Ask Lemmy

Spotting fake BS on the internet. It just seems so obvious to me when someone is making up a story for clout, or to plug a GoFundMe scam, or to push an obvious narrative of hate toward a group of people. And then I go into the comments and want to fucking scream.

And then, when you point out that something is fake, half the time people get all defensive about it. "Who cares? It's still a good story" or "Well, it might be fake THIS time, but I can imagine people actually doing this, so I'm going to internalize this as more proof for my biases."

I don't get it, how is it so hard for people to spot? Like, yea, there's the occasional one that's done so well that it's easy to fall for, but 99% of these kinds of posts and videos are so blatantly fake that I worry about the level of critical thinking skills the average person has. I thought the explosion of AI shit would make people be a bit more skeptical with the things they read and watch, but it feels like it's going the other direction.

Having calm discussions without screaming. Even if its a passionate discussions for example about Cheese. (Yes this gets very heated with me and my friends haha love them so much)

Openes to new facts even if it challanges your world view.

Empathie

Driving without touching my phone.

Navigating UIs on PCs, Smartphones, Ticket Machines etc.

Doing basic research on the people I vote for.

Pissing outdoors... In the yard

Organization. By nature I'm extremely organized. People are always commenting on how well organized my home is, but this is just what's normal for me. I get kind of neurotic when things are in disarray.

Spatial awareness/reasoning. How far things are, where are we relative to this landmark, which direction are we headed, how to account for the moving shadows when choosing a place to settle down at the beach, and so on and so forth. It seems like people around me are utterly lost in space

Not being on my phone at work.

Popping their ears. I can "pop" my ears by opening my eustachian tubes on demand. I can even hold them open if I want to. Apparently a lot of people can't do that.

Basic hygiene, sadly

Explaining difficult technical concepts to laypeople. Just gotta find the correct analogy.

Being able to see through fake people's masks. Like, people who appear nice and friendly on the surface, but are narcissistic snakes who will destroy you to benefit themselves. The people who everyone will swear "oh, they aren't like that."

It's so obvious to my wife and I, possibly because we're on the spectrum, but no one else sees it until one of us lays out all the supporting evidence that they are in fact like that.

Being isolated. It's always confused me how much people complain about loneliness. I genuinely don't think I have ever felt that emotion before.

I'm very aware of my own body and how it's positioned, so I have good balance, makes me a great dancer, and ambidextrous to some degree.

Cold turkeying stuff. It's not a superpower level but I can quit most stuff then and there without thinking about it again.

Executive function.

I don't know but it seems like a lot of people around me are just in a haze. Probably some of it is ADHD.

Computers just work around me. Steady the software and programs. I’m not in the tech or it field. I’m in retail management.

The amount of times people call me over only to say “well now it’s working but before it took me to some other screen”

“Glad I could help”

Embracing the chaos.
Not everything works out, not everything goes to plan. Routines will be disrupted.

Situational awareness.

Actually getting annoyed by ads to the point I do what I can to block them. I work with IT and yet a good number of my coworkers don't use any adblock at fucking all

Spatial awareness.

I was in gymnastics as a kid, so built up a strong sense of balance and where my arms and legs are in relation to the stuff around me.

Reading an article before offering an option.

Building stuff out of a pile of scrap.

Assembling flat pack furniture, bbqs, bicycles, snow blowers, cement mixers. Pretty easy to do but customers will pay a fee to the store to have the assembly done.

I can stop hiccups the moment I notice I have them, usually after the second hiccup. It started as a conscious effort to change the breathing rhythm through diaphragmatic breathing, now is almost like a reflex action.

What about something that everyone else thinks is easy but it's difficult for me?

Whistling. I'm fucking 35.

Empathy. Some people just have a brain for math and understand numbers in ways other people just never will. Others, like myself, have brains that are really good at understanding others, and we perceive and understand others with a facility some other people just can’t. It sounds pompous to say, because all human beings are at least somewhat skilled in this area, due to our species being highly social, but it’s still a cognitive speciality and some of us are innately better at it than others.

It can be frustrating too, because when other people don’t understand what you see in someone else, they question your decisions about them, and it can be hard to see why other people don’t see what you find obvious sometimes. It’s a bit of an extreme example, but I know people who can’t see that Donald Trump is a highly transparent narcissist. Even ones who didn’t vote for him and hate him for all the obvious reasons can’t see the personality disorder in him, and I find it so glaringly obvious that I sometimes just can’t fathom how anyone could miss it. But, if I really think about it, and I imagine what it might be like for a person who doesn’t have a natural talent for empathy, I can see how they just might not connect the dots and just see a bombastic, arrogant asshole, rather than the much more complex pattern of malignant narcissism that underlies that comparatively superficial persona.

Being happy by myself.

Not engaging with other humans. Whether in person or online, I simply don't feel like talking to people is necessary.

Will I do it? Sure. It's fine. But the difference is that I can go weeks without speaking to someone else - and frequently do since I'm disabled and a bit of a shut-in. However, it seems to really bother people to not have others with which to speak. I've never understood this.

Fixing things. Repair. Assembly. Construction. Diagnosis. It always surprises me how many people are incapable of understanding how something works or what needs done to repair it.

From engines to furnaces to plumbing, computers, electronics, whatever, I do it all myself. And it's not even remotely connected to me career. Repairmen hate me!

Before every 3rd annual review I set out getting competitive wages from competitors to bring to my review for my current employer to match or else I accept the competing offer and my current employer can use my annual review as my 2 week notice.

Has worked 5 out of 5 times accross 3 different companies over my 20 year work span.