@actuallyautistic
Autism is often described as having a different operating system for our minds than non-autistics. One of the ways that this is most clearly demonstrated, is in the communication challenges that can exist between us. For me, this is because there is a fundamental difference in how communication is primarily used and understood.
I believe that autistics and many others, are primarily concerned with the exchange of information and that the clearer and "purer" that information is, the better. So the first act of any communication is to transmit that information as fully as possible. Secondary considerations are doing so in a way that you know will make that information more accessible. Shaping it for the audience, so to speak. And only finally will there be any thought of possible social niceties about the exchange and only then, if the level of masking, or social awareness allows for it.
Allistic primary consideration for communication, though, appears to be social. How will it fit into and effect their place within the hierarchy. How the communication can be shaped for maximum effect within this framework. Secondary considerations then become how much of the information can be imparted in the initial phase and how clear it can be. With perhaps much of the information being held back for further exchanges, once the social aspect and hierarchy has been established.
This also, obviously, applies to receiving communication. Autistics will look initially for the information, the simple, unadorned facts and necessary instructions. Whereas allistics will be looking for the social constructs before trying to establish what information is being exchanged and how to process and respond to it within those constructs. This simple difference in emphasis, is, if you think about, possibly responsible for so many of our problems. Why, for example, our need for as much clearly defined information as possible in the first instance, even to the point of multiple questions asked, is so often seen as rude or pushy. Or why our habits of info dumping and bare-bones facts, just being delivered straight and to the point, can come across as arrogant, or unhelpful. Because neither conform to the allistic's assumptions, or needs.
Of course, this is a classic double-empathy problem. But, what can make it harder to see and understand, is that such fundamental differences in how and why we communicate, are not always obvious or the sort of thing that people realise. Also, even if people are vaguely aware of what they are doing, the assumption, if anything, is normally, well isn't this how everyone does it.
[#]Autism
[#]ActuallyAutistic
[#]Neurodivergent
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@pathfinder @actuallyautistic
Also how I've seen it put: allistics prioritize hierarchical context > emotional context > information, while autistics prioritize the opposite way.
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@murdoc @actuallyautistic
Indeed. Although, in many cases our understanding of the hierarchical is limited, or non-existent. Not necessarily in the abstract, just why it would apply in a given circumstance.
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@pathfinder @actuallyautistic
Absolutely.
Also, speaking a bit meta here: My previous comment was a bit of an experiment for me. About 90% of the energy I put into writing it was withholding all the "social niceties" you mentioned, designed to attempt to stave off misunderstandings and hurt feelings, as inspired by your post. Such is the power of my Mask. 😓 I'm glad it went well. :BlobCatSmiley:
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@murdoc @actuallyautistic
I generally find that being yourself works best here. Sure, you might upset someone, or be misunderstood. But, as a general rule, most people within this community will look for further info and explanation, before condemning your immortal soul to hell over something. I also don't mind if someone's criticism is fair and valid, because it gives me something to learn from. As for the rest, well, some people will become upset over us, even if we were to sit in a closet and never say anything all our lives and for that sort, after much and deep contemplation, I have concluded that the appropriate response is, fuck em.
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@pathfinder @actuallyautistic
Yeah, and I understand that intellectually, but even despite having been here for over a year, it's both amazing to me and not that it is still that hard to overcome a lifetime of high-sensitivity induced masking. I think that I have done it sometimes though. I do generally feel far more comfortable talking to our crowd than anyone else. I think you being explicit here will likely help, so thanks for that.
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@pathfinder @actuallyautistic There are so many times when I have been reviled, criticized, or made fun of because I deliver information bluntly without worry about niceties. Especially in a work context. This makes perfect sense to me and try as I might, I can't understand any other way to do it.
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@PaulDitz @actuallyautistic
To be honest, you shouldn't have to. This is our way and a perfectly good one. Trying to get others to understand that, is the trick
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@pathfinder @actuallyautistic Aaah, this is one thing I really appreciate about you (you write out these things so clearly). 🤗
This is exactly right. And it causes so much trouble when I try to cross the borders and talk with non-ND people about whatever it is I want to talk about.
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@arisummerland @actuallyautistic
It is an essential and fundamental difference that is hard to understand, or take into account. Mostly because it arises from the base premises we operate from, which mostly are taken for granted, if not considered to be universal. But, realising it, will hopefully help in the future.
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@pathfinder it is something I wish I had known in my 20s, but that was impossible because I was overlooked. I love the autistic community here!
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@arisummerland
Me too 😊
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@pathfinder A lot of autistic burnout comes from this 'difference'. Either from the waves of disapproval at the way we deliver our message, or - conversely - the anxiety autists feel, waiting for an allist to pass on the information required. @actuallyautistic
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@Tooden @actuallyautistic
Indeed. Not helped by not realising, beyond that things aren't working, this fundamental difference in communication. Continually bashing your head against it, whilst never truly understanding it, is never going to be the healthiest path.
