There are not many studies on the escalation and de-escalation of commitment bias, but the ones that exist are fascinating. I thank @Ghillie_Guide for setting me off in this important direction.

Let it be known that it is in my own nature to be particularly prone to confirmation bias, so to get to the right path I sometimes need to walk all the way down a wrong path to a cul de sac in the woods, and then bundu-bash my way out.

And yes, I did mean CONFIRMATION bias in that last tweet.

But now I have several questions about how to de-escalate commitment bias.

It would appear based on that recent study critiqued by both @autistamatic and one of the @NeuroClastic contributors, that non-autistic people are more likely to change their mind towards a cause if there is a personal reward, even if the cause is bad.

I have long suspected this, and this is problematic for good causes too, because it means that with some people you get shallow commitment without conviction, and that can lead to big problems, because autistic people can be quite trusting, and they may trust the wrong guys.

So, there are non-autistic people in the autism industry who see themselves benefitting from support by autistic endorsers, so they claim to have seen the light, and switch to neurodiversity lingo without any deep conviction about human rights.

I see a potential problem in banning nonconsensual ABA, and that is that the same abusers may redeploy to other parts of the autism therapy industry, and up the level of ableism there. This is a genuine concern based on observation.

It's the problem with the whole personal punishment and personal reward model of human incentivisation, because it shifts us away from the importance of conviction.

We see this problem in the policing of racism in South Africa. Racism remains pretty pervasive, but people display surprise when Angelo Agrizzi says he's a racist. Because we put Vicky Lombard in jail, so now people just hide how friggin' racist they actually are.

Likewise, ableism doesn't go lie down and die when we call it out. It just does a find-and-replace on jargon and symbols and throws one or two hard-working tame autistics onto its board.

This doesn't mean we're fighting a losing battle. It just means we need to be aware of the power of paradigm and the nature of our respective beasts.