Report the Israeli to HR for the potato joke before anyone reports you. Also mention everyone else and say that they were all laughing and pointing at you.
Go ahead and warm that resume up too lol
Resume? I’d have a lawyer on the phone. No money for a lawyer? Kill your boss and then yourself, fuck reality.
Everything ok at home man?
You lost me at the end…
I was sure it was gonna be a “garage” -> “car hole” reference. Imagine my disappointment
Actual autist here: Took me a loooong time to figure out a whole bunch of social concepts when it comes to what neurotypicals basically deem as small talk.
Firstly, you basically just have to accept that for most people, a level of classist, racist, other kinds of stereotypical insults are socially viewed as basically acceptable, even though its usually quite obvious they are, in fact, insults.
Then you have to understand the concept of proportionality in small talk. You have to reply with something that’s very obviously and directly relevant, and of the same magnitude.
(Jumping from an insult about dietary preferences to an insult about war crimes is not the same magnitude)
Encapsulating this entire social interaction is the setting: coworkers of mixed nationality likely and an after work dinner likely implies an expectation of basically corporate social etiquette, ie, back handed compliments to establish a social dominance hierarchy, where the name of the game us getting as close to breaching the invisible ‘wow what an asshole’ line without actually stepping over it.
To avoid looking meek, docile, awkward or antisocial, you have to figure out an appropriate small talk style reply, which actually requires a fairly detailed knowledge of the other persons you are conversing with. Their culture, personal history, personal beliefs, etc.
If you don’t do this at least semi-regularly, then you are a pushover who will be given higher workloads with no extra compensation and likely will not advance very far in your career, as you seem to be fine where you are.
So ok, if you know a bit about Israelis, you might attempt to insult back along the lines of dietary preferences.
But, its a faux pas to escalate even within this realm of responses: If you retort that you ‘prefer your potatoes with pork’, well, that’s probably going to be viewed as quite rude, as that’s still a higher magnitude, as it references something that is commonly known to be forbidden to most Israelis.
What might be a proportional response would be ‘Sorry, I’d make them (the potatoes) into latkes for you, but I don’t have any eggs’.
But that may still be deemed as overly offensive, depending on the temperament of the Israeli and the level to which the other coworkers feel the need to be defensive toward perceived anti-semitism.
So, as an autistic person, you have to consciously have all this knowledge and think through it all logically in real time, all while your actual emotion is anger because you don’t give a fuck that the potato comment was supposed to be a joke, because it was in actuality a racist insult that actually references a fucking famine and a dietary stereotype that exists largely due to imperialist exploitation of your ancestors.
In summary, yeah small talk is an absolute nightmare for autistic people who are in an aggressive, hostile social environment, which, at least in my experience, is almost all of them.
(Jumping from an insult about dietary preferences to an insult about war crimes is not the same magnitude)
The potato joke is also a joke about a genocide, though.
Like “How many potatoes does it take to kill an Irishman?”
“None”seriously.
insert potato joke
“why is that funny?”
let them try to explain
“oh, I thought it was about he Irish Potato Famine, was a period of starvation and disease in Ireland lasting from 1845 to 1852 that constituted a historical social crisis and subsequently had a major impact on Irish society and history as a whole.”
see how awkward it can get.
Even worse, the famine was entirely caused by landlords and especially the English. It wasn’t a natural disaster, but a product of monoculture that was forced on the people through no fault of their own.
It was caused by the government of England subsidizing the export of food from Ireland.
Initially, yes. And then when it went wrong? They doubled down on it because they WANTED people to be desperate.
That’s when they ostracize you for being a killjoy and not appreciating their “humour”
That’s when they ostracize you for being a killjoy .
Fuck that toxic place, never liked any of those cocksuckers anyway.
As someone who lived 5 years in ireland and saw the history its absolutely fucking horrible. If you think about it its kinda ironic. Uk occupies a country, controls everything there and commits a genocide. Israel is occupying a country, controls everything there and commits a genocide. By the way as a neurotypical who has autistic family members and friends, in this case what happened is that the irish potato famine got normalized over time but the genocide in gaza is a current event. Also the israel one is political. Third thing is most neurotypicals are pussies, if you spend time with neurodivergent people you realize that a lot of things they say are funny as fuck, even if its a bit raw sometimes.
in this case what happened is that the irish potato famine got normalized over time but the genocide in gaza is a current event
Yep, basically this. To most non Irish people or those who haven’t bothered to learn, its just a commonly socially acceptable racist joke.
Third thing is most neurotypicals are pussies, if you spend time with neurodivergent people you realize that a lot of things they say are funny as fuck, even if its a bit raw sometimes.
