This guy’s head is like 90% face to 10% forehead.

I wouldn’t quite say I’m demanding an explanation. I would hope you see it as having a discussion with a typical who is genuinely trying to understand and is willing to modify behaviors if they are problematic.

Yes, with you, I do see it that way, because you have very much indicated a genuine desire to understand and learn.

That is why I prefaced that section with “If you had only said this, my response would be blah blah.”

It was a hypothetical. I felt it was worth writing out because a lot of people do the ‘why are you so offended?’ as a careless, uninquisitive attempt to paint the offended person as basically unreasonable and hysterical.

Please don’t feel like I’m demanding your time or attention. If you need to tell me to fuck off, that’s cool, won’t hurt my feelings. If you need to space out your responses, I don’t need an immediate reply, take as long as you want.

I believe you, appreciate you saying it, and have the same sentiment toward you. =)

I don’t know what it is, but you can’t throw a stick without hitting a neurodiverse person within our subculture.

…

Another commonality among neurodiverse folks that I’ve noticed is that they are far more likely to be bi or some sort of trans.

My theory on this is basically:

1. neurodiverse people tend to basically just inherently give less of a shit about existing predominant social and lifestyle norms, as we tend to view them as just then currently existing ‘rules’ of society, which have objectively changed and shifted over time and place… basically we are more likely to see many social rules as arbitrary, very often justified by nonsense.

2. we are more likely to be shunned and misunderstood by society in general, so we are more likely to gravitate toward some kind of smaller, accepting, ‘found family’ type of social environment.

Anyhow, savant or savant-like behaviors. Yeah, it’s not a great term. But, you know what I mean. It’s totally a thing.

I do know what you mean, I understand.

I am just very, very used to people in my life treating me in an absolute, binary way.

Either I am a genius who is just expected to solve absurdly complex theoretical problems for them, which takes hours and hours of time, and this is just expected of me, without any compensation or recognition or thanks, whatsoever…

Or, I get ‘Sir this is a Wendy’s’, laughed at and mocked when I do it of my own accord and they entirely don’t fucking care whatsoever.

My questions about ‘Why’ would they do that are rhetorical. Those behaviors, even as a hobby, would never occur to me in a million years.

A whole lot of people use a rhetorical question as basically a derisive, sarcastic insult.

But not all people. Some people ask what others view as rhetorical questions as literal, actual questions. They actually want an answer.

And some people use it as an equivalent of a completely different statement or emotional expression.

In your case, when you ask ‘why would someone do this?’ what you actually mean is ‘wow, that’s so wild, I would never think anyone would do this as a hobby!’.

But many others use ‘why would you do that?’ to mainly indicate anger or shock… instead of just… saying that they are angry and shocked. In that case, basically there is no acceptable, meaningful response, (beyond emotionally sympathizing with the rhetorical question asker) despite it being phrased as a question, which prompts a response.

Sometimes some people do all of these things, at different times, and some people people will start off with one intention and then in the same conversation flip it around to other intentions.

This is outstandingly confusing to me, because almost everyone has a different way they will tell you that languages and phrases like this work when they and other people use them, but they all insist their way they is the way everyone acts.

The reality is that everyone sends and reads context and intonation clues differently to specify the actual intent behind a rhetorical question… but basically all neurotypicals act like the way they do it is the objective universal standard.

This has actually been studied and is not me just making up an ‘opinion’ here.

Neurotypicals, on average, misinterpret roughly 50% of ambiguous social cues during conversation, but generally estimate that they only miss around 10%.

Neurodivergents are much more likely to ask for clarity when they reach a social cue they realize is ambiguous, and are likely to get a rude, dismissive, angry… some kind of negative response for doing so, from a neurotypical.

I suppose that’s what I’m really trying to ask. You’ll see the term ‘autist’ used as an explanation, ‘neuro’ in this case. You, and other autistic people, can find this offensive, and rightfully so. Is there an inoffensive term for these behaviors?

