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> What is the upside of being autistic? A strong sense of right and wrong, ability to use the outside lens on allistic societal structures, a rich internal exp

> What is the upside of being autistic? A strong sense of right and wrong, ability to use the outside lens on allistic societal structures, a rich internal experience, deep interests that actually give you something to talk about other than "the weather" and "the football" and gossip. These can all, of course, be framed as downsides: difficulty acting immorally / being a bystander, tendency to confuse others in what "should" be formulaic social interactions, Theory of Mind® Deficit™ (#NotPseudoscience), "specific and limited interests" / deficit in "small talk" ability.

0x1ceb00da 2y ago
> a rich internal experience What does it even mean? You don't know what is going inside other people's head.
- wizzwizz4 2y ago
  https://neuroclastic.com/exploring-the-inner-worlds-of-autistics/ https://neuroclastic.com/exploring-the-inner-worlds-of-autis... This link isn't what I was referring to, but it is a different thing that could be described as a "rich internal experience". What I was referring to is hard to explain, but it is apparent after a few hours of observation and conversation. I'm not saying allistics are in some sense lesser,¹ but you can tell, when talking to them, that most allistics just… don't have anything going on between the ears except future plans, the occasional daydream, and worries about their positions in status hierarchies – that is, when they're not actively engaged in a task. (When they are, they can have insights into what they're doing as deep as anyone else.) Most allistics need to explicitly meditate in order to pay attention to anything beyond their narrow internal subjective experience – and, not coincidentally, most allistics who sing the praises of "meditation" and "mindfulness" actually have no clue what it is or how it works or even how to do it. ¹: Yes, I am being deliberately provocative. No, this isn't an acceptable way to talk about entire categories of people, but in my experience, most allistics don't notice what they're doing to other people until somebody does it to them. The Golden Rule is, it seems, a heuristic that they have to deliberately and consciously employ, rather than something they have an intuitive understanding of: undeliberated-upon allistic morality is "do unto others what your neighbours are also doing unto those Others". So: if this wording upset you, that was deliberate. I'm still sorry for it.
  - staticman2 2y ago
    >>>most allistics just… don't have anything going on between the ears except future plans, the occasional daydream, and worries about their positions in status hierarchies This obviously isn't true, since finding a partner and raising children doesn't neatly fall into any of those categories.
    - wizzwizz4 2y ago
      Have you read how allistics talk about that sort of thing? Pick up a 19th-century romance novel, or just head over to Reddit: finding a partner is about status hierarchies, too! This observation has even got its own witty aphorisms: https://quoteinvestigator.com/2018/06/05/sex-power/ https://quoteinvestigator.com/2018/06/05/sex-power/ > “Everything in human life is really about sex, except sex. Sex is about power.” It's salacious daydreams and status hierarchies! All the way down! I do find it really hard to imagine how raising children could fit into these categories – I was figuring out how to word my concession on that point from the moment I read your comment –, but then I turn to my fiction books, and what do I find there? So much talk of honour, or parents projecting a desired future on their children, and such little mention of anything else except when it's actually happening. In the real world, too: how often do we see people hurting their children "for their own good", where the only possible good is to the future plans or social status of the parent? I'm sure many allistics are capable of loving their children for their own sakes, but from what I've seen, it's not the norm: it's something that has to be learned, and actively practised ("engagement in a task"), rather than something that comes naturally to most. (And there's nothing wrong with that – provided that one puts the effort in. There is something wrong with being a self-absorbed, neglectful parent, too absorbed in the Proper Way of Parenting to let the village make up for one's own deficiencies.)