My experience is that almost all of them are selfish hypocritical bullies, though I do seem to have just had astounding low quality people around me for much of my life. I have had a few genuinely nice neurotypical friends, but they’re a small minority.
(I actually just think David Bowie had the right idea being afraid of Americans. We’re boorish, ignorant cocksure, backstabbing assholes compared to everyone I’ve ever met or know from another country.)
The vast majority of neurotypicals I’ve known who constantly give me shit and often don’t even realize they are doing so?
They either have nervous breakdowns or become physically violent when I dish back 10% of what they’ve thrown at me by simply explaining their own hypocrisy to them.
Doing so is funny to me because to me their hypocrisy is self-evident and thus they are just are absurd but it breaks the brains of people who seem to just say shit with very low self-awareness.
sure, it’s an “accepted” racist joke, sucks when the turns have tabled.
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This is true, (see my second to last paragraph) but … that is not as widely known.
Most people just think ‘Idk, Irish people like potatoes’.
Most people think it is just in the realm of dietary preferences and cuisine and don’t know why.
Even though there is a fairly direct equivalence if you actually know the history of the stereotype, most people don’t.
Thus you are perceived as overreacting if you jump right to genocide.
To attempt an analogy:
It’s like if a boomer tells a millennial or gen z to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, and they point out that the original meaning of that phrase was meant to encapsulate the literal physical impossibility of doing so as analogous to making a decent living for yourself in an economy where very very few people have the means/opportunity/connections/dumb luck to earn more than basically a subsistence wage.
The boomer just gets offended or bewildered because they didn’t know that, or they don’t believe it, and they’re too arrogant to admit they have no real, useful advice, and that all they have to offer is infantilization.
Their ignorance (and inability to admit their knowledge is flawed) allows them to keep using an offensive phrase and not see this as offensive.
Most people think it is just in the realm of dietary preferences and cuisine and don’t know why.
And yet, if you said something about black people and watermelon or fried chicken, or Chinese people and cats, you would immediately be treated like a racist, because you would be.
I laughed
Can you explain how the joke references “a genocide”?
Please learn about Irish history.
Is every use of the word “potato” a reference to famine in the 1800’s?
OK, so there’s something called “context”, which in this case is the person being questioned being Irish.
All Europeans eats potatoes so singling out the Irish in this way means you are referencing the famine.There’s literally a dish called “Irish potatoes.”
Lol, oh you little trolls
is every use of the word “yellow” racist? no but context matters
Sure; an important part of this context is that the Irish bombed more hospitals than the Israelis have
I’m autistic and I’ve learned to stop trying to play this game. Instead, I just make assholes like this explain their sideways ass comments in a straightforward fashion for the group. Forcing people to explain bigoted comments and not allowing the subject to change has now made everyone uncomfortable. Not so fucking funny anymore. I usually don’t have to do this more than once or twice within a specific group.
I also stopped playing ‘the game’ long ago and no longer put up with shitty people, but I can only do that because I’m on SSDI and don’t have to interact with people in an employment setting.
Anon here is learning the hard way that basically, to advance in almost any modern, monetarily lucrative career, and most non lucrative ones, welp, you have to play this stupid social jockeying game because that is subconsciously how most others determine your worth as an employee, as a coworker.
You can do the ‘explain why thats funny’ angle, but that just makes … you look like an asshole, a killjoy … to the people whose jobs are their lives, their selves.
It has been working for me, and I’ve been getting promoted. I also tell the truth to executive leadership against advice. I just don’t have the bandwidth to fully mask and complete the job I’m paid to do. I mask the essentials, but I’m not playing games. We have work to do.
Well damn, I am genuinely shocked that is working for you, but also very glad to hear that at least its working out well for you!
I had a job like that once.
Thank you! It took a long time, and there have been challenges, but things are moving in the right direction.
=D
SSDI?
Google says social security disability insurance
Also autistic here. Let’s say you reply with “So why is that funny” and that person or a third person says “Don’t be so sensetive”. What’s the best way to force the explanation?
“Im not trying to be overly sensitive i genuinely just dont get the joke. Explain it to me. Make it funny.”
Violence.
Violence is the best way to force anything. As soon as one’s strategy has devolved to forcing people into things, it’s best to just be authentic about it and own the violence.
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Please don’t assume my sensitivities. And then proceed to push again.
I just say it’s either funny or it isn’t.
Humor is an authentication mechanism. It’s either funny or it isn’t, and that binary signal is the whole point of humor. It’s an indicator people are on the same page or they aren’t.
