I know there isn't any visible platform or coherent ideology, but I was hoping there would be something more than 'not trump.' like where are the donations even going? They couldn't even pretend to have talking points.

Do these condescending automated messages work on people? I can't wrap my head around the strategy behind taking a tone like this with your voter base.

Fuck outta here.

I can learn things if they're a game and I have a good ear for sound. I just want to be able to know a note when I hear and find it on a musical instrument.

I'm gay so this post is protected from accusations of horny posting 💅🏽

I don't get how libs can tolerate being taken for granted like this. They're not being mature or practical - they're accepting mistreatment by an establishment sworn to serve them.

Trump and his supporters aren't better, but at least he's telling them what they want to hear. He at least made sure to get checks out to people and had his signature stamped on them.

I dunno, at least there's a strategy there. And Biden has had four fucking years and he's done nothing to get people motivated to vote or even register to vote. Not even going into his participation in genocide, it's just a lack of strategy to the point of self-sabotage.

And the entire Democratic party is complicit in all of it. It's like they want to lose, because all I'm hearing are about how bad trump is/was. And it's like, I was fucking there. And after three years, all they can offer is to give him a verbal reprimand and coverage on every major news network, speech, and social media posting.

It's just mind-blowing to think of the wasted time and energy on the part of the US political system.

I have a couple of older relatives who only communicate via phone call and I hate talking on the phone. My other relatives don't stay in contact as often as I do, so I feel bad not reaching out and keeping them company.

Do you have any strategies to manage the energy drain from phone calls?

As I'm sitting here thinking about getting a haircut, I realized that it didn't carry the same weight for my non-black peers. You see, I got more or less accused of being suspicious at work by a customer who said there was a sketchy person in the parking lot. I was taking my lunch break in my car.

I knew I've put off getting a haircut and shave in some time, but I started to understand that this is a way to regain a sense of safety. I started to weigh the options: do I keep my hair and beard growing or do I get the cut and shave I planned? How much of that is what I want, and how much of that is for a concern about my safety?

Mind you, I still intend to make myself look good, but it's hard to disentangle safety concerns from everyday decisions in a racist environment.

It already sucks being assumed unhygienic or unintelligent because of the way I wear my hair. I don't need people thinking I'm sketchy because you can see my beard when I take my mask off.

I guess if I had to sum up the answer per my posts question - I want my non-black comrades to know that it takes a lot of mental energy to make seemingly mundane decisions. It's okay to ask why if you don't understand, but I don't want you to trivialize my concerns about safety.

What about you? Is there something you feel like gets taken for granted as a person of color in even leftist spaces? I know I don't know the experiences of other marginalized groups as well as my own, and I'd like to have a conversation on how to be better with my peers.

Or just feel free to talk about it.

My profile picture is the Magician enemy from the game Persona 3, based on the major arcana.

I kept the picture because it reminds me of when it's rounded.

What about you?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_room

It's a pretty cool thought experiment about a hypothetical person locked in a room. In the room they have books on Chinese words, phrases, and grammar. They receive a sheet of paper with Chinese written on it and send out a written response using the books as reference. The person inside the room doesn't know what they're writing and the outside person doesn't know that they don't understand Chinese.

It really speaks to me in how I navigate a lot of social connections without knowing why. I receive an input, and while I'm not sure why, I'm conditioned to respond in a specific way.

The thought experiment reminds me of masking and how it's hard to explain to someone you don't understand. Because of their perception of your actions/words, they assume you understand the fundamental idea.

When I keep up the mask, I know that it's easier to do things in certain ways and hide evidence of misunderstanding. I think that's where a level of isolation happens for me. It's like I'm locked in a room away from people and my communication is filtered through a system I don't understand at all.

I dunno, I was just thinking about thought experiments in general and how neurodiversity can show up.

Does anybody else have thoughts on the Chinese Room or other thought experiments in relation to a neurodiverse experience?

I'm happy to see anybody unburdened by the US legal system, but there's something underwhelming about the most powerful politician in the country only now deigning to use his executive power.

People are cheering and memeing in unsurprising fashion and I'm like bruh, he could have done this and more. Years ago. And they're talking about the necessity of voting and how bad trump would be. Like where do you think Brandon was when drafting the anti marijuana bills?

That said, I don't want to come across as unreasonable when good things happen. If a lib approached me and shared this news, what would be an appropriate response?

Link because I got that bird box disease where I want to make people to see the thing.

It was stuff about queer people with autism, but I was looking more for people's experience with juggling the autism experience with having an identity that sometimes depends on subtle cues, code switching, social etiquette, etc.

So, are there any reliable resources on exploring queerness while on the spectrum?

Or if you have experiences or insight, that'd be cool too.

I'm in my mid thirties and only now am I coming to terms with my neurodivergence. I'm one of the lucky people to have access to health care and the time to educate myself on the topics of neurodiversity and mental health.

And with all of that, I have only recently started to take notice of how my childhood experience affected my perception of people and how the world works.

I won't go into intense details for several reasons, but long-story short - my parents were deeply unwell and in forcing me to hide and overlook their mental health, I currently have to spend time trying to sort out what I now find acceptable, healthy, and loving.

Being on the spectrum and lacking the resources to navigate an allistic world was hard enough. I had to make an approximation of normal without having consistent practice with it.

I feel sad that I'm in my thirties and still seek out the approval of people I don't know. Especially when those people exist in spaces where it's not safe for them to know me, like online, or at bigoted in-person spaces.

I don't feel like I got a chance to make human mistakes and now that I'm on my own for the first time in my life, I lack the tools and connections to safely unlearn unhealthy behaviors and learn new healthy behaviors.

I know I'm not the only one, and I'm glad that this comm is around to meet and troubleshoot solutions.

Sometimes I feel like I don't understand a joke in a post and I'm afraid to lose the game of chicken, becoming the first person to ask if a person was serious.

Sometimes I'll check my comments for up votes to make sure I'm not being cruel to someone without knowing.

I was convinced I was cruel and carrying that belief has made me so vulnerable to manipulation. I've had to create a mask that convinces people that I'm in on the joke. That I know better and any mistake I make could conceivably be intentional. I can't feel vulnerable and I look at people as a collection of warnings and threats instead of human beings who might treat me like I'm human too. I have an exit plan on the off chance somebody sees through my mask, because that was the most dangerous thing in my childhood.

Already feeling out of touch with my body, I had to exist outside of myself to make sure that I didn't present any image that reflected poorly on my parents. Precious bandwidth dedicated to something I don't really even care about. My family was shitty and they should feel shitty, but I have my attention focused outward on how others see me. Because that's what they policed. I didn't get to pay attention to my inner world, the outer world, or the real ways the two interacted.

My heart goes out to any kid that's experienced trauma, but this is the way I experienced it - as part of a community underserved by an allistic society that prioritizes the aesthetics of a nuclear family.

But knowing all this, I can feel some comfort in the fact that I found a community here where I can share my experiences and contribute to a world that values and people like me.