Autism : executive dysfunction vs discomfort

 Someone casually posted on Threads about bullies being able to identify autistic targets.

That's an interesting lens : being easy to bully and being autistic are comorbid, but it may inform us a bit on what the real problem is ... if the problem is framed in terms of discomfort, instead of executive function, it changes the field a bit :P

2x2 domain analysis of the term "autism"

There's a definitive distinction, between traits which ENABLE (E) and traits which DISABLE (D), the political capital of the bearer.

There's also a distinction between genomic/anatomical PREDISPOSITIONS (P), and cultural ADAPTATIONS (A).

Autism originally referred to : 

• DP

Autism has been co-opted as a label for : 

• EP, 
• DA, and 
• EA

 ... which I find problematic, but which I consider worth discussing for clarity.

Disability : Perception of Hate

Being unable to fathom that mean people exist, is a DISABILITY.  ( Say it out loud. )

Empathy is great, but if you can't brain the other side, you're never going to be useful at building sustainable systems.

the Meta-Ethics of Autism and Neurodiversity

I just did a fascinating recap on the history of  two terms, 'neurodiversity' and 'autism'. 

Currently these are political minefields, mainly because of an informal space where any disenfranchised individual may identify with such labels and to  then use them as foundations upon which to argue for compensation from, and punitive action upon, others. 

Clearly there is a broad governance gap that needs to be addressed, in terms of both verbal analysis, and socio-economic policy. This is moreover a topic for study under the grand subject of morality, and its discontents. We are simply in the realm of discussions of, 'what is good?', 'what do we do about situations deemed not/good?'

The initial mess I am concerned with, is any group of people that

1. self-identifies with a specific group-speak, 

2. expresses that inclusion to the group is necessary upon adopting the usage of local group-speak, but that exclusion from the group is sufficient upon group consensus, ( because these criteria may be contradictory ),

3. expresses that the group defines the usage of the term for people who do not self-identify with the group.

Examples of such group-speaks would seem to include :

... English, in some groups of English speakers ;

... common sense, in some groups of commoners ;

... normality, in some groups of normal identified people ;

... humanity, in some groups of humans ;

... Bitcoin protocol, in the Bitcoin validator network ;

... mean, in some groups of mean girls ;

... class, in some groups of class identified people ;

... disability, in some groups of disability identified people;

Broadly, even when 1. and 2. can be jiggled to make 2. internally coherent, 3. then remains a problem when the group engages in political, normative activity, outside the group.

Ah, empire.

<Hr>

Further banter :

The utilitarian synopsis, which will offend hard empaths, is that ... while cultural identity may be enjoyed by people individually, no individual has the right to force another individual to expend resources in the forcer's interest.

So a group may assert identity with a word, but cannot expect to be accepted by other groups, if the group's identity is non-negotiable, and if other groups have pre-existing interests associated with that word which are incompatible with the group's traits.

Ergo it is a issue of identity politics.

Nitpicking on Fallacies in Autism Culture

There are many, in plain sight. I expect to update this post as I gradually collect dialogue or remember to pen down personal observations.

---

People who self-identify as 'autistic' seem to have a misunderstanding of whether certain traits would be considered relevant to a diagnosis of 'autism'. There are actually three parties involved in these misunderstandings.

1. professional diagnosticians
2. lay-persons who use the term 'autistic' differently from the first party
3. people who might be subject to the term 'autistic', from either or both of the first and second parties

Sometimes a person belongs to both parties 2. and 3., and this is where complications arise. But these complications seem to feed strongly into autism culture ( the culture of people who self-identify as being autistic ).

Further banter :

• Premise 1 : failure to acknowledge social rank is an insufficient criteria for diagnosing autism
• Premise 2 : there is a correlation between diagnosed autists and incapability to perceive social rank
• Premise 3 : you have a thoughtful rejection of social rank

... ergo ...

Corollary 1 : it is wrong to assert, that the diagnostic criteria for autism misinterprets 3. as your incapability to perceive social rank

Corollary 2 : it is more simply the case, that 3. is irrelevant to any diagnosis that you do, or do not, have autism

Further banter :

yes, my entire point was about the identity politics and cultural tropes of autism. Anyone is free to  identify as an 'autist' but as the scope of that group expands wider and wider, it loses its relationship to the original definition. Similar to how in gender identity, folks of any sex can freely identity with being 'man', to the point that 'man' no longer corresponds to 'male', and that's ok. With regards to autism, the gender identity which spins-off from the clinical classification, however, uses the same word for both, so this is bound to be controversial as each group will bicker about who gets to use the word, and in what context. 

Autism Terminology

Rooting Behavioural Taxonomy, in Models of Pleasure

Since I've recently made some friends in the autist-activist community ... and since the language in all its fuzziness is now so broadly used, I decided to revise my understanding of what autism means.

I am now reading the history of the term. I wonder if, it is generally understood that autists simply express a different model of pleasure, rather than being impaired in certain functionalities. Then again, I suppose that's equivalent to saying that "normal social function" is defined by having a specific mode/l of pleasure. 

Cute, people, very cute ...