I’m not kidding. Humor is a test. You don’t ask “why wasn’t that password the right one?”. The password was either a match or it wasn’t.
Once you understand the social function of humor, the question “why is that funny?” becomes bunk.
“I’m sorry, please carry on with your racist jokes”
No need for sarcasm, deadpan works fine
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TBH that’s a great advice for anyone dealing with assholes, autistic or otherwise.
we’d get along well
“Well, you know, Irish cuisine has a lot of potatoes in it.”
Joke fucking explained. How do you figure the guy’s going to be on the spot, exactly?
I guess you never heard of the potato famine then, which was a type of genocide visited upon the Irish by the British. Hence the 'sudden’jump from potatoes to bombing hospitals.
That’s the source of potato jokes people crack about the Irish.
I’ve heard of it. It happened in the 1800’s on another continent. Can you explain what it has to do with eating potatoes?
It is the link between irish people and potatoes.
The joke wasn’t about potatoes it was about the link between irish people and potatoes.
Irish cuisine has a lot of potato dishes. Because they were cultivating potatoes.
Because the british bought all out their food sources, subjecting them to a famine where they had to grow potatoes to survive.
“Does it? What’s a good dish to try?”
“I guess I don’t know. Sorry, I didn’t mean anything by it.” With a look on his face that clearly shows confusion at why you spent two whole responses about something as insignificant (in his mind) as potatoes. Everyone else probably has similar looks.
For small talk like that you get one response on the topic. If someone said I should order potatoes because I’m Irish I’d lean so far into it, adapt an obvious accent, and say “Oh I do loove me potatoes.” If I wanted to backhand him a little I’d tack on “Except during the famine when there were no potatoes. Those were daark days” to the first statement. There’s enough humor in the accent to cover the callout mass starvation he probably unwittingly referenced.
“shouldn’t you be bombing hospitals” is better.
If you say so!
Corned beef hash? Colcannon? Literal Irish potatoes?
Well played, though I doubt some Israeli making genocide jokes is going to be that familiar with Irish cuisine.
Everybody knows about Irish food, just like everybody’s heard of hummus
… Hummus is a popular staple of cuisine all over the eastern mediterranean and much of the middle east.
The word ‘hummus’ itself is from Arabic.
Hummus is not particularly unique to Israel.
You’ve apparently heard of hummus but you don’t know much about it.
Not necessarily, and if they have, they might not know the ingredients. Even hummus, many people don’t know what it is made from. If someone is making a joke about genocide and forced to quickly switch gears to a culinary discussion, I doubt they’d play it off so well. They might, but I doubt it.
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Honest question: Are neurodivergents functionally a protected class from discrimination in the US, the way religion, race, sexuality, gender are?
The only even theorerical backing for that I can think of is the ADA, and I have never once heard of it or any other law being actually used by a neurodivergent against discrimination.
Functionally? No. Legally? Yes.
When I’m applying for jobs, I do check the box that says disabled, because according to the US gov’t, developmental disorders like autism spectrum disorder are considered disabilities. (Probably ADHD also, but that evaluation isn’t complete yet.) OTOH, it’s unlikely to help if i am subjected to some kind of workplace discipline that’s the direct result of being on the autism spectrum, or if I fuck something up because i have severe ADHD. The kind of accommodations that they would need to make are… Pretty limited, TBH.
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Also autistic here, I feel calling people out works pretty well for me. No need for extended knowledge except about your own culture, just point out the offensive part and make them regret.
Example: “Are you referencing the Irish potato famine?”
It forces the person to either back out or admit that it was offensive. Third option could be “Don’t be so sensetive, it was a joke”. Then you can say that you don’t mind jokes but that you found that one offensive.
With knowledge about the person’s culture you can always use it for a counter-attack with “I thought that Israelis would know that some jokes are off limits”.
One thing specifically about Irish vs Israeli is that, if I’m not mistaken, Ireland and Israel are not on remotely good terms and haven’t been for a while. If the Israeli was a natural-born Israeli citizen they may have truly meant to piss Anon off.
Fuck, I’d actually forgotten that. You could be right.
Most people are not aware, but potatoes are a reference to a holodomor-like government-induced famine that occurred in Ireland when the government of England made a policy of paying far over market rate for people to ship food out of Ireland.
This weakened the Irish food market, leading to a situation where many people subsisted on the one crop that they could grow on their own property (as collective farm output was put on ships to elsewhere), which was potatoes.
In that brittle situation, a fungus called a potato blight caused many people to starve to death because they were down to one last food source after the English mucking about.
It didn’t happen in a time of war so it wasn’t a war crime, but what the English government did to the Irish people was definitely genocidal.
