Fuck Israel but donât blame your coworker.
The same goes for the Irish car bomb drink. As I heard one comedian say âimagine how many Americans would be up in arms if I made a drink that was two kamikazes in a Manhattan and called it a 9/11.â
Actual autist here: Took me a loooong time to figure out a whole bunch of social concepts when it comes to what neurotypicals basically deem as small talk.
Firstly, you basically just have to accept that for most people, a level of classist, racist, other kinds of stereotypical insults are socially viewed as basically acceptable, even though its usually quite obvious they are, in fact, insults.
Then you have to understand the concept of proportionality in small talk. You have to reply with something thatâs very obviously and directly relevant, and of the same magnitude.
(Jumping from an insult about dietary preferences to an insult about war crimes is not the same magnitude)
Encapsulating this entire social interaction is the setting: coworkers of mixed nationality likely and an after work dinner likely implies an expectation of basically corporate social etiquette, ie, back handed compliments to establish a social dominance hierarchy, where the name of the game us getting as close to breaching the invisible âwow what an assholeâ line without actually stepping over it.
To avoid looking meek, docile, awkward or antisocial, you have to figure out an appropriate small talk style reply, which actually requires a fairly detailed knowledge of the other persons you are conversing with. Their culture, personal history, personal beliefs, etc.
If you donât do this at least semi-regularly, then you are a pushover who will be given higher workloads with no extra compensation and likely will not advance very far in your career, as you seem to be fine where you are.
So ok, if you know a bit about Israelis, you might attempt to insult back along the lines of dietary preferences.
But, its a faux pas to escalate even within this realm of responses: If you retort that you âprefer your potatoes with porkâ, well, thatâs probably going to be viewed as quite rude, as thatâs still a higher magnitude, as it references something that is commonly known to be forbidden to most Israelis.
What might be a proportional response would be âSorry, Iâd make them (the potatoes) into latkes for you, but I donât have any eggsâ.
But that may still be deemed as overly offensive, depending on the temperament of the Israeli and the level to which the other coworkers feel the need to be defensive toward perceived anti-semitism.
So, as an autistic person, you have to consciously have all this knowledge and think through it all logically in real time, all while your actual emotion is anger because you donât give a fuck that the potato comment was supposed to be a joke, because it was in actuality a racist insult that actually references a fucking famine and a dietary stereotype that exists largely due to imperialist exploitation of your ancestors.
In summary, yeah small talk is an absolute nightmare for autistic people who are in an aggressive, hostile social environment, which, at least in my experience, is almost all of them.
I bid that non autistic people be named and categorized in a way that highlights their subtly hostile, backstabbing, cruel nature. You know, the common household âpsychopathâ who doesnât actually meet the requirements for real psychopathy, but is still pathologically a dickish cynic playing a social game for minor wins in wealth and status, instead of simply being a friendly and polite contributor to society.
They named us.
Maybe we should name them.
Describe the traits that define them. Go into detail about what exactly is so wrong with them. Why they kill rally for warmongers. Why they sabotage eachother. Why they face obvious long term problems with such oblivious nonchalance.
I bid that non autistic people be named and categorized in a way that highlights their subtly hostile, backstabbing, cruel nature
Are you sure youâre âautisticâ? Are you sure youâre not just a fucking asshole?
In exaggerating a little, but to me itâs pretty fucking clear you have some issues of your own. Not exclusively, but definitely as common tendencies.
I donât know how deep the rabbit hole goes, but the less distinct pathologies of the common clay are certainly also much less explored. The plains lying between the tallest peaks and deepest, darkest caves, left comparably undisturbed. The resting place of the explorers, disinterested in undermining their own camp.
There are variations of normal, some whose defined traits might be even less charitable that those described in the definition of the prototypical autist.
Yeah, Iâm angry and even violently so, but not out of a hatred of a group. I think OPâs boss is an asshole, and I think Israel are not the good guys right now, but I also think antisemitism is no better and I donât want anyone innocent, like children, getting caught in the crossfire like they were during the Holocaust and like they are being today in Gaza.
I donât doubt theyâre autistic.
I also donât understand why you think theyâre an asshole. Allistic people often do act like low tier psychopaths: manipulative, selfish, overconfident and hypocritical.
Itâs just that they do this in ways they donât perceive, such that they donât recognize it until it crosses a more extreme threshold.
Hereâs a ⌠perhaps more palatable version of the same idea:
And if youâd like to know more:
I propose we start Zionism for Autists.
Iâm sure thatâll go well rofl.
Funny, but thatâs entirely different from what I wrote in all but general vibe, maybe. Besides, following Israelâs example isnât exactly a recipe for success.
Thatâs not âa nightmare for autistic peopleâ. He had every right to be angry about a famine and this was all just âsubmit to my authorityâ bullshit. I donât care who you are descended from, that is not logical nor fair nor reasonable in any social setting. I literally would have just decked him in the face and stormed out because thatâs the only scenario where OP is making it clear that authority does not equal privilege. Respect your employees.
