Andy from the television show "Weeds" talking about the 5 abortions he helped his girlfriends to get: "It's no big deal. For me. The ladies tended to get a little weepy. Except for Deirdre. But I found out later she had Asperger's."
Showing posts with label abortion. Show all posts
Showing posts with label abortion. Show all posts
Friday, July 30, 2010
Asperger's in popular culture
Andy from the television show "Weeds" talking about the 5 abortions he helped his girlfriends to get: "It's no big deal. For me. The ladies tended to get a little weepy. Except for Deirdre. But I found out later she had Asperger's."
Monday, September 15, 2008
Are you one of us?
I stumbled upon this a while ago, and then the other day. "Are you one of them?" the caption reads. The article purports to present a test of sociopathy. Both times i "failed" the test (I had forgotten the answer after the first time). I guess that makes me not a sociopath. r at least not a sociopath who has been stupid enough to be incarcerated.
It got me thinking, though. I am
sort of lonely. I would like to talk a little with my peers. It'd be good if there was some real way to test if people I know are also sociopaths, like Bladerunner's Voight-Kampff machine. It's tricky though, because sociopaths are so good at remaining undetected, even to other sociopaths. And you'd want the test to be very good at excluding false positives and negatives. You'd have to sneak up on them in a way that deprives them of other cues about how to act, like sneaking up on a baby you suspect is deaf and clapping to see if he reacts.
A possible test might be something that offends all sides of the moral spectrum, like the Freakonomics argument that the crime drop in the 1990's was due to Roe v. Wade because all the babies that would have grown up to be criminals had been aborted. Because there's so much moral static regarding that proposition, and because it offends absolutely everyone with any sort of moral compass, the sociopath can't make out any one particular signal. A better analogy might something like two very loud noise sources that are directly opposed. So by the time both noises reach the sociopath, they've canceled each other out and the sociopath hears nothing.
How would you expect the sociopath to react in such a situation? When I first read the Roe v. Wade argument in Freakonomics, I cried. It was one of the most beautiful things I had ever read. The reasoning was so familiar to me. I recognized the pattern of my own brain's reasoning. I felt like I belonged. So if I'm any indication of how sociopaths would react, elation, joy, feeling of belonging--these are the sorts of things you would be looking for.
Who cares about "them." Are you one of "us"?
It got me thinking, though. I am
sort of lonely. I would like to talk a little with my peers. It'd be good if there was some real way to test if people I know are also sociopaths, like Bladerunner's Voight-Kampff machine. It's tricky though, because sociopaths are so good at remaining undetected, even to other sociopaths. And you'd want the test to be very good at excluding false positives and negatives. You'd have to sneak up on them in a way that deprives them of other cues about how to act, like sneaking up on a baby you suspect is deaf and clapping to see if he reacts.
A possible test might be something that offends all sides of the moral spectrum, like the Freakonomics argument that the crime drop in the 1990's was due to Roe v. Wade because all the babies that would have grown up to be criminals had been aborted. Because there's so much moral static regarding that proposition, and because it offends absolutely everyone with any sort of moral compass, the sociopath can't make out any one particular signal. A better analogy might something like two very loud noise sources that are directly opposed. So by the time both noises reach the sociopath, they've canceled each other out and the sociopath hears nothing.
How would you expect the sociopath to react in such a situation? When I first read the Roe v. Wade argument in Freakonomics, I cried. It was one of the most beautiful things I had ever read. The reasoning was so familiar to me. I recognized the pattern of my own brain's reasoning. I felt like I belonged. So if I'm any indication of how sociopaths would react, elation, joy, feeling of belonging--these are the sorts of things you would be looking for.
Who cares about "them." Are you one of "us"?
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