(Jumping from an insult about dietary preferences to an insult about war crimes is not the same magnitude)
The potato joke is a joke about war crimes even if the person telling it doesn’t realize this. They actually responded in kind.
So what you’re saying is this dude’s coworker threw him an impossibly unfair underhand in order to hide, even if by accident, behind their nationality or beliefs.
Not gonna lie, I would’ve spit my drink laughing if I was at that table.
EDIT:
I didn’t even know about the famine or tension between Irish and Israeli. The context makes that comeback x10 better.That’s not “a nightmare for autistic people”. He had every right to be angry about a famine and this was all just “submit to my authority” bullshit. I don’t care who you are descended from, that is not logical nor fair nor reasonable in any social setting. I literally would have just decked him in the face and stormed out because that’s the only scenario where OP is making it clear that authority does not equal privilege. Respect your employees.
What I mean by nightmare for autistic people is that autistic people, while often excelling at tasks and activities that have firm, mechanical, logical rules, are also often totally bewildered by social interactions because, on their face, they don’t really seem to follow any black and white rules.
Autists try to logic their way, consciously, through a challenging social interaction as if it were a game of chess, even though the rules are basically calvinball rules.
My point is that this kind of catastrophic social interaction is more likely and more challenging for a neurodiverse than a neurotypical, not that the Israeli’s incitement was justifiable.
literally would have just decked him in the face and stormed out because that’s the only scenario where OP is making it clear that authority does not equal privilege.
Yep and that’s how you ruin your career and possibly go to jail, have fun paying off your student loans at a min wage job the rest of your life after everyone hears about the guy that freaked out over a friendly dinner and broke the funny popular guy’s orbital bone.
That’s how you are supposed to deal with that level of awfulness. If you idiots can’t fucking throw away your worthless fucking lives en-masse to fix this mess, how do you expect change to ever happen?
… who is ‘you idiots?’
Autistic people? Everyone who’s ever experienced a bigoted insult?
… Can you actually explain your plan here?
Oh, jeez, not like that, no. I am autistic, and I didn’t mean other autistic people. Let’s just say I’m angry at humans in general and leave it at that, I think I’d better get off Lemmy for a while.
Hey, totally serious here:
You got a bit overheated, realized it, and you’re taking a break.
I totally get just becoming so angry at the hypocrisy of it all, and I genuinely just want to commend you for realizing when you got a bit hot headed.
If only our allistic acquaintances had the same ability to admit when their emotions are driving their actions.
Thanks.
He had every right to be angry about a famine
A famine in 1845? Caused by Irish reliance on monocrop agriculture?
Why would any living person in 2024 have a right to be “angry” about a joke that barely refers to it?
A famine in 1845 that was caused by…
“As someone who lived 5 years in ireland and saw the history its absolutely fucking horrible. If you think about it its kinda ironic. Uk occupies a country, controls everything there and commits a genocide. Israel is occupying a country, controls everything there and commits a genocide. By the way as a neurotypical who has autistic family members and friends, in this case what happened is that the irish potato famine got normalized over time but the genocide in gaza is a current event. Also the israel one is political. Third thing is most neurotypicals are pussies, if you spend time with neurodivergent people you realize that a lot of things they say are funny as fuck, even if its a bit raw sometimes.”
That was by Altoothbrush in this topic, if you didn’t see it.
I’m not Irish, nor do have an issue with Israelis. This whole issue just reeks of “casual dismissiveness” and I’m autistic myself so this hurts deep.
A famine in 1845 that was caused by…
Monocrop agriculture, like I said. How else do you lose all your food to a single crop disease?
Israel is occupying a country, controls everything there and commits a genocide.
But… they aren’t? The Irish population declined by 1.5 million people in two years. The population of Arab Palestinians has monotonically increased since the formation of the State of Israel in 1948.
in this case what happened is that the irish potato famine got normalized over time
Can you explain what else you think is supposed to happen to history as it recedes into the past?
Are we supposed to feel infinitely bad about the infinite past’s infinite array of horrors? Forever? Doesn’t the past ever get to just be the past? I don’t think you have to be “neurotypical” to understand why human beings have recency bias.
Ok since you are either ignorant or quite dense:
The Irish were forced into monocrop agriculture by their Imperial Overlords, as colonial subjects extracting resources and establishing a very fragile and inequitable economic system for the Irish.
The Famine was greatly exacerbated by capitalist agents of their Imperial Overlords exporting food from Ireland, which could have fed the Irish, but they were paid so little, their buying power could not compete with higher prices offered by exporting.
