I can't believe that we've managed to escalate past seeing parents as negligent for letting their kids walk home from school or play outside. Is this the new normal? You are negligent if you let your kids ... talk to people online? I uh, am outraged. What if kids start having thoughts their parents don't approve of?
Further, facebook users could chose to use platforms that don't exploit their users. By allowing facebook to benefit from the network effect, they are responsible for kids wanting to be on the platform. They give facebook power, and then facebook uses that power to exploit children. Yet facebook's adult users don't even see the need to defend themselves. To take responsibility.
Some of these laws affect mastodon, so these laws are not a regulation of facebook. What exploitive features of mastodon deserve such a ban? Are children addicted to mastodon's default chronological feed? It seems like it would benefit facebook to establish a regulatory moat that smaller non-ad-driven competitors don't have the resources to comply with. It certainty doesn't seem to have affected their stock.
> do not grant grace to those who make mistakes, especially those that you have never met or otherwise spoken to
> do not seek to understand those you do not already understand
Are these not reflected in your comment?
For unrelated reasons (looking up the author of a quote in the bsd fortune file) I was looking at François de La Rochefoucauld's wikipedia page and learned that he wrote this in the intro for his book of maxims on human behavior:
"... the best approach for the reader to take would be to put in his mind right from the start that none of these maxims apply to himself in particular, and that he is the sole exception, even though they appear to be generalities. After that I guarantee that he will be the first to endorse them and he will believe that they do credit to the human spirit."
Beating the market isn't evidence of insider trading. Everyone invested deeply in tech beat the market, which is what Paul Pelosi did. If he did trade with insider information, he did it in a way that was subtle enough to look sufficiently like normal trading. This is nothing like the smoking gun of a 4x spike on oil futures 1 hour before a major announcement or a hyperspecific bet on Polymarket.
Responsibility is to those that give status. Duty of the pro-social sort is what you buy status (regard) with.
Neither subjective or consensus accounts of truth (neither of which correspond with postmodernism or utilitarianism in the way you imply) are obviously inconsistent. Philosophers would not bother talking about them if that were the case.
Funnily enough, I can't tell which of Stalin and Mother Theresa you are worried will be confused with the other, given that many people have opposite ideas of which was moral and which was immoral.
Modern religions define objective morality, not objective truth (excluding metaphysical assertions, which are not what one usually means by truth).
Of course you don't get it: you're not autistic. Did you expect to get it?
There's what's that quote about good art disturbing the comfortable and comforting the disturbed.
Eating is very stressful for many autistic people because of trauma and lack of (non-enmeshing) support in childhood. They don't learn how to make a comfortable environment for themselves or that it is even possible. Every meal becomes stressful. Force feeding or depending completely on others.
Masking goes so deep, it's just not possible to easily convey with words, because after a lifetime of masking you don't even notice all the things that you do that count.
"Presenting behavior in a socialized way when necessary" has a hidden part. Presenting what behavior? To whom? Presenting autism-coded behavior around autistic people is stress-free.
I think masking is easily conveyed with words because everybody does it - other terms used are "code switching" where you talk differently to friends, family, parents, bosses, subordinates or children; "emotional labor", a phrase often used for service industry people (think receptionists) where people pretend to be in one emotional state (happy and cheerful) for the sake of their job or role while they really aren't. This is even worse / more obvious in the US where a lot of people can / do switch their personality on a whim, e.g. when picking up the phone.
What's different is that for neurotypical people they don't seem to be aware of it and it comes naturally, but for ND it's learned behaviour that costs energy and conscious effort to do. And they feel like they have to do it because society is used to people effortlessly doing it all the time, so if you don't you're considered off, or simply don't get to participate in society because you're weird/boring/scary. The latter is the worst, you're just yourself but people get uncomfortable around you. They won't tell you why nor just accept you (which is understandable, biological defense mechanisms etc), but you do become an outcast. Unless you play the social games.
> Presenting autism-coded behavior around autistic people is stress-free.
Anecdotal, but... not necessarily, any one person's behaviours can affect someone else negatively.
> but for ND it's learned behaviour that costs energy and conscious effort to do. And they feel like they have to do it because society is used to people effortlessly doing it all the time, so if you don't you're considered off, or simply don't get to participate in society because you're weird/boring/scary.
And of course, every now and then you fail to do it right and people think you were acting really weird but won't explain why.
I'd like to elaborate a little more on why "autistic masking" is different from "neurotypicals' masking".
For neurotypicals, masking is to exhibit behaviors that you subconciously know how to do because they are part of your natural range of behaviors. When a neurotypical is masking being friendly and happy in a social occasion (when they actually don't feel like it), they draw on their previous experience of having been friendly and happy in another social occasion. They know what it feels like, they know how to behave instinctively whey they really are happy and friendly, and faking it is only the effort of drawing from prior experience. For actors, this is called "the Method".
