What happend to solo passion


Recommended Posts

The character of Sheldon on "Big Bang Theory" is supposed to be an Aspie. Right?

It's a great show in any case. One of the best sitcoms ever.

Ghs

I didn't even know this show existed until now. Never heard of it. I stopped watching recurrent drama and comedy shows decades ago. I keep reading about the fourth season of this and the seventh season of that and have no idea about any of them. It's so strange for me.

--Brant

I'll catch an episode

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 118
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

Lmao Pennie...Pennie ...Pennie

And I love how she has been knocking on the inside of her door in the same rfhytthm "Sheldon...Sheldon...Sheldon"

http://big-bang-theory.net/pilot-episode/#.U674ho9x2PI

Link to comment
Share on other sites

fluent, confident talk does not contradict a Dx of Asperger Syndrome/High-functioning Autism.

I wonder if anything does. Lack of falsifiability is one symptom of a pseudo-science. "Climate change" (which used to be global warming), confirmed by any weather pattern and contradicted by none, is the classic example.

You do well to be cynical, on the whole -- if thinking of diagnostic constructs that seem knitted out of air rather than strict criteria. Even strict criteria can describe a 'syndrome' that is otherwise entirely normal and healthy or at least within human variance. Mind you, you might be suffering from Oppositional Defiant Syndrome ...

I think what I keep in mind is suffering. Do folks with Autistic Spectrum disorder suffer in ways that so-called typical or normal kids do not? I think they do.

I also think the main point of having this Dx fixed is that it answers parents' calls: "how can I help my child?" This allows remediation, effective support, therapy designed to increase social abilities, understanding unique challenges in education. Knowing more about what happens in the life course so that someone becomes labeled Autistic -- all the different ways that one can be autistic -- this destigmatizes the disorder, makes it comprehensible, and allows an informed opinion. For those who are doubtful that such a thing exists, I recommend the individual narratives at Autism Speaks, and the guides to symptoms, early signs, and so on. I think we have to listen to kids, parents and adults affected by or diagnosed along the spectrum.

Reidy, I'd be happy to read your further thoughts. It's true that psychiatric disorders have proliferated madly in the last century (as exemplified by the DSM itself), It's also true that many purported psychiatric disorders seem only to describe an extreme of personality or trait or behaviour. But I would not throw out the baby with the bathwater, nor reject the reality that is autistic people who vary along the presumed spectrum. Present labels may be only heuristics, and in future times different names will be applied to folks like Bob, yet there they are, the folks and lives behind the labels.

I agree that "Asperger's Syndrome" is a handy way to view a kind of "normal" (appropriate; non-destructive; non-aggressive) behavior.

[...]

I agree with William Scherk that this so-called syndrome has explanatory power, but is not falsifiable, In that, it is like astrology.

You don't agree with me, in that you seem to believe that no contra-indications to a Dx of Asperger Syndrome exist. For example, you might take the simple survey by Baron-Cohen, and see if it indicates you are 'on the spectrum.' That criteria for AS can discriminate from 'neurotypical' means to me that the construct 'syndrome' can indeed be falsified.

I don't think you have done any work to challenge your conclusions. I note you are on earlier record against the utility of the construct entirely, considering it close to fraud. As far as I know from reading your posts on the subject -- at OL and at RoR -- you have not supplied any warrants for your beliefs, no evidence that supports your reading of Asperger and his career.

I challenge you to provide warrants for these specific claims, which you have repeated in differing forms for a few years now:

  1. Asperger Syndrome is baloney
  2. Asperger's Syndrome is pseudo-science, just quakery dressed up in the language of science
  3. Asperger Syndrome is nothing but a paycheck for psychologists who specialize in Asperger's Syndrome.
  4. Honestly, Hans Asperger was a nazi.
  5. Asperger was a Nazi in the fundamental sense
  6. He adhered to their paradigms for social behavior
  7. His career did well as the Nazis rose.
  8. After the Anschluss he moved to Germany.
  9. Hans Asperger was a nazi who studied boys who did not "get along well" with others.
  10. He took his "little professors" marching into the hills, German-style, singing songs while following a flag.
  11. Asperger served in the army in the German occupation of Croatia, a Nazi client state.
  12. After the war, he was interviewed by US Army "intelligence".
  13. He explained his theories and methods to US intelligence and it sounded harmless to them, just like the Boy Scouting they knew and loved
  14. The truth is that Dr. Hans Asperger was an Austrian nazi whose work was approved by the US military occupation of Germany because the Army intelligence interrogators thought that it was appropriate to socialize “little professors” by marching them through the woods singing songs just like the Boy Scouts they all were.
  15. He found that mild regimentation -- youth groups, hiking clubs -- worked wonders for them, made then fit right in!
  16. After the War, the Allied military -- themselves a bunch of Boy Scouts -- found nothing dangerous in his ideas and they let him go.

I see "Asperger Syndrome" as a general description of a personality type found in a population.

Well, that is fine. A 'personality type' is a nice fuzzy meme with no boundaries. But you cannot use such a generalized term to apply to severe disorders in addition, not with such fuzz, I don't think.

Which makes me wonder if you consider attending to severity while 'typing' as particularly meaningful, ie, Autism itself as a personality type, rather than descriptive of a distressing condition. If in your constellation of personality typing we have Asperger-ish, Sociopathic-ish, Obsessive-ish, Paranoiac-ish, Autism-ish, Rett Syndrome-ish and a thousand other normed afflictions ... then I have to wonder if you are just having a walk in the garden, rather than distinguishing the concepts along a metric of observed severity, of suffering, of social impediment, of problem.

What I am missing from your pronouncements is any reflection that AS kids (like Bob) have suffered. In other words, what by your lights is mere personality difference was reliably detected by others, made a target of bullying, identified as obstacle to learning, work and independent living. I haven't seen you empathize with the 'type' or note a person's challenges.

I know you have a heart. Consider Asperger and his patients. Many of these were institutionalized, at risk of eradication via Nazi eugenics. Consider that identifying a particular constellation of behaviours/symptoms allows educating (and self-educating as with Bob) and a sort of reparation to occur. The understanding of Asperger Syndrome shown by Bob is I think of greater value than yours. His stories of 'adjusting' to his aspie-type personality and actively learning/decoding the social world are useful.

Meyer-Briggs has 16 other boxes for people. Freud had some labels for "complexes" also. MSK's birthday makes him a Taurus, old-style, and he looks like that; but new-style, he is a Gemini, and he acts like that.

Myers-Briggs is a whole other ball of wax. It wants to reliably separate out humans into distinct useful personality preferences. If It fails to detect the kind of 'personality type' you assume is Asperger Syndrome it's a bit thin, if it does detect it, it speaks to the validity of AS.

I agree 100% with Reidy above: such descriptors can be handy for social chatter, but they are not science.

People with so-called "Asperger Syndrome" do not need to be "cured" of anything.

If you have read case histories, or case studies, or even the work of Asperger himself, or read what Bob Kolker has written about his struggles to be/appear a neuro-Norm, I think you would be less categorical. If you were familiar with the life-course of those who live with what they call AS, then I think you would sharpen your curiosity and add to your conceptual understanding. In lieu of study, you seem to be sweeping away what does not fit your preconceived ideas.

Imagine the political structure that allows a "doctor" to say, "According to the Pearson-Marr, you are a Wanderer; but we can cure that." That is our society today, where so-called "doctors" of psychiatry and psychology prescribe therapies and drugs to "cure" people of the labels ascribed to them by social chatter.

Why use an analogy that is so strained? This is logically fallacious. No doctor or psychiatrist or psychologist is going to offer a "cure" for Asperger Syndrome, let alone Autism. There is no drug for AS or Autism. There are, of course, many pedagogical interventions, and behavioural therapies, which address particular social and behavioural deficits. I don't think your analogy holds for the situation you want to address. I think you are pretty ignorant of the lived reality that 'aspies' (in particular) represent. I suggest you push back the darkness on this issue.