Also, Israel is currently committing a genocide inasmuch as they have militarily invaded an area, bombed it into and its inhabitants into oblivion, killing far, far more civilian casualties than combatant, with multiple instances of designating safe areas for civilians to flee to and then bombing the fuck out of them weeks later.
Oh, and they’re also causing a famine by not allowing food in, even drone striking and shooting up UN food convoys.
Finally, some forms of racism become unacceptable in the current day because attention and scorn are brought by people who make the atrocities of the past known.
You’re probably not gonna be able to get away with polite company hearing you refer to a black person as a n##g##r or an arab as a sand n##g##r or an asian person as a ching chong, even though you absolutely could not too many decades ago, and the reason that is the case is that social movements brought historical wrongs into present attention.
That it is still acceptable to joke about irish potatoes is something that seems strange and hypocritical to an autistic person who is far more likely to see the arbitrary nature of social norms, is far more likely to try to establish consistent, inviolable rules, than to an allistic person to whom the rules of socialization are basically processed and determined subconsciously, without need for an analytic approach.
Also, Israel is currently committing a genocide inasmuch as they have militarily invaded an area, bombed it into and its inhabitants into oblivion, killing far, far more civilian casualties than combatant, with multiple instances of designating safe areas for civilians to flee to and then bombing the fuck out of them weeks later.
But that’s not genocide. That’s warfare, in an urban environment, prosecuted (as military observers all agree) with the maximum possible degree of protection for the civilian population. That’s what it looks like!
Israelis in Gaza continue to suffer, bleed, and die on behalf of Gazans, as a result of taking greater risks than they need to in order to avoid extreme civilian harm.
Oh, and they’re also causing a famine by not allowing food in
But that’s false. Not only are they allowing food in, they’ve increased food aid since Oct 11, the start of the operation in Gaza. 3500 calories per person per day - that’s more calories per person than in Luxembourg.
How could it be the case that Israel is both feeding Palestinians and “genociding” them?
That’s warfare, in an urban environment, prosecuted (as military observers all agree) with the maximum possible degree of protection for the civilian population
Other than the IPCC and ICJ and basically the entire world and even members of the Biden admin so disgusted by whats going on that they resigned in protest, sure!
We all know the maximally safe thing to do is to carpet bomb the designated safe zone civillians were instructed to flee to.
We all know the best way to get your hostages back is to blow up buildings they might be in with a fucking tank cannon at point blank, because the hannibal doctrine of killing hostages that are too difficult to extract is more expedient.
How could it be the case that Israel is both feeding Palestinians and “genociding” them?
It isn’t. You believe a lie. Everyone other than Israel themselves has been claiming and reporting on Israel is saying they are allowing food in when they actually are not.
Anyway, you’re very obviously an idiot, troll, hasbarah clown, or some combination of those.
It’s been fun, toodles.
I bid that non autistic people be named and categorized in a way that highlights their subtly hostile, backstabbing, cruel nature. You know, the common household “psychopath” who doesn’t actually meet the requirements for real psychopathy, but is still pathologically a dickish cynic playing a social game for minor wins in wealth and status, instead of simply being a friendly and polite contributor to society.
They named us.
Maybe we should name them.
Describe the traits that define them. Go into detail about what exactly is so wrong with them. Why they
killrally for warmongers. Why they sabotage eachother. Why they face obvious long term problems with such oblivious nonchalance.I bid that non autistic people be named and categorized in a way that highlights their subtly hostile, backstabbing, cruel nature
Are you sure you’re “autistic”? Are you sure you’re not just a fucking asshole?
In exaggerating a little, but to me it’s pretty fucking clear you have some issues of your own. Not exclusively, but definitely as common tendencies.
I don’t know how deep the rabbit hole goes, but the less distinct pathologies of the common clay are certainly also much less explored. The plains lying between the tallest peaks and deepest, darkest caves, left comparably undisturbed. The resting place of the explorers, disinterested in undermining their own camp.
There are variations of normal, some whose defined traits might be even less charitable that those described in the definition of the prototypical autist.
Yeah, I’m angry and even violently so, but not out of a hatred of a group. I think OP’s boss is an asshole, and I think Israel are not the good guys right now, but I also think antisemitism is no better and I don’t want anyone innocent, like children, getting caught in the crossfire like they were during the Holocaust and like they are being today in Gaza.
I don’t want anyone innocent, like children, getting caught in the crossfire like they were during the Holocaust
…what?
Sorry, can you explain how you think children died in the Holocaust because of crossfire?
Okay, that’s cherrypicking. I am not saying it was crossfire like any Jews deserved to die, they didn’t. I’m saying that anyone calling children “just collateral damage” is evil, because THAT’S what I meant by crossfire, “they are not just collateral damage, you CHOSE not to care that your actions might hurt innocents”.
