Aspies For Freedom

Or even better, a joust! Does anyone on the site have two spare sets of armour and a tent? *grins*

Rant for 18/11/07 - Come on and take that ride...

A recent thread on the possibility of an Autistic city (http://www.aspiesforfreedom.com/showthre...?tid=11062) got me thinking about one of the strangest small moments I've ever had...

A few years ago, I was sitting at a table in a restaurant, when suddenly I was hit with an extremely forceful thought - forceful enough to nearly knock me off my chair. The thought was simple - I had to build a city.

To be more accurate, I got a visual image of curved structures, with people walking around and through them - and I interpreted this as a city, and knew I had to build it.

During this moment, I had completely lost track of where I was and what I was doing, and it took me a little while to work out that I was in a restaurant, about to eat lunch. I also quickly realised that I was tipped right back in my chair, and was nearly past the falling point. I quickly stood up, righted my chair, and studiously ignored the wary look from the waitress on the other side of the room.

To this day, I don't know if what I had was a genuine spiritual experience, a randomly fired neuron, or simply the result of having read "Everville" one too many times (For those of you that aren't obsessive Clive Barker fans, one of the early characters in the book had an obsession with building a city). The moment has stayed with me, however, and it's one of the reasons I started looking into sustainable living places.

This latest thread has brought it all flooding back. Would it actually be possible to build a city from scratch, with few resources, and a very small number of initial dwellers? What resources would you need? Is there a way to start small and expand from there? In Everville, the city was eventually formed by building a brothel to attract men, but I don't think I'd be willing to go that far for my dream... *grins*

The new thread gives a new purpose to the desire - My old idea was to build an artists and philosophers paradise, but a far more worthy goal would be to build an Autistic city - creating a true Autistic culture in the process. Not only does it give a greater reason for the city to exist, it also makes the process slightly easier by giving people a reason to move there - although whether this is enough to upgrade its status from "implausible" to "difficult, but possible" is anyones guess.

The question I'm posing is this. What is the best way to create a city with a purpose, from scratch, with few resources.

Here's some of my ideas, with pros and cons:

1. Set up a small, self-sustainable community, and expand.

The main reason this one appeals to me is that I was planning to do it anyway, and it would be one less "jump" to make. The pros of this are that it's relatively easy to set up, at least compared to other methods, and you wouldn't need to have a structure in place to have people move there. The cons are that it would have to start in the middle of nowhere due to land prices, making it difficult to set up a decent "hub" for trade purposes, and that it would only attract people interested in the sustainable living lifestyle, which might leave a large percentage of the Autistic population behind.

2. Set up an industry, attract workers, set up dwellings for the workers, repeat as needed.

The main pro of this one is that the resources needed to set the thing up would be self-generating. The cons are that in setting up an industry based town the original purpose may be lost, and also that there is nothing to attract Autistic people there in the early stages.

3. Find a small town, take over, expand.

For this one, you'd be looking at moving into a "one horse" town - the sort that are no bigger than a single street, with few residents. This one has the advantage of being easy to start, if there was a big enough initial group. The downsides would be that we'd be upsetting the local way of life, which may cause conflicts, and that local councils may put a stop to it if they realise what we're up to.

4. Get a very large group, and set up a city.

This one would be the perfect way to go, if a very large group was available. At the moment, there isn't one.

5. Become extremely rich, build the city, and wait.

The pros are that the city could be designed flawlessly without need to organise the different design ideas of a large group of people. As for the cons - does anyone have a spare hundred million dollars?

So, there you have it - a work in progress, still waiting for the perfect method to start things rolling. It still seems like it would not be realistic, but given the right spark, who knows? In the meantime, I'm going to play that Talking Heads song one more time...

There's a city in my mind,
Come on and take that ride,
It's alright,
Baby it's alright.

And it's very far away,
But it's growing day by day,
And it's alright,
Baby it's alright.

Would you like to come along?
You can help me sing my song,
And it's alright,
Baby it's alright.

And they tell you what to do,
And they'll make a fool of you,
But it's alright,
Baby it's alright...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLiX8sgfgQU

No apologies necessary - I'm hoping that there will be lots of little discussions ducking and weaving between all the rants, making it a melting pot of odd ideas... *grins*

In all the rants I do, I change the subject line to the title of the rant, so I can tell who's replied to what - so extra comments like yours can only add  to the experience.

I know what you mean about the autistic rabbit theory - people have been trained to think that the idea of a large social network is inherently "better", because it's what they know.