There absolutely are behavior patterns that are objectively, correctly associated with certain ‘diagnoses’ of specific kinds of neurodivergence.

With ‘neuro’ as a blanket term, you run into the whole problem of conflating a particular diagnosis’s patterns with each other, as I’ve already outlined.

But anyway…as with other terms that can be, but are not always used as slurs… intent, context, manner of usage, who is using it… all that stuff matters as well.

“The autist has an esoteric, information/analysis centric hobby, that’s so hilarious, of course he does, hahah!”

… is different than

“Oh, the guy with the information/analysis centric hobby is autistic. Well, that makes sense.”

The former is laughing at someone for… doing what would be completely expected for that person to do. It is mockery.

The latter is just noting that a completely reasonable explanation is reasonable.

Its just stereotype insult comedy, the bottom of the barrel, cheapest way to get a laugh out of an audience that doesn’t mainly consist of the demographic you’re insulting, but is only aware of stereotypes.

… If you told a joke that was maybe more involved, maybe played off of how a compounding series of autistic behavior patterns combined in some way to lead to an absurd problem, or maybe cancel each other out in a non obvious way… that would probably be more likely to not be viewed as just an insult, as relatable, funny.

If you’re just looking to swap out a word with another word that has exactly the same meaning … then nothing changes.

You’re now just saying “thought it was a bot, turns out its a skrimbloob. hilarious every time!”

Still has the same intent and meaning.

I often use the term Autist to describe myself when I realize I’ve misread a social cue or am doing waaay more investigation and analysis into a topic than most people would do.

I’m not insulting myself.

I’m just stating it as an accurate descriptor.

Its fine to use the term if you are not using it to infantilize, to dismiss, to deride, to mock someone or something simply because they or the behavior is are autistic.

In private playful conversations with my wife, it’s not uncommon for me to call her a “fucking autist” or call her actions ‘autistic.’ This might also occur among close friends. It’s absolutely a slur. I would never, ever, do so publicly.Note that she calls me ‘old man’, calls me ‘bald’ or makes fun of my baldness, makes fun of my ileostomy, makes fun of my accent and so on. We use slurs, in play, for each other all the time. Publicly, it’s very common that I’m the butt of the group jokes because it’s obvious that it doesn’t bother me and I’m an easy and willing target for that sort of humor.

I am not you or your wife, but I would find this offensive and toxic, on both sides.

I really don’t like relationships where a normal component of them is insults.

But apparently for yourself and your wife, other people you are close with, this is normal in private, and you … know it is offensive to do so in a public setting where people may overhear it.

… I know a lot of people have relationships where ‘playful’ insults are normalized to the point where its 75% or more of the spoken exchanges.

I have never understood this, and I don’t like being in such situations.

An occasional playful jab is one thing, but I’ve been in waaaay too many romantic and platonic relationships where it occurs basically all the time.

But if it works for you and her, great, I’m not gonna say its objectively bad, just that I wouldn’t enjoy that kind of dynamic at all.

That’s a whole other thing that happens to me with the neurodiverse. The pure fucking joy they get from playfully picking on me is something else. It’s apparently quite a thrill. Very timid about calling me bald, old, or whatever at first. My wife or friends are usually the ringleaders. I guess it feels subversive or something? I just growl, grumble or frown back with the very timid.

Again, I don’t get this.

I would think those neurodiverse people are being needlessly cruel.

As a typical, when it’s pointed out that the person that engages in the behavior is neurodiverse, it’s an ‘aha’ moment often mixed with humor. It would be nice if it had an inoffensive label.

As an Autist, I don’t see why it would be mixed with humor.

Why did the person go to the party?

Because they’re more extraverted than introverted.

Ha… ha?

Why did the other person bring so many cooking ingredients to that party?

Because they’re a trained chef.

Haha wow that’s … so… unexpected? … ???

Shaka, when the walls fell.

