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GivePeaceAChance
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21 Jan 2014, 9:06 am

Fnord wrote:
By what metric do you measure "ignorance" or "tolerance"?

I mean, you measure distance in meters, mass in kilograms, time in seconds, volume in liters, and so forth ... what do you measure "ignorance" and "tolerance" in?

Or is this going to be a map of personal impressions? As in ...

"Someone once gave me a dirty look in Fresno, so let's mark the entire Bay Area as 'hostile'!"

:roll:


someone needs to consult a map, Fresno is not in the Bay Area, it is in the Central Valley, you are more than 90 miles and a mountain range off


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21 Jan 2014, 9:22 am

Fnord wrote:
By what metric do you measure "ignorance" or "tolerance"?

I mean, you measure distance in meters, mass in kilograms, time in seconds, volume in liters, and so forth ... what do you measure "ignorance" and "tolerance" in?

Or is this going to be a map of personal impressions? As in ...

"Someone once gave me a dirty look in Fresno, so let's mark the entire Bay Area as 'hostile'!"

:roll:


A metric for measuring ignorance would be hate-based crimes per square mile and hate-caused suicides. You could get these by googling news stories of a particular area and using "driven to suicide by bullying" and "murdered because he/she was gay/autistic" as search phrases.

A metric for measuring tolerance would be density of businesses/social activities specifically geared to gay, nerdy or otherwise atypical people. A place with a density of LGBT film festivals, comic book stores, head shops will be a place where atypical people gather and in order to co-exist they must be tolerant of each other. These could be counted with google.

I include "gay" in these metrics because it is a proxy marker for whether difference is tolerated or fought with violence.



GivePeaceAChance
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21 Jan 2014, 9:58 am

Janissy wrote:
Fnord wrote:
By what metric do you measure "ignorance" or "tolerance"?

I mean, you measure distance in meters, mass in kilograms, time in seconds, volume in liters, and so forth ... what do you measure "ignorance" and "tolerance" in?

Or is this going to be a map of personal impressions? As in ...

"Someone once gave me a dirty look in Fresno, so let's mark the entire Bay Area as 'hostile'!"

:roll:


A metric for measuring ignorance would be hate-based crimes per square mile and hate-caused suicides. You could get these by googling news stories of a particular area and using "driven to suicide by bullying" and "murdered because he/she was gay/autistic" as search phrases.

A metric for measuring tolerance would be density of businesses/social activities specifically geared to gay, nerdy or otherwise atypical people. A place with a density of LGBT film festivals, comic book stores, head shops will be a place where atypical people gather and in order to co-exist they must be tolerant of each other. These could be counted with google.

I include "gay" in these metrics because it is a proxy marker for whether difference is tolerated or fought with violence.


the problem with this metric is that in an area of REAL intolerance they discount real hate crimes and when you report it they just laugh at you and it does not get recorded (this happened to me in an area) (PS - I wish I had moved out of LA)


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Fnord
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21 Jan 2014, 10:56 am

GivePeaceAChance wrote:
Fnord wrote:
By what metric do you measure "ignorance" or "tolerance"? I mean, you measure distance in meters, mass in kilograms, time in seconds, volume in liters, and so forth ... what do you measure "ignorance" and "tolerance" in? Or is this going to be a map of personal impressions? As in ... "Someone once gave me a dirty look in Fresno, so let's mark the entire Bay Area as 'hostile'!"
someone needs to consult a map, Fresno is not in the Bay Area, it is in the Central Valley, you are more than 90 miles and a mountain range off

Someone gets my point!

Why should an entire region within a 90-mile radius be condemned because of only one unpleasant incident?

That is why I'm asking how the respective degrees of "ignorance" and "tolerance" will be measured.



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21 Jan 2014, 11:18 am

Janissy wrote:
Fnord wrote:
By what metric do you measure "ignorance" or "tolerance"? I mean, you measure distance in meters, mass in kilograms, time in seconds, volume in liters, and so forth ... what do you measure "ignorance" and "tolerance" in? Or is this going to be a map of personal impressions? As in ... "Someone once gave me a dirty look in Fresno, so let's mark the entire Bay Area as 'hostile'!"
A metric for measuring ignorance would be hate-based crimes per square mile and hate-caused suicides. You could get these by googling news stories of a particular area and using "driven to suicide by bullying" and "murdered because he/she was gay/autistic" as search phrases.

Unfortunately, the Media often mis-represents the cause of suicides, and tends to label any crime against a minority person as a "Hate" crime - even when no real "Hatred" has been expressed. Fold in multiple accounts of the same news story, and what was a simple mugging becomes a flashing red strobe warning everybody to clear the area.

