#yes i do think that procgen is exceedingly dull and won't improve until we can teach an ai the concepts of art and the creative fluke

[anautisticdragon-blog]

"You're not understanding me, because if you were, you would agree. Let me try again, maybe you'll understand me if I just put it simpler, then you'd agree."

Manufactured Idiocy

I try to build bridges between myself and NTs all the time, one such effort was a neurotypical friend I picked up from an interesting community of people I cavorted with for a time, before the social interactions just got the best of me. I tried to believe that he could come around and not see everything from a tribal perspective, that he wouldn't always be trying to convert people to his tribe through fallacy, trickery, and force. It didn't work out. We're no longer friends. You see, the issue I have with NTs is the one that gave rise to the alt-right; An NT isn't able to accept that someone might disagree with them. It's just not within their power to accept that a person can exist outside of the tribes they believe they're in, and that that person can still be an equal. You must either be converted (forcibly, through pressure and bullying) into their tribes or you're somehow lesser. I ee this often in neurotypical debating tactics, and it's something I've come to think of as manufactured idiocy. It's where the NT tries to force the other person to feel unintelligent for not agreeing with them. The NT will claim that you're not bright enough to understand their explanation, that you can't grasp what it is they're saying, that somehow this is happening due to a failure to convey something in terms simple and comprehensible enough for their opponent to understand. You see, in their view, if they could do that then their opponent would naturally agree with them, or at least say that their opinions are valid, and all would be unicorns farting scented rainbows. The NT, being on the sociopathic spectrum, will use character assassination and try to undermine someone's self-esteem as these, to them, are valid tactics. The point is getting the person to agree, not the mutual sharing of information. Whereas on the autistic spectrum, when you have a person who's truly autistic (and this is an easy way to tell), you can have two people who'll be able to share ideas back and forth, disagree, and then not think of one another as lesser for doing so. I can hear the NTs out there now 'that's a fantasy, that's not how humanity ever works!' No, that's an autistic person's reality. My autistic partner and I do it all the bloody time, we disagree on some things but we respect one another as we are, both of us, cognizant of the importance of the diversity of thought. Innovation doesn't happen without the diversity of thought. The disagreement was about the kind of creativity I personally find appealing. I'll stress this, it wasn't about the 'correct' form of it, nor was it about the 'only' form of it, but rather the manner that I, personally, find to be the most appealing. It was an argument that arose from the most ridiculous source, because it always is with neurotypicals, they can make an absolute binary tribal-oriented focus out of any nonsense. You see, because I had a preference that wasn't their preference, I deserved to be struck down, smote for my opinion. How dare I? How dare! I said that I enjoyed creativity that arose from the fluke, that the optimisation of that fluke was less interesting to me on a personal level. I had to say this as the NT in question was pressuring me to be interested in how they were putting elements of a Minecraft mod pack together, in ways which I had done, and I'd known other people had as well. They believed there was something special in their way of following things to their logical conclusion that no one else had, as NTs love being special snowflakes. I find that NTs always have a propensity for that flavour of egomania, unfortunately. I explained to them that it was the fluke, the discovery, where someone found an entirely new use for something that was interesting to me. This lead them off on a mad spiel about how optimisation was as true a form of creativity as any (I never said it wasn't, you see), and that I should accept their gloriously brilliant, fantastic, creative mind and praise them for their efforts. Again, NTs tend to have an ego problem and if you don't feed their ego they can get quite nasty. Whereas, conversely, other spectrums (such as the autistic spectrum) are more prone to experiencing self-esteem and low confidence issues. i tried to explain to them that when an artist is simply mass-producing their work and never really trying anything new, it isn't interesting to me. I find that there's a lot of this on deviantART where artists will always use exactly the same side profile for everything, never bothering to learn about photography to practise different camera angles. I pointed out that my partner's favourite art pieces were the ones where they had attempted to set aside what they know and try stuff, and hten -- through a fluke -- discovered ways to make their art more interesting. In this way their artistic talent grows. That's what I find interesting about creativity. Apparently I absolutely need to equally value the person who takes that fluke and optimises it a little and see it as every bit as creative as the person who did that. It's like, yeah, you could just copy someone else's fluke and get the results that way but that isn't as interesting to my mind (personally, to me, I had to absolutely stress as a disclaimer) as the person who was just mucking about and found they could do something. An example I gave is that say you have an environment artist in a video game, clambering around the environment they created to see if they could find their way to places they shouldn't be able to. They reach a plateau and, even though it wasn't intended for the player to get there, they keep that path open so that others can see it. Then, the person gets an idea, it's certainly fulfilling to get here but what if it could be more rewarding? They plop a chest down there, fo rthe player to find if they manage to clamber up this insane, unintentional obstacle course. And lo, jumping puzzles are born. The person who comes along and optimises the jumping puzzle later to ensure that the geometry is correct and that the player has the smoothest experience is quite important, yes, but that's just taking what was already there to its logical conclusion. It isn't the same, for me, as the person who had the idea to put a chest atop that plateau in the first place. That's the kind of thing that inspires me, those stories are compelling as it's something impressive about how the human mind works. I find the fluke to be intriguing, and I personally feel that's a very important piece of the puzzle to solve in the process of crafting a thinking AI. This leads to a spiel about math and formula. I'm a computer programmer, he isn't, so this is especially funny to me. I sat there feeling devastated as he insulted my aptitude and told me that I didn't understand heuristics, formulaic systems, or anything like that. If I understood them as he did, I’d agree. Same as if I understood science the ‘correct’ way Creationists, Dark Matter Prophets, or Flat Earthers do I’d agree with them. Which I really don’t. I guess I don’t understand science, then! Poor me. Poor uneducated, stupid me.

