Autism and the Neurotypical

I was just reminded today of an event when I first started dating my wife that is a good example of the communication issues that can happen between neurotypicals and people on the spectrum.

We were standing in line at the Walmart in Lake Hallie, Wisconsin. In the line to the left of us, there was a child standing there, looked to be maybe seven years old or so. What drew my attention was that he appeared to have abnormally sized head in proportion to his body.

I looked over at him and made the statement, “Wow, you have a big head!” And gave him a smile. My limited memory says that he smiled back but didn’t say anything, but my memory has been infamously bad, so I could be wrong about that.

Regardless, after we left the Walmart, my wife turns to me and says something like, “Why did you say that??? The kid’s probably going to have a complex now!”

I was surprised and shocked. I explained to her that my statement was not meant to be negatively judgemental but rather a statement about my perception of the size of his head compared to that of his body. A simple transmission of data. Nothing more than that.

I didn’t consider that he might take it in a bad way. In fact, if anything, if I heard such a statement directed at me, I’d be happy to hear it, because I value intelligence, and a larger head usually signifies a larger brain, which usually leads to higher intelligence.

This points towards what I perceive to be a primary cause of conflict between people on the spectrum, and nerotypicals. It is said that people on the spectrum “have no filter”, meaning that they just naturally say what’s on their mind without stopping to consider… well, anything. And that’s absolutely true, at least for me. Or at least it was before I was diagnosed and started learning about the differences between me and neurotypicals.

It is said that the first step in solving a problem is recognizing that a problem exists. Well, I do recognize this as a problem, but not necessarily a problem that is the “fault” of the person on the spectrum. Just as in my example above… I had just made a statement. I noted something that I found extraordinary, and communicated it. That’s it. There was no malice or ill will intended in the statement.

And yet.

And yet, apparently, some neurotypicals take offense to statements such as that. In my opinion, that’s entirely on them. If they were offended by such a statement, then that comes from within them, for whatever reason they are offended. It doesn’t come from me. So, if anything, the “fault” lies with them. If a person is offended, rather than immediately getting upset, they should consider that perhaps the other person meant no malice in the statement, and instead consider other reasons or motives for such a statement being made.

Nerotypicals appear to exist in a world of horrors, if I may be frank, where everyone is out to get them. A world where every glance, every statement, has some sinister or malicious unspoken meaning or intent behind it. And you must PROVE to others that such intent doesn’t exist in the same breath as the statements or nonverbals you make, lest you yourself be considered the villain. Neurotypicals appear to exist in some sort of “cloak and dagger” world where people hide their true intentions, or intend malice with their words half the time, and you have to try to guess when that is.

A world of lies and deceit.

To me, this sounds like a TERRIFYING and exhausting world and headspace to live in.

The autistic person doesn’t naturally live in such a world. We live in a world of facts and data. Where there are no emotional, positive, or negative connotations inherent in any transmission of data. It is what it is. If you want to determine any motive or meaning beyond what is obvious or apparent, you must ask probing questions. You must collect more data, rather than assume anything.

Nothing is secret, nothing is hidden, and nothing is veiled. Everything is open, above board. An autistic world would be one in which everyone is given the benefit of the doubt, and no negative connotations are assumed or implied. A world where when someone is angry with you or upset with you, you won’t have to guess, you’ll know, because they’ll just tell you. There are no veiled or hidden meanings, there’s just MEANING.

A world of honesty.

I’ve spent 44 years having to exist in the world of the neurotypicals. I’ve mostly learned how to stop myself from saying every little thing that pops into my head. I’m high enough functioning that I can “pass” most of the time, but sometimes I slip up and make mistakes. Then I spend whatever time and effort is necessary in order to try to clear things up when someone has taken what I’ve said the wrong way. And I try to learn, and I try to get better.

Every day, I TRY. It’s all I can do.

BUT…

Wouldn’t it be better if I didn’t have to try? Wouldn’t it be better if we all gave each other the benefit of the doubt and DIDN’T assume the worst in our fellow man from the start? Where everyone can be open, and honest with each other, and if someone doesn’t like what you are doing or saying, they can just tell you it plainly, so that there’s no guesswork involved?

