Personal Woes and Advice 6

[darkrose50]

Hi, does anyone have advice on dealing with a friend whose thinking is very black and white and gets angry when you disagree with them? He has autism and bipolar disorder and I have autism and anxiety. How I deal with my anxiety I think is that I come across as laid back, but I also feel that it makes me come across like I don’t care about certain issues which I do, I just don’t like to get upset overthinking things, which can throw me into severe bouts of depression. I think my coping mechanism irritates my friend and this becomes particularly apparent when we disagree on stuff because he starts raising his voice at me and I tend to shut down or avoid the confrontation. I don’t feel this is healthy at all and just want some outside input on the situation.

There is this famous gentleman named Daryl Davis who makes friends with people from hate groups via listening to them. After he listens he then changes their minds about hating people. I would look him up and use his advice on how to talk to people with different opinions (as I think that he would be a grandmaster at the subject).

Hear his side of things and let him know your side of things. Let him know that there are different ways of looking at things, and that this is a needed component of human technological advancement and biological evolution (evolution does not always mean better). If everyone thought the same, then we would not have all the specialization and technological improvement that we all benefit from. Some of us are curious about others, and this leads towards cooperation and advancement of ideas. Some are suspicious of others and this leads towards protection and stability. Some think with pure logic, and some think with pure emotion. We need scientists and we also need kindergarten teachers. We have different people with different abilities in order to thrive. Different types of people all think differently and all these people have different most "correct" answers to how to do things.

My sister-in-law does not poses a high capacity for logical thinking, and so she uses memorization to remember how things work. This sounds dreadful to me. I have a high capacity for logical-thinking so I do not memorize how things work. She is better at memorization than I am, and I am better at troubleshooting than she is. We both get the thing to work. We both used our most "correct" answer. If someone wanted me to memorize a bunch of things that I could just figure out when I needed to, then I would want to beat my head against the wall. Pilots and surgeons use checklists so that they do not have to memorize everything (this works better for them, rather then memorizing the list). I bet that when surgeons and pilots go grocery shopping without a list that they forget things. I know I do.

In fact folks with autism are in vogue just now as IQ (logical problem-solving) is useful in computer programing and engineering. You know the archetypal absent-minded nerd scientist (now considered to be a much more positive collection of traits than in the past, because money). I propose that one reason for the uptick in autism is the switch in the thinking of what intelligence is (via selective breeding). Intelligence was once primarily measured by ones vocabulary (and showing off ones vocabulary via talking in social situations). Now intelligence is measured primarily by IQ (no need to talk to anyone, and there is a lot less focus on social skills). Not that this is right or correct, it just is. I know several folks with autism and two are quite successful engineers that earn copious amounts of money. Autism folks earning this kind of money would have been LESS possible in the past as computers DRIMATICALLY changed how useful (in demand) people with autism are. So once folks with autism were once less useful because of the circumstances. The most "correct" answer changed. The most "correct" answer often changes.

Basically the Army is largely/wholly responsible for IQ being a thing. The US Army is also largely responsible for computers, the internet, and the demand for engineers and computer programmers. I think that the US Army triggered Autism's rise. Also perhaps IQ being more important than talking (in measuring intelligence) sparked the breakdown in polite political debate in the US (enough talking, we will use <our> logic!). All caused by WWII.

I have Autism. When I am frustrated I can sometimes become loud. I am not angry. People tend to have a distinct confusion between the two.