shlomif

Hi Nicky,

thanks for your comment. Let me reply to some of the points.


You are right that it's a fault of Walt Disney - sorry for mispeaking. However, it doesn't make him any less great. Sir Isaac Newton had far more redeeming faults of his own in modern eyes, and yet he was also a superb heroic man, who lived and died as a non-tragic hero. Even today, many heroes, even those who are not and never were or never will be tragic heroes, still have many faults, and we need to accept them as such. Many people I admire or look up to are Republicans, or Democrats, or are self-proclaimed Christians, or are militant vegans, or support the prohibition on drugs, or are homophobic, or whatever, and they are still great people, which provide inspiration and that I love.


Well, he should have networked much more instead of being anti-social and keep to himself, etc. (which, BTW, was a huge mistake that I have done as well). Ayn Rand ended up growing out of that, as is evident in Atlas Shrugged and in her later deeds, so it's OK - no one is perfect.


You may be right. Perhaps I should say "classical Objectivism" or whatever. Sorry if I mispoke.


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Yes, you may be right - sorry for mispeaking . Like I said it was an "Argumentum-ad-Tooheyum" and despite Rand's burning desire to describe Ellsworth Toohey as the ultimate evil, there are many good things that we can learn from him, from the eyes of people living in 2013. This is like the fact that Milady de Winter in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Three_Musketeers is actually insurgent, sexy, formidable, resourceful, and awe-inspiring, and a model of emulation (while the real villain in the story is the Queen - Anne of Austria.).
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Regarding humour I should note that http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Peter_Ustinov is quoted as saying that "Comedy is just a funny way of being serious." (which is just one of his great quotes) and I give more insights to contemporary stuff like that here:
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http://www.shlomifish.org/philosophy/philosophy/putting-all-cards-on-the-table-2013/

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The rest of your points may be considered as accepted by me in a silent agreement.
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Regards,
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— Shlomi Fish
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Since I know a bit about Aspergers due to my own studies in psychology (partially as a student) I figure I should comment on those 5 points you made.
 
1. It's not really a continuum because autism is a totally different type of functioning in some regards compared to non-autistics. Aspergers is a type of autism in that sense where it is not merely an only slightly autistic person that is mostly a normal person. It's an entire condition in its own right, not just funny behavior.
 
2. Yes, people with Aspergers can and do lead normal lives, but I will say interactions online don't give a full sense of a person's behavior.
 
3. Actually, Aspergers is no longer simply Aspergers. Instead, for the DSM-V, it will be categorized as Autistic Spectrum Disorder. ASD is maybe what you heard about a continuum.
 
4. I think Aspergers is probably really easy to wrongly diagnose. It's one thing to understand social interactions yet not conform to them, and one thing to literally not get a full understanding of social interactions easily thus end up not conforming to social standards. Aspergers is not "social awkwardness" disorder. Many tests are probably inaccurate as you say. People say it comes with obsessions, but often that seems to be a misunderstanding. Aspergers leads to obsessions, but not all obsessions are from Aspergers. Sometimes it's just curiosity.
 
5. If you do have issues of some kind, it sounds like you're taking care of yourself well!
 
Anyways, welcome. I'll hopefully read something of yours that you posted soon.

Welcome, Shlomi!
 
(Tel Aviv is one my favorite cities.)