These are the guidelines that I follow about boosting or not boosting something. These guidelines make sense to me. I do not care if they make sense to you or not. I also reserve the right to make rare exceptions when I see it fit, but I have to warn you that I don’t need to be consistent with my exceptions, and that a post has to hit a specific note for me to ignore my rules.
Also, I’ll note here that your popularity elsewhere, or even in the fediverse, does not matter. I regularly don’t boost posts by celebrities who do not use hashtags.
Ultimately, you don’t get to decide how I apply my rules.
Understood?
I try to be a considerate booster. If you know me at all, you know that I don’t like people who have nothing to say but boost all the things. Ironically, I eventually catch on to their shenanigans and end up muting them, so I don’t see all the things that they boost, and they want me to see so badly. If I follow you, it is because I’d like to hear about you. Conversely, I’m selective in my boosting, for the reasons given above.
Your Autistic Life is supported by readers like you. Use one of the links below to support my writing! Thank you.
By far, the most common case in which I see a post that I would like to boost, but don’t, is when it has no hashtags. This is not merely my own itch that I’m trying to scratch here. Some people do not want to see certain types of contents. Proper tagging helps them know what your content is about, and helps them filter out this content if they don’t want to see it.
For these people, this filtering is self-care. When you post a post without tags, then they cannot care for themselves.
I also don’t boost posts that are merely “boost this post if you [something banal.]” Things like “please boost if you like cats,” “please boost if you are above 50,” etc. Note that I do not include in this group well written posts that ask to boost for awareness. Boosting for awareness is generally worthwhile, whereas boosting for the platitudes I put above ain’t.
Furthermore, I no longer boost posts that are from objectionable sources. Fox News is the prime example here. If it is newsworthy, there is certainly another source you could have picked. If Fox News is the only source, it is most likely a lie. In fact, I don’t even see these posts anymore because I filter them out.
Finally, I don’t boost posts that are just a link. Oh, maybe the link itself gives an idea of what the page I’m going to find at the other end is all about. Maybe I even follow that link and think what a great article! I won’t boost. I hate naked links in posts. Tell us why you agreed or disagreed with the article you link to.
I probably have more rules, but they are not coming up to mind right this moment, and are likely not as important as the rules above.
This is a question that I ask myself often, probably because of the trauma I suffered.
I believe this concern about whether I am an asshole comes from innumerable times when I was unjustly labeled an asshole. Over time, I internalized the accuser’s voices, and now I ask myself whether I am, in fact, an asshole.
Let me tell you a little story. About two weeks and a half ago, I had a great date with a submissive girl. She was about all I wanted in a partner. She was autistic, like I am. Her autistic traits were different from my own. We had a wonderful weekend together. When I asked her how she felt, she said that she felt content. These were her words.
At the end of our date, a crisis happened in her family. Her family is not anywhere nearby. Still, it was a serious situation. The last I heard from her was that she had arrived home safely. Then, she went silent. I have not heard from her since our date. Is she okay? Is the crisis over? Did she travel several states away to be with her family? I have no idea.
When things like this happen, my mind goes into high gear. She was content. I gave her my all. I was kind. Still… did I… did I manage to put her off somehow? Did I do something that I did not notice? Am I the asshole?
Lest you think that I’m being dramatic with the worry about doing things that I did not notice, I’ll remind you that I’m now divorced, due, mostly, to my ex-wife not being able to handle my autistic traits. If she was annoyed with me, she’d glare. I would not be able to read her glares. Then she’d accuse me of deliberately ignoring her glares. Conversely, I accuse her of imagining that she glared. Yes, I’m quite capable of unwittingly putting off people, even ND people. My ex-wife has ADHD.
I’d like to think that I would act superbly in all possible situation. Alas, I know that’s not the case. I have sometimes not acted superbly. I was not acting like a monster, but I still managed to hurt people around me, sometimes the very people that I adored. I’ve sometimes managed to be the asshole.
