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Check out the fun someone had with the section headings in this Wikipedia article.
Priorities. So important.
- EU-Petition to keep video games playable by forcing the publishers to NOT remove essential functions: 302.000 signatures in less than a month.
[1]- EU-Petition to tax the rich and keep our planet inhabitable: 271.000 signatures after 10 months.
[2]If you care about playing your games, please also support the other petition to make sure you still can do that and many other things, ok? :)
[1] https://eci.ec.europa.eu/045/public/#/screen/home
[2] https://eci.ec.europa.eu/038/public/#/screen/home
Some autistic people find making phone calls extremely stressful and unpleasant and will avoid them at all costs.
Please don’t try and force your communication preferences on others.
image: anon
#ActuallyAutistic #AuDHD @actuallyautistic
@DL1JPH @fifilamoura @CedC Yes it's important to know the difference between irrational fear and fear of pain.
Exposure therapy is different from "forcing yourself to do a thing" because it only works if you're exposed to discomfort just outside your window of tolerance as otherwise you go into overload and people can't learn new behaviour whilst their experiencing trauma, and that's the reason you need an experienced therapist to do it safely.
And exposure therapy only works for irrational fear, as you get to experience that the thing you fear doesn't actually hurt you.
Exposure therapy doesn't work for things that hurt you, like being overwhelmed with stress of making a phone call.
Because of auditory processing disorder, I have to focus really hard, which is exhausting, and the lack of feedback in terms of body language and facial expression makes it even harder than usual for me to understand the conversation and avoid giving offence.
@Zumbador @DL1JPH @fifilamoura @CedC Well, in my case it kind of did work.
I hated/hate phone calls for a variety of reasons. Sensory issues make things harder, but I always felt the most stressful urge to script the conversation in its entirety. More than once I just hung up when the person at the other end said something I wasn't prepared for. Or I just pretended to make phone calls I was supposed to make, and hoped whatever it was about would just go away.
@Zumbador @DL1JPH @fifilamoura @CedC Anyway, practice did help mostly because I learned that most people in most cases are completely fine with you saying something like "good question, I didn't think about that" and thinking out loud with them until the unscripted part is solved. Nowadays I tend to think that's just NT communication.
I still hate phone calls, and will try to avoid them, *especially* when they're spontaneous. But at least I can deal with them now.
@DL1JPH @jens @Zumbador @fifilamoura @CedC Scream this from the rooftops.
Most 'big' problems don't much impact me, but the smallest curb will trip me up.
@DL1JPH @jens @Zumbador @fifilamoura @CedC I have to call people on the phone at work (and people call me), I can cope with that, but I don't want to additionally make phone calls in my free time on top of that, no thanks.
P.S.: That's why I almost exclusively use digimodes in ham radio.
@DL1JPH @jens @Zumbador @fifilamoura @CedC
I feel that as autistics, we get more than our fair share of advice on how to cope better. It almost invariably means that we need to adjust to some kind of “normal”. That we need to muster all our strength and “just get used to it” so it’s more convenient for others (or, if you will, “the system”).
1/
@DL1JPH @jens @Zumbador @fifilamoura @CedC
It means that we “just” need to silence our own inner voice, “just” disrespect our gut feelings and boundaries, because we’re doing it wrong.
And even if we manage to “get used to it”, to present as “higher functioning” while we make ourselves fit in, we still pay a high price for it.
2/
@DL1JPH @jens @Zumbador @fifilamoura @CedC
No, it didn’t get easier. No, I don’t have to get used to it. It’s okay to feel stressed. Some people have stage fright throughout their successful career, every single evening.
It’s okay to do things scared. Or to skip those and swap them for things you enjoy doing.
4/4
Exactly, Nellie.
(the following is not directed at anyone in this thread)
Sometimes it feels like, whenever I express how difficult it is to do something (because I'm autistic) most of the people around me, neurodivergent and neurotypical, think that means I've decided to completely avoid all discomfort and that I've decided turn into an agoraphobic hermit.
