you have demon strated over the last few weeks culminating in your concessions that:

gang stalking is real, and you participate in it

While I do agree that gang stalking is real (something I thought I’d mentioned a while before you acknowledged it), I never said that I have ever participated in gang stalking. Where did you get that idea?

your acknowledgement that I profiled you with accuracy, and diagnosed you with psychological accuracy (and several others here too) based upon speech patterns, and other patterned behaviors online

You did correctly observe that I have autism; however, I have noted that your diagnoses and profiling have been wrong in a number of areas. That you accurately diagnosed my autism is actually an anomaly. You’ve made a lot more claims about me that were flat out wrong. Also, you’ve shown such great ignorance about autism and Asperger’s that I’m starting to suspect that you didn’t figure it out from my speech patterns but from me explicitly saying so online on other sites! (Yeah. There’s a reason I’ve said that my autism is no great secret; I’ve spoken about it online several times.)

So yeah, saying that you “profiled [me] with accuracy” is overselling it.

that, despite your ASD disorder, you persist here now with…what, exactly? Snark? Humor?

[cue the,sound of lemmingssquealing at the sight of a cliffs edge]

I do occasionally attempt to use snark or humor to varying degrees of success, but that’s something that started long before I ever came to this site. I tend to use snark and humor in my everyday life, too, and have done so for much of my life. It’s not a result of me trying to fit in; that’s actually not something people with autism tend to do, really. And it really has nothing to do with anything, anyway.

My sense of humor, while no less than most people’s, can be a little… off compared to many neurotypical people. But then, in my observation, there isn’t much strong consensus among neurotypical people about what is and isn’t funny in a lot of cases, so that doesn’t really bother me that much. I’m not a comedian, so if some of my jokes fall flat, then so be it. It’s not like people have found your jokes funny, either.

Though, I should probably point out that this is one of the areas I differ greatly with other autistic people: I can actually understand jokes, sarcasm, idioms, metaphors, and plays on words pretty well, especially compared to the vast majority of autistic people. I also really enjoy using them myself. In this way, I am quite the anomaly, so I suppose your confusion over why I’d make attempts at snark and humor here is understandable. I still take things literally more often than neurotypical people, but you’d be surprised at how well I often do at detecting things like that (though, admittedly, it’s a lot harder to do via text and with people I don’t know, especially online).

cmon, we both know that you Aspies are incapable of either empathy or sympathy. Like psychopaths, autistics have an inborn affective disorder which precludes either

Now see, that is perhaps the number one myth about Asperger’s and autism: lack of empathy and sympathy. Quite frankly, that is completely and utterly false. We have trouble interpreting nonverbal cues and in expressing ourselves, and under certain circumstances empathy can be a little difficult. We also lack awareness of our surroundings and of social norms and social cues. To say that we lack the ability to feel sympathy or empathy at all is just plain untrue. At most, it develops more slowly, and even that’s an oversimplification. A lot of it is simply lack of awareness of factors that trigger empathy, and the fact that we think very differently from neurotypical people.

With enough training, an autistic person can develop pretty decent empathy and sympathy.

There’s also the fact that we have difficulty expressing ourselves, especially our emotions; we actually have difficulty understanding our own emotions at first. So even when we feel empathy, we often don’t realize or know what to do with the feelings we’re picking up. So to others, we appear to be cold, unfeeling, and incapable of empathy and sympathy. That’s just not true, however. For us, it’s like we’re playing that game where you try and feel around in a box to figure out what was hidden inside without looking; we experience the sensations, but we don’t know how to handle them.

By the way, a little interesting factoid: there’s this theory that the reason people with autism have difficulty with making eye contact is that we actually receive so much information from the eyes—which are involved a lot in nonverbal communication and reading people’s emotions—that we are unable to handle it all and so we have to look away. Since we find it physically painful to do so, this does make sense, and it explains a lot of other things to. Many autistic people find socializing overwhelming because of how many complications are involved and so many factors to keep track of. We also often have an oversensitivity to light and sound. We spend a lot of time focusing on details, often observing things most people would miss. This oversensitivity and being overwhelmed by stimuli actually explains a lot about autism. And this may even play a role in our… lower social emotional intelligence: since we avoid making eye contact growing up, we miss a lot of the things that we’d learn by watching others, and eye contact can teach you a lot about emotions and social cues. It’s quite fascinating.

though, as we know, psychology is pure junk science with applied labelling theory backing it

This may explain some things, like your severe misunderstandings about what autism and Asperger’s actually are, but it also brings up a number of questions:

Why did you use psychological profiling to identify my autism and suggest I should seek treatment for it if you think psychology is junk science? Why do you blame so much of my behavior on my autism? Why do you dismiss so much of what I say with, “You have autism, so you can’t possibly have anything useful to contribute to this discussion”? Why do you keep referring to me as an “ASD case study” and such? Why do you presume to know so much about autism? Why do you keep bringing up autism at all? What is your explanation for your supposedly being able to identify that I have autism based upon speech patterns and other unspecified behavioral patterns online?

