this post was submitted on 02 Mar 2025
1275 points (98.6% liked)

Science Memes

12577 readers
4509 users here now

Welcome to c/science_memes @ Mander.xyz!

A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.



Rules

  1. Don't throw mud. Behave like an intellectual and remember the human.
  2. Keep it rooted (on topic).
  3. No spam.
  4. Infographics welcome, get schooled.

This is a science community. We use the Dawkins definition of meme.



Research Committee

Other Mander Communities

Science and Research

Biology and Life Sciences

Physical Sciences

Humanities and Social Sciences

Practical and Applied Sciences

Memes

Miscellaneous

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 
top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 4 points 50 minutes ago

I took one of those autism tests and I can't remember off the top of my head what the score was but it was very high which both surprises and doesn't surprise me. I mask extremely well according to most people I meet. Telling me "You seem normal" or even "You aren't autistic".

I've only had two people tell me "It's obvious" ever, my mom and a single friend of mine.

But holy hell all the other autism personality/psychological aspects are like cranked up to 100 and I have a love/hate relationship with that. Hyperfocus is a double edged sword for instance. I love that I can get super into something and get really fucking good at it but I don't love obsessing over the same thing for months to the point of it keeping me awake at night and hurting other aspects of my life because I can't change mental direction.

It also isn't good for social anxiety, way too much rumination on single awkward conversations MAKE IT STOP.

[–] wowwoweowza 3 points 51 minutes ago (2 children)

I’m out of the loop here. Could someone ad some context for me? What’s this about?

[–] Furbag 6 points 30 minutes ago

There is an incorrect belief that autism is on the rise and that it must be caused by something, but in reality we are just getting better at identifying it and diagnosing people correctly. So it's not that there is an autism epidemic, we're just discovering that it's less rare of a condition than previously assumed.

[–] AdolfSchmitler 2 points 31 minutes ago
[–] But_my_mom_says_im_cool -2 points 1 hour ago (2 children)

Unlike planets, people with autism have indeed been born in the last few decades and were not always in existence like some shadow beings

[–] meliaesc 7 points 57 minutes ago* (last edited 56 minutes ago) (1 children)

But there's no way to measure if there's an increase in autism, because in previous generations, it went undiagnosed.

[–] But_my_mom_says_im_cool 2 points 34 minutes ago

I knew kids who for sure had it, and have a cousin who is severely autistic. That shit was rough back then, especially in a third world country, but I commend my aunt for raising him to live in the hard world he was born into, he’s 40 now and can hold down a job and has an apartment. It was hard for him but he made it. The other side of the coin is people in North America who have autistic kids, and stop pushing them intellectually and just go “he’s autistic, don’t push him or teach him to adjust and live, he’ll never get it ” mentality, or the “yay im autistic, how cool” mentality some young people have.

Autism isn’t Super power it sucks

[–] [email protected] 3 points 45 minutes ago

Planets are also being created all the time. They didn't just all form at once.

[–] Tattorack 19 points 5 hours ago (3 children)

This exoplanet pandemic is getting out of hand. We're seeing them everywhere now!

[–] Randelung 1 points 28 minutes ago

Have we tried slapping them out of existence? Or just telling them to think harder and maybe that'll make them stop existing?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 hours ago

It's probably a reading error that will go away if we ignore it.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

I heard there's also a galaxy outbreak happening as we speak

[–] Tattorack 8 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago)

Jesus christ, this is so getting out of hand! We need to bother some politicians about this. What will happen to our children!?

[–] [email protected] 12 points 4 hours ago

I just want to take the moment to say, nice to have you all around, especially if you are different. Thanks for enjoying the shit that I don't. And thanks for sharing my love for something for a different reason. Thanks for showing me a different world.

Also If everyone was like me, my girlfriend wouldn't be who she is, but ignoring that, I would have a lot of competition and it would be really boring for all of us. Wtf do you talk about if we all would be the same? I would hate you all, and consequently myself. Thanks for being different, seriously.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 7 hours ago (3 children)

I will argue that the mild part of the autism spectrum, what we call functional autism, is not a mental illness, not a disorder.

