Disclaimers?

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So on the one hand you're acknowledging it's not going to happen, but on the other you're insisting it ought to. But you're ignoring the fact that this is a forum filled with Aspies, for whom one key trait is not getting what other's are really trying to say, and another key trait is, not being very good at correctly assuming other's meanings intentions and motivations.

Clear language is the only way to help with these problems.

English is only as precise as it's usage.

But because the majority doesn't use it precisely, that means nobody should bother? Okay, fine then don't.

You'll be left with the original two choices I gave you. Waste your time, or don't

Your choice.

It is also our choice whether we want to waste ours determining what you're really trying to say.

Incendax, you seem to believe that yours is the only opinion that matters. This is called "Solipcism". Look it up.

There are people who disagree with you, and those people just happen to be right.

This means that you are most likely to be the only one who is wrong here.

Ditto.

How can I assume they are present in all instances, especially since every instance is a separate occasion, with different people, different topics, and in a different context? I can't assume that every single person I interact with has exactly the same preface to their statements.

The OP seems to fall foul of a common problem amongst Aspies... he assumes that others understand his intent and basic opinions on things without him having to be explicit in his communication. This problem is confounded because Aspies tend to read text at face value. Unless the OP uses disclaimers on a site such as this where nobody knows him then it is a recipe for even more miscommunication and misunderstanding.

I agree. There is a wide range of people and levels of knowledge and understanding on any forum. Although I get impatient and annoyed by those who are always insisting on evidence or citations in an opinion forum, I equally abhor generalizations, especially about groups of people. People are individuals, and when I see a statement about men in general or women in general or any other group in general, it annoys me no end.

Simple rule of thumb if you don't want to be misunderstood:

Say what you mean and mean what you say.

Anything else wastes far more time than the time it takes to type a few qualifiers into your posts.

My old professors at DLI.
People are going to misunderstand regardless, because very few people use the language in an extremely precise manner. Assuming disclaimers are already in place seems to have a similar (but slightly lesser) effect as having an internal tact filter without as much reliance upon individual capability.
We end up doing something similar to what we do now, except with less frequency. Someone would have to clarify that they intend a phrase to apply without exception to all instances. It would still result in a net reduction in semantic arguments even if some still occur.
Yes. The attempt should at least be made to see if results out side of my peer group are consistent.No. After working in a clinic designed to help people with the Autism Spectrum disorder I have learned that blanket adjustments are easier to cope with than specific adjustments for every encounter. Assuming every generalization has implied disclaimers resulted in less confusion amongst my peer group when we implemented this process, and I believe it would be of use to the Aspie community as well.
The same way you assume the people you meet are not going to kill you, or try to offend you, or steal from you, or borrow your car. It becomes a baseline for your reactions that can have adjustments made as evidence to the contrary becomes available.

So you're basically saying you want something you're never going to get. Seems like rather an nonconstructive way to spend one's mental efforts.



If what your'e saying here is that we as Aspies ought to learn to read generalizations for what they are, I agree. However, and this is a VERY big however, I believe this very thread is a perfect example of what can happen if one isn't clear from the get go as regard to exactly what you're trying to say, and why.

You see, this comment alone just shed a great deal of light on your reasons for posting about this. Reasons there were not clear at all in your OP. Allow me to explain please.

We see a large number of posts very similar to yours, complaining about having to be precise, and not being able to generalize on these forums without being misunderstood. All of them, until now (unless I'm mistaken about your motivations, in which case you can toss out everything I'm about to say), have been from members who simply don't want to clarify anything they say, and wish other members would quit insisting they do.

Generalizations by nature are unclear. They require asking questions to clarify intentions, whether one has autism or not. If users clarify and qualify things to begin with, there are far less misunderstandings on the forums, and far less problems.

That said, the reactions your getting are because we've been assuming you are posting for the same reasons most users post about this topic.

Now however, you seem to have a very different motivation for bringing this up. From what you're saying here, it seems to me that what you're really discussing is the need for aspies to learn to read generalizations. THAT was not clear in your OP.

If that is really what your purpose was in posting, I have no argument with that at all. But I would like to point out that if this is your reason for posting about this, that fact was not remotely clear until now, because you didn't clarify it in your OP.

No problem though. These things happen here. We're used to it. It's not just common, once members are here for a while, it's practically expected.

I realize using this as an example is a bit of a stretch, because the reason we didn't understand your purpose isn't due to generalizations, but due to assuming your reason is the same as almost all other posts on this topic. It still goes to clarification. It's still a very typical misunderstanding. And it wouldn't have happened had you been a little clearer in your post about the real reason.

Anyway, back to us all learning to read generalizations.

I agree. We should try to learn to read them, but there are effective ways of doing so, and not very effective ways as well. Simply asking Aspies to "get over it" and just start figuring it all out on there own through trial and error, may work over a very long period of time. That's exactly how I learned. But I had to because nobody knew I was on the spectrum, and I was pretty much thrown to the wolves to work things out for myself.

The problem with learning that way though, was that it literally took decades. In the meantime, thousands upon thousands of misunderstandings, tons of wasted time, and feeling like a complete outcast. That's not a great way to learn things like that.

