Is It Really Cosplay Harassment? Or Just Neuroatypical Behavior?

[insanelich]

By your own argument, everyone should immediately dismiss your thoughts on the topic.

Warmer, warmer... colder... COLDER! Stop! You've hit Antarctica.

And you were so damn close too.

Alas.

Here's the hint tho: Use that logic with what I actually said and it almost works. Well, actually you can't because (~irrelevant science snipped~) and that's why autism bad.

 

[insanelich]

As for 'insufferable', that's just, like, your opinion, man. You clearly find us both annoying, but blaming us for your inability and, indeed, unwillingness to convince us of your point of view is not exactly doing you any favours. Of course I believe I am correct, that is why I am arguing for my position, and, of course, I try to accept being wrong as gracefully as possible, because that is generally a good way to go about having a discussion. The conclusion you come to, namely 'therefore if you're still arguing you must be right' does not even follow from your premises. The fact that I am still arguing with you does not make me right, it means neither of us has convinced the other. That is what an argument is.

Also, on this, have you seen American Psycho?

Do you remember the ending?

See, this entire thread? All public discussions about autism, ever? Pretty much that.

Though, a little less violent and somewhat more acceptable. Also, more amusing, to me at least.

 

[the_real_seebs]

... hah, no.

It's referring to "that fire", the source of the most insufferable of autistic behavior imaginable, the conviction that you're right and even if you aren't, your rationality makes you accept being wrong gracefully, and therefore if you're still arguing you must be right. And also text walls. The term comes from a strangely consistent way of describing it.

A way of describing it I've never run into before, and used without preamble or introduction, a very strange thing.

I'm really unclear on why you think this describes other people, but definitely not yourself.

I've not contradicted myself, because I've kept my arguments short and to the point of "all of this is for naught". Yeah, yeah, I know, over-thinking shit is part and parcel.

You have absolutely contradicted yourself. You have asserted knowledge of whether or not you are angry, you have asserted that autistics cannot know their own emotional state, and you have asserted that you are autistic. At most two of those could be true.

(Also, y'know, I don't know if tabletop games are an option, but if I was able to give advice to my younger self... I wouldn't, because it's pointless.)

Which, if true, is a problem with your younger self, not with "autistics" as a general class. Lots of us took advice okay when we were younger.

Still wondering if you're ever going to give a short and to the point citation for even one of your claims, or if you're ever going to explain exactly what makes you think that everyone disagreeing with you is "young".

 

[the_real_seebs]

By your own argument, everyone should immediately dismiss your thoughts on the topic.

Warmer, warmer... colder... COLDER! Stop! You've hit Antarctica.

And you were so damn close too.

Alas.

Here's the hint tho: Use that logic with what I actually said and it almost works. Well, actually you can't because (~irrelevant science snipped~) and that's why autism bad.

No, used with what you actually said, it works quite well. You've asserted that other people's opinions are invalid because they are autistic. If you're autistic, your opinions are invalid also by that logic.

I think what you've established here, fairly convincingly, is that you in particular cannot engage meaningfully in a discussion, in that you can't actually support your claims; you keep almost doing it, then suddenly evading.

Anyway, I guess the question is:

You say that, if we "accept" our autism, we will realize that we can't engage with the conversation because of our shortcomings, instead of blaming it on the shortcomings of other people. You claim to have accepted your own autism. Why don't you, then, realize that you can't engage with the conversation because of your shortcomings, rather than blaming it on the shortcomings of other people? It's not as though only autistic people are concluding that you're failing to engage.

 

[the_real_seebs]

See, this entire thread? All public discussions about autism, ever? Pretty much that.

Nah. I've seen dozens of very productive, friendly, and informative public discussions of autism.

If you're only seeing unproductive discussions of the topic, perhaps that's to do with the one thing all those discussions have in common?

Though, a little less violent and somewhat more acceptable. Also, more amusing, to me at least.

