A Collaborative Aspie Project?

Post Reply New Topic

Erm, no. Trust me on this - I know quite a few Aspies in person, and yes, some *do* follow one person (or several) like a puppy.

Of course, not *all* Aspies are X, even if X is quite common among them. But if you've met one Aspie, you've met one Aspie. What I've been saying is, any kind of community set up has to be designed with that in mind. You can't say what you're like and generalise it to all Aspies... indeed, you seem quite stubborn on this thread.

I'm not suggesting we "throw ourselves into the wilderness". I'm saying we don't need to live in a city to succeed, which is what you appear to be suggesting. A farm near a small town will do fine.

And I haevn't at all. Seems to put a dent in your they are either like puppies or like herding cats routine when I have seen quite a lot of evidence of neither being true.


That I disagree with what you are saying on the ground that I don't see it as being true isn't stubbornness.

Thankyou. I thought you were making some weird suggestion that certain types of people should live here and certain other types should live there. I'd prefer to just do what makes sense in terms of long term growth and yet not simply a wild fantasy. Suburb or edge of town makes sense. maybe inner city if certain people prefer.

What matters is that we don't put our eggs in one basket. I think that you are suggesting that.

Well that's funny, since I'm not suggesting we put all our eggs in one basket. Seems to put a dent in your idea that I do, doesn't it, eh?

How many have you met IRL? A lot are very stubborn - not all, but a lot. All I'm saying is, such a project would have to be designed to avoid as much as possible situations which would lead to splitting. That's true for NT's; there are no grounds for your assertion that it would be much different with Aspies. Yes, all Aspies are different, and typically more individualistic than Enties - therefore, for such a project to work, it has to be designed to "play to our strengths". Some wouldn't be able to cope living in high density, so a city is out; others like that. What we need is something that would allow both, *without* splitting us in half. I can only think of building a new town or village as the way to do this; say, buy a farm and build a cluster of houses, then parcel up smallholdings on the rest of the land.

No it doesn't. Why feel as if you have to fight me? I am saying that we should not get frustrated with each other about who wants to do what. It doesn't put a dent in my idea. I think you are arguing that we shouldn't put our eggs in oone basket.. That isn't true?

In the twenties. The one thing I can be sure about autistics or people playing as autistics is that if they want to believe that something is true about autistics they make it a self-fulfilling prophecy. Unless there is reason in what they say and it isn't just an argument that wouldn't look out of place in pseudoscientific 19th century race theory.


You were arguing that aspies were specifically stubborn or specifically uncaring about others and I was saying how this was wrong.
I was the one who already noted about making sure people kept together this when I said a system of convenience.

I also never said anything about how something would be different for us. :/


And some of us would. Those of us who easily can will thus be able to go city-wise if they want to.


And I am saying that we would be far better off just sticking to the suburbs and outskirts of an actual town than making our own housing, which is capital-intensive for a start and almost impossible to make a good standard of living if we're just a small bunch of people.

Why do you feel the need to pick a fight over this? Like I said, you're being very stubborn...

Oh, now I see the problem. I thought this was a thread about a project to which *all* Aspies could contribute, rather than just those who can already hold down jobs and live independently.


Buying existing housing stock in sufficient amounts is more capital intensive. If everyone had to find all the money before buying a house, very few people would be home owners; we wouldn't need to have all the money required to buy the land and build houses straight away...

My uncle has a house he built himself (excepting certain aspects he hired proffessionals for). A comparable property, in a town, would cost much more than the $60k it cost him. We don't needs hundreds of people before we can start...


Well, now you're just putting words into my posts. I never said they were speciffically uncaring... stubborn, yes, but by no means more uncaring than others.

As an example, imagine if we'd already built such a community, and this thread is a debate about the direction it should take. Judging by this thread, the answer we'd get would be "nowhere". Or would you be willing to concede defeat, or leave if you didn't like the direction it was going?

I aint? I am telling you why you are wrong. There's no need to make a cheap wisecrack just to try and score points.


And now you are making an assumption about what I said. When I said not have all our eggs in one basket I meant let's have more than just one community suited personally to what one wants. Maybe soe people want to live in a city. I wont stop them. Can you not understand that some people might find living in acity centre quite easy? Can you actually listen to what I say without accusing me of various things?


