Aspies For Freedom

Yep, very much so. I don't even mind if someone wanted to believe the mercury theory, just as long as they don't pretend it's logical to do so.

No rant tonight - I've been election boothing all day, and I'm completely 'zorsed, not to mention lobstered with sunburn.

But it was completely worth it!

Rant for 25/11/07 - Energy Theory - Part 2: Body language made easy!

This rant is about one of the things I can apply my energy theory to - body language. For those that missed part 1, it's the rant from 20/11/07 - here: http://www.aspiesforfreedom.com/showthre...24&page=10

Also, most of you probably wouldn't agree with the initial energy theory, but this body language interpretation will still work, of you think of "energy" as a metaphor, rather than a thing that literally exists.

One of the advantages of thinking of social interactions in terms of energy interactions, is that several social systems become much easier to understand, and can even be mathematically interpreted and influenced.

One of the social systems that becomes much simpler by using this theory is body language.

Basically, all communication carries with it an amount of energy. This energy can be "raw" (which means that it's just "there", and is available for use by any recipient), or it can be "targeted" (which means that it is designed to influence the recipient, or  to be used as an "energy attack").

For example, an uncharged conversation involves "raw" energy, and the energy exchange actually energises all participants. An example of "targeted" energy would be someone using non-logical means to convince another person to do something, like go out to lunch with a group of friends, etc. Another example would be an "energy attack", where someone says something to provoke a reaction, and thus "steal" the other persons energy.

The upshot of all this is that people want as much "raw" energy as they can get, while trying to avoid as much "targeted" energy as they can. This is where body language comes in.

Every person constantly emits energy from certain areas of their body - the eyes, chest, wrists, pelvis, and their feet. It's also emitted along with any form of communication or creative activity - such as written words, email, phone communication, etc.

You can receive energy through all of these. For instance, if someone is looking at you, you are receiving energy from them. If you are looking back at them (i.e. making eye contact), then there is a mutual energy exchange between you and them.

If any of the other body parts above are pointed at you, then you are receiving extra energy again (for instance, if they are facing you, if their feet are pointing towards you, if their wrists are facing towards you, etc). This is influenced by physical obstructions, however - so if someone is facing you, but a desk, computer, or something else is in the way, you will only be receiving the energy from eye contact and communication.

Also, any communication channels add to this again - if you are hearing them talk, reading their messages, etc. This is why even when someone is completely hidden from you, or on the other side of the world typing a message to you, you will still receive energy from them via communication.

The problem is that you receive both types of energy from them - raw, and targeted.

About the only thing you can do to limit this is by lowering the amount of energy the person is receiving from you. This means that any energy attack that they make against you will be less effective, due to having less "channels" to travel through.

People intuit this, and this is how body language has developed.

In essence, body language is an expression of trust. If someone trusts you completely, they will "open up" their body language to you, by facing you, making eye contact, turning their wrists towards you, pointing their feet towards you, talking to you, etc.

If someone distrusts you, however, they will "close up" their body language - by doing things like avoiding eye contact, crossing their arms over their chest (which means obstructing energy being emitted from their chest, as well as pointing their wrists away from you), crossing their legs away from you (so their feet are no longer pointing towards you), and talking less often.

This doesn't necessarily mean they dislike you - it could mean that they don't know you, think you're in a bad mood, etc. It could also mean that they're feeling more fragile themselves that day, and don't really feel up to dealing with possible energy attacks.

The way you can use this is when starting a conversation with someone, to take note of the number of different "energy channels". The eyes seem to be the strongest one, followed by the wrists, chest, communication, pelvis, and the feet.

If someone increases the number of "channels" it means they either feel more comfortable with you, or like what you're doing or saying. If they lower the number of "channels", it means that they feel less comfortable with you, or dislike what you're doing or saying.

The converse is also true - if you want to indicate to someone that you like them, or like the conversation, you can increase the number of "channels". If you want to indicate to someone that you feel uncomfortable, or that you dislike what they are saying, you can decrease the number of "channels".