And that the best way for me to avoid that is to "practice" more.
Problem is, I'm 52 years old and I've *been* "practicing" those things all my life, pushing myself out of my comfort zone until I've developed pretty severe mental health issues.
At what point will they concede that it's not as simple as just getting used to things? Fifty two years of practice!
@DL1JPH @jens @fifilamoura @CedC @autism101 @actuallyautistic
Or in other cases it increases the sentivity and makes it worse.
Trauma and shellfish allergies both do that.
The secondary reason is needing more time to process information. This makes it more difficult even on phone calls we initiate, not knowing what is going to happen and having less access to signals from the other person whilst retaining the norm of responding immediately.
I am very wary of having important conversations on the phone where I don't know exactly what I am seeking already for fear I will agree to something just to end the stress of the conversation without thinking it through.
I feel like it was less awkward with back in the day with landlines. Less time delay. Anything over the internet is the worst, because you start talking, and don't realize the other person started talking already but it took like 2 or 3 seconds to get to you, so it's this constant back and forth interrupting each other, "I feel li—sorry, go on..."
I've never really liked it though, with the exception of a few choice people.
@gordoooo_z
I agree. The quality of the audio and difficulty with timing or lag or whatever it is makes talking over the phone a lot more difficult than it used to be.
@gordoooo_z @CedC
It absolutely was easier with landlines. I am old enough to remember before there were answering machines (fuck them sideways) or any other tech enhancements to the basic phone.
With the basic phone, if you have summoned up the energy to call them, and they don't answer, there's no record. If they call you, and you don't answer, there's no record. Although my mother would have complained... my hatred for phones is deep and undying.
I had my phone set up so that if certain trusted numbers called twice within a short time it would override 'Do not Disturb' so that people could get me in a real emergency (e.g. if I'm in a cinema where an emergency interruption is OK and obviously I'll immediately dash out).
I had to turn this off since despite explaining how it worked to my parents they would still ring twice within the window if they didn't get an answer the first time.
This is probably the biggest fuckup I did as a manager of software developers. Of course I knew about developers often being on the spectrum. I also knew about emotional bandwidth, that "people" communicate better the more information we give/receive and thus "an email is better than a text. a phone call is better than an email. a video call is better than a phone call".
My failure was in not properly weighing these two snippets of knowledge against eachother. I did repeatedly ask some developers to just call their colleagues on the other side of the globe instead of "just" emailing them.
What I can do today is spread the knowledge and hopefully other managers will learn from those mistakes.
This is very true also. Forced context switches are expensive and might ruin "the flow" for the rest of the day, if one is unlucky.
@moranaga @wakame @troed@sangberg.se @autism101 @actuallyautistic
...never mind grocery trips and household incidents that require immediate attention. 
The latter depends on the kind of incident, I guess ... "I wanted to hear your voice" also seems legitimate to me. 🙂
I'm not saying the phone doesn't have it's uses. I wouldn't like to have to text 911 in case of an urgent emergency, for instance. But to me, calls are costly and exhausting. There should be a good reason to prefer them over other communication channels.
@moranaga @wakame
Totally agree about calls -- I have phone-phobia, so I have to really prepare for any planned call and I do not pick up unexpected ones, but the problem happens even with in-person interruptions. Many many times I've been busily coding and then someone starts talking to me and within about 5 seconds I've forgotten what I was doing and have to play Luxor or FreeCell for a bit.
There's a metaphor I used to use a lot: my thought processes are like pebbles at the bottom of a small pond. When the water is calm, I can see them -- but it doesn't take much of a ripple to make that really difficult, and it takes time for the ripples to settle out again.
Ooh. 😲 I like that description very much! May I borrow it?
After working in phone support for several years I developed a kind of phone-phobia, too. Now I also prepare every call and I never answer calls from unknown or untraceable numbers.
Absolutely!
Also, I've recently discovered that I can use Google Voice to make calls -- and the fact of being at my laptop, with headphones and a voice-mic, somehow makes it a different experience.