I think as a response to the trauma that I suffered, and the fact that I don’t always act superbly, my brain likes to compare my actual behavior to that of complete shitbags. I can’t help it. That’s how my brain works.
Let me give you an example. During the date with the girl above, we went to have coffee. We sat at a table, and we chatted for a bit and drank. She pulled out her phone, and started reading a manga. I’ve been in the NT world long enough to know that if she had been on a date with an NT individual, that person would have interpreted it as her not being interested in the date. For my part, I did not make a fuss. I just continued talking to her, and enjoying her company.
Something similar happened later when I proposed to watch a movie. She said she was reading. I thought she meant that she did not want to watch the movie. No biggie. A bit later, I suggested putting on a TV show, because I had figured that perhaps the specific movie I had picked was not titillating her. She said she was still reading but that I could put it on and that she had the ability to watch TV and read at the same time.
Fair enough, I don’t have this multitasking capability. Let’s go back to the episode at the coffee shop. Would it have served me anything to get angry? No. Both episodes, however, would have been likely to cause ire in an NT person. Yes, I compare my behavior to those of NT folks. Again, I can’t help it. I don’t decide to do this. It just happens. What I do decide to do is to not engage in those destructive behaviors.
I sometimes wonder if I am going to be the asshole, even in situations that haven’t happened yet. I’m pansexual, but I’ve been with exactly one man. He is trans too. We had a nice couple of days together, but prior to this happening, I was wondering… Would I say or do something to turn him off. I had never been in that situation before. So I was comparing myself, again, to dirtbags. Was I going to be the asshole when we’d be together?
I was once explaining to a group of people that someone had ghosted me after one night of sex, but that I had decided not to go after her. Those people took me to task immediately. Why would I even decide not to go after her, unless I were some sort of monster who does actually stalk people. Hmm… let provide an explanation. First, as I said above, I cannot help compare myself to dirtbags. I don’t decide this. Second, I’m a software engineer. I’ve actually done things that would allow me to stalk someone if I wanted to. Doing those things does not require mental effort. I’ve not stalked anyone, but I could super easily do it if I wanted to.
I have an expression for what those people did to me: karmic shaming. People think of karma as this special force, but it is really just the conditioning that we receive as we grow up. I have the karma of someone who compares himself to shitbags. I also have the karma of a software engineer. This is my conditioning. I cannot help it. Shaming me about having this karma is not helpful.
I’m usually not the asshole, but I keep asking myself, even in situations where I shouldn’t: am I, in fact, the asshole? Did I do something I did not notice?
When I complain about a product, your answer to just stop using it stinks, very badly.
Once in a while, I run into problems with this or that product. Sometimes, when I cannot find a solution, I post my issue to the fediverse, hoping someone will have the answer.
A lot of people don’t respond. This is entirely fine.
Some people respond with their own problem. That’s also fine.
Some people respond that they swear never to use the product in question again. Yes, this is entirely fine, too. I’m in favor of you making the decision to not use this product again.
However, some people come to tell me that I should not use the product I’m using. This is it. This is the entirety of their response. They don’t suggest something else, they just shit on the product.
How is this at all useful?
You’ve not solved my problem. In fact, you’ve compounded my problem. You say not to use the product I’m using. Okay. What is the alternative? Ah, well, you did not say, did you? You’re leaving me with the task of having to find the alternative. Your answer stinks.
Once in a while someone come up with an alternative. At least this person is trying to be useful. It is entirely fine to toss an alternative at me, if it is done humbly. That is, if it is done with the understanding that your choice may not be adequate for me. This is fine.
What is definitely not fine is those asshats who insist that I should their own favored product without any inkling that maybe their product is not fine for me. I’ve been on this planet long enough to know that when someone says just use this instead, it is likely that I’m going to run into problems, if not a downright dead end. Your answer stinks.
You want examples?
“WordPress stinks! Just use write.as.”
I tried write.as. It stank, even more than WordPress. I’m not a fan of WordPress, but it gets the job done.
“Chrome stinks! Just use Firefox.”
