Life for most of us is just following a bunch of laws you may or may not agree with so you can keep working 40+ hours a week and spending all your money on basic survival
I agree with others in this thread, this has more to do with ethics and critical thinking than with nuerodivigence. And that nuerodivergence seems to be getting conflated here with autism, specifically.
This is not a valid excuse to go into asshole territory. Occasionally, you might not be in a position to understand why things are done a certain way - mostly because of inexperience, or your higher-ups might not have the time to explain the rules to you. Some examples might include regulations or standards.
It’s alright to be humble and recognize that you may not understand some things sometimes. That’s actually how you learn, and avoid pissing off your colleagues.
I follow the rules unless they don’t make sense to me, I must be autistic and neurodivergent omg so quirky.
People, we can just remark on things, we don’t need a unique identifier for every observable opinion in the world. I know its part of finding belonging and community, but you aren’t neurodivergent for questioning the way the world works, you’re critical of your surroundings and that’s a good thing
“My superpower is I don’t listen” is a thing I see repeated way too often on social media.
It’s a sign of intelligence to question the status quo.
And if being intelligent is neurodivergent because the rest of the populace is stupid asf, so be it
This has little to do with autism and more with being smart. No, seriously.
From the English Wikipedia, stages of moral development:
- Obedience and punishment orientation (‘‘How can I avoid punishment?’’)
- Self-interest orientation (‘‘What’s in it for me?’’) (‘‘Paying for a benefit’’)
- Interpersonal accord and conformity (‘‘Social norms’’) (‘‘The good boy/girl attitude’’)
- Authority and social-order maintaining orientation (‘‘Law and order morality’’)
- Social contract orientation
- Universal ethical principles (‘‘Principled conscience’’)
1 and 2 are “Level 1 (Pre-Conventional)” (according to the same article, children and animals have this), 3 and 4 are “Level 2 (Conventional)”, 5 and 6 are “Level 3 (Post-Conventional)”.
The last one is basically thinking around “what if everyone did that?”. Unfortunately, lots of people are at either stage 2 or 4. Sometimes downgrading from 4 to 2 once they become the authority.
This is why I’m Vegan.
It’s very curious to claim neurodivergent people refused to participate in the slave trade, the Holocaust, or white nationalist lynch mobs.
I haven’t seen any evidence to this effect. Certainly, I’ve seen a fair share of evidence against it.
This has little to do with autism and more with being smart.
Intelligent people engage in immoral activities frequently. They get sucked into cults of personality and religious extremism frequently. They are conned frequently.
Intelligence isn’t infalliblity.
It’s very curious to claim neurodivergent people refused to participate in the slave trade
I never did.
Intelligence isn’t infalliblity.
True. Objection, relevance.
Exactly this. Why is everything nowadays neurodivergent…
because it makes people feel special to say they are neurodivergent. it’s a neat label to have for many folks.
it doesn’t make them feel special to say they are lazy entitled jerks… which is usually the behaviour they are reporting on that they claim makes them neurodivergent.
and if you look at the neurodivergent communities on here… a lot of the posts are them basically claiming they have super powers.
it’s the same psychology behind horoscopes, new age religions, flat earthers, etc. people really really really want to feel special and different and superior (or persecuted/victimhood) to ‘everyone else’, and neurodivergent has become yet another way for folks to feel that way about themselves.
I never thought of being ND as “something special”. But yup, probably right. Whatever makes you feel stand out. Another useless trait humans shouldn’t have. The need to be in the center of everything.
So the neurodivergent folk converge on it? This rule of thumb makes no sense to me.
Are you questioning the rule?
Yes, maybe I just didn’t understand it.
you’re clearly not neurodivergent enough. gotta level up
another one that would indicate im apparently not neurodivergent because I have a hard time not following rules regardless. Like to my detriment. Unless i find them like morally wrong.
Not playing a tabletop game with you.
fair but I do understand the concept of house rules. rules just have to be agreed on before the game starts.
Fuck yeah I cheat at Candyland, motherfucker. Watch out!
Well yeah, there are only two kinds of rules:
- The right way to do things
- Stupid bullshit that serves no purpose
If you can’t at least give a basic reasoning for the rule, it’s #2
So neuro divergent are just autistic?
Yah not loving how nd just becomes whichever one you’re thinking of, or just some vague difference. It’s like the “Asian” of cognitive differences.
Like ocd and bpd exist, for examples.
I mean I do it sometimes too, but it does exclude
I’ll just do what causes least harm / most positive things. If following some obscure rule doesnt require worthwhile effort from me then might as well, in case something goes wrong. If there isnt any logical reason to suspect ignoring the rule would cause harm then I’ll just put it lower on the priority about how things are done.
Until i actually know better, i dont want to assume anything poorly explained is irrelevant.
There’s some people who aren’t neurodivergent and do the same. Some people just don’t want to follow rules they don’t understand, which can be pretty annoying
If you can’t explain your rule so it makes sense, your rule is shit and you expecting others to follow it are the actual annoying person.
Very often the reasoning is “convention”. Is that good enough?
If we would blindly follow convention people would still not wash their hands before operating.
Convention alone is not enough. There should be a reason why this convention is needed. And that’s the part that has to be more convincing than “it has always been like that”.
Sound exhausting. If my company tells me to use times new Roman I will just use times new roman instead of investing hours in an investigation.
I’d rather ask if it’s okay to use arial or another sans serif font, than blindly use Times New Roman. And even if I’m forced to, I’d try to undermine this “rule” as much as possible because TNR is not a good screen font.