It got to the point where I was just sadly shaking my head as I felt really hurt by this, it was just so petty of him to undermine me in this way, to try and attack me and bully me into accepting his viewpoint by insidiously attacking something I take pride in. I'm easily hurt, I have self-esteem issues. I wonder if I were neurotypical if that would've worked. Instead, I called him on his shit. I told him that insulting me and claiming that I couldn't understand math just because I didn't agree with his personal preference (I hope you see how WTF this is) is incredibly toxic and manipulative. I was tempted then and there to just call him on what he was behaving most like -- a vile sociopath. Instead, I asked him for exact examples to prove to me that I just couldn't understand his point. I gave him the benefit of the doubt. Why? I don't know. I guess I just want to believe in people. There's that optimistic part of me that genuinely wants to believe that NTs aren't as horribly manipulative, Machiavellian, and borderline sociopathic as I've continued to find they are. In this way I will admit that I am an idiot, because I'm running the same experiment over and over and expecting a different result. I suppose I just want to believe in humanity, I want to have faith in us. I don't want to be any kind of misanthrope, I feel this plays on my guilt a lot. It leaves me open to attacks like this. So I gave him every opportunity. He gave me vague hypotheses that I pointed out didn't match reality. I kept asking for examples and finally he brought up the Tracer controversy. There was an opinion going around that Blizzard actually created that situation in order to get people angry to drive interest toward their game, and knowing that Blizzard does tend to be like that (they did make the most thoroughly, intentionally addictive game we’ve ever seen), I couldn't deny the possibility. So that's the example he gave me. The thing is is that even if it was indeed intentional, it was merely the same kind of system that propaganda has used for aeons. It's the very same trickery that British politicians used for Brexit! Just look up 'Nigel Farage anti-migrant poster,' and it's the same systems that Nazi Germany and Cold War America used to successfully propagandise their respective populaces with. It's why telling an American that they're not a 'patriot' is an insult worthy of hatred, these days. These systems have been knocking around for a long time, now, they're hardly new. I pointed this out to him and I told him that, no, I didn't think that it was ingenious, clever, or new. It was just building on something that already existed. I didn't see anything that appealed to my creative preference, there. I don't think he was expecting that, so this further devolved into attacks upon my intelligence and very nasty efforts to undermine my character. Clearly, if I wasn't this 'orrible bloody troglodyte, I'd agree with him. This is exactly what 9/11 Truthers, Dark Matter Prophets, Flat Earthers, Creationists, Skeptiks, the Alt-Right, or any cult-like group does and it's why I dislike them. In these wonderfully neurotypical groups, there's a common element you'll find: If you don't agree with them, you're either an idiot or a lesser creature. It's all down to the tribalism of the neurotypical spectrum, a tribalism that isn't shared by other spectrums. As I'm on the autistic spectrum I'm not so obsessively tribal in my perceptions, and when it does occur I tend to be very self aware of it and I try to fix it. I don't just double down on that tribalist attitude. This is exactly what neurotypicals do, though, isn't it? If they're confronted with how tribalistic they are, they just double down with their tribal-oriented focus rather than attempting to be self aware. My observations seem to find that the neurotypical spectrum is lacking in certain aspects of the 'Theory of Mind,' which fascinates me. That's interesting, isn't it? Oh, that's so interesting! It's almost like the NT view is that their minds are the correct default and fully apply to 'Theory of Mind' (whereas they really don't) and other spectrums don't. The truth is is that different spectrums apply to different parts of the 'Theory of Mind,' some better than others. What I find is that in the case of the neurotypical spectrum, their mindset lacks awareness of their own tribal-oriented biases and focuses, they're fully unable of even thinking outside of those boxes (and god have I tried to get them to). Other spectrums don't seem to have this problem. So, as an interesting artefact of their lack of self awareness, we see what I call Manufactured Idiocy where their cognitive dissonance will have them try to make their opponent seem less intelligent and erudite, even where that's completely contrary to reality. I invite people of other spectrums (including autistic persons, like myself) to talk to NT people and see if you can spot this. It's just one artefact of their lack of self awareness about their own tribalism. And I had to finally call off this acquaintanceship today as it was too harmful to my health, as even my heartfelt efforts to try to just agree to disagree fall flat. I'm tired of having an NT undermine my intellect and character at every turn. An autistic person wouldn't do this. I suspect that other spectrums wouldn't either, in my experience this is very specifically an NT problem due to their tribal-oriented biases and focuses. If you disagree with na NT they will try any nasty, insidious, manipulative tactic to get you to agree. Which includes, as we've covered today, manufactured idiocy. I'm sure that in their cognitive dissonance the NT I've called this acquaintanceship off with thinks that I'm a subhuman troglodyte for not agreeing with them. That isn't mutual. I still like and respect them. I just don't