On the subject of accuracy vs politeness

[Cryptid]

What does not kill me has been the result of a serious tactical error.

 

[Jonn]

What does not kill me has been the result of a serious tactical error.

Could you elaborate on what you mean?

Edit:
I see...
A joke about suicide.

 

[Boogs]

My worst one, I think (this being all very subjective and such) is pride.
I'll definitely cut my nose off to spite my face, just to show everyone they are wrong!

"Ha! Look! I'm right, I've got no nose now! Ha ha ha! - Oh, hang on... maybe that wasn't such a good idea?"

 

[Boogs]

As Nietzsche said:
"What doesn't kill me makes me stronger."

Obviously Nietzsche never got long covid!

 

[Neia]

My mother told me that I'd cut off my own nose just to spite my face. I said "Yes.". I was 8 years old.

I took a psychological assessment in school that said I'm passive assertive.

I was dumbfounded. But then some things made sense. I let people push me if I don't really care about what they are pushing, if I have no strong moral beliefs about it.

Agreed.

I use the same sort of analogy.

I read a book about 44 years ago called "The Little Prince".
The author implicitly attacked people who had difficulty with life and became disillusioned as a result.
I have never forgotten the lack of insight that person had about human psychological/neurological diversity.

Overall, it was a good book, but for unenlightened children.
Come to think about it, it probably did a lot of damage to some who "didn't fit the bill".

I always hated that book and it's dumb platitydes.

 

[Cryptid]

What does not kill me has been the result of a serious tactical error.

Could you elaborate on what you mean?
Edit:
I see...
A joke about suicide.

No. It is a joke about being a victim of bigotry, bullying, and other forms of aggression.

In other words: "Their biggest mistake was to let me live."

 

[vergil96]

I read a book about 44 years ago called "The Little Prince".

Which characters do you have in mind? I remeber just the alcoholic being a controversial one. Tbh I can't remember more characters than the snake, the fox, the alcoholic and the little prince and the rose. Short book, btw, we could both read it again in one evening to check.

 

[Jonn]

In other words: "Their biggest mistake was to let me live."

So, what did you do to them that they should regret not killing you?

 

[Jonn]

Obviously Nietzsche never got long covid!

But he did get syphilis.

 

[Misty Avich]

But some become "strong like bull" bc of all the bullying.

As Nietzsche said:
"What doesn't kill me makes me stronger."

However, obviously, temperament and the degree of the abuse doesn't make it always work out that way, unfortunately.

Oh yes, it can go both ways. Maybe when I'm twice my age I am now I might just care less, but I'm still at that caring too much stage. I feel I haven't changed since 10 years ago really. The same stuff that bothered me when I was 21 still seems to bother me today.

 

[Boogs]

But he did get syphilis.

Well I know which I'd prefer to catch if I had to! Plus, syphilis is eminently curable these days!
(Though I believe current opinion is tending towards his dementia being related to a brain tumour, and syphilis being unlikely).

Maybe he just should never have stared into the abyss? That would have been the pits! <groan>

 

[thejuice]

If we were gone, they'd lose a lot of those unique minds that make real things - engineers, scientists, artists (of all media), philosophers, and so on.
If they were gone, we lose all the discrimination, bullying, lack of thinking, damaging behaviours, and and and ...

Yes furthermore sheep have their uses in that they can be told what to do and how to think, so as to all pull in the same direction with as little conflict as possible, to make society productive under an abstract flag. Would a nation of people who hate people prevail over a nation of mindless conformists?
I think we work best as a minority. You need the black sheep to start walking in the other direction when the herd start stampeding off a cliff. This I believe is the evolutionary role of autism, to be the thinkers and on the cutting edge of innovation like you stated.

 

[Jonn]

Well I know which I'd prefer to catch if I had to! Plus, syphilis is eminently curable these days!
(Though I believe current opinion is tending towards his dementia being related to a brain tumour, and syphilis being unlikely).

Notice that I said he "did get" syphilis.
I specifically avoided saying syphilis killed him.

 

[Jonn]

Maybe when I'm twice my age I am now I might just care less, but I'm still at that caring too much stage.

Age (eventually) does bring wisdom, Grasshopper.

 

[Misty Avich]

Age (eventually) does bring wisdom, Grasshopper.

Grasshopper.

 

[Jonn]

Spoiler

 

[Boogs]

Yes furthermore sheep have their uses in that they can be told what to do and how to think, so as to all pull in the same direction with as little conflict as possible, to make society productive under an abstract flag.

