noster-tempus

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I've been trying to use Tumblr less, but I still have a bunch of things I want to shout into the not-quite-void, so I made a Dreamwidth.

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The creators of the Fucking Cancelled podcast are both alcoholics in recovery, and they both say that for them, the compulsion to scroll through social media feels subjectively very similar to the compulsion to drink. Whether that maps onto anything neurological, I have no idea.

So many of the debates about whether porn/internet/gambling/gaming addiction is a real thing are actually debates about how broad or narrow the definition of the word "addiction" should be.

I think there's a good case to be made for reserving the word "addiction" for substances that create a physical dependence that results in debilitating physical symptoms if you stop cold turkey, and not using it to refer to "habits or compulsions that can mess up your life if they get out of hand."

But the debates always follow this predictable path where someone says "internet addiction isn't real" and someone else will start talking about their experiences because they feel like their struggle is being invalidated, and both parties keep talking past each other.

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Disappointingly, this post is the only post in the "postural disorder" tag in the entirety of Tumblr.

Huh, apparently some occupational therapists divide "sensory-based motor disorders" into two subtypes: dyspraxia and postural disorder.

I have never heard of postural disorder and I have no idea how much scientific backing it has. But it describes me extremely well.

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Huh, apparently some occupational therapists divide "sensory-based motor disorders" into two subtypes: dyspraxia and postural disorder.

I have never heard of postural disorder and I have no idea how much scientific backing it has. But it describes me extremely well.

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Something fascinating to me that is not lost on me as a 48 year old who’s been through about 4-5 major social sea changes in how Learning Disabled then ND identity were constructed. And boy do I have some thermonuclear takes on it, having been through the ringer in some earlier constructions of ND (and as someone identifiably LD when that term was still being used, then ADHD; my parents avoided having me labeled autistic because of the social and educational pipeline that it would have put me in during the 70s and 80s). 

So, dyslexia had 5 minutes of fame in the 70s. (And there was some radical school reform discourse at that time, too.) This earlier thinking - focus on cognition and learning more than on other aspects of the ND experience - even affected the way that social problems were discussed within ADHD and later autism (as in, Asperger’s) because social stuff was still talked about in terms of “social learning disability.” (And I relate to a ton of my own experience more in terms of LD and cognition, than via the social obedience/conformity discourse that later entered the picture.) 

But the problem is that if you place the focus on how kids are LEARNING, you have to address how you’re TEACHING, don’t you. 

It’s a little too convenient to me sometimes that the focus shifted from learning disability, toward ADD/ADHD. 

The only way to address massive amounts of learning disability is actual reform. 

But ADD/ADHD could be addressed via existing medicolegal infrastructure.

Then, with the advent of Asperger’s, autism entered the picture.

It is fascinating to me that the big focus shifted from neuro differences whose main characteristic is learning disability, to those being very deprioritized behind the priorities of obedience (via ADHD) and then social conformity (via autism).

Now… let’s think about this, because the thing with ND experience and identity is that they sit at the intersection of culture, economy, and… politics.

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Continuing to read up on dyspraxia. There's not as much stuff out there as there is about ADHD and autism, and it very much suffers from "How To Help Your Child" syndrome...

but I'm continually struck by how... practical all the information is? No attempts to shoehorn everything into a framework like "dopamine" or "theory of mind", just "this is something you might have trouble with; this is an accommodation that might help."

This is the first time I've actually thought "wow, I wish someone had caught this while I was in elementary school."

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I know I made a "not autistic but I believe in their beliefs" joke just a couple weeks ago, but I do remember, a few years ago, wondering what it would take to convince me that I was in fact autistic...

...and the motor praxis article @chavisory linked to recently, and her commentary on it, is coming pretty darn close:

This! This is why I can't get things done! This is why I'm disorganized and why it takes me a long time to dress and undress and why I can't think and type at the same time.

It's just that I've mostly outgrown any effects this had on my social communication, which leaves me in a weird limbo between "autism as in the widely varied neurological traits of people who get labelled autistic" and "autism as in the diagnostic category constructed by psychiatry."

Like, on the one hand, how powerful would it be for me to say, "You know those people you think don't have any empathy? I have the same sensory and motor disabilities a lot of them have, it's just that they happen not to affect my ability to talk or make facial expressions or understand other people's facial expressions and that's why you perceive me as having empathy."

On the other hand, I think autism, ADHD, and dyspraxia are really poorly distinguished from each other, and are therefore more useful for describing clusters of areas where you need support than for describing the actual mechanics of how your brain works.* And the part of autism I relate most to is the part the fewest people know about. It's not even in the DSM! So if I say "I'm autistic," the overlap between what people will think my support needs are based on that, and my actual support needs, will be fairly small unless the other person has also read a large volume of blog posts by auties written in the aughties.

So I've been researching dyspraxia. But there doesn't seem to be as much variety in the types of movement difficulties discussed in the dyspraxia literature. Lots of stuff about bumping into things or dropping things or using the wrong amount of force when picking up an object, not as much about "If I am not paying close attention I will execute each step of this process perfectly but I will do them in the wrong order" or "I cannot get up from the couch because the floor is covered with papers."

I should really get my hands on the Leary & Donnellan book.

*I know that a lot of people with higher support needs object to the idea that autism and ADHD are basically the same. My thoughts on this debate are complicated and deserve their own post at some point.