See, this is kinda making my suspicions that you just read somewhere where I said that I have autism rather than doing some analysis of my patterns of speech and behavior online seem more likely.

But thanks for taking the cue I gave you from that other thread in re: compassion, and running with it here.

Thanks for noticing. For what it’s worth, I didn’t entirely mean it when I said that I pity you (well, I kinda do, but also kinda not, but whatever). I was just making a little joke to build off of the previous comments in this thread.

That said, I do genuinely feel a sense of compassion for those who are victims of gang stalking. It was just the statement about pity that was a joke.

In cyberspace, even deviants and artists can appear normal, right?

I… guess…? I mean, to be honest, my POV is a bit skewed on what’s “normal”, anyway, and I’m not really a huge fan of the concept. (What is “normal”? Why do people care so much about being or being perceived as “normal”?) I generally analyze what’s “normal” on a community-by-community basis and on a person-by-person basis. So in an online community full of artists and so-called “deviants”, yes, artists and deviants can appear normal.

Another thing is that in cyberspace, people seem a lot more free to act outside of what is considered “normal” than they do in real life. So in that sense, normality online is different from normality offline.

I’m not sure what your point is, though. Are you trying to imply that my sense of normality is skewed because I have a deviantArt account and perceive that as “normal”? Well, that’s not entirely true. It is normal for deviantArt, and I don’t feel ashamed about it, but I don’t really care about being “normal”, honestly. I don’t really care that much about what “normal” is. I analyze what is “normal” in different communities because that helps identify what is considered acceptable in that community (which is a lot broader), but it doesn’t actually bother me if I appear abnormal.

I too, feel deeply for your inborn inability to grasp nuance,

Actually, I understand nuance rather well. You just seem unable to understand what “nuance” actually means.

Also, for the record, simply telling someone to “keep nuance in mind” when reading something isn’t all that helpful, especially if that person actually doesn’t understand nuance. It’s better to explain the contrast between the nuanced and un-nuanced interpretations/opinions.

and your tendency to be a follower, not a leader.

I can see why you’d think that, but it’s a bit oversimplified. See, because I am fully aware that my social awareness is lacking compared to most people, I tend to rely on others to determine boundaries of what is or isn’t acceptable. I also like to have some structure in place before taking action.

That said, once a structure is in place, I often tend to act independently or, when doing group work on a project or something, I wind up either leading or co-leading the project.

Maybe I’m not a political or social leader, but I do lead when I understand the parameters and feel reasonably well-versed in what needs to be done and how it can be accomplished, as well as feeling like I have some personal expertise or experience that would be useful.

I heard once that Hitler depended on that, and his version of DVIC 1.0 to Make Germany Great Again ( and it worked, sort of, right? Or…?) and Stalin too.

Well, Godwin strikes again.

Now, for what it’s worth, I actually have very strong opinions about the overreach, invasion of privacy, breach of trust, and abuse of power that our government (and others) do all the time. However, there are several factors in why I’m not an activist, journalist, or politician, including:

• My ability to do something about it is fairly limited, especially while in college and seeking employment.
• I’m rather introverted, especially offline, so my character isn’t exactly suited to talking to people in real life, attending protests, etc.
• My political expertise and social awareness are also limited, so even if I could do something, I don’t think I’d be the best at finding and enacting solutions to such massive problems on such a large scale.
• What I can do and do reasonably well right now is voting, having awareness and thinking critically, and speaking out online, which are things I’m already doing.
• I have to be cautious about assuming the worst or the best of people. I don’t like jumping to conclusions. I’d rather have all the information at my disposal before rendering any judgements.

Basically, I’m aware of my limitations, and I’m already doing what I feel I can do about these issues. I’m sorry if you feel that is enabling wrongdoers, but honestly, my powers and expertise are limited.

So, I dont pity you I acknowlege your struggle, and all of its good, bad, […]

Well thanks. That’s very kind of—

and even your very ugly deficit, ok? [emphasis in original]

Oh.

Well, that kinda ruined it.

To be honest, I don’t consider it a deficit at all. I just have a different point of view and some different abilities. Sure, that presents its own problems, and it can be a struggle (though it’s not the biggest thing I’ve struggled with), but I don’t consider myself lacking, exactly. There’s nothing “very ugly” about it at all.