No problem! I appreciate that you care to write an in depth response. Hope all your activities go well =D

Being labeled can cause offense. Especially if it’s derogatory. I don’t think it was meant to be derogatory by op, but it certainly wasn’t very sensitive.

I realize you expand on this in the rest of your response… but if you had only said this…

Imagine saying that to a black man in the 60s in the south who just got called ‘boy’.

Imagine saying this to Chinese person in the 40s who just got called a ‘Jap’ or a ‘Nip’.

Imagine saying this to a person with Downs Syndrome in the 90s who just got called ‘a retard’.

… When people, who have unalterable traits, tell you that they do not appreciate being stereotyped, having certain words used to describe them or people like them, or erroneously lumped in as the same as them, in certain contexts and ways… the decent thing to do is just listen to them and not demand an explanation why they find such things offensive.

Anyway, I believe you when say that you have had relationships with neurodiverse people, that you truly love your wife, that her quirks are a source of joy for you.

I do not mean to be offensive, but you describe neurodiverse people in a… typical way that a genuinely well intentioned neurotypical person who has actually gone out of their way to learn about and personally knows neurodiverse people would.

… I am apparently quite an oddity in that I am a high functioning autistic person. I don’t like to use the term ‘savant’ because it connotes that I am some kind of super genius. I’m not a super genius.

I have two college degrees, I consider myself more intelligent than others in many ways, but absolutely less intelligent or capable in others.

As an example of the latter… there is basically no way I could have this exchange with you in person, over the phone or video conference.

I would get too flustered and trip over my words. I would interject when I believe you are pausing to allow me to speak, but in actuality you were not expecting that and would find my interjection rude.

EDIT: To further this point, I think I’ve spent 2 or 3 hours now, writing and rewriting almost all of this post.

I would also make connections between topics and concepts that most people think are totally unrelated non sequiturs which make no sense, although you have stated that you find such connections to be ‘like seeing real magic’.

I cannot tell you the number of times I’ve been brushed off as a babbling loon by people who lack the patience to allow me to finish explaining the connections that occur to me, who lack the knowledge to even understand many of the concepts I connect together.

It is extremely frustrating.

In my life, its roughly a 20:1 ratio of people that just think I am babbling, to people who actually contemplate seriously what I am saying, and often respond with something akin to… ‘wow. I never thought of that in that way, but that makes a lot of sense!’

So, a neurodivergent person inputting letters scraped from Tumblr posts into a genome search engine is funny as hell because it’s such a strange thing to do and produces an interesting result. Why would someone do that? Why would you even think to do it in the first place?

My perspective on this is:

Other than inherent incongruity of the abrupt topic shift to from discussing the original image and its absurd visual metaphors… to ‘suddenly, genomic sequence of bird!’ being odd, out of place…

Sure, its uncommon, novel, to read the genomic post.

But why would you even ask why someone would think to do that?

That’s just a thing they enjoy doing. Its a hobby.

Why do people learn to unicycle? Garden? Drive a motorcycle? Ride a horse? Build sandcastles? Learn to dance? Build minifigs? Collect fucking funko pops?

People just enjoy doing things. Sure, some are more niche and rare than others… but why is there even a question as to why someone has some specific hobby as opposed to another?

Why does an uncommon hobby warrant explanation?

How can there be an explanation beyond ‘I find it entertaining or fulfilling or enjoyable?’

It would be one thing if some uncommon hobby seemed likely to engender physical or financial or mental harm to the hobbyist or other… but making a unique style of very matter of fact Tumblr posts doesn’t cause any harm, and they even wrote an FAQ explaining this, which … all you have to do is click on their name to understand what this person’s deal is…

But me, apparently (?) the only other neurodiverse person in this thread, took that basic step… while all the neurotypicals preferred to just invent their own explanations, come to their own conclusions or commentary based off of hunches and intuition, without doing even a cursory investigation to determine if their ideas had any real basis in fact.

