IRC: #boycottnovell @ FreeNode: Friday, March 26, 2021

-TechrightsBN/#boycottnovell-@zoobab: @tnoisette La FSFE devrait d'abord balayer devant sa porte https://t.co/RKkVuyVkGS

-TechrightsBN/#boycottnovell--> techrights.org | Court Case: Matthias Kirschner, FSFE Women and Volunteers Face Modern Day Slavery | Techrights

https://twitter.com/zoobab/status/1375205214828036103

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-TechrightsBN/#boycottnovell-@zoobab: @wwahammy @RealMattMadness @RedHat @fsf In Germany victims can use courts https://t.co/RKkVuyVkGS I guess it's the… https://t.co/c1ymvh2xD6

-TechrightsBN/#boycottnovell-@zoobab: @wwahammy @RealMattMadness @RedHat @fsf In Germany victims can use courts https://t.co/RKkVuyVkGS I guess it's the… https://t.co/c1ymvh2xD6

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"In Germany victims can use courts http://techrights.org/2020/12/21/fsfe-women/ I guess it's the same in other civilized countries."

-TechrightsBN/#boycottnovell-techrights.org | Court Case: Matthias Kirschner, FSFE Women and Volunteers Face Modern Day Slavery | Techrights

https://twitter.com/NetRoY/status/1375041653707276288

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Mar 26 07:59

-TechrightsBN/#boycottnovell-@NetRoY: @astr0baby GNU/FSF suffering from Founders Syndrome https://t.co/AFfI8fv7Ma

Mar 26 07:59

-TechrightsBN/#boycottnovell--> techrights.org | Richard Stallman is Coming Back to the Board of the Free Software Foundation, Founded by Himself 35 Years Ago (Updatedx3) | Techrights

Mar 26 07:59

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I hope that RMS is able to use this "extra" time to ensure that

Mar 26 09:38

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the FSF is idelogically grounded and that the whole group is onboard with

Mar 26 09:38

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software freedom.

Mar 26 09:38

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kaniini wants to remove the signature now. PROGRESS! Anyway, unlike Lunduke I don't want to pour gasoline. He reached the same conclusion while making his latest video (regarding Red Hat): focus on POSITIVES.

Mar 26 09:39

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RMS and Oliva speak to me this week, and the general consensus is that we'll be fine. I'm starting to doubt a video on Sunday (long rebuttal) would even be constructive at all as it brings back a topic.

Mar 26 09:40

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Yes, there is a chance to move forward at this point. Again, as I have mentioned

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over the yrars, as much as RMS is hoped to be with us for a long time,

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his priority should be on finding and establishing a strong spiritual successor

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figosdev brings that up in the long post, too.

http://ipkitten.blogspot.com/2021/03/board-of-appeal-in-t180715-continues.html?showComment=1616749457079#c1462409161408652609

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fig is sort of back, albeit too shy to admit that he wants to be back after insulting a whole bunch of us (RMS and Oliva too) in a totally unwarranted fashion

Mar 26 10:17

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well I'm glad he's back

Mar 26 10:37

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too proud though to apologise to us

Mar 26 10:37

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-TechrightsBN/#boycottnovell-ipkitten.blogspot.com | BREAKING: Board of Appeal in T1807/15 continues with ViCo oral proceedings referral - The IPKat

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Continued:

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This latest episode shows that it is high time that far reaching decisions made by the European Patent Office, in particular those from its Boards of Appeal, are open to proper review and scrutiny by a truly independent European Patent Court. Such a court would need to enforce the legal practices of national courts and/or the European Court of Justice – legal frameworks which have arisen from interaction with end users, qualified

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judges and the actual laws of the member states, rather than being arbitrarily forced upon users by a disconnected and unaccountable body, i.e. the European Patent Office itself.

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Only in this way, that is the installation of a fully independent legal review mechanism, would decisions by one court be considered constitutional according to German law; in Germany, this practice ultimately led to the establishment of the Federal Patent Court in Germany.

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It should also not be overlooked that all European states provide for the possibility of video conferences as a substitute for oral proceedings in the classical sense, but always under the prerequisite of full consent of the parties or at the request of the parties. In Germany, this is regulated by § 128 a ZPO:

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§ 128a - Hearing by means of video and audio transmission

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(1)The court may, on application or ex officio, permit the parties, their agents and advisers to be present at another place during oral proceedings and to perform procedural acts there. The proceedings shall be transmitted simultaneously in sound and vision to that place and to the courtroom.

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(2) The court may, on application, permit a witness, expert or party to be present at another place during a hearing. The hearing shall be transmitted simultaneously in sound and vision to that location and to the courtroom. If parties, authorized representatives and assistants have been permitted to be at another location in accordance with subsection 1 sentence 1, the hearing shall also be transmitted to that location.

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(3) The transmission shall not be recorded. Decisions under subsection (1) sentence 1 and subsection (2) sentence 1 shall be final.

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Corresponding regulations exist in other European states, in particular member states of the European Union. In this regard, reference is made to: Tilman Pfrang "Legality of Virtual Oral Proceedings under Art. 116 EPC" which can be found here:

https://www.meissnerbolte.de/de/news/legality-of-virtual-oral-proceedings-under-art-116-epc/

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Sincerely,

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Dr. Eugen Popp, LL.M.

-TechrightsBN/#boycottnovell-www.meissnerbolte.de | Legality of Virtual Oral Proceedings under Art. 116 EPC – Pros and Cons

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Kay Rupprecht, LL.M.

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Jochen Kilchert

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Dr. Andrew J. Parker, LL.M

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[16:06] <xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> i think i am going to take a break from the techrights IRC channels for a while. feel free to reach out if you need something

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[16:06] <schestowitz> I can made voice-only the -social channel too

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[16:08] <xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> do what you wanna do

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[16:08] <xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> i just don't want to waste mental bandwidth on a troll

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[16:08] <xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> and right now, we are in a pretty stressful time in the movement

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[16:09] <xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> you've gotta take your political position, and i have to take mine, kinda sucks

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[16:09] <xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> but is what it is

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[16:10] <schestowitz> he is not the first to disrupt that channel

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[16:10] <schestowitz> this was done days ago by another person

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[16:11] <schestowitz> second time in a week, done deal

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[16:11] <schestowitz> we are under all sorts of odd attacks lately

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[16:11] <schestowitz> not sure if you noticed, people ask loaded questions about pedophilia

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[16:11] <schestowitz> as they fail to find something inadequate that I said over the years

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[16:11] <xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> it is all quite unfortunate

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[16:11] <schestowitz> prior to that, attempts to associate me with "Rape"

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[16:12] <schestowitz> so we need to lock things down to trusted voices for a bit

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[16:12] <schestowitz> like FSF with their request not to speak to the public

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[16:12] <schestowitz> which I totally understand

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[16:24] <xxxxxxx> yeah i think people are definitely attacking you unfairly

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[16:24] <schestowitz> they will carry on trying

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[16:24] <schestowitz> ask me before you believe them

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[16:25] <xxxxxxxxxx> of course

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[16:27] <schestowitz> thanks :-)

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[16:27] <schestowitz> for everything

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>> I've just taken a look at some pages, but an still failing to understand

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>> what this Ice Breaker is and what it is for? Usually I don't like to

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>> prepare scripted talks. It's time-consuming.