That would be something, wouldn’t it?

Oh well, back to the neurotypical world for me. It’s probably the only minority I’m a member of. I am privileged in that, at least.

My City of Heroes Story

This is a post that is preserved from the Homecoming forums.


My City of Heroes Story

I won’t go through my whole history, but I’ll sum up. I was a Navy brat that never had a real home, who was raised as a latchkey kid. My parents weren’t a father and mother (one I never knew, and the other was largely absent), but rather Mr. Rogers and Lady Aberlin. I learned what was right and wrong from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Sailor Moon, the Toxic Crusaders, and many, many others. From those “weird” shows, I learned that this “weird” kid wasn’t so weird, and indeed, could become something extraordinary. The amazing powers were cool, but the things that stuck with me (even though these weren’t traditional “superheroes”) were the concepts of compassion, justice, Bushido, honor. I learned that the strong should care for the weak, that those with power to do good, MUST. I learned from my media morality messengers that people can still do great things in the world, even when they are “weird” or unacceptable to the masses. I learned that I was not alone.

Now, with that out of the way, how does this relate to City of Heroes? Well, through some miracle of life, I managed to get through college and graduated with a degree.

In Computer Information Systems.

Immediately after Y2K, when thousands of developers were laid off since their work was no longer necessary.

In a tri-college town where dozens of students were graduating each year with degrees in my same field.

I had also screwed myself by not specializing, instead taking a little bit of networking, a little bit of programming, a little bit of electronic engineering. I had made myself a “jack of all trades, master of none”, and had screwed myself to every job because there was always someone else that was more of an expert in that area than I was. So, I delivered pizzas and worked in the Geek Squad in a Best Buy (with a BACHELOR’S in CIS). It went this way for over a year with no hope in sight of jumping into the tech career that I wanted. A life with no meaning. I got depressed. I got bored and lonely, as I was no longer surrounded by fellow students that were forced to interact with me. I got dark and considered ending my failure of a life.

Then, like a ray of sunshine into the darkness, came City of Heroes. It was an escape. It was a purpose. It gave me the chance to be a HERO! To emulate (at least virtually), all those weirdo fictional heroes that I had looked up to when I was a kid. I took me away from my depressing life and gave me hope of better things to come. But it wasn’t just the game. This world was filled with an entire COMMUNITY of people who, just like me, were inspired by many of the same media stories that I was. They, too, learned the same lessons of right and wrong, justice and compassion, that I had learned from books, movies, and TV shows. And they weren’t afraid to live out those fantasies, those morality plays, in a digital world where they could be the heroes that they always wanted to be. I had found, not just an escape from the drudgery of a depressing life, but a HOME. A place where I could be myself and be the best me that I could be. The me that I couldn’t be in the real world.

The City of Heroes community, and especially forum, helped me navigate a rough real-life road. When I got prematurely married, divorced, moved away from everyone and everything that I knew, and started a new life hundreds of miles away from it all. When I got to my new physical home and discovered that I didn’t KNOW how to relate to people outside of preconceived roles and forced situations, the City of Heroes community was there for me, offering comfort and support. When I went to counseling to try to determine the cause of my “issues”, and was diagnosed with high functioning autism, the City of Heroes community was still there for me, showing me that what matters isn’t who you ARE, but who you choose to BE.

I’ve spent the better part of the last decade working through my issues, learning how to pass for “normal” amongst neurotypicals, but I always relied on the City of Heroes community as my crutch, my way to get through the rough times. Their support helped me to finally get my first job in the tech industry a decade after my graduation, find the love of my life who accepts me for who I am, and start my own family. And then, after all the community had given me, it then disappeared, evaporated into the wind. The community was taken from me, from us, unceremoniously. Thankfully, at the time, I had largely moved on into the “real world”, but a part of me always yearned for a return back to a world of heroes and villains, where I had a chance to be something greater than I am, and where there were old names and “faces” that I knew as friends. I got by my loss a bit with a small subset of the greater CoH Community, the Paragon Unleashed forums that I had started years ago, but it was a pale echo of the previous, vibrant, community. Good people there, by the way.

