Sidebar
Neurodiversity
**[What I said last time:](https://lemmygrad.ml/post/5353661)** ---- >Calling all Autistic comrades! > >And calling all neurodivergent comrades! > >We will be going through *Empire of Normality: Neurodiversity and Capitalism* by Robert Chapman. You can purchase the book through this hyperlink [here](https://www.plutobooks.com/9780745348667/empire-of-normality/) or [here](https://www.akpress.org/empire-of-normality.html) or even [here](https://www.amazon.com/Empire-Normality-Neurodiversity-Robert-Chapman/dp/0745348661) (but preferably through the first two links as I want to support the publisher). > >The first two chapters are: > >Chapter 1. Rise of the machines > >and > >Chapter 2. The invention of normality > >There's also the Preface and Introduction. > >Every week, we'll go through two chapters, at least, every week, but if you want, we can go through it bi-weekly (as in, every two weeks, to be precise). I don't think it deserves to be monthly as it's a rather short book. It's about 165 pages of actual text and the rest of the book is supplementary pages, such as References and Works Cited. Otherwise, give your general thoughts down below. > >My thoughts: > >I'm near the end of the book. I like that Robert Chapman takes issue with Judy Singer and some of her comments later on. But also, regarding the first two chapters, I felt that they were really compelling and helped set up the general interest in the matter at hand. I felt that it does well in terms of getting the reader to understand why normativity is a negative feature of capitalism, even if it may have been preferable to the pseudo-science of the feudal era. The feudal era's views on mind and body are interesting, though, and more in line with reality, where there is no obsession with a "normative slate" (my words) and instead, everyone is literally different, more or less, from each other. Not sure how to explain it in my own words, but I think as children, we all kinda thought this before we had concepts of what was "right and normal" and what was "wrong and harmful." The relation to *Das Kapital* and Marx in the second chapter are also pretty interesting as well. ---- **What I say this time:** The next two chapters are: Chapter 3. Galton's paradigm and Chapter 4. The eugenics movement The info about Francis Galton was interesting and it's no surprise that he helped found psychiatry, looking back on it all. Emil Kraepelin (a name that I didn't exactly recognize) was also fond of Francis Galton and probably carried the eugenicist approach with him. In sum, Kraepelin wanted to "winnow" people out so they wouldn't "mix" with the other races and wanted to expand on Galton's "scientific" study of intelligence and encompass every aspect of the human mind in his research. Also, the leading power of psychiatry was Germany which, well, certainly became more important later. And according to the first page of chapter 4, Winston Churchill was a big proponent of eugenicist psychiatry. The word normalcy also started to appear with Warren G. Harding's Presidential run in 1920. My overall thoughts are that this book excels in bringing people up to speed on the history of psychology, psychiatry, and neurodiversity and capitalism from a Marxist point-of-view. Definitely well-worth the read. I highly recommend it. **Here are some questions to help guide you when giving your thoughts down below:** What, and how much, did you learn from the last two chapters? and What did you find most interesting from them and what would you like to be elaborated on more? So same questions as last time, but they work here, in this case. Join me in this book club that I've set up and I'll tag you all as needed. Anywho, fire away! (Make sure to invite others!)
Calling all Autistic comrades! And calling all neurodivergent comrades! We will be going through *Empire of Normality: Neurodiversity and Capitalism* by Robert Chapman. You can purchase the book through this hyperlink [here](https://www.plutobooks.com/9780745348667/empire-of-normality/) or [here](https://www.akpress.org/empire-of-normality.html) or even [here](https://www.amazon.com/Empire-Normality-Neurodiversity-Robert-Chapman/dp/0745348661) (but preferably through the first two links as I want to support the publisher). The first two chapters are: Chapter 1. Rise of the machines and Chapter 2. The invention of normality There's also the Preface and Introduction. Every week, we'll go through two chapters, at least, every week, but if you want, we can go through it bi-weekly (as in, every two weeks, to be precise). I don't think it deserves to be monthly as it's a rather short book. It's about 165 pages of actual text and the rest of the book is supplementary pages, such as References and Works Cited. Otherwise, give your general thoughts down below. My thoughts: I'm near the end of the book. I like that Robert Chapman takes issue with Judy Singer and some of her comments later on. But also, regarding the first two chapters, I felt that they were really compelling and helped set up the general interest in the matter at hand. I felt that it does well in terms of getting the reader to understand why normativity is a negative feature of capitalism, even if it may have been preferable to the pseudo-science of the feudal era. The feudal era's views on mind and body are interesting, though, and more in line with reality, where there is no obsession with a "normative slate" (my words) and instead, everyone is literally different, more or less, from each other. Not sure how to explain it in my own words, but I think as children, we all kinda thought this before we had concepts of what was "right and normal" and what was "wrong and harmful." The relation to *Das Kapital* and Marx in the second chapter are also pretty interesting as well. Here are some questions to help guide you when giving your thoughts down below: What, and how much, did you learn from the first two chapters (Preface and Introduction included)? and What did you find most interesting from them and what would you like to be elaborated on more? Join me in this impromptu book club that I've set up and I'll tag you all. Anyway, shoot!
