Do any of you have this urge?

The neurotypical urge to not have a good enough answer and then bully the autistic person for asking the question.

(Not a comment on the post, just a frustration)

This is part of what I call "the allistic disability". They always tried to make us believe we are disabled, but are we really?
- are we really?
  In many key aspects of day-to-day life...yes, we absolutely are.
- Yeah we're different to NTs, we have different perks but defecates in lots of areas.
  I fit in well enough but notice where I've said something that's quite specific to my interests or believed something that was obviously a joke. Shit sucks but every day it gets easier, lean into it and don't be afraid to be yourself.
  We're not normal but fuck it we ballin'
  edit: leaving the autocorrect in, was a ~1am post for me 🫠
- This is kind of the core question of disability, I think. What is disability if not a mismatch between your own way of navigating and functioning vs assumed normativity? If your own way of navigating and functioning was the assumed normative mode, would you still be "disabled"? A lot of our societys normative behaviors can in some way be hindering to those exhibiting them, but society is ready to provide full support to compensate for such things as they are a part of the normative mode. It's a fun thought experiment to consider how difficult it might be for a more or less normative person to function in an autistic society that only recognized and provided for normative brains to the degree that our own society provides for autistic brains. And on that note - Would an autistic society be better at providing for those people than ours does for us? Or would we close ranks around a new normativity the way that our own too often does?
The neurtypical urge to agree what the autist is saying is correct, but refuses to accept it or act on it because they don't like the way they are being told about it, then to in the end blame the autist when the predicted catastrophe comes because 'you didn't try hard enough to convince me'
It has brought be very close to being arrested more than once and I'm sure I'll be in jail over this in the fullness of time.

As a child I used to annoy the hell out of my mother, by asking why... I'm a scientist now. Now I wonder why, as the pay is shit 😂

As a child I used to annoy the hell out of my mother, by asking why
This is true for literally every kid. All kids are born scientists but many lose interest or get frustrated over time
- When I was a kid and bugged my mom with 'why', she'd hand me a book about it and it would shut me up for hours
  And yet I'm told that millenial parents doing the same with their kids and youtube is fine and just like how my mother would hand me a book
  And we're seeing the results come through highschool rn
Shout out from IT: pay is good, working there today is shit (agile) and confusing as hell.
- IT is fun until management comes in and wrecks the place with a load of time-consuming demands absent any reasoned justifications beyond things that don't concern IT.

Tell me why!

Ain’t nothing but a heartache
- Tell me why!

It's what makes me good at my job.

I thought going into engineering would be a better environment for this kind of questioning. It turns out my toddler-level frequency of "Why?" transcends bachelor level expectations, thus I must pursue even higher education.
Walking into a contract with uncurious junior engineers was frustrating to say the least.
- Engineering, in general (not talking about programming) is a super conservative field. It's crazy how many people I run into that are clearly intelligent, but have just been so silo'd into one field that they have no understanding of anything practical outside of their field.
Few things have benefited my career more than my obsessive desire to figure out what went wrong in as quick a time as possible
And few things exercise my mind more wonderfully than emergency mode high stakes troubleshooting
My grandfather was right, I should have been an electrician.
- I think electrician is still too mundane for us.

It'll be the death of me.

Absolutely. I often say I have terminal insatiable curiosity. It will be quelled when I am room temperature.
- "So this is what dying feels like...fascinating."

As it turns out, inexplicably, this is not a trait that works out well within corporate America... Source: Of course I know him, He's me.

Yes! I have to understand how a process works before I can do it myself.
To all the people who just "give it a go" without knowing exactly what they're doing - I cannot comprehend how you do that.

What's with this new trend to label normal behavior as somehow related to ADHD or autism? Only morons don't want to know why ffs