      - staticman2 2y ago
        You can call 19th century romance fiction as being about "status hierarchies" in the same sense you can say "There's only 3 types of stories, man verse man, man verse nature, man verse himself". I don't see how reducing this to a succinct label shows whether or not there is a "rich inner life" at play, going back to your earlier statement about neurotypical people. Lord of the Rings might be a book about "man vs man" and maybe Frodo's resistence of the ring is about "man vs self" but there's probably some richness to be found in those 1000 pages, for example. I guess I'd push back at the idea what you call "status hierarchies" is less "rich" in terms of inner life.
IshKebab 2y ago
The idea that you think only autistic people have deep experiences is kind of hilarious. Also I don't think you understand small talk, which I guess is not surprising... But people don't talk about the weather because they are super interested in the weather.
- shrimp_emoji 2y ago
  What you see as talking about the weather is like seeing two women looking at each other whereas it's really a picture of a vase and 4D part-subconscious dog-butt-sniffing status/value computations between you and the other person. Also there's few other opener topics.
  - wizzwizz4 2y ago
    Wait, even small talk is about status / position in a social hierarchy? Are you sure?
    - IshKebab 2y ago
      Usually it isn't but it definitely can be. E.g. at a party asking people what they do. It's not necessarily about winning a social power battle, but it can be used to discover what sort of person someone is so you can interact with them easier.
- wizzwizz4 2y ago
  “Rich internal experience” doesn't mean the same as “deep experiences”, any more than “rich flour” (e.g. powdered rye grain) means the same as “deep flowers” (e.g. the bright yellow bit of a daffodil plant); and I was speaking in generalities, not universals. You're right: it would have been kind of hilarious had I been insisting upon what you said, because even I can see it's very false. Most allistics are, after all, capable of creating and appreciating meaningful art (albeit, usually limited to the types and genres of art considered conventional by local society during the first couple dozen years of their lives, unless they've been through particularly-significant external experiences). > people don't talk about the weather because they are super interested in the weather Meteorologists do. I get that small talk is a social bonding exercise, and that "the weather" is just a common example of an inoffensive, vaguely-relevant shared experience. I understand why people would default to this if they didn't have much else to talk about, and they felt an instinctive obligation to prioritise perceived inoffensiveness to society-at-large over the actual joy of the actual conversation participants. I just don't understand why this limitation is considered a good thing. Surely people would prefer to talk about something they enjoy talking about, and hear about something they enjoy hearing about? The fact that people can't – or feel they can't – is surely a bad thing… or, at least, morally neutral. The downsides of autism are paraded around everywhere, yet the downsides of allism are, via Tall Poppy Syndrome, somehow transmuted into downsides of autism? Like, do people not notice they're doing this? Clearly not, if https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4296736/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4296736/ (2006) is anything to go by.
shrimp_emoji 2y ago
I want to protest that I do have a rich internal experience as an allistic, but I don't know whether that means I'm actually autistic. :D
- wizzwizz4 2y ago
  Anyone who tells you "all allistic people are X" is a fool. If you've met one allistic person, you've met one allistic person.