I think that any Autistic city worth its salt would have to have a place for NT's - after all, who else would do the "customer service" jobs? *grins*

I think a welcoming city with an Autistic flavour would be all we'd need....

Rant for 19/11/07 - Subtle Synesthesia effects

When I was first diagnosed as Aspie and started to read up on the experiences of others, some of the most fascinating experiences were those of synesthesia. For those new to the concept, Synesthesia is where a sensory experience or cognitive concept is experienced simultaneously as an entirely different sensory experience or cognitive concept. So smells could be experienced as colours, different emotions could cause you to experience different tastes, etc.

I used to wish that I could glimpse the hidden personalities of numbers, hear colours, and know what different words smelled like. But, unfortunately, I realised that I did not experience Synesthesia - except for the kind of Synesthesic effects everybody gets, like seeing black and white patterns when I heard an unexpected noise.

It was nearly a decade later that I found out that other people did not see black and white patterns when they heard unexpected noises.

In a recent discussion with Bella about writing fiction, she told me that it was easy for her to recognise when the words didn't flow, because the piece no longer had a "voice".

The use of the word "voice" started us talking about Synesthesia. Could these sorts of "wild" Aspie talents be due to subtle Synesthesia effects? And what other subtle effects could Synesthesia have?

For myself, I've always been able to think of everyday things in mathematical terms. Could it be possible that my visual and logical processing centres are co-processing, letting me turn visual info into mathematical concepts, and vice versa?

For Aspie artists out there - the ones that have always found art easy, at any rate - is it possible that you could be co-processing experiences or concepts and visual images, to an extent?

And what other sorts of subtle Synesthesia effects could be influencing us without our knowledge. Could some stimuli be automatically co-processed as pleasurable or unpleasant emotions, subtly influencing the things we like and dislike?

Of course, it doesn't really change things if abilities and experiences are Synesthesia or non-Synesthesia related, but if we were able to pinpoint which Synesthesia effects we had, it may help us in knowing which new things we may or may not have natural talents or aversions to. Plus it will lead to some odd discussions, which is always a plus.

Anyways, I'll end the rant here, because I'm absolutely purple with tiredness. 'Til next time!

*grins* I know exactly what you mean! Back in my community radio days, I just couldn't understand how the other presenters couldn't fit songs together properly, even on commercial radio (long fade-outs & fade-ins can usually be intermixed at some points in the song, but not others, and certain patterns of back to back songs don't "mesh" together properly).

The bad song patterns used to get under my skin like nails accross a blackboard, and a brilliant fit could put me in a good mood for the rest of the night...

My favourite mixing moment was when I started playing Pink Floyd's "Wish You Were Here" shortly before I had to read the weather - which meant that I was saying the weather report while the nice "ocean sounds" starting part of the song was playing, then pre-announced the song and switched off the microphone just as the lyrics kicked in.

Surprisingly, others didn't share my unbridled enthusiasm about this moment, regardless of how many hundreds of times I repeated the story... *grins*

Bingo! *grins* I just reached the 20 posts per day limit yesterday.

Yep, that's it exactly. Basically, the real world doesn't exist, only the personalities of the creatures in it.

The reason I used the word "entities" is that it doesn't necessarily just mean people, but also animals, and possibly non-physical beings.

Rant for 21/11/07 - Zakkies guide to basic Autistic rights

When I started these rants, I wanted to stay away from the "basics" of the Autistic rights movement, as I believed it would be recycling things that had already been said many times over, and I also believed that AFF members would already know a bit about autistic rights, because they sought out and joined this site - probably after having found and dismissed several internet "support" groups. Recent discussions have taught me otherwise.

It seems that we're now getting big enough that for many, we're the first port of call for Autistic culture, rather than the previous state of having to slog through a thousand negative sites to find the one positive site. While this is a great breakthrough, it also means that many people are not subject to the negative images of Autism repeatedly thrown around the internet, and thus do not realise why we are so adamant about Autistic rights itself. Many don't even realise that although the site is a fun place to hang out and discuss random ideas, the site is also the home base for a political movement.

This can leave new members unsure what we are talking about in many of the threads, and occasionally confused at the anger shown to the groups we call "curbies".

And so, for new members, as a refresher to old members, or as something you might want to show to curious non-members, here's my take on the absolute basics of the Autistic rights movement.

Basically, Autistic rights is about combating the idea that Autism is an entirely negative thing that must be cured, and preventing human rights abuses of Autistic people.