And then… this happened. Leandro’s “secret server” got revealed. But that was just the spark that re-ignited the fire. With his generous and brave release of the source code, the community seemingly came back from the dead, and with full force. I had my digital home back again. And, more importantly, I now have another chance to give back to the community, to the people, that had already given me so much.

So, here I am, force fields in one hand and lightning in the other, ready to step up and provide whatever I can, so that the other “weird” kids like I used to be, have a chance to find their own purpose, their own meaning, and their own home. It was taken from us once before. Never again. And that’s why whenever I see either a new, or old face, appear on these forums, my answer will always be the same: “Welcome Home”.

So, thank you. Thank you to the amazing and fantastic community of heroes that helped me through my young adult life and saved me time and time again from both myself and the harsh, cruel world. Thank you to the dozens of volunteers, the coders and GMs, community reps and good old regular forum posters that fill this reinvigorated community with a sense of life, a sense of hope, and a sense of purpose. To everyone here, I say thank you all. And, once again…

Welcome Home.

Why is MST3K Important To You?

This is a post preserved from the MST3K forums, because with the 2023 Kickstarter having failed, and Joel leaving town without so much as a “see ya!”, I’m unsure how long their forums will remain, since they are owned by Shout Factory, who may or may not realize that they are paying for a forum for a show that isn’t making new episodes. So, here it is.


The title says it all. I want to know how the show has affected your life, personally. I’m sure most of us “die-hard” MSTies have a story. I’d love to hear yours. Below is mine, which I sent over to Joel and company via infoclub@mst3k.com during the first kickstarter, slightly modified and updated to be more “current”:

I am a 40 year old Aspie (as of June 2021), someone with a form of high functioning autism called Asperger’s Syndrome. I was not diagnosed clinically until I was 25 years old, so I spent my entire childhood and teen years just thinking that I was a weirdo that couldn’t connect with other people, and I didn’t understand why. I knew that something was “wrong” with me, especially when I said or did the wrong thing that would upset other people, and I didn’t know WHY it would bother other people because those things that I did and said seemed innocuous to me. I would also often times spout random facts that I had learned about things that I felt were appropriate to the current situation, or make obscure jokes that no one else got but me. Growing up feeling like an alien from another planet was frustrating and scary many times.

What does this have to do with MST3K? Well, one day this awkward young teen was scanning the boob tube in the mid-90s when he came across what looked like an old movie with some strange silhouettes at the bottom of the screen. I didn’t understand what was happening at first, but after a few minutes of watching, I realized what was happening – those strange silhouettes were making fun of the movie!

I watched my first MST3K movie very intensely after that, and to my delight I felt that I wasn’t alone in the world, for the first time. There were other people out there like me that had a “strange” sense of humor. There were other people out there that spouted random and obscure information out for the people around them to hear. Of course, being a kid at the time, I didn’t realize that it was all scripted and planned. But for that young awkward teen, it was a comfort that I didn’t feel truly alone in the world as the only person that was “like me”. It helped make it bearable to realize that other people existed out there that also had a love for the strange and bizarre, and that other people were out there that had a warped sense of humor and liked to make strange connections between tenuously connected things.

MST3K is, was, and will be important because there will always be people like me out there. The weirdos that feel out of place. The kids that don’t fit in anywhere else. MST3K can provide those awkward and strange kids with a friend, someone that speaks to them in their own language. MST3K tells them… You are not alone.

And that is why MST3K is important to me.

The Standard Code Rant

This is a post that I’m “preserving” from the CoH Homecoming forums, because as history has taught us, nothing is forever, unless it’s constantly maintained. And since I have no control over what happens to the Homecoming forums, I’m going to preserve it here, because I think it’s worth preserving.

UqE1SsX.jpg

This was known on the original forums as The Standard Code Rant. I didn’t make it, someone else did. (Who? Anyone know? I’d love to talk to this genius!) Why do I do this? Why do I feel it’s important enough to keep doing it? Read on if you’d like to know.