Peeing is also normal behavior. But it's not normal if you have to pee every 30 minutes.
What's with this new trend of invalidating ADHD and autism symptoms simply because you don't experience it to a degree that impacts your quality of life?
ADHD and autism don't have one specific symptom. It's a thousand little things that drive you insane from having to conform to neurotypical behavior.
Let patients share their experiences without normalizing and invalidating their condition.
It's always 'everyone has ADHD these days' just like how people day 'everyone is LGBTQ these days. It's never 'underserved and underdiagnosed ADHD patients are finally getting recognition these days'.
Boys are 16x more likely to get an ADHD diagnosis than girls. The vast majority of backlash against ADHD patients on social media are against women and PoC who are finally speaking out against the medical neglect. Women traditionally present different symptoms because girls are punished more heavily for exhibiting ADHD behaviors than boys are. Same goes for autism.
Remember that a lack of diagnosis does not indicate the lack of ADHD and autism. Modern medicine is rife with systemic inequality. Undiagnosed ADHD and autism patients are frequently penalized and not rewarding for concealing their symptoms. The more effort they put into concealing them, the more heavily criticized they are for 'faking' it.
- I see you guys are taking this way too seriously so ok... I'm not invalidating anything, and for that matter I haven't noticed any such trend in media either. In fact, I would go as far as to say that attributing "normal" behaviors to ADHD and autism is ultimately what invalidates these conditions. My initial comment stemmed from me seeing meme after meme about ADHD and being like, wait I'm like that too, maybe I have it. But then as this trend goes on I observed that most of the people I know also have - to some degree - most symptoms mentioned in said memes. In short I bet if one were to base the description of ADHD on the memes going round, most people could get a positive diagnosis. My personal opinion is that this has to do with societal expectations when it comes to education and employment as they have developed over the last couple of decades. We are slowly recognizing that our capitalist way of life with its pursuit of infinitely increasing productivity is not in line with human nature thus we're "creating" this condition that somehow everyone is suffering from to attribute feelings of inadequacy.
What’s with this new trend to label normal behavior as somehow related to ADHD or autism?
That's always been around. Another example: having enough interest & focus to get good at something difficult. When someone suggests that isn't normal (rather than a natural result of persistent effort & willpower), it really indicates to me a shortcoming in whoever believes that (why don't they think they could do the same if they seriously tried? are they a moron?).
- This type of ignorant prejudice is truly moronic and it's really unfortunate how prevalent it is in this thread.
- "NT"?

I believe that Ive lost 2 maybe 3 jobs because of this

Because of not being an idiot? Great. /for all morons, this is obviously cynical sarcasm.
- Careful, uncovering truth might put management in a bad light.
  Example from my life:
  Me: Boss, the production database has had 2 failed drives for over 6 months, if we lose another our whole operation is cooked
  Boss: If it hasn't failed yet, it can wait another 2 weeks
  Me: It cannot
  Boss: I'm not signing a PO
  Me: Goes to Boss's Boss We are one hard drive away from losing the business, please sign this PO
  Boss's Boss: signs quickly How long has this been going on?
  Me: At least since October
  2 days later:
  Boss: You are being dismissed due to insubordination
  Me: I literally saved your company
  Boss's Boss: Sorry my hands are tied
  Fuck corporate America for what they do to us on an hourly basis
- Don't underestimate the pride of people who make poor decisions and how much it hurts them when a rookie spots them
what? i thought it was nice to always ask why? thats crazy

Always. I always must understand why something needs to be done before I do it. Rare exceptions in people I have an absolute trust to make decisions for me.

I couldn't cook a damn thing until Alton Brown showed me how/why cooking works.
Then I learned about all the types of cooking and why they work.
Then I looked at how the Michelin chefs do it and why they do the things they do.
Now I cook pretty well and occasionally pull off something way above my skill level.
- Good Eats was an amazing show. Amazing, fun, educational! Loved it
- Yeah that was the same for me. But I used Salt Fat acid as the book that I used to learn how to cook

What is the purpose of this post?

Why do you ask?
- I need to know why

I want to know why other ppl don't want to know why

Everyone has a different amount of curiosity for different things. Just because someone doesn’t want to know how a carburetor works doesn’t mean they aren’t interested in other things.
Also curiosity can be a luxury. Some people are very focused on following the beaten path because they think it might be safer. Start asking questions and rocking boats and you might cause problems. Curiosity killed the cat and all that. Over a lifetime people settle into their own groove of curiosity and satisfaction.
- isnt it safer to not try without the why?
Because neurotypicals don't actually think, they just respond to stimuli
- 🤨😬

I am currently reading into the religion of ancient germanic tribes. Sadly WE HAVE NOTHING! EVERYTHING IS LOST TO TIME!