I actually did the move. Firefox is my primary browser now. However, I forgot how many sites won’t work with Firefox. Yes, I know that this is something that shouldn’t happen in 2024, but here we are. I cannot use any teleconferencing software with Firefox reliably. (Jitsi might work, but I haven’t tried it with many people, so I don’t really know.)
I’ll also add that I most likely have spent time considering the flaws you found in the product I’m using. I’ve most likely also spent time considering alternatives and found them lacking. I especially love it when someone shoves in my face an alternative I’ve already rejected.
You’re not informing me about anything I did not already know. If your answer is among those I declared to be stinking above, your answer stinks too. Even if I don’t tell you to your face. Your answer stinks.
I’m a cis male, but my autistic traits correlate with those of cis female individuals.
The study of autism is plagued with sexism, even to this day. There is definitely more awareness of the problem nowadays, but the prevalent view of how autism presents in people is largely based on antiquated stereotypes. If you are white, male, and you annoy your parents, you are more likely to get diagnosed by the professionals, than if you are not white, not male, and manage to mask your autism.
(A quick note on my terminological choices. I have no idea how being trans or nonbinary may affect autistic presentation. I don’t mean to exclude, but I also don’t want to speak about things that I’m not familiar with. I’m sorry about this.)
I believe now that my own deceased mother was autistic too, but went undiagnosed because of this sexism. She was bipolar, and alcoholic. These are often the conditions that women who are not diagnosed experience. She was treated for both conditions, but no treatment took. These treatments did not take, because they were dealing with the symptoms of autism, without dealing with the autism itself.
Early on in my research about autism, I came upon this site:
I’ve taken many of the self-assessment tests there, and I always end up neurotypical or borderline autistic. The DSM-5 is not helpful either. Actually, I think it is a step back from the online self-assessment tests. No psychiatrist of mine has ever suggested autism as an explanation for my mental troubles. I’ll remind you that I’m self-diagnosed.
Fediverse user @ImmedicableME recently posted a link to this page:
It is not the first time I find that the female presentation of autism is more reflective of how I present, too. In the book Unmasking Autism by Devon Price, the author talks of a period of time during which doctors talked about male and female autism. When I was reading this book, I could easily see my traits listed among those that doctors assigned to females.
In fiction, too, I find myself closer to the female autistic characters than the male ones. I am nothing like Rain Man, or Sheldon Cooper. I’m not rude, nor do I have an obsession with trains. The character I compare myself readily to is Quinni from Heartbreak High, an autistic girl.
For the record, I do not think that it is scientifically valid, or useful to talk about “male” and “female” autism anymore. I do not have a problem with the page I linked to above, which gives a list of traits generally linked with being female. It is important to raise the awareness that autism in females may present differently than the stereotypes.
However, once the awareness has been raised, it is better to drop the labels male and female. I am a cis male who presents mostly like a female. I think, just like my mother was undiagnosed because she did not present the male stereotype, so am I have been undiagnosed by the professionals because I do not present as the male stereotype either. Still, again, once I’ve given this explanation, I no longer want to use the binary to explain autism.
Now, I don’t have a great explanation for why I present the way I do. I suspect the pressure of living with a narcissistic father are partially to blame. I sometimes say that I don’t experience meltdowns, but this is not correct. I do experience them, but very rarely. My father, however, is an expert at triggering meltdowns in me. He knows exactly what buttons to push. Therefore, to avoid presenting too big an opportunity to him to press my buttons, I’ve learned to camouflage my autism.
My mother’s and my case are direct examples of how sexism hinders our access to medical care. We’ve both been bitten in the ass because of our manifestation of symptoms did not conform to the stereotype.
I don’t recommend it for anyone, and especially not for people with mental health issues.
I don’t watch the news on the television anymore. Rather than do this, I used to use Google News. I did this for a long time. It was my main source of news. I tried using the fediverse for this, but I do need curation, so this did not work well for me. Flipboard seemed like the natural alternative.