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> I decided to respond to that with my blog

> https://danielpocock.com/positive-alternatives-to-codes-of-conduct/

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-TechrightsBN/#boycottnovell-danielpocock.com | Positive alternatives to Codes of Conduct

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> There is another group meeting tonight in Dublin:

> https://uncensoredspeakers.toastmasterclub.org/

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> If you would like to watch, I think this is their link

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> https://us02web.zoom.us/j/277302726?pwd=VjFuVy9rUXpEMXRLRFhRc1pYZHRMUT09#success

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> and the contact is Geraldine

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> geraldine@72ndstreet.com

-TechrightsBN/#boycottnovell-Resolving timed out after 10519 milliseconds ( status 0 @ https://uncensoredspeakers.toastmasterclub.org/ )

-TechrightsBN/#boycottnovell-us02web.zoom.us | Launch Meeting - Zoom

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> The Ice Breaker is an exercise that is suitable for anybody to begin,

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> sometimes a first time participant has never done a speech before,

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> sometimes they have a lot of experience but everybody does one of these.

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> It is not necessary to do a speech though, there are many other roles

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> in the meeting, for example, evaluating other speakers. This develops

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> coaching skills. As I wrote in the blog, if more people develop skills

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> like this, it becomes a buffer against censorship.

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I've just been told something to that effect, related to libreplanet censorship of RMS supporters:

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[17:25] <DaemonFC[m]> I got the boot from another Matrix room yesterday for saying that the cancel RMS petition is ridiculous and most of the signatures come from trolls who have connections to big tech companies who want to take control of your computer away from you.

https://twitter.com/kamiljdudek/status/1375549033943605253

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-TechrightsBN/#boycottnovell-@kamiljdudek: @SmugYeti @thebookisclosed Microsoft has a tradition of having too many mail programs, where even the ISVs had no i… https://t.co/CD3vqAumFs

-TechrightsBN/#boycottnovell-@kamiljdudek: @SmugYeti @thebookisclosed Microsoft has a tradition of having too many mail programs, where even the ISVs had no i… https://t.co/CD3vqAumFs

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Microsoft has a tradition of having too many mail programs, where even the ISVs had no idea what to expect:

http://techrights.org/wiki/index.php/Athena_and_shell_extension

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-TechrightsBN/#boycottnovell-techrights.org | Athena and shell extension - Techrights

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26535224

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The only mention of 'Thor' I know was on IRC. It was "Athena after Exchange/Messaging/Exchange got dropped from Windows". So Nashville'ized Athena.

Mar 26 23:40

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Mar 26 23:40

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-TechrightsBN/#boycottnovell-news.ycombinator.com | Richard Stallman is coming back to the board of the FSF | Hacker News

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I think it is strange that, on the one hand, the tech world has been advocating for the rights of neurodivergent people – society should accept that people on the autism spectrum are different and that’s OK. But at the same time RMS has been attacked for some statements very probably stemming from his autism that, while they may seem a bit shocking and at odds with the mainstream, were not illegal or intentionally offensive.

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nostrademons 4 days ago [–]

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Ribbonfarm called this a couple years ago:

https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2018/03/06/a-quick-battle-field-g...

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Specifically battlefront #8. He calls it consequential because the the neurodivergent/PC conflict highlights an inherent paradox in the PC worldview. Most applications of political correctness focus (at least on the surface) on defending a marginalized group against the verbal attacks of a privileged one. When applied to autistic or neurodivergent individuals, however, PC norms work to disadvantage an already disadvantaged minority

-TechrightsBN/#boycottnovell-www.ribbonfarm.com | A Quick (Battle) Field Guide to the New Culture Wars

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against groups that are both larger and often more economically and culturally free.

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Aloha 4 days ago [–]

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It's like this, I've spent a lifetime learning a rulebook by trial and error that everyone else just seems to know.

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It's absolutely maddening when the rules suddenly change for no discernible reason, often with little warning and grave consequences with no second chances for screwing it up.

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I see people clamoring for a safe spaces and I wonder where I can find such a thing? (To an extent I can find one at sci-fi, anime and furry conventions are mostly safe spaces for people like me, it's just jarring when I need to leave)

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sterlind 4 days ago [–]

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I relate because I've been there, I think. Before I transitioned I had pretty strong ASD and couldn't figure out how to answer simple questions like "what's up?" or if I should wave to someone I've met twice if they're 15 feet away walking towards me.

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Transitioning did something to my brain chemistry and let me read social cues nearly overnight, but I got friends by delving into the LGBT community. Maybe furry cons is a good approach?

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exikyut 4 days ago [–]

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Wh...a. Transitioning fixed your social cue perception?!

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That is incredibly fascinating. I'm not even sure how to classify that... pragmatic psychological function (oookay that's probably not a thing), neurobiology, or what else.

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IMO this is a gigantic breadcrumb for Something™. The question is what the axis point was, and what got fixed as a result. Cooool.

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I am very curious what else shifted that you'd be happy to share.

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sterlind 4 days ago [–]

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I have no idea why it happened, I'm just so grateful it did. It was like suddenly seeing color for the first time. When I looked at someone, I could read their intentions and actually feel their feelings. I wasn't a sociopath before or anything, but I couldn't feel empathy.

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This definitely does not happen to every aspie trans woman, but I've heard of it happening to one or two others.

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I was worried about losing my intelligence, since I attributed a lot of that to ASD, but actually all my major breakthroughs came after transitioning. My first algorithm that got me noticed was like, 6 months in.

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The only real downside was that switching to estrogen unmasked my Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, and I've become physically disabled. I'm still able to work and think and feel so it's a good trade for me!

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Aloha 4 days ago [–]

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The only thing ASD gives me is a measure of clarity - because all of the hidden rules of society are not hidden to me, they're things I need to learn with intent, it gives me a measure of clarity into which rules are required, and which ones are not, when they can be broken and when they can't be.

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I'm not gonna say I'd like to be normal, because I have no real construct of what normal would be like - but ASD also gives me one more insight, normality is an illusion foisted on people by society - all humans are some measure of weird, its just a question of how much, and in what way.

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Ehlers-Danlos may have shown up anyhow, so that doesnt strike me as a downside even, if that makes sense, if anything you got a benefit by finding it sooner.

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restalis 3 days ago [–]

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"all humans are some measure of weird, its just a question of how much, and in what way"

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This is true. However, from a similar (mild form, partially dealt with) ASD observer point of view, I also noticed that the said peculiarities in one's character are like food ingredients. It's about the way one manages to blend them in a recipe and to cook them into something tasteful (for others) that makes or breaks the social connections. Having ASD is like having no smell or taste of your own and you have to rely on the

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observed reactions in others for measurements. Obviously, it's a challenge to be a cook in such circumstance and the best strategy (if you care) then probably is just to assume damage and operate in damage control mode all the time.

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Aloha 3 days ago [–]

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I do operate in damage control all the time, its much much easier to be good at apologizing, than it is to prevent that offense.

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TulliusCicero 3 days ago [–]

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So, stereotypically, women are more socially aware than men. Personally, this is something I've definitely noticed strongly with boys vs girls, even from a young age the girls seem to be more aware of others around them and their emotional state, whereas the boys usually seem more oblivious (on average, obviously, not saying this applies to every single girl or boy).

