“Choosing” Love

 . . . all great ideas, Mrs. Marx and Engels, Drs. M. L. King, Gabor Mate, Alice Miller, Mr. Cavoukian, just names from my personal logos, but so many great humanists, all with a terrific idea about how things ought to be, about love over hate, too many to name them all, so many good folks trying, so many apparently obvious rhetorical questions posed, why wouldn’t we choose love?

If I have readers, you know what I think: spanking and it’s mythological excuse, “Human Nature,” is why. But today’s question isn’t that, it’s “why would this be rhetorical?”

All good things hit this wall.

We would choose love – but goddammit, I have forever been choosing love and receiving hate and I’m sorry, but it’s not love I got too much of and not love I need to void myself of, is it? If you didn’t want this from me, why did you do that?!?? We would, but, kind of thing, right? But not for them, or something, right? Surely there is someone out there who deserves some of the limited resource of my mercy.

I’m trying to tell you, you ask, “why choose hate?” like it’s rhetorical, like there’s no answer, like we’re not really looking for an answer.

I woke up today with a thought that is childishly simple, yet still unfortunately true of a world of adults. You know the old saw, a child says in anger, “You made me feel X,” you know, X equals sad, mad, something awful and at some age we start saying, “other people don’t make you feel things, your feelings are yours.”

It’s a bit of gaslighting, doesn’t matter what I do to you, you are responsible for your own feelings, but it has a sort of truth, we do need to own our feelings enough to control them some and such, but it has just occurred to me for the umpteenth time, that isn’t this just what every sort of hate, every “ism,” is, the hated groups are blamed for the feelings of the haters, the haters hate everyone but themselves and it’s everyone’s fault but theirs, all their hate.

But you know what? It’s not so simple, this gaslighting. Rather, there are multiple levels, a ruse within a ruse, and while we gaslight one another in the here and now, that we aren’t responsible for one another’s new and current feelings, we are also closing off any conversation about anyone creating feelings in anyone – about antisocialization, in a word. Nobody affects nobody, apparently.

AST, so, you feel bad, you blame someone, but Psych 101 says your feelings are your own, from some other trauma, not from the person in front of you, so now you feel bad and it’s not their fault, it’s you, and “some other trauma,” of yours, and trauma is always some sort of accident, Psych 101 knows your abuser had their own trauma, so no-one tried to make you feel that way, it’s a . . . choice, ultimately, how we respond to a tragic accident. Why not choose love?

Uh, because it was a trauma and not an orgy?

These haters really don’t create all this hate themselves, is all I’m saying, the haters’ parents do, their caregivers do, their preachers, teachers and coaches do. Contrary to your memes, we can’t just make our own hatred from thin air and we’re not born with an unlimited supply, and of course somebody else makes you feel that way!

I want to say, of course we make each other feel things when we interact, but that’s not the point, the point is they were made to feel that way as a part of their upbringings, and it’s a feeling that doesn’t go away, somebody else makes you feel that way for life.

Your mom, your dad. Your people do that.

Why not choose love? It’s not bloody rhetorical, there’s a real world, living reason, and it’s because of the way they have made us feel, as I tried to express above. If we do not choose love, it is because we have been made to feel something else. Feelings are . . . real, materialistic, they are born and die here, in this world. Your bad feelings happened here, and the source is knowable.

I’m trying to tell folks: we can’t get there from here, but if we stop hurting our kids, maybe they can see more from there, maybe they can “choose” love a little more often than we did.

Jeff

March 23rd., 2023

No, YOU Have a Genetic Component

I’m so used to being misunderstood, to being the intellectual black sheep, Jeff against the world, that post hatching and having found a type for myself, I find myself rejecting it and its assumptions like I always have with NT world’s; it’s a habit and a survival mechanism and maybe a whole neurotype and it’s not likely to change anytime soon.

All my life I have been battling a broken neurotype, not mine.

It stresses me out, it’s got me pacing and even hand flapping a little, when I hear the charlatans’ noise about “curing” Autists, but our responses also do not satisfy me, I feel that while we are putting up an argument, that we get dragged into accepting some portion of their premise, and I want to lead you in, but you know what, let’s go straight to it, I’ll name it. More than that Autists are not a thing to repair or to prevent, I need to go further, nothing falls into place for me if “Autism” is a thing, at all. It’s not the monster I have identified and wrestled all my life, that was . . . the other thing.

Here’s my premise.

“Autism,” isn’t a thing, I mean it’s a thing, everything is a word, everything is a thing, a vacuum is a thing, but it’s also nothing: space is a “thing,” that is also nothing, whereas matter, now that’s a thing, a thing that isn’t just the absence of another thing. Autism is a thing like space is a thing; whereas . . . I need a better word, for it, please work with me that these are close, whereas Neurotypicality, Allism, being “normal,” – now these are things. Like matter is a thing.

Being normal is a thing, and it is not also just “nothing,” like the word suggests. That’s just the consensus fallacy, if it’s everywhere, it’s nothing – this is backwards, NTs, if it’s everywhere, that’s more like everything than “nothing,” isn’t it? Not asking, or not asking NTs: it is more like everything. Like we’re having the discussion about air again: if it displaces something else, it’s matter, it’s not “nothing,” even if it is everywhere. Even if it is invisible to you.

When the charlatans go to environmental causes, Tylenol, that’s horrible and stupid, Autists haven’t been poisoned, and poisons don’t create neurotypes, but that’s not my area, plenty of good folks are fighting those folks, thank goodness (and also I have had a run at them recently already). What I think I need to answer today is when they start talking about genes. That’s close to a logic I am already looking at, and I have already been developing a genetic theory about that other thing. “Autism,” “has a genetic component,” they say, and . . . duh?

Doesn’t everything alive and all of behaviour “have a genetic component?”

Of course it does, and to say it about “Autism,” is as obvious as it would be to say it about anything, and to say there is “more than one gene involved,” is also true of everything and equally obvious, and I predict that they cannot even say it is associated with any “group of genes,” not yet, they will say, and none of those statements suggest that “Autism” is a genetic . . . unit of any sort. A single gene might, as in some diseases, a group of them might, I think there are things associated with more than one gene, but these have not been identified for “Autism,” and so they have not ‘yet,’ shown the genes to say that “Autism,” is a genetic . . . phenomenon.

OK – I have seen this idea, a group of genes, and I think they will argue, I think they will say they have identified a “number of genes,” now – I don’t think I’m out of date, I think I’m arguing, I’m saying I don’t believe them. This blog is about how I don’t think “Autism” is thing in itself and that there is no such logical grouping. It’s a dispute, not my ignorance – I think. It does get a little circular, both their argument and mine, and I’m not sure there’s any way around all of that with these sorts of constructs. My point is, that it is less circular when we see it the other way around: I am predicting that we can indeed find a “group of genes,” but for NTness, not Autism. Such puzzles always carry an extra level of difficulty when you’re looking at them upside down, trying to prove the negative rather than the positive in the situation.

Their language is doomed to vagueness and complexity, we see it progress: a gene, no, a group of genes, well, a variable number of genes, along with environmental things (like Tylenol) also, well, environment (like Tylenol) and a variable number of genes and also life history (like a lack of “discipline”) . . .

You know what, here, let me flip that over for you. That’s what we’re here for.

Of course, I can’t show you any genes for anything, so, while proof is lacking for “Autistic genes,” at this date, let’s look at some theory, shall we?

What does a genetic . . . entity look like? How do we recognize genes, what sort of attributes do genetic things have?

I’ve thought of four things that we associate with a genetic . . . effect, and they are, in no particular order,

One, heritability: genes explain heritability, our children inherit our genes and our lives, to some degree. It has been dramatically explained how genetic behaviours appear in separated families, most poisonously in the twin studies. Heritability that survives family and cultural disruption, we know this is a genetic matter.

Two, epigenetics: an epigenetic effect is a sure positive sign, if not not always present, but when we see differences in development with the same genes in different environments, we know some gene is taking a cue from the environment and choosing an option.

Three, sameness: when we share a gene, we share a trait, not one for one necessarily, but species share a whole lot of their genes while all of life share a few, almost. “Species,” means a high level of shared genes, and when we see shared attributes, especially across diverse environments, we know we are seeing shared genes. Accordingly, the more uniform a given group is, a given species, the less variability it displays, this indicates a higher percentage of shared genes than perhaps another, highly variable “species,” has, and the more variable species has more genes that they don’t all share – think perhaps species with mountain and lowland versions – but the more they are all the same, the more we know their genes are too.

