“because that’s just how things are done”

Yeah, that’s the essence of conservatism.

Mom, please get off the internet. It’s not good for you.

For clarification, Just joking. That sentence was one of the most repeated anwsers to everything when i dared to ask how something works from my mother.

What is an example of a safety rule who’s conditions no longer exist which would not have the conditions almost immediately return if the rule was removed?

Like every example I can think of is a regulation to stop companies from hurting people which they would simply resume doing given the choice, thus making us still need the rule?

And I’d like to know the latter even if they’re no longer appropriate.

In my experience the reason is often “because fuvk [relevant slur]”

Removed by mod

Questioning social norms doesn’t necessarily makes you an asshole, it depends on how it is approached.

By not defying them we will remain stagnant, imagine the downhill slope we would end up on if no one ever questioned why a man shouldn’t love another man or a woman shouldn’t love another woman.

People shut you down because many are intolerant to change and have their values under scrutiny is seen as hostile, but that doesn’t imply compliance is productive. Of course, you don’t want to this all the time, but teaching your kid to repress their displease of social norms doesn’t sound good either.

because if you want to succeed let alone survive in life the attitude needs to change or it needs to hide.

Framing things this way is a big mistake and I don’t see why it isn’t more obvious to people that it’s a mistake. You want someone you care about to believe that there is a binary choice between a sustainable existence and resolving their emotional needs? You couldn’t make a more persuasive argument for suicidal thinking and self destructive behavior if you tried. And it isn’t even true because they are mutually dependent priorities. It took me too many years and therapy to figure this out, you should really consider approaching the issue from a different angle than this one.

social norms have reasons as well. you cant just say “because social norms exist” and expect someone to accept that answer as a reason. its basically the same as saying “because everyone says so”. so why dont you explain why the particular social norm is one in the first place. if you dont know maybe you need to find out before you try to enforce it on others.

also as an autistic person you shouldn’t be encouraging people to mask. that shit is incredibly damaging to people. i masked for most of my life and what people dont see is that i was basically just surviving that whole time. i developed an incredible amount of anxiety, to the point where i couldnt really function in society for more than a few hours at a time before i had to isolate for a day or two to recover. i wore the mask so often for so long i didnt even know who i really was anymore. i didnt start to live until a few years ago when i started making a concerted effort to take off the mask and be myself. and you know what, people fucking accepted me way more than they ever did when i was being fucking fake all the time for the sake of appearances. you might mean well telling your son and all the autists who will see your comment to mask to get by, but all youre doing is fucking hurting them and you need to stop. masking isnt for us, its for you.

“If you don’t learn to adopt them you will isolate yourself” might be true if there was 1 neurodivergent person. We are a community and personally I’m not interested in being more than acquaintances if I have to mask around you all the time. That’s not a mutually beneficial relationship.

Autistics are constantly told this lie and it completely ignores the fact that there’s plenty of other autistics that will understand and accommodate each other’s needs.

This is an ableist way to see the world and my lived experience directly contradicts it.

Perfectly reasonable but let’s also recognize that some social norms exist only because of tradition, and are unnecessary & uncomfortable, these social norms need to be questioned & challenged & done away with. When enough people question them and challenge them, and eventually get rid of some unnecessary oppressive social norms, we can continue to evolve as a species.

As someone with that, I say, fuck off to that “authority”.

Social norms are to be broken. We didn’t get Stonewall riots by following police and law and order. We didn’t get women’s rights by meekly letting men trample us. We didn’t get general suffrage by not rioting. We didn’t get the right to strike by doing nothing.

I think the attitude you’re being held back by, is more destructive. You’re willfully following rules instead of questioning them, then deciding whether they are justified to follow or not.

I think what you’re telling is not a “harsh reality” but a fabrication that neurotypical people tell themselves to justify “following orders”. Fuck that shit.

If I did what you said me to, I’d be in a much worse mental headspace now. I feel sorry for your son. You blindly following social norms IS the problem. Try to address that instead. Try to actually understand why your son finds it difficult. Most of us find it difficult because the authority is not justified: there’s no explanation, not even an imperfect one. We’re instead told to just suck it up instead of hearing, “hey, yeah, you got a point.” or even just engaging the discussion. Let it be the other way around. You go try to think if there’s something that you both could agree as justified for a rule. If such a thing isn’t there, then no need for the rule. Good authority doesn’t flow from “because I say so”, but from clear and justifiable rules.