George, yes, Sheldon Cooper is an Asperger, but Jim Parsons was purposely not told that (for as long as they could keep him in the dark) because they wanted him to act like Sheldon Cooper, not like an Asperger Syndrome Patient.

Where do you get such categorical summaries? Is there some clear evidence that what you claim is true? Have you a quote from the producers, writers, and Parsons?

Frankly, the more I read the repetition of the Asperger Was A Nazi trope, the less I believed it. You would think that after a few years of such claims, you would have managed to put forward some objective evidence.

Edited by william.scherk
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well, if there are no drugs for AS I assume none are being given to children diagnosed with it--as-a-general-rule.

One way to more effectively deal with this might be less enforced conformity in the classroom and more free-wheeling instruction.

--Brant

Link to comment
Share on other sites

For example, you might take the simple survey by Baron-Cohen, and see if it indicates you are 'on the spectrum.' That criteria for AS can discriminate from 'neurotypical' means to me that the construct 'syndrome' can indeed be falsified.

My score was 33. Low end of AQ where mean is 16.2 for "normal" people.

My score would have been higher when I was younger.

You are not the first to suggest it, not even the first on an Objectivist discussion board.

As for the Nazi Dr. Asperger, ducks quack. Asperger was a nazi whether or not he had a low numbered Party card. His theories are collectivist, Hegelian, Kantian evil.

George, yes, Sheldon Cooper is an Asperger, but Jim Parsons was purposely not told that (for as long as they could keep him in the dark) because they wanted him to act like Sheldon Cooper, not like an Asperger Syndrome Patient.

Where do you get such categorical summaries? Is there some clear evidence that what you claim is true? Have you a quote from the producers, writers, and Parsons?

Yes, being big fans of the show, we have watched interviews with the cast and crew on various DVDs. One of the writers said that, as I recall. I don't just make this stuff up.

Human beings who are like this ("Asperger Syndrome") are persecuted by the majority of hairless apes in our society. It makes the victims assume upon themselves an unearned sense of guilt and shame, of isolation and peculiarity. If their special natures were celebrated and honored, the situation would be different.

What is baloney is that this is a "syndrome" that needs to be treated.

What is your real sun sign?

http://testyourself.psychtests.com/testid/2299

(49 questions just like your profile of 50. Though a sun-sign Scorpio and a Precession Libra, by this test, I am a Sagittarius. Imagine now that we called it the Archer Syndrome and tried to treat it.)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

As for the Nazi Dr. Asperger, ducks quack. Asperger was a nazi whether or not he had a low numbered Party card. His theories are collectivist, Hegelian, Kantian evil.

I'd like to know more about "Kantian evil" for I have no idea what this is respecting what is in the written record.

--Brant

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thread-jackers.

Executor,

Welcome to the online discussion world.

Ever try herding cats?

:smile:

btw - From an Objectivist orientation, I suggest when you see that at first, it is best to go into "identify correctly" mode rather than desire to control the discussion with rules. I'm not saying you want to do that, but coming from an Objectivist orientation myself, I've been through this.

The simple fact is that people are more complex than we learn about in Rand's writings and infer therefrom. What I had to do to learn to deal with it was throw out everything I learned for a while and just look. After going through a spell of soaking up how people behave--and no judgments, I just wanted to identify correctly--I came to a far better place for judging and acting than relying on what I learned from the judgments of others (including Rand's judgments).

In this sense, I don't think anyone tried to jack this thread to control what others talk about. People who know me know I can be pretty hard on control freaks who try to do that. I think the posters on this thread merely said what was on their minds and things drifted. This happens a lot in forums and in all forms of social media, for that matter.

The topic of abnormal mental conditions, like those on the autism spectrum, is a hot-button issue right now in O-Land. I should have known better than make a quip based on it, but even I make mistakes. :smile:

Michael

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The topic of abnormal mental conditions, like those on the autism spectrum, is a hot-button issue right now in O-Land. I should have known better than make a quip based on it, but even I make mistakes. :smile:

Michael.

