What we stand to gain from the autistic interpretations of everyday phenomenon

 

Go on Twitter, 4chan, Reddit, LessWrong, and many other forums/communities and you'll find lengthy explanations (BOOKS LONG) for things that the average NPC can describe in a phrase, or never even things about describing verbally because it is so viscerally intuitive to him that it never even becomes a topic.

Truth be told - as much as I like and admire these interpretations of reality - most of them are completely useless to the average person. But the ones that aren't useless, are pure gold.

Why?

Because these people spend longer than anyone else pondering specific topics and find patterns that no less obsessed person could ever find. They also ask different questions. When you don't take something for granted/normal you can defy it, you can interpret it as false, or you can dive deeper into its meaning simply because you want to understand what it is about a certain idea or behaviour that makes it so intuitive for others but not for you.

Anyway, I just read a paper on "non verbal communication" and it was pretty useless (to me) and clearly written by someone who thinks about people way too analytically and most likely lacks social skills. Happy to be proven wrong tho.

I'm sure a paper like this one is useful for many people (it would be enough if it was useful just for the author) and it is a wonderful reminder of how different people can look at the same thing at the same time and see two completely different things.

Heck, the author made the concept of "vibe" insanely boring and academic (!!!)

Anyway, have a great day.