I am a “professional” programmer by trade. Someone pays me money to type on my little keyboard in my little cubicle for 8+ hours a day. This is what I *DO*. Installed prominently in my cubicle, I have a piece of paper with the following text:

Westley’s Maxims

[*]Virtually ANYTHING is possible code, given enough time and resources.

[*]If you don’t know the existing code, or if a task has never been done before, there’s no way to accurately gauge how difficult it will be, until it is attempted.

[*]If the ONLY reason why you’re doing something a certain way is “because it’s always been done that way”, that is *NOT* an acceptable reason to keep doing it that way.

Why do I have this posted in my cubicle?

So that any time someone comes and asks me “can you do X”, I can point to #1.

So that any time someone suggests that something “should be easy, right?”, I can point to #2.

And so that any time I ask someone why they’re doing something “that way”, and they say “because it’s always been done that way”, I can point to #3.

It saves me a LOT of breath. The Standard Code Rant is essentially #2 stated in a more humorous and visual form. I don’t post it to be a COMPLETE dick, maybe just a partial dick, but no, I post it whenever I see “X should be easy” to raise AWARENESS that unless you’ve actually done something similar yourself, with THIS code base… you’re making a HUGE and gross assumption about that process.

Everything that you see on your computer screen is the result of literally MILLIONS of programming man(or woman)-hours of code work to make it appear on your screen, and make it useable to you. The modern programming languages that we have access to today are the results of MILLIONS more hours of programming work that had gone before us. Everything that I make or work on was built on the backs of giants, so that I don’t have to sit on my computer and figure out whether I should code my solution as “00010101” or as ” “00010110”. And thank GOD for that. I thank the tireless efforts of thousands or hundreds of thousands of programmers that came before me and laid the groundwork so that I can move forward and keep building more on top of what they’ve already given me.

Something that “sounds” easy to you, might be take a programmer anywhere from five minutes, to five months to accomplish, or anywhere in between. For example, below is a “Hello World” app that has a button that when you click on it, shows a message box that says “Hello World!”:

AUTFE0W.png

And below is the minimal required code to make that simple thing happen:





using System;
using System.Windows.Forms;

namespace Hello_World
{
    static class Program
    {
        /// <summary>
        /// The main entry point for the application.
        /// </summary>
        [sTAThread]
        static void Main()
        {
            Application.EnableVisualStyles();
            Application.SetCompatibleTextRenderingDefault(false);
            Application.Run(new Form1());
        }
    }
}

using System;
using System.Windows.Forms;

namespace Hello_World
{
    public partial class Form1 : Form
    {
        public Form1()
        {
            InitializeComponent();
        }

        private void button1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
            MessageBox.Show(“Hello World!”);
        }
    }
}

Now, depending on your current level of computer know-how, that might all seem overwhelming and like Greek to you, or you might just be saying to yourself “is that it? so what?”. Well those saying “so what” aren’t realizing that for MY code to be even THAT simple, THOUSANDS of other lines of code behind the scenes had to be created by programmers that came before me that created all of the objects, methods, and other tools that I was able to use to make that program in the two minutes that it took me to throw it together. Someone had to MAKE the MessageBox class, someone had to MAKE the IDE (Integrated Development Environment) that allowed me to just plop an object down on a form in a GUI environment instead of making everything from scratch. NONE of this exists without someone going through the work and MAKING it exist. The wizards that came before me created the digital world, the digital land, digital air, digital waters, so that I could then populate it with digital trees and birds. But NONE of this would exist, if someone didn’t go through the work of making that world to begin with. *I* certainly couldn’t have made that world, I don’t have the skills necessary.

Now, let’s bring this back to the City of Heroes world. When City of Heroes was created, it was created in the language of C. Not C#, Not C++, but just plain old “regular” C. It was created in 1972. There WAS no easy “IDE” to use, there WERE no graphical tools that existed so that idiots like myself could plop pretty objects down onto other pretty objects. Hell, GUIs didn’t really even exists as a programming CONCEPT until a year after that language was originally envisioned, and wouldn’t become common until the mid 80s.