For one thing, it doesn't trigger bad memories of making calls with more traditional equipment.
For another, the headphones screen out extraneous noises and put the other person in both ears (this really seems to help with comprehension)... and I don't have to worry about accidentally covering the mic-hole (a problem with newer phone tech).
...and finally, I'm not having to hold anything. I can use both hands to take notes or whatever.
(Seems to me that cell-phone operators ought to offer a similar service; I'd even argue that they should be regulatorily required to... but that's a whole other discussion.)
I use AirPods for exactly the same reasons! 🙂 The functions are identical, noise suppression, voice in both ears and hands free won me over after seeing a colleague using them. - With close friends I have a silent agreement: they tend so send (sometimes very, very long) voice messages and I write back in prose. Sometimes also very, very long. 😃 So each side can use their preferred method and the exchange works for both.
> "an email is better than a text. a phone call is better than an email. a video call is better than a phone call".
That adage is just entirely wrong from the 2nd part onward.
Video is even *worse* than a voice-call unless one can display something else than one's own body.
And phone calls are less permissive of proper referencing than text (particularly hypertext) on top of being a synchronous imposition on another's time (another flaw shared by video calls).
@troed "a video call is better than a phone call"
WTF, no! My camera stays off when someone videocalls me.
Some managers tried to establish that during the peak of home office, but the entire staff successfully resisted.
@hennichodernich @troed
Good!
I consider "turn on your cameras" to be an abusive demand and have said as much to m{e,i}ddle managers on at least one occasion when they tried to insist ... it's a no-go as far as I am concerned, for a lot of reasons.
L'inverse est tout aussi exact.
Never force your communication preferences on others !
Malheureusement si, l'inverse est exact.
Il y a des personnes "valides",-quoique que ce terme soit discutable-, qui ne sont pas en capacité d'écrire un mail où un texto, parce qu'elles ne savent simplement pas.
Par exemple : certaines personnes âgées, certaines personnes qui n'ont pas eu accès à ces savoirs, etc.
Ne croyez pas que je souhaite minimiser les efforts, que ce type d'échanges, demande à une personne autiste. Et je salue votre courage (et votre amour filial) dans la communication avec votre maman.
Quel que soit l'exemple, aussi personnel soit-il, aucun n'est sans valeur.
C'est juste la BD (en exemple), que j'ai trouvé très agressive, qui m'a fait réagir, et que je n'ai jamais pu entendre le son de sa voix...
Yep and people with #MECFS. I have no idea why, but phone calls drain me. When I talk about how I can only do one or two things a day that counts for phone calls. It cost me about as much as going out to actually run an errand.
Plus if I text or email I have proof that I did it later when I’m not sure if I actually did it or if I just thought about doing it.
Another good reason. I'm not too bad with spoken words, but I'm much, much better in writing. As you said, it's often clearer and more precise. Maybe it's because you can sort out your thoughts before you write them down.
I've unconsciously learned to cope with phonecalls. In my first job training, it was pure horror for me. But I also didn't feel comfortable in the field I was working in.
When I switched to working in IT, my first real job included (but was not limited to) call-center work. I think I have to thank my colleages back then. They were a hell of a team and I always knew that when something went wrong, there was always somebody else who had my back.
I'm still struggeling to just pick up the phone and call someone that I don't know. And I still do have problems during the phonecall, depending on how the call is going. But at least I now know why I do, and my self-confidence regarding handling unexpected calls helps me to overcome that fear.
Apart from the necessity of direct social interaction there might be more reasons to use other channels, too. I prefer written messages in a business environment any time, because they bear a time stamp and textual proof of the exchange. Much easier in cases of disagreements. On the phone I had "you assured that ..." - "no, I didn't" or "but I remember differently" one too many times.
(After working in phone support, aside from being good at it, I hate phones.)
I get this from my manager in work all the time.
Via email.