To phrase it for use here, I want to say that the more uniform a group is, the more “genetic,” it is, that is to say the more it would be accurately defined by defining the gene, or as I’ve been saying, the genetic . . . something. Genetic overall effect, I suppose. I mean, I don’t only want to say it. I think it’s a fair example of how we use the soft term, “genetic,” in conversation, and I try not to want to say untrue things, of course don’t we all. We will judge for ourselves, I guess, but if you don’t agree, things will look more circular later, I’m afraid. I’m trying to set it up, but with a change of viewpoint, not by dispensing with the truth, I hope.

Inasmuch as ninety-some percent of shared genes makes a species and a hundred percent makes you an identical twin or a clone, more similar means more “genetic,” – ah, there it is. It means more of the “genetic component.”

That ought to do it! It just takes me a bit sometimes.

Four, evolution: when a trait or an effect is growing or shrinking, being selected or deselected over time, when evolution is happening, it happens in your genes, if we see polar bears fading to tan, we know there are grizzly genes, they are converging. When we see species getting bigger or smaller or changing how they use the environment, we know their genes are changing too.

OK. Caveats.

Some of my reasoning will rest upon reasoning that as far as I can see, is only mine; I will be expecting you to accept AST, Antisocialization Theory, my idea that humanity drives itself to more and more antisocial behaviours by way of its attempts at social control, my idea that no-one traumatizes humans except humans, that we are horrible and destroying the world because we treat ourselves horribly and for no other reason. It’s the materialistic ideological opposite of “Human Nature.” It’s all I ever talk about, see the blog.

I will attempt to give you a way around it where possible, but I’m nothing if not holistic, and it won’t really work without it. Nothing works with the Human Nature myth gumming up the science, and cynic that I am, you know I think that’s the point of it.

Alright let’s apply these criteria and find out who’s a genetic . . . whatever and who isn’t, shall we?

One, heritability.

“It runs in families,” sure it does, of course it does, wait – what does? “Autism?” So, “Autism,” “runs in my family?” Again, yes, sure it does – but it’s not the only thing that does. I’m pretty sure my family has a non-Autistic streak too. The rest of them aren’t blank molds, waiting to be coloured in, they’re not “nothing,” if they’re not Autistic, are they? More like everything, if you count them. If we don’t just leave them out of our equations. Hmm.

I’m afraid I’ve just talked myself out of “Allism,” as my term, I’ll go back to my generic, “NTness,” again, because my point is it’s the concrete thing – and Allism is defined as simply “not Autistic,” that’s not a definition for my thesis, obviously they can’t just define each other that way, and I’m going the other direction, where it is “Autism,” whose definition will simply be “not NT.” With a better word some day, I hope. My apologies to the community, that word is not going to work out anymore when I’m finished revamping the entire movement and the world. To say, “Allism runs in families,” instead is merely a grammatical tautology, not my point at all. We should find a way to say NT to mean something more specific, but that’s a bridge too far just now.

NTness it is.

The point of this is that this is not a grammatical tautology, but a real one, there is some real, heritable thing being passed along that isn’t Autism, some genetic . . . structure that is its own thing, and again, isn’t “nothing,” or “Human Nature,” or any sort of a functional default that is necessarily good or “natural,” or just the way God planned it. But either way – if it’s only grammar to you, it’s still clear that both neurotypes “run in families, Autistic and not Autistic.” If it’s only grammar to begin with, it’s still grammatically true. Logically, if “Autism runs in families,” so does the other thing, or there would be nothing but “Autism.” Right?

For me, there are two possible genetic things in this conversation, both possibly actual, heritable things in the world, and perhaps it’s one or the other, or perhaps it’s both. So, that’s One Point each. Both things look genetic, based on their heritability, to me, “Autism,” and “NTness.”

It’s a One-All tie at this point. They could both be genetic . . . forms of order by the first test.

Two, epigenetics.

Now, this is all overview, I am not a biologist, and when I say “genes,” or “alleles,” or even if I name one as I’m about to do, know that the names and the details don’t mean much to me, that this is all theory and someday your details will catch up. I won’t be held to some genetic detail from 2020, this is all made from macro observations, no minutiae is going to invalidate it for me.

This seems to be a feature of some genes, or some genetic effects, that they have options, depending on what they detect about the environment, that affect an organism’s development. I believe some genetic diseases or conditions come on during development as genetic options are settled, isn’t that right? Classic epigenetic effects are things like . . .wow, Google seems useless, nothing but cancer, and it seems confused with mutation. Things like a foetus sensing its mother’s malnutrition and adjusting how the person processes proteins for their life, this is an example, the Dutch Winter Babies – I’m not sure anyone’s proved that this extends beyond the womb, but wouldn’t it?

If a one year-old senses its own famine and had any developing left to do, can we assume some things are adjustable well into development? I would think so, I mean I do think so, I’m quite certain this is the case but that I am not in that business and am having a little trouble finding the proof for you. The idea is central to AST, I must have seen it somewhere. Oh, there it is – identical twins have the same genes to start, and epigenetics, response to environment, is understood to be responsible for any differences between identical twins at all, which clearly exist.

AST has it that the so called warrior alleles operate that way, and I think that’s my example, everyone thinks that – it’s just a poor example because it’s exactly my thesis, AST’s premise that some genetic effect like the warrior alleles happens for people, and that no-one makes the environment one to activate those alleles, I mean set the worse option, but us. This environment is called, “spanking.” It has a special name, it’s not just “hitting,” or “beating,” and it’s only called that when we do it to humans in childhood, during development, because it is epigenetics.

We see the effect, as I said in a recent blog, when children, born sweet and helpless become hard and aggressive as they age to “maturity.” Spanking sets the options of your warrior alleles to “war.” At least it does for most people. I have been trying to make this case for years; if I haven’t convinced anyone yet, it must be impossible. For me, this is the epigenetic effect that rules human life.

We must pause to admit that the “warrior alleles,” have suffered the same process as “Autistic genes,” that at first it was “the psychopath gene,” then the name change and the caveats, depending on other factors, then only in extreme abusive environments, along with or without many other genes, etc., etc., it is difficult to say anything with any power in this complex business. But the less extreme function seems clear and independent of microscopic detail, how people grow up to “be strong,” more reliably than that they grow up getting more sensitive. If you don’t see it, you probably think nothing and no-one is strong enough, which makes my point in an even more powerful way.

To some of us, at least.

It seems that perhaps it fails for some? For many Autists in particular? Can we not be counted upon to get “strong?” This is my AST view, that this is the DEPT, this is what is so wrong with us, we cannot be trusted because we are apparently no damned good in a fight.

Not sure I can continue. This is a controversial point, I’m not sure anyone is going to follow me so far. There is a lot of talk online about Autistic sense of fairness and justice and on the other hand the ones who would “cure” us are quick to say we resist the training. Look, I guess I can’t speak for all Autists, maybe any of them, I am pretty new, and as I said at the start, I’m not a very good follower – but it never changed me. I am as opposed to spanking today as I was when I was one year old.

I don’t think I have that warrior allele thing in nearly the same measure as normal people do, and I suspect a lot of us Autists are like this. Can you see where I’m going? I think NTness displays the epigenetic effect of people growing up strong and mean, and I’m not so sure “Autism,” has that.

I think we’re at Two to One now. In this sense, NTness is a genetic . . . function, and “Autism,” lacking this attribute, may not be, at least is not proved to be by this logic.

Three, sameness.

Which has diversity, which conforms?

Am I done? It’s tempting. More than tempting, why insult you? Maybe in the LSD halcyon days of the sixties I would have had to but . . . you have media, right? Enough said.

Three to One. Next!

Four, evolution.

AST again: I think we’re getting worse, I mean something is. I don’t agree with the existing conversation, I don’t think we’re “better,” than the chimpanzees because I think we have a chance to know better and we never take it. We don’t rule and kill the whole world because we are “better,” than any damn thing, try this – the chimpanzees probably don’t kill as many chimpanzees as we do anyway. We are worse, and getting worse all the time, and we don’t take any responsibility for our horrible selves and talk about “Human Nature,” insisting, promising, to never change. For hundreds of years now, maybe thousands of years, wars keep getting bigger. Standing still in the river of life changes you, and trying not to change only means you are choosing the worse option when the world changes, and suffering a reduction in your viability and quality of life.