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@pathfinder Seeming to always have to be the conciliator, is very tiring. Knowing where they're coming from, but seeing no effort on their part, to meet at the halfway point.
Autistics do a hell of a lot of volunteer work. If they suddenly decided, "No, stuff you", committees would fold, charities would struggle, and small wars would break out all over. @actuallyautistic
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@Tooden @actuallyautistic
Indeed. But, in so many ways, being the majority, means that they don't have to do the work. Whereas, to get anywhere, we have to do it all. No wonder most of us, even those who have no idea about our neurotype, burnout eventually.
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@pathfinder @Tooden @actuallyautistic It's our responsibility to make sure we are understood. It's also our responsibility to make sure we understand others. It's our responsibility to pay attention and infer the needs of others then adapt to accommodate them. It's also our responsibility to suppress our own needs when they aren't being accommodated and risk being actively ridiculed when we ask for them to be.
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@StarkRG Responsible is our unacknowledged second name. @pathfinder @actuallyautistic
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@StarkRG @Tooden @actuallyautistic
Unfortunately.
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@pathfinder
hierarchy as in status or "pecking order", or politicking?
it seems to me that people often try to establish a... rapport? with those of higher status and alter information to make it more acceptable. I suppose that this might be politics?. the difference with autists is that information is just information and should not be subject to politics or establishing a rapport or whatever.
@actuallyautistic
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@homelessjun @actuallyautistic
Exactly. That we do not shape, or adjust the information in any way that is not practical, is often half the problem. Especially, when we're not doing it in the ways that they expected and assumed without thinking about it.
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@pathfinder
🤔 ok. that explains why people keep getting upset and i wind up getting sacked so often. 😅
@actuallyautistic
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@homelessjun @actuallyautistic
Yes, pretty much 😡 😆
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@homelessjun @pathfinder @actuallyautistic
There's also 'shaping' the information in order to influence that person's status among others, i.e. making them look "good" or "bad". But we all see that way too often, especially these days. 😞
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@pathfinder @actuallyautistic Your description of allistics sounds disturbingly like a description of SOCIOPATHS. Not identical, but close. Everything said is first and foremost for effect. The difference is whether truth is even a secondary consideration, or not a consideration at all.
Long before my very recent realization that I am myself autistic, I had observed that although typical ordinary people are not sociopaths, they much closer to being sociopaths than most of them would think possible. Your theory of allistic communication looks to me like a validation and explanation of this grim truth.
Having now realized that what I thought of as a collection of personal quirks adds up to autism, and makes for a much deeper divide than I would have thought possible between myself and the vast majority of humanity, I am frankly beginning to be horrified at the emerging picture of the social world I live in. Allistics are starting to look like disguised lizard people out of a grade B horror movie, or the alien monsters from "They Live", who likewise disguise themselves as people. This picture is painted with a broad brush, and is clearly exaggerated — but how MUCH of an exaggeration is it, really?
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@dedicto @actuallyautistic
There may be a fine line. But, for most the distinction is between the drive for social cohesion and hierarchy. As opposed to self above everything.
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@pathfinder @actuallyautistic In some ways, that makes things even worse. Instead of individual sociopaths, we have sociopathic armies, with their generals and foot soldiers. Fascism is much easier to understand from this perspective. The difficult part is, instead, to understand how any other form of government was ever able to exist.
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@dedicto @pathfinder @actuallyautistic
.
I think of it like “severe allism”
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@punishmenthurts @dedicto @pathfinder @actuallyautistic You're not wrong, exactly.
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@punishmenthurts @pathfinder @actuallyautistic The adjective "severe" implies that allism is a pathology. I like that.
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@dedicto @pathfinder @actuallyautistic
.
the way they talk about the CEOs, like a certain percent are sociopaths or psychopaths, who only “act,”
and, “pass,” as normal - so what does this “act,” involve? Their social success isn’t real? And social success doesn’t come the individual it comes from the society- so they faked everyone loving them? 😈
.
It’s weird.
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@dedicto @punishmenthurts @pathfinder @actuallyautistic if you consider something like bullying (considered within the normal range of child behavior), there is a good case for requiring treatment for severe allistic traits that are harmful to others.
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@dedicto @punishmenthurts @pathfinder @actuallyautistic "hello Parent and Parent. I'd like to speak with you about Child's behavior at school. There have been numerous reports of bullying and other problematic behavior. With your permission, we'd like to do an evaluation. No, no, it's too soon to say . . . but yes, we do think it is possible that your son is on the Allistic Spectrum. It may be quite severe, yes.
Don't cry! These days many Allistics go on to live happy and productive lives! With proper support, Child may be able to integrate into the classroom and learn with the other children. But for now here are some pamphlets in our specialized educational programs and some general information about Allism, and local support groups for parents."