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I know many social progressives would argue this is due to socialization...but the effect seems too strong at too early an age to blame solely on socialization to me.

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On a related note, I recently read an article about trans men where one noted that they seemed to have become more conversationally impatient, and blamed it on the different hormones: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/local/wp/2018/07/20/feat...

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> "The hormones made me more impatient. I had lots of female friends and one of the qualities they loved about me was that I was a great listener. After being on testosterone, they informed me that my listening skills weren’t what they used to be. Here’s an example: I’m driving with one of my best friends, Beth, and I ask her “Is your sister meeting us for dinner?” Ten minutes later she’s still talking and I still have

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no idea if her sister is coming. So finally, I couldn’t take it anymore, and I snapped and said, “IS SHE COMING OR NOT?” And Beth was like, “You know, you used to like hearing all the backstory and how I’d get around to the answer. A lot of us have noticed you’ve become very impatient lately and we think it’s that damn testosterone!” It’s definitely true that some male behavior is governed by hormones. Instead of

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listening to a woman’s problem and being empathetic and nodding along, I would do the stereotypical guy thing — interrupt and provide a solution to cut the conversation short and move on. I’m trying to be better about this."

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novok 4 days ago [–]

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Autistic MtF programmers is something that happens enough to be a trope, joke or meme.

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dralley 4 days ago [–]

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Also, frankly, many of them happen to be bloody brilliant, seemingly much moreso than average.

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-TechrightsBN/#boycottnovell- ( status 404 @ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/local/wp/2018/07/20/feat/ )

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orthoxerox 4 days ago [–]

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This usually doesn't fix their issues beyond dysphoria, though.

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novok 4 days ago [–]

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Somewhere in the comments here, one of them said "estrogen fixed my social autism". That is really surprising.

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roflc0ptic 4 days ago [–]

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No citation in this, but being trans correlates with being autistic

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owl57 4 days ago [–]

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Would seem logical. I was alien enough to boys to land at the "girls table" in school canteen when I was 11. Pieces of experience like this could probably help to start considering the possibility.

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lawnchair_larry 3 days ago [flagged] [–]

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This is an extremely dangerous and absolutely insane line of reasoning that is causing incredible harm to young people. You don’t have gender dysphoria because you hung out with girls as an 11 year old.

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owl57 3 days ago [–]

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No. I actually don't know a real thing about gender dysphoria. I just presumed that if you look square and feel round, you are more likely to recognize and embrace your roundness if your other traits make society less consistent in squeezing you into square holes.

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eyelidlessness 3 days ago [–]

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This is an awful way to talk to people about their own experiences.

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krageon 3 days ago [–]

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It comes from a reasonable place: It shouldn't be generalised. You may have issues with specific things that were said (or how they were said), but that isn't clear from your response. Perhaps you could add that, so the author can learn.

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eyelidlessness 3 days ago [–]

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I take issue with every part of it. The claim that the other person’s experience is dangerous, that it’s insane, that it’s harming children, and that they didn’t experience it.

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krageon 2 days ago [–]

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You didn't really engage with what I said at all, except at the most superficial level. It's really not a very nice way to have a conversation, especially given that regardless of whether or not I agree I was absolutely trying to help you.

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eyelidlessness 2 days ago [–]

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I’m sorry but I’m not sure I understand what you’re trying to get from me here.

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You said:

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> You may have issues with specific things that were said (or how they were said), but that isn't clear from your response. Perhaps you could add that, so the author can learn.

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I addressed those specifics, as far as I can tell all of the specifics of substance. I was engaging your suggestion in good faith. I did take and accept it as helpful. I’m open to the possibility there’s some nuance I’m missing?

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krageon 1 day ago [–]

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In that case I apologise.

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The nuance that I think you are missing is that the OP is talking about how the experience shouldn't be generalised and turned into a rule: The person responded to said that sitting at the girl's table should be an indicator that starts consideration of "maybe this is gender dysphoria". The OP thinks this is dangerous and harmful to children in it's proposed form.

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I'm missing a lot of cultural context here (What is a "girl's table"?), but I can definitely see the point OP is trying to make. I'll agree with you it was worded problematically.

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eyelidlessness 1 day ago [–]

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Thank you for explaining your perspective, I understand the disconnect much better now. I went back and read the comment (the “girl’s table” one, not the “dangerous” response), and even trying to apply your clarification I still don’t read it as generalizing. I see that commenter applying to themselves and their own experience a more general statement from the comment above. In other words I see them identifying with it

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personally, not applying it to anyone else.

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lawnchair_larry 2 days ago [–]

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I claimed zero of those things, so maybe you misread the comment.

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eyelidlessness 2 days ago [–]

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I read it again and it still reads the same way to me. Maybe you’d be willing to clarify what you did mean?

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wizzwizz4 2 days ago [–]

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https://xkcd.com/1984

-TechrightsBN/#boycottnovell-xkcd.com | xkcd: Misinterpretation

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dgellow 4 days ago [–]

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What is an MtF programmer? I read it as Microsoft programmer but that doesn't really make that much sense in the context.

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cpach 4 days ago [–]

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MtF = Male to Female

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reycharles 4 days ago [–]

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Why did you make this comment?

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chousuke 4 days ago [–]

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Intuitively, it makes sense for something like this to be possible, though I wonder what the trigger is. Drastic change in hormonal balance caused by the transitioning process activating / connecting parts of the brain that were "malfunctioning" previously? Or "just" a result of increased happiness stemming from having dealt with a large problem?Sounds hideously difficult to replicate.

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exikyut 4 days ago [–]

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Oh yeah... the dismorphia effect and similar anxieties. Of course. Never experienced any of it myself, didn't realize how big of a potential factor it could be until reading your comment.

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I was mostly considering the fact that the female hormone, uh, configuration is naturally pro-social, and that dumping that set of hormone balances on the brain promptly elicits the associated responses - ie, that the response (or rather the tendency for those responses to function properly) becomes a partial function of hormone state.

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But those sort of general factors (including elevated mood) would definitely be a part of the end result.

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chousuke 4 days ago [–]

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I'm wary of making assumptions about "natural" differences between males and females, since it's easy to confuse them with cultural stereotypes, ie. what you've learned to think of as "normal" vs. what actually is "normal".

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It may well be be that some component that's typically more prevalent in females plays a key role in the development of prosocial tendencies. If such a component were identified, it would be interesting to study its involvement in the development of both males and females.

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Aloha 4 days ago [–]

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Not the poster, but I too am curious about their thoughts, however I have some of my own.

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Men and Women experience socialization in fundamentally different ways, because of this I suspect the changing hormonal balance reawakens pathways not used normally, basically. In addition, you basically have a chance while transitioning to relearn socialization from scratch basically, with those new pathways awakened.

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exikyut 4 days ago [–]

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Hm, that honestly sounds about 90% of the way to a reasonable explanation.

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In my own experience I've found as that as a majority of my own marbles have figured out "OH, that's which way is up", my own pragmatic learning capacity has transformed from "transmutation ray that turns everything into indecipherable, unmovable rubble" and... what almost feels like a happy grid of FPGAs that bustle about classifying and organizing without me really having to make much effort. After leaving ideas and subjects for

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long enough (10+ years in some cases) that old broken memories/associations have just about completely died out, yeah, I definitely can look at things with new eyes.