open.spotify.com
I would suggest watching some of the previous episodes. My favorite episode is [this](https://open.spotify.com/episode/0ntDm4LbX1FlNAsdimPxfW). (Yes, George Lucas is definitely Autistic.) The hosts are kinda liberal, vaguely DemSoc, but I love 'em all the same.
yewtu.be
cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/2680566 > As an AuDHD person, the college dropout story is relatable to me, except for the YouTube career success. I grew up in a madhouse during my traumatic childhood, and going to college free from my backwards, overprotective, overly strict parents was essentially like falling off a cliff. I was already burnt out during my last year of high school, and I was too excited with the freedom and ended up wasting time playing video games and skipping classes regularly because I had little energy to function as an adult. I still struggle with burnout to this day due to being an overworked IT contractor for years.
cross-posted from: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/4651235 > *Empire of Normality: Neurodiversity and Capitalism* by Robert Chapman is what I'll be exploring. > > Anyone want to read along with me?
I'm watching this rn. Very good stuff. I suggest subscribing to his channel for tech stuff.
open.spotify.com
cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/2441630 > Definitely check this out. > > I'm interested in their repository of data for Autistic people. > > Thoughts on the interview? > > Listen to it for an hour while you're doing other things.
open.spotify.com
cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/2438415 > Check it out. > > Highly recommended podcast, though a bit liberal. > > Hosts are well-worth it and have their radical moments. > > [@ashinadash@hexbear.net](https://hexbear.net/u/ashinadash)
cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/2355483 > There's really four parts, but give it a read-through.
yewtu.be
I believe the detail-oriented point is not entirely true for all autistic people as I have seen various autists have polar opposite strengths/weaknesses, which include being dominantly big-picture-oriented. It is true for me, though. As a programmer/Gentoo user, abstraction in code is frustrating to me, thus I tend to go into rabbit holes attempting to understand every single function that is obscured from me, which has led me to wasting a lot of time tinkering and debugging to accomplish very simple tasks all because I wanted to use a very specific toolset or feature. It's difficult for me to accept the big picture idea if I cannot explain some vague anomaly that isn't documented and only discoverable in the source code of the program or one of its dependencies. I am really happy to see Tristram Oaten (NoBoilerplate) not negating the importance of collective action in this video even though the video is more self-help focused. I also enjoy his narrator voice, and I love his Lost Terminal podcast and his educational programming content.
cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/1852371 > I ended up opening up to ten books and reading them for a few days (going one by one by one and then back again, trying to repeat the process). > > Then asked myself "What am I *doing*?" > > I was trying to be productive now that I don't have a job, but I realized that I'm almost done with university and have an internship now; I'm already focused on those two things and was just trying to make up for "free time." I mean, what the hell... I didn't have to make myself "more productive" but here I am. > > I also decided to stop another activity of mine that I was practicing 'cause, again, I felt I *needed* to do it rather than *wanting* to do it. > > A YouTube video that inspired me was [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BeHbP7706nU), btw. But it wasn't the only inspiration. Just a creeping realization among other things. > > In the end, I got overwhelmed and realized I didn't want to do... any of these things. There were only two books that I wanted to read immediately anyways and the rest I could save for later if I wanted to get to them. I told some friends and I now know someone who admitted to trying to read up to twenty (I'm guessing by going through each one and then back again each week). I'm not judging, but now I know how extreme things can get. > > And here I was being against "required reading" (which I *kinda* still am as I believe, outside of a few classics and fundamental material, Marxists should read whatever the hell they want, and even then, I'm pretty lax about that rule). > > Welp, that's all. > > How are you all doing this week?
cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/1796476 > I have OCD. > > And I've lately developed a penchant for clicking on the blue dotted YouTube channels on my subscription list to the left-hand side of the page. > > I would rather that I didn't have to see that or deal with that so I can try to "willpower" my way through not clicking them or clicking all of them or as many as I can before getting tired. > > But ultimately, it would be easier if there was a way to get rid of the blue dots entirely. > > Is there an extension for Mozilla Firefox to adjust the UI so I can get rid of the blue dots? > > Or maybe there's a trick to change the formatting on YouTube as is? > > Thanks in advance, comrades. > > I hope I explained myself well. Thanks!
With so many disorder Tiktoks around I can't help but fail to spot the difference between having actual ADHD vs just having poor focus habits. I myself have trouble focusing on tasks but I doubt I actually have ADHD given the recent surge of disorder Tiktoks - tho I do have autism - and that my focus is typically normal on tasks I devote to like gaming.