The only thing to remember is to make sure their behavior is actually about you, rather than something external. For instance, if someone else says something to the person, they might turn around and say something back to them, which is no reflection on how they feel about you at all.

Likewise, if someone is performing a particular task, it may influence the number of "channels", which again is no reflection on you.



There are also more subtle uses of body language via these energy channels. For example, someone who wants positive energy from you may give small amounts of energy then take it away - perhaps by making brief eye contact then looking away, or by turning towards you then turning slightly away. The most common type of this behavior is called flirting.

The way you can tell this apart from the usual "closing" of body language is that the "burst" effect is very quick, and not based on anything you have actually done. To test this, try another attempt at communication, and see if you are "rewarded" by another brief burst of energy - such as a brief flash of eye contact, the person crossing their legs towards you, or turning towards you then away from you once more.

If you wish to flirt back, simply do the same. If you like something they're saying, reward them with a brief increase in energy, followed by a decrease. It's important to remember that the decrease wont actually come across as an annoyed response, as by this stage the other person will be aware that it's a game, and know that you are just playing along.

There's two ways you can go from here. You can continue flirting until one of you leaves, or you can try to turn the situation from just flirting to an enjoyable conversation. You do this by increasing the length of the increase in energy by a small amount every time, and see if the other person does the same. If they do, you can eventually just not decrease the energy at the end. If you're interested in them romantically, just remember to start flirting again before they leave, as this is a good way to be remembered - most people will be more likely to be initially attracted to someone who can flirt and also hold an interesting conversation, so it's important to attempt both of these if you wish anything to come of it.



The other type of body language is the angry response. When a person gets annoyed or angry beyond a certain amount, they will actually start "opening up" their body language to you. But this isn't about encouraging a positive energy exchange, it's about encouraging you to energy attack them. In essence, they're saying "What have you got?". The way you can tell this apart from positive body language is through tone of voice and the things they are saying. Also, you will probably have noticed the situation "leading up" to this confrontational body language.

If you wish to stave off the angry response, the important thing is not to close off your own body language, as this will be seen as "not being up to the challenge", and will actually cause further attacks through being seen as a sign of weakness. Although it's counter-intuitive, the best way is to open up your own body language, and respond to their comments in a completely friendly manner, as if you hadn't even noticed they were angry. Because they're already open themselves, they will notice the positive energy output from you and end up responding in kind. It's very hard to do, but if done right, it can stave off disaster.



So, there you have it - it takes a bit of getting used to, but once you're in the habit many interactions become much easier to deal with.

Ironically, body language systems like this can actually give Aspies and Autistics the advantage over NT's as far as body language is concerned - as they'll be responding according to their instincts, whereas you'll be able to actively choose body language to give you the best result.

Of course, social interaction is far more complex than just body language - but at least this gives you one extra tool.

Have fun!

If it happens more than once in a short timeframe, it's probably deliberate.

Rant for 26/11/07 - The antisocial club

Usually in rants I like to state one of my beliefs, or attempt to offer some sort of insight into an issue. Today I thought I'd take a different approach, and actually ask for your experiences and advice.

One of the things I've wanted ever since the age of 15 is regular contact with other Aspies - yet I have absolutely no idea how to achieve this. I live in Brisbane, and so I'm practically on top of Tony Attwoods clinic - so, at least in theory, this should be Aspie central.

To clarify, what I'm after is social contact with other Aspies, rather than "support group" contact. By now, I think my life's pretty much on track, and I've found little tricks and tips to get around my various issues, so I don't really need help with problems. For this reason, even though there are a few "support" groups in the area, I wouldn't feel comfortable joining any of them - mostly because I think it puts the focus on "issues" rather than enjoyment.

So, how does a person bring together a groups of Aspies or Autistics for the purposes of enjoyable afternoons? Where would it be best to advertise such a group? And what sorts of negative situations would I have to look out for in attempting to build such a group?

I'd be especially interested to see if anyone else has successfully done this, and how it worked out for them.

My ultimate dream would be to set a regular "Antisocial Club" for Spectrumites to meet up over coffee, or do various activities. If I was even more ambitious, I'd love to encourage others around the world to set up their own "Antisocial Clubs", and set up a networked organisation between them all.

