How the world works

Basically since I've been 9 years old I am on this mission to figure out how our world works. By now pretty much convinced I did that because I am autistic and so much in this world didn't make sense to me. But after more or less 30 years of doing so, I have come to one or two conclusions I want to share here.

[studiesofanalienplanet]

Incels - and Evolutionary Phenomenon?

We all know them the so proclaimed „involuntary celibates“ their ideology is based on hate, misogyny, egoism, violence and the idea that men are inherently better and it would be their right to get sex.

However they fail to understand the base concept of evolution. A lot of them are fans of the concept of „alpha males“ a male who dominates a group of women. Like they see in apes like Chimpanzees or Gorillas. However they fail to understand that humans are not apes in that sense.

Evolution key interest is survival. And therefore mechanism exist, to select for „the fittest“ which is in fact „the best adapted“.  But how that looks can vary much depending on species.

Just think of the pretty birds putting on elaborated dances to convince a female to mate. Growing colorful plumage to show how healthy they are. Or even males staging fights to see who is the strongest.

The aim is in all cases to CONVINCE the female to mate them.

Now, we need to understand how evolution has worked for humans. First: We are group animals. Not unlike apes. Our survival rests on the shoulders of the whole group and therefore a functioning as a group is „survival of the fittest“. It is in the end „survival of the most social“.

In the book „Basically Good, Rutger Bregman talks about the „homo puppy“ summarizing our evolution as humans as a „domestication“ of apes, because she show a lot of similar traits with domestic animals today.

And most of these traits can be attributed to a single selection parameter: Friendliness.

In Russia in the past century a study with foxes was conducted to understand what domestication does evolutionary. The only trait the animals were selected for was: Friendliness.

And soon they showed traits we know from dogs: Puppy eyes and wagging their tail. Traits known for social communication - with us. Also their social intelligence increased.

Rutger Bregman also talks about how the developments like blushing (we are the only animal species who does) and our white eyes as well as our eyebrows make it easy to read the face and emotions even of a stranger.

And so the science goes on: We humans in fact became humans by self-selecting for friendliness.

Now we get back to the Incels.

If we summarize up their traits they do not appear very friendly. They especially do not appear very friendly to woman.

Combining that with the idea that humans select for friendliness… I am afraid the truth is that yes: Evolution is currently deselecting them from humanity. further source on the topic and the fox domestication:

The evolutionary advantage of being friendly

We've all heard the term "survival of the fittest," which scientist Charles Darwin famously coined to explain how organisms with heritable t

How to Tame a Fox and (Maybe) Domesticate a Human

Domesticated foxes in Siberia suggest that we humans have self-domesticated ourselves.

[captainjonnitkessler]

Not "humans are inherently good" or "humans are inherently evil" but a secret third thing (humans are inherently social animals which means that we're very good at cooperating and being compassionate towards those we perceive as being part of our community but we're also very good at being tribal and violent towards those we perceive as threats to our community and everyone defines their community differently)

[captainjonnitkessler]

"So what, you think humans are inherently bigots? You think it's natural to be racist?" Look man, I wish I had an answer for you. I really do. But unfortunately all my funding requests for an experiment to put a thousand babies of varying ethnicities on a big island to be raised by silent robots in complete isolation from any existing societies to see what happens when they grow up and form their own society keeps getting rejected because it's "implausible" and "horrifically evil" and "my god, first the linguists and now you, what is WRONG with you people" or whatever

[studiesofanalienplanet]

Or like "An overwhelming majority of humans is good = social, cooperative and helps out their neighboring humans so they can survive together and pitch in into the communal pool"

"A small percentage is not good = exploits all the cooperative and social humans for their own gain, cause if they keep their share and get community resources they end up with more resources than others!"

And everyone is afraid that this person from a different group might be the later category. But you won't know for sure until you do offer cooperation and pay trust forward.

Which also explains: Humans are exceedingly fast in regarding other humans as just another friendly human if you give them any excuses to see that person as a person with their individual struggles and common interests.

= the more people interact with a diverse group of people the less bigot they become. (As long as like they interact on a personal human to human level and not as members of some arbitrary constellation of 'tribe') Which is why this "Everyone who XYZ raise their hands" is such a strong community building activity cause then you see the groups/tribes/different identities starting to overlap eroding that vision of "us and them" because "us and them" gets mixed up with every new "Who xyz..."