I’m not going to mask myself because others refuse to take others into account. I have plenty of good interaction when I am not forced into masking, and less when I have to mask.

Let me ask you a question. Have you ever gone through what your son is going through with you now? Should a good parent not want to try to understand their child instead, rather than to force their own norms onto their descendant?

you are never unloved

When you tell your autistic child to mask you’re encouraging them to make their mental health worse: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/13623613251353358

I’ll take unloved and alone over your fake love.

You are always loved by God

any love of man is incomparable to the love of God

It’s like people think I’m just trying to be an asshole. I really don’t like starting conflict without having a good reason, and questioning the questionable is one of the best reasons out there.

I swear, some of my recent posts have brought out some nasty responses that I didn’t expect. On one hand, I don’t want to hold myself back from posting stuff just because I fear unjustified backlash. At the same time, I need to better prepare myself for it.

If somebody asks why a rule is the way it is, something really beautiful happens if people entertain and allow that questioning.

What happens in the interim? Is the rule enforced while it’s under debate, or does the question suspend the enforcement?

If I tell someone to move their car because they’re blocking the bike lane, I’m not inviting a debate about whether it’s a good idea to have a rule like that. The rule is there to save me (a biker) time on my commute, and stopping to explain the rule would defeat the purpose of the rule.

Same with the tech support caller who insists that the support agent explain everything to the user, without the background knowledge of being able to understand the explanation. It’s a waste of time.

Or, if a rule is suspended while being challenged, then people can opportunistically challenge rules to try to get an advantage. That’s why pretty much any sport that allows for challenges during a game/match limits the number of challenges and limits the scope of calls that can be challenged, and has a specific limited period for proposing rule changes (in the off-season, to take effect the next season).

Sometimes people are just annoyingly obtuse, and their challenges to a rule or the application of a rule do more harm than good. It’s important to be able to justify a rule, but it’s also important to limit the time, place, or manner in which that rule can be challenged.

You’re right. You can also learn a lot about the culture and society around you because of that questioning, even if you end up still following the rules.

On the other hand, what’s there to gain from following the rules without question and forcing others to do the same? The only thing I can imagine right now that could be gained is the feeling that you are helping society “stay in the right track”.

This means that there are about 3 options:

1. Learn something new;
2. Continue to follow the rules without question while trying to force others to not learn something new, and feel good about it.
3. Do nothing and continue to follow the rules (you’re not bothered enough to learn something new, but also don’t want to be a pain in the ass);

Notice that when questioning the rules, you might come to the conclusion that there’s no harm in following the rules, or that following the rules is what’s the best for you or those around you. Questioning ≠ opposing. Question = checking validity and understanding why.

For the reasons Michael has outlined above, questioning the rules feels like the most productive approach.

Is the rule well intentioned but impossible or self defeating to apply consistently, and the intent needs to be known because that’s the only part that’s worth a single fuck?

And because they hurt people. And will not apologise or even acknowledge it and prevent it from happening again. See different religions, police forces, politicians, CEOs, … fuck authorities, if they don’t have a proper process to deal with their own errors.

I do that a lot

this is basically how the scentific process was invented.

“your shit sucks”
“yeah? prove it, fuckface”
“WELL HAHA HERE’S A FUCKING EXPERIMENT THAT PROVES IT, SUCK IT WHOPAOW”

Exactly. This thread is a good reverse example for those wanting to learn to be more sensitive. There hasn’t been much sensitivity displayed here.

Nah. Those people are just always the problem. They are how the world got like this. Modern (and historic) articulations of tyranny that last more than five minutes would not be possible without them.

I’m willing to postpone explanations if they insist, but I still eventually want an answer

“So you see, the carrier of charge is the electron, and when they are non uniformly distributed in a conductor, it produces the electromotive force…”

4 years later

“And that’s how Gay Sonic memes are stored on the Internet.”

A common issue autistic people have is with “implied authority”, which has the same main issue as social cues. Doing things because “that’s how its always been”. A manager who has a job due to nepotism and a common courtesy that is just a white lie are going to cause the same kind of rage in an autist. If it can’t be explained in a way that is logical and fair, they will not have any patience for it.

This meme is not about anarchists.

Realistically, this is how I actually handle these situations. I don’t like being rude to people, even when I refuse to follow norms. Besides, I get away with a lot more rule breaking when I am nice and likable.