12 ms·

This is one of the few things I like being autistic for – I don't think I'm socially capable of having out-groups. I have racist friends, sexist friends, homop

by kypro 3y ago

This is one of the few things I like being autistic for – I don't think I'm socially capable of having out-groups. I have racist friends, sexist friends, homophobic friends, but also antifa friends, feminist friends, homosexual friends. I get on with them all just the same... I don't even like labelling them as such because it's weird to categorise them in those terms. I might disagree with them on things, but I don't dislike them or have any negative emotional feelings towards them as people. If I have an out-group it's probably intolerant people. And again it's not that I dislike them, but I've lost several friends who won't tolerate me defending "intolerant" people. But there's not much I can do about that. I get on with everyone who wants to get on with me. Being highly tolerant is socially difficult which is probably why more socially-abled people seek groups and are susceptible to group think. How do you get someone who believes women shouldn't have the right to vote to hang out with a feminist? This is an issue I have in my life constantly. Everyone I like hates each other. To some extent our societies probably depend on group think and intolerance – otherwise why form a society at all? Unless your bound by some shared ingroup beliefs forming a society makes no sense. And if you're born into that society if you know what's good for you you'll want to adopt those beliefs! It would be a weird world if we were highly tolerant, i think... I question if my tolerance is moral often. To be highly moral you probably need to have good intolerances which I'm not capable of. If we were all like me the world would probably be a worse place. I would have been fine with the Nazi's. I disagree with them and I'm glad they lost the war, but I don't hate them enough to fight against their views. I'd rather we try to find a way to all get along. My inability to form out-groups is why I don't vote anymore because as much as people don't like others, embracing tolerance is probably the only way to ensure people will fight and disagree more.