For autists, masking is emulating behaviors they wouldn't normally exhibit on any such occasion. They don't know how to do it, not subconciously, not instinctively. So they explicitly have to observe others, emulate their behavior on that occasion. That leads to two kinds of problems: First, they need to have observed this behavior, learned and practiced it, and need to know how to reproduce it correctly. Second, they need to recognize the occasion correctly, and not misinterpret their surroundings, the feelings and moods of others. And since autists also do have problems even interpreting their own emotional state (they do have emotions, but no intuitive way to know what they are at the moment) and even more the emotional state of others, the effort is far higher. Imagine an actor who is asked to play a totally alien role without any frame of reference and without prior experience, no do-overs and all the other people around him are also directors and constantly judging his performance and measuring it against their effortless instinct what it should look like.
I can buy your arguments, but not in the context of this game.
Saying "I'm tired I'll go work more silently" is just reasonably workplace behavior. Telling your coworker "can we sit down and talk about this somewhere more quiet" is just reasonable thing to say to improve productivity. Saying "This meeting is a bit unstructured and i feel if would be more productive to write out an agenda" is not breaking a mask or being an ass, it's focusing on getting shit done for everyone. Sending an email about concerns about unclear and un-mensurable performance in a post-meeting summary is productive and useful for the team (and less socially draining than doing it during the meeting).
All humans mask. Autistic people are simply more prone to "over-mask" or mask things others don't. But a-lot of masking behaviors are mal-adaoptions from childhood. A distraction-less focused and structured work environment helps everyone, so be the ass and enforce it. And particularly engineering fields have a higher tendency to attract (certain) autistic traits, which just further makes speaking out even more valuable for everyone involved.
Simply put; The game makes being "breaking the mask" a negative thing, and a failure case for the game. But all options that break the mask seem to improve energy and social connection. (which goes entirely against the supposed benefit or purpose of masking)
> Saying "This meeting is a bit unstructured and i feel if would be more productive to write out an agenda" is not breaking a mask or being an ass, it's focusing on getting shit done for everyone.
But in many cases, it will absolutely be interpreted as being an ass, and autistic people are less adept at spotting those contexts and communicating in ways which don't look like they're being an ass (also, autistic people are probably more likely to be irritated by the agenda of the rest of the meeting or next meeting being to discuss agendas...)
I agree with your wider point that everyone masks to some degree, but its obviously less consequential to non-junior neurotypical people in familiar environments who can reasonably accurately predict how everyone will react to them choosing to take the mask off and hint what they really think about the meeting. Sure, a lot of other stuff like requesting to talk in a quieter environment is usually something straightforward any reasonable person will accommodate, but it's not surprising people concerned that making too many requests perceived as "weird" might harm their career and not really sure what's "weird" or not default to just trying to avoid them.
Being unable to read or intepret the reaction or social cues given as a response to such blunt remarks is indeed a core issue. I think this is a core reason autistic people over-mask.
Beyond simply masking autistic traits, some people mask to the point of changing personalities or interests. Masking to be more "normal" than any "normal" person.
Knowing when and when not to raise or point out issues or concerns can be quite complex.
So in practice, its quite difficult to find the balance. But take issue with the "inevitability" present in a lot the explanations of autistic masking.
Googling "making workplace autism friendly" gives ... detailed descriptions of very nice workplaces. Particularly the examples in this game are things every workplace would benefit from adjusting even for "neuortypical" workers. (And if not pointed out, it will just continue to drain energy the future)
I am, and ironically it prevented me from being able to enjoy this; too many inaccuracies and absolutist perspective frustrated me.
Like others said, skipping breakfast should not be that big of a deal for a reasonably healthy adult, we didn't evolve having 3 meals a day. Intermittent fasting is a thing too.
'Masking' parameter misses the point in my opinion. Picking what I would personally realistically do (having adapted over the years) causes it to drop to 0 over a few days. Picking what i think author wants me to pick, same result. Yet somehow I managed not to get fired in 3 days irl.
I get it, it's an illustration of 'autism is hard' for 'normies'. But it was painfully close to being realistic/enjoyable too.
Not to say it's not useful, ADHD popups were 10/10, general vibe was spot on, will probably forward it to a few friends; it's just not nuanced enough to not annoy me personally.
One of rare times where I can be blunt honest and hopefully not come across arrogant.
> Like others said, skipping breakfast should not be that big of a deal for a reasonably healthy adult, we didn't evolve having 3 meals a day. Intermittent fasting is a thing too.
I haven’t played the simulator but I wonder if it’s also trying to account for more than just the physiological effects. A friend of mine has autism, and we were getting together one day. On the way over I suggested getting some food since it was close to dinner time. They agreed, gave me some items and I bought us some food. When I arrived they were amped up and excited to show me something. I set the food down, and I ate while they were showing me this thing that had them all excited. They ate some of the food too, but were clearly distracted and not all that hungry. No big deal. But a few hours later I noticed they’d gone real quiet and seemed down or anxious about something. Turned out they had been worrying for the last hour that they had offended me because they didn’t eat all the food and they knew they weren’t going to eat all the food because they were going through a phase where eating in general was just a difficult thing to want to do and so were eating just the minimums they needed to not have other problems.
