Horsey

maths and chess nerd supreme.

[hamiltonianhorsey]

22F maths student

she/her or whatever it's fine

kinda decent at maths -- I'm particularly interested in the somewhat esoteric field of mathematical logic, but I dip my thumb into many pies as a hobbyist

will talk about maths whenever, wherever

talk to me about maths

especially mathematical logic but yk i'll take anything

also chess if you're so inclined

[hamiltonianhorsey]

Autism Acceptance Month Prompts

Day 2^3: Do you think, since the time you found out you were autistic, that society's views on autism has gotten worse, better, or about the same? In what ways?

I feel like there’s two elements to this: has the general public situation gotten better and has the autistic advocacy situation gotten better?

The general public: In my sphere, which lies entirely outside of the USA, I would definitely say so. There’s more awareness. I will say there’s quite a lot of weirdness online around the word “autistic” or “autism” being associated with certain kinds of behaviour among chronically online youth and tbh adults too.

I have been called ‘acoustic’ or ‘neurospicy’ by people entirely outside of the neurodivergence sphere and that personally makes me pretty pissed off and is a new phenomenon. I feel like it’s just a way to replace the r-slur and indirectly make fun of autistic people. I also don’t use those terms for myself and it’s like… one thinf if someone who’s neurodivergent wants to use them on me but if it’s a NT it just makes me cringe.

Autistic advocacy: I’ll be honest, I’m not a fan of its current state. I was too young to be involved more than a couple years ago but it is so so high-masking LSN autistic focused. It makes me feel left out and I am LSN, just outside of the Perfect Mold I feel people like Devon Price propagate. I also personally really dislike Devon Price’s work (Unmasking Autism carries what I feel like is a lot of hatred to MSN/HSN/low masking autism, not that I’ll deny its helped some people on their own journey).

I’m also kind of thrown-off by the way a lot of autistic advocates are focusing on what I’d consider smaller issues to the real issue in autistic spaces: it is too hard and takes too long to get diagnosed, especially as an adult. This depends on your locality of course but I feel like we’ve kind of turned over and tried to completely demedicalise autism entirely (a la anti-psychiatry) and turn it into a social difference, but I feel like the current crisis happening in Australia is a sign that this is not the route we should be going down. (There’s been a severe inflation of levels because Level 1 autistics are no longer being counted as ‘disabled’… and hence not being able to access support.)

But that discussion is just not being had which is frustrating.

The Big Plus is autistic people are becoming the autistic advocacy rather than being represented purely by the NT population - not that I don’t think there’s a space for some allistics in autism advocacy spaces.

This may’ve been slightly all over the place because again I’m super distractable today but yeah.

[hamiltonianhorsey]

Autism Acceptance Month Prompts

Day 2^3-1: Talk about autistic characters in media. What are your favorite canon autistic characters? Are there any characters that you view as autistic, that aren't officially so? What about them makes you think they are autistic? How do you relate to them? What would you like to see in autistic characters in the future?

Explosion of questions so I’m going through them one-by-one and colour coding because the ADHD is fierce today.

What are your favorite canon autistic characters?

Depends what counts as ‘canon’ — one undeniably autistic character is Nathan from X+Y (I think it’s called A Brilliant Young Mind in the US) because it’s about an autistic maths nerd.. so duh. I don’t see it talked about a lot in terms of autism representation but I really enjoyed it when I watched it as a child. I haven’t rewatched as an adult though and it came out in 2014ish so idk if it holds up now.

Are there any characters that you view as autistic, that aren't officially so? What about them makes you think they are autistic?

Beth Harmon from The Queen’s Gambit - though I believe her personality is also just the effect of trauma. I’ve both read the book and watched the series and stitching together the experiences I feel like Beth toes the line between (C)PTSD and ASD. Like she has social difficulties (even compared to the other orphans) and an obvious special interest. idk. I see both interpretations being accurate.