It’s not just me and AST that thinks so, it’s the same meme that we are Fallen, that we have gotten worse, perhaps the biologists have a slightly less negative view, they say that we retain the nastiness of the chimpanzee and have only extended their destructive capabilities, not that we are getting worse within ourselves, only that we are not getting better. That’s better, huh.

This is my long held, and long considered from every side that I can imagine worldview, AST, that we keep making ourselves worse, in an act of misguided self-directed evolution, and it’s about the species in general, but:

 . . . but I didn’t know about “Autism,” that my mindset may not be a one-off, but a type, and I wasn’t aware of the Indigenous Critique either. It is amazing to learn that my self-taught understanding of the world that few of my white friends understand or agree with happens to line up with a common Autistic set of traits, but far more amazing that it does with the pre-European North American way of life.

I have been thinking and speaking about an “NT gene suite” for some time now, as opposed to at least my Autistic genes, and honestly, Wengrow’s talk about the Indigenous Critique is an evidence I never dreamed of, too bloody good to be true! You mean there are modern people, whole civilizations, practically within living memory, compared to the long story of evolution I thought I was telling, that didn’t have this problem, at all?!?!?

The Indigenous Critique of “Europeans and their culture,” and my complaints about my life’s difficulties communicating with NT people, they are identical. The Indigenous life the Dawn of Everything describes is exactly the life I pine for, exactly what I would have designed for us all – the life I bloody need. I’m trying not to tell you what it is, this is getting long and I’ve barely begun the book myself, everyone should read that book. And it existed, this life?

Really? Bloody Hell.

Is it really too much to assume some previous state, as those enlightenment pundits did, before all of this? Having watched this toxic thing take over North America, and likely other places, can we not assume it began somewhere and took us over at some point, maybe not so far back as caves and fire? Again, again, if it’s “nothing,” because it’s everywhere or will be soon, you’d say no, but that’s crazy, it’s everywhere, or almost, so it’s something, very, very something. I had been talking about an aggressive gene and genetic drift, and good Lord, if the European Age of Expansion isn’t just that.

Drift counts as “evolution,” doesn’t it? One of evolution’s most powerful vectors, isn’t it? You’re free to disagree, of course, but I think the main thrust of humanity is evolving, not in a positive way, it is adapting to an environment that it makes worse and then it adapts to that – this is a positive feedback loop, thermal runaway, and it is all going to burn. AST suggests that the 21st. century looks exactly like the 20th. century and that this cycle of meltdowns may be the final stage, to be repeated until we do adapt in a different direction, or for as many cycles as this planet can survive it.

Of course I’d love to be wrong about that.

But the other side of the question, this factor – are Autists evolving?

It will be Four to One by me, if not. What do we know?

Not much, to be sure. We’ve only had the word for a hundred years, and we’re still fighting about the definition; I don’t have a lot to work with. We exist, so we are being selected for, somehow, someone is breeding with us, although I expect that nobody knows yet if we are on the wax or the wane or holding steady, and nobody can say we are getting more or less Autistic, for the same reasons. We lack data for evolutionary change happening among Autists at the moment, of course, we haven’t got much of a snapshot yet, but is there anything?

I think maybe I’ll touch genetic similarity after all, not having to make the case for NTness, but just to talk about its relative absence in “Autism.” I won’t be using quotation marks going forward in my life for that, it just helps make the particular point in this blog, that we’re analysing that term.

But there is something about the other health issues, “morbidities” associated with us. There is a word, for illnesses that occur together, “comorbidities,” and technically it’s fine if you have more than one, but I’m seeing an argument that says to use such a term around “Autism,” sounds like “Autism,” is one of them, like “people with EDS often have the comorbidity of being “Autistic,” might pass too, so we’re looking for other terms, less negative, “co-occurrences,” like that.

But, terminology aside for the moment, it’s like, uh . . . it’s a little like “Autism” is a prophylaxis for disorders and problems that at least from an NT, bro-science evo point of view, “should” get people selected out. Again, some talk about “curing,” us for these issues, but somehow we are here, still getting laid and breeding, despite them. No? I mean, on the theory that we aren’t a new thing in the world, and I don’t think any but the most hardline creationist sorts think that.

What I’m suggesting is that the “number of genes along with environmental factors, etc.,” associated with “Autism” seem to be shared with a lot of problem genes, and no force is taking advantage, the leopards aren’t eating us, we are still here despite some liabilities. I have this sense that somehow, our side of the gene pool is un-curated, we are either too small to worry about or too big to fail or something. All this, is my only tiny stab in the dark evidence that perhaps “Autism,” is not presently evolving, that it is not showing that trait that some genetic . . . things do.

With that ephemeral bit of reasoning, and no evidence either for or against to speak of, it seems equally right or wrong to declare one way or the other – but well. This is my blog, and that is the declaration I am here to make: go forth, prove me right, prove me wrong, get us that data, this is science, Laddie, that’s the whole idea.

So, argue, criticize, of course, but I’m at Four to One now, and I expect readers are at Two, Two and a half, maybe Three to One, and I would call that a win.

Conclusion: at this point, I will say that “Autism,” could be something along the lines of a genetic “disorder,” but the data is not in to say so, and it could very well not be a genetic . . . occurrence, while NTness absolutely is one, meeting all the basic criteria.

I will re-iterate, I end most of my stuff with this point, I think, that it is not some small minority of weirdos or their disabilities that are forever at war and driving this planet off three different cliffs simultaneously. That is some typical disability, clearly. Which again, is not “nothing.”

Oh, hey, midnight, so it’s Sunday. Let’s post.

Jeff.

March 19th., 2023

We’re Only in Warrior Mode

Warrior Mode

/                                  *                                 

Abuse                         Authority                              Social control          

 . . . OK, so I wanted to build a graphic, a visual, a tree or something, with a beginning and a flow and an end, but there’s no beginning, I’m sorry, ignore that silly chart, don’t listen to that, listen to this instead: it’s impossible to untangle, our troubles, it is a mode of existence, encompassing both the causes and the effects, let’s call it Warrior Mode, it’s a group conflict mode of life for human beings, and we have warrior life problems, mostly a lot of fighting. You take the rough with the smooth.

Antisocialization Theory tries to describe how life in this mode hangs about, how it is maintained and reinforced.

Origins, how it begins . . . does it matter? AST suggests that evolution has moved on, that we are not who we were when it began anymore and also that evolution is different than creation, things are not evolved into existence and then stuck with themselves forever that way as they are in creationism. In an evolved reality, if it exists today, it is because you are making it so today. I have fantasized about origins before, it seems a sure way to discredit oneself, wild guesses, tailored to fit the guesses of others before me regarding our origins generally: a sure way to be a fool and look like it. For now, let us be sure that begin it did, because here it is, up and flying.

It’s very difficult to talk about because a way of life asks certain questions and answers them a certain way, and a different way of life has different priorities, asks different questions. As I said, both the causes and the effects are different, what is to compare? The opposite, or alternative to it is rather an unknown thing, beyond the current epistemes, which can be thought of as the public imagination. “Mode of existence,” methodology of life, this is not small, it is sort of the whole world, all of the epistemes, all of the environment, almost. Language is not made for multiple worlds, or multiple neurotypes, or even more than a single human group, it’s as though the Us and Them aspect of human life was what language was created for, and maybe it was, I don’t suppose I’m the first to suggest that.

I still think this tack is worth a try,  I always think a puzzle of how to say a thing is doable, somehow, given unlimited commas, dashes, and colons: that it means both the causes and the effects, that a change of mode wouldn’t answer the same problems or questions. I even have an example.

Take the case of the terminology of the public conversation around childrearing, where the connection based people, they are quick to say that the question in childrearing for them is not, “what ‘works,’ to win the conflicts for the adults, to have the kids compliant, but what ‘works,’ to maintain trust and love in the relationship. It’s the same, and this example is exactly the point. The “connection-based” parent wants something different than the “regular” one does, or at least they are trying to, perhaps battling these two modes within themselves.

But it’s that big, really, a way of life, different goals altogether, despite that the public conversation always frames it as either no choice or rather a simple one. It’s a choice, but it’s a big, complicated one, and if we understood that going in, maybe a few more of us would succeed at actually making the change.

This example is framed from one side, you know I’m with the coddlers, the regular folks don’t say it’s to win fights against children, they have their own language, it’s ‘teaching wrong from right,’ or some such, we’re all more than familiar with it, they don’t frame their mode of life the way I do, and if I expressed it from their side their goal would be to maintain order and I would represent anarchy, threatening to take us back to the jungle.

