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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   1991 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for April 3, 2026

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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"Am I German or Autistic?"

http://german.millermanschool.com/

(I am neither German nor autistic, but it's good to confirm, through a psychometrically validated instrument that I'm a regular dude. Uh, I don't remember my results but I think it was 38% German and like 10% autistic?)

CategoryRating
German47 %
Autistic58 %
OverallWittgenstein

You have, apparently, both the cultural formation that produces systematic people and the neurological substrate that makes systematic thinking feel like breathing. This is either a significant advantage or an explanation for certain recurring difficulties in your life. Probably both.

Schopenhauer also fits here. So does Ramanujan, though he wasn't German. The category isn't German or autistic—it's people for whom the gap between how things are and how they ought to be is not an abstraction but a constant, low-grade irritation.

My mother tells me that I was diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome at some point, but she doesn't have any of the court files to prove it.

I doubt that I have any German heritage, though my mother does hail from a former Danish colony.

Just show me the formatted table post and not the username and I could've guessed it was you.

This website's Markdown implementation does not support the fancy hyphens-and-pipes table syntax that Reddit's implementation supports, so users are forced to type the table HTML manually—and that's a good thing™. More people should learn (X)HTML. Typing HTML in a plaintext editor often is more relaxing than typing in a WYSIWYG text editor.

  • You don't have to mess with Character Map or AutoCorrect in order to type en and em dashes, subtraction, multiplication, and division symbols, directional quotation marks, etc.; and you don't have to guess at what specific character a horizontal line is when you see it long after you typed it. Instead, you can just type a character reference (picked from a default list in HTML or a fully custom list in XHTML)—& ndash; & mdash;, & minus;, & times;, & div;, & ldquo;, & rdquo;, etc. (without the spaces)—and it will remain perfectly legible in the plaintext forever.

  • You don't have to mess with invisible section divisions and style changes, constantly having to guess whether Word has actually done what you wanted it to do. Sections are clearly visible elements, and styles are clearly visible classes. Nothing is ambiguous.

  • I think there was recently a discussion here regarding how learning a second language enables a person to better understand his first language. Likewise, learning HTML enables a person to better understand what Microsoft Word is trying to do behind the scenes while you clumsily interact with its interface.

Entirely within my expectations, ngl. I do think Aspergers deserves a place in modern psychiatric taxonomy, when up to 80% of people with autism have learning disabilities, then it at least served as a convenient shorthand for those of normal or above average intelligence. Well, I don't get consulted on either the ICD or the DSM, at least not yet.

When I was younger my friends swore that I was autistic because I was never afraid to say ‘anything’ to anybody. It was made worse by the fact that I spent a lot of time growing up in the hood. My friends were afraid I was going say something that was going to get us shot. I’ve been jumped before a number of times by over a dozen people. But it wasn’t uncommon with most of us, we all got into several fights. Once you’re in hell, only the Devil can help you out. You had to fight to establish yourself in the pecking order among the boys and even if you didn’t gangbang (which I didn’t), you still had to be affiliated with the clique, just to get by and survive. I can remember doing homework in the hospital with bruises all over my body once when people used to come and visit me. One of my friends, she still makes fun of me when we have the opportunity to hang out, because I have this habit of walking I sometimes slip into that she calls my “ghetto strut,” and she grew up in the same area I did and we've known each other for decades, so she could immediately tell where I was from. The influences sometimes still rub off on you.

Socialization was always one of those things that was difficult for me because I had no capability to be fluid with it. I improved enormously as time went on, but things still seem rigid at times as if I’m searching for the appropriate or correct answer that speaks to the moment, and there isn’t a lot of natural flow to it. I tend not to pickup on context very well. If someone comes up to me and restarts a previous conversation we had from the point we last touched upon, I’ll have ‘zero’ idea what they’re talking about unless they clarify things prior to picking it back up (e.g., “so about earlier,” “to answer that question you asked awhile ago,” “remember when you said X earlier today,” etc.).

Never been diagnosed in any way. But my friends were always fascinated by things I could do and gifts they thought I had; and they wanted to know why I was the way I was. Much of it is projection on their part IMO. They’d always have me take these personality tests, and in a couple instances paid for the exams for me to take; and had me do all these really complex mental challenges. I never liked doing them though and always got tired of it, and after awhile I think they finally picked up on it. It’s why I eventually stopped trying so hard in school and only did just enough to get by. I’ve never liked being the center of attention and just wanted to be left alone to pursue the things I liked.

I do not think that being a nerdy (possibly) autistic boy in an actual ghetto is ever a fun time, so I'm sorry you had to go through that but very happy you made it out intact.

I wouldn't even particularly advise you to go get a formal assessment done, at least if you don't see a need for it. Other than closure, for someone like you, all we can really offer is a label and (perhaps) a stronger case for workplace adjustments. If you're already doing fine and feel functional, what's the point?

If you're already doing fine and feel functional, what's the point?

I'm not the person you are responding to, but in my case it was incidental. I went seeking treatment for PTSD and they wanted to sort the tism out first.

Thank you.