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Discovering that HRT can trigger or you might even say accelerate this process is very fascinating, because it sort of maybe points in the direction of the root causes that break everything in the first place.

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paganel 4 days ago [–]

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> or if I should wave to someone I've met twice if they're 15 feet away walking towards me.

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To be honest, nobody knows for sure. I call these "Seinfeld moments", as in you could make an entire Seinfeld episode out of talking about it: should I have waived? If yes, I did waive, why didn't the other person waive back? Was it because he/she didn't see me? Was it because he/she did in fact see me but didn't like me? etc.

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mkl 4 days ago [–]

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"Wave". "Waive" is something entirely different: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/waive

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But maybe Seinfeld could have made an episode about your version too.

-TechrightsBN/#boycottnovell-en.wiktionary.org | waive - Wiktionary

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paganel 4 days ago [–]

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Thanks for that correction, non-native English speaker commenting before my usual morning coffee.

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Aloha 4 days ago [–]

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I'm pretty sure you'd find yourself at home there, we also have a large trans/gender non-conforming contingent in the community.

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silver-machine 1 day ago [–]

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One more thing: back in the nineties and oughties furries were a punchline in my crowd. Furries were hilarious. You could make any joke funnier by putting a furry in it. They were like Nickleback that way.

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Things changed -- or at least I changed. I don't use furries as a punchline anymore, and none of my friends do, and I'm like "c'mon please don't do that" if anyone does.

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Sure, it makes it harder to tell jokes sometimes, but who cares about that?

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dale_glass 4 days ago [–]

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A safe space is simply a space you control, or one moderated in your favor.

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So for instance, your house is a safe space if you own it and decide who comes and goes, or if your parents are on your side and kick out people that cross your lines.

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louhike 4 days ago [–]

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I don't think there can be a real safe space. Toxic things for some might not be for others, reassuring things for some might be violent for others. It does not mean we should not try to improve how we behave, but it's important to understand it's impossible to have a generic rulebook we can apply everywhere to be safe with everyone.

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As an example, some swearwords might really violent to hear for some people, but disallowing their use will be quite hard for those who lived in an environment where it was important part of communication. And it's often use as a distinction between rich and poor people (at least in France).

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biztos 4 days ago [–]

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Do the rich swear more in France, or the poor?

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yoz-y 4 days ago [–]

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I too wonder. One thing that I found quite interesting when moving to France was how casual everybody, even high school teachers, was with swearwords.

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mpweiher 4 days ago [–]

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Not sure where you are from originally, but the US is fairly unique in the world when it comes to these things.

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DubiousPusher 4 days ago [–]

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I'm getting on aside note on a side note already but this bumps into something I've been thinking about for days now so I can't resist.

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I'm beginning to think the swearing thing in the U.S. has to do with a perception of the concept of "innocence". Because I've noticed a lot of people only begin to have a problem with swearing here when it involves children. For sure, there are people who are just generally against swearing for religious or etiquette reasons. However, having kids really seems to change a large number of people into prudes regarding swears.

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I'll admit, when I first heard my 4 year old swear it was jarring. But I thought it through and was like, "my wife and I swear all the time, why can't the kid swear? I can either cave to this uncomfortable feeling or extend my kid the same privallege I extend myself."

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At one point, my brother came to stay with us. He swears like a sailor yet when my kid swore, he was shocked. Not 10 minutes before he was cursing in front of the kid.

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I also have friends who swore often when we were at college together and they started forbidding swears when they didn't like hearing it coming from their 3 year old.

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American culture still has a partial obsession with virginity and the concept of innocence and my best guess is that this subconsciously extends to people's expectations for their children.

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sildur 22 hours ago [–]

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Here in Spain we try not to swear in front of kids (because we know they will copy it), and we find jarring to hear a kid swear. More or less jarring depending on the word. I remember my surprise the first time I heard a grandma swear (I was a teen at that moment). I assumed grandmas never swore.

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Y_Y 4 days ago [–]

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America is weird in lots of ways, but discouraging children from swearing, and generally trying to inculcate "polite" behaviour is normal throughout the Anglosphere.

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mpweiher 4 days ago [–]

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I think the word you're looking for might be "puritanism".

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DubiousPusher 4 days ago [–]

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Yes but a little more specifically, a kind of reactionary puritanism. In that it is triggered as a reaction to entering family life and not driven by a set of consistent lifelong values.

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yoz-y 4 days ago [–]

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From eastern Europe, everybody swore but not openly in school during class.

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silver-machine 1 day ago [–]

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Aloha, yeah, I hear you. The world has changed a lot in my 49 years and some of it is unrecognizable to me.

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however, this is an imperfect world that needs a lot of change, and it's not going to stop changing, so you're going to have to figure this out. I assume you're a technologist, you are already dealing with constant change? How is this any different?

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Think about it this way: Would you hire an SDE who told you they coded down to Java 1.4 standards because that's where their comfort zone is? Java 1.4 is not where the world is in 2021, just like being creepy to your colleagues is not where 2021 is.

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exikyut 4 days ago [–]

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What's both practically sad and scientifically ridiculously fascinating is that the cognitive dissonance goes both ways. See also, furry culture representation in general.

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Aloha 4 days ago [–]

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I'm perfectly okay with us being presented as weird, it keeps the normal people away. ;-)

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Did you mean something else?

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exikyut 4 days ago [–]

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I remember reading someone come to roughly the same conclusion on /r/furry a while back, it was nice. So yeah, I do mostly mean that.

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But the reason there was a bit of extra hesitancy there is that I straddle the line on socialization to the extent that while half my brain would probably love going to a con, the other half would basically be cognitive-dissonance-BSODing the entire time. And I'm not sure if repeating "surrealism is art, surrealism is art" would be enough to get me through; I'd probably end up deciding those three specific people over there were

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safe and hiding behind them the entire time, while simultaneously responding mostly neurotypically to all the social-cue whooshes as I watched them happen. (The missed cues would be what I was hiding from.)

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Aloha 4 days ago [–]

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Fandom interactions have their own well defined rules and norms. I apply one rulebook for fandom, another one for work, another one for non fandom friendly social interactions, just pondering it lightly, I can identify 6 or so unique rulebooks I use for different kinds of social interactions. I suspect I have even more.

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WindyLakeReturn 2 days ago [–]

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>To an extent I can find one at sci-fi, anime and furry conventions are mostly safe spaces for people like me

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Is it a safe space when what you say can be video taped and then used against you by all the other areas of life?

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jedimastert 4 days ago [–]

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I will once again say that this is why I don't have a Twitter

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imwillofficial 3 days ago [–]

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Kids being harmed is always a no no.

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2muchcoffeeman 4 days ago [–]

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It’s been going on for a while already.

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Some years ago there was a case where a woman in Melbourne called out a man for harassing her on public transport. Turns out he was autistic and was outgoing to everyone. His friend had to post on Facebook to stop people sharing a video of the autistic man.

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Helen Pluckrose also posted on Twitter a similar story. A man she would help checkin on because he was autistic would get complaints from women for harassment. It was a suggestion from his therapist to help him socialise.

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happymellon 4 days ago [–]

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Not that long ago there was that Twitter thing where a woman posted a picture of a guy brazenly checking out her top.

