Yeah, we can sniff each other out like bloodhounds.

Rather like how queer people always seem to find each other. And there's a definite crossover there too; I don't think I've ever met a fellow autistic who wasn't also queer.

I do hesitate to associate autism with automatic intelligence as that can lend unneeded authority to those on the spectrum who should not have any.

To be fair I never actually said we're automatically smart. I've met at least one autistic person who was also a complete dumbfuck.

What I think is that we don't go along with the usual social performance. Criticism is "rude". If someone has managed to publish a book, the assumption is that they're automatically better at writing than you, I think. Also, there's this movement of anti-intellectualism, which touts criticism as "elitist", and insists that it is somehow snobby to assign some literature as better than others.

Autistic people likely don't buy into this as much because we don't feel the social pressure to do so.

Exactly. This is much more what I meant. We see things differently and sometimes more clearly, and we don't keep our mouths shut about it.