Again, I'd never been officially checked or diagnosed with anything, and some people just have general personality quirks. Not everyone connects the same way. If I did have it, I'm pretty high functioning and most people wouldn't suspect it. But even as I've gotten so much better, it's still never one of those things that never comes naturally. Socialization in general is one of those things that always gets easier the more you do it and everyone has bad experiences. How you succeed and in what environment depends very much on whether individuals find 'their people' and group or not. It feels much more natural and at home in the company of close family and friends. I've also strangely never had any problems speaking to large crowds or groups. I’ve gone up against a whole room of people before in debate, and I can do that with ease when others typically run away from the stage or podium.

It feels much more natural and at home in the company of close family and friends. I've also strangely never had any problems speaking to large crowds or groups. I can do that with ease when others typically run away from the stage or podium.

That's fascinating -- me too. I hate smalltalk and I struggle to make connections with a stranger, but I love public speaking even if it makes me nervous. My father is the same way, he is a teaching professor and an extremely animated one, but also extremely introverted and hard to get to know.

I've found, for me at least, it's about feeling in control. I have two ways coping with social anxiety: either curling into a ball and waiting out the clock until I can leave, or making myself the center of attention. Either way, I'm controlling how the rest of the room gets to interact with me.

Hm, interesting. I think for me, maybe for my dad, it's that the situation is structured and in public speaking you're given 'the floor' and people are socially expected to pay attention to you, or at least pretend. So it's an environment where you don't have to fight for airtime. I guess I also like it because it's a situation where you're permitted to monologue without interruption about a topic, which I always find enjoyable. Even if I have to improvise -- I enjoy improvising more than most people enjoy reading a prepared speech. It's like jazz.

But it's the back-and-forth and the fighting for airtime and the having to engage in real-time with ambiguous social dynamics that I find hard to deal with. It's difficult trying to figure out how to say something that's bland enough to not offend but interesting enough to achieve rapport, and then follow up, in real time, with a useful reply that continues that pace, with someone I don't know well.

That’s awesome. You and I are identical in this way. I wonder what explains people like us.

For me, it's about being able to control how others are interacting with me. Whether I'm in the spotlight or on my phone in the corner, it's better than trying to react to small talk. Small groups is just chaos and I hate them.

I obviously am not an illustrious doctor, but it appears to me that the ICD has more or less retained Asperger's syndrome in its table of diagnoses.

6A02 = autism spectrum disorderFunctional language
Mildly impaired or not impairedImpairedCompletely absent or almost completely absent
Disorder of intellectual developmentAbsent6A02.0 ≈ Asperger's syndrome6A02.2—
Present6A02.16A02.3 ≈ childhood disintegrative disorder6A02.5

In the sense that that it recognizes {no intellectual deficit plus some generic autism traits} as a sub-category? Yes. But Aspergers was handy. We got rid of it without a handy epithet to replace it.

It would be like replacing "mild depression" with "depression without suicidality, severe anhedonia, psychomotor retardation..." You have replaced a convenient and pragmatically helpful diagnosis with a more unwieldy one, with no clear benefit.

I am obviously am not an illustrious doctor

Don't worry, neither am I. At least the illustrious part.

psychomotor retardation

Sir, we do not say this anymore lest the cancellation gremlins come for us.

Seriously? Because in the UK, it's still the most common term (with only a minority opting for psychomotor slowdown). I don't think I've ever seen anyone get PC over it so far IRL.

Retard was never quite ubiquitously PC-banned, but there was a lot of spikiness. I grew up in the 90s and 00s in an area with such a spike, such that calling someone a retard or something retarded was probably about equivalent to calling a gay man a faggot. I was quite surprised when I grew up and encountered people in my professional life calling things retarded in the office.

I think it's probably retreated a bit such that it's not considered quite as offensive here anymore, but certainly almost no one ever says it in casual conversation. The last time I heard it in a social situation was a friend's gf who had recently moved into the area, which prompted the friend to stare daggers at her and compel her to shut up.

I've noticed a bit of hubbub in the PC circles due to the distress at this word becoming more common again. Ironically, I feel like this is an example of moral progress: in the 90s, we naively thought that it was morally correct to discourage the use of that word. 30 years later, we've realized that, like slavery or human sacrifice, such a notion was just a primitive belief by a less moral culture that we've outgrown.

Retard was never quite ubiquitously PC-banned, but there was a lot of spikiness.

I'd say it was. Perhaps not will-get-you-fired-banned, but will-get-you-banned-from-fora-and/or-unfriended-banned for sure.

Retard was a highly banned term for half a decade although it is slightly coming back now. PSR got caught in that (with PSR being the way to maintain the term).

Unhoused and undomiciled are still in a fight for supremacy over replacing homeless, although "person of" language may yet sweep in.

… psychomotor retardation...

That almost sounds like a term for road rage.

Good example of specific popular words obscuring the meaning of widespread technical terms.

Retardation is used in a lot of science contexts to refer to slowing or obstructing "retard the motion of..." The most popular usage the slowing of brain referred to as "retarded" as become primary.

Psycho refers to mental stuff in general, but "psycho" (thanks Hitchcock!) now means the one thing...

Quite the opposite. It's most commonly seen in depression, though anabolic steroid abuse does lead to depression, sometimes.

Basically, you know the intuition that depressed people seem to move and speak slower? It's quite true, at least when the depression is severe enough.

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