Lately I checked the statistics of this blog, courteously provided by the site. To my surprise the largest amount of traffic to my pages comes from China, with the US as a close second. This makes for fascinating fantasy. Or is it?

Why would so much traffic come from a country where people speak a language I have no knowledge of, and vice versa? The second reason I could think of, was that most of those who read my blog, use some kind of Chinese provider because it’ll be cheaper than home grown providers. But this sounds a bit farfetched to me. I really do believe that most Dutch citizens use Dutch based providers for their internet activity.

So I’m left with reason number 1: this blog is subject to large scale spying, from China as well as the US. Why on earth would anyone want to spy on me?

Were the US is concerned, I can think of a reason. We know — among others from people like Edward Snowden — that the US has seen fit to spy on as many people as they can think of and as their servers will allow. They use intricate algorithms to shift through all internet traffic and sites in search of stuff that might lead them to believe there could possibly be something subversive about it. Knowing US politicians, I would hazard to guess that the search criteria allow for at least a power of ten more hits than are objectively, conceivably, possibly subversive. And then the leap towards them monitoring my blog as well, is not so big, however silly it may be.

Silly? Yes, very much so. Everyone with a personality disorder is not a potential subversive. After quite some experience with mental health care, I’ve come to the conclusion — as do most of the people in my position and those who work in mental health care — that most people have some kind of personality disorder. Some make them into successful politicians, other into software engineers who can conjure up algorithms to spy on people. And yes, some make people into (potential) terrorists. But not people with autism!

How do I know? It’s actually quite simple, but, I fear, not something the NSA-nuts want to contemplate. Let’s examine this more closely.

What makes people into terrorists? Among other things, one vital ingredient is the desire to be part of some kind of ‘culture’. In Europe we see this most often with people who feel lost in the normal ‘western’ culture, and in compensation start looking toward the heritage of their parents or grandparents and think to find a place they belong. This is a highly social activity. Drafting people for something extreme as terrorism — on whatever scale — requires great social skills on the part of those who do the drafting, but — and this is where it becomes essential — also a great social receptiveness on the side of the draftees. They not only have to feel lost, but also feel this overwhelming urge to be part of some social group in which they feel they can totally integrate.

See where the thought of people with autism possibly being part of this goes wrong? They — as I — not only feel no urge to become part of some social group, they would actually do their utmost to avoid it. This makes people with autism among the most trustable where it comes to spying on people, without an agenda of their own, because they do not feel for the people they spy on, nor feel any urge to be part of any group.

When someone comes up to me and makes me a fantastic offer, the first thing I feel is uneasiness. Being approached by someone for whatever reason is something I much rather avoid. This even applies to things I initiate myself. When, for example, I put up something for sale on the internet, I feel quite uneasy about people reacting and wanting to buy, because this will in all likelihood necessitate some kind of human interaction. Often enough this has meant I didn’t sell the item in question, just because I hesitated to contact the persons interested in buying.

Now try and see this scenario in which someone might want to recruit me for some kind of subversive goal. This would entail a huge amount of social contact compared to simply selling something over the internet, and much more action on my part for me to become anything like a possible threat. It is, simply put, impossible for an autistic person to make this leap of faith.

So, if my explanation of this China syndrome is correct and also the NSA is monitoring my blogs, this would prove beyond a reasonable doubt that they are engaging in activities that are utterly useless, in spying on people that couldn’t possibly become subversive, in throwing away lots of time and money (there are a huge amount of autistic people in the world) for no reason other than to throw it away.

I hope I’m wrong. I would really much rather see all that money go to people who hunger, of which there are plenty in China as well as the US, I’m sure. Not because I’m a humanitarian, but because I just hate anything illogical. And as a mister Angel wrote during the interbellum: there is nothing more illogical than waging war, be it as a state, or a subversive group. Actually I find it amazingly stupid of extremist groups to think that through destruction they could build something more valuable. It’s like arguing that the best way to learn to swim, is to drown.

But that’s me. I am autistic.

And in light of all of this, I start to feel that might actually be something to be proud of.