He had every right to be angry about a famine
A famine in 1845? Caused by Irish reliance on monocrop agriculture?
Why would any living person in 2024 have a right to be âangryâ about a joke that barely refers to it?
A famine in 1845 that was caused byâŚ
âAs someone who lived 5 years in ireland and saw the history its absolutely fucking horrible. If you think about it its kinda ironic. Uk occupies a country, controls everything there and commits a genocide. Israel is occupying a country, controls everything there and commits a genocide. By the way as a neurotypical who has autistic family members and friends, in this case what happened is that the irish potato famine got normalized over time but the genocide in gaza is a current event. Also the israel one is political. Third thing is most neurotypicals are pussies, if you spend time with neurodivergent people you realize that a lot of things they say are funny as fuck, even if its a bit raw sometimes.â
That was by Altoothbrush in this topic, if you didnât see it.
Iâm not Irish, nor do have an issue with Israelis. This whole issue just reeks of âcasual dismissivenessâ and Iâm autistic myself so this hurts deep.
What I mean by nightmare for autistic people is that autistic people, while often excelling at tasks and activities that have firm, mechanical, logical rules, are also often totally bewildered by social interactions because, on their face, they donât really seem to follow any black and white rules.
Autists try to logic their way, consciously, through a challenging social interaction as if it were a game of chess, even though the rules are basically calvinball rules.
My point is that this kind of catastrophic social interaction is more likely and more challenging for a neurodiverse than a neurotypical, not that the Israeliâs incitement was justifiable.
literally would have just decked him in the face and stormed out because thatâs the only scenario where OP is making it clear that authority does not equal privilege.
Yep and thatâs how you ruin your career and possibly go to jail, have fun paying off your student loans at a min wage job the rest of your life after everyone hears about the guy that freaked out over a friendly dinner and broke the funny popular guyâs orbital bone.
Thatâs how you are supposed to deal with that level of awfulness. If you idiots canât fucking throw away your worthless fucking lives en-masse to fix this mess, how do you expect change to ever happen?
Iâm autistic and Iâve learned to stop trying to play this game. Instead, I just make assholes like this explain their sideways ass comments in a straightforward fashion for the group. Forcing people to explain bigoted comments and not allowing the subject to change has now made everyone uncomfortable. Not so fucking funny anymore. I usually donât have to do this more than once or twice within a specific group.
âWell, you know, Irish cuisine has a lot of potatoes in it.â
Joke fucking explained. How do you figure the guyâs going to be on the spot, exactly?
I guess you never heard of the potato famine then, which was a type of genocide visited upon the Irish by the British. Hence the 'suddenâjump from potatoes to bombing hospitals.
Thatâs the source of potato jokes people crack about the Irish.
I also stopped playing âthe gameâ long ago and no longer put up with shitty people, but I can only do that because Iâm on SSDI and donât have to interact with people in an employment setting.
Anon here is learning the hard way that basically, to advance in almost any modern, monetarily lucrative career, and most non lucrative ones, welp, you have to play this stupid social jockeying game because that is subconsciously how most others determine your worth as an employee, as a coworker.
You can do the âexplain why thats funnyâ angle, but that just makes ⌠you look like an asshole, a killjoy ⌠to the people whose jobs are their lives, their selves.
It has been working for me, and Iâve been getting promoted. I also tell the truth to executive leadership against advice. I just donât have the bandwidth to fully mask and complete the job Iâm paid to do. I mask the essentials, but Iâm not playing games. We have work to do.
Also autistic here. Letâs say you reply with âSo why is that funnyâ and that person or a third person says âDonât be so sensetiveâ. Whatâs the best way to force the explanation?
(Jumping from an insult about dietary preferences to an insult about war crimes is not the same magnitude)
The potato joke is also a joke about a genocide, though.
Like âHow many potatoes does it take to kill an Irishman?â
âNoneâ
As someone who lived 5 years in ireland and saw the history its absolutely fucking horrible. If you think about it its kinda ironic. Uk occupies a country, controls everything there and commits a genocide. Israel is occupying a country, controls everything there and commits a genocide. By the way as a neurotypical who has autistic family members and friends, in this case what happened is that the irish potato famine got normalized over time but the genocide in gaza is a current event. Also the israel one is political. Third thing is most neurotypicals are pussies, if you spend time with neurodivergent people you realize that a lot of things they say are funny as fuck, even if its a bit raw sometimes.
in this case what happened is that the irish potato famine got normalized over time but the genocide in gaza is a current event
Yep, basically this. To most non Irish people or those who havenât bothered to learn, its just a commonly socially acceptable racist joke.
Third thing is most neurotypicals are pussies, if you spend time with neurodivergent people you realize that a lot of things they say are funny as fuck, even if its a bit raw sometimes.
My experience is that almost all of them are selfish hypocritical bullies, though I do seem to have just had astounding low quality people around me for much of my life. I have had a few genuinely nice neurotypical friends, but theyâre a small minority.
