I've never heard that bit about autistic people and optimism bias. As a diagnosed autistic person, that's really interesting to me! Thinking about the slaughter going on in Gaza right now fills me with despair and rage. It's beyond me how many decent human being can stand it. It's beyond me how how any decent human being could try to stop the protests that are going on around the United States. Clearly, slaughtering people with military weapons is atrocity and unacceptable.

To me that's just so clear and simple, but maybe other people really do have an optimism bias that I lack. I don't know, but it makes sense as a hypothesis.

I'll never forget my childhood learning about the religious concept of hell and how God condemns most people he ever created to eternal torture. That's standard Evangelical Protestant Christianity, and I found it disgusting and horrifyingly evil.

When I was a very young child, I accepted the truth of that evil dogma, and I spent years struggling with enormous sadness and what I suspect was clinical depression. I believed what I was taught about religion, but I hated it so intensely. For me religion meant fear and terror.

But maybe that's because as an autistic person I lacked an optimism bias.

Thanks for writing about this, and it's something I should think about.