You're much too modest. You should have said, "but even I can be right."

--Brant

based on extensive observation

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I disagree with the use of psychoactive drugs to treat non debilitating conditions.

  • limited or inappropriate social interactions
  • "robotic" or repetitive speech
  • challenges with nonverbal communication (gestures, facial expression, etc.) coupled with average to above average verbal skills
  • tendency to discuss self rather than others
  • inability to understand social/emotional issues or nonliteral phrases
  • lack of eye contact or reciprocal conversation
  • obsession with specific, often unusual, topics
  • one-sided conversations
  • awkward movements and/or mannerisms [...]

None of these seem like they could prevent someone from being self sufficient. Some of these traits seem to be advantages.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I disagree with the use of psychoactive drugs to treat non debilitating conditions.

  • limited or inappropriate social interactions
  • "robotic" or repetitive speech
  • challenges with nonverbal communication (gestures, facial expression, etc.) coupled with average to above average verbal skills
  • tendency to discuss self rather than others
  • inability to understand social/emotional issues or nonliteral phrases
  • lack of eye contact or reciprocal conversation
  • obsession with specific, often unusual, topics
  • one-sided conversations
  • awkward movements and/or mannerisms [...]

None of these seem like they could prevent someone from being self sufficient. Some of these traits seem to be advantages.

That list of symptoms describes an autistic person.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi Andrew Bernstein,

Are you this Andrew Bernstein? If so, when will your book on the hero in literature be published?

Or are you another man by the same name? Or is it that Andrew Bernstein is not your real name?



While on this forum i found out about a site called solo passion. They seem to have been a major site in the past but other then frequent blog posts they seem dead. Their forum appears to have once been active but in most categories it has been over a year since the last post. Their site design is outdated and many of the links are broken. I created an account, but the forums and blogs seem locked to new users. Surprisingly the blogs seem still active even though the rest of the site seems dead. Does anyone know what happened?

I've noticed on these posting sites that let you know the number of readers online there are many more readers than posters. I first became aware of such a site for people interested in discussing Objectivism in 2005. I had heard of earlier sites that had disappeared, but this first one for me, which is today called Rebirth of Reason, was the first I ever actually saw. It had a lot of posting by a lot of different posters in those days. Shortly after I joined that site, the entire site was hijacked by James Valliant and a buddy concerning the particulars of Ayn Rand's life and representation of her person and life story, especially as it had been told by Barbara Branden, as I recall. I don't know if it had been Mr. Valliant's aim to hijack thread after thread to that one single topic, but that was what happened. Many posters were sucked into that vortex. I don't recall the sequence, but I know eventually Valliant and pal were off that site, and attention of posters returned to a wider range of issues, not just particulars of Rand's life.

From that site, there splintered Lindsay Perigo's and this one. I had noticed that the number of different long-term posters at these sites had declined at each a few years ago and continues low to the present. Still, these sites and the one called Objectivism Online continue to have readers. And though Rebirth does not display numbers of readers online, I expect they also have readers far outnumbering the number of different posters. I had thought decline in number of active participants who stay on and on and the decline in level of participation by some long-time posters, such Bissell and Malcolm, was due significantly to the usual been-there--done-that and too-much-repetition factors. But I recently joined Facebook, and I now think that ever-more participation there is a major factor in the lower levels at these posting sites. Some people use their Facebook page for some of the sorts of communications and comradeship that are available at sites such as this one (especially political communications), but with the difference that at their Facebook page, they can control to various degrees who contributes and clip what is said and for how long. Rewards there has reduced posting traffic at these less restricted sites from what it would otherwise have been, I imagine.

The present format you describe for Mr. Perigo's site is a form of public site different than the form of public posting site such as this one. Having a site consisting of blogs restricted to certain persons, with great restrictions on who can post in them, and with all of it open for reading by the public, is a potentially rewarding niche. That it is not what one has come to think of as a typical posting forum is not to say it is without value, ordinary fine value, to the participants or the readers.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi Andrew Bernstein,

Are you this Andrew Bernstein? If so, when will your book on the hero in literature be published?