Now, why Cryptic chose to use regular C in 2003/whenever, I have no idea. But the fact is that they DID choose to use it. And, until someone rewrites the whole engine in a modern programming language, we’re stuck making everything the “hard way”. For example, here’s a snippet of code from source that draws a SINGLE one of the “quick access” selector buttons onscreen for you to click to change your chat channel by using just one of those little “letter buttons” above the chat window:





int drawSelectorButton(int * xp, int y, int z, float scale, int clr, Entity * e, int tip, int info, char * text, char * smallTex, char * largeTex)
{
AtlasTex * tex;
int hit = 0;
int x = *xp;

if( e->pl->chatSendChannel == info )
{
tex = atlasLoadTexture( largeTex );
z += 1;
}
else
{
tex = atlasLoadTexture( smallTex );
}

BuildCBox( &chatTip[tip].bounds, x – tex->width*scale/2, y – tex->height*scale, scale*tex->width, scale*tex->height );
setToolTip( &chatTip[tip], &chatTip[tip].bounds, text, 0, MENU_GAME, WDW_CHAT_BOX );
if( D_MOUSEHIT == drawGenericButton( tex, x – tex->width*scale/2, y – tex->height*scale, z, scale, clr, CLR_WHITE, e->pl->chatSendChannel != info ) )
{
e->pl->chatSendChannel = info;
sendChatChannel( e->pl->chatSendChannel, “” ); // won’t use buttons for user channels
hit = 1;
}

*xp += CHANNEL_SPACER*scale;

return hit;
}

And even THIS is just a SINGLE method that makes use of dozens of other variables and methods that are defined elsewhere in code. Just to DRAW one single teeny tiny pretty button.

Are you starting to get the complexity here? No? Well, take a look at the “How It Fits Together” page from OuroDev, and notice that there are FIFTEEN different unique servers/programs that all work together in conjunction with each other to bring the game that you know and love to your screen, and EACH of those elements contain within them HUNDREDS of methods, objects, and variables that are made up themselves of THOUSANDS of lines of code.

I did at one point have a graphic that showed how all of these pieces fit together so that you could have a graphical representation of the complexity, but I seem to have lost that at this time. If I find it again, I’ll modify my post and stick it here for reference.

So, when I post that “Standard Code Rant”, I hope you can understand that it’s NOT just to troll, but rather to try to foster an understanding of our own ignorance of the process. Make suggestions, as the Standard Code Rant states, it’s fun to dream! Dream big! Go nuts in your imagination. But, unless you are intimitely familiar with the codebase itself, do NOT presume to suggest how “easy” a suggestion would be to implement.

For if you do, I will be there, and I will be memeing. ALL over your thread.

And I’ll be doing it with this now, The Updated Standard Code Rant:

pVih0a2.png

Tribalism, Summarized

44 years on this planet has taught me a lot.

What it taught me most though, is that we need to be kind to one another.

We need to give each other the benefit of the doubt. We need to assume the best in others, rather than the worst.

We are one humanity.

We create artificial divisions amongst ourselves – age, race, sexual preference, religion, political party, beliefs.

But they really are artificial, really.

You can be best friends with someone who is in ALL of the opposite categories of yourself, if you choose to be.

An old, white, hetero male christian Republican pro-lifer can ABSOLUTELY be best friends with a young, black, gay female atheist Democratic pro-choicer.

This IS quite possible, absolutely. But what does it require?

It requires that we look past all of the differences, and look towards our common humanity.

It requires that we care more about each other, as individual unique human beings, than we care about these miniscule differences between us.

We share 99.9% of the same DNA. I’m NOT making that number up –

That is fact, that is verifiable TRUTH. There’s nothing up for interpretation here. There is zero place for opinion here. We can literally take the DNA strands of any two random people on this planet, stretch them out and compare them side by side, and you will literally only find a 0.1% difference in their genetic codes.

So, why all the conflict? Because of a word that I’ve used so very often that I perhaps don’t explain well enough – TRIBALISM.

See, a little over 40,000 years ago, there were dozens of human-like species of primates existing, in the same time and place. We, along with our other hominid brethren, fought a war that lasted thousands of years. During that war, we fought against those hominids that looked different from us, and mated with those hominids that looked more similar to us. Because there were limited resources.

