yes, the saying is obviously true. My impression of the difference is that you often sound like you're saying "when people tell you something that you interpret as correlated with Bad Thing X but many people interpret completely differently, believe that they will do Bad Thing X". I don't know if you intend to say that or if it's another misunderstanding issue. Obviously if people show Bad Behavior X, you should assume that it'll probably keep happening.

Here’s my problem:

I meet Annie. Annie and I shake hands and shoot the shit, and then Annie says, “oh hey just so you know I have ASPD.”

If Annie volunteers this about herself... well, it’s possible she doesn’t endorse the label and means something like “a corrupt system diagnosed me with a thing.” But if she doesn’t say it that way, it seems at least reasonable that she’s telling me about a label she feels accurately describes her.

Now, in an attempt to make sure I don’t prejudge, I look up what this label means. I look on Wikipedia, because quite honestly that’s where a lot of random internet users who want elementary information about a thing go, and I see this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisocial_personality_disorder 

“Antisocial personality disorder is defined by a pervasive and persistent disregard for morals, social norms, and the rights and feelings of others.[3] Individuals with this personality disorder will typically have no compunction in exploiting others in harmful ways for their own gain or pleasure and frequently manipulate and deceive other people, achieving this through wit and a façade of superficial charm or through intimidation and violence.[11] They may display arrogance, think lowly and negatively of others, and lack remorse for their harmful actions and have a callous attitude to those they have harmed.[3][4] Irresponsibility is a core characteristic of this disorder: they can have significant difficulties in maintaining stable employment as well as fulfilling their social and financial obligations, and people with this disorder often lead exploitative, unlawful, or parasitic lifestyles.[3][4][12][13]“

Now I’m thinking about my new acquaintance, Annie. She seemed cool. But she felt the need to tell me that this label describes her.

Now, she could mean (and just not be saying) “even though this disorder is characterized by a disregard for morals, I’m the rare one in $howevermany who isn’t like that, but still somehow fits the diagnostic criteria.”

...but if she didn’t say that, why was I supposed to gather that she meant to tell me that, rather than that she is the exception?

So I assume she wasn’t telling me that, and I say, “hey, if you harm me and then have a callous attitude toward me, that’s not behavior I can accept from A Friend, so bye”... why is that *bigotry*? When she herself volunteered that this label was important?

That’s what confuses me. That there’s this... strange combination of “acceptimg the label” and “being mad at people for thinking you fit the bad stuff in the label.” I honestly can’t figure that out.

I am my own ride but MOOD, BIG MOOD. “Oh look... I need to go grocery shopping... let me just casually add 90 minutes to the errand so I cAN SPIN STOPS!!” And then there’s an entire subreddit of people discussing the PROBLEM of auto-spin/catch peripherals working too well and clogging up their inventories with Pokemon/items and needed tending twice a day. @_@

ps. The pokeball drought is real.

1. This is EXACTLY who I thought would make this comment.

2. I’m actually enjoying it so much! Turns out my janky meatsack figures out how to thermoregulate once I’m briskly walking so I’m more comfortable 45 min into the walk than I am sitting around at home!

I would like to note that there's an important difference between raising your voice / using all caps / etc and making cutting personal remarks at people!

While these are certainly different things in intensity, the nature of their harm is the same: it communicates that this person is upset at me. Can you phrase how they are harmful without referring to the mental state of the deliveree?

The classic example is Tourette’s. Someone with it might say things that are absolutely awful normally, but since you know they don’t mean it, the impact is blunted. Whereas if someone has a physically aggressive motor control problem, well, it doesn’t matter whether they mean to hurt you or not, they still do.

Awww… Yeah, wanting all your dragons to have mates sounds like it’d make all projects so much harder.

I mean... like, otherwise it’s just sitting there looking pretty eating MY FOOD!!!!!!

I used to make the majority of my money breeding and selling things and this is extra true now that I no longer coli or do anything of value on FR lmao. 

yes good please keep going

So the previous post was really all just build up, Damen asking calm questions about what Laurent likes and Laurent being overwhelmed by the questions and struggling to answer.

Hmmm. I think that, if I tried to describe what I do intuitively in words, it’d be something like trying to visualise the possible paths a conversation can follow from its current state. Kind of like predicting moves in chess. You see what the group is currently talking about, look at what chain of topics might get from there to something you care about, and then try to drag it there.

For example, the path from economics to travel plans can be: Talking about macro economics > Talking about developmental economics > Talking about how quality of life varies between countries > Talking about which countries people have lived in > Talking about travel in general.

The trick is seeing these pathways quickly enough that you can find the shortest one and start dragging in that direction before they push on down a different route. Seeing things like that quickly is mostly about practice - which you get from being around a lot of conversations. Maybe hang out in a coffeeshop or a study hall or a party, and listen to people talk and try predicting where their conversations will go until you get good at that?

Once you know what paths a conversation could flow down, the way to drag it that way is to ask questions or make comments that point it down that path. Identify what the next step would be toward a topic you like and then say something that’ll move people toward thinking about that.

For the example above, if someone is talking about stimulus spending, you could ask how that would work out in [insert poor country]. Unfortunately, this requires having enough knowledge of whatever subject is being discussed to be able to identify what you can say or ask on it, which may not always be the case.

OOH, okay, that makes a lot of sense and I totally believe it.

!!!!!!!

Wow! That’s the thing I thought people disagreed on! 

Like I was saying, “if you had no empathy at all, why would you particularly care about being moral?” and people were going “don’t insinuate I’m not moral just because I’m not like you!”

Which is understandable defensiveness, but it didn’t help me. Because for myself personally, I have a hard time peeling “I reason about how to treat people well” apart from “it hurts my soul when people are treated badly, and I want to do my best to make things better, not worse.”

And I think the reason the second thing happens is empathy (at least loosely defined, anyway)--the way people are treated, including the thought of people being abused like I was--makes me feel anger, sadness, and shame, and those things make me intensely want to set things right.

Whereas when I asked what that motivational bit is, I got answers like “I can tell that all of society follows rules, though,” or “I’m moral for the aesthetic.”

And like... okay, but if you follow rules because society does, how invested are you personally in them? Or if you’re moral for the aesthetic, what happens when your personal Lord Henry Wotton swans into your life? Those motivations sound weirdly external to me.

That’s where I was confused. Because while feelings are indeed unreliable and weird, they’re at least something internal, something that’s a part of the self. I was confused about how you get past that if you don’t have it at all.