Discussion Main / AmbiguouslyAutistic

massive misuse that made it a virtual permanent resident of the TRS. Fast Eddie eventually put his foot down and used Admin Fiat to repurpose it into Ambiguous Disorder in an attempt to salvage something from the mess.

Speaking of which, shouldn't this page be deleted?

Forth, it's very, very, clear that Liara is tremendously loyal to her friends, and very much enjoys intimacy with Shepard, so it isn't as if she hates people and wants to live under a rock.

I hope you aren't implying that all aut spec people feel this way, becuase it's extremely offensive if you do. Otherwise good points, though it's still up for debate.

I'd say the problem is that human psychological states don't really fit into the neat little categories our brains are wired to create. And it is difficult to tell the difference between Lack of Empathy and Lack of Expression of Empathy.

As for why we need to play by NT rules? Simple they outnumber us (or at least it seems that way) a thousand to one and as Amy pointed out to Sheldon last week: "Until you manage to upload your consciousness into a satellite with internet access and a cloaking device, you have to rely on other people to survive."

Those are two very different things, though. Not to mention that not every given Aspie will have empathy for every given person/situation. There's times when people in general just plain won't feel anything for certain others/causes/etc. It's a lack of empathy, but it's also perfectly normal, for both Aspies and N Ts.

I didn't even say anything about NT rules. I'm not sure where you're getting that from. "Society" is much larger than N Ts are. Besides, that has very little to do with my point about how the article claims we can't be ruthless when that's a REALLY naive view of us.

It is often said that a symptom of Asperger's is an inability to understand how others think, my mom often claimed that I was assuming other people were thinking the same thing. So forgive me for assuming that other Aspies share my opinion that deception is the lowest thing humankind is capable of.

Why would it be the lowest when it has all sorts of practical applications? For that matter, your experience doesn't equal everyone's, and when we're explaining this to everyone who reads the entry, we need to be as all-encompassing as possible.

"Why would it be the lowest when it has all sorts of practical applications?"

You sure you're not a sociopath?

...seriously? I talk about something that's got beneficial uses and that's your conclusion? Your resistance seems to be based on your own bizarre viewpoint. There's so many kinds of deception. Haven't you ever kept a secret? Haven't you ever misdirected? Lied for the greater good? And yet all of that is "the lowest thing humankind is capable of" and sociopathic? Gee, sure does put keeping secrets for my sister's birthday into a whole weird perspective.

I've tried, failed every time.

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But lying isn't necessarily hurting others. They're two very different things. Lying, to me, is more related to storytelling than it is to malice. That I can do so easily simply speaks of my imagination rather than my concience. For that matter, what you bring up would mean that most Aspies I've ever met would be "misdiagnosed sociopaths", and the odds of that simply are impractial.

Not to mention that some Aspies *do* fall afoul of a moral center. It's not mutually exclusive, nor does it mean a misdiagnosis. To see that being brought about in this thread is distressing.

Every mental health professional I've seen since 1996 agrees that I'm an Aspie, and I've seen several. I even brought this point up to a few of them and they agreed that the whole "can't lie" thing is bullcrap. I'm honestly not sure where people get it from, but I suspect it's similar to the insistence that we have no sense of humor—that it's just plain wrong.

Out of curiosity, where do you get your information? I get mine through experience, both through myself and others.

zarpaulus is taking a rather extreme view on the matter, Athena (hee that's my name too), but to some it's a valid one. That's not even limited to aspies - some N Ts have a deep hatred of lying too.

I tend to be a painfully honest person myself most of the time, but I certainly have lied before. Even in answer to direct questions, which is usually the limit of how far I'll keep a secret for someone if I can't just evade answering altogether. Of course, I'm not usually very good at it and mostly feel pretty guilty after... but that doesn't mean I can't or won't, and that it isn't called for in some situations. This doesn't make one a sociopath, though the somewhat blunter view we may take when describing/hearing this could make it look that way, I suppose.