I think they would agree that the difference is not small, an entire lifestyle.

In the warrior mode of life, really almost what they mean when they say, ‘the life,’ like the criminal life, life in the human jungle, there is always an Other, an enemy, a rival, always another group over the hill or across the ocean that poses a threat, as we do to them, and all in this mode of life are obliged to be ready at short notice – strong and angry, ready to fight.

All three of my second layer functions above serve this purpose, making us gain and hold some level of fear and anger. It is Antisocialization Theory that the rightmost one includes the leftmost, and that the centre one ensures the implementation and success of the others. Perhaps Social control belongs in the third layer, under Authority, but I’ll be scrapping it all soon enough, so for now it can stand. That much wouldn’t be so different.

Warrior mode involves planting a seed in childhood, a seed comprised of fear and pain and resentment that the group can harvest later, this is what I call the Antisocialization Theory of war, this bit of emotional agriculture, the creation, nurturing and storage of bad feelings that can be unleashed later as aggression.

The ‘beginning’ of the cycle, the cause that precedes the effects referred to above in a mode of human life is our first spanking, perhaps our first threat-bite a million years ago (and that’s as far as I want to go, not a cause, just the same scene), and the ‘end’ of it, the effect and the harvest comes when we kill in war, or perhaps when we have spanked our children, deferring the worst of the harvest to the next generation, when perhaps they are reaped for the next war.

I suspect it is fair to say that at that ‘beginning,’ in the timeline of a human life, that the introduction of a new child to the life of fighting/social control is an event thoroughly ensconced in both categories, abuse and social control, that what is transmitted is both emotional, anger and “strength,” read ‘antisocialization,’ and also the perhaps less emotionally loaded informational ‘socialization’ of cerebrally learning the rules, the environment.

Completionism asks that we mention the third possibility, prosocialization, but we are talking about violence in this case. More generally, do we do things to grow love in our children, or was it already there, these are important questions, and I touch upon them, I do think we are born “good,” and loving, my evidence being AST, the world of tech we have and use to turn it around and to dampen empathy tells me we must have been good to start, why spend all your time and money breaking a thing that is already broken?

This logic is solid for me, proof positive. I see the manufacture of our evil; I have no reason to suspect it pre-existed except the word of the manufacturers themselves.

Do we grow love nonetheless, of course we do, by giving it, with food and care – but our antisocializing tech I feel overwhelms it, we grow more hate than love, surely you see the news. So I’m a repairman, the love that is isn’t a problem, we will follow two streams, the pain and the knowledge. These are where the problems are.

So I guess my graphic needs two flows after that?

Oh, and the other thing. Kill your darlings. Ignore the previous graphic, and the upper left quarter of this one for now, I’m not there yet, it’s sure to change or disappear.

Warrior Mode

/                                             

Abuse                                                 Authority

/                                             

Healing                                              Social control

                                                                                    /

Social control

/                                             

Antisocialization                              Socialization

/                                             

I guess that will be two streams.

I have stated, perhaps overly leaning towards poetry and away from science, that the first bite, the first hit perhaps convinces our infant selves to make the ‘Human Nature,’ decision, to decide that people, even Mom, go in the Predator category, as Bad News. Again, it would seem unlikely that we could separate the emotional response from the decision, the informational change, and my word, ‘antisocialization,’ does mean both – again, this is modal, both sides of the incident: the infant’s problem, Mom apparently attacking, and the infant’s solution, don’t trust people, the cause and the effect.

Right?

But of course, the first bit of friendly fire isn’t the last; AST has it that your whole life of frustrations and pain are in your antisocial savings account, ready to be misappropriated and spent by the CEO at any time. And once you have it in your head, don’t trust people, people are on the Bad side of the ledger, it’s not hard to find a world of evidence to back it up. Every time we hear it, our infant selves’ binary judgement is confirmed, and that surely feels like truth, I mean survival is a good enough surrogate for truth, so that’s the dopamine mix it gives, that’s how it feels to us. Oh – there’s a group dynamic, I suppose: even the innocent mistakes of the out-group feel like confirmation, people are horrible, our group prejudices confirm our bad judgment that we learned at home? Everything does, I’m afraid – it’s a mode of life, pervasive.

And there’s no getting around it, it doesn’t much matter what that creature says, does it? . . . uh oh, starting to feel easy, I’m on my usual again, I fear. What was I supposed to be doing? Something about two causal streams?

I mean, it’s the boss’ to spend provided you’re not living as a complete raging beast, letting it out all the time to begin with! I don’t mean to be leaving anyone out. Even the boss, angry imp emoji.

Ah, there it is, the boss is letting off the same steam? So –

Warrior Mode

/         

Abuse             Social Control

/                                             

Antisocialization                              Socialization

/                                             

Fighting                                 Authority

/                                            /         

Social Control           Abuse

OK, I wonder what is the more circular, the reality, or just my logic?

Easy to see an endless cycle here, of social control and abuse leading to social control and abuse forever, except when we can change course, lose the control and go to war. That is not a very hopeful graphic, let’s all just take solace in that it is surely still wrong? Of course, I fear it is not wrong, but it’s a cycle, and our task is to find where it can be broken, if anywhere. It is all one thing, rather integrated, that isn’t simple – despite that the entire cycle and every block in the graphic is a human behaviour, it’s a system, again, the mode of living – so you can’t replace one leg of it, you have to do them all.

Again, what that looks like, the diagram for another mode of existence? How would I know? This surely is another guaranteed way to be a fool, I only know this life too, despite I’ve spent my life running from it rather than working in it, but I’ll give you my first childish guess, with the understanding that that is all it is:

I think we look like a zoo in another paradigm, where we assess each other’s needs and provide for them, while keeping us safe from one another somehow, managing our breeding, working for diversity and celebrating variety. That would be the opposite; this warrior life keeps throwing up obstacle courses and trials and bends towards a lethal conformism for everything it touches.

There’s my pithy ending, the moral of the human story, but this one has another.

I said, “impossible to untangle,” and I sort of meant it – but that’s not the end, if I was a determinist I wouldn’t write, why would you. It sort of is, it was my point that you can’t just pull the spanking thread out of it so easily as we imagine we might – but the point is that the knot is real and specific and has limits and weaknesses and is not some limitless ideological situation that we would have to fight God to escape. We can’t untangle it one thread at a time, maybe, but it will be doable.

Antisocialization Theory, it is a trap, a self-perpetuating system – -but is not existence itself as the creation meme has it, as the half-measures, half understood version of evolution and nature we often speak of that is only creation with a new name has it. It’s big, but it’s not mythology big – and it has a logic. It’s an intelligence test – can we chimpanzees work together, communicate well enough to pull all the strings, solve the puzzle, and get the bananas? Applications are being accepted.

Jeff

March 5th., 2023

Invisible Bullshit

Artificial realities existed before electronics or even optics, right? They don’t have to show you anything. They can just bypass your senses altogether.

You know what I mean. Think about the ancestors, think about gods, or God. You only have to tell them it’s invisible, right?

Deterrents were my first one, the first time I saw this business of invisible causes, after a lifetime of arguing against spanking and punishment. I started where we all do, with, “it doesn’t work,” which seems to satisfy a for awhile regarding punishment, that it mostly fails at its ostensible function of eliminating bad behaviour, but I’m autistic and my mind keeps digging and has for decades. The next step was biology and evolution and things don’t exist and just “not work,” do they? – well, not only does it “not work,” it harms, and again, things don’t exist and “just harm,” either, so it went to – what if that is exactly what does “work?”

What if the “harm” was it “working?” That theory seemed to be far better supported; results appear far more consistent that way, kids seem to start out sweet and grow up mean more reliably than they grow up saintly – and then I went off into something like evolutionary biological theory about how this damage would be advantageous and selected for, but that isn’t necessary today: the damage is not a secret, and it’s not the invisible sort, we know this in every other context – except it must all disappear when the evil spirit named deterrents is invoked, apparently.

The point here is that it is a more consistent explanation, and when I look at the conflict in other terms, it seems so obvious now that it’s a debate over which is the true function, the harm that happens in the real, physical world, with bruises and decisions and cortisol and hard feelings, making us worse – or the deterrent which happens only in speech and metaphor, making us better? – it’s real world abuse versus abstract ideas – and we wonder which is the more effective.

Why, is the world virtual, abstract?