So, any ideas?

Thankee all! I probably wont be hitting the psychologists or support groups, as I want to avoid a "support group" style group, but hitting interest groups like chess clubs and gaming places is definitely a good idea... *grins*

Rant for 27/11/07 - The nerd/autistic alliance...

Following on from some of Tigger's suggestions on using nerdly activities to find other Aspies and Autistics, I've been thinking a bit more about the Nerd/Aspie relationship.

When it comes down to it, when creating a culture, NT's often socially osmose one from the people around them.

Nerd culture is based on specialised interests, a disinterest in usual social rituals, and a tendency to spend very long amounts of time on single activities. Two guesses as to which people they could have osmosed this from?

What I'm getting at here is that we created nerds - and by my twisted logic, that means they owe us.

I've always thought that the reason it's been so hard for us to get Autistic rights issues noticed is that we don't have large numbers of us in one place, and convincing large numbers of NT's to support us is difficult.

The nerd factor changes all that.

For starters, many of us speak their language - get a group of sci-fi loving Aspies and group of sci-fi loving nerds talking, and you'll barely know the difference. In fact, half of us are nerds already. It's the one culture that we will have very few problems navigating.

Second, convincing them will be easy, as the X-men movies offer an analogy that will gain us instant understanding. It's true that the X-men "cure" metaphor isn't 100% accurate, but the emotional pull of telling nerds to support a cause that sounds like the X-men movies makes the inaccuracies worth it.

Third, once we get them onside, nerds control the internet - this means that once enough nerds start writing things in support of Autistic rights, it will spread everywhere. The blogosphere will practically be dripping with Autistic rights rants.

Fourth, nerd culture is respected by wider society. If nerds start pressing this as an issue, people will listen. There will still be the usual detractors, but at least the message will be out there.

And so, I propose a nerd/Autistic alliance. If we let nerds know about their cultural roots, if we make it fun enough for them, and if we invent enough weird rituals for them to play around with, we could actually get our message out.

We can actually win the battle against discrimination - and all it took was rolling d20 for initiative...

P.S. I usually try to keep the rants to a humorous tone, because they're supposed to be entertaining - but I actually do have some ideas relating to this rant. If anyone has the time, and is interested in doing something towards helping promote Autistic rights, PM me and I'll tell you more.

Rant for 28/11/07 - Crossing the border to happiness!

Just a short rant tonight, for the sake of an early sleep...

Sometimes the world can really get you down.

You might be feeling alone and isolated. You might be feeling crowded and unappreciated. You could be stressed, bored, miserable, angry, or be just feeling empty. But no matter how bad things get, there's always one thing that can make the day seem bright again.

The word "smuggler".

Say it now, out loud - "smuggler".

I believe that there's almost no way to be miserable at the same time as you're saying the word smuggler - it's just such a happy word!



Okay, so now the day is a little better, but it's still only a word... Now for step 2. Ask yourself these questions, out loud:

"What is the smuggler smuggling?"

"Is she a smug smuggling smuggler?"

"Why does the smuggler smuggle?"

*grins* It's hard not to get caught up in the moment.



Now for the big one. Cross your legs, lotus style. Hold both hands up in the air, palms facing upwards, making a circle with your thumb and forefinger.

And yes, I mean do it right now.

Now repeat the following mantra, out loud:

"Smuggle smuggle smuggle smuggle smuggle smuggle smuggle smuggle smuggle smuggle smuggle smuggle smuggle smuggle smuggle smuggle"

Now get out there and face the day. *grins*

Rant for 29/11/07 - It's time to pick a theory

I've just finished watching the series 2 finale of Heroes... I love the series, but there's one plot point that makes me cringe every single time.

Time travel.

It's not that I have a problem with time travel as a plot device - in fact, I quite like it when it's done properly. Unfortunately, most movies and TV shows get the practicalities all wrong.

There's two possible ways of handling a time travel storyline. Well, actually there's several if you count more exotic theories, but there's two methods that are most commonly used.