Here, again, you contradict yourself. You've stated that there's a specific reason, completely inherent to autism and inescapable, which causes the autistic people who aren't you to be unable to stop engaging, to be mad, and to not realize that they are mad. You assert that it is impossible that any autistic person arguing with you is not suffering from this flaw, whether they realize it or not. But you, you are special, and you don't suffer from this inherent and inescapable flaw. Only other people do.

That's... sort of implausible, really.

 

[nondescript]

I was going to throw in here, but this is getting absurd.

I'll just say that, autism or no, a little courtesy stops most of this from happening.


And that goes both ways.

 

[Megafire]

Here's the hint tho: Use that logic with what I actually said and it almost works. Well, actually you can't because (~irrelevant science snipped~) and that's why autism bad.

See, at this point I am forced to conclude you are just trying to hurt my feelings.

Claiming I'm misrepresenting your stance without actually pointing out how I'm misrepresenting your stance is another one of those status signalling tricks we talked about earlier. This one works on two levels:

1. You're trying to convince the audience that the way the other person is characterising your opinion is wrong and silly, without explaining why, and simply letting them fill in the blanks to a less silly opinion.

2. You're trying to convince the person you're arguing with that they misrepresented you, again, without telling them what they missed, thereby attempting to undermine their self-confidence and get them to stop bothering you.

See, it would be pretty clever, had I not specifically asked you to clarify your position in the post you were replying to. The fact that you ignored that request, but still pretended I was misrepresenting you just makes you look silly.

So, how about we try this again?

Do you believe autistics can and do have valid perspectives on autism?

 

[Totenkreuz]

I just wanted to jump in and say some of my own thoughts, sorry if they are misplaced and/or not fitted for this topic, but I believe they 'belong' here and I hope people will understand them.

Too often people seem to swim in the past over what happend, who did what, who is to blame, who said what, who started what, was it right and so on. What I wanted to say was this: Solving something is better than talking about it.

What I'm trying to say is,- that,- if you have a problem, any problem- then what is the best thing to do about it? I would say solving it. As much as you didn't enjoy it it doesn't do you any good just talking about it, act on it. Fix it, learn from it and understand why it can happen.

I know saying something like "fix it" doesn't really do alot of peoples problems justice because if that was the case in all situations, then not a single problem would ever go on for long, and we know it does. We aren't just turning something on or off here and it's easy to get lost by semantics, stress and "feelings".

People doesn't need to be in the right, to win or to change someones mind,- often, for me atleast, it's enough just to get the semantics on language aligned with the other person or persons. As long as we understand and 'respect' one another it will be fine, arguing doesn't help anyone in the end. It's easy to dismiss people, even easier on the internet but in the end,- wouldn't it be better if we all just got along and started building, I don't know,- bridges together? ;P

I'm sorry, cheers.

 

[the_real_seebs]

I just wanted to jump in and say some of my own thoughts, sorry if they are misplaced and/or not fitted for this topic, but I believe they 'belong' here and I hope people will understand them.

Too often people seem to swim in the past over what happend, who did what, who is to blame, who said what, who started what, was it right and so on. What I wanted to say was this: Solving something is better than talking about it.

What I'm trying to say is,- that,- if you have a problem, any problem- then what is the best thing to do about it? I would say solving it. As much as you didn't enjoy it it doesn't do you any good just talking about it, act on it. Fix it, learn from it and understand why it can happen.

I know saying something like "fix it" doesn't really do alot of peoples problems justice because if that was the case in all situations, then not a single problem would ever go on for long, and we know it does. We aren't just turning something on or off here and it's easy to get lost by semantics, stress and "feelings".

People doesn't need to be in the right, to win or to change someones mind,- often, for me atleast, it's enough just to get the semantics on language aligned with the other person or persons. As long as we understand and 'respect' one another it will be fine, arguing doesn't help anyone in the end. It's easy to dismiss people, even easier on the internet but in the end,- wouldn't it be better if we all just got along and started building, I don't know,- bridges together? ;P

I'm sorry, cheers.

This is pretty solid advice.

One of the variants of this I often see in arguments that have gotten tense is that people who don't like a question will assert that it was asked in bad faith, and refuse to answer it. And I've found that this invariably derails things with hurt feelings and argumentation.

