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Autistic people challenge preconceived ideas about rationality

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Re: Autistic people challenge preconceived ideas about rationality

#71

Post by mherrmann »

bayesianbot wrote: post #58
mherrmann wrote: post #16

My girlfriend was diagnosed with autism 3 weeks ago and we had a related conversation just today. She said she feels more open-minded / less biased than other people. I thought it was because her different experiences were invalidated by society throughout her life. But this makes it sound like there's more to it. Very interesting.

This might sound strange but I'm autistic and first time I really noticed something was "wrong" was when I started school, met new people and noticed that all the adults and children think in a really different way - in my mind they couldn't explain their actions or thoughts logically, and it made no sense to me why they were fine with it. Why were they happy to have a conversation where I found a gaping hole in thei…

It's very interesting. Some of the things my girlfriend described really highlight how weird we neurotypicals are and act. From many social norms and conventions to empathy, a lot of what we do only seems to make sense in the historic or evolutionary context, but not actually in the moment when you think about it. It really does feel like different species. I have no data but suspect people on the spectrum should get along great with other people on the spectrum; You just have the disadvantage that you are in the minority and seem to not be well-understood by society.

Re: Autistic people challenge preconceived ideas about rationality

#72

Post by solarmist »

cwkoss wrote: post #68

In psychology undergrad, I read about a study of anorexic people: they had people rate their own attractiveness, and had strangers rate their attractiveness. Normal population consistently rated themselves higher in attractiveness than strangers did on average. However, anorexic's self ratings were much closer to stranger-ratings. (May not be remembering this correctly and I assume this study was done in the 90s when…

The version of this I heard was about pessimism or depression and other people's perceptions of their attractiveness.

It may have been the same study or one inspired by the study you mentioned, but I've heard things like this before too.

Re: Autistic people challenge preconceived ideas about rationality

#73

Post by nathias »

kragen wrote: post #50
nathias wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't mean that at all, its but that real world is not made for rationallity, and even if we have created special contexts where it is, it doesn't mean it can be generalized out of them.

I would argue exactly the contrary: the real world, the seasons and stars and seeds, is pitilessly rational. It cannot be tricked, pleaded with, or emotionally manipulated. It is harsh, but equally so to everyone, and according to an inexorable logic that cannot be altered but can be exploited. It is the special contexts the humans have created, like churches, courts, and tribes, where the laws of rationality can be…

Ah yes, in the long run it's all rational, but in the long run we're also all dead. Even if that were the case, you are not a star, you are not near equilibrium, you are alive and don't have time to play long term rational games.

Re: Autistic people challenge preconceived ideas about rationality

#74

Post by tux3 »

tonguez wrote: post #60
seba_dos1 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Judging from how I was changing my opinion on similar matters when I was growing up, I guess she simply lacks the insight into why someone would feel the need to reject the established pronouns - she probably doesn't feel that need herself, so she doesn't have any frame of reference to be able to consider that until someone explains it to her, which makes her naturally gravitate towards seemingly unambiguous and clea…

"For me, it only "clicked" once I understood that gender and sexuality are completely arbitrary and subjective social constructs that try to describe a whole spectrum of multidimensional behaviors and (potentially repressed) feelings, so there's little point in trying to objectively categorize them - it's all about the subjective impression of the person themself" Sex is a fundamental property of living organisms; it…

People make a distinction between biological sex (which can itself be more complicated than XX or XY), sexuality, and gender.

The person you're replying to is talking about the last two, not the former.

Re: Autistic people challenge preconceived ideas about rationality

#75

Post by howinteresting »

fragmede wrote: post #59
fao_ wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry... are you arguing for a term that separates autistic people into "productive" and "non productive" that was created by a literal Nazi? I am autistic, pretty much all of the people I know are autistic, and even most of the people I know through my workplace are autistic (it's explicitly a neurodiverse workplace), and I've pretty much never seen anyone need to use the term "aspergers" in general conversation. As…

Pre-Godwinning the discussion doesn't raise discourse, it dumbs it down. Yes that's the history of the term but it was also the accepted term until after its removal from the DSM in 2013, and not everyone that grew up with that term is as plugged in as you and gotten the memo to moved over to the new term yet. It's fine to be angry at neurotypical people who use it as a slur, but you won't win many converts attacking…

It isn't Godwinning when an actual German Nazi is involved.

Re: Autistic people challenge preconceived ideas about rationality

#76

Post by solarmist »

bayesianbot wrote: post #58
mherrmann wrote: post #16

My girlfriend was diagnosed with autism 3 weeks ago and we had a related conversation just today. She said she feels more open-minded / less biased than other people. I thought it was because her different experiences were invalidated by society throughout her life. But this makes it sound like there's more to it. Very interesting.