We have a few names, but that is basicly it. Roman and christian sources are heavily bias so they cant be trustet

That's really interesting. Can we make any educated guesses about what it was like?
- Well we know how they lived and their culture (as always it depends on the region), how they dressed.
  Religion wise, we know they had similar gods to to the norse/north germanics (skandinavia. You know thor, odin, frija, loki aso). They put people into the swamp. Criminals and religiouse human saceafises. We know that its religiouse human sacrafises because there are also animals and tools found in swamp beds.
  Burrials and funerals were different to each region and tribe. Many in the south and north west burried their people in hills, like the celts. The bodies sometimes were put in specific positions. As the romans arrived, these practises noticeablely changed. Building dedicated buildings, giving offerings and money. From what i have also read is that cremetion and burning the body was also a common practise.
  But how they really worshipped, and their mythologie we have nothing on as faar as i know.
  Idk if that is true but i think we also know that they, also had some spiritual leaders. Oracles. Young virgin woman that could predict the future threw bones, weather speak to the gods and stuff, that had a set place where they lived and rulers traveled to them.
  Things are waaayyy worse with the celts though. We know they had these druids. But we do not know what their job in society was. We guess they were spiritual leaders, maybe also medical, maybe diplomatic. The druids were not just a closed off people. Didnt write anything down themself, the forest was holy and no one but druids was allowed to be at their meetings and in their forrest.

Yes. I can't help that everything is fascinating to me...

mine’s not orange

I do. And I know that folks will get snippy if I ask.

Thankfully, Wikipedia exists, and it is more than willing to vomit forth information without getting an attitude about it.

This is a tough one. I have an autistic child. I love that they’re curious, but sometimes, for all of our safety, I can’t explain why I need them to stop talking about a dangerous subject… for now.

Great. I love that you’re curious about bombs. We’re in line for security at the airport. I need you to be quiet now.

¯(ツ)_/¯

You dropped this, king/queen/highly placed noble:

This is why I need internet. Every time a question pops up (like etymology of some word or what is the native range of some bird or other obscure stuff) I can just search for the answer. Sometimes the information doesn't exist, but even that is an answer, just not the one you wanted. Obviously it can also spiral into finding so much interesting stuff that you forget everything else and do couple hours or pointless research into subject that doesn't really matter, but that's not a downside if you look at it from a certain perspective.

What I really don't understand is how so many people end up wondering about some facts in a conversation, then everyone goes "huh, that's a good question" and just drop the subject and talk about something else. It usually takes less than a minute to do a quick search and everyone has a phone these days. So... how? How?!

What I really don’t understand is how so many people end up wondering about some facts in a conversation, then everyone goes “huh, that’s a good question” and just drop the subject and talk about something else. It usually takes less than a minute to do a quick search and everyone has a phone these days. So… how? How?!
The normie urge to blindly accept without question.

Of course I do. It's only the impulse to ask out loud that was trained out of me.

To interact with the social world the way others do, we need to learn the mechanisms behind social interactions to a level that others don't. This urge to know why a social behaviour works before we can properly use it (manners, aggression, group identity, coercion, lying) carries over to physical things and systems in the real world (electricity, trains, cooking, cats, jobs, cars)

We need not understand the entire scope of the thing or concept (though we often do), but understanding the boundaries of the thing, where the walls of the box are, helps us understand the limits of our expectations for it. We know it can't leave the box. When we encounter something brand new, a behaviour, situation, environment or task, we feel fear, because at that moment, the box has infinite size, and only by learning about it can we make the box smaller and more manageable.

Imagine if an evil villain could delete all of the times in human history that an autistic person thought "why" about something seemingly unimportant WAYYY too hard?

Fuck... would we even have shoes? Toothbrushes? Washing machines? ..idk It would be a devastating attack upon humanity in terms of pure capability, technology and knowledge, that is for sure.

I am not saying all of the important discoveries were made by autistic people, just like we all know that we have met some autistic people (wait, you ARE one of those people aren't you!?) that are extraordinarily smart in their own way, and you can see in the people around them that they are such a powerful, clear lucid mind that they are loved and supported in their quirkiness because they move mountains (or don't). As it goes with all minds that are different in one way or another.... but certain machines and weapon systems... I just feel like... there HAS to be at least ONE autistic person behind that shit! Probably a lot of other kinds of minds too! Hopefully!

To anyone who hasn't met those autistic people or is unaware they have, damn I am sorry those people are incredibly fun and illuminating to talk to wtf. Not that anyone in this lemmy community would fall under that category, just making a point like I get so mad when people attack autistic people for so many reasons, but weapon systems are a big one that is hard to argue with, weapons aren't clubs and swords these days they are fiddly, super complex electronics warfare sensor ridden monstrosities... and they NEED the people developing and using them to understand the kind of horrifyingly long manuals some autistic people eat for breakfast while humming happily to themselves.

...and people dare to pick a fight with those people and their friends????

"I have a great idea let's have a moral panic about autistic people and ostracize/punish/seperate them out while denying them the care they need (established by science) AND THEN try to fight wars using shit like this.....