How do you relate to them?

I really related to the way she always seemed on the outside of the other kids, especially other girls once she got older, and how she finally found her group when she fully engaged with chess. She also then ended up, imo, developing a really strong reliance on her chess skills to maintain a stable self image which yepyep. Also the way she isolated herself and cut off everyone when she wasn’t doing well.

What would you like to see in autistic characters in the future?

More HSN representation… from a compassionate and autistic-person-centred POV.

Autistic representation where the autistic person doesn’t have a special skill or even special interest.

[hamiltonianhorsey]

People of Mathblr, what field would you say best describes what you’re doing, or what you’d like to do in the future? (Choose what your heart tells you is the correct option, I couldn’t get more specific.)

Algebra

Analysis

Combinatorics

Discrete Mathematics

Geometry

Number Theory

Logic

Probability / Statistics

Topology

Applied

Computational

Something outside of mathematics

Voting ended onApr 9

[hamiltonianhorsey]

Poll is done! And 44 logicians are on Mathblr. I note this is above 23, and there are probably less than 365 institutes with developed mathematical logic faculties in the world (in my experience, someone with higher knowledge correct me if I’m wrong). Do with this information what you will.

[hamiltonianhorsey]

One of the suckiest parts about when I’m going through a tougher phase with ADHD is that I get genuinely depressed when I can’t engage with mathematics for sustained amounts of time (autistic special interest) and the depression exacerbates the ADHD…. and it goes on and on in a cycle until I feel terrible and life sucks.

[hamiltonianhorsey]

Love how my neurodivergence makes it so that sometimes I unhealthily lock-in for 72 hours straight and other times I struggle to focus for five minutes on literally anything

Really cool

I love not even being able to predict myself in this rapid and unpredictable world haha hahah hahhh

[hamiltonianhorsey]

Anyway just booked an appointment to hopefully get some more meds or I’m worried I’m going to dissociate into a sea of distractability :D

[hamiltonianhorsey]

Love how my neurodivergence makes it so that sometimes I unhealthily lock-in for 72 hours straight and other times I struggle to focus for five minutes on literally anything

Really cool

I love not even being able to predict myself in this rapid and unpredictable world haha hahah hahhh

[hamiltonianhorsey]

Autism Acceptance Month Prompts

Day 3!: Do you feel that autism affects the way that you view/interact with media? In what ways? Talk about it.

Ohh definitely, I’m not a huge consumer of fictional media - which I think is quite typical - but when I do it’s almost always related to my special interests. Having ADHD as well definitely plays into this - I’m okay reading but my attention struggles with tv/movies. And when I do read it’s almost always non-fiction… especially textbooks. Especially especially maths textbooks. Because someone needs to fulfil the stereotype I guess. :)

But I was a really big fiction reader growing up! I might’ve had a small hyperfixation on those Warrior Cats books and I had a few other smaller series close to my heart. It also helped me a lot understanding other people’s perspectives and developing empathy in a way that wasn’t possible for me without some assistance. Literature especially was gold for this (and still is! I need to read more).

[hamiltonianhorsey]

Something specifically about algebraic geometers (& friends) and assuming every maths student they meet is one day going to study algebraic geometry.

Before I’d even began university I was being told “oh just wait until you’re in algebraic geometry!”

When I complained about intro to topology being hard? “Oh don’t worry it’ll make sense when you take algebraic geometry!”

I have not once stated a particular interest in algebra or geometry. I do not know why you all try to convert me. Help.

[hamiltonianhorsey]

Language certificates are a normalised scam. Just talk to me dude.

[hamiltonianhorsey]

Why do you need a paper from the Supreme Mugwump Council proving I’m an R2D2. What does that even mean.

[hamiltonianhorsey]

Language certificates are a normalised scam. Just talk to me dude.

