What we want is that one day every workplace will be diverse - we already encourage that with gender and ethnicity, but the next frontier is neurodiversity and it will become ordinary. People won't think twice about it.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the importance of recognizing and embracing neurodiversity in the workplace as a natural evolution of diversity efforts.
Simon Baron-Cohen highlights the necessity of extending workplace diversity beyond gender and ethnicity to include neurodiversity. He envisions a future where a variety of cognitive profiles are recognized as normal, fostering acceptance and inclusion without hesitation, thereby enriching the work environment and benefiting society as a whole.
In practice
This quote can be used in a presentation on workplace diversity initiatives.
When I first started in this field there were all kinds of stereotypes about autism, as if these were children from another planet, or children who had been brought up by wolves, that they weren't part of our population and were somehow separate.
Empathy is like a universal solvent. Any problem immersed in empathy becomes soluble. It is effective as a way of anticipating and resolving interpersonal problems, whether this is a marital conflict, an international conflict, a problem at work, difficulties in a friendship, political deadlocks, a family dispute, or a problem with a neighbor.
Brains come in different types and they're all normal.
Well, in the general population, we find differences between the typical male and typical female. For example, males seem to be more interested in systems and females seem to be more interested in people and particularly people's emotions.
Empathy is a skill like any other human skill - and if you get a chance to practice, you can get better at it.
There are people with Asperger's whom I've met who certainly would be very upset to learn they'd hurt another person's feelings. They often have very strong moral consciences and moral codes. They care about not hurting people.
I have been on the road and visited numerous places and met people from all over the globe. I can say that it looks nearly the same everywhere I have been: The climate crisis is ignored by people in charge, despite the science being crystal clear.
Millions of people in nearly 80 countries still live in fear of landmines and explosive remnants of war, which take an unacceptable toll on lives and limbs, and people's livelihoods
The winter solstice has always been special to me as a barren darkness that gives birth to a verdant future beyond imagination, a time of pain and withdrawal that produces something joyfully inconceivable, like a monarch butterfly masterfully extracting itself from the confines of its cocoon, bursting forth into unexpected glory.
For way too long the politicians and people in power have got away with not doing anything at all to fight the climate crisis and ecological crisis.
The wind of change is blowing through the continent. Whether we like it or not, this growth of national consciousness is a political fact.
I see one-third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished.
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