So, given that I think some of the behaviors are awesome while being hysterically funny, what is an inoffensive way to engage in humor about neurodivergent folks, in your opinion? Are there any preferred terms that are shorthand for: “Autistic person pulled some fucked up logic trick or other stunt”?

Well… don’t use pejoratives? Don’t use labels when they don’t need to be used, when they aren’t especially necessary? Address people by their names? Don’t present then as useless invalids, or emotionless robots?

Maybe present … constructive compare and contrast scenarios, where a neurotypical picks up on something an ND wouldn’t, and the the reverse happens?

Like… I laugh when why wife does X… but she laughs when I do Y… and when she explains why she finds Y funny to me, I come to humourous realization Z1 about her… and humorous realization Z2 about myself.

??? I dunno, I don’t know how to write a comedy set, I generally do not socialize much IRL.

Well, your story about finding certain attributes about your wife is an entirely different context, and you didn’t use the term as a pejorative.

The person I am responding to used the term as a pejorative, in reference to how a neurodivergent person could easily be confused with an automated bot.

This is inherently dehumanizing.

It’s dismissive, it equates neurodivergent people to being sterile, non emotional beings who only exist to perform complex technical tasks.

This in and of itself is a common stereotype of certain kinds of people with certain kinds of neurodiversity, but neurodiverse actually refers to a much broader range of… different styles of cognitive function, different disorders, whatever you want to call them.

So, now on top of using the term as a pejorative, contextually perpetuating a specific dehumanizing stereotype… it also equivocates a diverse group of people into an oversimplified conglomerate, which in and of itself perpetuates other stereotypes by erroneously associating aspects that may (or may not) apply to a specific subset of neurodiverse people… to all of them.

Wayback Machine’s earliest capture is from 2008.

It’s a cutesy, public facing, extremely limited and low fidelity ‘demo version’ of a genomic search, basically made as a PR / Science Education promotion gimmick… by government contracted web/backend devs, in 2008.

Honestly its a miracle its still functional at all.

I mean, I am also autistic, so thanks for perpetuating the social stigma against neurodivergent people, I guess.

As per my other post, this person isn’t doing any of that.

But, since you asked for papers on generic matching algorithms, I found this during the silent conniption fit you sent me into after suggesting that some random tumblr user plugged a tumblr bot directly into a state of the art genomics db.

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11227-022-04673-3

Please note that while, yes, they ran this test on a standard office computer, they were only searching against 12 million characters.

A single tebibyte of characters would be more like 1 trillion characters. A pebibyte would be more like 1 quintillion quadrillion.

… much, much, much longer processing times.

Edit: Used the wrong word for stupendously large numbers that start with q.

The FAQ on the user’s page says:

1. They are not a bot, just neurodivergent

2. They’re using BLAST

ie, this

https://blast.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/Blast.cgi

They did not code anything beyond a very simple regex function that strips down posts to a t c g, and then they copy paste it into the above website, then copy paste the output.

Hell, you can see they aren’t even removing apostrophes and quotes, not even forcing it to all lower case or all upper case, removing spaces and line breaks…

… as a former database admin/dev/analyst, I was losing my fucking mind at the notion that someone with direct access to a genomics DB, would just hook it up to tumblr, via an automated bot, and spam the db with non work related requests, all on their own, when they can barely modify a string correctly.

Thank fucking god this is just using a publicly available, no doubt extremely low fidelity, watered down search via an API.

… You need literal, state of the art, absurdly expensive, power hungry, and secure supercomputers to be able to do genomic comparisons.

Probably one of the dumbest things you could do, quickest way to get fired, and then never be able to work in the field again, would be for a random genomics lab worker who does not know how to code to open up a whole bunch of security holes and cost god knows how much money (and damage if you write bad code) running frivolous bs searches in their state of the art genomics db… for a tumblr bot.

So, the goal here is to prevent ghosting by making ghosting minutely costly to the ghoster.