I want to get more involved with organising, but fear that due to my autism I will just be a burden. I'm bad in social interactions and get overstimulated quickly. It's also hard to make connections as well as an autistic person and when I go to socialist meetings I always gravitate towards the people I already know and when they aren't there I feel somewhat left out.
yewtu.be
For my autistic comrades out there. I'm going through autistic burnout myself.
yewtu.be
mentalhellth.xyz
cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/626872 > Let me know if you can read the article in full.
Content Warning: food disorders and non-vegan food. Also a bunch of anecdotal pseudoscience on my part. Prefacing this by saying that besides being autistic, I also have ADHD and mild lactose intolerance. There's this common saying that food affects mental health, but I feel that most people don't actually delve into how that affects hypersensitive people. It's not just some ethereal gut-to-brain communication, in my experience the simple physical feeling of being too full or a bit hungry, or having slow digestion due to fatty food can be very distracting and even impact my mood. This is even part of my crackpot theory that autistic people aren't actually that much more susceptible to lactose intolerance, only that it's more noticeable as all my lactose intolerant NT acquaintances only notice that something is wrong when getting severely sick. And on the other hand, it's a [well known fact](https://health.clevelandclinic.org/why-are-certain-foods-so-addictive/) that fatty foods, sweets and milk derivatives can be very addictive. Couple that with their mass production and marketing, as well as being shaped, textured and flavoured in a way that seems intent on catching as many autistic people, and you get yourself a brand new addiction. Now in the case of my country, it turns out that those aren't actually the cheapest food, unlike the USA. Fruits, vegetables, and their derivatives are actually much cheaper. That means that, when buying something from McDonald's, I harm both my physical and mental health as well as my wallet. There is no benefit to it except for the short-lived pleasure of bland paste-like burgers and fake cheddar cream. Technically I enjoy bland pasty food, but I already make my own soylent-like paste meal which is much cheaper and healthier. Then why do I keep buying it, specially in stressful times? The answer is clearly addiction. Obviously I'm not the first one to point out that industrial fast food is addictive (just google "McDonald's Addictive"), but I want to make a broader point here. It is not only addictive, but socially normalised to the point where it is 1)legal, 2)heavily marketed and 3)enforced on children. There is no stigma to eating industrial fast food, in fact it's treated as some reward or place for celebration for families with children. And now with giant delivery app corporations, every time one tries to get some normal meal, the big M (or their siblings such as Subway or KFC) is there with yet another sale (that isn't even that cheap) enticing you to let opium burgers into your home. It is exploitative to the factory workers, the kitchen staff, the deliverypeople, but also to every person with poor impulse control, which I suspect is a large portion of their clients. In fact, before I uninstalled the app iFood (our version of Uber Eats), it seemed to know exactly at which days of the week and time I'd be the most stressed, and therefore susceptible to their marketing. What began as a cool way to get cheap meals became a money and health sink. This is so obviously predatory, and yet I can't even think of how to express it to people aren't already autistic commies like me, and how that clown Ronald should definitely get the wall. I hyperbolically propose that the "junk food" addiction epidemic is comparable to the alcohol or other drug epidemics of the past, but still gets a pass because NT people are often completely unaware of how their brains (or ours) can easily be exploited by this shit. I've walked towards a chain while being fully convinced that I was only harming myself, but eaten there anyways, and I'm pretty sure this is a telltale addiction sign. Quitting coffee was much easier than this. Food is one of the most basic human necessities. We should not, as the most developed animal society in the world, be fighting against our own sources of food to maintain our survival. And that is not even getting into how this food is intentionally put into a situation of fake scarcity to keep profits high despite all the hunger and food insecurity. I'm trying to gather all energy so that I can to drop literally every industrial food and live off of only grains, beans, rices, tubers and a fuckton of fruit (and maybe some eggs if the vegan police doesn't nab me). That is what peak performance looks like, as every creator divinity intended us to be. Except they didn't consider you can make it pasty (and therefore superior) with a pressure cooker. TL;DR: Every fast food CEO and stockholder should be locked in a prison where the only thing they have to eat is deep-fried hamburgers, while surrounded by multiple colourful photoshopped pictures of those same burgers. Let's see how they enjoy it then. Feel free to add your own perspectives, specially if they contradict mine (and even more so if you're also neurodiverse) so I can get a bigger picture.
Title. I'm an Autist and an activist within my region, and have seen regularly that when I try to bring up the struggles of Autistic and Neurodiverse groups, that they are dismissed softly. Usually the same expression as you can see them holding back on saying something, and quietly dismissing what you're talking about, and often quietly putting down our requests for events like what is done to elevate the issues and concerns of racialized groups, gender oppressed groups, and so on. I've so consistently encountered it that I'm writing stuff to confront this, and I wanna hear other folks' experiences with this, what factors they've seen, approaches they've taken, etc.
