minorities, women, and the LGBT community have all had their watershed movements for civil rights, and there’s no reason to think that this trend won’t continue. Autistics, and the different/disabled in general, will be next. They’ve suffered from ignorance and barriers for far too long, and as more and more of them are born their friends and families, and society in general, will be forced to confront those.
Will there be temporary backslides into more ignorance, more discrimination, more hate crimes? Yes. There always are in any civil rights movement. But equality will ultimately triumph. The moral arc of the universe is long, but it eventually bends towards justice.