Exactly (among other benefits too)! Just as so-called "alpha's" are genetically (plus other influences) predisposed to strive to lead. This seems deeply entrenched behaviour (ignoring the exceptions lying outside the 'normal' distribution of course) and can be seen as far back as recorded and extrapolated history shows.

I'd suggest it's an evolved trait (the different classes of human) and this is the same in many other species who live in organised groups (bee's and ant's being well known classic examples). If you have too many alpha's, and ND's, and all the other minority groups who inject new ideas and inventions into the general populace and help prevent stagnation of culture, then the balance between the more efficient producers and the more erratic but equally essential outliers, the artists and scientists and entrepreneurs' (etc) would be lost.

Notice that I said he "did get" syphilis.
I specifically avoided saying syphilis killed him.

I meant that it's starting to be thought he didn't have syphilis, not that it killed or didn't kill him.
Although, the idea of it killing him even if he didn't have it, is very deep! Those ruddy philosophers are so difficult to understand sometimes!

 

[Jeff T]

A bit off base here, but

I wonder if we have something in common with gorillas (excluding DNA)
Gorillas apparently do not look directly at another gorilla's face. Apparently it is bad form.
Although I imagine the alpha gorilla may do so as a dominance thing.

I wonder if humans are similar, but in a verbal sense.
We aren't supposed to be look at another's face too long. It is rude to speak in a very direct way.
Boog's mentioning of the 'not quite true, not quite false' tendency of NT conversation seems similar
to the gorilla's indirect gaze.

As for the conspiracy-biased individuals: what to do?
I was having a conversation with a friend's girlfriend when she started up the "autism is caused by vaccines" spiel.
Her absolute certainty of it was fascinating, but also distressing. My respect for her has slipped some because of this.
I guess most people would nod their heads and 'uh huh' to go along to get along. I didn't, to my regret.

 

[Boogs]

I think different self-aware creatures, such as anthropoids, will adapt to different ways to do similar things. Even among humans some cultures use high levels of eye contact, others much less so, and will be using other body language cues to express the same sorts of information from one to another (including emotional and non-verbal information).

To exclude DNA in looking at commonalities and differences is difficult, because it's the DNA that provides the ability to perform these complex interactions. It seems the better anthropologists and biologists get at studying simian social structures and behaviours, they uncover more aspects that relate very closely to ourselves, even though carried out differently (using the body language etc that works for that particular species.

I'd be inclined to suspect this is pretty mutable too, and has a lot of environmental factors. In some environments having high level eye contact is likely an advantage over other methods, and our brains are trained through environmental state. Someone from another low-eye contact culture has the same brain as their opposite number, but have simply developed in an environment that present a particular way of communicating as most advantageous in that environment.

 

[vergil96]

I think different self-aware creatures, such as anthropoids, will adapt to different ways to do similar things. Even among humans some cultures use high levels of eye contact, others much less so, and will be using other body language cues to express the same sorts of information from one to another (including emotional and non-verbal information).

To exclude DNA in looking at commonalities and differences is difficult, because it's the DNA that provides the ability to perform these complex interactions. It seems the better anthropologists and biologists get at studying simian social structures and behaviours, they uncover more aspects that relate very closely to ourselves, even though carried out differently (using the body language etc that works for that particular species.

I'd be inclined to suspect this is pretty mutable too, and has a lot of environmental factors. In some environments having high level eye contact is likely an advantage over other methods, and our brains are trained through environmental state. Someone from another low-eye contact culture has the same brain as their opposite number, but have simply developed in an environment that present a particular way of communicating as most advantageous in that environment.

Tbh talking on this forum I get the impression that American culture puts a lot of weight on eye contact. I have never experienced a similar narrative about it. All I heard was more like don't look on the shoes, it makes you look shy or something similar. Firstly, no very negative connotations of poor eye contact, more that it makes you seem shy, secondly, nobody seems to bat an eye if it's not direct eye contact, but somewhere on the face or if you look in the direction of the person you're talking to. The whole narrative seems like an American cultural norm to me along with having to smile all the time, from an European perspective, Americans smile much more than Europeans do and also speak louder. Making very strong eye contact seems to fit the general norm of projecting a strong presence, as opposed to more toned down European norms. I can't speak about all Asian countries, but I'm interested in Japanese culture and they're even more toned down, more gentle in their behaviour. Apparently they avoid eye contact altogether. To wrap it up: it strikes me as a cultural norm how much eye contact is made. Even on this forum, I've never heard that sort of narratives around it before joining here.