Also why, are we better?

But this is the public debate, has been for a long time. I have sociology ideas about what this function means, why the virtual is invoked, and it is to hide and so protect the real function and the damage hinted at above, but again, the point is, this is the public level of debate, real versus virtual, biological physical reality versus . . . people talking.

You know what I’m saying – people.

Talking.

Ha. Science let me down, let us down, I had to figure that obvious bit of flummery out for myself. Like I say, that was my first one. I was proud, as plain as it is on paper, that’s the social conversation, and I don’t know, I suppose it’s because the net is invisible, few seem to escape!

But then I had forgotten my disabled beginnings and I just thought I was a clever “normal” person. Now that I’m part of a persecuted minority, there’s no pride, it’s a common trait for us, this sort of outsider insight. Even if it’s clever, I will forget how to breathe or walk or something in a minute. Pride is not for our sort, I guess.

But I am seeing more of these virtual walls from here, of course.

Of course, autism comes with a full load of deterrents, punishments, and even ABA torture. We suffer the full power of the invisible demon named deterrents, even more than normal people. I have questions about whether my “true” function functions with us, whether the additional damage to us is the sort that is selected for, I sort of think it doesn’t “work,” for autistics in whatever real way the damage “works,” for regular folks – but again, not today’s talk. We suffer under the false rule of invisible, take my word for it deterrents, as do all, is the point.

It irks me when we argue against ABA as though it were a one-off event, as though the dominant culture only harms autistics and not pretty much everybody. We are all sacrificed to this demon. It’s not good for them either – and I think they wouldn’t do it to everyone if they didn’t do it to themselves first. And ABA is not the only nightmare that this invisible monster has spawned, even if it is among the worst of them.

__________________________________

But there are other magical, invisible demons, ones I may never have noticed from my unhatched state, namely, to make a start, empathy and intuition.

Will you marry me? Did he leave you any money? – answer the second question first. Once I start on the first one I may never stop, and the second one is easy, dare I say, we can dispense with formality? And respect?

Intuition? Seriously?

This is an NT trait, y’all standing there with your bare face hanging out, looking people in the eye and saying “whatsamatter, you don’t have ESP? Most people have ESP,” you are kidding, right? Are the hippies a legit source suddenly? Registered therapists and PhDs researchers and . . . intuition?

Fuuuuuck you. Say what you mean, one time. Validate your intuitions once, with any detail at all, so we can be sure. Fucking with people’s real lives with some generic “intuition” as a criteria? Are we researchers or aromatherapy moms? Apologies to any harmless aromatherapy moms who aren’t these sorts of activists. Astrologers . . . you know what I’m saying, these things may be real, but they are not part of science or law.

I’m not saying intuition doesn’t exist; I’m saying it’s fucking invisible so it’s whatever you say it is, and ‘conflict of interest’ isn’t big enough for that. I’m saying some folks are more intuitive than others and some very much so, but you can’t say the lack of it is a disability, FFS. I’m saying you shouldn’t take a person’s children on the basis of an ESP test. Controversial, I’m sure.

“For the purposes of autism research, we would like to put ESP into the science record, Your Honour,” yeah, no, it doesn’t fucking work like that, and no, I can’t stop swearing, WTF.

Next.

No, I need a cooling off period. LOL.

____________________________________

OK, new day, let’s have at empathy. This demon is a politician, comes on like your best friend, don’t they. Empathy is good, can’t argue with empathy!

Again, generic. There is plenty of good empathy to cite – so why just the general term? Sometimes our empathy is misdirected and misplaced, it isn’t all “good,” in the end, sometimes bad folks receive empathy and good ones do not. It can be stated that racists over-empathize with their own, even if their own do terrible things – so is this a deficit, if someone doesn’t have that? Of course it’s not an official autistic trait that we lack “racist empathy,” is it? We are to understand that we lack empathy for puppies – but they could have said that! I mean, if it were true.

The generic “no empathy,” wouldn’t serve their cause as well as “no empathy for puppies,” but that is not true and they can’t say that, and “no social, racist conformist empathy,” this is embarrassing, this isn’t supposed to be a social norm in the first place, but it pretty much is  – so it’s just plain, all inclusive, generic, content and reality free, “empathy” that we lack.

Vapid like that.

Information free.

We get the title, the heading, “empathy,” or “feelings of empathy,” we do not apparently need to know the details, what it’s about, the context – there it is, takes me so long: context. It’s context free.

Some people aren’t very good with the entire concept, with the box labelled “empathy,” never mind what’s in the box. This, always in the context that this argument is being made by the practitioners of ABA torture of children, talking about their victims’ dearth of empathy. Somehow, torture of children in these cases is not in the practitioner’s empathy box. Interestingly, or not depending if you grok this stuff or not, ABA, like conversion therapy, like all forms of abuse, like punishment generally, are empathy killing machines, they make you “strong,” not sensitive, or the army would treat the soldiers better and prison would soften people.

AST really has it that it’s an absolute reversal, that human life is about overcoming empathy (not an endorsement, just a sad, little known fact), and that ABA would surely kill your heart and soul and so that must be its purpose, to kill empathy. That they slander us about exactly empathy in order to apply their cure, killing our empathy, that is just cruel, adding irony and insult to literal injury. A riddle, wrapped in an enigma. When Dad said the abuse would make you strong, that was pretty near the truth – when the ABA doctors say abuse will cure a lack of empathy, this is Bizarro World, the worst sort of gaslighting reversal of all that is true and obvious in this one.

Keep it generic kids, it’s about “empathy,” not torture. One, we are to understand, has nothing to do with the other. Worst case scenario, their box is empty. Best case: contents are apparently optional.

Point is, it’s fucking invisible, the box, and the contents, and we’ll never know. Only the label is verifiable.

They have us fighting nothing, phantoms. Invisible, made up bullshit, not to put to fine a point on it. Empathy, in its simplest form is just pattern recognition, and autistics have that, “normal” folks, I don’t know, some do, I assume. Everyone has these actually basic functions, that some folks would suggest are some fancy, “high” functions that only perfect people possess. The real differences are going to be found in the specifics, in the details, and when someone pulls the generic language on you, they are, as we say, selling something. It’s not always torture – but often enough it is.

I worry, I worry that if we only defend ourselves, what are we saying? If we protest, if we object and argue the first thing, the simplest thing and say, “We do too have empathy, same as you,” that all we are doing is asking to be let into an evil club, if we have it “the same as them,” then are we OK with torture? And I know we don’t, the state of the conversation is, “We have our own, we have it too, like you, but different,” and that is better, but still – theirs isn’t OK, theirs isn’t empathy, not the good kind, and this sounds generic, context free, they’re all OK, whatever. I feel we’re not doing our job of correcting the species if we’re not fixing what’s broken, if we’re only both siding the world.

I know, it would be a real world improvement right now, that sort of “becoming white,” for autistics, the pressure is always there from the dominant group to do just that, conform and join, agree that the dominants have empathy, despite the real world argument of their dominance which requires that they do not so much – but we’re a different sort of out-group, specially positioned.

I mean it was fine for the Irish in America – kidding. An illustration, not a slander. Nothing is fine.

If we could do both at once, that would be fine, but I’m finding that difficult to say. I can’t make that deal. There’s always one, isn’t there?

Funny – I have volumes on empathy, I’ve railed about it many times, but today, it seems, I’m over it, a page and a half is plenty. This invisible nonsense isn’t worth it anymore. That’s . . . liberating. Progress of a sort.

___________________________________

Deterrents, intuition, empathy . . . honestly, this conversation goes right to the top. What could be more generic and information free and so invisible than “good,” and “bad?”

I mean, “morality?”

If we apply a what does it really mean process to morality, we have to see what specific things result, of course, all peoples with all moralities will say they work for “good,” but truth requires we know what form does this good take? I’ve said this many times, I’m afraid I’m with Sutherland’s character in JFK: the organizing principle for a society is war, and to extrapolate, morality is that which keeps us strong and keeps us from being wiped out in a war, and what they call it when they create it, is strength. So we apply our morality and it makes us strong. Right?

So “morality,” means strength and strength means “proficiency in war.”

I know, that’s not what it means, not what it means to us, it’s something better. I’ve always been a moralist, except not the regular, pushy sort. I don’t want it to mean good at war either, this is only an observation; I’m not happy about it. But in the real world, out of the clouds of invisible bullshit and headings in lieu of actual nouns, this is what it adds up to today, because we banter with words that are not real about it while we teach our children how to fight from the day they’re born with real, physical methods.