The first method uses the "determinism" theory, saying that everything that happened could only happen one possible way, and thus any time travel is already accounted for. An example of this from Heroes would be when Hiro traveled back in time to meet Takezo Kensai in ancient Japan, a legendary person that Hiro had heard many tales about. Hiro helped these tales to become true - thus bringing things full circle.

The second method uses the "indeterminism" theory, which says that everything that happens could also happen a number of other ways, and thus any time travel can alter the future. An example of this from Heroes would be when Hiro travels into the future to a time after New York has been destroyed by a nuclear explosion. He then uses the information gleaned from his travel to prevent the nuclear explosion, thus altering history.

And this brings us to the problem - both these theories are entirely opposite, and yet most time travel plot devices use both theories at the same time. Only one can be true, not both.

As far as I know, there's only two movies that got time travel right - "12 Mokeys", and, strangely enough, "Bill and Teds Excellent Adventure". Both are examples of the determinism theory, and neither ventures into indeterminism at all.

So, to any scriptwriters that might be watching, take care of your movies internal logic - 'Cause I gots my eyes on you...[/u]

Going to take another break from ranting tonight - I left it a bit too late to start...

In related news, I made a Zakkie rants blog!

http://zakkierants.blogspot.com/

Rant for 01/12/07 - Groups and boxes

I'm sure anyone here that's read up on Aspergers thought patterns know the about the "theory of mind", and also knows that it has been debunked many times over. So far though, I haven't seen any new theories to explain what thought processes explain the appearance of "lack of theory of mind", except the occasional mention that misunderstanding goes both ways.

So I thought I'd throw my hat into the ring.

As I see it, NT's and Autistics have two separate methods of working out how to deal with a new person. The NT's work with a method I call "generalising and categorising", whereas Autistics work with a method I call the "black box" method. Both methods have different strengths and weaknesses.



The NT method, "generalising and categorising", involves learning general rules for how to treat a "person". These rules include appropriate behavior, what they think the person is likely to be thinking in various situations, etc.  

Obviously one set of rules will not work for every single person, so when these rules fail, they will invent a new category for the type of person that the rules failed for - for instance, if the rules failed for one or more women, then a new set of rules will be created for "women", leaving the original set as rules for "men". This categorisation then splits into smaller and smaller categories. So knowing how to treat someone, or guessing what they are thinking, involves working out which category they belong to and using the set of rules for that category.

Of course, there will be some information specific to individual people, but for the most part, the category holds the most influence.

The advantage of this method is that it's very easy to work out how to treat a new person. The disadvantage is that the information will not usually be entirely accurate, and it can often take a lot of effort to work out that a person does not fit the "usual" rules.



The Autistic method, or the "black box" method, means that when meeting a new person, you have no information about them at all - to an autistic persons mind, their thought processes are just a big black box with a question mark printed on the front. Certain general responses will probably have been learned (small talk standards, etc), but for the most part an Autistic person will not know how to treat someone new.

After talking to or observing the new person, any facts are added to a "file" about that person in particular - likes, dislikes, which behaviours get which responses, etc. This information can is used as specific information about the new person and no-one else, and it can also be used as "general possible" information - as in "it is possible that other new people may also exhibit this trait. I shall have to observe, experiment, and find out".

Of course, some information may be used as vague category generalisations, but for the most part, information holds the most influence.

The advantage of this method is that the it produces more accurate information about a person over a long period of time, and that Autistics are less swayed by stereotypes. The disadvantage is that when meeting a new person, the Autistic person will have a very limited idea of how to act around them.


Ultimately, the best method would be a combination of the two - use generalisations, but make sure that actual information is given higher regard than the generalisations. This would give the advantages of both methods, without the disadvantages of either. But while this is possible to an extent, without careful monitoring the "natural" method will usually kick back in - Autistics will try to overanalyse or second-guess the "rough approximation" categories they've created, and NT's will find it hard to accept information about a person that goes against the information for a group that person belongs to.

So there you have it. Any thoughts?

No rant again tonight - I are sick...

*grins* I've been pretty slack lately - normal programming resumes tomorrow.