[captainjonnitkessler]

Not "humans are inherently good" or "humans are inherently evil" but a secret third thing (humans are inherently social animals which means that we're very good at cooperating and being compassionate towards those we perceive as being part of our community but we're also very good at being tribal and violent towards those we perceive as threats to our community and everyone defines their community differently)

[captainjonnitkessler]

"So what, you think humans are inherently bigots? You think it's natural to be racist?" Look man, I wish I had an answer for you. I really do. But unfortunately all my funding requests for an experiment to put a thousand babies of varying ethnicities on a big island to be raised by silent robots in complete isolation from any existing societies to see what happens when they grow up and form their own society keeps getting rejected because it's "implausible" and "horrifically evil" and "my god, first the linguists and now you, what is WRONG with you people" or whatever

[studiesofanalienplanet]

Or like "An overwhelming majority of humans is good = social, cooperative and helps out their neighboring humans so they can survive together and pitch in into the communal pool"

"A small percentage is not good = exploits all the cooperative and social humans for their own gain, cause if they keep their share and get community resources they end up with more resources than others!"

And everyone is afraid that this person from a different group might be the later category. But you won't know for sure until you do offer cooperation and pay trust forward.

Which also explains: Humans are exceedingly fast in regarding other humans as just another friendly human if you give them any excuses to see that person as a person with their individual struggles and common interests.

= the more people interact with a diverse group of people the less bigot they become. (As long as like they interact on a personal human to human level and not as members of some arbitrary constellation of 'tribe') Which is why this "Everyone who XYZ raise their hands" is such a strong community building activity cause then you see the groups/tribes/different identities starting to overlap eroding that vision of "us and them" because "us and them" gets mixed up with every new "Who xyz..."

[studiesofanalienplanet]

There is actually a very fundamental principle in Human interaction, but barely someone ever talks about it. It’s not altruism, although it often gets mixed up with it. But there is the fundamental principle of helping and getting help. Like when I go and do something to help you, it’s with the fundamental concept and agreement, that if I ask you for help at some point, you’ll help me back.

And you can find the principle all over. It’s the only reason todays societies are functioning. They do so on the principle of „I contribute to the wellbeing of the group and so the group helps me back.“

If you want it’s the basic concept of splitting up work.

And here is the thing why group projects are so rarely liked. If you contribute something to the project, but the others or one of them doesn’t put in the amount of work or resources they should, this fundamental principle gets violated.

And that’s something people instinctively know. Except for a few individuals which you might call „Egoists“. Because for a few individuals it pays off to not do the work and surf on the other peoples „I help you, so…“

But at some point, if you have too many people who have forgotten the „so I help you back“ part, the system crumbles. Because if I can’t pay my help forward and trust to get helped back in return, when I need help. Then it doesn’t pay off for me. And I stop offering „I help you, so…“

But the problem is, that a lot of the activities of the past decades has been practically aimed at destroying this fundamental principle. We put people on pedestals who violate this principle on a daily basis. We put people on pedestals, who exploit that principle and take and take and take from people, amassing resources for themselves. And then they tell everyone „Do the same. Stop holding up your side of the bargain.“

And some people listen, because they can see it is working for them. And then you have one more person not holding up the principle of equal exchange. And the whole concept crumbles a little bit more.

That’s the state of the world we a in right now. Too many people have stopped believing in the fundamental principle of human help economy.

They are still a minority by the way. But the harm they do on the world is real. And it has gone into the degree where people are seeing that the principle gets violated. And start to demand change.

[studiesofanalienplanet]

Have recently thought about autism again.

And I am absolutely convinced that autism is a survival trait for humans.

Like I studied Ecology, Evolution, Conservation (name of the study course). So I know stuff about nature. I know stuff about how our ecosystem works. A know a loooot about how evolution works. And as a side interest I know stuff about human evolution.

And if we think about the origin of humans... Thick forests, looking for ripe fruits. Spotting hiding predators. Or poisonous insects.

Now... what is a trait very often found in autism? Focus on details. So consider a foraging group... and there being some autistic people in it. They might easily spot the ripe fruits in the greenery. They might be the ones stopping suddenly because something in that bush doesn't look right and warn the others. They might be the one spotting that snake on the pathway, pulling back the person about to step on it.

Humans survive as a group. And having people filling this spot, ensures better survival of the group. More ripe fruits found. More predator avoided. Less deaths of poisonous bites.

So there... evolution never came around to solve autism, because it is a trait that makes humans successful. And that's pretty much all evolution always cares about.

[studiesofanalienplanet]

I’ve thought a lot about the world… and came up with some fundamental principles to navigate the complexity of it and still feel good about myself.

First: All humans are Homo sapiens. I am a Homo sapiens and so all other humans are my kin. And my kin obviously deserve to be treated with respect and like I want to be treated.

Second: Homo sapiens, who do bad stuff, are bad humans. Sadly they are still my kin, but I do not want to associate with them and I might stand against them and what they do.