Aloha 3y ago
I'm much like you, but its not just merely intolerant people (everyone is intolerant, racist, has some measure of bias), its only really highly intolerant people which I exclude. The post 2012 era of people maximalist positions on every conceivable issue also makes it really have to have reasonable discussions with about difficult topics. Trump made some of this harder, if for no other reason the people who I might have an ideological or philosophical disagreement with, simply wouldn't shut up about it. I do vote however, I vote for the things I find desirable and people I find honorable. Being gay has made me very well aware of the fact that I cant ignore politics, I must be active and encourage others to do so.
- kypro 3y ago
  > its only really highly intolerant people which I exclude. Do you actively exclude them? I try to be their friends I just inevitably end up saying something that makes them mad. > I do vote however, I vote for the things I find desirable and people I find honnorable. I don't have well adjusted opinions on what the ideal society would look like for the average person. For example, you're assuming that tolerating homosexuality is what society desires. While I agree with you that this should be what society desires because I don't see any real harm to homosexuality, the same could also be true of other things which you may not be in favour of. I asked here recently what is wrong with teenage pregnancy and why are people so mean to those who want to be teenage mums? You could argue it's not in the child's best interest, but then neither is having poor parents or two dads. You could argue that the teen should have a chance at an education and career, but you could argue family is equally if not more important. This is the problem with my extreme tolerance. I'm tolerant of things that 99.9% of people here would find problematic. Even on the gay-rights issue I question if the state should be allow enforce tolerance towards gay people with force. It seems intolerant to use force on business owner who morally disagrees with homosexuality and doesn't want to serve those they see as "evil". And while I could come up with arguments why we should use state force here I'm too tolerant of both positions to form a strong opinion on it myself. So I suppose my default position here would be closer to "let individuals discriminate against individuals" rather than the state taking either side. I have too many anti-social views to be feel confident that me voting would be in the best interest of society. I'll argue in favour of homosexuality, but I'm not willing to vote and attempt to make the state force my views on others.
  - em-bee 3y ago
    why are people so mean to those who want to be teenage mums funny you should say that, i just had a similar argument over here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37391008 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37391008 to expand on what you say: there is no outgroup. there can't be an outgroup. we are all part of a community and we need to learn to get along with everyone in that community. even criminals. they need of course be appropriately punished and maybe put under surveillance to protect others, but they also need a chance at rehabilitation, and that can't happen if we place them in an outgroup. the same goes for everyone else who we think is harmful to others. we need to work with these people, and help them find their place. what bothers me most is when groups who claim that they want to build a new society then go and exclude people they don't like or that don't like them. that was the trouble with communism for example. a social philosophy that wants to reach everyone must be able to integrate people that reject the philosophy itself. if it can't then it is not suitable for any community to adopt. i am not sure if my trail of thought here makes sense, but the conclusion seems to be that any general social philosophy must be built on tolerance and openness and work to eliminate discrimination. anything else will result in tyranny against those that don't fit in. or to put it differently, if we allow for anyone to be excluded from a community, that means we allow for someone to be socially isolated, which is a punishment that noone should have to suffer permanently.
Given_47 3y ago
> I question if my tolerance is moral often. To be highly moral you probably need to have good intolerances which I'm not capable of. Don’t forget the incredible subjectivity of morality. And defining the intolerable things that would constitute a “highly moral” person is extremely tricky because one could easily argue that tolerance is innately tied to morality. I would love to learn more about philosophy because I’m unsure how the answer isn’t always “I don’t know.” Though maybe it is. The more I think about these things, the more I understand the underlying nuances, but invariably walk away thinking “I don’t know.” It’s frustrating but fun
- mistermann 3y ago
  All that you need to understand this gong show (Earth, 2023) can be found within philosophy...supplement it with some psychology/neuroscience/"mindfulness" and you're all set to have a much better and amusing perspective on The Big Show, including comment sections like this one.
opportune 3y ago
That may be true for you but I don’t think it generalizes to all autistic people. Anecdotally in US leftwing (like actually left not Democrat) political groups it’s very common for the most involved people to be 1. on the spectrum 2. have strong outgroups (eg basically every ML group hates other ML groups) even to the point of it including people nominally in agreement on 99.9% of issues 3. are willing to purity spiral and reject anybody in their outgroup.
- ajkjk 3y ago
  What's an ML group here?
  - opportune 3y ago
    Marxist-Leninist, also colloquially known as “tankies”
- labster 3y ago
  You shouldn’t generalize about autistics on almost any topic, because they have a much wider range of behavior than the set of all neurotypical behaviors.
gustavus 3y ago
> I question if my tolerance is moral often. To be highly moral you probably need to have good intolerances which I'm not capable of. I don't know about that, there's this one Jewish guy who is taken to be largely morally right that summed up most morality with "And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise." and at another point said "Love one another". So I don't know if intolerance is really a good thing morally speaking.
watwut 3y ago
> How do you get someone who believes women shouldn't have the right to vote to hang out with a feminist? Well by forcing the feminist to accept she has to listen about her own inferiority without pushing back too much. And by her forcing her to accept inferior position in that social group. > I've lost several friends who won't tolerate me defending "intolerant" people. I mean, there is tolerating them and then there is defending them or defending harm they cause to others. I do not know what went on with your friends, but in my experience, tolerating sexists literally always means that I have to tolerate insulting things about myself whereas push back is seen as me being rude. (I live in a pretty sexist place, so that situation actually happens regularly and I push back when it seems to make sense. But I did noticed the dynamic.)
srcreigh 3y ago
Your categories of friends are pretty basic. I’m sure if you tried to categorize them as say “honest” aka “courage to share opinions” they’d all fit in one category.

by kypro 3y ago

Aloha 3y ago

I'm much like you, but its not just merely intolerant people (everyone is intolerant, racist, has some measure of bias), its only really highly intolerant people which I exclude. The post 2012 era of people maximalist positions on every conceivable issue also makes it really have to have reasonable discussions with about difficult topics. Trump made some of this harder, if for no other reason the people who I might have an ideological or philosophical disagreement with, simply wouldn't shut up about it. I do vote however, I vote for the things I find desirable and people I find honorable. Being gay has made me very well aware of the fact that I cant ignore politics, I must be active and encourage others to do so.

