I’m still waking up, and will be perpetually struggling with my awareness and complicity in all of this. As I continue to wake up, and become more vocal against the hand that feeds me, I am reminded of how important it is for us to acknowledge those who have been doing this all along. It is alright for us white male technologists to step up and become critical of what we have built, but we shouldn’t be taking the lead on defining how to fix all of this, assuming our regular domineering role in simultaneously fucking up the world, while also trying to fix it once we realize what idiots we’ve been. We need to make sure we are respectful of those who have been vocal all along, and work hard to shine a light on newer more diverse voices when it comes to speaking out, and crafting any plans to fix this mess. Our desire to be center stage is a big problem. We need to step back and develop a more thoughtful strategy as we move forward.

Source: Some Thoughts As We Go Through Our Internet Technology Awakening | Kin Lane

Autistic people are not aliens with whom scientists cannot communicate. We are right here. We are reading what you have to say, and that communication can go both ways.

Source: Why autism research needs more input from autistic people | Spectrum | Autism Research News

Via:

It’s been a thoroughly demoralizing few weeks on the advocacy front with a progressive Democrat endorsing ABA in education and the vile flood of ableism from the left directed at disabled self-advocates for sharing tales of ableism in the gig economy.

I cling to the bright spot that is Alfie Kohn’s powerful piece of advocacy against behaviorism in ed.

Autism and Behaviorism

See also his previous piece on behaviorism.

It’s Not About Behavior

I updated “Autistic Burnout: The Cost of Masking and Passing” with a selection from “Autistic Burnout: “My Physical Body And Mind Started Shutting Down””.

Autistic burnout is a state of physical and mental fatigue, heightened stress, and diminished capacity to manage life skills, sensory input, and/or social interactions, which comes from years of being severely overtaxed by the strain of trying to live up to demands that are out of sync with our needs.

Source: Autistic Burnout: “My Physical Body And Mind Started Shutting Down”

One of my favorite bands, The Warning, is crowdfunding their new album.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/thewarningrockband/new-album-and-23-date-northamerican-tour

Check out their Live at Lunario CDMX set, and then go give them some money so they can keep rocking us.

It’s been 5 and a half years since they caught our attention with their cover of Enter Sandman.

They have since put out an EP and two LPs (not a bad song among them) and are working on their third LP. They’re all still teenagers. Amazing and awesome. I can’t wait for the new album or the videos of the live sets from the upcoming North American tour.

BTW, check out Pau of The Warning along with a couple of other drummers I’m binge listening in this piece:

https://rnbn.blog/2020/01/21/1829/

“These findings suggest that social interaction difficulties in autism are not an absolute characteristic of the individual,” Sasson said. “Rather, social quality is a relational characteristic that depends upon the fit between the person and the social environment. If autistic people were inherently poor at social interaction, you’d expect an interaction between two autistic people to be even more of a struggle than between an autistic and non-autistic person. But that’s not what we found.”

Source: Study Challenges Assumptions About Social Interaction Difficulties in Autism – News Center – The University of Texas at Dallas

The harder, duller work of self-care is about the everyday, impossible effort of getting up and getting through your life in a world that would prefer you cowed and compliant. A world whose abusive logic wants you to see no structural problems, but only problems with yourself, or with those more marginalized and vulnerable than you are. Real love, the kind that soothes and lasts, is not a feeling, but a verb, an action. It’s about what you do for another person over the course of days and weeks and years, the work put in to care and cathexis. That’s the kind of love we’re terribly bad at giving ourselves, especially on the left.

Source: Laurie Penny | Life-Hacks of the Poor and Aimless

Via: The “Care” in “Self Care”

It is radical to care about yourself in a society that tells you, incessantly, all the reasons why you are not enough.

Source: The “Care” in “Self Care” – Accidentally in Code