This might sound strange but I'm autistic and first time I really noticed something was "wrong" was when I started school, met new people and noticed that all the adults and children think in a really different way - in my mind they couldn't explain their actions or thoughts logically, and it made no sense to me why they were fine with it. Why were they happy to have a conversation where I found a gaping hole in thei…

I never really had the "meltdowns" that I hear about autistic people, unless particularly bad temper tantrums when I was 2-5 years old count, but I also agonized about how little sense "social rules" made. I would spend a lot of time pondering and thinking about these things.

So I completely get this and empathize.

Re: Autistic people challenge preconceived ideas about rationality

#77

Post by AussieWog93 »

fao_ wrote: post #40
AussieWog93 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

Sorry... are you arguing for a term that separates autistic people into "productive" and "non productive" that was created by a literal Nazi? I am autistic, pretty much all of the people I know are autistic, and even most of the people I know through my workplace are autistic (it's explicitly a neurodiverse workplace), and I've pretty much never seen anyone need to use the term "aspergers" in general conversation. As…

>I am autistic, pretty much all of the people I know are autistic

I'm not trying to tell you what words you should and shouldn't use; obviously in your circumstance it's a word more likely to cause a political schism and lead to misunderstandings.

Most people, though, live in a NT-dominated culture where the terms "Aspergers" and "Autism" both carry extremely different connotations.

One invokes images of an aloof professor who has misunderstandings but means well, the other invokes images of a child that screams and shits themselves.

In this instance, describing yourself as "Autistic" has real negative consequences that can be greatly ameliorated simply by making a slightly different language choice.

The history of the word is irrelevant.

Re: Autistic people challenge preconceived ideas about rationality

#78

Post by karmakaze »

m_fayer wrote: post #67
seba_dos1 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a bad stereotype. It's far more common for autistic people to have the ability to relate emotionally to others cranked up to overwhelming levels (hyper-empathy), which makes them avoid situations that require relating to others out of severe stress it's usually causing on them - leading to other people perceiving them as unempathetic.

I almost wonder if empathy is the right word then, maybe this would best be described as something like "susceptibility to emotional contagion." Empathy as commonly defined includes an impulse to comfort and stand by, as opposed to avoidance.

I think empathy is the right word meaning to sense/feel what the other person is feeling. Being empathetic is the comforting non-avoidance aspect.

Re: Autistic people challenge preconceived ideas about rationality

#79

Post by TOMDM »

seba_dos1 wrote: post #69
TOMDM wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> so there's little point in trying to objectively categorize them I think there's more than a little utility provided by the communication it enables. I'm all for non binary identities and letting people identify across them as they want, however with any change we must also recognize the utility in the previous norms so that we can preserve some useful aspects as we construct new norms.

Can you give an example of such utility? Frankly, I don't see it - in my opinion, the best options are either not having genderized pronouns at all (and that's the option I'd actually prefer), or expressing the whole range of identities with them. Going somewhere in the middle is nothing more than just asking for dissonance to happen, which isn't useful.

Sure, the current utility is that most people do currently comfortably fit into the binary. We should introduce language to account for people that don't, and if demographics shifted such that most people didn't feel like the current binary fit them then we should adjust, but currently the majority of the population is happily self identifying within the binary and it's a great shortcut for them to communicate some assumptions about their identity. Only assumptions, not hard rules, but there's still utility in that.

Re: Autistic people challenge preconceived ideas about rationality

#80

Post by Jensson »

m_fayer wrote: post #67
seba_dos1 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a bad stereotype. It's far more common for autistic people to have the ability to relate emotionally to others cranked up to overwhelming levels (hyper-empathy), which makes them avoid situations that require relating to others out of severe stress it's usually causing on them - leading to other people perceiving them as unempathetic.

I almost wonder if empathy is the right word then, maybe this would best be described as something like "susceptibility to emotional contagion." Empathy as commonly defined includes an impulse to comfort and stand by, as opposed to avoidance.

> Empathy as commonly defined includes an impulse to comfort and stand by, as opposed to avoidance.

Right, and thinking something is delicious includes an impulse to eat rather than avoid, but lots of people still avoid food they think is delicious in order to diet. When empathy becomes too strong then it starts hurting you as a person a lot every time you see someone who has problems, so you learn to predict and avoid those situations, or you might even learn to fear them since the empathy creates too much agony in you. Empathy is just a feeling, your rational part can still work around it.

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