Rant for 03/12/07 - Superior Inferior Deleria

Lately I've been seeing quite a few of the "Aspies are superior" and "Aspies are flawed" threads and themes floating around, so I thought I'd try to work out why it's happening.

What I came up with is this: I think it mostly comes from the context in which superiority is judged, or from basing superiority on a small number of events.

The "inferiority" idea comes about when an autistic persons weaknesses are emphasised in some way during their day-to-day lives - usually by criticism from others, but often also by having goals thwarted due to issues arising from autistic tendencies.

The "superiority" idea comes from a few different sources.

The most common one is as a reaction to discrimination or isolation. If someone has their ideas dismissed or their input to conversation ignored in favour of ideas and responses that don't seem very smart, it is tempting to say "NT's are stupid" rather than try to work out what's actually going on.

Another one (and I'll be honest, one I've struggled with myself in the past) is in terms of particular contexts, NT's often seem less capable of fulfilling certain tasks. For example, in an office job I'm able to do much more with computers than anyone else in the building (including IT support), and it took me a long while to work out that it was due to different priorities and interests rather than just autistic thought processes being "better".

A third source is in trying to invent a pecking order in terms of strengths and weaknesses. This exercise is doomed to failure, as personality is rarely definable in terms of strengths and weaknesses, and in the end, personality is what matters.

And finally, unfortunately autistics aren't completely immune to the "they're not as good because they're not one of us" mentality. Less prone, perhaps, but not completely immune.

In the end, superiority and inferiority labels have the same problem as high-functioning and low-functioning labels - they can only be applied to specific traits, and they're utterly useless as a general idea. Even applying them to specific traits is problematic, as many people will fall outside the norm.

For example, in general, NT's have superior social skills. In general, autistics have superior pattern recognition skills. By giving them a context, superiority and inferiority are meaningful. Without a context, they're just arrogant or insulting.

In short, autistics and neurotypicals are individuals, and neither can be better as a group.

...And tonights excuse? Writers block. I got nothing...

Rant for 05/12/07 - Dancing with the enemy

Sometimes the future for autistic people looks pretty bleak. Everywhere you look, it seems like someone's got a new "cure autism" diet or method, or there's a new documentary on the tragedy of autism, or another celebrity is helping raise funds for a cure.

I was curious to see how bad things have actually gotten, so for the last few days I've been browsing the "Autism Speaks" forums to see what we're dealing with. This experience has lead me to a very strange and unexpected conclusion:

When it comes to the internet, we're actually winning.

We're a long way from claiming victory on this particular battleground, but the amount of progress we have made is just staggering.

For example, the word "neurotypical" is now used by everyone, even the curbies. This may seem like a small thing, but when you consider that it wasn't very long ago that non-autistics were referred to as "normal", it's a huge move forward. That we each have a "label" sets the groundwork for convincing others that we should be considered equals.

Furthermore, in all our debates, we're the most convincing - even in the heart of the bad guys territory. The most vocal of our proponents (with a couple of notable exceptions) sound far more eloquent than the most vocal curebie proponents. And this isn't merely bias talking - when faced with a logical argument (on the internet), most of them sound unconvincing at best, delusional at worst. Admittedly this is because the smart ones know that entering the debate actually gets us noticed, but in the meantime, it makes our position look pretty good.

Next, in any internet discussion maintained by moderators that "play nice" (by which I mean not banning someone for disagreeing with them), the anti-cure position is usually presented. On the internet, we're very noticeable. Again, admittedly, this is only in serious discussions about autism rather than in the eyes of the general population, but it does put us in a very good starting position.

If we keep this up, it won't be long before more newspapers do accurate articles about autistic rights, before autism speaks is "discussed" rather than supported, and sponsors start putting their money into support services rather than genetic research. After all, the internet effects the real world more than ever now.

In short, it seems that the internet is the weak point of the curbie movement, and given the way that news spreads these days, if we get things out on the internet to a critical amount, then we will be heard.

Things aren't as futile as they seem.

Debating on blogs, forums, and newspaper articles can and does make a difference. All we have to do is keep doing what we're doing, and the world will have to sit up and take notice.