It is widely believed that the person that kickstarted the Autistic rights movement is a man named Jim Sinclair, after a presentation entitled "Don't mourn for us". As someone who was non-verbal until the age of 12, Jim's ability to articulate the desires Autistic people started many people thinking. This presentation outlined some of the basic tenets:

- That autism is not something separate from an Autistic person, but is part of who that person is.
- That there's not a normal child "hiding behind" Autism.
- That a cure for Autism would mean that the child with Autism would cease to exist, and an entirely different "non-autistic" child would take it's place.
- That the ways autistic people relate to others is different, not nonexistent, and that Autistic people are not unreachable.

Here's the final words from the presentation:

"Take a look at your autistic child sometime, and take a moment to tell yourself who that child is not. Think to yourself: "This is not my child that I expected and planned for. This is not the child I waited for through all those months of pregnancy and all those hours of labor. This is not the child I made all those plans to share all those experiences with. That child never came. This is not that child." Then go do whatever grieving you have to do--away from the autistic child--and start learning to let go.

After you've started that letting go, come back and look at your autistic child again, and say to yourself: "This is not my child that I expected and planned for. This is an alien child who landed in my life by accident. I don't know who this child is or what it will become. But I know it's a child, stranded in an alien world, without parents of its own kind to care for it. It needs someone to care for it, to teach it, to interpret and to advocate for it. And because this alien child happened to drop into my life, that job is mine if I want it."

If that prospect excites you, then come join us, in strength and determination, in hope and in joy. The adventure of a lifetime is ahead of you."

The full text of the presentation is here - http://ani.autistics.org/dont_mourn.html



As far as combating the idea that Autism is an entirely negative thing that must be cured, there are two differing ideologies - the pro-cure movement (or curbies), and Autistic elitists.

To clarify, "curing" involves altering an Autistic persons personality to remove everything Autistic about them. It does not refer to teaching them skills or offering support services. In fact, Autistic rights advocates support increasing support services for Autistic people.

Curbies believe that Autism is entirely negative, and must be cured. Some of these are die-hards that believe this in spite of evidence presented to them, but most of them are simply confused parents that have never heard anything but the opinion that autism is entirely negative - from doctors, media, and curebie organisations.

As for the die-hard curebies, they may continue to believe the things they do for several reasons.

They may say that they believe we want to withhold support services from Autistic people - which is incorrect.

They may say that we believe we are saying Autism is "better" than Neurotypicalism, and dismiss us for that reason, when all we are saying is that we are different.

They may say that our forms of Autism are "less severe" than their childs "full" version of Autism, thus anything we say doesn't apply to them - despite the fact that people described as "low functioning" are involved in the movement.

Curebie organisations are groups set up to fundraise for research into a cure for Autism, and to promote the idea that Autism is entirely negative. Unlike regular "curebies", who may be merely misguided, curebie organisations are very aware of the views of the Autistic rights movement, and seek to discredit them wherever possible. The largest of these groups are "Autism Speaks" and "Cure Autism Now". These two groups have recently merged into one entity, but still retain the two separate names.

Their efforts to promote the negative image of Autism often involve "pity" propaganda showing parents of Autistic children complaining about their lives, followed by footage of their children having a tantrum. You can spot these types of documentaries easily, as they usually have some reference to "understanding autism" in the title, but show barely any footage of Autistic children or Autistic people, preferring to focus on parents.

The most famous of these videos, "Autism Everyday", shows a parent actually saying that she wanted to kill her Autistic child and herself, but only stopped herself because she had a "normal" child at home. She said this while the Autistic child was actually in the room.



The other ideology the Autistic Rights movement tries to combat is Autistic elitism, which is the idea that some types of Autism are positive and should be celebrated, while other types are negative and should be cured.

I'm ashamed to say that I once had this same idea - but after joining this site and finding out more about the different expressions of Autism, I realised that this idea was based entirely on ignorance, and on believing some of the negative propaganda spread by curebie organisations.

Once you get to know more about people that are called "low functioning" by society, you really get to see that the term is pretty meaningless, and that being Autistic is a part of their personality too.


I could keep going on this for hours, but after a while it would stop being a rough guide. So I'll leave you with a few key points to help you navigate the politics of Autistic rights.

- You'll often hear the word genocide being used. This doesn't mean that curbies want to kill all Autistics, it means that they want to remove Autism from the genepool. It also doesn't mean that genocide is their primary aim, but that they don't mind if genocide occurs. It may seem like an extreme word due to the images the word raises, but it is still an accurate use of the word.