Janissy wrote:
A metric for measuring tolerance would be density of businesses/social activities specifically geared to gay, nerdy or otherwise atypical people. A place with a density of LGBT film festivals, comic book stores, head shops will be a place where atypical people gather and in order to co-exist they must be tolerant of each other. These could be counted with google.

"Otherwise atypical people" is a very broad category -- you could end up with exaggerated results that would include just about everybody. Again, multiple listings of the same venue could also skew the results.

Janissy wrote:
I include "gay" in these metrics because it is a proxy marker for whether difference is tolerated or fought with violence.

What if gays and other "atypical" people are tolerated, but those "atypical" people don't tolerate anyone else? Yes, it really does happen; so how will you adjust your data to compensate?



GivePeaceAChance
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21 Jan 2014, 11:33 am

Fnord wrote:
Unfortunately, the Media often mis-represents the cause of suicides, and tends to label any crime against a minority person as a "Hate" crime - even when no real "Hatred" has been expressed. Fold in multiple accounts of the same news story, and what was a simple mugging becomes a flashing red strobe warning everybody to clear the area.


whereas again as I said, I was actually being hated, they were beating the walls of my apartment, breaking into my stuff, turning off my electricity, and other things, and I got zero help

so it goes both ways


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21 Jan 2014, 2:31 pm

So, how will anyone else know whether your results are based off of vetted empirical data or personal experience and media interpretation?



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21 Jan 2014, 7:40 pm

GivePeaceAChance wrote:
Mike1 wrote:
naturalplastic wrote:
I dont think that there is yet anyplace on the planet where you would have to worry about being lynched just because you're an aspie.

It's not so much that I'm worried about being lynched; it's more that I'm afraid of being arrested for what could be perceived as suspicious behavior, not having the social skills to convince the law enforcement that I'm not a criminal, and having my social anxiety and lack of eye contact perceived as a confirmation of guilt. Then, it could take months and cost me a lot of money, before I manage to sort out that whole misunderstanding in court. I don't have the social skills to deal with a society that's that suspicious of me.


I am afraid this can happen nearly anywhere, I am in California and I did have the police called on me for just having a private problem on my phone and not even confronting any actual person who was present in the area.


Yes- the cops can be inept anywhere.

The danger is the same everywhere. So whats the point of a map?

Also there are some flaws in your logic: even if you could accurately quantify the number of 'bullying incidences, and hate crimes" it would not make sense to map it by "per square mile". Both the number of hate crimes(on one hand), and the number of gay bars, and adult aspie support groups etc (on the other) are greater "per square mile" in New York City than they are in Alaska. This is because the number of human beings per square mile is greater in NYC than in Alaska. So you would map such things "per capita", not "per square mile".



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21 Jan 2014, 8:50 pm

naturalplastic wrote:
GivePeaceAChance wrote:
Mike1 wrote:
naturalplastic wrote:
I dont think that there is yet anyplace on the planet where you would have to worry about being lynched just because you're an aspie.

It's not so much that I'm worried about being lynched; it's more that I'm afraid of being arrested for what could be perceived as suspicious behavior, not having the social skills to convince the law enforcement that I'm not a criminal, and having my social anxiety and lack of eye contact perceived as a confirmation of guilt. Then, it could take months and cost me a lot of money, before I manage to sort out that whole misunderstanding in court. I don't have the social skills to deal with a society that's that suspicious of me.

I am afraid this can happen nearly anywhere, I am in California and I did have the police called on me for just having a private problem on my phone and not even confronting any actual person who was present in the area.

Yes- the cops can be inept anywhere.

The danger is the same everywhere. So whats the point of a map?

The danger isn't really the same everywhere. The cops are generally more likely to harass people in more populated areas than they are to harass people in less populated areas. Cities have more social interaction than towns, so they have more social dangers than towns. If I went to a really small town, where there are only a few cops and few hundred people, it would be pretty easy for me to avoid a confrontation with the cops. If I went to a large city, where there are a lot more cops and hundreds of thousands of people, the chances of me being confronted by the cops or having someone call the cops on me are a lot higher. The likelihood of someone calling the cops on me in areas with similar population densities could still vary though, depending on how paranoid the general population of the area is, and what they perceive as suspicious behavior; which would likely include a broader range of things in areas with stricter cultural norms, less diversity, and less exposure to outsiders.

It's not just about avoiding confrontations with the police though. I'd also like to avoid areas where I'd be more likely to be discriminated against for being on the spectrum.