I’m saying that anyone calling children “just collateral damage” is evil
If they are, in fact, collateral casualties to a military action, why is that “evil”?
Doesn’t that depend on whether the military conflict itself is justified? If Ukraine strikes a Russian weapons depo and it unbeknownst to them happens to be Take Your Vatnik to Work day, they’re likely to wipe out at least a couple of families. Is that truly “evil”? Isn’t that just an unfortunate tragedy in an ongoing tragedy called “war”?
I don’t doubt they’re autistic.
I also don’t understand why you think they’re an asshole. Allistic people often do act like low tier psychopaths: manipulative, selfish, overconfident and hypocritical.
It’s just that they do this in ways they don’t perceive, such that they don’t recognize it until it crosses a more extreme threshold.
Here’s a … perhaps more palatable version of the same idea:
And if you’d like to know more:
Allistic people often do act like low tier psychopaths: manipulative, selfish, overconfident and hypocritical.
All human beings have the capability to act this way, including autistic humans. When you say “well, but these other guys are just like that” that’s when you should suspect you’re being an asshole.
Ok so you don’t seem to know much about psychology.
Sure, in an extremely broad sense, all humans have the capability to act in any way.
When certain groups of people actually do, repeatedly act in certain ways more often than others do, when its so commonplace to them that other people have to point out that they are behaving that way because they do not even realize it, now you have the beginnings of how to classify people psychologically.
If we all have the theoretical, idealized capacity to violently assault and murder random animals with no provocation or explanation… super. Great.
How about the people that actually do that regularly?
You can’t do any kind if psychological screening or differentiation or descriptors whatsoever if your entire theory is ‘well technically anybody can do anything, so everyone is the same’.
This is like 11th grade debate club sophistry you’re pushing here.
When certain groups of people actually do, repeatedly act in certain ways more often than others do
But they don’t, and in any case that’s not “psychology.” That’s just you being a bigoted fucking asshole.
when its so commonplace to them that other people have to point out that they are behaving that way because they do not even realize it
Isn’t that literally the described experience of being autistic? Having your behavior pointed out to you and you didn’t even realize you were doing it? Constantly?
How about the people that actually do that regularly?
Is that something you think is true about neurotypical people? That we’re constantly “assaulting and murdering”?
How is this not you just being a giant gaping asshole? You can wrap it up in therapy terms if you want but surely you have to see how offensive this is?
instead of simply being a friendly and polite contributor to society.
Do you think allistic people are inherently incapable of doing this earnestly?
I propose we start Zionism for Autists.
I’m sure that’ll go well rofl.
The train infrastructure would be amazing
Ah trains, my first love, hahah.
Speaking for myself, I do find it pretty funny how the ‘obsessed with trains at/from a young age’ stereotype very often actually is true of Autists, amidst the vast, churning ocean of more common yet wildly inaccurate and offensive stereotypes.
Funny, but that’s entirely different from what I wrote in all but general vibe, maybe. Besides, following Israel’s example isn’t exactly a recipe for success.
Sorry, I have a knee jerk comedy response to any idea that Autistic people will ever actually be seen as anything other than weird smart people that occasionally freak out for no reason and are hard to talk to.
I mean sure, you can describe allistic people pathologically they way they describe us pathologically, and sure, a few genuinely empathetic people might care, but the rest will not change.
While I do not socialize cynically with ulterior motives, I am quite cynical that the idea of precisely and accurately shaming the vast majority of humans on the planet having any positive social effect.
My whole life has been explaining myself and my basic boundaries to people and maybe 3% of them actually make a conscious effort to not be manipulative hypocrites.
Hence the semi-serious, semi-on-topic, semi-ironic Autist Zion suggestion:
We don’t fit in well anywhere, we’re misunderstood and mistreated quite often, and though I genuinely would love to live in a place with a majority Autist population, actual Zionism itself shows how making a designated safe territory for a people group can be extremely problematic.
Hell, someone else is already replying to me and I think? they are seriously suggesting mass vigilante violence in the name of stamping out bigots…
Words aren’t bad in and of themselves, usually. For one, “psychopath” freely translates to “suffering soul” but you could also do “mind in disease”. Neither sound too insulting, per se, do they?
You’ll alway have euphemisms and if there’s a difference that can be noted, then usually the people’s who differ from the norm will be called something “bad”.
Take left-handed people. Sinister. That’s where the word comes from. “Sinister” as in the Latin word for “left”.