(I actually just think David Bowie had the right idea being afraid of Americans. Weâre boorish, ignorant cocksure, backstabbing assholes compared to everyone Iâve ever met or know from another country.)
The vast majority of neurotypicals Iâve known who constantly give me shit and often donât even realize they are doing so?
They either have nervous breakdowns or become physically violent when I dish back 10% of what theyâve thrown at me by simply explaining their own hypocrisy to them.
Doing so is funny to me because to me their hypocrisy is self-evident and thus they are just are absurd but it breaks the brains of people who seem to just say shit with very low self-awareness.
This is true, (see my second to last paragraph) but ⌠that is not as widely known.
Most people just think âIdk, Irish people like potatoesâ.
Most people think it is just in the realm of dietary preferences and cuisine and donât know why.
Even though there is a fairly direct equivalence if you actually know the history of the stereotype, most people donât.
Thus you are perceived as overreacting if you jump right to genocide.
To attempt an analogy:
Itâs like if a boomer tells a millennial or gen z to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, and they point out that the original meaning of that phrase was meant to encapsulate the literal physical impossibility of doing so as analogous to making a decent living for yourself in an economy where very very few people have the means/opportunity/connections/dumb luck to earn more than basically a subsistence wage.
The boomer just gets offended or bewildered because they didnât know that, or they donât believe it, and theyâre too arrogant to admit they have no real, useful advice, and that all they have to offer is infantilization.
Their ignorance (and inability to admit their knowledge is flawed) allows them to keep using an offensive phrase and not see this as offensive.
Most people think it is just in the realm of dietary preferences and cuisine and donât know why.
And yet, if you said something about black people and watermelon or fried chicken, or Chinese people and cats, you would immediately be treated like a racist, because you would be.
seriously.
insert potato joke
âwhy is that funny?â
let them try to explain
âoh, I thought it was about he Irish Potato Famine, was a period of starvation and disease in Ireland lasting from 1845 to 1852 that constituted a historical social crisis and subsequently had a major impact on Irish society and history as a whole.â
see how awkward it can get.
Thatâs when they ostracize you for being a killjoy and not appreciating their âhumourâ
Even worse, the famine was entirely caused by landlords and especially the English. It wasnât a natural disaster, but a product of monoculture that was forced on the people through no fault of their own.
Also autistic here, I feel calling people out works pretty well for me. No need for extended knowledge except about your own culture, just point out the offensive part and make them regret.
Example: âAre you referencing the Irish potato famine?â
It forces the person to either back out or admit that it was offensive. Third option could be âDonât be so sensetive, it was a jokeâ. Then you can say that you donât mind jokes but that you found that one offensive.
With knowledge about the personâs culture you can always use it for a counter-attack with âI thought that Israelis would know that some jokes are off limitsâ.
One thing specifically about Irish vs Israeli is that, if Iâm not mistaken, Ireland and Israel are not on remotely good terms and havenât been for a while. If the Israeli was a natural-born Israeli citizen they may have truly meant to piss Anon off.
Imma be real most of the time I just say fuck it and act like anon. My defense with HR would be that Israeli guy stated a racist comment first, and if I get fired then Iâll have a company to add to the list of neurodivergent discriminators. I donât have the patience to play that stupid back and fourth.
Honest question: Are neurodivergents functionally a protected class from discrimination in the US, the way religion, race, sexuality, gender are?
The only even theorerical backing for that I can think of is the ADA, and I have never once heard of it or any other law being actually used by a neurodivergent against discrimination.
I have no idea. What I do know is that in the US we are restricted to playing the Capitalism Game. That means that we vote with our wallets, and I do everything in my power to let everyone around me know which companies are shitty and should be avoided at all costs. So far Ive been responsible for about 5 amazon prime cancelations :)
Functionally? No. Legally? Yes.
When Iâm applying for jobs, I do check the box that says disabled, because according to the US govât, developmental disorders like autism spectrum disorder are considered disabilities. (Probably ADHD also, but that evaluation isnât complete yet.) OTOH, itâs unlikely to help if i am subjected to some kind of workplace discipline thatâs the direct result of being on the autism spectrum, or if I fuck something up because i have severe ADHD. The kind of accommodations that they would need to make are⌠Pretty limited, TBH.
Most people are not aware, but potatoes are a reference to a holodomor-like government-induced famine that occurred in Ireland when the government of England made a policy of paying far over market rate for people to ship food out of Ireland.
This weakened the Irish food market, leading to a situation where many people subsisted on the one crop that they could grow on their own property (as collective farm output was put on ships to elsewhere), which was potatoes.
In that brittle situation, a fungus called a potato blight caused many people to starve to death because they were down to one last food source after the English mucking about.
It didnât happen in a time of war so it wasnât a war crime, but what the English government did to the Irish people was definitely genocidal.
Most employed tankie
As Irish you donât have distinct nationality anyway since you havenât claimed any independence from the UK
Ireland is not part of the UK you idiot. Thatâs Northern Ireland, a totally different country.