Neurodiversity

The piss molecules were inside my skin. There was a cloud of urine with a 200 foot radius emanating from the drunk passed out on the sidewalk and I was already in it. I knew this was going to happen but I rolled the dice because it wasn’t supposed to happen. It was never supposed to happen. The city was supposed to be clean and there weren’t supposed to be massive pee traps to randomly stumble into. It was the same thing at least twice a week. Critical failure. Same drunk, same part of town. How many breaths of air poisoned with his bladder mist had I taken over the months? ...

Autism and Fascism Have Crossed Paths Before—but Not How You Think “Information wants to be free”, observed Stewart Brand during a discussion with Steve Wozniak at the 1984 Hackers Conference. In hindsight, it was a simple, almost cute mantra for us. Perhaps it should’ve been obvious that it would hold doubly true for mis- and disinformation. I think we just naively assumed that everyone sought to share the truth in accordance with science and reason. We were just trying to figure the machines out, no fear. ...

Short-circuit evaluations of logical expressions can cause problematic behavior, and so can short-circuit expressions in human communications. In stressful times such as looming deadlines or other project troubles, it’s easy to slip and start taking shortcuts in our communication and overall behavior. The closer we live to survival mode, real or perceived, the less we act like who we strive to be. Ask anyone on their first night of Minecraft. Holes are dug, dirt is flung and friends are blamed when a creeper blows up their obviously inadequate mud hut. ...