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PaperclipPerfector  19d ago (text post)   30868 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 23, 2025

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Yeah, the feeling is almost like I'm being shocked, it tickles in an uncomfortable way. I don't know enough about fabrics to say what actually triggers it.

I used to be very sensitive to noise. When I first rode on an airplane as a little kid, my mom had to buy some of these earplanes which were made to equalize pressure but also work well to reduce noise. This was back when turboprop planes were still in use at some regional airports in the US.

Well, still am I guess, but it's a lot better. I have to cover my ears during fireworks shows. Which is probably a good thing -- even fireworks explosions sometimes get loud enough that it could damage your hearing.

It's also true that I have a penchant for repetitive fidgeting. I have a box of fidget toys I keep on my desk.

I don't know that autism was ever really suspected, but my mom did have several books on her bookshelf whose titles rounded off to "What To Do If Your Child Is A Weirdo" and my social development was somewhat stunted. As far as I know, I don't have any relatives with either suspected or diagnosed autism. I do have first cousins with OCD, and OCD-like traits would probably explain my excessive concern for contamination and orderliness.

I don't know that I ever met diagnostic criteria for autism, although some people in my life have occasionally suggested it. But it is definitely true that I share some traits in common with high-functioning autism.

The diagnostic criteria specify a level of impairment, which is clinical and in need of services. Thus subclinical autism is a real thing, but by definition cannot be diagnosed. I wouldn’t be eligible for diagnosis today, but up through about age 35 my impairment was significant and obvious.

What helped you improve your functioning? (I realize that’s a very personal question.)

Mine had almost no sensory issues; primarily social blindness, dyspraxia (clumsiness, stereotypically picked last in gym class or on the playground), and a touch of faceblindness.

I couldn’t understand emotions until I discovered a philosophical ontology in early 2001, which made me aware of emotions and how pervasive they are, but not how to use them right. I spent five years becoming codependent best friends with mood disordered people, then cut them out of my life, and then five years blindly trying to extract myself from their mind games and mind mazes.

Then in November 2010, in my darkest depths, I discovered My Little Pony Friendship is Magic. The show modeled good friendships, but also taught me the hidden mechanics of friendship through the framing device of small-town businessmares befriending an autistic grad student learning magical sociology. Just the first season reduced my blindness to emotions and good relationships to nearly none. The third season finale helped me understand even more.

Here’s what I’ve learned:

  1. Accurate philosophy, primarily ontology (lists of categories of things) can act as medication to us with autistic traits.
  2. Emotions are a third of human reality when viewed one way, four sevenths when viewed another, so understanding their hidden rules is important for living in this world. My emotional instincts may be impaired, but I excel at understanding systems, functions, and rules, so I set my mind to understanding.
  3. From Triessentialism: There are three types of emotions: identities, relationships, and imperatives. They can be caused by any experience, and need not correspond to the reality they model. Identity emotions are positive and negative valuations of (thing) that is (type), and can be in first, second, or third person, singular or plural. Relationship emotions are in the form of paired roles and distributed duties which one believes of oneself and the other person or people in the relationship. Imperatives are wants and needs which drive people toward or away from things, experiences, etc.
  4. From My Little Pony: the five Elements of Harmony are essential virtues underlying all mammalian relationships, from married lovers all the way to pets and their masters: Kindness, Honesty, Loyalty, Generosity, and Laughter. If they are in balance, supplied by all members of the relationship according to their ability, it will be harmonious. If one party goes against these virtues, leaving the other to supply them, it’s codependent. If two or more Elements are constantly betrayed, it’s toxic.
  5. Inspired by My Little Pony: the closeness of relationships is not just quantitative based on how long people are friends. There are three qualitative levels of friendship. Acquaintances share attributes, such as being neighbors, attending the same school, being in the same trade, or sharing an identity emotion such as being LGBTQ, furry, Christian, Chinese, etc. Friends share experiences, their nervous systems humming in tune at similar stimuli and offering similar responses, possibly working together for similar goals. Ohana share purpose, such as lovers looking to build a life, brothers at arms protecting each other sacrificially, parents giving up their entertainments to raise children, found family holding and healing each others’ griefs, and so on. Another way to see it is to think of who you invite into each room of a house: acquaintances in the living room, restroom, and dining room, friends in the kitchen and den, and ohana in the bedroom.
  6. The Fourth Step Moral Inventory of twelve step groups like CoDependents Anonymous can be performed with awareness of the Elements of Harmony, Levels of Friendship, and Ontology of Emotions. Doing so can help people understand the unconscious emotions they’ve built their successes and failures upon, the reasons behind their addictions, habits, hurts, and hang-ups.

This is enough material for a two hundred page book, but this summary is my answer to you.

I love MLP too. A bit offtopic, but are you into reading MLP fanfiction by any chance?

Yes indeed. You can find my FiMfiction account under this username. Do you have a recommendation?

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