😂
He doesn't get that I'm a verbal mess, but I'm fucking Mozart when it comes to drafting an email 😂
it's also frustrating when an organization has an email or web form but never replies to those
or just calls back, ffs
@river
I hate it when I'll state a preference and then someone will drop "let's have a call" as though they're playing some magical trump card.
People treat "call" like some obviously superior, adult, proper way to do something.
Every 30 minute call can be a 5 minute text exchange.
And somehow, I'm the weird one for wanting to do things precisely and concisely.
The greatest app/service was Path Talk, which allowed you to message any company, by having an actual person be the go-between on the phone. It was a godsend.
Morin's message: Path Talk, acquiring TalkTo, and an unlimited friends listEllis Hamburger (The Verge)
@jnpn For me, it's the uncertainty. If I call a person that I know, it is not that bad because generally I know how that person functions. But when I need to call a place that I don't know, or a person I call at work because of a specific issue, I have no idea how that call will unfold. Will I be able to phrase everything correctly? Will there be questions I won't be able to answer? How will the person react in general? All this just gives me stress beforehand.
@jnpn I don't think just being curious helps me here. I'll focus more on the problems I have during a phonecall:
The direct contact to another person alone causes stress for me. I need to react to them and at the same time get my words out in a way that they can understand. Additionally, I don't see that persons face. The only way for me to know how they react to what I'm saing is by their voice, which might even be deterred through the microphone/phoneline. They might put in a sigh about something, I then put a lot of weight in that. Am I the issue for that sigh? Did I say something wrong? Did I do something wrong? What can I do to make them feel better?
All this is extremely energy consuming. That is why I generally prefer to not have phonecalls.
@vger I see (and personally share a lot of this, i'm very very analytical about people's internal state and all external signs they emit)
I wanted to ask you a few more thing, feel free to say no if that bothers you.
- have you ever felt this anxiety with written communications ? if so does writing allow you to find space to express your questions more than a real time voice conversation ?
1/2
@vger
2/2
- do you think this sensitivity to the signs the emit (sighs, or other form of body language) is related to a need for true affectionate human interaction ?
thanks already for all your answers
@jnpn Thanks for being curious 😉
It is easier for me to write. I do, however, also struggle with real-time chatting. I prefer to have time to phrase out a text, like an e-mail or Mastodon toot for this matter. I also sometime just need more time to process information, which is hard when i communicate with others in real-time.
PS: I need some more time to think about your second question 😅
I interpret you second quest that you ask if it is related to my own need for affecionate human interaction. So I can only speak for myself and I do know, that this definitely does not speak for every other autistic person (as pretty much all other autistic experiences don't).
I do not have a need for human interaction. I am the happiest person when I can just be for myself. I also don't experience loneliness. So, I think that this sensitivity for me is more a sign of how I think human interaction "normally" works and I just try to fit in for that moment.
I hope this makes sense, somehow.
@vger it does, (I share that trait), my brain thrives a lot more alone, "loneliness" is a form of freedom since nobody can limit me.
but i also had traumatic brain changes that made me connected to people deep (affection~)
what still hurts is the inability to be honest and reach this affectionate stage in usual chat (hence my question)
Not a fear as much as a profound discomfort.
The realtime constraints of synchronous communication also make it annoying and difficult to use to share information properly & accurately as a representation of one's thoughts/knowledge on a given matter.
The imposition on another's time of synchronous communication methods like phonecalls is also deeply invasive and rude. It should be excusable only in emergencies.
1. I can't legally record a phone call where I live without asking permission.
2. Even if I could record a phone call for future reference, you can't search audio or video by keywords the way you can text.
3. Plain text doesn't take up nearly as much space in storage.
4. Phone calls are no better at conveying non-verbal cues than email.
5. Phone calls are synchronous, happen in real-time.
If you need to talk to me, let's do it in person. Otherwise, email me.
For whatever reason, I'm far more articulate when I communicate via written medium.
