I hope you found no offense in my earlier comment. Please understand that I am sorry.

I'm going to try to respond to your response, but know that other than having been diagnosed myself with slight Asperger's like tendencies, I really have no idea what it is like to be you. I really don't understand what it is like to be autistic, but neither do either of us. I still hope that you can better understand my position with this, if it matters.

> I think most people are insanely self obsessed. From this I can understand why empathy is seen as being absolutely necessary. Frankly, I think most people with autism spectrum disorders actually lack the self obsession that would normally be redirected onto others via empathy.

I believe you are right about most people having a love of self and/or selfish needs. In fact the feeling of love and the ability to do more than just try to simulate love involves what is called a "soul" in religion. That is not to say those more into the autism spectrum have less love. Those just that sometimes they know it is there, but they have to work much harder to be able not to ignore conscience since they do not have what others call empathy- because it is not chemical/"feeling". This conscience should not be defined by someone else or others (this is my ultimate point, btw), but it must belong to the person as a very quiet voice (not those in our heads- in fact you will almost never actually hear it as a voice or even a thought- it is what you just know is right when you eliminate the rational calculations/logic and all of the voices).

A completely rational human that tends to good but has no feeling or understanding of self will tend to utilitarianism, eventually. This is NOT conscience. Let's see why...

BTW- I know this is annoying, but as a quick detour, if unfamiliar with the fallacies of communism or socialism or pure capitalism for that matter, they may tend to one of those, but eventually they realize the goal they seek is utilitarianism- which is a goal only reachable by rules and management that cannot be carried out by those that can be corrupted. Ok, now back to utilitarianism...

The only thing capable of instituting pure utilitarianism that has the highest chance of working are altered, non egotistic, fully altruistic humans or non-humans.

We can't get there to start with, so in the short-term we as would-be utilitarians for the non-egotistic fully altrustic good of society institute an electronic/real democracy. Heck, I would.

But this just means the lobbyists have to lobby everyone. This is called marketing. It is already done. Problem solved for the elite that wish to rule rather than be overrun by the people.

So the people rebel again, replacing with a system that learns and manages humanity, if it does not intentionally or unintentionally destroy it in the process, of course.

So, then (long after we die when they institute it), we would have pure utilitarianism, which is a paradox- it is "perfection in survival and existence", but, in its pure form, it abhors the self (the "ego") to a fault, leading to some very nasty things that "must be done for the good of humanity". There is no conscience here, because any voice, quiet or not, belonging to an individual is wrong utilitarian "utopian" (really dystopian) world if it conflicts with the majority of others.

I very much appreciate the rest of what you said. I think your sense of self is stronger than you are giving yourself credit for, as you are certainly self-aware. Please don't take that as an afront to asperger's- I think it is a benefit to have self-understanding, no matter how your mind works.

Good luck in your future, and feel free to shoot any of this down if you must.