- Some people feel that it is helpful to point out that Autism often creates talents in particular areas, or that historical figures widely regarded as "geniuses" may have had Autism - like Einstein, Newton, Tesla or Turing. Other people feel that this is counter-productive, as it implies that we need to be geniuses in order to be regarded as equals. You'll have to make up your own minds about this.

- In cure debates, emotions run high, and it's usually due either to personal experiences with negative stereotypes of Autism, or due to outrage at false statements made by curbies and curbie organisations. For instance, the one I remember from the NSW Autistic Foundation is a series of ads that started by saying "What disorder can stop a child from loving their dog?".

- If you get involved in Autistic rights debates, you may be tempted to insult Neurotypical people, or say that Autistics are "better" than Neurotypicals. Don't. Anti-NT statements are just as moronic and counterproductive as anti-Autistic statements. If you say to people that it's okay to have a different neurotype, you'd better believe that it's okay to have a different neurotype, such as Neurotypicalism.



This far from covers the topic, but hopefully it offers a rough jumping point to find out more.

That's true too, but only because we're in the minority.

I can imagine that if there were a large group of Autistic people, then a small group of NT's trying to "fit in" to the group might easily be socially disadvantaged...

Rant for 22/11/07 - Art of fish hill in teller gents...

I thought I'd do a special interest rant for once - on a research project I plan to pursue after I've got some day-to-day businesses set up, and a lot of time on my hands...

When I was younger, so much younger than today, I realised that emotional words were very inexact. When one person said that they were happy, and another person also said that they were happy, the two emotional states could be entirely different. As a result, I decided to try to come up with a system to perfectly describe an emotional state.

Here's what I came up with. It's still a bit subjective, but much less so than emotive words.

Basically, there are 5 emotional components - "fast" emotions, "slow" emotions, practicalities, intellectual stimulation, and spirituality. Each of these components has two variables assigned to it - a "strength of feeling" variable, and a "charge" variable. The "strength of feeling" variable represents how strongly this component of the emotion registers, and the "charge" variable represents how positively or negatively charged this component of the emotion is.

Fast emotions are emotions that cause instantaneous or spontaneous action, such as laughter, lust, anger, passion or exhilaration. The positively charged aspect of this emotion means that the instantaneous action is about desiring to experience or express something, whereas the negatively charged aspect is about wanting to change or destroy something. It should be noted that if you have a low strength of feeling in any of these components, the charge doesn't matter, as there's nothing there to charge.

If you have a high amount of this component positively charged, you might be feeling exhilaration, lust, or laugh-out-loud amusement.

If you have a high amount of this component negatively charged, you may be feeling anger or shock.

If you have a high amount of this component charged somewhere in the middle, you will know that you feel a need to act in some way, but at the same time are unsure of whether you want to embrace the experience or push it away. It could include things like nervousness or trepidation.

If you have a low strength of feeling in this component of your emotional state, then you are feeling fairly calm.

The next component is slow emotions. Slow emotions are those that subtly influence actions - which includes emotions like happiness & sadness. These influences will

A high positive in this may mean that you're feeling happy.

A high negative may mean that you're feeling miserable.

A high value charged somewhere in the middle may mean that you're feeling bittersweet.

And a low value might mean that you're choosing to just go with the fast emotions - having a shallow moment, perhaps.

The third component is the practical or ritual aspect - basically, how strongly you feel that the things you are doing or thinking must be done or thought. High positive means that the things you are doing seem "right" for no good reason (for instance, a daily ritual that you have no emotional connection to). High negative means that the things you are doing seem "incorrect" for no good reason (for instance, not obeying a natural instinct). High medium means you're unsure if your situation "fits" or "doesn't fit", and a low value means you have no real expectations of the situation.

The fourth component is intellectual stimulation. High positive means that your situation is "interesting" and you wish to intellectually explore it. High negative means your situation is "intellectually stupifying" and you wish, from an intellectual point of view, to avoid it. High medium charge means that your thoughts are focused on the thing, but you're not sure if it is intellectually beneficial or not, and a low value means you're not thinking about things, just experiencing them.

The fifth is spiritual - which means all the emotional charges that defy explanation. High positive means a profound or meaningful experience, high negative means a spiritually disturbing experience, high medium means a strong experience you're not sure how you feel about from an experienctial point of view, and a low value is an experience without meaning.

If you plot these on 5 graphs, you have a map of your emotional state that you will be able to share accurately with someone, after a lengthy explanation.

The project I mentioned is this. If an emotional state can really be explained by a series of ten different variables (2 variables for each component), have I created a starting point for a computerised representation of feeling? And if so, if the computer knows how it feels about each piece of data that it has, have I got a basis for attempting artificial intelligence?

