Wall-E, is that you?

Go solarpunk!

Thispunk.

I’m curious what would be your reply to this? Do you think a society can regulate or educate this problem away?

no you can’t

My interest in technology, self-hosting, building websites. My interest in the fediverse, and a non-corporate free internet earn completely blank stares from most men and women I interact with in real life, and those would be people interested in a free and non-corporate society in general. But online? Everybody is on Fartbook or other big platforms and they don’t even have an idea why that might be bad.

Recently I spent a whole day talking quite coherently with a woman, about all sorts of real life stuff. After hours of talk about all sorts of things I mentioned my interest in tech, and the problems I see with platforms like facebook and their algorithms (I might have gotten a little ranty) and when I see her eyes glazing over I stop myself to give her time to respond, and she goes like: ‘What is your opinion about Trump?’ and proceeds into the darkest most ludicrous qanon stuff. After having had enjoyed talking to her all day about literally everything else, I couldn’t believe what I was hearing, and at same time it was just the same all over again that happened to my mom a few years ago. It’s like again and again I see my darkest fears come true: be a non-tech person over a certain age (maybe even somewhat spectrumy) -> use certain large platforms -> have your harmless interests or quirks taken and twisted into some way-out-there right wing shit.

So that’s an interest I have most people don’t get: that I’m interested in them not using the internet naively and being gradually brainwashed into madness. I realize I look like a rambling madperson to them when I start talking about it.

Captcha buster is taking care of the captchas now at least. A robot that proves I’m not a robot. Is this the singularity yet?

Don’t worry about downvotes, must be some idiots just pressing buttons around here. If they had constructive criticism they’d discuss it in here.

Same happened in another post in the autism group yesterday, guess someone is just out to annoy autistic folks?

Now imagine a room with an infinite number of computer chimps, at least one of them is going to make the machine work again. Another one is going to write the works of Shakespeare in soldering tin all over the motherboard, etc.

A lot of the stories in the comments sound relatable. Pondering about why I was so weird from a very young age, and finding different ways to cope with the weirdness. I also had a mother who didn’t really know how to help, who told me I couldn’t be depressed because I wasn’t suffering any hardship in life.

Fortunately both parents were also fairly tolerant and gave me a lot of freedom when I was a teenager (guess they were overwhelmed and didn’t know what to do with me). They never forced me to fit in and reacted within reason when I dropped school. So what happened is I found ways to live that are doable for me - I found alternative spaces where my weirdness was accepted, did some fairly reckless shit in my youth but learned good lessons from it as well, and now I live in a good quiet spot, can work remotely and just interact with people when I like.

An also autistic friend suggested I should look into autism when I was 35 and in a permanent frenzy of anxiety and depression, and most of the symptoms for autistic girls were just spot on and I finally understood my childhood weirdness. I guess I thought about it for quite a few years before coming to terms with it. I was looking into official diagnosis, was on a looong waiting list, and when they finally called me after 3 years I didn’t feel the need anymore. Whatever official support exists for adults in the country I live in is not worth it. I am not even comfortable with terms like ‘ASD’ anymore, because I’m not disordered, I’m different, and don’t want to receive treatment in a system where I am called that.

As for some of the physical limitations coming with it, I have found adaptations to manage life without having to attach a disability label to myself. One of my special interests, thanks to not-so-great joints tendons and bones hindering my desktop work, are alternative input devices. So far I am happy with my mouseboard v1 where I use my feet for clicking mouse buttons, which allows for a greater range of movements when I sit at my desk. It saves my tendons. I am also lucky (or well set up with a garden) and don’t work more than 3 or 4 hours a day ever, lots of outdoor activity inbetween.

So now I am happily Neurofunky. And meet a lot of other people like me, with their adaptations, and no need for a ‘Disordered’ label.