0x1ceb00da 2y ago

> a rich internal experience What does it even mean? You don't know what is going inside other people's head.

wizzwizz4 2y ago
https://neuroclastic.com/exploring-the-inner-worlds-of-autistics/ https://neuroclastic.com/exploring-the-inner-worlds-of-autis... This link isn't what I was referring to, but it is a different thing that could be described as a "rich internal experience". What I was referring to is hard to explain, but it is apparent after a few hours of observation and conversation. I'm not saying allistics are in some sense lesser,¹ but you can tell, when talking to them, that most allistics just… don't have anything going on between the ears except future plans, the occasional daydream, and worries about their positions in status hierarchies – that is, when they're not actively engaged in a task. (When they are, they can have insights into what they're doing as deep as anyone else.) Most allistics need to explicitly meditate in order to pay attention to anything beyond their narrow internal subjective experience – and, not coincidentally, most allistics who sing the praises of "meditation" and "mindfulness" actually have no clue what it is or how it works or even how to do it. ¹: Yes, I am being deliberately provocative. No, this isn't an acceptable way to talk about entire categories of people, but in my experience, most allistics don't notice what they're doing to other people until somebody does it to them. The Golden Rule is, it seems, a heuristic that they have to deliberately and consciously employ, rather than something they have an intuitive understanding of: undeliberated-upon allistic morality is "do unto others what your neighbours are also doing unto those Others". So: if this wording upset you, that was deliberate. I'm still sorry for it.
- staticman2 2y ago
  >>>most allistics just… don't have anything going on between the ears except future plans, the occasional daydream, and worries about their positions in status hierarchies This obviously isn't true, since finding a partner and raising children doesn't neatly fall into any of those categories.
  - wizzwizz4 2y ago
    Have you read how allistics talk about that sort of thing? Pick up a 19th-century romance novel, or just head over to Reddit: finding a partner is about status hierarchies, too! This observation has even got its own witty aphorisms: https://quoteinvestigator.com/2018/06/05/sex-power/ https://quoteinvestigator.com/2018/06/05/sex-power/ > “Everything in human life is really about sex, except sex. Sex is about power.” It's salacious daydreams and status hierarchies! All the way down! I do find it really hard to imagine how raising children could fit into these categories – I was figuring out how to word my concession on that point from the moment I read your comment –, but then I turn to my fiction books, and what do I find there? So much talk of honour, or parents projecting a desired future on their children, and such little mention of anything else except when it's actually happening. In the real world, too: how often do we see people hurting their children "for their own good", where the only possible good is to the future plans or social status of the parent? I'm sure many allistics are capable of loving their children for their own sakes, but from what I've seen, it's not the norm: it's something that has to be learned, and actively practised ("engagement in a task"), rather than something that comes naturally to most. (And there's nothing wrong with that – provided that one puts the effort in. There is something wrong with being a self-absorbed, neglectful parent, too absorbed in the Proper Way of Parenting to let the village make up for one's own deficiencies.)
    - staticman2 2y ago
      You can call 19th century romance fiction as being about "status hierarchies" in the same sense you can say "There's only 3 types of stories, man verse man, man verse nature, man verse himself". I don't see how reducing this to a succinct label shows whether or not there is a "rich inner life" at play, going back to your earlier statement about neurotypical people. Lord of the Rings might be a book about "man vs man" and maybe Frodo's resistence of the ring is about "man vs self" but there's probably some richness to be found in those 1000 pages, for example. I guess I'd push back at the idea what you call "status hierarchies" is less "rich" in terms of inner life.

IshKebab 2y ago

The idea that you think only autistic people have deep experiences is kind of hilarious. Also I don't think you understand small talk, which I guess is not surprising... But people don't talk about the weather because they are super interested in the weather.

shrimp_emoji 2y ago
What you see as talking about the weather is like seeing two women looking at each other whereas it's really a picture of a vase and 4D part-subconscious dog-butt-sniffing status/value computations between you and the other person. Also there's few other opener topics.
- wizzwizz4 2y ago
  Wait, even small talk is about status / position in a social hierarchy? Are you sure?
  - IshKebab 2y ago
    Usually it isn't but it definitely can be. E.g. at a party asking people what they do. It's not necessarily about winning a social power battle, but it can be used to discover what sort of person someone is so you can interact with them easier.
wizzwizz4 2y ago
“Rich internal experience” doesn't mean the same as “deep experiences”, any more than “rich flour” (e.g. powdered rye grain) means the same as “deep flowers” (e.g. the bright yellow bit of a daffodil plant); and I was speaking in generalities, not universals. You're right: it would have been kind of hilarious had I been insisting upon what you said, because even I can see it's very false. Most allistics are, after all, capable of creating and appreciating meaningful art (albeit, usually limited to the types and genres of art considered conventional by local society during the first couple dozen years of their lives, unless they've been through particularly-significant external experiences). > people don't talk about the weather because they are super interested in the weather Meteorologists do. I get that small talk is a social bonding exercise, and that "the weather" is just a common example of an inoffensive, vaguely-relevant shared experience. I understand why people would default to this if they didn't have much else to talk about, and they felt an instinctive obligation to prioritise perceived inoffensiveness to society-at-large over the actual joy of the actual conversation participants. I just don't understand why this limitation is considered a good thing. Surely people would prefer to talk about something they enjoy talking about, and hear about something they enjoy hearing about? The fact that people can't – or feel they can't – is surely a bad thing… or, at least, morally neutral. The downsides of autism are paraded around everywhere, yet the downsides of allism are, via Tall Poppy Syndrome, somehow transmuted into downsides of autism? Like, do people not notice they're doing this? Clearly not, if https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4296736/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4296736/ (2006) is anything to go by.

shrimp_emoji 2y ago

I want to protest that I do have a rich internal experience as an allistic, but I don't know whether that means I'm actually autistic. :D

wizzwizz4 2y ago
Anyone who tells you "all allistic people are X" is a fool. If you've met one allistic person, you've met one allistic person.