It's like being left handed, not the most common thing, it can cause troubles in a world made for right handed people, specially if being left handed is not accepted. But by itself is just another way of being just as "healthy" and "normal" as being right handed.

I think this is an open debate. Some folks prefer it being considered an illness because they want diagnosis and treatment. Others, like me, just love to be this way, and there's nothing I think is wrong with me. The only problem is that the world is not accommodated for people like me, just like it wasn't accommodated for left-handed people not so long ago. But as soon as it's 100% accepted as something normal I don't see it causing any trouble, so if there's no harm there's no illness we can talk about.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 56 minutes ago (1 children)

Absolutely! In fact, I'd argue that this is true for many conditions that we treat as disabilities, like dyslexia (which is rarely disabling) and the aforementioned autism. Both of these conditions have disadvantages and advantages. The situation is not black and white; simply because society was designed one way, does not mean that everyone who does not perfectly fit in is disabled or has a illness.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 51 minutes ago (1 children)

What’s an advantage of dyslexia?

[–] [email protected] -2 points 43 minutes ago* (last edited 41 minutes ago) (1 children)

Too much to cover in a comment! Here's a good book on the subject: https://www.dyslexicadvantage.org/

Edit: wait, that may be the wrong link. Here's the book I meant: https://www.amazon.com/Dyslexic-Advantage-Unlocking-Hidden-Potential/dp/0452297923 (sorry for using an Amazon link)

[–] [email protected] 3 points 32 minutes ago

You could give one or two examples before the ad.

[–] bouh 2 points 2 hours ago

Wholeheartedly agree with this! IMO our societies have a big problem with people being different.

That's my opinion, but I attribute this liberalism: when the society's philosophy is to attribute 5he responsibility of anyone's success on each self person, it means the responsability to fit in is on the person itself and not on the society. This removes the burden of inclusion from the society, the group, and make it a burden of adaptation on the person. It is a toxic societal environment.

As an argument to this point of view: making it an illness provide a justification for the person to be different, and a responsability for the society to accommodate disabled people. But the need to go to this extreme instead of simply being tolerant and accommodating any difference is both stupid (because it is a burden for both the victims and the society to hold discussions about basic needs) and a inhuman way of treating people.

Another argument to my thesis is that the "epidemic" is coincidental with societal individualism (pushed by liberalism and that rose since the end of ww2) and the decline of social structures like church and government help (because liberalism was about fighting government involvement in people's lives).

[–] [email protected] 11 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago) (4 children)

The tldr for this is Neurodiversity

Almost all disabilities exist only within the context of a culture. They are a human applied label.

I recon most disabled people can do more advanced complex tasks than any animal/pet. Yet we do don't think of our pets as disabled.

We are all born with a useless appendix, which can potentially burst and kill us. If someone was born without. Would we all have a disability compared to them.

Someone with only one arm is considered disabled, extra fingers? If its not the default it’s considered disabled.

Now imagine a humanoid alien race with only 1 arm and a hand with 6 fingers. And imagine what their keyboards may look like. A normal human in their society would be considered disabled. Not because you cant use the keyboard but because you would struggle using a tool not designed for you.

Now the reason why you still want a diagnosis even when you agree with the above is simple. Society has not evolved this perspective. We can accommodate almost all disabilities but they key to getting that help is by first bureaucratically “registering” yourself as disabled by a medical professional.

[–] dustyData 2 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

100% the individual conditions make us different but the challenges and obstacles to everyday life that some different people may face originate on the social environment they exist in, not on the individual. If the society and environment change to accommodate for greater diversity then the person can more easily overcome the disability.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

There is no "but" that is what i said in different words.

[–] dustyData 2 points 52 minutes ago

The but wasn't referring to your comment. I agree with you. Was just expanding on the concept that disability lies in society, not the person.

[–] bouh 3 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

I disagree on the last paragraph. Not so long ago helping disabled people was an obvious thing to do in our societies. I'm not saying it was easy for them or that it always worked. But in the last 70 years our societies changed to remove any help that wasn't justified. The reason was simply to save money.

Now you must justify that you are different and this difference warrant a different treatment. Because the society became intolerant to difference.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 hours ago

Might be a different comment in the chain where i mentioned i don't agree with this either but if i want the accommodation today then thats my reality.

