"Choose" is an awkward word here. There are autistic people who will do alk these things, have a slight road bump on life, and it will all fracture apart. Then they will self-isolate for awhile and eventually emerge and try it again. There's a sort of category of people who can do these things, want to do these things on a genuine and honest level, but can only manage them with great difficulty.
I do agree with the general notion that todays conception of autism was generated out of thin air due to the hypercompetitiveness of society. The entire concept of a "spectrum disorder" is a bit odd. I also notice how nobody seems to be correctly measuring if this new paradigm is actually helping the patients. The amount of stigma that exists now that did not exist in the 80s towards the exact same kind of person is incredible. Many of these people would manage, with difficulty, completely unassisted.
I sometimes wonder if the mental health field has damned the people they call autistic while believing they're helping them. The insistence on labelling peoples psychological quirks as a "disorder" it hurts people in profound ways.