So morality is my word for “better,” too, but . . . but “morality” is everywhere and much is not better here in the real world, again, unless “battle ready,” is as good as it gets. What we do to “make people good,” isn’t “working,” except on paper, except in theory, except invisibly. Who you gonna believe, them, or your own eyes, kinda thing – and they’ve already gotten around your eyes, LOL.

Of course, I have a bad attitude, I’m giving it to you from the Dark Side, I am one of those annoying sorts who thinks the dysphemism needs equal time, and if you had to look it up, that makes my point. Equal and opposite is fair play. It’s called perspective. If I go too far, I’m trying to compensate for the fact that I’m the only one over here on the Dark Side talking.

They, Maya, the World of Illusion will say, yes, we run on invisible things, of course we do, principles, values – and if I’ve made my point you can laugh at that yourself now, from the Dark Side – good old “values!” Everybody loves values!

Any particular values in that box, though?

Worst case scenario, their box is empty. Best case: contents are optional, right?

________________________________________

I’d be finished now, if I could remember the point. I suppose it was just to give the autism moms a thorough debunking, try to put a dent in their myths about communication and empathy . . . I honestly, autistic style, simply cannot stand the unfairness of the power people wield based in this sort of empty bullshit. When they say the Devil is in the details, that means that’s where you have to fight him, and the people that would gloss over things and assail us with vapid, quasi-religious, detail free terms like “empathy,” and “non-verbal communication,” are always and forever working for him, hiding what is real and true, making everything worse.

We all know what is most likely, right?

Their “non-verbal, intuitive communication,” is just bullshit, and “non-verbal communication,” means no communication. They simply do not interact, do not communicate, at all. Best case, it’s a one way communication, and no link is required: orders, authority. If it’s plural, communications, then show us, once. Do some magic communication and then separately, tell us what was said.

Bloody nothing, I bet.

I don’t believe you anymore. If you had a real world example, you’d have led with it. All you got is empty boxes.

Intuition.”

FFS.

Jeff

Feb. 26th., 2023

The Books and the Children

I’m ashamed to say, I don’t think I ever realized the book burning of the German Nazis in the 1930s and ‘40s meant children’s books, I wasn’t thinking when I learned of it as a child, as children’s books, I was imagining adult sexual stuff, political stuff. Of course it was all of it, and it is presently in America too, all of it.

I am sorry to be a downer, but seeing it today about children, it’s . . . it’s so awful that I need pen and paper to comprehend it all at once, good Lord.

I’ve had the most miserable insight about it, which, Tweeting it isn’t clearing my buffer, I haven’t written a blog in months, I finally have a personal thing to work through this year, but I have to for this, it’s making me. The insight:

For years I’ve been making the point that spanked, abused children grow up angry, looking for a fight they’re allowed to have – psychology says this causes all sorts of personal problems, and much biology seems happy to let psychology have the point and the branch of knowledge – but Jeff’s version of biology says, from Sapolsky, that personal problems, sure – but mostly deflection. So some grow up sad, some addicted, but in the simpler world of the past there were fewer options, and still the main, evolved and socially constructed option is to grow up strong and angry, loaded, ready to be discharged when appropriate. Eighteen year old boys and young men seem to display it the most, they are perhaps allowed to the most, it is the evolved thing, as I said, so it is literally normal. It is normal, and war is normal, and apparently police states are normal.

Armchair revolutionaries like myself, we see a tedious, repetitive world of wars and young men getting into fights, this is the human condition, life is tears because of all the hate and violence that we cannot seem to solve for. An abused, angry young man, perhaps doesn’t worry so much, his overwhelming sense, his genes and his abuse are screaming at him, fight! We see a solution in a fight when that’s who we are. The world may suck, but if I fight, I can make myself some space.

But the Nazis, and the books, good Lord. I see a world of endless wars that one only leads to the next, I see war and fighting as the problem, the eternal scourge of humanity, I think this defines liberals or progressives – they see some final solution. They somehow do not see past the next fight, they somehow do not connect their desire to fight to every other warrior in our fractured histories’ identical sense of a violent “solution,” forever – “gonna be different this time,” (Talking Heads) sort of thing: always deluded, pretending they are not looking for final solution number ten thousand.

So the books.

Holocaust denial, slavery denial. CRT denial.

They are arranging to make sure their kids think a violent solution is new, that this generation is trying something never tried before. You censor historical hate, and then you say here’s the brand new solution, T just invented it! I mean, you beat them spare, then you utterly control their knowledge so that they have no idea of the real world, to make misinformed hate soldiers of your own children. How much do they hate their own children, this is impossible for me to grasp, I your mother, want you intentionally wrong and stupid and to maybe die young in a fight or a war after never being allowed a moment of freedom, OMG.

It’s like a scene in a movie, an ultimate intimidation: if I will zombify, parasitize, and weaponize my own child, imagine what I will do to you.

The more I learn about it, the more I learn that hate and war destroy everyone equally, both sides are cast into the very same Hell. What do they think they are saving the world for after they destroy their own children?

I guess that’s an ending, metaphor not intended. Damn.

Jeff

Sept. 27th., 2022

AST and the Cause

I need to place us in context. When you talk about the medical model, the school model, I’m melting down. Those models are the parenting model, and abuse is the social model, the parenting model. Everyone needs to be anti-spanking, anti-punishment or things don’t change for anyone. Spanking is abuser-making, and acceptance can be difficult for the hurt. We must be allies to all children, even to the children of the masters of the universe, or we simply grow a new crop of abusers.

We are not the only group who is abused, many groups are abused, and all appeal to be exempted from the flood of abuse, I mean, rightly so, of course.

But this is not our problem – wait.

I mean, we didn’t make this problem.

It may indeed be our problem to solve – that’s one theory, right, that the diversity of the human brain is the adaptability of the human species, that it is some divergent mind that is always finding the new way forward. In that sense, perhaps this is indeed our job to solve it – but still, the problem isn’t part of us. It is very much part of general society, isn’t it? There is some dominant group, always, and all smaller groups get the smelly end, always, right?

Isn’t that the real problem?

Honestly, I have always felt it was my problem to solve, see something, say something, and I seem to be the only one who sees it. Again, it may indeed be autistic people’s problem to solve, and . . . and I’m sorry. I diverge from the divergent too, I guess. It seems unpopular to imagine a larger problem, I mean, that makes some sense,  the Cause is already an umbrella, it is the whole conversation for its members, of course. I’m sorry. The universe is an onion, and the layers are connected. If the conversation ends somewhere, that line isn’t real and true, it’s a social construction at best. The universe and life do not stay in-category.

Meaning, you can’t really speak the truth when you must “stay on topic.” If we abused ourselves, we would be the topic, not the case, or not the relevant case, we seem to be the topic when we are not the problem here, every group does. Again, we are not the only abused group.

I spent my life on the attempt to understand this larger, all-group problem. I knew I was odd, I just thought I was clever and lucky, I had an insight, a gift or a curse of some kind. I had done it, pretty much had my understanding of the problem before I had a child get diagnosed ASD and then it started to sink in about me. But not before I gave myself a rare, autistic level understanding of abuse and the mythical Human Nature. It’s been a good theory, things get clearer, more things get explained – finding out I’m autistic hardly hurts it, it’s that good. Worried me for a bit there, I admit.

It’s an answer to “why the abuse?” the question every group, and frankly every person asks but only rhetorically – really, no-one is surprised. That’s the Human Nature myth: no matter how badly they behave, no explanation is really required. ABA torture of children? Meh, dumb doctors. No reason! They just don’t know any better, and when people don’t know, of course they torture children! This is the explanatory power of Human Nature, no horror is “unnatural.” Of course.

The answer is punishment turns bad to good.

They think it’s good, threats and force, they think when their children survive it and go off to war, looking for strangers to kill, that this is “good.”

It’s what “punishment” means, bad is good, a deterrent is magic that turns bad abuse to good . . . good what? Teaching? – but it colours all identical looking abuse forever. Wars are advertised to “teach them a lesson.” The NRA tried to bring the primary schoolers’ behaviour into their defense about Newtown. Not kidding. The bad guys already know what I try to tell the libchallengeds, that we have already bought the false principle and can therefore buy it in almost any sick form whatsoever.

Not kidding.