I am a firm supporter of moving to a needs first society, not because i have a plan to make things sustainable but because the current system where we sell human survival to corporate greed isn’t doing us many favors.

[–] ZMoney 11 points 4 hours ago

Real quick the appendix might have an evolutionary function. When you have a gut infection and your intestine flushes out everything (good and bad bacteria), the appendix might be a cache for good bacteria that avoids both the infection and flushing. The good bacteria then repopulate your gut from your appendix.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

We din't need a register of left handed people to start making left handed scissors.

I think society can accommodate without the need for medicalize it. That's the difference I wanted to make, an illness need to be medicalized. A different way of being does not.

For instance, my lighter skin complexion makes so I have to wear more sunscreen that people with darker complexions. But no one would think of it as something to be medicalized. It's just "oh, I usually get burned by the sun, I better buy some sunscreen" or "oh, I'm left handed I better put my mouse in left handed mode", or "oh, I'm gay, I'd better go find someone of my same gender to love". Something like that. Simple, easy and widely accepted.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago) (1 children)

Forgive me for asking but are you actually left handed though?

Everywhere i go the default scissors are molded for right hand. On my job (which is very accommodating in a general sense) if you ask they have an additional shitty type which is still right handed in terms of the blades but at least the handle more symmetrical.

For computer mice, those aren’t usually very symmetrical anymore either. Especially if those extra side buttons seem useful there is exactly one on the entire market that i know. This is why the vast majority of lefties use their mouse right handed.

There have been very real situations at my job where could not accomplish a task alone because left handed tools where not available and i was just going to hurt myself. Same thing at home because left handed tools are rarely affordable but are just have to bite the bullet and hurt myself to get the job done.

Don't even get me started on walking in class room and seeing this:

And then they complain about lefties handwritten being bad.

We are tolerated and accommodation exists but these are still fairly new. My grandpa literally got beaten the left handness out of him. We still face daily disadvantages.

About your sunscreen, i am pretty sure if you would ask a doctor they could point you to the most appropriate sunscreen. My point was not to medicalize everything but to break the illusion of the medical perspective. People have different needs and they need those needs accommodated without unnecessary hoops to jump trough.

Of course neither left handed or fair skinned is of a similar complexity as neurodivergence or autism. Many accommodation i need for my autism are outside my price range, they will only give them to me if i first proof they are required. I disagree with the system but the system is all i got to work with.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 hour ago (2 children)

Good scissors actually work either way. Blade-wise, that is, not when it comes to moulded handles: With proper blade geometry you do not need lateral pressure from the fingers for them to cut instead of passing each other, and even the exact "wrong" type of lateral pressure works fine. Scissor blades should only ever be loose when the scissors are opened impractically far to cut with. Don't need to be expensive, only need to be not cheap.

Those chairs should be outlawed for a whole lot of reasons, not just that they're ignoring lefties.

Note on handwriting, btw: Ball points are a bad habit if you want to develop proper technique, it's very easy to use too much force, cramp up, etc, even without noticing. Over here kids write with pencils until they have the dexterity to move on to fountain pens: Breaking a pencil tip and having to resharpen is just the right amount of annoying to develop good habits.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 44 minutes ago

A note in left-handedness:

In primary school, I first learned to write with a pencil and then with a fountainpen, as you describe (I grew up in Europe). This has made no difference to my experience with writing whatsoever, because our language/cursive/alphabet is designed for right-handed people. I could talk for hours on the subject, but it would involve much swearing — I will spare you the pain. Just know that we should be writing top-to-bottom instead of left to write, and should re-design our alphabet, cursive, fountain pen nibs, and how we teach lefties to write.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 hour ago

The problem with “symmetrical” standard scissors is that you can’t see where you are making the cut properly.

Many lefties who are like me and got used to symmetrical scissors may not even be aware properly pointing blades make it easier of an angle to see what you’re doing.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 hours ago

Uranus is still there even if no one can see it.

[–] [email protected] 39 points 9 hours ago

isn't this also, like, a tweet about queer people?

load more comments
view more: next ›