Third: Homo sapiens in the end are also just animals, so we are just part of the animal kingdom and other animals deserve to be treated respectfully because they are basically just cousins.

Fourth: Plants support all life on earth, so they deserve humble respect for that. Like seriously. They are awesome.

Fifth: Fungi are demigods and you can only bow to their sheer force of unbelievable feats and humbly ask for them to give you their blessings like Penicillin instead of their curses.

[onethirdofimpossible]

Hello friends, there's a dogwhistle I've seen used a couple times on tumblr that I want to discuss.

Fellow neurodivergents especially, please listen-- towards the end of this post I describe how some in our community have been using it without knowing what it means.

A fairly common antisemitic dogwhistle used amongst alt-right circles on the internet is being a "noticer," "noticing patterns," "pattern noticer," etc. I've seen this from a couple Tumblr blogs I follow reblogging memes and such that use this term but don't provide any context about what sorts of "things" they may be noticing.

Here's the meme that I saw a blog I'm following reblog last night.

Seems pretty harmless, right? It's a meme with a cute cat.

In alt-right circles, what they are referring to "noticing" is the conspiracy theory that Jews control the world/"noticing" evidence of an imagined globalist (read: Jewish) world order/etc. If you see a meme that uses terms like "noticing patterns" that doesn't elaborate what those supposed patterns are-- just leaves you to fill in the blank yourself-- take a look at the types of things OP might be posting. The alt-right has an idea that it's forbidden to talk about who might be behind the "conspiracies" they talk about (again, the target is frequently Jewish people) so lack of context is often a red flag.

I sent the blog who reblogged this an ask informing them that the meme was a dogwhistle. If you see someone reblog something like this, check what they've been posting. If this seems like an isolated incident, the person probably reblogged it not knowing what the term actually meant. That's why dogwhistles are so effective-- to the average person they look harmless if you don't know what to watch out for!

Let's take a look at how alt-righters use this term.

Here's an alt-right definition of it from Urban Dictionary.

Oh boy, this one gets a bigotry bingo for all the dogwhistles used here. If I miss any, feel free to comment. Here are the ones I found:

-Noseticing: Noticing plus nose, based on the stereotype for Jewish people to have large noses.

-"those who cannot be named"/skirting around saying Jew: again the idea that it's forbidden to talk about who they think is behind their conspiracy theories.

-"world events and agendas": idea that Jewish people have a Globalist agenda etc etc

-Degeneracy: Nazi term to describe the behaviors/people they find undesirable.

-Early life: refers to the section in a person's Wikipedia page. If a person was brought up Jewish, it'll usually say so there.

-Oy vey: a Jewish exclamation of exasperation that Nazis have unfortunately co-opted when talking about Jewish people.

Here's probably the most obviously antisemitic meme I found.

The title and first bullet point include the "noticer" term. This meme also talks about a "group" who controls wealth. Who might the poster be referring to here?

Here's a Twitter account with many similar alt-right terms. Explicitly identifies as a Nazi and ethno-nationalist, etc etc.

A couple other pages. I clicked on them to see if I could find any more examples but the first seemed pretty blank and the second... Well, I don't have a twitter so I couldn't view.

Let's unpack these a little. The first one has "13 outta 52," a statistic used among white supremacists to depict Black people (especially African-Americans) as "savage": 13 referring to the percentage of America that is Black and 52 referring to the alleged percentage of murders in the U.S. that are committed by Black people. "109 countries" refers to the idea that Jewish people have been expelled from 109 countries during history. (Which isn't entirely true. Some "countries" in this count are actually cities, regions, etc.) Some white supremacists may use the number 110 instead to suggest that it should happen again.

The second one has a blurb alleging a global sterilization effort and concerns of fertility. This is likely in connection to pro-natalism for white people. If Nazis want a so-called "Aryan nation," they're going to want white people to populate it, and so they encourage white people to have babies for their cause. Nazi Germany employed this tactic as well, even awarding "Aryan" German women who had four or more children for their contributions to the Nazi cause.

The reason why I'm emphasizing that context matters is that some neurodivergent people have seen this and co-opted it into neurodivergent circles. As a person who is Jewish and autistic, this is pretty alarming to me. I'll show a couple examples from Tumblr:

And

I've left out the URLs of the OPs because I want to give the benefit of the doubt-- they both explicitly refer to being a "pattern noticer" in terms of neurodivergence. And it's easy to see why introducing this term to ND folks would be an easy way to get a dogwhistle passed off as harmless! Since autistic people often have analytical minds, we often make connections that others might not be able to see. But unfortunately, using terms like this only makes it much easier for antisemites to fly under the radar.

Stay safe and let's keep Tumblr free of this shit.