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Aside. Monotropism defining autism ... I'm not sure if it's fair to called this a superficial assessment. Of course, an orthogonal distribution of interests might be misinterpreted to be a monomodal distribution. However it might be the case that orthogonal or not, the characteristics of an autist tend to be more narrowly distributed than those of non-austists. This data set remain to be formalised. ( See : Double-empathy problem )

Aside. Weak central coherence theory ... logically : we would say that autism is characterised by a bias towards deductive reasoning ( computation / information processing ), away from inductive reasoning ( computation / information processing ). The bias may be hypothesised to be due to intrinsic capability.

Aside. Alexithymia ... "less active random number generator".

Autism becomes a cultural movement, yet to find its science

Latest pet peeve : overuse of "neurotypical" to describe phenomena which are divergent mainly due to culture, and not physiology.

I'm almost certain that most people don't have a firm grasp on the plasticity of brains, or the underlying qualia which all cultures have in common. Yet people will inevitably complain that this or that behaviour has this or that metaphysical trait. On one hand, the curation of humility requires that one set aside any presumption of models when attempting to model a counterparty's point of view ("empathy") ... and on the other, we have the age old condescension of adopting ignorance willfully in order to willfully fit in with ignorant people ("civil society"). Here and there, artificial intelligence is trendy again, but it is a misnomer to write AI in small caps, as the generic term is far from the gruesome chimera of presumptions that presumers who trend upon intelligence will embody.

Too late to summon up further edits and reflections. Better to embrace ignorance, pick up the paycheques, and keep rolling. Passing privileges are paying decently. Ablism is ironic. And I am generally a tired person, over endless years.

Rant: Autism, Abnormal Labels, Sickness, and Statistics

Was discussing this set of social phenomenon, { 

1. "the assertion that some behaviours are normal, despite being implicitly present, rather than explicitly defined", 

2. "the assertion that people should demonstrate sociability by assuming the first assertion, then complying with it", 

3. "the assertion that non-compliance is a disorder",

4. "the assertion that disorders are to be made compliant with the norm"

}

Haha, high-context cultured people who believe in common sense sensitivities are welcome to castigate rule-oriented people as "disordered", and rule-oriented people are symmetrically welcome to castigate emotionally sensitive people as disabled, I think 😛

I just happen to have chosen to believe, years and years ago, that sensitive people are cripples. I don't think there's an objective right or wrong, it's just a preference for what sorts of societies we each want to build out of the world that we are collectively given.

Well, my personal view is that high-context cultures are degenerate and I am generally opposed to endorsing them.

Autism, Empathy, Mental Discipline... and all that

Many people have a crippled sense of empathy. They relate well to babies, and cats, and pretty people, but not to machines, and rocks, and ugly ones. And they are self-righteous in their regard of the world. Hehehe.

/

Autism isn't a blase ignorance of empathy

Autism tends to start with hypersensitivity to sensory input. The overstimulation leads to panic, which turns off the lower priority cognitive functions like empathy, etc. So training to cope with sensory overstimulation is where we all start... as kids... that lays the canvas for the development of empathic behaviours via mirror neural reflexes, and communicative feedback loops. So that's two levels of training.

In terms of being able to turn them on/off at will... sometimes you want your meat to be social, and sometimes you want it to be antisocial. If the reasoning parts of the brain are in charge, with training, they can override all natural born impulses. This is mental discipline...

It's quite cool once you figure it out - you can see this viewpoint reflected in the daily auto-therapy of The Accountant Movie's protagonist. Also you will notice how he approaches it as a sort of monastic study that ties in with his militaristic skills. It's pretty much train, train, train, and everything gets fitter, stronger, etc.

/

This probably provides insights into ASPD, for the uninitiated.

Psychopathy and its Discontents

A business partner asked if I'd been tested for autism. I said,

I'm sure I could fake it. But that's why I'm not exactly autistic - I trained myself in college to turn on and off my inhibitions to all sorts of things, so I do tend to think of myself as a sociopath by training. I trained myself in college to turn on and off my inhibitions to all sorts of things, so I do tend to think of myself as a sociopath by training. Point of information - there's no technical definition for sociopathy - it's just a euphemism for psychopathy.

This is from the Wikipedia for psychopathy - it accurately describes my personal practices post-training (my empathy was probably more automatic, once - I trained to have more control over it). But even before college, I was raised in a religious family by religious leaders, so I had to study empathy from a pretty young age. So I haven't thought deeply about it, but who's to say which came first, the aptitude for psychopathy, or the trainings in the pro/con direction?

A recent study on psychopaths found that under certain circumstances, they could willfully empathize with others, and that their empathic reaction initiated the same way it does for controls. Psychopathic criminals were brain-scanned while watching videos of a person harming another individual. The psychopaths' empathic reaction initiated the same way it did for controls when they were instructed to empathize with the harmed individual, and the area of the brain relating to pain was activated when the psychopaths were asked to imagine how the harmed individual felt. The research suggests how psychopaths could switch empathy on at will, which would enable them to be both callous and charming. The team who conducted the study say it is still unknown how to transform this willful empathy into the spontaneous empathy most people have, though they propose it could be possible to bring psychopaths closer to rehabilitation by helping them to activate their "empathy switch". Others suggested that despite the results of the study, it remained unclear whether psychopaths' experience of empathy was the same as that of controls, and also questioned the possibility of devising therapeutic interventions that would make the empathic reactions more automatic.[70][71]

Scary isn't it? It appears to be scary to most people.