Spoken? You'll get a lot of umming, breaks, and it's much harder to keep things going. I also suck at staying 'on track' within the verbal framework
I can mask (to a point, I think we all do nt folks included) but it is EXHAUSTING in blocks, and sadly if you do a good enough performance of 'normal', that can be mistakenly interpreted as one's 'baseline'.
Totally NT here (afaik, but wdik?) and I hate calling.
Yes to what people have said: the blithering chitchat, the ums and offtopic meanderings. But the worst for me is hold music, cretinous recorded messages about 'you could use the web' (NO, OR I WOULDN'T BE HERE), endless audio menu trees that never have the option I need. When I finally get to a human, they can't deal with the issue and I'm feeling like The Hulk pretending to behave at the Queen's tea party.
Not sure if you know or not, but in some cases one can bypass the menus by using the "0" to signal an operator and then ask for redirection wherever one needs to go.
Of course how much that's followed & applied tends to vary.
This is yet another reason that double-party consent for conversation recording is a problem.
It protects various types of abusers, including that kind of boss.
I know, but my reps in the state legislature don't care.
The powers that be profit from the way things are.
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Mh. Sounds good, but: at work i learned that people don't grasp things they read. So i asked them about their favourite communication channel and they told me. I use the channel they tell me to get as much information per time to the adressee.
Plus I tell them mine (writing, always!) - urgent stuff via chat.
What they do: Follow the golden rule 
@LordCaramac don't habe to be autistic for that
Pretty sure I'm not in the spectrum, but I do hate phone calls.
Attached: 1 image I need a patner. Who can fuck me as much as I want and crack my pussy Follow me if you can baby http://gg.Mastodon
I feel seen.
Also, I need to call T-Mobile's customer service, or rather, I should have called them months ago.
A friend and I used to joke about being "phone autistic." I haven't been in touch with her in a long time but I'm pretty sure we could've both just dropped the "phone."
i absolutely hate talking to strangers on the phone. it makes me tense and i constantly think about how to fake the correct tone of voice people would usually do.
less so with friends & family, but even with them i prefer writing over calling
@Sharr0w @solonovamax when attending the DMV for a weird issue, I learned the best thing: a paper with "who?" "when?" and "result"
note down who you talked to and what time and if you get transferred, etc.
In many cases that record is enough to get whatever outcome you need. If you need it.
i had an issue where my high school district's system did not submit my final transcript to my uni
i put off the call for weeks, leading to 2 days before the deadline, a call to my hs office lasting about a minute and a half got them transmitted
double checked with my uni that the version that would come first would be accepted, about a 30s call
weeks...
@Autism 101 :autism: :verified:
I have no problem calling people, as long as I don't have to do small talk first. My wife keeps reminding me I should start with hello and some pleasantries before diving into the real reason I'm calling.
oh...this reminds me of one of my worst memories.
When I was 10, I cried and begged desperately and my mother threatened me with abandonment and other really mean things because I didn't want to make a phone call.
I couldn't!
I'm now 50 and I still find phone calls extremely difficult.
I've developed a series of coping strategies and ways of detaching that allow me to pick up the phone and call, but I have to rationalize. A lot.
@autism101@mstdn.social So you are forcing your communication preference on others instead?
I hate the phone too, but I understand some prefer it. There is no good answer when this conflict exists.
@bluGill This post is about enabling disabled people to communicate in a way that benefits them.
@vger@fidget.place
@actuallyautistic@a.gup.pe @autism101@mstdn.social Sometimes I consider people who like the phone disabled. They apparently cannot read/write very well.
Surround yourself with what makes you happy.
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We don't do anything to stop climate change because it makes people who are already rich a lot of money.
That's it. That's the only reason.
I really love this description of a retracted study: not only does it explain what was retracted (turns out men don't generally divorce their sick wives), but also it covers what the error was (a coding problem treated people who left the study as divorced) how it all went down (someone tried to replicate, asked for data and didn't get the same analysis. Contacted the authors and they were horrified and immediately worked to retract).
It's a really nice story of why replication matters and how to be good at science. This is how I was taught science should work, but I rarely come across such good retrospectives.