The entire later half of their evening and their excitement over their new thing had been badly deflated all because of a decision / need to not eat all the food on offer. Never mind that this was nothing new for them. Never mind that I could easily see myself skipping food just for the excitement they were experiencing before factoring in any sensory phases. Never mind that it would be a truly shit thing for me to be offended because they only ate some of the greasy fast food I picked up for us. No this simple and normal act caused them an hour of stress and anxiety over worrying if they’d crossed some social line for doing something I didn’t even notice until they said something.
But it doesn’t matter whether I noticed. Their brain latched onto the “you did something abnormal, people might have noticed, now you need to analyze everything that’s happened to figure out what you next move should be” train of thought and it would not let go. So at least from what I’ve seen, choosing to eat or not can have impacts beyond just “hungry”
Yup, these people are perfectly fine. They don't need to identify each other and band together. No one is targeting them[0]. They need to stop making mountains out of molehills[1]. It's not like anything bad has ever happened to these 'high functioning' whiners[2]. I mean who cares if they are 'treated' by withholding food to force them to pretend to not be traumatized[3]. They should understand that if they stop identifying with the label or as oppressed victims it will be better for them[4]. Just like all those people with drapetomania[5] who don't realize what's best is a tough hand to guide them. Don't you miss how things used to be?[6] Back when there was more tough love[7].
Pricing in externalities (such as national defense impact) is a basic function of economic policy.
I searched 'economics 101 strategic industries' and found this[1] within 30s which includes an overview of 'national self-sufficiency'. It presents the standard argument, including the parts you claim the standard argument ignores.
I personally favor decentralized planning over markets, but I find it unnecessary to slander economics.
Federal employees swear a constitutional oath that supersedes presidential order and they have civil service protections beyond what most workers have available. Many are in unions.
As executive workers, they have a legal obligation to execute the law irrespective of what is decreed. Even then, they have their own - private - moral principles. The Nuremberg trials were clear: following orders is not a defense.
I completely agree with all of this. But at the same time your whole argument applies both ways.
I'm not sure it's fair to place the burden of constitutional interpretation on every federal employee. Understanding the constitution is complex, and frankly in many places open to a lot of interpretation.
And of course if unions want to join the fray, they're welcome to.
I will however note this. Your argument gives every federal employee freedom to do anything they like. This is true for left wing and right wing alike.
The problem with the "following orders is not a defense" logic is that it implies the person had choices (feds do, they can quit, guards didnt). Equally it implies that future-winners can retro-determine what you "should have done". It judges your present actions based on some future standard. Which means you need to decide which standard you think will ultimately win.
Clearly every person has their own limit. Lots of people quit their jobs every day. And clearly that is everyone's option.
At some fundamental level though, when you enter public service, you serve at the pleasure of the public. Right now it's hard to argue that this isn't the will of the public.
You may not like it, I certainly don't, but the permissions we tell ourself now are the same permissions that apply 4, 8, 12 years from now.
Which leads to the question- are you happy if a racist working under a Dem president uses your exact argument? And if not, why not?
I was making the deontological argument because I assumed that was the meta-ethical framework you were using, which can be extended by just saying "abiding by moral commitments and oaths is a matter of moral necessity". I think all the arguments you levied can be addressed by that extension.
Trump didn't run on project 2025 precisely because he knew it wasn't the will of the public.
My personal view is that much evil in the world occurs because people who make decisions and those that do them are not the same set. That any one, or any small group, can inflict so much unnecessary suffering seems surely to be a sign of pathology in the structure of our civilization. The fix, in my view, is to reassert direct personal responsibility, and to deny the legitimacy of looking to systems of rules to launder responsibility.
If I was a fed right now I'd probably already have been arrested for breaking people's legs. There are way more feds than there are people telling them what to do.
Further, facebook users could chose to use platforms that don't exploit their users. By allowing facebook to benefit from the network effect, they are responsible for kids wanting to be on the platform. They give facebook power, and then facebook uses that power to exploit children. Yet facebook's adult users don't even see the need to defend themselves. To take responsibility.
Some of these laws affect mastodon, so these laws are not a regulation of facebook. What exploitive features of mastodon deserve such a ban? Are children addicted to mastodon's default chronological feed? It seems like it would benefit facebook to establish a regulatory moat that smaller non-ad-driven competitors don't have the resources to comply with. It certainty doesn't seem to have affected their stock.
Also there is reasonable suspicion that meta lobbied for similar laws: https://tboteproject.com/git/hekate/attestation-findings
So much for holding facebook accountable.
Oh, also: https://xkcd.com/743/
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