I'm interested in psychology.
Don't let me be the only one *autistic
If there is something that neurotypical people say that you don't like, post it as a comment here! Hopefully this will also help vent some frustrations.
I watched [this video](https://yewtu.be/watch?v=TMBIe-W6XJI) that comrade YouTube algorithm recommended me and it resonated a lot with me, especially when the person said that "others may withdraw completely, hiding from social situations [...] so that nothing can be seen therefore nothing can be criticized." Lately I've been watching videos about ADHD and ASD and finally having explanations for my everyday struggles feels like a huge boulder has been lifted from my shoulders.
yewtu.be
I've only watched a few videos so far, but it has explained a lot of my struggles. I thought maybe other people will find this useful.
en.wikipedia.org
Two decades before Asperger and Kanner, Sukhareva was researching autism in children. Her contributions were likely not acknowledged because of her Jewish heritage.
diverseabilitymagazine.com
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/388541 > Great, more potential "diverse" imperialists to deal with. Wait no, that's that other autistic woman who ran for congress.
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/372983 > Politics is full of nuance and contextual information; so struggling with interpreting social contexts can lead to autistic people being gullible.
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/354090 > And people wonder why I don't go out often…
www.spectrumnews.org
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/353641 > So much for "social democracies", they may as well just be capitalist countries.
www.workersliberty.org
I hope the author got some sources for those numbers.
themighty.com
cross-posted from: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/14788 > I probably should make a "neurodiversity" channel eventually.
As [deepfakes](https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Deepfake) get used more often, people are going to start becoming aware of Deepfakes; but they won't properly grasp the Deepfake detection methods. People will likely resort to just assuming a video with weird movement is a deepfake. However, people don't have a good understanding of neurodiversity; they still hold misconceptions of mental disorders. With the stated preposition, people could (accidentally) treat neurodiverse people like they are Deepfakes. (To my knowledge,) **there are also no known training sets that include neurodiverse people.** **These misconceptions could be a problem if a deepfaked person has recovered from, or has not mentioned, their disorders.** ::: spoiler Examples: - A popular actor has recently gotten schizophrenia; but the public does not know of it. Someone makes a deepfake of the actor and the public laughs at it. The next day, the actor goes on an recorded interview; but he acts strangely (due to schizophrenia). With the increased awareness of deepfakes, some people accuse the video of being a deepfake. This leads to some outrage until the recording team confirms that the video was not deepfaked. - An autistic wife gets deepfaked by her husband (with her consent); but it happens to coincide with her behaviors. Viewer assumed that she really said or did *X* (where *X* is a statement or action) because the deepfakes acted similar enough to the real person that viewers assumed the deepfake was her. :::
Ever since I learned about the [recuperation of /r/antiwork](https://lemmy.ml/post/238596), I thought about diagnoses. Diagnoses, in the U.S, are hard to get; so (online) neurodiversity communities allow undiagnosed neurodivergent people. What would be the criteria for someone to be neurodiverse though? There has to be some criteria, otherwise you would let *everyone* in, which would nullify the original goals of a **neurodiverse** space. * Diagnoses are one criteria; but they often cost money, and they contain sensitive information. The lack of gatekeeping could mean that NTs can participate in the community more than neurodiverse people. The NT users could then bully out the original neurodivergent user base and misappropriate the space.
I did. (Ideally, I would like to not work at all, but that's greedy and its a currently unrealistic goal). I would prefer to not be employed in the West; on top of the issues already present in all workers, there is too much ableism for me to deal with that. I already burned out just by existing in school; I don't want to imagine the hell of existing in employment. * Executive dysfunction would mess up my ability to complete the necessary goals at work; it would build up into a big burnout. I think I would have liked to be in a country that doesn't have compulsory education.
I don't like executive dysfunction; executive functions are used in a lot of fields and daily interactions, in all political systems, and executive dysfunction ruins them for me. Jobs do not cooperate well with executive dysfunction; so in a capitalist society, I would struggle to survive. I also lose so much motivation to do anything. * [A UX designer had commented that executive dysfunction forced them to think abstractly.](https://lemmy.ml/comment/114341) They were also more empathetic to users that struggled with the user interface of a program. That's the only advantage I can find though; I'm still disadvantaged in the U.S. I still hold hope for more advantages of executive dysfunction though.
www.spectrumnews.org
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/231313 > Disappointment 100. > > This always annoyed me. Why do so many studies have issues with setting up fair and balanced tests? Why are the sample sizes too low?
Now excuse me, I have to post this on reddit to piss people off. /s