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thinkinginpictures
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15 Feb 2021, 3:37 pm

I find all too often, more neurotypicals than aspies engage in ad hominem attacks (that is, attacking a specific poster not for his/her opinions or arguments, but because he/her is the author).

Is there any statistical data to support this observation, and if it is correct, why do they love ad hominem attacks?

Also, shouldn't ad hominem attacks be punishable (legally) by severe punishment - ie. jail?



Fnord
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15 Feb 2021, 3:40 pm

Could this also be a case of confirmation bias?



thinkinginpictures
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15 Feb 2021, 3:49 pm

Fnord wrote:
Could this also be a case of confirmation bias?


If no statistics can prove my observation right, my observation is of no value.



kraftiekortie
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15 Feb 2021, 3:50 pm

Plenty of autistic folks make ad hominem attacks here on WP....trust me!



Fnord
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15 Feb 2021, 3:52 pm

thinkinginpictures wrote:
Fnord wrote:
Could this also be a case of confirmation bias?
If no statistics can prove my observation right, my observation is of no value.
Do you intend to do some actual research and post your protocol, data, and conclusions?



thinkinginpictures
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15 Feb 2021, 4:46 pm

kraftiekortie wrote:
Plenty of autistic folks make ad hominem attacks here on WP....trust me!


Ok, I guess my observations just happened to be more on other forums (where the majority are NTs), and thus a coincidence.

Maybe ad hominem is just a bad behavior that is as common amongst NTs as with aspies?

Still, it should be punished.



Fnord
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15 Feb 2021, 4:49 pm

thinkinginpictures wrote:
kraftiekortie wrote:
Plenty of autistic folks make ad hominem attacks here on WP....trust me!
Ok, I guess my observations just happened to be more on other forums (where the majority are NTs), and thus a coicidence.  Maybe ad hominem is just a bad behavior that is as common amongst NTs as with aspies?  Still, it should be punished.
Well, posting on this website about a problem on other websites is not going to solve the problem.  It is like marching in protest in Los Angeles against something that happened in New York.  Have you contacted the moderators on those other websites yet?



Pepe
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15 Feb 2021, 5:24 pm

thinkinginpictures wrote:
I find all too often, more neurotypicals than aspies engage in ad hominem attacks (that is, attacking a specific poster not for his/her opinions or arguments, but because he/her is the author).

Is there any statistical data to support this observation, and if it is correct, why do they love ad hominem attacks?

Also, shouldn't ad hominem attacks be punishable (legally) by severe punishment - ie. jail?



I have seen a lot of ad hominem attacks in autistic communities also.
They should know better.



Pepe
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15 Feb 2021, 5:27 pm

Fnord wrote:
thinkinginpictures wrote:
kraftiekortie wrote:
Plenty of autistic folks make ad hominem attacks here on WP....trust me!
Ok, I guess my observations just happened to be more on other forums (where the majority are NTs), and thus a coicidence.  Maybe ad hominem is just a bad behavior that is as common amongst NTs as with aspies?  Still, it should be punished.
Well, posting on this website about a problem on other websites is not going to solve the problem.  It is like marching in protest in Los Angeles against something that happened in New York.  Have you contacted the moderators on those other websites yet?


Agreed.
Or like protesting in a coronavirus plague in Australia for the BLM movement.



Pepe
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15 Feb 2021, 5:30 pm

kraftiekortie wrote:
Plenty of autistic folks make ad hominem attacks here on WP....trust me!


Agreed.
Mountains of anecdotal & factual evidence of auties behaving badly.



GGPViper
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15 Feb 2021, 6:41 pm

thinkinginpictures wrote:
Also, shouldn't ad hominem attacks be punishable (legally) by severe punishment - ie. jail?

... if so, anyone and everyone with an Internet connection would probably be behind bars serving 20 to life now...



naturalplastic
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15 Feb 2021, 9:23 pm

kraftiekortie wrote:
Plenty of autistic folks make ad hominem attacks here on WP....trust me!


Nonsense!

No autistic would ever do that!

Only a lying scoundrel like YOU ...would ever claim such a thing!



FlaminPika
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16 Feb 2021, 3:42 am

TL;DR If NTs are less likely to stay grounded in reason than neurodivergents then it definitely makes sense for that to be the case. First I'll say what shouldn't have to be said (which has been noted already lol), which is that autistic people can be just as irrational as NTs because ultimately we're all human and humans are extremely diverse. But anyway...

Whenever I engage in heated discourse with NTs the main thing I notice is they typically display a greater propensity to argue with emotion and vitriol rather than (closer to pure) logic, so that may be why it would seem they engage in ad hominem more. Irritable emotional people will typically exhibit a stronger likelihood to resort to fallacies and insults.

Regardless of whether or not that's true I'd like to add that politics has seemingly become so abstract and domineering to the point where complete delusion has become normalized, and we are now witnessing this in contemporary American politics, and inside a hypersensitive political climate you're bound to deal with difficult people who are better at rambling nonsense while spouting fallacies than engaging in a civil conversation.



naturalplastic
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16 Feb 2021, 4:32 am

I dont spend a whole lotta time on other websites (non autistic, presumably NT majority sites). So I couldnt compare. So it might be possible that aspies stay in the logical zone longer than NT do, before finnally....going off the deep end, and screaming insults.

But folks certainly are known to get heated on this site.



Mona Pereth
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16 Feb 2021, 7:26 am

I think the type of website, and the structure of the forum
(or social medium) makes a big difference too. Small, moderated, well-organized forums run by small teams of volunteers are likely to have more civil discourse than big social media platforms like Twitter, which are much more conducive to mob mentality.


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kraftiekortie
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16 Feb 2021, 7:44 am

In general, we’re a pretty cool and collected website.....though we do go off the deep end sometimes :wink:

Autistic people are human...subject to the same frailties as NT humans. We might seek to emphasize logic more in our arguments.