Or are you another man by the same name? Or is it that Andrew Bernstein is not your real name?

I am a different Andrew Bernstein.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 11 months later...

You can go, last I knew, to SOLOP and see it as an archive ending in late 2005. As for the rest, I might talk about it with someone in person if we were both drunk out of our minds or if I had a gun to my head. It's so old and boring and dead.

On paper it was such a good idea - the greatest philosophy in history, presented by a world class broadcaster, with a vibrant and iconoclastic community. Politics, philosophy, news, technology... a veritable home for the Renaissance man of the 21st century.

That's how I saw it when working with Lindsay and Julian to get the site set up on a shoestring budget in a few days of caffeine powered coding and configuration lasting into the early hours of each morning.

I took a while to wise up. To my eternal discredit, it also took me being on the receiving end of the vitriol for me to understand how much it sucked. I realised one day that I was keeping opinions private because of the - correctly - anticipated emotional cost of posting them and getting flamed as a result.

Lindsay has achieved some pretty remarkable things, including bringing Libertarianism and Objectivism to the attention of a great number of New Zealanders, myself included, who otherwise would have been decades late to the party.

That doesn't alter the fact that Solopassion.com became a clusterfucked ghost town as contributor after contributor was driven off by the toxic atmosphere there, which was created and fostered by Lindsay himself.

Let's raise a toast (or a handgun, whatever it takes to get Brant into a conversational mood) to the esteemed members of the Saddamite Pomowankers club.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You can go, last I knew, to SOLOP and see it as an archive ending in late 2005. As for the rest, I might talk about it with someone in person if we were both drunk out of our minds or if I had a gun to my head. It's so old and boring and dead.

On paper it was such a good idea - the greatest philosophy in history, presented by a world class broadcaster, with a vibrant and iconoclastic community. Politics, philosophy, news, technology... a veritable home for the Renaissance man of the 21st century.

That's how I saw it when working with Lindsay and Julian to get the site set up on a shoestring budget in a few days of caffeine powered coding and configuration lasting into the early hours of each morning.

I took a while to wise up. To my eternal discredit, it also took me being on the receiving end of the vitriol for me to understand how much it sucked. I realised one day that I was keeping opinions private because of the - correctly - anticipated emotional cost of posting them and getting flamed as a result.

Lindsay has achieved some pretty remarkable things, including bringing Libertarianism and Objectivism to the attention of a great number of New Zealanders, myself included, who otherwise would have been decades late to the party.

That doesn't alter the fact that Solopassion.com became a clusterfucked ghost town as contributor after contributor was driven off by the toxic atmosphere there, which was created and fostered by Lindsay himself.

Let's raise a toast (or a handgun, whatever it takes to get Brant into a conversational mood) to the esteemed members of the Saddamite Pomowankers club.

Weren't you the guy who decamped to Australia? Was that you in a bi-plane waving goodbye several years ago?

It's gotta be toxic if it drove away Michael Moeller.

--Brant

Link to comment
Share on other sites

That doesn't alter the fact that Solopassion.com became a clusterfucked ghost town as contributor after contributor was driven off by the toxic atmosphere there, which was created and fostered by Lindsay himself.

It is that kind of 'toxic' talk that got me banned at SOLO three times ...

But SOLO is not entirely dead and gone, foundered and broken. There is a current thread populated by Lindsay, Brant, Kyrel, 'Gregster,' and Neil Parille. It might even have legs. Ed Hudgins might drop in. Who knows? Ed still reposts his TAS articles there, even if nobody has a word in response.

Besides that, the point is clear from your remarks, Duncan, and from the historical slump in SOLO's relevance to Objectivish folk. If you poison the well, folks are less likely to drink from it. Shit on colleagues, friends and guests, and your party will depopulate.

From the above SOLO thread, fully in keeping with Objectivish oral traditions, a looooong discussion between Gennady Stolyarov and Kyrel.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now