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Turned out he had a lazy eye and is daughter had to step up to defend him. Quick to judge and make a scene unfortunately.

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throwaway894345 4 days ago [–]

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> Most applications of political correctness focus (at least on the surface) on defending a marginalized group against the verbal attacks of a privileged one.

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I dispute the idea that PC is mostly defensive in nature; rather it seems to be overwhelmingly offensive, targeting people who frequently aren’t even in advantaged groups themselves. I would also suggest that Jews are treated pretty badly by the PC folks, as are Asians (although #StopAsianHate in the wake of what appears to be a non-hate-crime has been a convenient bludgeon).

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ethbr0 4 days ago [–]

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Honestly asking, what's the difference between someone being neurodivergent and just thoughtless / mean / an ass?

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rossnordby 4 days ago [–]

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The 'neurodivergent' umbrella covers a much wider set of things than just 'degree to which the person is perceived to be a jerk'. The perception of jerkitude is usually a side effect of something else complicated.

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For example, take the DSM5 criteria for ASD, one type of neurodivergence. Here's just a single factor:

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Deficits in nonverbal communicative behaviors used for social interaction, ranging, for example, from poorly integrated verbal and nonverbal communication; to abnormalities in eye contact and body language or deficits in understanding and use of gestures; to a total lack of facial expressions and nonverbal communication. (From https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/autism/hcp-dsm.html)

-TechrightsBN/#boycottnovell-www.cdc.gov | Diagnostic Criteria | Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) | NCBDDD | CDC

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A formal diagnosis of ASD would involve a number of these factors. As you might imagine, if you stack enough things like that on a person, it'll tend to be noticed, even when they're trying to hide it.

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In the context of being mean, upon being told that they were being a jerk, a person with ASD might think "ah shit, not again" or maybe "wait what, no I wasn't, it doesn't make sense that they'd be offended by that" or something along those lines. The nuances of the behavior and the motivations behind it will tend to be a little different than in a 'neurotypical' perceived as being a jerk.

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eyelidlessness 4 days ago [–]

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If you’re honestly asking, it’s a rude question as stated. But if you’re sincerely admitting you don’t understand the difference, the difference is this:

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Many people (including myself) have difficulty with certain social cues and expectations. Many of us can be offputting or come off as overly direct or disrespectful. Where we diverge is when and how we address that fact. Do we (only) lash out and expect the world to accommodate our conclusions, or do we (ever or readily) reflect on that conflict and try to live in some kind of shared world?

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Obviously what I’m describing is a spectrum, not an absolute. But if you’re trying to understand whether someone on the spectrum is a jerk, your answer is “how much do they use their social faculties to navigate sharing a world?”

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Which is pretty much the same measure as anyone not on the spectrum.

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Noos 4 days ago [–]

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To be blunt, I think a lot of people here misuse autism. The autistic person I had to deal with a lot of times had "difficulty" with social cues in that he was an adult that had no idea of not standing by others when they were working, would endlessly repeat things, was more or less impossible to hold a conversation with, etc. We more or less had to babysit him as impromptu caretakers.

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It isn't "oh, I don't know how to read a room." Even granting high function, I feel people use autism in the same way as they do OCD; it's not something you use "neurodivergent" with seriously.

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Like generally there's a lot of disability chic or identity these days; but moderate autism makes it incredibly hard to act in daily life in the same way moderate OCD does. If it's significant enough, it's not just someone being brisk or unempathetic in the same way OCD doesn't mean being a neat freak.

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onion2k 4 days ago [–]

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moderate OCD

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People who claim to have "moderate OCD" are just people who like things being tidy, and describe it as OCD because they have no understanding of the real, debilitating condition. Describing yourself as "moderately obsessive" makes no sense, and being able to live with the untidiness means you are not compulsively tidying.

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A huge part of the problem with mental health problems is people using the terminology as some sort of 'badge of honor', as if it's something cool and trendy to have rather than an illness that can ruin your life. People really need to stop saying they have OCD unless they've been diagnosed by a professional.

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wccrawford 4 days ago [–]

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While I agree they don't fully understand OCD, I think they know enough about it to sympathize. They know enough to know they don't actually have it, just some light compulsions.

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And as for "moderately obese"... I wouldn't have previously described myself that way, but I fit it. My doctor tells me I'm medically obese. Nobody looking at me would describe me that way, but they would admit that I'm over-weight. They all say I look fine and don't need to lose more weight, though. If that's not "moderately obese", I don't know what would be.

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What the world needs are terms to describe compulsive behavior, succinctly, other than "moderate OCD". I definitely have things that bother me immensely if I don't fix them, but it isn't to the point that I need help with it. I clearly don't have "OCD", but what do I have? There's no word for it.

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I've stopped using the term OCD for anything about me, because I know it bothers other people. But I don't get mad at those who continue to use it because there's no proper term, and thus no way to actually correct their behavior. Only to stifle them. And I don't do that to other people.

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skissane 4 days ago [–]

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> And as for "moderately obese"... I wouldn't have previously described myself that way, but I fit it.

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Obesity is divided into 3 classes: class 1 (low-risk, BMI 30.0 to 34.9), class 2 (moderate-risk, 35.0 to 39.9), class 3 (high risk, 40.0 or higher). Using the term "moderate obesity" for class 2 obesity may not be exactly standard, but it has some logic to it.

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> I clearly don't have "OCD", but what do I have? There's no word for it.

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Is it possible you have subclinical OCD?

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18849913/

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-TechrightsBN/#boycottnovell-pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov | Subclinical obsessive-compulsive disorder in children and adolescents: additional results from a "high-risk" study - PubMed

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(Or maybe subclinical OCPD?)

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wccrawford 4 days ago [–]

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IIRC, I'd actually be class 1 obese by that list, now. So maybe "Slightly obese"? That sounds even more ridiculous, but it's pretty accurate.

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As for the OCD... Even that description sounds worse than what I have. But the existence of "subclinical OCD" makes me even less worried about people claiming to have "moderate OCD" or something. Not only is it a spectrum, but the experts seem to be fine with using the word to describe people that are almost it, with some qualifying words.

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eyelidlessness 3 days ago [–]

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Maybe they’re not almost, but less encumbered by it than more severe cases.

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The thing about a spectrum is it makes room for people who, by necessity or will, share the symptomatic experience but lack some of the disabling impact. The benefit of that inclusion is that those people are able to benefit from a diagnosis and relevant treatment even if they’re not in the direst straits.

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In my own experience, this meant that I was able to begin treatment for ADHD even though I’d had over a decade as a successful adult. And that treatment saved my life. Sure, I made it that far with what I could scrap together in myself and my luck in life. But when that wasn’t enough, my “moderate” case revealed its severity. If I’d had access to that diagnosis and care earlier it probably wouldn’t have ever been so

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severe.

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AlexandrB 4 days ago [–]

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Off topic, but using BMI and not body fat percentage to define obesity in an individual seems dubious at best.

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> Keys explicitly judged BMI as appropriate for population studies and inappropriate for individual evaluation. Nevertheless, due to its simplicity, it has come to be widely used for preliminary diagnoses. [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_mass_index#History

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skissane 4 days ago [–]

-TechrightsBN/#boycottnovell-en.wikipedia.org | Body mass index - Wikipedia

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> People who claim to have "moderate OCD" are just people who like things being tidy

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Some people are actually diagnosed with "moderate OCD" though. Some psychiatrists like to use descriptors like "mild" or "moderate" or "severe" when they make a diagnosis. The DSM-5 doesn't include those terms as specifiers, but that doesn't stop some clinicians from using them anyway. (Clinicians vary widely in how strictly they adhere to the DSM-5.)

