A Phlaming Phoenix

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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 19th, 2023

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  • You are born into a family that practices that religion. The people closest to you insist the religion is true. Every week they take you to a stage performance where the audience all insists the religion is true and they performers not only insist it’s true but are treated as a great authority on the truth of the religion.

    You are put into youth groups and formal education programs where additional authorities instill in you the constant insistence that the religion is true. You join the local Boy Scout troop and they all insist it’s true. You go to a school run by the church. The entire class of students collectively insist the religion is true.

    Some religions, like the Jehovah’s Witnesses, send church members and their families to canvas neighborhoods, knocking on doors, delivering the “good news,” failing to convince anyone, and coming to the conclusion over time that the rest of the world just doesn’t want to see the truth that you’ve become convinced of because literally everyone in your life constantly reaffirms that the religion is true.

    The most successful indoctrination runs deep and is pervasive.





  • On top of that, an autism diagnosis rarely gets you any support that isn’t Applied Behavioral Analysis therapy. That’s essentially dog training for your autist (designed by the same B. F. Skinner of “Skinner box” fame using the same principals), and people who have been through it have described it as torture. The ADA doesn’t make many accommodations for folks with non-physical disabilities, and cops have no idea how to interact with folks with communication barriers and an inability to control their bodily movements. It’s tough being autistic in public. It’s tough trying to navigate our society as a parent of autistic people. With or without insurance, it’s hard. The problems are not purely financial.

    I recommend some books on the subject, particularly Neurotribes by Steve Silberman and Unmasking Autism by Dr. Devon Price.



  • Maybe I’m wrong, but I consider “leftist” to mean something like “a collection of positions rooted in criticism of capitalism.” Socialism would be one such worldview (a subset or example of leftism), but so would communism, some forms of anarchism, and more. “Free school lunches for everyone” should probably be considered a leftist position as it undermines the profit incentive of recouping the cost of that lunch, whether he presents that as a leftist thing (which I can see causing some political blowback that he may try to avoid in the name of progressing this kind of legislation) or not. I haven’t had time to do any other research on this guy or his other positions. If he supports a lot of legislation in this vein, then maybe it’s okay to call him a leftist.