I want us all to remember, we are asking for an end to our abuse – and their entire system is abuse, they do it to their own children on the regular. We are never going to reach smug happy abuse survivors that their abuse is a problem, they are proud of how strong it has made them – strong means mean. Aggressive and insensitive. Your “problem” is their one size fits all solution, discipline and strength, and here’s the rub – we have to stop them doing it to themselves first, or they are never going to hear anyone.

I climb the walls listening to people speak as if the abuse happens by accident, and people only have to be told. It is our entire system. It is going to take more than a leaflet campaign.

We want to do this not just to save ourselves, but everyone. The ways that we want to teach, the ways of treating us and dealing with us, people need to learn that for everyone, and that means understanding that the bad stuff happens from error and will, not by accident or automatically – and not because of anything about us as a group, but because it is the forever policy of mainstream human society. The magical Human Nature ends all inquiry, and if we are not allowed to question why the abuse, then we are not being effective, we are simply pulling babies out of the river and not minding that society throws all of its babies in the river and more importantly, not stopping it.

I’m autistic and I know it now – but spanking is still the First Cause of all human problems. It is our job to fix it, perhaps, because the abuse fails to convert the same number of the ND to its cause than it does the rest of the world, and that immunity is our superpower, maybe.

Jeff

May 2nd., 2022

AST Genes

AST is conversion therapy for NT people, and they all believe it will work for anything, because it does “work” for them – poor definition of “works,” as always, of course, but it does something for them, it sets those epigenetic options. For the NT, abuse is indeed a stimulus with a predictable (if misinterpreted and unconscious) result.

The ABA argument, it’s my argument about spanking and police, same for same, except complicated by the fact that the abuse does seem to “work” for the NT, to the NT. I worry that the ND seem to agree with the NT about that, that the NT’s system “works” for them, and only fails the divergent, and I am certain that this is not the case (or, again, that “works,” means something we could all live better without).

So now I’m thinking that AST is a behaviour and a genesuite, just one not everyone has, but it’s one that is self protective and self-propagating and seems destined to drift through the entire population rather than be selected out, a successful mutation. What do they call one that saturates, that leaves no organism untouched, I forget, is there a name for that? I worried AST was one such when I thought it was universal, before neurodivergence entered my mind and the equation, and now, perhaps I worry less, and it seems the whole world will end before this saturation would ever be reached anyhow. But no, AST perhaps doesn’t require saturation, it has a strategy for the “non-compliant” (sorry, horrible term, “their” term, AST’s term – I know, another three letter acronym’s term, ABA’s. I don’t say it as a cop or a nurse, AST’s “strategy,” not mine) already, same strategy it has for everything.

Not an endorsement.

Perhaps there is some room between, I keep coming up against this with AST, that I am describing something that is both “biological,” and “behavioural/cultural”, the space between, where these things interact, meaning not all common problematic genes drift to saturation, that in the space between random and universal, perhaps there is sometimes a control mechanism, even for a trait that violently imposes itself upon the world?

AST is the control.

I have said, it’s both, genes, and the environment, which, we control our environment, so “environment” is “behaviour” to AST, it is both, genes and behaviour, that it is in the behaviour . . . phase? Aspect? The behaving time, no, just in the behaviour, in the behaving that we get to attempt to exercise some free will and make adjustments. Ah, I guess it’s been some time since I’ve spelled this out for myself, but it was always the point of AST, that if we behave less violently, we will become less violent, if people generally get less rough with one another, with their kids mostly, the next generation will grow up less prone to violence. AST simply endeavors to prove the old adage that violence breeds violence and tries to make it matter to people – even your violence. Even your dear old mother’s violence breeds violence.

Is all this not contained in the phrase “there is environmental control of genes?” Imagine knowing this soundbite and ever saying again, “Bah. Human nature.” Folks are very compartmentalized.

I’m having this odd idea, all genes aren’t selfish, not as selfish, perhaps most are selfish in an enlightened, sustainable way, but that our fellow Dr. Dawkins has perhaps been reading mostly the AST genes, I mean, if he has managed to explain our unsustainable human ways with genes at all. I hate to throw out work, perhaps it only wants a bit of a tweak, and to be said from a different angle, in a different context. I’m having a lot of random thoughts as neurodivergence makes its way though my mind, into all the places – one just now, that if the AST genesuite is not present or available in the autistic, is it in there still anyway, inactive and not activatable – as some of that “junk DNA” we hear about? Is one individual’s junk maybe working in another? A known thing, in general DNA terms, I guess?

I suppose if AST is a genesuite, then the NT world will frame this as the divergent lacking something, but I assume they have searched for autistic genes and come up empty – I wonder if anyone has thought to turn the search over, look for the gene that makes the difference in the NT, my AST genes, which probably include things they have called “warrior alleles,” among an unknown number and types of others. Perhaps one or more of those sort of alleles that have been suggested could be viewed as markers for AST, correlations. Over my head, of course. That would be too easy and too clear, that is not real life in the world of genetics, I don’t think.

And anyway the point isn’t to find the evil gene and weed it out, the point is to stop activating it, and perhaps identifying something about these genes will help us see when we’ve managed to set the option the other way – but if we never learn any of the details and simply stop with the forever socialized abuse, stop intentionally choosing the bad option, that will solve the problem.

I only worry that it needs a gene to make people see it, some sort of proof from the microscope. Again, it’s obvious to this now obviously divergent mind, as soon as I learned of the environmental control of genes, having already had some insight about punishment and abuse being identical, there it was, I don’t know how humankind suspends their disbelief about it, but again, that’s the whole point, most folks don’t see the simple logic in it that I do, we are so different, you and I, we really are.

Jeff

April 11th., 2022

I suppose this is a continuation of this one, in the personal blog:

The Definition of Horseshoe Theory Insanity

First, the meme, the social media political version: that’s where Left and Right, in their extremes meet as authoritarian dictatorships, the idea is, you go too far Right, you get a dictatorship, you go too far Left, same thing, and they point for the Left ones, to China, and past Russia, which, apparently still and always a dictatorship, but today a far Right one? I guess they leapt the gap in the circle, the open end of the horseshoe?

I mean, I’ve been saying they did that straight away, at least with Stalin, I’ve had the stance that all dictatorships are far Right, that Right means authoritarian.

But that’s too simple, a bit of a leap for us, isn’t it?

And also, these nations would argue, and some still do call themselves communist, despite existing as hierarchies complete with leaders and police and such . . . so it’s better to say that Left or Right, antisocialization theory gets us all. It is more meaningful, it’s a thing we can move on with and build on, if we see that laws and punishments drive people towards conflict and war, whether the laws were drafted by communists “for the collective good,” or by capitalists, to “protect the powers and structures of civilization,” that it is not the particular ideology reflected in the law that does this, but rather the bludgeon behind law generally that does.

That the means do not justify the ideological end, that rather, this is a real, causative, scientific world where one thing leads to another and so the means create the end, of course, and the bludgeon of punishments always create the same ends: conflict, crime, police, war.

This is Horseshoe Theory: same bullshit, regardless of the ideology of the parent with the rolling pin or the cop with the baton, a beating is a beating is a beating.

I think, given the situation, that humans do this social control thing, that the beatings are not likely to stop soon, that the collective nations will slide to the Right, that the current Chinese communism is very different from Marx’s dream, I mean, I think the beatings create the situation here, I think no society can stay collective if folks are hurting each other, I suspect collectivism requires a rejection of antisocialization generally, we can’t have it both ways. So called “social control” controls one thing only, and results in the same thing, always: this human that you see now.

All the violent social control has already been applied, and this is you: look at the world. That’s what it does. East vs West, equally, identically at war, police everywhere.

There’s a meme, “I don’t know how to explain to you that you should care about other people,” and I have one, same, I don’t know how to explain to you that the means are the ends, that the means make the ends, that you can’t simply apply one kind of means and ask for different ends, whatever ends you say.

I mean, I know you know it about golf, as a sports metaphor.

Jeff

March 22, 2022

Steal This Blog

Don’t misrepresent me, I’ll spend my remaining years and my pension fighting you if you turn it around on me. I’ve had quite enough of that in real life, plus I live on the internet.

But represent me with something close to faithfulness, share me, quote me, plagiarise me, please! Mention my name, but honestly, if you want to impress someone and it might, if it helps – sure, tell them you invented the word ‘antisocialize.’ It would be like sock accounts and supportive bots, it will magnify the message.

