waybread
Staff member
**no memes or over-sized graphics.**
Sensitivity is requested. Let's think about neuro-diversity vs. a disorder.
The astrology board requires posts to have some astrological content. Just to it doesn't morph into a chat session.
Autistic people famous for their achievements include:
animal scientist Temple Grandin,
and climate actvist Greta Thunberg
Periodically a question comes up about whether autism can be detected in a horoscope. My personal belief is that autism operates across such a wide spectrum that no, probably not. Asperger's syndrome on the high -functioning end of the spectrum includes many extremely bright and successful people. Other people with autism will need care their entire lives. However, these articles are by astrologers who have seriously examined the question:
oxfordastrologer.com
One book review that recently brought this issue to my attention is a July 12 WaPo review of Elle Reeve, Black Pill: How I witnessed the Darkest Corners of the Internet Come to Life, Poison Society, and Capture American Politics. The "black pill" is an illusion to the "red pill" in the film, The Matrix. Someone who swallows the red pill sees political reality-as-given as deceptive, and designed to fool ordinary people into docility. By extension, the "black pill" convinces people who take it that the world is master-minded by corrupt elites, and that social collapse is immanent. Conspiratorial social media content and its forums tend to become more extreme and "darker" over time, and increasingly crosses the boundaries from fringe to mainstream media.
What hit me between the eyes was an expert telling Reeves that, "autistic people can be especially vulnerable to extremist on-line communities" for three reasons:
1. An on-line community, whether mellow or extremist, allows autistic people to socialize without the social anxiety of actual human contact.
2. The extremist worldview tends to be rigid and predictable, which makes it easier for an autistic person to follow a model of how the world works (independently of its correctness of fallacies.)
3. Autistic people on extremist forums can peruse their archives, so people with difficulty in articulating their own ideas "can go back in time and read [archived posts] to understand how users talked to each other and then mimic those interactions."
I would add a 4th one here: that extremist political positions show a lack of feeling for human misery, such as for refugees, war victims, or the poor. Some people with autism feel overwhelmed by other people's emotions or have difficulty feeling empathy.
It occurred to me that the qualities described above (social anxiety, preference for predictability, mimicry of others' expressions vs. spontaneously creating one's own,) should have astrological signatures.
This isn't to say that extremist media set out to recruit or exploit autistic people, but that they are a susceptible population for reasons that have to do with the nature of autism.
If you are a person with autism or a familiar with this condition I hope you will reply to this OP.
Sensitivity is requested. Let's think about neuro-diversity vs. a disorder.
The astrology board requires posts to have some astrological content. Just to it doesn't morph into a chat session.
Autistic people famous for their achievements include:
animal scientist Temple Grandin,
and climate actvist Greta Thunberg
Periodically a question comes up about whether autism can be detected in a horoscope. My personal belief is that autism operates across such a wide spectrum that no, probably not. Asperger's syndrome on the high -functioning end of the spectrum includes many extremely bright and successful people. Other people with autism will need care their entire lives. However, these articles are by astrologers who have seriously examined the question:
Neurodiversity and Astrology - The Oxford Astrologer
How does astrology work with ADHD and autism? And are astrologers more likely to be neurodivergent?
oxfordastrologer.com
One book review that recently brought this issue to my attention is a July 12 WaPo review of Elle Reeve, Black Pill: How I witnessed the Darkest Corners of the Internet Come to Life, Poison Society, and Capture American Politics. The "black pill" is an illusion to the "red pill" in the film, The Matrix. Someone who swallows the red pill sees political reality-as-given as deceptive, and designed to fool ordinary people into docility. By extension, the "black pill" convinces people who take it that the world is master-minded by corrupt elites, and that social collapse is immanent. Conspiratorial social media content and its forums tend to become more extreme and "darker" over time, and increasingly crosses the boundaries from fringe to mainstream media.
What hit me between the eyes was an expert telling Reeves that, "autistic people can be especially vulnerable to extremist on-line communities" for three reasons:
1. An on-line community, whether mellow or extremist, allows autistic people to socialize without the social anxiety of actual human contact.
2. The extremist worldview tends to be rigid and predictable, which makes it easier for an autistic person to follow a model of how the world works (independently of its correctness of fallacies.)
3. Autistic people on extremist forums can peruse their archives, so people with difficulty in articulating their own ideas "can go back in time and read [archived posts] to understand how users talked to each other and then mimic those interactions."
I would add a 4th one here: that extremist political positions show a lack of feeling for human misery, such as for refugees, war victims, or the poor. Some people with autism feel overwhelmed by other people's emotions or have difficulty feeling empathy.
It occurred to me that the qualities described above (social anxiety, preference for predictability, mimicry of others' expressions vs. spontaneously creating one's own,) should have astrological signatures.
This isn't to say that extremist media set out to recruit or exploit autistic people, but that they are a susceptible population for reasons that have to do with the nature of autism.
If you are a person with autism or a familiar with this condition I hope you will reply to this OP.
