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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   1990 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.

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.

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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