This war built within the survivors a natural instinct – an instinct to be suspicious of hominids that look or act similar to us, but that aren’t the “same” as us. Our survivor ancestors were the strongest and smartest of the hominid species, and we wiped out all opposition by either killing them, or making them “us” by mating with them, joining with them. And thus, humanity was born. By collecting “like” individuals and joining them to us, and either destroying or pushing away “diffferent” individuals. This is tribalism, essentially.

But, 40,000 years later, we haven’t evolved past this natural instinct.

We live now in a world of plenty. We have enough resources using our technology that we could feed, clothe, and shelter ALL of humanity at once and still have more left over to stockpile. The only issue is that of distribution.

However, we still try to suss out any of the remaining differences between us, and use those perceived differences to form ourselves into separate “tribes”, or groups of people. And then fight each other over it.

We are still suspicious of the motives and intents of those that are not of “our tribe”. We still have a natural inclination to push people away from us when we notice differences in them, and draw people closer to us that we perceive as the same. We still fight wars against others that we should be working WITH.

War is tribalism, made physical. And it’s been embedded into our instincts. We build it into every part of our society:

Us Vs. Them
Left Vs. Right
Red Vs. Blue
Republicans Vs. Democrats
Russia Vs. Ukraine

And we practice war, primarily through games of competition- sports. Sports literally creates artificial tribes of people, and has them “fight” against each other. Sure, for the most part these are nonviolent (certain exceptions notwithstanding), but they are still CONFLICT. And they still reinforce the concept of divisions between our people:

Packers Vs. Vikings
Brewers Vs. Cubs
Bucks Vs. Bulls

We CREATE differences, and then fight mock wars to see who’s better, who’s the victor. We even show pride in our differences, and wave flags, raise icons, mascots, and sing songs of solidarity.

We NORMALIZE the tribalist wars of our ancient ancestors. What’s worse though, is that we teach our CHILDREN to separate themselves into such groups, and then to fight against each other in mock battles of skill:

Badgers Vs. Gophers
Altoona Vs. Chippewa Falls
Shirts Vs. Skins

And yet, we’re surprised when those mock battles start to turn into real violence? We’re surprised when kids shoot up their school when they feel outcast? We’re surprised when a stupid kid barely out of high school shoots at an old man because of perceived political differences?

We shouldn’t be – that’s what we’ve been teaching them, from the ground floor up.

We need to use our God-given intellect to self reflect, and see what we’re doing to ourselves. See how we’re behaving towards each other. To see how we got to where we are today, and decide if that’s where we really want to be.

We need to teach our children kindness, acceptance, cooperation, and empathy.

We need to understand that this… URGE to separate ourselves into tribes is built into our genetic code at this point, so we don’t NEED to teach it and encourage it further. We don’t need to reinforce it and perpetuate it. We get it for “free”, whether we like it or not.

What we don’t get for free is being able to see outside of ourselves – to be able to perceive, understand, and feel the differences of others as a benefit, not as a drawback. As a strength, not as a hindrance. We don’t get this for free, it’s a skill that we have to earn, by practice.

Every person believes themselves to be the hero of their own story. If a person truly thought they they were evil, they wouldn’t be able to live with themselves.

Our challenge is to try to step OUTSIDE of ourselves. Step outside of our own perspectives, our own lives. To listen to others with different viewpoints – not in an effort to formulate a retort – but rather to try to UNDERSTAND. To see HOW the other person sees themselves as a hero.

To quote my favorite author:

“I think it’s impossible to really understand somebody, what they want, what they believe, and not love them the way they love themselves.”

And that’s what we need to foster – understanding, and love.

Realize the differences between us – not to separate others from ourselves – but rather to see them as strengths, as learning opportunities.

We must challenge ourselves and our own preconceived notions. We have to challenge our own “rightness”.

That’s probably the hardest thing of all – to truly challenge whether we’re right, and to strongly consider the possibility that we might be wrong.

The motto of the United States is “E Pluribus Unum” – “Out of Many, One”. We NEED to start taking this to heart.

We need to look at the Many and see how we are One.

It’s the only way that we ever WILL be.