I did not realize that the platform is ableist. I suspect the people who suggested it to me are all exemplars of mental health, and do not belong to minorities.
Keep in mind that I’m not going to go over all features of Flipboard. For one thing, I’m using it as a consumer, not a producer. I also have no inclination to explore its every nook and cranny. What you are getting here is the impression of someone who has used it for a few weeks.
One thing going for the platform is that you can select the topics that interest you. For instance, I picked autism, LGBTQ+ rights, racism as some of the topics that I want to see. This is great, and definitely better than Google News.
I have to say that I’ve received help when I had question about the platform. I got answers from Flipboard Community Support, which, as far as I can tell, is as official as it gets. Other users have also been helpful. This is good. Too many companies try to operate without giving any customer support. Flipboard seems to be different in this respect. This is quite welcome.
Where Flipboard fails is in giving you the ability to easily filter out the information that you do not want. Let me explain the types of sources that I’ve seen on Flipboard. A story can have one or more of these sources:
News outlets: CNN, NBC, The New York Times, etc.
Magazines. I think these are created by users, who may then flip a story into it.
Users. You will see them with magazines.
So you could see a story from CNN because it was flipped by Alice into her magazine Daily Living. So far, so good.
The first area where there is a filtering problem is The Daily Edition. This is a page curated by Flipboard, yes, but it is curated in such a way that you cannot ban the sources you encounter there, nor can you remove an entire section. I was not able to get that page off of my menu bar at the top, even if I unfollowed The Features Desk, which I suppose is responsible for this page.
I wouldn’t be complaining if not for the fact that shitty sources do sometimes appear on this page, like Fox. This news outlet has been taken to court over the lies that it peddled. It settled, and page a huge sum, which in my book means that it lost. However, Flipboard editors sometimes decide that Fox is a news source that is worthy of being featured in The Daily Edition. Who in their right mind would think that this is fine?
In all places other than The Daily Edition, I block every damn Fox source that is presented to me. I did this on Google News too. In fact, I left Google News when what appears to be a bug started letting Fox articles on my page. I did not like it then. I don’t like it now. Yes, I can ban Fox everywhere, except on The Daily Editions page. There’s no technical reason banning couldn’t be implemented there, too. Absolutely NONE! So right now I just don’t read The Daily Edition.
However, the ableism does not stop there. There is simply no way to ban a magazine. So if NBC puts out general news items but also has a magazine attached to it for sports, there’s no way to just ban the sports magazine. Or what if a user has a magazine for autism and another one about spelunking. Why can’t I just ban the spelunking magazine? I’ve been in situations where I have no reason to ban the user or the news outlet, but I want to ban the magazine. Can’t do it.
Now if you want to ban a user you can do it. However, the web interface does not support it. WHY? Again, I cannot conceive of a technical reason this is not implemented. I can think of other reasons, however, like the desire to funnel users to the app, or get more ad impressions in the app.
Flipboard is the type of platform where I find the app occasionally useful, but I primarily access it using the web. Oh, and I’ve just remembered why I tried Flipboard way back when, but decided to toss it into the garbage bin: it used to be app only. There was no web interface. Now, what am I supposed to do when I run into a user I don’t like. Am I to grab my phone, try to find the user there, and ban them when a simple click in the web interface ought to suffice? Hell no!
Note that what I’m talking about here is not a hypothetical. I ran into a Nazi who ran a magazine with Nazi content. I wanted to ban the magazine and the user, but couldn’t. At the time, I did not know that I could have banned them in the app, but ultimately it makes no difference to have the functionality there but not on the web.
When I was in the midst of my cancer, I had to ask my ex-wife to stop watching televised news. They hammered me too much, and it was impossible to skip over things that I found objectionable. This called self-care. Any platform that arbitrarily prevent you from easily filtering out the information you do not want to see is ableist.
Once more, those of us with mental conditions bear the brunt of the decisions that ableists made. I know that the people who decided that Flipboard did not decide to throw those people with mental conditions under the bus. We merely did not figure in their calculations.