No it isn't. Buying houses that already exist is less expensive I am sure than getting all of the equipment and skills required to make houses and then building a few houses with all the basic amenities we need. Also in many countries many people are homeowners who buy their house through the use of a mortgage. That is surely far easier than buying all the equipment and materials to make houses and then only making a few houses. We'd be deeply in debt right away. The mortgage however is easier to deal with.

If it was less expensive to make your own house you'd bet that most NTs would make their own house rather than buy one.


Really? Tell me how he amanaged to make a house on 60k exactly? This would be nice to actually know.


No I wasn't. You said this:

That is uncaring about others by any other name.

And if this doesn't mean aspies are generally stubborn then you are in denial about what you said.


What are you even saying here? If you are talking about stubbornness the only reason why aspies I have met have ever been sturbborn is by being conceited or believing that aspies are stubborn and thus they make a self-fulfilling prophecy. NTs roll with something because they don't want to rock the boat. This means many of them can be stubborn in ways but just give in to he crowd because of not wanting to rock the boat.
I think aspies pick up this trait from their parents and because they don't care about rocking the boat that is why it becomes a visible problem.

To be honest though it's easy to become objective about the whole thing. Objectiveness is a way of just trying not to get screwed over.

http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt172395.html

The topic you presented here in this link, illustrates that point well, just in trying to find out where individuals live that might be interested.

There really aren't that many adult autists that we have the ability to identify, 55,000+ members here equals about 20 people actually communicating at one time. The 55,000 is a collection of everyone registered since 2004. This internet site is probably the most frequented place for autistics as a group.

If agreement can't be found in a simple introductory thread to the idea, it gives one an idea of the difficulties of any such project coming to fruition.

Mexican Immigrants number in the millions. They are successful in creating micro-communities where they support each others needs, in the outskirts of towns and cities. Sharing labor to build houses in their gated chainlink communities. Nine or Ten houses all comprised of individuals that share strong bonds. They have a culture though, that is established from hundreds of years of familial relationships and traditions.

They are the only cultural group, I have seen to have success in this in my area. They have the skills, the will, and the compassion for each other. Beyond all else they have cooperation, and a desire to live and survive together.

The reality, I think, is of all the individuals that live in society, autistic people are not cut out for this type of thing, nor do they have the numbers required for success. Or at least there is no objective evidence of it I have seen here; every conversation on this topic has made that clear.

Adult autistics are spread far and thin, with about as much culturally in common as they have on this internet site. The ones that aren't identified at all, are already doing their thing whereever they may be, the silent majority, that may never be identified at all.

It's an interesting topic of conversation, but until more are identified and share a common culture and traditions, I can't imagine the potential of this as being a realistic one, any time soon.

Doesn't hurt to keep on talking about it, until the day comes where enough are identified, and some type of real common culture exists. Autscape and Autreat are working hard to make actual cultural experience for autistic people to happen, but so far in entire countries about 100 participate each year out of millions.

There doesn't appear to be a great deal of opportunity to actually get together other than local support groups. If more become identified maybe that will change.

No, I am telling you why you are wrong.


I'm not going to stop them... what I'm saying is, this would be something only a minority of Aspies could contribute to. Are you denying this simple truth?


"Palm, meet forehead". This has got to be the most ridiculous thing you've posted so far. When you build a house, you don't buy the equipment and spend a few years training as a builder, plumber, electrician etc. What you do is hire the equipment and anyone needed to do the jobs you can't do yourself, and do as much as you can by yourself. I'm quite certain this can be done for under £100k for a small terraced house.


Mortgage = debt with property as collateral. It's quite simple. It's possible to have a mortgage significantly higher in value than the property, people do it all the time. Your lack of understanding of basic matters of an independent life in the current world system astounds me. How old are you again?


Less expensive, but more effort, and land in cities, where most people want to live, isn't available. This is Britain I'm talking about, mind; in America a lot of people still do (my aforementioned relatives, for example).


Well, they owned the land already, and he put in most of the effort himself, I believe. The fact that he works at Home Depot may have altered the cost, though... staff discount and all that shizzle.


No, this is being unthinking. Uncaring would be realising the effect of what you're doing and doing it anyway.


I actually said that Enties often don't want to rock the boat... what point are you trying to make exactly? Anyway, please answer my point about disagreements in an Autist community.