[hamiltonianhorsey]

There’s this one thread of posts on mathblr of people going back and forth on whether you should prove every important lemma (in your subfield) yourself and like

Guys I thought we got over this argument when we accepted the Four Colour Theorem

[pv1isalsoimportant]

Apparently my experiences aren't universal so I'm making a poll.

Some clarifications:

Local student = you're studying in the country you're from

Foreign student = studying in a different country than you're from

Talk to = just who do you talk to more

Postdocs/other people employed at the university also count

Tag if you can speak the language of the country where you're studying

Count students that are technically from different country but close enough (know the language, from neighboring/culturally similar countries) as whatever you like

Please reblog for reach

Who do you talk to at your department?

I'm a local student and I talk to local students

I'm a local student and I talk to foreign students

I'm a local student and I talk to both equally

I'm a foreign student and I talk to local students

I'm a foreign student and I talk to foreign students

I'm a foreign student and I talk to both equally

Voting ended onApr 12

[hamiltonianhorsey]

People of Mathblr, what field would you say best describes what you’re doing, or what you’d like to do in the future? (Choose what your heart tells you is the correct option, I couldn’t get more specific.)

Algebra

Analysis

Combinatorics

Discrete Mathematics

Geometry

Number Theory

Logic

Probability / Statistics

Topology

Applied

Computational

Something outside of mathematics

Voting ended onApr 9

[hamiltonianhorsey]

Logicians still being over-represented tickles me. And not, like, by a little bit - by a massive huge amount. 35 whole logicians so far. That’s more logicians than in almost all* universities.

[hamiltonianhorsey]

Autism Acceptance Month Prompts

Day √(3^2+4^2): Do you often interact with other autistic people? Online or in person? Do you find it harder, easier, about the same difficulty as with neurotypical people?

I find this quite a hard question to answer because there’s more diversity within the spectrum than outside of it. So I find it both easier and harder. Most of my answers come from my experiences offline because that’s what pops to mind first.

For one, my preferred social interactions come from mathematicians and maths students so there’s the element of (1) shared interest in my special interest, and (2) higher than average rates of neurodiversity. There’s quite a few people I know diagnosed with ASD (even more with ADHD) who I know from maths.

That said my interactions with the autistic community outside of mathematics has been very prone to making me feel Left Out. I think I’m a little further into the spectrum than the average Autistic person, which is accepted outside of autistic spheres because people are able to accomodate. But within autistic community people can be a lot less accepting of those less able than they are, in my experience, or only able to accomodate in a way that feels inherently infantilising.

I also come from a priviliged background and come off as the almost textbook Autistic Stereotype. I’ve had to deal with comments about my having “little white boy autism” (I’m only half white and a woman soo) or having the narrative pushed onto me that diagnosis is inherently a privilege (it certainly can be, but in general it’s just a Thing - it can be used both for or against me).

So specifically autistic communities have really put me off - especially in terms of infantilisation, being referred to as a white boy (I’m a cis woman, but it’s still ewggfh) and generally feeling like my voice gets marginalised puts me off the Autistic community (at least in the areas I lived. But most my friends are neurodivergent by coincidence so it’s a nuanced issue.

[hamiltonianhorsey]

Autism Acceptance Month Prompts

Day 2↑↑2: Talk about online social interaction. Do you feel that being able to interact with others online, such as on social media, has been a positive or negative thing for you? Do you think its easier, harder, about the same as in person communication?

I’m not the most socially-motivated so this isn’t the kind of thing that I’d put a lot of thought into; I feel like my friends always end up getting scattered to the wind so communication online has been massively helpful in that respect. Also in widening my social circle and getting to know more people I’d have never necessarily met in real life.

I think it’s about the same difficulty as in-person social interaction which is to say… difficult lol. I do benefit more in real-life in that people can “tell” I struggle with social interaction from abnormal body language, etc. But I don’t think the difference is super noticeable.

[lighthouseweeper]

I’m bored so I’m going to show everyone the topological dog again