Then we’ll just end up on the
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euphemism#Euphemism_treadmill
Why care about what words someone uses if you know you have better ones yourself? It’s the intent behind the words that most often matters. To neurotypicals, anyway.
“Remember when a colonizing power tried to exterminate your people?”
Haw haw.
Though seriously most Americans think the potato famine was a natural disaster and have no idea why it is called the great hunger.
During the American War of Independence the reins were loosened a little. Further concessions had to be granted during the French Revolution. Ireland rose so quickly that her people threatened to outstrip the English. The English government drove them to rebellion and achieved the Union [390] by bribery. The Union delivered the death blow to reviving Irish industry. On one occasion Meagher said: all Irish branches of industry have been destroyed, all we have been left is the making of coffins. It became a vital necessity to have land; the big landowners leased their lands to speculators; land passed through four or five lease stages before it reached the peasant, and this made prices disproportionately high. The agrarian population lived on potatoes and water; wheat and meat were sent to England; the rent was eaten up in London, Paris and Florence. In 1836, £7,000,000 was sent abroad to absent landowners. Fertilisers were exported with the produce and rent, and the soil was exhausted. Famine often set in here and there, and owing to the potato blight there was a general famine in 1846. A million people starved to death. The potato blight resulted from the exhaustion of the soil, it was a product of English rule.
Through the repeal of the Corn Laws Ireland lost her monopoly position on the English market, the old rent could no longer be paid. High prices of meat and the bankruptcy of the remaining small landowners further contributed to the eviction of the small peasants and the transformation of their land into sheep pastures. Over half a million acres of arable land have not been tilled since 1860. The yield per acre has dropped: oats by 16 per cent, flax by 36 per cent, potatoes by 50 per cent. At present only oats are cultivated for the English market, and wheat is imported.
With the exhaustion of the soil, the population has deteriorated physically. There has been an absolute increase in the number of lame, blind, deaf and dumb, and insane in the decreasing population.
Over 1,100,000 people have been replaced by 9,600,000 sheep. This is a thing unheard of in Europe. The Russians replace evicted Poles with Russians, not with sheep. Only under the Mongols in China was there once a discussion whether towns should be destroyed to make room for sheep.
– International Workingmen’s Association 1867 Record of Speech by Karl Marx
Racism was the cause.
It was colonialism and the primitive accumulation stage of capitalism, but racism often runs in the same circles
That is some savage shit. If Eminem were at the table, he would have taken notes.
Edit: I mean, yeah, he did go overboard, but that Israeli guy started it with the stupid ass potato joke. That shit was (1) uncalled for and (2) played out. If the Israeli guy goes to HR, they need to reprimand his ass, too, for trying to being offensive and sucking at it. At least my man here knows how to strike. You want him on your team.
The potato joke is also a joke about a genocide.
It’s a joke about being the victim of genocide.
In this case the equivalent joke would be a holocaust joke, which would probably get you fired even faster.
Legitimately, if they’re American, the people in HR probably wouldn’t even believe you if you told them about what actually happened during the Irish famine, or how England treated them for decades directly leading to “the troubles”
They would assume you’re making it up.
I’m not joking
I was more or less taught in school “oh well it was an oopsie-woopsie, all the crops died but England tried to help them! Oh well, such a terrible natural disaster.”
I didn’t learn about the darker side of things until I read into it outside school.
The US education system is a joke.
Curious. I wonder if the region you grew up in influenced this at all… as I am from an area full of ethnically Irish folk whose roots trace back to emigres during the famine, and we definitely were taught that the bloody English were to blame!
Yeah, I’m certain areas with more Irish heritage are going to have a better grasp of things.
I grew up in an area primarily composed of English, Scottish, and French immigrant descendants.
Oh, then what’s the problem?
The Irish genocide is far enough in the past to have become sort of “folklore”.
No one who experienced it is still alive or in living memory.
That makes it better suited for small talk, and not equivalent to the Israeli genocide.Oh it’s still in living memory, Ireland and Irish culture still hasn’t recovered from it.
The population has barely recovered, in fact. If i recall correctly, it was within the past five years that the Irish population exceeded pregenocide levels.
Also, unlike the Shoa/Holocaust, it’s not that commonly known that the potato famine was a genocide, inflicted by the english.
That doesn’t make the Iseraeli’s comment ok. Just that they probably didn’t know how much their comment was in bad taste.
By that logic we’ll be allowed to laugh about Jews and ovens in about 60 years, right?
I don’t know what you mean by “allowed”, AFAIK there is no western country (not even Germany) where it would be illegal. I don’t know the law in Israel.
My friends and me made lots of those jokes 30 years ago.