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@dedicto @pathfinder @actuallyautistic oh, the truth is that people aren’t even aware they are doing it. I highly recommend reading this book for a good mental model of what’s going on: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Elephant_in_the_Brain
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@Frantasaur @pathfinder @actuallyautistic Oh, I'm sure that's true. But full-on sociopaths aren't typically aware of their motives either. They all sleepwalk through life.
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@dedicto @Frantasaur @pathfinder Psychopaths do so quite knowingly, caculatingly.
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@dedicto @pathfinder @actuallyautistic perhaps sociopaths are just where the trait of compartmentalization of real (selfish) motives from the “inner press secretary” is very extreme. They really believe it, that’s what makes them so convincing. That’s why the compartmentalization trait evolved in the first place, but game theory suggests that there is a limit to the number of extreme individuals that can be supported before this trait stops being an advantage.
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@pathfinder @actuallyautistic The double empathy problem seems to mostly be that we have a hard time understanding how allistics will respond to things we say or do, while they have a hard time considering us to be people.
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@pathfinder @actuallyautistic So when normies are coding with basic, we're chugging on machine code? (We should have a poll of which OS and/or language each one of us is running on, for some levity to the dark season :blobcatcoffee:)
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@pathfinder Well said. It certainly seems like this to me too. It always amazes me how allistics (especially NT) collaborate on work and accomplish anything with so much extraneous information shared but then holes in the essential information. Flips the idea that “autistics have great attention to detail” into “NT are winging it and are apparently great at hiding it”… which, now I’ve written that out, seems scarily realistic. 😶
This is a topic for a whole other post but it clicked for me in recent months that this social-first theory is the foundation of our entire society (I can only speak for the societies I’ve been in, there may be ones that don’t fit this idea, but most seem this way in some form). Social comes first, rules (like laws) come next. No wonder NTs don’t mind “bending rules”, since it’s all about social-first. No wonder I, as an autistic, destroy my social standing bit by bit each time I prioritise rules over social. No wonder it is drilled into many of us that we should prioritising masking to preserve our social standing because it is more important than our truth and wellbeing.
@actuallyautistic
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@AnAutieAtUni @actuallyautistic
Indeed. For them the benefit of the social outweighs everything else. Deference to it means that everything else can be bent to accommodate it, in ways that we both struggle to see and understand.
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@pathfinder @actuallyautistic
Autistic compared to allistic communication might have a good IT analogy in TCP compared to UDP.
If you don't know it, TCP involves a lot of formalities including handshakes before the actual information comes. UDP is more like, here is your answer try to keep track, because I have a lot to say and there will be no breaks.
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@confusius
At least UDP assumes that the receiver will complain or cope if there's a chunk of data missing, while TCP constantly assumes that data has gone missing unless it's been confirmed not to. That's not a bad analogy...
@pathfinder @actuallyautistic
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@confusius @pathfinder @actuallyautistic
😆 👏
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@pathfinder
This is made even more complicated by the fact that in many cases, the assumption by the NT person will be correct - they are in the majority after all, so more often than not they'll be talking to another NT person. With this kind of confirmation bias, it's not hard to see why they might be inclined to read situations the way they do.
@actuallyautistic
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@pathfinder
Even if they do know that the person they're talking to is autistic, they might well be unaware of what that actually means - and given the wildly inaccurate portrayal in media, I can't even really blame them (this is just as much a problem for unidentified autistic people!).
@actuallyautistic
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@pathfinder
The flip side of this is that even for those who mask well, it's often hard to understand the social hierarchy - which almost inevitably leads to being either at the very bottom of it or being ostracized. I certainly have found myself at the sharp end of this far more often than I care to remember.
@actuallyautistic
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@DL1JPH @actuallyautistic
It's difficult to work within a system that you have no intuitive grasp of. Just as it's difficult to look beyond the system that is "hardwired" into your default mode.
Most of us who have worked out how to do this, to a point at least, still often fail to manage consistency. The fact that the hierarchy construct applies literally everywhere and every time will always catch us out eventually.
Hence our reputations for being blunt or rude. Our status blindness and inevitable crossing of lines that everyone but us can see.
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@pathfinder @actuallyautistic This style difference is one way to identify LLM generated text. AI always sounds hyper-allistic with a lot of needless preambles and linguistic priority-preserving null phrases.
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@pathfinder @actuallyautistic Oh, that neatly explains an argument I had with a (now ex) friend a few days ago. I couldn't for the life of me figure out why he seemed to insist that sowing discord was more important than telling the truth.
It does make sense if you reverse priorities like this.
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@everythingalsocan @actuallyautistic
It helps me to understand many behaviours that I otherwise find inexplicable. Not realising that there is a different emphasis and priority tends to make you assume that they're working from the same as yours and that therefore you're missing something obvious again in your normal broken fashion.
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