Society sucks.

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(preamble: my Mom thinks that I have AS. I don't. I just have a quasi-Aspie personality, without any of the Uber mental abilities associated with Autistic-spectrum disorders)

In my life, the one thing that I've learned most thoroughly about people is that most of them are unfathomable idiots. People have constructed this elaborate code of social BS that they follow without having the slightest clue why, and they ostracise or feel offended by those who defy it. Why does the clerk at Walgreens thank me for buying milk there? Have I done her some personal favor that I'm unaware of? Why am I expected to apologize for things that I do completely by accident? Why does no one realize that life would be so much less stressful if we didn't have to put up with this crap?

Guys... you don't need to have a neurological disorder to be socially inept. Our culture is designed to make life difficult for people who think logically and practically. Nothing makes this more clear than Seven of Nine on Star Trek: Voyager, whose ruthlessly pragmatic approach to life was the source of much amusement when she tried to interact with the rest of the ship's stupid crew (except, of course, Tuvok). So what's the solution? Should people like us just keep BSing our way through life in an attempt to "fit in"? No. We should take a more... aggressive approach. Instead of altering our behavior to fit popular culture, we should attempt to alter popular culture to fit our behavior.

Don't scoff. It's much more possible than you think. I'm sure that all of the Borg wannabes in the world, pooling our talents, could concoct a veritable onslaught of books, TV shows, and movies that could change the way people act. Humans, especially the young ones, really are much more imitative than even we realize. This plan would take at least 20 years to get rolling, but anyone exposed to the works at a young enough age would know the truth and be unable to turn back. This could also be used for other purposes (making geekiness "cool", abolishing fabricated emotions, etc.), but probably with less success. At the very least, people would be more readily accepting of those who speak bluntly and only when they have something important to say.

"He who controls McBurger Kong..."
-Gregorius


Note: When I say "fabricated emotions", I refer to emotional responses that we learn by imitation rather than direct experience. For example, no human has ever been attacked by a wolf, yet some people are afraid of wolves because popular culture teaches them to be.

I agree, the average human is very stupid.

I don't agree. We cannot change the social laws. Humans will always adhere to them because of the fact that they are conscious beings. People have created these laws in the first place to "be nice", and if these laws get taken away, they will just resurface again at a later time.

I have a theory that if humans were to invent artificial intelligence, these robots would develop emotions and social laws all on their own. When they would look at a fellow robot dieing, they would think "Robots are mortal, I am mortal". When they see a fellow robot being hurt, they would think "What if that were me?". All emotion stems from intelligence, and social laws stem from emotion...

I made a thread similar to this and people got all pissy at me. I don't know what happened to it.

Though we will never fully abolish the social construct, we can at least push it back a bit... give ourselves some breathing room, so to speak.

It sucks, it sucks, I agree.
But there is much evidence that we did not create these things, that we are products of evolutionary forces as any other creature... our social mechanisms included.
So we're doooomed...........doooooooooooomed...........
DOOOOOOOOOOOMED!! !
*cough*

It was moved to the politics forum as you requested.

Our cultures are the products of sentience gone haywire. Nothing in our DNA codes for saying things that we don't even understand, much less mean.

I'm sorry, but I get a little worried by a lot of the "affirmative action" stuff I read on these pages... The fact is society is designed for and by the majority - if everybody in a minority group, whatever the group was, decided that they were going to start imposing their minority beliefs on that majority, then you've got yourself chaos..... Nobody has a greater problem coping with society than me, but I'm a part of a minority group that composes a mere 0.3% of that society, so what gives me the right to force the other 99.7% to bend to my way of doing things? Should all women be forced to have to cover themselves up to pander to the muslim fundamentalist minority? Should sex and violence be banned in films to please the blue rinse looney fringe? Should we all have to listen to the Grand 'Ole Oprey to appease the Line Dancing crowd? Who decides which special interest groups can force society to alter itself to adapt to their way of thinking?

We're a small minority, people..... Its us who have to adapt, painful and (for me anyway) impossible as it may seem......

Queue outrage and dissent towards me.......

Oh, Last time I looked, I didn't see it, I guess someone has moved it since then.

Its still there- about half way down the page

http://www.wrongplanet.net/modules.php? ... pic&t=1607

What do you mean by "Uber mental abilities"?

And as for your last comment,

You don't have to be "socially inept" to have a neurological disorder.

Not everyone uses AS for an excuse for being "socially inept". In fact, I would call some of my NT friends more "socially inept" than myself, so don't go assuming that all Apies are "socially inept".

Thankyou.

Whoa whoa whoa, who said anything about "imposing our beliefs" on anyone? People will always be free to think whatever they want to.



People with autism can see patterns in things immediately that normal people would have to spend minutes or hours looking for. Do you remember those "find such-and-such a shape in this box of random squiggly lines" puzzles? They get those right away.



But that IS the primary characteristic of autistic-spectrum anomalies.

Yeah, I guess i'm like that.



I wouldn't go as far as making the generalisation of "socially inept". I'm sure alot of Autistic people may be, but if you want to generalise us into one group say something like "people that find social interaction difficult." the other way sounds so mean and degrading... sorry, just my opinion.

I consider myself somewhat socially inept, so I don't consider it a very degrading phrase.

Also, I don't find myself memorizing random things like the birthdays of everyone in Congress. Sure, I could probably rattle off the exact stats and abilities of every unit in Civilization 2, but that's just from seeing them over and over every day. And sure, I made an obsessive attempt to determine how Master of Orion 2 decides planetary characteristics based on star color, but that was in the hopes that the information would give me an edge while playing.

Hmmm... MoO2 is probably the perfect game for people with OCD. I do so much wierd stuff in that game... like when I discover android tech, I try to starve out the organic population in such a way as to make my population on every planet a whole number of millions (like exactly 18,000 k instead of 18,284 k).

Actually I don't really do that. When it comes to patterns, I sometimes see them slower than most people. I have always been horrible at things like wordsearches. So not all of us Aspies can do it. But sometimes I can see patterns faster. Most of the time it is like I either do something MUCH BETTER or MUCH WORSE than someone else, never the same.



Wow, um...and you don't think you have AS? Do you know why you can rattle off the exact stats and abilities of every unit in Civilization 2, but can't memorise the birthdays of everyone in Congress? Because you care about Civilization 2! Those of us with AS can't remember everything, we remember things that matter to us better than most people. I have no idea what Civilization 2 is, so to me it seems like a pretty random thing to memorise. I know basically everything about the Harry Potter world. Why? Because I care about it. Some people think it is just as random and odd as knowing all the birthdates of everyone in Congress. To the person who knows all the birthdays of Congress, it doesn't seem random to them, but very important and interesting.

Also, regarding memory: Do any of you notice that when you don't care about something, you find it almost impossible to remember it? Because this happens to me at school when I have to remember something I don't care about or find interesting. THE THINGS THAT HAVE TO STAY IN MY HEAD NEVER DO! On the other hand, my obsessions never seem to leave even when I want them to.

Yeah, I don't bother to remember stuff I don't care about. I mean, if it's not interesting what a waste of thouhgt.

This becomes a problem at exam time.