However, at the end of the day, this is still ableist. It does not matter if it was done deliberately or not. I guess, I’ll continue to use it until I find something better, or they provide fixes to deal with my grievances.
Declaring One’s Autism Won’t Do Anything To Combat Police Ineptitude
I don’t think that declaring that one is autistic will change anything.
I’ve seen lately a bunch of news articles talking about new rules whereby people who have behavioral disabilities, autism in particular, will be allowed to declare their disability so that the police can handle them properly. Before we go any further, let me point out that I’m using their language here. I don’t think autism is a behavioral disability in and of itself. However, autism can be linked with conditions that can be disabling in some contexts.
I also think that in some jurisdictions, the declaration of disability is not merely allowed, but mandated by the jurisdiction. I cannot go over all cases in this article. There’s already a problem in those places where they merely allow it, mandating it will only make things worse.
I don’t think this is going to fix anything, overall. Yes, maybe in some encounters with the police, a declaration of behavioral disability will change the outcome. However, generally speaking, this won’t change the outcome of a police encounter. Oh, do note that I’m talking about the policing system in the USA. This might not apply where you live.
The problem in the USA is that the police is trained to escalate. I don’t care how many supposed deescalation classes they are supposedly taking at the academy. At the end of the day, these classes don’t make any difference, generally speaking. What we see in the news is that the police will escalate encounters, and harm people who are themselves harmless. Those who bear the brunt of this attitude are the minorities. These may be racial minorities, sexual minorities, medical minorities, or any other minority that will appear different from the norm.
It is my opinion that rather than trying to carve out exceptions for the minorities, the police should take deescalation to heart, for everyone, instead of paying lip service to it. See, I don’t think that someone who is foundationally trained to escalate encounters will magically turn on a switch to deescalate when faced with those people that a cop should handle differently. This is just not going to happen.
There’s also the issue that some people, for whatever private reason they have, do not want to advertise their behavioral disability, or their autism. Some people can face stigmatization if they slap a label on their car or their house saying they are autistic. What will happen if the police screws up handling an autistic person who decided not to declare it? Will the cops be excused then, as they are so often excused now due to qualified immunity?
Moreover, assuming the system were to give some advantage to disabled people in their encounters with the police, I’m wondering if some miscreants will fake disability. “I’m sorry. I did not mean to take this chocolate bar without paying. I have OCD.” This is a long shot, but it is possible.
Oh, and what about those self-diagnosed autistic people? The autistic community overwhelmingly recognizes us as autistic. (I say us because I’m self-diagnosed.) Will the police require that someone who says they are autistic have a formal diagnosis from somewhere? Will the police disbelieve someone who does not appear autistic enough and ignore the need to handle them differently. Will they insist that the only real autistic people are those who look like Rain Main or Sheldon Cooper?
Unfortunately, my advice to people with behavioral disabilities is still to keep their distances from the cops. I moreover don’t see any advantage in pre-declaring your disability. I don’t think a sticker will help you. Now, when you are faced with a cop, then maybe you want to say that you have sensory sensitivities, for instance, and ask for the cop to turn off his siren. Wait until you’re faced with a cop.
If you need help with someone who has a behavioral disability, and is in a crisis, and you think they need help in the moment, consider these options, in order:
Offer to take them to an appropriate mental health facility. You’d be surprised how often they will accept the help.
Call the local Mobile Crisis Team.
Call 911, but ask to be put into contact with the Crisis Intervention Team. Make sure no cops are involved.
This varies by jurisdiction, the important thing is to avoid calling in the cops. Only if these methods fail, should you consider involving the cops. Do also note that the keyword in the above is crisis, don’t do any of this unless you are faced with a crisis. A kid having a meltdown is not generally speaking a crisis. It may be annoying. Deal with it.
The above advice is what I remember from a class given by the National Alliance on Mental Illness. These people are experts at dealing with crises. I took the class to help an ex of mine who had schizophrenia.