???

TL;DR People are silly

I'm frankly not of the opinion that natural human curiosity should be described as autism.

It's like, what, let's not have science? Let's not have history? Let's not have medicine?

This is actually kind of bad because it encourages "normal" people to not ever question anything

It makes me great at independent learning. It also makes me horrible at following orders. A "do this thing" without a "because" will get done quite differently to what you'd expect, if at all.

Hmmm, I am almost 70. I think I am neurodivergent?

After all the stuff I have been reading the past couple of years on Reddit and Lemmy I seem to exhibit quit a few of the traits mentioned about being neurodivergent. Starts with me having Aphantasia(no pictures in my brain) and Anendophasia (no inner voice at all) maybe. Not sure. Is it even worth getting a diagnosis at this point in my life?

Why indeed.

Yes it's your call. It was for me, it gave me peace about being labelled as thick as a kid and it helps me in day to day life.
- Yes. All my siblings and parents are dead now. Their kids the usual level of apathy and avarice. So it would definitely only be for my peace of mind knowing.
I have multi-sensory aphantasia. No pictures/sounds/tastes/touch/smell. My inner voice is soundless but constant.
I discovered aphantasia at 40; it is not a lack or detriment merely a difference. I talked with my Mum about it, she is has aphantasia and didn't realise and she is 66.
Aphantasia doesn't hold you back or make life harder; especially since you can go decades without realising that you have it.
You may have other stuff, ASD or ADHD etc....but aphantaisa isn't in the same realm.
- Found out about the aphantasia about 10yrs ago. Found out about the Anendophasia about 5 yrs ago. It’s more the other stuff I do or have done that has me a wondering’.
You don't need a diagnosis to know you're built different, you just need it if you want to get medical care or assistance for it.
If your experience lines up with others, and you identify with their struggles and interests when other people do not, then to me that's enough.

Yes. It's why I'm in university in middle age, acquiring science degrees. Unfortunately most of what I've learned is "we don't know yet"!

According to my religion ignorance is a sin, thusly I must know as much as possible in a sisyphusian goal of madness. Is summary: why?

The more we know about the universe, the better equipped we are to weather its challenges
My religion also says ignorance is sin but there are also a fucktonne of very content sinners in our ranks, sadly.
- Could be worse a solid contingent of the followers of my god are Nazis. Neo paganism is fun.

I'm not autistic but my partner is, can confirm she has it.

Follow your bliss.

For me the bliss is only when the knowledge is found or the problem is solved, up till then it is a singing ice spike lodged into my brain, so more of a pain avoidance tactic

Yes.

but why?

Always.

But why do I?

Yes I have read multiple encyclopedias, as the internet was not available to most people when I was a child

Sure. I often get fixated on some topic, especially if it’s work related. I buy lots of used textbooks to learn about the topic.

The more I read the more I think im somewhat autistic and not adhd.

Sure let's make "why" into a negative.

Might as wel surrender your life and live by a.i.'s statements.

I don't think this has anything to do with autism, ADHD, or neurodivergence.

Intelligent people are curious. That's what makes them intelligent.

IMHO neurodivergent people don't have a trait for "curiousity" -- they're just more intelligent (if their neurodivergence isn't too severe) and so are interested in things. That's why there's so many in technical and engineering fields, mathematics, science -- the really hard stuff (hard for most people.)

Yeah, it's still not easy because there's so much other stuff going on inside the mind, but all that other stuff is going to lead to some pretty cool thoughts that could turn into a paper, project, business, thesis, etc. (if you manage to remember them long enough to write them down!) Over years this builds brain matter and this is where the intelligence comes from (again assuming the neurodivergence isn't severe.)

By "intelligence" I mean the raw ability to process information and gain understanding from it. Not IQ.

There's a difference between "I'm very curious" and "I literally can't move my attention from this thing, even if I want to, to the point that I will forget to eat or sleep or bathe"
- OK, but tbf that's not really what the meme says.
The way I understand it (based on some introspection and reading the experiences of other autistic people), it's not a matter of ability to process information but rather the inability to not process information. We don't have the innate ability to recognize what's important and what isn't, which hinders our ability to recognize that two situations are the same and should be handled the same way. Asking "why?" is an attempt at understanding the pattern so that we can generalize in the same way as other non-autistics instead of memorizing every individual situation.
Everyone eats but autists eat differently, we aren't talking about non-autistics here friend.
This is literally the ableist version of 'all lives matter'

Username checks out