there are a lot of people who have an interest in keeping you low-agency, placid, predictable
and not many who have an interest in you reaching the limits of your capability
i don’t feel like doing an in-depth analysis of this, but uh, consider the modern world
how much of it serves to help you grow and increase your power level? how much of it serves to nudge (heh) you into predictable, ordinary tracks?
it’s very popular around here to go on about school—and for good reason!—but school is one of the biggest and most obvious vectors for this (intentional or unintentional) psyop
not that you can’t escape it if you aren’t already sufficiently agentic
no one is going to tell you that you have to decide what you want
no one is going to tell you that you can pursue a wide variety of strategies, beyond the obvious, to achieve that
no one is going to tell you that it’s up to you to figure out what’s true, and this is really hard
no one is going to tell you the world is mad, you cannot assume things are functioning smoothly or that people know what they’re doing
no one is going to tell you that something like a rapidly-spreading virus is worth looking into on your own, that it might be worse than the flu
well, i say no one, but clearly i’m telling you these things
and in turn i learned them from others in the rat-sphere
so i can’t pretend that i’m completely independent, uninfluenced by the cultures i live within
and i gotta be real here: copying your notes off rat culture is an improvement on copying your notes off ‘conventional wisdom’, but it’s still not thinking for yourself
gov: hmm we’re getting concerned about people abusing drugs
me: well really isn’t that their prob—
gov: it’s the state’s problem, and we’re going to solve it by making it illegal to use dangerous drugs without a medical professional to supervise and make sure you’re safe
me: well, okay, i guess i can see that preventing some drug abuse, but it kinda sucks for all the people who need those drugs and are using them responsibly, so you’ll make sure to inconvenience them as little as possible, right?
right?
gov: yea you’re gonna go to jail if you use drugs without special prescription from a member of a certain class of medical experts with onerous training and credentialing requirements that severely restrict the supply of such experts and make them ridiculously expensive
courts (most relevantly the supreme court and circuit courts) are constrained by popular opinion; if they make a decision 80% of the population disagrees with, they loose legitimacy. so when they do shake things up they limit themselves to issues where there is a controversy
i suspect something similar is going on in many parts of academia (economics comes to mind)
you don’t want to just come out and say ‘yea we all think that everyone is wrong about this’
gotta pretend that the world is a sensible place with sensible people
this is how we get the heuristic ‘if it sounds crazy [i.e. disagrees with common sense] it is crazy’
let’s postulate a universe in which magic exists, and has few limitations other than that if you want to do something, you have to know how to do it. so it’s not too hard to cast spells that already exist, but if you want to do something new, you have to design a spell for it
designing spells is tricky, because the universe is complicated and magic doesn’t allow you to just say ‘i want this result’ without filling in the details
if you design a spell quickly and cast your first draft, it might not work at all, or it might not do what you want, or it might have unforeseen side effects
designing spells, in addition to requiring a certain amount of creativity and technical knowledge, is time-consuming
i like this thread and agree with most of its points
one thing i’d add: ‘social skills’ is a pretty vague term, and encompasses a lot of different skills, only some of which have to do with communicating to other people or presenting yourself
now, i’m something of an autist myself, and i feel pretty satisfied with my output-related social skills. i.e. i’m good at presenting myself the way i want to present myself
if i wanted to manipulate people more or control my presentation more, i wouldn’t be good at that
but i definitely have shortcomings wrt actually figuring out what’s going on inside other people’s heads (input)
idk how good the median neurotypical is at this, but i suspect people on the spectrum tend to have a harder time