Who are these NT's we're always talking about?

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Greentea
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29 Sep 2007, 3:28 pm

Them = NTs = people who are able to herd

Us = Aspies = people who have individual thought, thus can't herd.

Simple.


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29 Sep 2007, 7:41 pm

coyote wrote:
before knowing about Asperger i was already convinced of something: 99% of the poeples i met in my life had that little un-namable thing... I couldn't put my finger on it but i could feel it. It's thier way of beeing, thinking, acting etc, my thiking was: "they are all alike, and all different than me" (which lead me to the conclusion that *I* was the different one...). So "NT" or "AS" for me are in fact the words i was waiting for to label what i instinctively knew.

That was exactly my experience; before I came to accept that it had to be AS (I knew about AS, it had been suggested by my mother that it was AS; but it took awhile for me to come around and explore that possibility): I theorized that I represented some new species of hominid (an offshoot from H. sapiens sapiens), and that the rejection I experienced from those around me arose from an unconscious, primeval dread on their part of being displaced into extinction by something else. That they hated my face because when they looked into it: they saw their own doom (on the surface they laughed and made light of me; beneath the surface: they were deathly afraid).

A latter-day "Clan of the Cave Bear" type scenario, in effect. (How many foundling Cro-Magnons might have jumped from cliffs due to their inability to fit in with the Neanderthals they were raised by, I wondered?)

Whether or not that actually could the dynamic between NT and Aspergian (occurring just beneath the conscious surface level) is another thread, but I did/do feel that different from those around me (and it is mutual), and long sought an explanation for it; the division between Aspergian and NT is the only satisfactory one for me now.

Yes, NT's are all separate and distinct individuals, of course they are, as surely as are we; but nonetheless: they are far more like each other than any of them are like us, and vice versa.

On another note:
Quote:
Them = NTs = people who are able to herd

They do herd; the question is: is it simply because they possess a capacity for it that we lack, or simply because they are almost entirely surrounded by people like themselves with whom they can?
Quote:
Us = Aspies = people who have individual thought, thus can't herd.

Or could we?


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Unknown_Quantity
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30 Sep 2007, 12:23 am

Perhaps we feel isolated and don't socialise well simply because we think differently to the Non-Aspies. We are in a minority and everyday the majority of people we meet are the so called Neuro Typicals. If we were the majority and we dealt with one another more than we dealt with the NT's, maybe we'd find that NT's would be the ones who felt isolated, that they couldn't interact with society and would be classified as not being able to interact normally.

So if we are one type and they are another, maybe we don't herd just because there's not enough of us to run into one another and team up and concentrate into groups... Except now, there's the internet - and Wrong Planet.

I used to play roleplaying games with groups of people most NT's call nerds and geeks. Most of those guys and girls probably had (looking back on it) some degree of Aspie type behaviour. Maybe that was our herd. Maybe we have social skills just as good as the NT's, but because our socialising is different to theirs, we're told we're doing it wrong and that we lack the skills "normal" people have. We organise into groups based on our areas of interest - roleplayers - computer gamers - stamp collectors - astral physicists - whatever! We come together out of passion for a certain kind of knowledge...

The NT's come together because of their geographical proximity, or because of their jobs, because they walk around on the same piece of carpet 8 hours a day. Maybe our socialising networks are actually stronger than theirs. Ours come from passion and interest, their's are a matter of convenience.



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30 Sep 2007, 4:01 am

jjstar wrote:
I don't subscribe to us and them theories. I think there's us and that's just about it. One being of humanity with different facets of DNA - and breaking it into clusters is an unhealthy phenomenum.


Whether or not you think it's unhealthy to distinguish is irrelevant.

You can't say we're all the same. And a general, sweeping way to start is to see that there is a difference in autistic (neuro-UNtypical) and non-autistic (neuro-typical) brains and how they are wired.

Of course there are so many categories and sub-categories beneath both autistic and NT, you can just classify yourself into a tizzy for ever and ever, but for the general, overall explanation - NT fits.



earthmom
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30 Sep 2007, 4:05 am

Unknown_Quantity wrote:
Perhaps we feel isolated and don't socialise well simply because we think differently to the Non-Aspies. We are in a minority and everyday the majority of people we meet are the so called Neuro Typicals. If we were the majority and we dealt with one another more than we dealt with the NT's, maybe we'd find that NT's would be the ones who felt isolated, that they couldn't interact with society and would be classified as not being able to interact normally.

So if we are one type and they are another, maybe we don't herd just because there's not enough of us to run into one another and team up and concentrate into groups... Except now, there's the internet - and Wrong Planet.