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21 Jan 2014, 9:09 pm

Cops are bullies and so pretty much if you arent rich you're going to be bullied by them but, and I cant speak for the rest of you only for myself, it affects those of us with autism spectrum disorders much more strongly than it does normal people. Cops got called to my house once and i went to porch t talk to them and was totally respectful and pleasant and one of them still chose to start taunting me and threatening me and then when i went to go inside grabed me roughly by the shoulder and walked me to the stairs going down to my room area and shioved me down them to the landing. I was unharmed but severely traumatized to the point of unreasoning absolute panic and so ran to my room, utterly destroyed it, then climbed out of my window in nothing but my boxers and ran all the way across town and hid until a few hours later I had calmed enough to call my father and he talked me into letting him come pick me up. that was like 3 years ago and still to this day I am beyond terrified of officers, despise them, and still wake up quite often from nightmares and flashbacks about officers and that incident and anytime the word police is spoken and I hear it I instantly go into a complete and uncontrollable panic. Ill most likely carry the fear and dislike and pain from it for the rest of my life.


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22 Jan 2014, 6:05 am

Remember most of these billions of people don't know anything about autism. Ignorance is rampant in every place on earth about every topic. A random person (average) picked from the earth's human population would probably think you're possessed by demons. :)

You can add Vancouver, BC as one of the relatively safe place. People here tend to be indifferent and make little eye contact. They won't pick on you much or hate you much, most likely they won't even notice you. So don't expect much compassion or help if you need them, just be glad they aren't likely to hurt you. Weather here is cold and rainy most of the time, so wear a hoodie and use an umbrella, you'll blend right in. :)

*Don't get involved in anything related to marijuana. Aspies have much worse time dealing with cops.


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Mike1
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22 Jan 2014, 8:16 am

forbidden77 wrote:
Cops are bullies and so pretty much if you arent rich you're going to be bullied by them but, and I cant speak for the rest of you only for myself, it affects those of us with autism spectrum disorders much more strongly than it does normal people. Cops got called to my house once and i went to porch t talk to them and was totally respectful and pleasant and one of them still chose to start taunting me and threatening me and then when i went to go inside grabed me roughly by the shoulder and walked me to the stairs going down to my room area and shioved me down them to the landing. I was unharmed but severely traumatized to the point of unreasoning absolute panic and so ran to my room, utterly destroyed it, then climbed out of my window in nothing but my boxers and ran all the way across town and hid until a few hours later I had calmed enough to call my father and he talked me into letting him come pick me up. that was like 3 years ago and still to this day I am beyond terrified of officers, despise them, and still wake up quite often from nightmares and flashbacks about officers and that incident and anytime the word police is spoken and I hear it I instantly go into a complete and uncontrollable panic. Ill most likely carry the fear and dislike and pain from it for the rest of my life.

I guess the likelihood of having the cops called on me in my hometown isn't directly proportional to population density. When visiting other towns though, as long as I manage to keep a low profile, the cops aren't that likely to bother me. As an invisible minority, the only way that people can differentiate between me and the majority population is my behaviors. If there aren't as many people around to notice my behavioral differences, then it's easier for me to keep a low profile. I think the ideal place for an Aspie to lay low for an extended period of time would be a diverse and easygoing small city or large town, where the population density is high enough that they can fade into the masses, but low enough that there aren't a lot of people around to be suspicious of them. I'm already living in a place like this now, and I've never had any problems with the police. It's probably also related to my family being upper-middle class though. I'm still kind of confused about what it means to be an upper-middle, second class citizen.



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22 Jan 2014, 10:34 am

forbidden77 wrote:
Cops are bullies and so pretty much if you arent rich you're going to be bullied by them but, and I cant speak for the rest of you only for myself, it affects those of us with autism spectrum disorders much more strongly than it does normal people.


ASD has nothing to do with it. But the first part of your statement is correct. Cops are nothing but criminal thugs. The only way to deal with them is to avoid them.

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23 Jan 2014, 12:18 am

naturalplastic wrote:
You could map levels of tolerence more easily than levels of intolerence.

If it were gays you could put hotspots of gay tolerence at Cape Cod, Key West, and San Francisco.

With the autism spectrum there is probably just one equivalent 'hot spot"- Silicon Valley.


I'd include Austin, TX in this list. It's technology-savvy, a college town (University of Texas), self-proclaimed "Live Music Capital of the World", and its motto is "Keep Austin Weird". Even though it's the state capitol of arguably the most conservative state in the country, Austin is a progressive mecca in the wilderness.


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