like their attitude. Nor do I like their lack of self awareness about this. The entire point of making this article, really, is so that people are aware of this and this particular tactic so that they don't fall for it due to low self-esteem. My BS alarm was ringing loudly when he tried to pull this on me, so... I'm sharing. I'm just tired by this point, so yes, this is going up on my personal rant blog. I suppose I wouldn't feel this sensitive about it, but this happened after another altercation not very long ago. One where my cat had just died and he actually used that to his advantage, he exploited my vulnerability at that time to try to bring me around to joining one of his little tribes. When you're not on the NT spectrum it's interesting just how opaque and nauseating these manipulation tactics are. And that's the reason why I'm sure of my opinion about how minds are actually separated. One which other psychologists are waking up to. My opinion, for those not aware, is that introverts aren't separate from the autistic spectrum, they're merely on an even shallower end of it than Aspies. It seems like Aspies are the middle of the road between introverts and being fully autistic. In my opinion, there are numerous spectrums like this, and one such spectrum is the NT spectrum itself. On the most shallow end you have affiliative extraverts who're the least manipulative, then you have agentic extraverts who're the halfway point, on the extreme end you have sociopathy as part of the same spectrum. This explains the differences in empathy. For example, if an Aspie sees news of a person dying on television, they might not cover their mouth and make a song and dance about it as part of a social construct, but they will be the ones thinking about that a week down the line and wondering how society could be changed to stop these tragic events from occurring. The agentic extravert, for example, will cover their mouth, gasp, and look sad but if you ask them about it an hour later they won't have any recollection of what you're talking about. It's just gone. It's my position that the NT spectrum is simply just more manipulative and less empathetic than other spectrums, which is why they have this tribal focus to begin with. The tribal-oriented biases and focuses are what fuel their manipulation, it's all about hierarchy and wanting to be the 'top dog,' which is very common amongst autistic thinkers. I can pull the most obvious example, here, and cite the toxic philosophy of 'alphas and betas' often spread around by neurotypicals. You won't hear autistic people spread this philosophy as it's really unpopular with us. I spent some time researching this, too. I read around Wrong Planet and what I found was that autistic people were profoundly confused and vexed by it, none of them really knew what an 'alpha' male was. There was a lot of consternation and discussion as they tried to figure it out. It's just second nature to an NT though as everything in the NT world is hierarchies and tribes, it's just how minds on the neurotypical spectrum work. Anyway, I'm tired. I'm done with NTs. I'm still feeling sensitive about the loss of my cat and the last thing I need is to put up with underhanded, shady, manipulative tactics like manufactured idiocy. I miss my fucking cat, I'd rather be focusing on that than the bullshit the neurotypical spectrum tends to hoist on me. If you need more resources, though? Look up 'alpha bodybuilder' to cover the hierarchical stuff; 'Autistic people aren't failed versions of normal' to see an example of the NT perception that being different from them is the same as being innately inferior; And just about any video by TL;DR (Teal Deer) on YouTube for examples of manufactured idiocy. I really wish I wasn't so certain about all of this, but every time I try to find contradictory evidence (I try to fight my cognitive biases at every turn), I’ll find mountains more evidence that supports my views instead. I’ve really, really tried, here. The whole reason I bothered to hang around an NT even after they fucked with me when my cat died is to try and prove to myself that I'm wrong about the neurotypical spectrum, that it's not just a case of terrifyingly extreme sociopathy at one end to much more watered down sociopathy at the other. I actually had this post up not so long ago where I was furious at them for even trying to bully, manipulate, and fuck with me right after my cat died. I pulled that post. I pulled it because I felt bad for them, even though I didn't name them by name, so no one would even know who they are. I should've just left it up. That's an NT person for you, though. "Oh. You're feeling bad about the loss of your cat? I'm sorry (not actually sorry). Here, let me try to persuade you about an opinion of mine under the nasty pretence of consolation. Oh, you're not buying it? Here, let me just bully you and fuck with your mind while you're feeling vulnerable. Just let me convert you, I'll actually console you, then. And I’ll do this again at every opportunity in the future, too. It’s my nature." It's the tale of the scorpion and the frog, told time and time again. I'm sorry but I don't have the energy to explain it here for you, if you want to read it you can use that info to do a web search. Wikipedia has an article on it. Hm, an image might do. Those on the neurotypical spectrum are scorpions and this is their nature, they cannot change their nature, it's just how they're genetically coded to be. I'd say it's interesting that Disney hasn't made a film about this adage but I suppose it would strike too close to home for their mainstream audience. Wouldn't be too popular if the audience saw themselves in the scorpion, eh? So... fuck ‘em. Fuck neurotypicals. Fuck them and their horrible tactics. Fuck their unchangeably sociopathic nature.