The idea would be to translate the emotional components into a method of treating each piece of data (the data could be a word, a phrase, a person, a concept, etc). Then it works out which data is associated with which other pieces of data, and the "feelings" are influenced by association. For instance, if a person expresses a concept that it feels a particular way about, the emotional data for that concept will influence how it "feels" about the person, and vice-versa.

It's the holy grail of programming, the technological singularity - and hopefully my little theory is as good a place to start the attempt from as any...

Rant for 23/11/07 - Proof unfound

Wow, I'm actually starting on time tonight! Of course, I was supposed to start early to get enough sleep to survive a day at the polling booths, but you can't win them all... (For those not in the know, it's an Aussie election tomorrow).

One of the great myths of modern society is that you must have a good reason for all of your beliefs, or you have to change them immediately. This causes all sorts of problems.

Firstly, many people do not feel able to discuss their beliefs, except perhaps on a very shallow level. They may even decide their beliefs are "wrong" because they feel uncomfortable defending them.

At the other extreme, people may invent blatantly stupid arguments for their beliefs, and then repeat them loudly or use power game tactics to "win" a debate on the issue, thus allowing them to continue to believe the things they do. The arguments they use could be unconvincing, deliberately misleading, or could describe an extreme emotional state rather than a series of facts.

But there's a way out of this trap, and the way is this - You belief the things you do, and you are backed up by a proof yet to be found.

Every day, people come up with never before heard arguments, scientific proofs, or clever connections to explain the things they believe in. One of these could absolutely vindicate everything you believe, leaving no doubt that your belief is the correct one. The fact that you do not yet have access to such an argument does not mean that the argument does not exist.

It's as simple as that. All you have to do is admit that you have no logical reason to believe the thing you do, but that this does not mean that a logical reason does not exist, and you can believe anything you like - without fear of expression or the need to create stupid arguments.

This wont stop you from being shot down if the belief itself is stupid enough, but it will help stop you digging the hole deeper by inventing other stupidities to justify the original one.

There you have it - express the illogical, justify it by a proof that does not yet exist, and no-one can possibly take the belief from you. You may not be able to convince others that your belief is true, but that's another tale for another day.

Here's a few of my own to show you how it's done.



For starters, I believe the Neanderthal theory of Autism - that the Autism gene was originally the Neanderthal behavior gene, and it has been passed down through the generations from a brief period of interbreeding.

Mostly, I believe it because the idea of Autistic tribes 700,000 years ago is so damn cool that I want to believe it, and because there's no real evidence against it as such - But I'll be the first to admit that the evidence for it is scant to the point of near non-existence.

One day, perhaps, real evidence will come to light.



The next thing I illogically believe in is free will. This one I believe despite an overwhelming stack of logic on the other side of the fence - In every single debate on this topic I've ever spotted, no-one is able to quantify what free will actually is.

If you're given a choice between two things, it seems like there's two ways the brain could work.

The neural system, influenced by the exact same stimuli, could make one option always appear more attractive than the other, every single time - which would obviously mean that there was no free will.

The other possibility is that there could be a certain percentage chance of one option being favoured, and another percentage chance of the other option being favoured. A random chance is not the same as free will, therefore free will doesn't exist under this system either.

How could there possibly be something other than determinism or random chance?

And yet, someday, I believe a theory will come along to explain this mysterious third option, and I choose to believe that this new theory is entirely correct - regardless of the fact that it doesn't exist yet.



Also, I believe that telegraph poles are trying to take over the world, in collaboration with the giant space hamsters that gave birth to them.

What sorts of irrational things do you believe in?

I think your reply is probably based on the popular idea of using "neanderthal" to mean "unintelligent", when in reality they were anything but - for the time.

They were probably as advanced as the Cro-magnons of the time, if not more so. For example, they had domesticated animals while the Cro-magnons were still in the hunting-and-gathering phase, and they had more advanced tools.

Of course, the Cro-magnons had more advanced weaponry, which is probably why they eventually outnumbered the Neanderthals.

Another point is that I'm saying we may have evolved from Neanderthals, rather than that we are Neanderthals - The same way that Homo Sapiens evolved from Cro-magnons.

It doesn't make us less human at all - just gives us an origin for our behavior.

To put it another way, there's plenty of other Neanderthal genes floating around - the genes for red hair, freckled skin and short stature all come from Neanderthals.

If you believe that someone having red hair makes them "less human", you'd have a point. Otherwise, it's just an interesting behavioral theory.

I don't believe you.

*grins* Couldn't help myself...