Oh actually Athena is my parrot's name. But my name's boring.

See, that's the point. It's not really an Aspie trait, nor does the capacity to lie without guilt make one a sociopath.

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EDIT: (Gah, sorry, still not familiar with how this posting-system is organized.)

(Ignore this post!)

Ribonuke, I think you posted this in the wrong place.

Anyway, Loco Roco, I think part of it may be that we don't really feel confined by the rules of society. They're arbitrary anyway, so make our own rules! And what that means varys wildly from person to person.

Not to mention that logic itself is rather ill-defined. To some, lying is illogical, be it because it relies on falsehoods or whatever. To others, lying is logical, be it because it's a way to get what you're after or whatever. Both the liar and the honest person are being logical in their own way.

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Heh. Spock, maybe, but Data, no.

Doctor Attwood might add Sheldon Cooper to the list. And Spock isn't a real hero to me, but Data is.

Eh, not so much for me...

Woo Spock. And Vulcans in general. Haven't seen enough TNG to rule on Data.

I wouldn't say Sheldon is really a 'hero', but I do identify with him. Can you believe the wrters outright said he wasn't - and couldn't be - autistic because he functioned too well? 0_o I'm quite obviously, if mildly, autistic and *I* function more than him.

Doesn't rule it out. I mean, there's gotta be actual autistic rapists out there. Given the whole "lack of personal space" and "not picking up on cues" issues, I'd imagine misinterpreting consent would be pretty common, if not lasting that long.

I didn't see the episode, but honestly, a negative portrayal of an autistic person isn't necessarily a negative portrayal of ALL autistic people. We can be bad people just like anyone else.

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Then add some. Just make sure they're actual examples.

'Autism, and the sub-category with higher verbal capability, but otherwise largely identical symtoms, popularly called "Asperger's Syndrome"' Actually... The sub-category with high verbal capacities is just called high functioning autism. Asperger's Syndrome is a form of high functioning autism. Not all forms of high functioning autism are Asperger's and there is even some debate as to whether Asperger's really is a form of autism because, though the symptoms are often the same, the way the mind of someone with Asperger's Syndrome works is very different from the way someone with another form of high functioning autism thinks. If you are interested in knowing more, Thinking in Pictures provides great insight into how the mind of someone with more classic, but clearly high functioning, autism works. Those with Asperger's Syndrome tend to lack this very visual way of thinking. All I'm saying is that that sentence isn't very accurate.

• Visual thinking may or may not be a distinction between the two though and may be more due to specific manifestation. My own hypersensitivities are tactile and aural, and I've found this matches up with my main forms of "visualising" data, particularly aural. Most of my thinking is like talking inside my head... and that sounds bad, but I honestly can't think how better to say that, since "out loud inside my head" is just plain contradictory. The point still stands though.

Point taken. I was just getting that Wall of Text out of the main article, for the reason mentioned at the top. Maybe we could work the content into Useful Notes: Asperger Syndrome, but I'm not confident in my ability to do this well.

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Can whoever typed up those thick walls-of-text consider rephrasing? I honestly cannot make heads or tails out of what they're trying to say at all. In particular, the bit about literal-mindedness is so confusing I don't even know where to start trying to figure out the meaning.

Well, I'll head to the Trope Repair Shop and see if I can get some help on working it into Useful Notes: Asperger Syndrome.

Bits of the walls-of-text read as though they've been copied straight from the DSM (or similar), which is not the most readable of sources. We don't really need the precise diagnostic criteria, although a link to them would not be out of place, of course.

We do have Useful Notes: Asperger Syndrome; if you think you can work (some of) the more relevant bits in there, go for it.

Many Aspies in fact have strongly developed, if idiosyncratic, visual senses. I myself am strongly visual, with one major failing: I cannot visualise faces. In rare cases I can almost visualise particularly striking faces (Garry Busey comes to mind), but even then as a collection of facial features, not a face as an integrated thing.