I used to play roleplaying games with groups of people most NT's call nerds and geeks. Most of those guys and girls probably had (looking back on it) some degree of Aspie type behaviour. Maybe that was our herd. Maybe we have social skills just as good as the NT's, but because our socialising is different to theirs, we're told we're doing it wrong and that we lack the skills "normal" people have. We organise into groups based on our areas of interest - roleplayers - computer gamers - stamp collectors - astral physicists - whatever! We come together out of passion for a certain kind of knowledge...

The NT's come together because of their geographical proximity, or because of their jobs, because they walk around on the same piece of carpet 8 hours a day. Maybe our socialising networks are actually stronger than theirs. Ours come from passion and interest, their's are a matter of convenience.


I've been part of many, many message boards for decades covering many different subjects and types of people. This one is totally different. The most glaring thing is the fact that the people tend to pick a subject (or question) and answer it.

It's a linear discussion. Question 1 - here are answers to that question. Move on. Question 2 - everyone answers that question. Move on.

On an NT message board, each thread meanders around, there are tons of interpersonal discussions "Hi Sam - how'd that weekend trip go with the kids? Nice to see you back here!" and lots of 'getting to know each other' stuff goes on. The participants become good friends by coming to that message board and hanging out, the threads tend to blur together.

Here, mostly everyone is directly answering the subject line. Period.

I can't say if I like or dislike this one better. It feels a bit more disjointed than others, but it does keep the threads cleaner and answers questions better, which I like.



Greentea
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30 Sep 2007, 5:37 pm

Herding is not the same as socializing.

Herding is the ability to numb your own thinking and go with the flow, with what whoever more in power than you decided and everyone else follows, where logic and reason and purpose are of no value.

Thus, Aspies can't herd.

Just see the results of my poll "Are you religious?" for further evidence.


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30 Sep 2007, 7:22 pm

That makes sense. So a herd is a group that gives over most of their decision making to the collective. Aspies are less likely to blindly follow and more likely to question their own and others motives and upon reaching a decision follow that course of action even if it does not coincide with the most common route taken by the group. So Aspies don't "herd" by this definition.

I still stand by the point that Aspies have just as much of a social ethic as non-Aspies, its just that our social groups are based on interests and emotional investments where as their groups are based on "who am I going to see everyday".

But Greentea's post brings up a good point in the theory of Aspie social groupings. The fact that Aspies retain individuality and personal decision making, within the group. Perhaps this is why the non-Aspies label us as anti-social, because even when we band together, we don't give up our free will to the herd mentality.

We might even seem dangerous to them! :wink:



Greentea
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30 Sep 2007, 8:13 pm

When I was 5 my father started saying that here was a kid who didn't lose their personality in the group.

When I was 17, I won a scholarship for people able to keep their own personality in a group.


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30 Sep 2007, 8:31 pm

Good points about herding. People need like minds to feel comfortable. Herding requires me to turn off my thinking to blend with the group. I can't turn the thinkus off - I've tried and it's exhausting over the long term, not to mention unsatisfying.

I wonder how much of the socialization problem is caused by NTs not getting the expected emotional responses from autistics during conversations? If we say we sympathize with something but the nonverbals don't back us up, how much good does it do?

Oh, yeah - how are the kids? :D


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Greentea
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30 Sep 2007, 8:44 pm

Herding is possible for people who obey the external authority more than the internal one. Certainly not aspies...


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01 Oct 2007, 3:43 am

Greentea wrote:
Herding is not the same as socializing.

Herding is the ability to numb your own thinking and go with the flow, with what whoever more in power than you decided and everyone else follows, where logic and reason and purpose are of no value.

Thus, Aspies can't herd.

In that sense we certainly can't; to me the term 'herding' has always just implied a gathering together of people, in any format. Not necessarily just as a mob or anything similar, but something that can take place even in the quietest of settings (just like cows peacefully grazing in a pasture).

But in the stricter sense of the term that you outlined, I can certainly see the point you're making, and I agree with it.


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01 Oct 2007, 4:17 am

The way I see it, everybody's on the spectrum; but NTs are all herding at one end, while Kanners are at the other end. The rest of us are somewhere in the middle, at shouting distance from one another...



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01 Oct 2007, 6:08 am

NT = People who exist in a more feral and emotional world then an Aspergian
AS = Usually more logical, but some have NT traits that pull their logic systems down

NT = Needs to have emotions tickled and conversations over time to have sex
AS = Just asks for sex, no convo bs.

NT = Always needs to "get to know a person"
AS = Assumes familiarity, treats them like he/she knows them

NT = Has numerous psychological barriers and prejudices that must be taken down (or catered to) by conversation and familiarity
AS = Has no problem with engaging anyone, anxiety, fear, isolation only exists because of NT's barriers and prejudices.