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Also, while the DSM-5 doesn't include the concept of "mild"/"moderate"/"severe" OCD, some rating scales used clinically in diagnosing OCD do include such a distinction. Y-BOCS (Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale) scores are divided into four ranges – subclinical, mild, moderate, severe, extreme. A person with an OCD diagnosis who scores in the moderate range of the Y-BOCS will quite possibly be told they have "moderate OCD".

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The DSM-5 does include three specifiers of level of insight for OCD: "good or fair insight" ("The individual recognizes that obsessive-compulsive disorder beliefs are definitely or probably not true or that they may or may not be true"), "poor insight" ("The individual thinks obsessive-compulsive disorder beliefs are probably true"), "absent insight/delusional beliefs" ("The individual is completely convinced that obsessive-

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compulsive disorder beliefs are true"). It is an oversimplification to equate that to "mild"/"moderate"/"severe", but some people will do it anyway.

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Clinicians need to convey to patients (and their family members and others) the severity of the individual's condition in terms which lay people will readily understand. Terms such as "mild","moderate","severe", despite their limitations, meet that need.

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> People really need to stop saying they have OCD unless they've been diagnosed by a professional.

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Self-diagnosis is always a dangerous thing, but I think it includes a big spectrum of behaviours, from "I saw a TV show once about X and now I think I've got it" through to "I've read the DSM-5 and dozens of books and papers on X and I think I've got it". In both cases, the person could well be wrong, but arguably they have a significantly greater chance of being right in the second case than in the first. (And a lot of the time

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when people who engage in self-diagnosis get it wrong, they actually do end up diagnosed with something, just not the thing they expected.)

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Speaking somewhat personally – I've listened to school teachers and psychologists tell me all these things our son does which are "symptoms of autism" and I'm sitting there the whole time thinking to myself "what's 'autistic' about that, I did that too as a child, I even still do that as an adult?" That's not saying that I do or don't have ASD – I've never sought a formal assessment of it for myself, maybe one day I shall, maybe

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I never will – but my suspicions that I might have ASD probably have somewhat more weight to them than "oh I saw a TV show about it once and now I think I have it".

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yetihehe 4 days ago [–]

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> but moderate autism makes it incredibly hard to act in daily life in the same way moderate OCD does.

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It's hard to live with moderate asperger syndrome, because you typically look and act normal, but are actually positioned in uncanny valley of behaviour. You try to act normally, but your responses are off enough to be mistranslated by others. You are expected to behave normally but you are missing those expectations. People who are visibly disadvantaged have lower expectations on them from the start.

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bryanrasmussen 4 days ago [–]

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I have a hard time understanding if your mention of the co-worker was supposed to be an example of someone who misused autism or not?

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>it's not something you use "neurodivergent" with seriously.

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what do you use neurodivergent with seriously. I would think not being able to read a room is a big problem?

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>Like generally there's a lot of disability chic or identity these days; but moderate autism makes it incredibly hard to act in daily life in the same way moderate OCD does.

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is it incredibly hard to act in daily life with moderate autism, or is having moderate autism and complaining about its difficulties an example of disability chic or identity? It seems like you want to say it is the latter, but phrasing like 'incredibly hard' make it seem like you couldn't possible mean that.

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Noos 4 days ago [–]

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No, it wasn't a coworker; it was a customer's adult child they left with us now and then more or less to babysit. He didn't misuse it at all; the idea of "neurodivergence" would be impossible for him to get. It was more like "rain man" without any of the mythical savantness; i say moderate because he wouldn't need a full time caregiver and could probably act on his own, but worrying about "reading a room" was impossible for him; it

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never entered his mind.

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Having moderate forms of autism is incredibly hard, yes. Severe forms you would need a caregiver and medication for the rest of your life. It isn't just socially awkward behavior or insensitivity, and there's a temptation to medicalize or self-diagnose behavior that way.

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Disability chic is medicalizing things that more or less are normal behavior. I feel like with autism people try to make an identity or medicalize some normal traits. I keep using OCD, mostly because I do worry I suffer from it. I am aware of the irony, but i do this more because i suffered from signficant abnormal traits like checking compulsions; hitting a pothole and immediately being afraid i ran someone over, etc. Worrying that

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you didn't lock a door despite tugging on the doorknob 6 times before you left.I have it light because I don't need drugs to manage it and I'm able to function somewhat in life (though as an adult i worry how much of who I am was because of it)

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There really isn't overlap with anything else; like people misuse OCD to mean "neat freak" or forgetful or what have you. Autism though people seem to have some of that; I mean, my customer's son has to be told to not get in people's spaces while many non autistic people may stand too close. It's harder to untangle.

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eyelidlessness 3 days ago [–]

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I mean this in the kindest way possible. I read more closely through this thread, and I’m glad I did.

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First, I relate to your feelings of minimizing your own experiences, and your impulse to minimize others’. That’s not just how I felt before I was ready to get help, it’s something so ingrained in me that it’s a repetitive conversation with my family and loved ones since I have.

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Second and more importantly, if you do have those symptoms I sincerely hope you’ll consider talking to a professional. The worst thing that happens is you’ll waste a couple hours. The next worst thing that can happen is you might make some sense of why your brain is the way it is, and it might lead to some peace. It’s all up from there.

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eyelidlessness 3 days ago [–]

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Full disclosure: I’m not yet diagnosed ASD, but I have pretty high confidence I will be. The only reason I haven’t pursued it sooner is that the point I acknowledged not just the possibility but the importance of knowing was around the same point I was no longer able to continue at my last job, which was six months ago. So I don’t currently have the resources (insurance) to look further.

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That said, while I’m not an expert on the topic, some of the way you responded is right in line with what I’ve seen people with diagnoses express as harmful. I’m sure you mean well, but ASD presents in a lot of ways. Many which are not nearly so debilitating as what you describe, or more to the point, not debilitating in the same ways. The fact that it’s such a common misconception that it is so debilitating across the board

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is stigmatic.

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I haven’t experienced this disability chic, what I’ve seen is the opposite: people afraid to find out because it may be socially limiting beyond their natural limits.

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It’s possible that what you see here is a reflection of high incidence of what you call “high function” but nevertheless also a high incidence of ASD in tech communities.

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I hope you’ll consider the possibility. I hope you’ll also consider that it took me a full day to work up the nerve to address your response, and honestly it’s such a sensitive subject that I’m probably going to have to stop looking at my phone for the night because I can’t bear whatever potential negative reaction might be coming. But I couldn’t bear leaving it unanswered even more.

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afiori 3 days ago [–]

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Like many many old people my late grandmother would very often complain about her bad heart, she had a perfectly healthy heart that would have never gave her any problem, she only stopped complaining about her heart once other health issue started to appear.

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My suspicion is that the reason she was often complaining about her heart was that she in part knew that there was no need to be worried about it.

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Openly choosing to recognize the existence of a dragon in your life require either bravery, desperation, or finding a costume to put your cat.