[nertheborg]

TLDR: Dog Whistles that use Nervo-diversity to hide antisemitism. "A Pattern Noticer"

[brightlotusmoon]

[teaboot]

Okay but can anyone articulate the mindset that leads older people to feel like they NEED to know people's gender identity all the time? Like what's going on there

[teaboot]

Cause it feels like I've had a hundred xonversations with cis straight people around 40-60 years old that goes like

Person: Did you see that?

Me: See what?

Person: That. It, him, whatever they're called

Me: (Sees a femme with masculine features)

Me: What about them

Person: Well what is that? He's dressed in women's clothes, so is he-it, they- What does that mean?

Me: I mean. If you're concerned about pronouns you can probably ask

Person: But do I call it a Mister or a miss?

Me: Well uh. That depends on what they tell you but "them" is usually safe.... but based on their makeup, hair, and heels I don't think they'd be mad if you assumed thry were a lady

Me: So like. I'd say she's probably just. Here for the event

Person: That's fine, I get that, I don't have a problem with trans people, I just don't get how you're supposed to know

Person: Like how do you know if someone is transsexual or just cross dressing?

Me: Uhhhhhhhh

Me: I mean

Me: I don't know. Any cross dressers. Who would be offended by being pronoun'd by their outfit. But like.

Me: I guess if you choose wrong. And they correct you. Then you just.... apologize and use what they tell you?

Me: .... Do you plan on talking to them?

Person: No

Me: Then why d. Why does it matter

Person: I'm just trying to understand

Me: And that's great! But like. You don't need to

Person: What

Me: You don't need to. Necessarily. Understand. You know?

Person: Huh

Me: They're here for the event. You don't have to interact with them. In two hours they'll go home and you'll never see them again

Person: I'm just confused

Me: You're allowed to be confused

Me: You can stay confused

Me: It's not illegal

[vaspider]

There are strict rules about how to be polite to people and how to treat them in public based on gender & older people had those rules taught heavily (& in some cases literally beaten in to them). If they don't know someone's gender, they may feel like they literally don't know how to correctly interact with them. Do I hold the door even if they're a ways away when I go through the door? Do I stand up when they come into a room? (My dad does this; he was taught it was polite for a man to stand up if a woman comes into the room, where he wouldn't stand up if it was a guy. I don't know why that's the rule, but it is.)

A lot of those rules are no longer really in use at all, but it has helped me to start translating some of that for the older people in my life once I realized that. Oh, right. The rules they taught me and that I've mostly disregarded are, like, super fucking gendered. It probably makes them feel really anxious if they don't know what social scripts to use. It would probably help if I addressed that anxiety about how to treat that person.

And you know what? It seems to help.

[writer-at-the-table]

It's also entirely normal for people to want to resolve confusion.

I'm not sure what about that is surprising

[vaspider]

Yeah, but unless there's smth else behind it, most people can cope with "you don't need to know."

I'm only speaking to my experience but I've found, "You don't need to know "what they are," but if you're worried about treating them incorrectly, or rudely, I can try to help you with that," defuses the situation a lot of the time.

[sanjerina]

This 👆 - my siblings are in their 70s, my parents would be 95 right now (I was a late accident). The social rules my parents taught and my siblings learned were very very much about gender. Those rules didn’t ease up until the 1970s and there was backlash in the 1980s for a lot of them.

Most (cis) people my age and older (early 50s) have either had to very carefully rewrite that early code after exposure to queer culture, or they still feel completely at sea when they can’t pin down a person’s gender, and it creates a lot of anxiety for them. I’m not saying that excuses any transphobic behavior at all, by anyone of any age. Still, it’s worth keeping in mind that a LOT of the resistance and discomfort is, as @vaspider was above, a kind of social anxiety.

If you can replace that anxiety with guidelines for how to interact appropriately, most people are able to follow those rules and be kind.

Some people dig in, of course, but you can’t fix willful ignorance. You can, however, fix the regular kind, one interaction at a time.

[crafting-and-tea]

Some people dig in, of course, but you can’t fix willful ignorance. You can, however, fix the regular kind, one interaction at a time.

[studiesofanalienplanet]

It's basically cognitive dissonance at play. Not knowing how to treat these people makes them feel awkward, they don't want to feel awkward, so they might blame these people for causing the issues that make them feel awkward/confused. => teaching people how to navigate around them, makes them feel less awkward/confused so they don't have these negative feelings around them anymore. (Also I believe that all people in the end want to be able to view themselves as good people. And the conflict is when they want/know they should be respectful to these people but don't know how (or don't want to learn how). So they don't know how to be good people again, which sadly also might lead to devaluing these people/blame them/so on... so they can argue with themselves that ignoring the new pronouns and similar doesn't make them bad people after all.)