Whereas if you just answer the question, it's done. If it was a real question, it's been answered, and if it was a fake question asked to distract, the distraction is actually resolved and things can continue. It's only if you declare that the question was fake or irrelevant or that no one would understand the answer that "bad" questions become effective derails.

 

[weirdee]

often, i hear that teaching/reminding people about 'common sense' rules for people's boundaries and how to interact with other people is overly PC nonsense, but what i'm getting from these situations that arise is that it's absolutely necessary so that everybody in society is onboard with these concepts

you can't expect problems to fix themselves

 

[remnant_phoenix]

"You can't punish people who mean no harm just because their brains work differently."

In some cases, those whose brains work differently need to be removed from a place to protect others from the behavior that is a result of the brains working differently. It's not about "punishing" the neuroatypical person--though it may feel like that to that person and those who want to stand up against the stigmatization of neuroatypical people--it's about maintaining a safe environment.

By this logic, someone like the Joker shouldn't be locked up because "his brain works different." Umm, yes. Yes he should. Because "his brain works different" in his case means that he would kill someone and laugh about it.

Am I using reductio ad absurdum? Of course, but I believe the point still holds.

 

[Lieju]

Uhh, lot has been said about this article already but it weirdly assumes it's the neuroatypical people doing the harassing in every case where this is this kind of clash of different brains or whatever?
I'm autistic, and part of it is that I really hate being touched. Now I understand social norms differ and all but neurotypical people have made me uncomfortable a lot in both cons and in life outside it by not respecting my boundaries. I get it if you don't know I don't want to touch you or if it's unavoidable. But if I outright tell you I don't want to be hugged etc why can't some people respect that?

 

[the_real_seebs]

Uhh, lot has been said about this article already but it weirdly assumes it's the neuroatypical people doing the harassing in every case where this is this kind of clash of different brains or whatever?
I'm autistic, and part of it is that I really hate being touched. Now I understand social norms differ and all but neurotypical people have made me uncomfortable a lot in both cons and in life outside it by not respecting my boundaries. I get it if you don't know I don't want to touch you or if it's unavoidable. But if I outright tell you I don't want to be hugged etc why can't some people respect that?

Ironically enough, because the innate "social skills" include a great deal of "disregard direct observations in favor of how you know things are supposed to work".

 

[Totenkreuz]

This is pretty solid advice.

One of the variants of this I often see in arguments that have gotten tense is that people who don't like a question will assert that it was asked in bad faith, and refuse to answer it. And I've found that this invariably derails things with hurt feelings and argumentation.

Whereas if you just answer the question, it's done. If it was a real question, it's been answered, and if it was a fake question asked to distract, the distraction is actually resolved and things can continue. It's only if you declare that the question was fake or irrelevant or that no one would understand the answer that "bad" questions become effective derails.

Thank you. I just don't post alot on forums nowaday as it's hard to find discussions with people who really want to solve something and as such I don't feel like there is much for me to say or do.

I don't have any sort of autistic problems, atleast I don't think I have any as I haven't been to a doctor for it. The thing that bothered me in this article was a lack of "what happened later, how was it fixed" segment, or atleast the main focus of the article wasn't. Most of the time people just want to bring up and talk about the situation itself and not how it was handled and if it was handled correctly and sometimes even bringing up things not really relevant for the topic at hand (like me ;P).

For example, most of the time people talk on and on about how, I don't know, lets say a person walks down a street and falls down. What you see written about it is when he fell, how he fell, what people laughed at him and maybe who helped him but you don't see a 'discussion' about how it was possible, how he got up and then how he could learn from it and not do it again. I know it's a stupid example, but I'm not exactly the sharpest tool in the box myself so bear with me, I'm almost done.

In the end, I'm that type of guy who focus on how to fix things and it's hard to find the right topic on forums to join as most of topics seems to be about the person writing and not the topic itself. I love, trying, to help, I enjoy fixing things or atleast trying to fix something with others. Anyways, sorry I think I'm rambling so I'll end it here, thanks again if you stayed with me.

Cheers.