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I am not specifically replying to you, I was just stimulated by the topic, but I find it ironic that given a debilitating condition being outspoken about it could maean being of two very different end of a spectrum of experiences.

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skissane 4 days ago [–]

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> Like generally there's a lot of disability chic or identity these days; but moderate autism makes it incredibly hard to act in daily life in the same way moderate OCD does.

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Are you familiar with the concept of broad autism phenotype (BAP)? A person who has more autistic traits than the average person, but not enough traits (or are not sufficiently impaired by those traits) for an ASD diagnosis, has BAP. Someone who thinks they–or someone else–has ASD in the absence of a formal diagnosis–if they are wrong about the person having ASD, they probably are actually picking up on the person's BAP traits

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And how does the experience of BAP and ASD differ? Well, they are just different positions on a continuum–people with BAP have similar experiences to people with ASD, albeit with less intensity and/or less impairment. And the line between them is unclear and subjective, different clinicians draw it in different places–whether you end up with the diagnosis can depend on factors that have nothing to do with you personally, such as

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the diagnostic practices and clinical culture of the clinicians you end up seeing. (And the line is moving – a lot of people diagnosed with ASD today would not have received that diagnosis if they'd presented with the same symptoms 20 or 30 years ago.)

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Stressful environments often exacerbate people's autistic traits and interfere with their own strategies for managing them. A series of stressful life events can lead a person to a situation in which they end up being diagnosed, whereas if their life had taken a more leisurely turn they might never have been diagnosed – even if their innate traits are exactly the same in the two scenarios. One of the key criteria for diagnosing

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ASD (criterion D) is clinically significant dysfunction, and dysfunction is highly environmentally determined (unsupportive environments result in far more dysfunction than supportive ones given the same underlying condition)

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> If it's significant enough, it's not just someone being brisk or unempathetic in the same way OCD doesn't mean being a neat freak.

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BAP is subclinical ASD. Subclinical OCD is also a subject of study, although unlike BAP it doesn't have a distinctive name. A lot of "neat freak" people may actually have subclinical OCD. And subclinical OCD and clinical OCD are on a continuum with each other, with a subjective and varying dividing line between them, just as subclinical and clinical ASD are.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26537443

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-TechrightsBN/#boycottnovell-news.ycombinator.com | > Just wondering what the source is for Stallman being autistic? I see people sa... | Hacker News

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26451328

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-TechrightsBN/#boycottnovell-news.ycombinator.com | > This article fills a gap in my vocabulary for someone who shares some traits a... | Hacker News

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26312895

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-TechrightsBN/#boycottnovell-news.ycombinator.com | I don't know if many people here would have ever heard about the concept of Broa... | Hacker News

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Noos 4 days ago [–]

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I'm not sure you can reduce it to traits in the method you mean. I think mostly it severity. I do think stress can have something to do with it.

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I mean, there is no "neat freak" trait; that's something people who don't have OCD use because they think that's part of what it is. It's more intrusive thoughts about contamination, and there isn't a spectrum of those traits. Like you can't really "train" yourself to not be contaminated, in the way autism people talk about training to deal with social conditions. Trying to argue against it reinforces the behavior. It happens

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despite you knowing its totally irrational

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I think I get BAP if you mean "the condition isn't severe enough to significantly impair your life," but I can see similarities between my checking behavior and people suffering the same but worse; I'm just fortunate enough that it doens't occur frequently. The talk about autism though is a different kind of talk; the moderate or severe sufferers are different.

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Like the person I mention never got better or could use coping stuff; he would if anything just end up unable to talk possibly because he was medicated sometimes. I understand I'm not a clinician, but there's a lot of "spectrum" behavior in things now; you have gender spectrums, sexual spectrums (asexual, demisexual, sapiosexual), and I'm not sure the concepts aren't just medicalizing normal variation or individual temperament. I

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wish i could be doing this for me, if anything.

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skissane 4 days ago [–]

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> It's more intrusive thoughts about contamination, and there isn't a spectrum of those traits.

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There is a continuum of intrusive thoughts – the continuum of frequency and intensity of those thoughts, the continuum of how easy it is to move on from them, etc. And a single individual can move back and forward along that continuum over time, in response to life events, development/maturity/ageing, and other factors. We say they have OCD if (a) they have enough frequency/intensity/etc of those intrusive thoughts, (b) the

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intrusive thoughts are sufficiently impairing in their everyday life, (c) there isn't some other disorder which better explains those intrusive thoughts. We draw a line on the continuum, and say this side is "OCD" (or maybe some other disorder), and the other side isn't, but that line is inevitably a subjective clinical judgement call

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> The talk about autism though is a different kind of talk; the moderate or severe sufferers are different.

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You mention "moderate" and "severe" – what about "mild ASD"? I guess what used to be called Aspergers syndrome?

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> Like the person I mention never got better or could use coping stuff

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You can't draw a lot of conclusions from a single person. You can't say that people with milder, less noticeable symptoms don't exist.

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Aloha 4 days ago [–]

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Agreed.

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I've spent a lifetime learning a rulebook by trial and error that everyone else just seems to know.

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It's absolutely maddening then the rules suddenly change for no discernible reason, often with little warning and grave consequences with no second chances for screwing it up.

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eyelidlessness 3 days ago [–]

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I’m sorry I didn’t see this sooner. Just want to say I’ve felt this, most of my life. I wish I had more to offer than this but: you’re not alone, and I hope knowing that will be as helpful to you as it’s been to me.

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Aloha 2 days ago [–]

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Thank You! This whole post, and another comment I made on this thread was super affirming, its nice to know I'm not alone.

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It's why what people call 'cancel culture' scares the snot out of me, I'm deathly afraid I'm gonna say or do the wrong thing, and not really have a way to respond to it, and pay some sort of heavy toll. I'm okay with free speech having consequences (its the only way to ensure we can actually have speech mostly free of government regulation). I just wish those consequences were not applied for things deemed ex post facto (often by

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decades) to be violations of social norms.

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But there is a certain amount of mental exhaustion from having to filter everything I say outside of some very very narrow circles, lest I say something that could be deemed in the future to be 'problematic'.

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The larger issue I see, is our current focus on peoples actions in the past is it leaves no room for personal growth or to change views, it if anything hardens people views and perspectives - if someone gets no credit for getting better about something (like use of pronouns, or whatever else), there is no incentive to improve.

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spiritplumber 4 days ago [–]

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"Does wearing this thing make me look fat?"

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"A bit. If your goal is to look thinner I'd try that other thing instead."

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Is this a neurotypical person being a butt, or an autistic person trying to be helpful?

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Answer: yes.

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Ekaros 4 days ago [–]

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Why is the person answering here considered to be the butt and not the person setting up the trap? Generally I believe it is know that there is no good answers to this question. So maybe we should assign blame on person asking it? That is if they don't really want the honest answer.

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u801e 4 days ago [–]

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That's good way to put it. A more obvious trap question would be "have you stopped beating your wife?"

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orthoxerox 4 days ago [–]

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It could be a neurotypical Dutch being themselves. Societal norms vary from culture to culture, even within what we call the western world.

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bryanrasmussen 4 days ago [–]

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also a Dane I think, frankly it seemed polite.

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wccrawford 4 days ago [–]

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American here. I can recognize that it's considered rude here to admit someone is overweight, even if they ask.