I’ve heard plenty of unreasonable people say this about completely reasonable rules. Hell, I’ve heard someone say this about seatbelts, “it doesn’t make sense how it isn’t my own decision” lol
Sometimes people just don’t get something. Doesn’t mean the rule is bad if you don’t get it lol
A seatbelt you can’t adjust the height would actually strangle me in a crash. Not that i don’t put it on, but there might be reasons in some cases.
The only argument you need is, can you catch 200 lbs going 45 mph? 25 mph? 1 mph? If the answer is bro, I can’t catch 200 lbs, wear your fucking seat belt.
Now do that with one of the belts going over your neck.
Conversely, if someone is honest and says, “this is just how I like it I’m not really sure why” I’ll at least respect it because they were honest, and a silly (little) rule that exists because of some cope or something is something I can relate to.
As it should be
This isn’t a neurodivergent thing. It’s an intelligent / ethical person thing.
Yeah I agree.
I’m autistic, have a sense of justice being the result of reasonable clear fair and as objective as possible rules being consistently followed…
… but you don’t need to be autistic to adhere to that. You can be ethical, moral, hold yourself to a standard, determine the reasonability of said standard, without being autistic.
Also… neurodivergence is more broad than just autism.
ADHD is a form of neurodivergence. On its own, I don’t see that as being inherently relevant to rule comprehension, consideration or adherence, beyond maybe more complex rules or contingent rulesets taking more effort/exposure/practice to understand, consider or adhere to.
Schizophrenics are neurodivergent. Their ruleset often frequently changes considerably, due to reasons they often cannot explain coherently, and/or the rules they’ll tell you they follow can be incoherent/contradictory.
DID is a form of neurodivergence. Each different identity often has its own significantly distinct ruleset / approach to rules.
Being bipolar is arguably a form of neurodivergence. Such people essentially have two rulesets that they alternate between.
It’s also unlikely to apply to all neurodivergent people, so I don’t know why it was phrased that way.
Because most autists have a stronger sense of rule and most ADHD of ethics. While some don’t. They just didn’t want to be exclusionary.
Yeah, I’ve noticed a real problem on here with that. Claiming neurodivergency for something that some people do and some people don’t.
This is a trait that some people have. Some people do it more and some do it less. If it’s combined with many other symptoms and it makes it difficult for someone to function in society then it might be grounds for a diagnosis.
I think things like this are also just representative of a general shift in society. There’s a lot more education online and elsewhere about the power dynamics in society that might have been ignored or not understood in the past. So this behavior is more prevalent which coincides with an increase in neurodivergency even though those two things aren’t actually correlated.
I don’t think it’s necessarily “a problem on here”, I think this type of assertion is just part of exploring neurodivergency.
Does something really need to make it difficult for someone to function in society in order to be part of a diagnosis? That seems unlikely.
I disagree that this is an “intelligent / ethical person thing”, although I don’t really believe that intelligence and ethics is really measurable in that way.
Yes. It does need to make it difficult to function. That’s one of the core criteria for most diagnoses in the DSM. “Neurodivergency” as a meme and - I guess you can call it a subculture? - on the internet is wholly misunderstood.
It’s really hard to categorize neurodivergency. Particularly in contrast to being “neurotypical”. There isn’t an “average human” that they compare people to on a chart and say “yep, you’re not up to this standard” gavel bang “autism”.
I mean, just think about it. If more than 50% of people exhibited this trait in one way or another, this behavior suddenly becomes neurotypical, since the “typical” person possesses this trait.
But the problem with this, just like your problem with intelligence and ethics is that it’s all impossible to measure. Behaviors like this exist on a spectrum. This is part of my problem with this aspect of the subculture and posts like this. This behavior happens in “neurotypicals” as well. Autism isn’t a switch flipped in your brain that suddenly gives you special traits that neurotypical people don’t have. Autism is a diagnosis that happens when a person has a defined constellation of traits that are generally correlated and one or more of which are making it difficult to function.
I saw another post recently that went something like “neurotypicals don’t understand having to take a day off after social events” and “neurotypicals don’t rehearse social interactions in their head”. Which is simply untrue. Many many people take a rest day after a social event or think about how to handle a social interaction, the only difference that the behavior isn’t so severe that they are functionally impaired by it.
Couldn’t agree more. I do not follow arbitrary rules unless compelled to, as long as it doesn’t harm anyone or anything. If you want me to do something, there needs to be a logical reason for me to do it
I generally follow the rules unless I have a reason not to. The rationale is that just because I don’t see the reason for the rule doesn’t mean there isn’t one. If everyone ignored every rule they didn’t understand the need for the world would be even more of a shit show.
So I stop at the stop sign when no one is around. I know I would only do it when it was safe, but so does everyone who got hit by a car running a stop sign at a blind corner in the middle of the night.I’m definitely asking about it if it’s the least bit inconvenient though.
Plenty of stupid unethical rules have detailed explanations.
The tweet misunderstands autism (And vaguely calls it ‘nuerodivergence’). Questioning rules in autism is, at least in my own experience, more about justice than merely understanding why the rule is. We’re not asking why for the logic, we’re asking why to make sure it’s just. You don’t usually loudly disobey an unjust rule unless you’re making a stand, you do it quietly without acknowledgement because people who enforce unjust rules tend to be vindictive and cruel about it.
No
Maybe.
I don’t know