A thread about cooperation has now been derailed by a disagreement about disagreements. That's so meta.

Don't blame me for backing up the truth and my ideals. I'd rather conflict with someone obsessed with feeling right than blindly follow them.

And yeah, it is so meta. Again, not my fault. :D

There is a TV programme which I watch called Grand Designs. It features people who are building their own houses, to their own designs. Some of these houses are very high spec., with loads of technology and using innovative building materials and methods. Others are extremely low tech and are constructed almost entirely without outside assistance. Some use a barter system or friends and family if they need outside help. One man, a forester and green wood worker, built his house in the forest using materials harvested from the forest. Others use straw, mud and tyres to build Eco- houses.

Whatever method is used, whether professional architects, engineers and builders are used or not - these houses, including the land, are cheaper to build than they would be to buy. And the people have exactly the house they want!

Edited to add: sometimes the people are converting buildings used in agriculture or industry or other uses. One I saw recently was a former lifeboat station, on a raised slipway high above a beach. Others have been a disused water tower and a former water pumping station.

I would like to build a seaside/lakeside resort town built around a historic type amusement park with plenty of old-fashioned wooden roller coasters.

Magneto, have you come across the Findhorn Foundation? It is a community in Scotland, with members and residents from around the world, which has been developing and growing from very small beginnings in the 1970s.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Findhorn_Ecovillage

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Findhorn_Foundation

This. I agree; I'm just backing up the truth, and if that involves conflicting with someone obsessed with feeling right, so be it.

I'm heard about Findhorn before, though I didn't look into it much. Interesting.


I commented on this before, when I asked Gedrene what he'd do if this was a discussion about where to take a pre-existing project - would he be flexible enough to go with the final decision, or leave because he's not getting what he wants? He didn't respond.


Ahem. Do reread the thread, please. Anyway, why do you disagree with what I said before:

Are NT's, or are they not, more likely to stop dissenting for the sake of social harmony. Answer this question, please.

That's a wisecrack that had no point in this discussion except to call me sturbbon to make some unproven contradiction about me saying about how autistics aren't naturally stubborn.


What? No you weren't saying that at all.

You were implying that I was excluding people just because I said some might want to live in a city.


I can also say that people can have a house that size on a mortgage whilst paying only a fraction of that cost to begin with and using repayments. People don't have £100,000 just lying around you know. I bet that we don't most certainly. Even more hilarious is that you can't even study the implications of what you say later:

And you never thought that this might mean that he didn't have homeconstruction skills?


What are you talking about? Of course the Mortgage is a debt with collaterial. The point about you saying that the mortgage may be significantly higher in price than the house at the end doesn't stop the fact that with a Mortgage repayments are far easier to make because they're bitesize. Making a house is a massive lump sum that isn't guaranteed to be a certain price. Exactly how did you forget these extremely important facts? Are you not going to keep using petty asides in order to make pointless digs like 'how old are you?' and actually make a real argument rather than that sort of ad hominem rubbish?


Exactly. It shows that you don't understand the point because you have overlooked the peculiarities of your own examples: Specifically that they're in America and seem to have 60k spare. UK land is expensive everywhere and I am sure that buying land and making a house has a much larger immediate cost than getting a house in a suburb on a mortgage. It will also be hard to get a job with which to pay back.


Okay so he not only lived in America where rural land is cheap, but he actually already owned the land and probably had a discount from Home Depot and was probably trained himself in house construction.

So you never thought that this might be a bad example when we're talking about people who don't have a discount, live in a country with stingy landowners and higher land prices and furthermore don't own any land and probably wouldn't be as skilled as a guy who works at home depot at building houses?


And I say that quite a few people can care in fact and yet not realize it.

[/quote]
So far your disagreements with me have been demonstrated by your inability to understand that a man who works at home depot might have a discount and experience and you forgot to say that the man actually lived in America and owned the land he lived on already. It shows that whilst you boast about cheap house construction you forget about all the things that might reduce the costs in his case and might increase them in our case.

All it goes to show is that again autistics can be any bad thing they like, but not as a rule but because of a defect in their reasoning capabilities.

One thing I noticed is that people don't understand that just because people don't want to live in the same place doesn't mean that the project will be hampered. it's just that we may end up with lots of small communities everywhere.