What works better is guided learning. Aspies tend to insist on precise language, but often never use it themselves. If someone like me, or yourself, who has learned the hard way to spot generalizations, and imprecise language, and know that such language could mean a number of different things, but have some idea of what some of the possibilities are, could teach other aspies how we do it, then you've got something there.

A method of sorts to help other aspies learn more quickly to assess imprecise speech more accurately. Being thrown to the wolves hasn't worked well for any of us.

Am I correct now in assessing that what you're really saying is that we need to learn to adapt to imprecise speech? Not that no one should ever use precise language?

English is fare from precise, or concise...

Yes, but things can start small and grow into something bigger. And if anybody here tries and finds it helped them then that was worth the attempt for me.
Yes, the reactions I have been getting were somewhat confusing. As a previous poster mentioned, I fell into the trap of not clarifying the motivations for my post/rant.
This is something I can identify with on a very personal level. When I was young there was no such thing as Asperger's Syndrome and Autism was only declared for the most extreme cases. My social life was a nightmare that took decades to resolve into some semblance of not pissing off everyone around me on a very frequent basis.

What I have managed to do in the clinic is establish a baseline where it is always assumed that disclaimers are being used, except when specifically stated otherwise. This has helped tremendously not only in other people on the spectrum getting useful information out of a sentence made by someone else, but aids in others getting useful information out a sentence spoken by someone on the spectrum if everyone is aware of this 'assume disclaimers are being used' rule.

It is not constructed as a way to simply 'get over' not reading generalizations. Instead, it is constructed as a way to read a generalized statement and have a higher probability of arriving at a likely intent. It took a couple of weeks of trial and error, as well as running several example scenarios for everyone to use as a baseline, but the result was very positive. Some misunderstandings still happened, but it worked very similar to the tact filter I mentioned earlier.

Something like this is naturally going to cause conflict with people who do not assume disclaimers exist (inside the autism spectrum or outside of it), which is why I believe it should be embraced by as many people as possible. Unfortunately this won't happen, but it can still be an aid to people on the autism spectrum for any incoming generalizations.

Yes, but specifically in a way that involves changing your reactions to imprecise speech to assume intended precision. Even if this occasionally results in misunderstandings, because the outcome will more often be right than wrong.

Maybe.

Now, did I mean "No", or "Yes" by that? Or did I really mean, "I like pie for breakfast"?

I guaranty that you will never know.

I have come to realize you are a troll. I suppose I should have noticed this earlier by your forum title, so shame on me for my lack of perception.

I can't wait for eberryone to stop using disclaimers like "I think", "some", and "most". Then, we can all accuse each other of having black and white thinking in eberry thread. My favorite thing is reading threads in which a bunch of autistic people accuse each other of black and white thinking.

Let's not go there please. The only thing you got right in that statement was the latter part. Fnord was making a point.

He made the point imprecisely I might add, and you misread it, which goes to demonstrate why so many responses to your OP are in disagreement.

There are problems and dangers with imprecise speech. Imprecise speech raises the odds of misinterpretation exponentially. It does so whether autistics are involved or not.

I'd like to add that it took me quite a while to learn to interpret what Fnord is actually doing in posts like that. I thought he was a troll for a while too. It took me months to realize he's not, and to understand he's got a style that just takes me longer to "get" than some other members. Some members here get it right off the bat.

Now, back to your point.

I'm a 1/0, or if you prefer, an A/B thinker. Call it black and white if you wish, it doesn't matter to me.

I need to "logic out" what others are getting at by process of A/B elimination. I've tried abstractly "guessing" at the intentions and real point of others for my entire life. My track record for doing so is dismal at best. When, however, I use A/B elimination processes, I can manage to get past misunderstandings, understand exactly what someone is trying to say to me, and what their motivation is.

That said, I'm going to try to use A/B elimination now.

What is it you are really trying to say?

A) That as aspies we need to learn to think more abstractly, and read clear meaning and motivation correctly in ambiguously worded statements?

or...

B) That as aspies we shouldn't have to use precisely worded statements because we ought to be learning to read them correctly anyway?

It's okay if your answer is a little of both, not some of one, not some of either, or any combination/mixture of the two. If it is more complicated than A/B, I'll just have to restructure the A/B breakdown. That's my problem.

What's your answer?

I will respect your request regarding Fnord.
A) is admirable and I encourage it, but it is not what I am trying to say. B) confuses me, so I am going to assume it is not what I am trying to say. I will try to break up what I mean in two parts.

Part 1) I am saying that when presented with posts or spoken phrases that do not include disclaimers, we should mentally include disclaimers. For example, if someone says "Cheeseburgers are terrible!" Then you should mentally include "In my experience, most" as a preface to that sentence (or some suitable alternative).

This will help reduce (but not eliminate) misunderstandings regarding disclaimers, and increase the probability of arriving at what the writer/speaker actually intended to say.

Part 2) I am also saying that if all involved parties did mentally include disclaimers, then it would no longer be necessary to write/speak disclaimers unless you specifically intend a statement to be all-inclusive (which is a minority of statements).

This will help reduce (but not eliminate) the extremely frequent arguments that happen when people do not use disclaimers and others feel the need to point out that it creates an inaccuracy.

As an exception to all of the above, it would still be necessary to include disclaimers in matters of Academia where precision is vital.