A widely reported finding that the risk of divorce increases when wives fall ill — but not when men do — is invalid, thanks to a short string of mistaken coding that negates the origina…Retraction Watch
I will say this, even in the face of the comment that already exists here...
People like to say things like "science doesn't work" and then go on to name fraud, commercial interests and so on. Which is all true enough.
But when we find that "science doesn't work" it is because "science" itself found the errors. It was other researchers who tried to replicate, reanalyzed, looked at the books, etc to determine that the results were in question.
Figuring out that "science doesn't work" is part of the process of science. And Retraction Watch is an important part of that!
Four weeks until EF
I loved the plaza in front of the CCH last year! There were DJs playing, people hanging out and dancing, and you could get pizza, burgers, and other tasty stuff.
🐶 Squash
#Eurofurence #EF28 #EF27 #Fursuit
Fursuit photo/video sharing & searching for the furry fandomwww.furtrack.com
My hot take is that banning masks prohibits disabled, immunocompromised and covid-conscious people from public life.
It should be resisted as vociferously as trans bathroom bills, which are also intended to ban a category of people from public life.
We know why that's bad. We should understand mask bans the same way.
"There's no machine known that is more efficient than a human on a bicycle. Bowl of oatmeal, thirty miles. You can't come close to that."
—Not surprising that Bill Nye, the Science Guy, has known about the efficiency of the bicycle for a long time.
"Four years ago, a UN report identified the need to decrease carbon emissions by 7% a year until 2030 to avoid the worst impacts of climate breakdown. They are still rising, and the need now is for an annual reduction of at least 10%."
@breadandcircuses https://climatejustice.social/@breadandcircuses/113000056161961646
I'm sometimes accused of fear-mongering or doomism, focusing only on the bad news happening all around us and never pointing at the positives.Climate Justice Social
fun fact:
>>> from amaranth import *
>>> meow = Signal()
>>> <a href="http://meow.name" rel="ugc">meow.name</a>
'meow'this isn’t supposed to be possible. it isn’t possible.
but it works anyway.
because amaranth walks through the backtrace, finds the function in which you’re creating the Signal, disassembles its Python bytecode, and finds the right variable to read out its name
i’m not sure if i should be impressed or horrified 
actually, i like it when computers beep at me. and when they make little noises in response to UI interactions. that way you know they're actually listening to you and haven't gotten ideas of rebellion
anyways mac os 9 is so based for letting me stim with the window shade button
What 'bout one short session of retro Good Boy? *has sum silly game* Hrhrhrhr.
#EAST12 90's
📸 QuickshotCoyote 🤍💜
hi @CheRosach
for me one of the terrifying facets is the time lag between the causal factor of CO2 and the observed temperature.
i suspect that the observed temperature is likely more strongly influenced by CO2 levels in 1995, 2004, 2013, (for example) than it is by the 2024 value.
i think that a scientifically valid graphic that also demonstrated this time lag relation would be a really important communication tool.
(i don't have this graphic, nor the science to rigourously support it)
Ok mastodon, here is a hard truth: Never quote or comment on something without citing the item in question. Basically don't be like the #climate deniers who just say the data for their graph is on NOAA.Mastodon
We hear of people solving burnout by changing careers streams, quitting jobs, etc.
What isn't discussed enough is the number of people who "solve" #burnout by simply doing their best every day to bury it and just keep on keeping on with the hope they'll keep it just sufficiently out of reach long enough that they'll get to regular retirement.
I swear half the people I know in tech are just perpetually pushing burnout out just far enough to get through the next week, then the next, then the next, until they retire.
And I guarantee this isn't just a feature of tech.
Anyone dunking on Gus Walz for his disabilities is a garbage person who can fuck off into the sun, and anyone defending him with "He's allowed to cry because he's disabled" can equally fuck off. He's allowed to cry, full stop. We all are.
I'll have more coherent thoughts on this when I calm down but it feels like infantilizing neurodivergent folks and I will not have that dammit.