Use my word, the more you think it, the more you see it, the more you say it, the more real things get. I mean, mention my name if they ask, but it’s not going to get you any points, I’m the smallest of nobodies, and I’m sorry for what happens if you mention my name to someone who happens to know me too! I’m best as nobody anyways.

I’m saying, Antisocialization Theory is free to the public, like insulin is supposed to be. I want to say “open source,” but I cannot, as near as I can tell no-one but the founder here understands the project and open sourcing will have it infected with “strength” instantly. The extreme curation must continue, as I say, twist my words with entirely normal social memes like strength and resilience and I will fight you to the end!

But if you get it, share it.

A socialist, in the broadest, most generic sense, a cooperative society must eschew strength, we must love the weak and the unable. Strength is division and conflict and Hell and my hashtag is #weaktogether. Strength is cruelty and morality is strength and it’s all gaslighting because in the end we know the result is far from any moral paradise, more like the reverse.

Human beings invented morality and in no time at all destroyed the world. “Strength” is what you need to do hard things, bad things. This is long perspective, with the details wiped away, thinking straight requires that, you have to compare the details against the whole – and the whole says your sacred strength is the cause of the disaster, not a prophylaxis, because nobody loves weakness and no-one is weak and the strong are doing all the work anyway, by scientific definition, work and force and strength are nearly synonymous.

Jeff

Dec. 6th., 2021

Overview, the AST Insight Map – Part Four, Maturity

This is a blog just to say human social maturity precedes sexual maturity, and we only wish folks like Freud had their finger on it. Honestly, don’t go, ha.

Man, I just couldn’t get anything said a few years ago, I found the one I was looking for, and that was it, but I read it and I got nothing from it, looks like we’re doing it again. Like I was being careful not to offend anyone or something, working hard to not say it – perhaps I have changed.

It starts with a few, I’m going to say facts. Data points.

One, human sexual maturity comes sometime after ten years of age, usually well after, a few years, sometimes seven years after, rarely at nine or younger? Two, after weaning, the children spend their days among children, the older ones raising the younger ones. This seems true to me, I got it from the Nurture Assumption, a tome with a bad point but a lot of information from a lifelong writer of science textbooks and I think her picture of the traditional human situation was pretty normal, she cites well known names, as in part two, among others.

Another name for sexual maturity, is of course, adulthood, and puberty is the end of human socialization, I mean science knows, every year is less important, we are more malleable every year than we will be in the next one. If our teachability is less every year by almost any rate at all, there isn’t much left after an average of twelve or thirteen years. Sure, it can be a lifetime of learning, but you are working and learning some grownup thing, while the kids are still outside teaching each other society.

I think maybe learning doesn’t slow to a trickle after puberty but significantly, perhaps instead teaching ends after puberty, when we age out and leave the children’s group, and then again, when the babies age out of the nest and into the group outside as the cycle rolls on.

To whatever degree any of that is true, human life, human culture is decided and propagated in childhood, and this is important, it seems to me – so it’s pre-pubescent, human society is sexually immature. Freud is wrong that it’s all about sex and whole branches of biology are missing it that it’s all about reproduction, that the violence serves the reproduction of our genes, no, this is not the order of causality, our entire life is written out before sex enters into the conversation. It’s the other thing, like the EP boys say, sort of, except it’s bloody horrible and not at all the way things ought to be – it’s the fighting.

It certainly does seem that evolution finds little use for self-awareness beyond the fight or flight response, beyond knowing when to eat and when to run, I mean maybe not always or even usually, but it is very much my contention that our social evolution involves a lot of unconscious stuff, and I don’t mean drives or animal things, I mean social things, rules and strategies we keep unconscious, weird to say, consciously, on purpose, things that exist at a level between animal imperatives and conscious, directed thought.

Things that perhaps blur the lines between the unconscious and simply lying or playing silly bugger (a Britishism for feigning stupidity and/or ignorance).

Returning to teaching, Sapolsky said on video that he and his peers are a competitive, alpha wannabe bunch and he talked about the stress of it, and if academia is a tournament of the most aggressive and loudest and scariest, then most jobs and professions are. My thesis here is that the strength tournament of boyhood stays in place for life in all matters – not an endorsement. I confess, if I read someone else saying that, I would assume it was indeed written with weird, violent glee and approval. I feel I must always clarify, I’m saying this is what is wrong, this is what is wrong with the “way it is,” this is what I would change, this is an argument to human life, not just an explanation I’m making – and if this is the case in the place where we think the brainiest little dweebs ought to rule, if that is the dynamic in the place we set aside for rational thought and the development of real knowledge, and if we don’t set it aside for that, then we don’t set it aside for nuthin’, and I mean sex and reproduction and all that too, Freud. The selfish gene.

Sorry to say, humans are historically aware enough of the selfish gene to have invented their solution for it, genocide. If Richard is suggesting humans don’t get human groups, then who has been fighting? Why does every ten year-old with a television know the phrase “you and your whole family?” A bit of a pet peeve of mine, this was some sort of revolution, the science that echoes the world we all see every day anyway? Violence wins again, if there was a fix for violence we wouldn’t be ruled by some version of the bloody Sopranos.

If we are more like an extrapolated bonobo, then maybe sex and breeding win, but we seem more like the other team. It remains to be shown that the bonobo love of loving requires a lot of violence to make it possible, which is what using the selfish gene to defend the patriarchy and a world of conflict is saying. You read all the popular science today, there is no way out, of course things are this way because of this and this and this, sorry about that, we had a good run, didn’t we?

Didn’t a few of us, I mean?

I mean, of course we’d rather talk about sex, there is maybe some point in talking about sex. Violence ends all conversations.

We do talk about sex, of course, bloody endlessly, and there are options, options aplenty – it’s the faux taboo, there is no taboo regarding talking about sex, I mean there are conflicts, we don’t tell everyone what our partners like and such, but even the most conservative societies talk about it enough to have a lot of rules, explicit rules and such. Ha – Dune is back, and honestly, a little bit of Dune stayed with me all these years, specifically, “a feint within a feint,” and maybe a third feint, and this is the context in which talking about sex is a taboo, like what the Hell is telling you you’ll go blind if not talking about sex? Sex is subject to a lot of control and rules, many rightly so, of course, many not, and that requires a lot of talk. Repressing sex is like not thinking of the word banana, you have to keep a filter for the proscribed thing in place twenty-four seven and whether sex is a free thing or not, it is on our minds in one way or another.

You know what we don’t debate all day, what doesn’t have a lot of options?

Fighting. Strength. And of course, the real thing is the thing you can’t even talk about. You hear it everywhere, all day long, I mean far more than you hear exhortations to be heterosexual, or to follow a particular church, or racial prejudices, be strong! Strong for cancer, strong for random massacres, strong to withstand random road crashes that take a whole community’s children.

There are those, many, who see all the strength as patriarchy, strength is the male principle, and sure, there is some of that, but as far as I can tell we are as obsessed with strong women as men, and even strong children, weakness is . . . wow, I’m always hedging, but I think I’m going to say ‘never’ this time, weakness is never encouraged. I mean, they might break you, but we talk about the broken only in terms of strength too. Nobody wants to tell a victim, or hear from one, that they’re weaker now.

Broken and alive we call strong.

They are even talking about the plague that way, ‘survivors’ not sufferers, I mean, ‘they,’ in this case doesn’t necessarily indicate the actual opinions of actual people, but this is all part of it, the propaganda is only a stretch from the dark side of normal, and fascism is only a stretch from the normal primate hierarchy of ‘peacetime.’

Social, all of it, conflict, territory, hierarchy, violence, normally my point is, social and not rational, but today the point is social – not sexual. Again, the Freudian and biology order of operations that puts replication ahead of all as the explanation fails to explain why this could only be the case for a single species among so many – and the standard answer, that we are more complex, social evolution . . . well, everything else is also incredibly complex, isn’t it, like perhaps we didn’t think when we made that argument a hundred years ago.

I suspect the difference with us – and there is one, we have broken the bonds of nature in ways to destroy it all, a thing other creatures have apparently never done, escaped correction and deselection, at least until now – is not based in genes and breeding which is not unique to us, but in the opposite, in the violence, in the advent of our breeding-defeating in-species violence.

But it’s much more fun to talk about sex, or, alternatively, if you can see the violence, to love the horror, like these young monsters of the New Nightmare, and to rave about glory and such garbage. Violent solutions, sure.

But what you are not allowed to do is see it clearly, for what it is.

Jeff

Nov. 30th., 2021

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