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If we accept that "doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results" is a form of insanity…

then the current job market is actively selecting for people who are insane.

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It's because linear algebra doesn't involve motor planning

I'm taking friggin' Linear Algebra right now, and the process of scanning my homework and uploading it to the course website takes more mental effort per second than the process of actually doing the homework.

This despite the fact (because of the fact?) that I actually know how to do it before I do it.

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re: small talk: the version I keep running into is that not being good at small talk is a virtue, it shows one's morality an strength against meaningless social posturing, so even if one could maybe put in the effort and learn it, it's never to be found out. Which is not the same as "some people can't learn it" - it's more "the whole framework where learning it could be a goal is wrong, so the most ethical thing is to never even find out if you can learn or not".

I have seen a little bit of that, though probably not as much as it sounds like you have.

I do have to wonder whether some of those people have already tried and failed and now feel like they have to call everyone else wrong or else they're wrong, or they've been abused for not just instinctively getting the rules of small talk so they can't see how there could be any good in something that is enforced with such cruelty. So I think it's worth acknowledging those experiences when talking about how small talk is good, actually.

I'm sure there are some for whom it's just an ego trip, though. You get that in every group.

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@postsforposting said:

"making life easier makes you stupid and weak" essentially

thing is, that's not entirely untrue, though. in a vacuum. certainly, like, physically, if you never do any strenuous activity you will become weak. "use it or lose it" is a real thing.

I do even think there is a case for a general sort of "do hard things" or "face challenges" capacity, perhaps in the direction of self-efficacy or conscientiousness, which can be trained up or lost to learned helplessness. I have observed this in myself. there are modes of depression for me that consist overwhelmingly of crippling this, specifically.

so I think that all else equal, making something easier is likely to have negative effects on capability.

the problem is that all else is usually not equal. a person is not a static system. and from what I can tell, neither is it one that tends to equilibriate around outputs — at least, as long as you're not close to maxing those out. we seem more inclined to equilibriate around inputs.

in more direct terms, it doesn't seem to be the case most of the time that when something becomes easier, we go, "oh, well I guess I'm totally happy with the value I can get from that, then, I'm gonna go to bed". more often, we go, "oh, I have more time/energy/resources now so I can get more value". we seem to more often end up putting more-or-less the same amount of effort in, than trying to get the same amount of value out.

of course, the nature of the skills that best exploit what is available to you in a given environment, will change. but it is not in general a straightforwardly better or worse situation. imo it is often incommensurable.

yet, not always! sometimes we can evaluate by a bigger-picture sort of criteria — something like robustness to change, perhaps: favouring skills that are more generally applicable, even when a particular contingent environment doesn't demand them, in the event that this changes.

so I do think there is a place for doing hard things on purpose and not necessarily relying on tools to take the easiest route 100% of the time. I am a gymbro after all. but that place is also not necessarily "everywhere always". it also makes a difference how you use the aid.

idk, I feel like people are very absolutist about whether "making life easier makes you stupid and weak", on both sides. it depends! so I wanted to sketch out the regions of applicability.

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Sometimes I fantasize about living in a Victorian mansion with a bunch of people, and at any given time half of us are being the rich artists and half of us are being servants, and every week or so we switch places.

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And also there are a lot of people--of all genders--who would really benefit from having someone to cook or clean for them who don't currently have access to that. And in an ideal world they would, and the people doing that work would be respected and well-paid.

The number of posts that are like "You're not failing! Traditionally people didn't cook or clean, there would have been 'servants' or a 'wife' to do that!"

👀🫠🙃

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#applying for jobs really brings out the “not autistic but I believe in their beliefs” in me

Honestly, after reading some of @frances-kafka's posts, I'm starting to wonder if it would be more accurate to say I'm "not autistic...yet."

(To be clear, if you're reading this, @frances-kafka, I fully support the ways you use AI. It's just that being advised to use it to make my resume better by the very people who will judge me based on my resume feels like an admission that the whole process is BS but they still want me to play along.)

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A company I applied to in the past is now encouraging me, via their talent acquisition network emails, to "transform my resume with AI."

Like, what is the point? If you're going to judge my resume on arbitrary metrics that have nothing to do with the actual information contained on it, at least judge me on my ability to meet those metrics myself!

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Wouldn't it usually be more like "crazies to the far right of me, wimps to the slightly nearer right of me"?

"clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right" would be a great name for a self-identified centrist podcast

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I think it was this particular trait of Donald Trump's, moreso than any of the more pressing reasons to be afraid of him, that caused me to have a nightmare about him back in 2017 or so.

One must never underestimate an opponent who does not fear death. An enemy who values your death more than their own life is unpredictable - you cannot assume that there is anything they wouldn't dare to do. Risk a blow to distract you, run right into your sword in order to get their own into you, tackle you off a cliff to throw you both into your deaths. An enemy that does not seek to survive is ruthless, they will think in ways so alien to you, that you cannot anticipate what they might do. The best defense you can have is to never make enemies like this.

The same fear and respect should also apply to clowns. They do not fear shame or mockery, they have no honour to lose by becoming laughingstock. A clown will not hesitate to look ridiculous, if tackling you makes you both look stupid. A clown does not fear losing their dignity for as long as they can take yours down with them.

Do not make enemies with clowns.