damon smith, aspie, terrorist ...

Man, 20, found guilty of planting home-made bomb on busy tube

i saw this news report originally on the BBC. the item, of course, made prominent reference to his diagnosis of AS. and, since then, i've been feeling more than a little uneasy about the way this diagnosis is being used in association with violent crime. i've never seen any reporting that prominently comments that the terrorist was actually NT. yet most, we must assume, are. so, it does seem to me that the association being created by such reporting is creating a very false stereotype of people with AS. indeed, it would seem that with such an association so prevalent in our society it's probably unwise to admit you have AS for fear of being similarly labelled.

This bothers me a lot..

The aspergers point is being brought up in these cases in order to 'help' the person.. to try and show that they weren't properly aware of the consequences of what they were doing..
But a horrible side effect is that it makes everyone start believing that aspies are dangerous.

In reality, if the person does have aspergers (sorry.. I doubt it - perhaps a very low intellectual capability, mixed with an 'I don't care about anyone else' personality).. then he's clearly got other issues going on for him.

I've only told a few people that i have aspergers, and I've had to correct their beliefs about aspergers and empathy each time. Every single one of them has said something like ''Oh, that means you don't have empathy''..
Yep.. because I've always listened and understood what they've said.. they've remarked a number of times that I really understand them.. and then when I say what I'm diagnosed with, I suddenly lose my ability to care and understand them..?

I might just explain my difficulties in the future without mention of the word aspergers.. unless oc I'm talking to someone with a lot of experience of aspies. Professionals (mostly psychologists rather than psychiatrists) are generally pretty good,, I've met a couple of really good ones.

i read a number of newspaper articles surrounding this case. what emerges is that the individual involved is in denial about his actions. certainly, his diagnosis of AS has been used to obscure what was a deliberate attempt to cause a terrorist incident. anyone with sufficient intellect to build a bomb surely has sufficient intellect to understand what bombs are used for too.

quite what motivated him is anyone's guess. it seems to me to a have been mainly the entertainment value with possibly some degree of attention seeking. but the sad fact is that this individual has added to the already quite extensive list of those with AS convicted of terrorist acts. google asperger and terrorist and no shortage of links will appear, including this one ...

Do certain mental disorders put people more at risk of being radicalised?

... looking at this, i do wonder if my conception of AS isn't more high functioning than is implied here. i've always had a very strong identification with moral values, as i believe most aspies do.

I don't think there's a correlation with Asperger's or high functioning autism and violence but after scrolling through the category "People with Asperger Syndrome" on Wikipedia, I noticed there were a fair amount of terrorists, shooters, etc. There's definitely a tendency for violent aspies to commit certain crimes, perhaps to sort of 'get back' as a result of social isolation. For more aggressive people that are prone to envy, I'd imagine this creates a sort of victim complex and while most of us have more than enough introspection to regulate our thoughts and emotions and realize 'violence is bad,' the fact is, some people simply don't, and thus crime.

Looking at the article, and I know it's wrong to just diagnose some random person off the web but his failure to understand the consequences of his actions seems like it could be the result of a personality disorder. The obsession with weapons and similar attacks, and the fact that he found it funny does make me wonder if he had sadistic tendencies, probably not but who knows...

I get that the mother is probably the type to defend her kid no matter what, but I just can't get past the part where 'he does not understand.' So he's developed a fascination with terrorist attacks, collected weapons, and designed bombs and doesn't understand that those things hurt people? I think the real stigma is the belief that aspies aren't aware of the consequences of their actions or have this distorted sense of morality which is just stupid. Both Aspies and neurotypicals are capable of differentiating between right and wrong.

Devon student guilty of planting homemade bomb on London tube

The Guardian wrote:The note included a reminder to “keep this a secret between me and Allah #InspireTheBelievers”.

... this is why i believe this was a deliberate and premeditated terrorist attack that had little if anything to do with AS. this individual clearly has sufficient 'theory of mind' to recognise that what he was planning to do was very wrong. and undoubtedly he fully understood that severe injury and even death might be caused to many people. the reference to allah clearly indicate an obsession with muslim extremism. there can be no doubt from this note what was on his mind as he went about perpetrating this crime. this quite simply isn't a case of someone with AS being too socially impaired to comprehend the consequences of their actions. he knew exactly what he was doing.