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So I would never answer this question to someone who didn't love me. And even then, they get offended, even though they ask.

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Instead, my answer is, "Nope, not gonna answer that." And then they get mad anyhow.

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So the comment above about the "trap" is correct. That person started the rudeness, but they won't take the heat for it.

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ejolto 4 days ago [–]

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Also Scandinavian and I agree with you. Also Americans lying about these things are often seen as being fake and thus rude.

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enriquto 4 days ago [–]

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As a southern European, I concur that US-ian fake politeness is quite disturbing.

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ethbr0 4 days ago [–]

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As a southern American, I'd chalk a lot of it up to our multiculturalism. There are different parts within the US, where you'd get different answers to that question, almost always!

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But I'd say suggestion and (to use the southern term) social grace is one of the most nuanced and culture-heavy forms of communication. In that it assumes a lot of shared culture between you and the other party.

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As least down here, with > stranger, < intimate partner, you'd get a "No" in all cases, but the words attached to the no would also differ almost 100% of the time in the "No, but..." case.

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And I imagine most of those cues completely disappear cross-culturally.

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enriquto 4 days ago [–]

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> most of those cues completely disappear cross-culturally.

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If they simply disappeared, it would be alright. The problem is when they have the exact opposite meaning.

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One example is US-ian unnaturally white teeth, that supposedly look OK there, but are somewhat creepy in the rest of the world. I mean, human teeth are not supposed to be white, but a range of very light ivory tones.

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ethbr0 4 days ago [–]

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> The problem is when they have the exact opposite meaning

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Granted! But also when they have no meaning, or are just... odd (e.g. "That's weird, how do they want me to respond to that reply they just made?")

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White teeth are totally creepy here too. If you ask any US dentist, they'll tell you to match eye white (varies from individual to individual) to look natural.

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But, then, there's a few "beautiful people" states where norms are so out of whack they don't realize how weird it is.

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dgellow 4 days ago [–]

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I'm Swiss (from a French-speaking canton), that seems polite to me too.

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the-dude 4 days ago [–]

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Could you please leave us out of this?

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caddemon 4 days ago [–]

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I think there's another factor here not mentioned by other commenters - it is possible to be both neurodivergent and an ass, but it can often be a lot easier to discover that a neurodivergent person is an ass. Neurotypical assholes will usually be pretty good at controlling their public image.

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So even if we suppose that cancel culture somehow has 0 false positives (which I highly doubt), it's likely that many more neurodivergent assholes will be "caught" than neurotypical ones. Which feels functionally very similar to profiling IMO, and practically means we are probably not catching the more "dangerous" assholes. Because it's a lot easier to ignore an asshole view if you're aware of it.

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brigandish 4 days ago [–]

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By separating intention and action. Everyone can be perceived as thoughtless or mean or an arse by anyone else for any action, but we also know from experience when we've been the "baddy" that we may have had good intentions, even the best.

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I'm sure you also know of times - I know I do for myself - of times you've knowingly and purposively been an arse.

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There's the biggest difference.

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WindyLakeReturn 2 days ago [–]

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Intent and justification.

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Intent is the easier one to understand. Neurodivergent often don't act with the same intent that someone being an asshole does. Two people tell you that you shouldn't be eating that cookie. One is intending to be mean an to hurt you. The other cares about you and means the message in the best interest of your health, not realizing it will hurt.

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With time and some prompting they can be led to understand how the message would be interpreted and realize it is hurt and stop, but it happens much slower and is often too little too late.

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Justification is the harder to understand or empathize with possibility. Due to the previous issue impacting every area of life, often resulting in a significant decrease in quality of life and a significant increase in emotional pain, some will lower the extent they empathize with others. It is harder to explain because people think of their own times being hurt by others and think how they had the option to just do better than was

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done to them and rise above, not conceptualizing what qualitative differences occur when a pain goes from a short term event to a life long occurrence.

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One further problem is that justification is only sometimes deemed appropriate by society. The differences in what are deemed appropriate differ strongly enough I'm hesitant to list examples because many will consider just making the comparison as a very asshole move. I am not at all clear if this consideration is in good faith or not.

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everdrive 4 days ago [–]

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Without being too trite: intent.

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Sometimes people think I'm being awkward or uncomfortable, but mostly I'm tripping over myself trying (and failing) to find the right things to say. People expect that you can read them, and read the situation in real time. I can't (although usually I can gather how it's all gone wrong once the moment has passed -- a double-edged sword.)

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skissane 4 days ago [–]

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What counts as "neurodivergent"? Just ASD? What about other psychiatric diagnoses?

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A lot of "non-autistic assholes" may have other diagnosable conditions, for example narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) or antisocial personality disorder (ASPD). Are NPD or ASPD "neurodiverse" or "neurodivergent"? They are probably partially genetic, just as ASD is probably partially genetic.

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lenkite 4 days ago [–]

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Frankly, just about everyone would be "neurodivergent" in a different culture.

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caddemon 4 days ago [–]

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To some extent yes, but have you ever interacted with RMS? His behavior goes way beyond the typical "coder with Asperger's" borderline cases you're thinking of.

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lenkite 3 days ago [–]

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Only after one of his talks on software, not in a personal capacity. I didn't observe anything peculiar about his behaviour - except for the deep commitment to free software. But this was nearly a decade ago...

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eyelidlessness 4 days ago [–]

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Other commonly classified neurodivergent diagnoses are ADHD and OCD (which along with ASD commonly overlap). They don’t have much overlap with personality disorders (which do have a lot of overlap among that category).

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skissane 4 days ago [–]

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> Other commonly classified neurodivergent diagnoses are ADHD and OCD (which along with ASD commonly overlap)

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What makes those diagnoses "neurodivergent" and the others not? Why aren't other diagnoses "neurodivergent" too? How exactly do we define "neurodivergent"? (And why is that the right definition to use?)

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> They don’t have much overlap with personality disorders (which do have a lot of overlap among that category).

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There is a lot of overlap between the disruptive behaviour disorders (DBDs) – oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) and conduct disorder (CD) – and ADHD; so much so that ADHD is sometimes considered a DBD along with ODD and CD. And there is a clear connection between CD in children and adolescents and ASPD in adults – indeed, a child or adolescent with CD can follow one of two trajectories, either their conduct problems resolve

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with maturity and they become law-abiding pro-social adults, or else the child/adolescent diagnosis of CD evolves into the adult diagnosis of ASPD. So there is definitely a connection between ASPD and ADHD. A child with ADHD (even without comorbid CD) has an increased risk of developing ASPD as an adult – https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24284138/

-TechrightsBN/#boycottnovell-pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov | The Association Between ADHD and Antisocial Personality Disorder (ASPD): A Review - PubMed

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Some researchers consider ASPD to be a neurodevelopmental disorder – https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29401045/ – which is the same category that ASD and ADHD (and sometimes also OCD) are put in.

-TechrightsBN/#boycottnovell-pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov | Antisocial Personality as a Neurodevelopmental Disorder - PubMed

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There is also a lot of overlap between ADHD and BPD (Borderline personality disorder) – https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4739390/

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There's also overlap between ASD and BPD – https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5590952/

-TechrightsBN/#boycottnovell-www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov | Common ground in Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD)–review of recent findings