They pick from an array of multiple reasons why, and the app formulates an exceptionally kindly worded explanation to send to the ghosted person.

I don’t see this as dangerous to people who are ghosting potentially dangerous people.

Instead of getting nothing, and formulating whatever cockamamie explanation in their own minds (or maybe just going ‘sigh, oh well’), they at least get a facsimile of closure from a canned response.

Obviously this does not magically solve the many problems of dating apps, but I fail to see how this is more dangerous than just ghosting on its own.

The problem is that its minutely time consuming to provide a ghosting explanation.

This ghost explanation requirement requires people to actually explain themselves, and that’s gonna be very cumbersome to people who are not really looking for a serious, long term relationship.

It makes it very annoying to use the app in a scattershot approach for rapid fire hookups, with tons of potentials on deck, as you’ll be forced to consistently ‘tend’ to all of your simultaneous matches, or drop them…

…and for people who think they’re looking for a serious, monogamous relationship, but consistently ghost people, it will basically cause uncomfortable cognitive dissonance when they realize they don’t like having to do a modicum if effort to explain why no one seems to meet their standards or is due their attention, even though they previously thought they were interested.

Basically, the problem I see with this app is that it forces users toward being honest with themselves.

Even worse: Give them a harem of Furbies that ‘talk’ to each other.

The wiki article seems to list three possible causes for the attack:

Travis was on medication for Lyme disease and was also given tea laced with Xanax before the attack. (Apparently the Xanax was prescribed by a Vet… though no source is listed for that exact claim, it showed up in the autopsy and may have been administered regularly?)

The woman who was attacked had a different haircut and car than Travis last saw her with, and this may have confused/enraged Travis.

A Tickle Me Elmo toy (Travis’ favorite toy) being presented by the victim sent Travis into a rage.

…

In conclusion, chimpanzees should never be pets, and you especially should not give them benzos.

Ah Debian, truly the most stable distro, in ever so many ways.

Too bad GNOME devs are ludicrous lol.

Because MSFT long, long ago abandoned the concept of giving users choice, or just in general not treating them like idiot babies.

Brings me back to when I was contracting with them, same time Win 8 came out.

MSFT does what they call ‘dogfooding’, ie, every worker is alpha/beta testing basically all MSFT software all the time.

My team was managing SQL servers and running queries. SQL Manager, and a whole bunch of other shit completely broke when 8 came out.

It initially did not even have the ability to go back to a Win7 style interface.

They truly believed that limiting all office workers to a UI where they could have, at max, one pane on 1/3 of the screen and another pane on 2/3rds would be completely fine.

We effectively could do no work for about 1/3 of our contract.

Working at or for MSFT is a curse I would only wish upon my worst enemies.

I actually had to quit another, earlier contract as my manager expected me to work overtime without pay. Before that, my one cool boss just showed me that I was being paid about 1/3 of what MSFT was paying the contracting firm for me.

And that is to say nothing of the massive racism that all the American employees just looked the other way on: Pretty common for Indian employees of a higher caste to treat Indian contractors of a lower caste like total dogshit, and the line from HR was ‘its their culture!’.

They could actually show you a command prompt / terminal readout, which shows warnings and errors when things just outright fail and the process is borked… but that would scare people, apparently.

While one part of me fucking absolutely hates the Mac Goggles for many reasons…

…the other part of me kinda really wants them to become normalized precisely so that Ghost in the Shell offensive hacking type bullshit can just ruin the lives of anyone who regularly uses one.

It doesn’t have to be as immediately malicious as cutting the feed while driving…

…You could do that watermelon green text from 4chan. Just have a watermelon, every day, thats always… not quite in the same position, but always there.

I am not quite that old, but I learned digital media creation in the Macromedia Suite… Dreamweaver, Flash… before Adobe bought them out.

Can someone make a version of this photo, but its acetaminophen and the girl is just up-aged to how old she’d be now?