Ultimately, I think the notion that we should self-declare our behavioral disabilities is well-meant but ignores the reality that we face in day to day life, and ignores the very problems that are at the root of policing in the USA.
Train the police to handle people with more humanity, and this will also take care of those with behavioral disabilities.
Those Disclaimers You Add To Your Social Media Profiles Do Exactly Nothing
These disclaimers may be popular, but they are usually ineffective.
Sometimes I see someone who will proudly proclaim to the world that they solved some perceived problem with what a social media platform is going by adding some verbiage to their public profile on that platform. For instance, someone on Facebook might add “I do not give Facebook the authorization to do [this and that] with the data in my profile.” That’s cute, and usually ineffective.
Let me explain.
Let’s say BigCorp decides to set up a social medial platform. When you create an account there, they ask if you accept the Terms Of Service (TOS). If you accept them, they create an account. What do you think happens if you don’t accept them? They won’t let you create an account. They might tell you that they are sorry, or the button to create the account might be unclickable until you accept the TOS. Now, in theory, you are free to modify the TOS, and make a counter-offer. However, I’ve not seen any site that has a mechanism to do this.
What I’ve described here is essentially contract negotiation. Someone offers a contract. If you don’t like something in it, you can edit the contract and make a counteroffer. At then end of the day, both you and the other party have to agree to the final contract. Some contracts will contain provisions if you want to change the terms, but even without those provisions, you definitely cannot change a contract unilaterally.
“But what if BigCorp decides to change the TOS?”
They have to notify you of the change. A lot of companies will email you saying the TOS is about to change and encouraging you to read the new TOS. I am pretty sure that they don’t have to highlight the changes, unfortunately. They just need to tell you that there is a new TOS, and where you can read it. You have the choice to accept the new TOS, or reject it. I think there are some cases where a rejection won’t result in the termination of your account. However, in a lot of cases if you reject the new TOS, BigCorp can terminate your account.
“What if I don’t answer?”
If you don’t give an answer to the company regarding the new TOS, it is assumed that you have accepted it.
So let’s say that BigCorp has put into their TOS that they reserve the right to feed your data to AI, or the right they give themselves could be something even broader. If BigCorp, for instance, says that they can do anything with the data you post to their site, then feeding it to AI is part of anything. So you see that, and you decide to add to your profile a stipulation that your data cannot be fed to AI. What have you done?
Nothing. Nothing at all.
None of what you wrote there binds BigCorp. Why? Because you cannot unilaterally change a contract. Adding your stipulation to your profile is not proper notice of the desired change. You’d have to ask BigCorp if they are happy with this. Did you? No. Then your stipulation is ineffective. Let’s say you want to change the TOS and you want BigCorp’s approval. You’d have to find the proper person to ask for this. Maybe opening a ticket with them might work. At any rate, you have to give them the opportunity to refuse. Let’s suppose that you contact BigCorp and tell them of your plan. Can you assume that if they don’t answer, they’ve accepted the new terms?
I think you’d be on thin ice making this assumption. I checked the TOS of Facebook (Meta). First, they say that they can change the TOS whenever they want, they will notify you, and your continued usage of the service means that you’ve accepted the new TOS, just as I explained above. Conversely, they want any change you might want to be made to the TOS to be sent to them in writing and signed by them. Since an absence of response is not a signature, you’re out of luck.
This is partially why I qualified my ineffective with usually. I can see two ways in which your stipulation could work:
The TOS already allows you to do this. “If you don’t want us to do so-and-so, put it in your profile.” I’ve never encountered a platform with this type of stipulation in their TOS.
The platform has a mechanism by which they will listen to your proposed changes, and potentially accept them. In theory, Facebook allows it. In practice, good luck getting that signature.
However, unilaterally adding a stipulation to your profile without also contacting the company does not work. Some people say they’ve fixed something by adding a stipulation to their profile, without either explaining that the TOS already allowed it, or indicating that they contacted the company to modify the TOS, and that the company accepted their offer.
These people are misleading you.
These people are spreading dangerous misconceptions.