kypro 3y ago
> its only really highly intolerant people which I exclude. Do you actively exclude them? I try to be their friends I just inevitably end up saying something that makes them mad. > I do vote however, I vote for the things I find desirable and people I find honnorable. I don't have well adjusted opinions on what the ideal society would look like for the average person. For example, you're assuming that tolerating homosexuality is what society desires. While I agree with you that this should be what society desires because I don't see any real harm to homosexuality, the same could also be true of other things which you may not be in favour of. I asked here recently what is wrong with teenage pregnancy and why are people so mean to those who want to be teenage mums? You could argue it's not in the child's best interest, but then neither is having poor parents or two dads. You could argue that the teen should have a chance at an education and career, but you could argue family is equally if not more important. This is the problem with my extreme tolerance. I'm tolerant of things that 99.9% of people here would find problematic. Even on the gay-rights issue I question if the state should be allow enforce tolerance towards gay people with force. It seems intolerant to use force on business owner who morally disagrees with homosexuality and doesn't want to serve those they see as "evil". And while I could come up with arguments why we should use state force here I'm too tolerant of both positions to form a strong opinion on it myself. So I suppose my default position here would be closer to "let individuals discriminate against individuals" rather than the state taking either side. I have too many anti-social views to be feel confident that me voting would be in the best interest of society. I'll argue in favour of homosexuality, but I'm not willing to vote and attempt to make the state force my views on others.
- em-bee 3y ago
  why are people so mean to those who want to be teenage mums funny you should say that, i just had a similar argument over here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37391008 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37391008 to expand on what you say: there is no outgroup. there can't be an outgroup. we are all part of a community and we need to learn to get along with everyone in that community. even criminals. they need of course be appropriately punished and maybe put under surveillance to protect others, but they also need a chance at rehabilitation, and that can't happen if we place them in an outgroup. the same goes for everyone else who we think is harmful to others. we need to work with these people, and help them find their place. what bothers me most is when groups who claim that they want to build a new society then go and exclude people they don't like or that don't like them. that was the trouble with communism for example. a social philosophy that wants to reach everyone must be able to integrate people that reject the philosophy itself. if it can't then it is not suitable for any community to adopt. i am not sure if my trail of thought here makes sense, but the conclusion seems to be that any general social philosophy must be built on tolerance and openness and work to eliminate discrimination. anything else will result in tyranny against those that don't fit in. or to put it differently, if we allow for anyone to be excluded from a community, that means we allow for someone to be socially isolated, which is a punishment that noone should have to suffer permanently.

Given_47 3y ago

> I question if my tolerance is moral often. To be highly moral you probably need to have good intolerances which I'm not capable of. Don’t forget the incredible subjectivity of morality. And defining the intolerable things that would constitute a “highly moral” person is extremely tricky because one could easily argue that tolerance is innately tied to morality. I would love to learn more about philosophy because I’m unsure how the answer isn’t always “I don’t know.” Though maybe it is. The more I think about these things, the more I understand the underlying nuances, but invariably walk away thinking “I don’t know.” It’s frustrating but fun

mistermann 3y ago
All that you need to understand this gong show (Earth, 2023) can be found within philosophy...supplement it with some psychology/neuroscience/"mindfulness" and you're all set to have a much better and amusing perspective on The Big Show, including comment sections like this one.

opportune 3y ago

That may be true for you but I don’t think it generalizes to all autistic people. Anecdotally in US leftwing (like actually left not Democrat) political groups it’s very common for the most involved people to be 1. on the spectrum 2. have strong outgroups (eg basically every ML group hates other ML groups) even to the point of it including people nominally in agreement on 99.9% of issues 3. are willing to purity spiral and reject anybody in their outgroup.

ajkjk 3y ago
What's an ML group here?
- opportune 3y ago
  Marxist-Leninist, also colloquially known as “tankies”
labster 3y ago
You shouldn’t generalize about autistics on almost any topic, because they have a much wider range of behavior than the set of all neurotypical behaviors.

gustavus 3y ago

> I question if my tolerance is moral often. To be highly moral you probably need to have good intolerances which I'm not capable of. I don't know about that, there's this one Jewish guy who is taken to be largely morally right that summed up most morality with "And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise." and at another point said "Love one another". So I don't know if intolerance is really a good thing morally speaking.

watwut 3y ago

> How do you get someone who believes women shouldn't have the right to vote to hang out with a feminist? Well by forcing the feminist to accept she has to listen about her own inferiority without pushing back too much. And by her forcing her to accept inferior position in that social group. > I've lost several friends who won't tolerate me defending "intolerant" people. I mean, there is tolerating them and then there is defending them or defending harm they cause to others. I do not know what went on with your friends, but in my experience, tolerating sexists literally always means that I have to tolerate insulting things about myself whereas push back is seen as me being rude. (I live in a pretty sexist place, so that situation actually happens regularly and I push back when it seems to make sense. But I did noticed the dynamic.)

srcreigh 3y ago

Your categories of friends are pretty basic. I’m sure if you tried to categorize them as say “honest” aka “courage to share opinions” they’d all fit in one category.