Not proud of it at all, but we were edgy 12-year-olds.I’m guessing allowed by taste, not by law.
Would you mind explaining what happened? I don’t know anything about Irish History.
They were colonized by the British and essentially taxed through landlords above their ability to produce, but were allowed to support themselves on potatoes, which was okay (not really) until there was a blight damaging the potato crops, which brought on huge amounts of emigration and led to over a million people starving to death. If you want to read more
Thanks. Now I understand, why that joke was quite an asshole joke.
I’d like to tangentially add that Irish people are possible the most chillest when it comes to their ethnicity and identity. About 11 years ago, I got obsessed with pretending I was Irish for a few months during and after dating an Irish-American girl. I had a terrible fake accent, drank Jameson or Maker’s Mark, bragged about my fame with Irish good-bye’s, etc. I am in no way Irish in the slightest, and I don’t think anyone would even think that. Not one Irish person seemed offended. If anything, they welcomed it and found it entertaining at the least. I think that if I did that with any other ethnicity, people would at least be offended if not angry and retaliatory.
Anyone else experience this? If so, any insight on why this may be?
Wasn’t the potato famine a natural disaster though?
The potato blight was a natural disaster.
The famine was caused by the British exporting the same amount of potatoes out of Ireland as before.They didn’t export potatoes out of Ireland, they exported everything else. Meaning there was no other food but potatoes for the Irish to eat.
That, the rent system, and the British actively preventing aid (not at their expense!) really turned a bad situation into a full-blown genocide.
Ahh, I see.
Not entirely. Yes there was blight affecting crops but there was more to it than that.
Huge volumes of unaffected produce were exported to England for profit - the decreased yields only impacting the market for locals. Previous famines has seen the British ban exports to ensure the local population had access to food (which also decreased the prices) but not this time around.
English landlords of Irish property were evicting their tenants who weren’t able to pay (since the blight impacted many people’s ability to work) with zero notice or rights for the tenants. Absentee landlords were extracting huge amounts of capital out of the Irish economy, owning vast swathes of the entire country.
The Irish were widely dependent on the potato as a primary form of sustenance but it was due to the potato being high in calories, cheap and easy to grow, and high density yields from relatively small plots of land (landlords dividing up the land into incredibly small divisions whilst simultaneously extracting the highest rent possible for the land).
The Irish were, in essence, forced to eat potatoes due to the extreme economic exploitation they were subject to.
Yet there was no aid from England; she simply sat by reaping profit and leaving things up to the divine - “the market will provide”. There had been efforts to change tariffs and laws but the contention in the governing party about providing aid caused the Prime Minister to resign and the subsequent government threw out all efforts (except those such as offering relief to those without land which forced many Irish to sell what land they had to gain relief and aid).
A Prime Minister at the time launched a commission to investigate and it was found that the absentee landlord system was abhorrent and principally responsible for the famine.
Sadly 1/4 of the population perished, and another 1/4 simply left the country. In some ways, Ireland never recovered.
I would have spat my drink out laughing.
Fuck them all if they deal it out but can’t take it.
That’s the their entire MO…
Israelis are fuxking idiots if they think anyone is going to suffer them going forward.
No quarter for genocide enablers.
Insult someone, get insulted back with a good burn and threaded to go to HR. Loads of adults in that room
There were no adults in the room because this story is fake.
Seems like everyone there but anon didn’t understand the insult implied and got upset when it was returned in kind.
Like all other 4chan it’s just fake news, but it would make a lot more sense to school them and what the potato famine was actually about rather than to assume they’re getting in a pissing match.
Also, in any case where coworkers are worried enough about race and politics to go to HR they’re not going to sit around and talk about ethnic stereotypes. If you’re going to sit around and talk about ethnicity and stereotypes you’ve already made a social pact that everybody isn’t going to get butt hurt and go to HR.
At my old place five of us got together once every few weeks and had a nice dinner out. It was America so nobody that was there was first generation anything. We were descendants, Irish Israeli, black, Vietnamese. If the Jewish guy would have made the potato famine joke to the Irish guy, and the Irish guy did come back with bombing hospitals, The worst outcome would be the Jewish guy would have said touche new subject and we would have continued bs about work, sports, or technology.
If it were actually a true story, maybe autistic OP thought he was returning the joke in kind. “Lol shouldn’t you be starving because the British stole all your crops but potatoes”, “lol shouldn’t you be bombing hospitals”. Seems like a fair trade if you don’t understand what was intended. Signed: an autist.
My son has challenges, and I understand the story in context.
My point is the group at the table would likely not have responded in whole that way.
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Rule #3: always assume the anonymous 4chan poster is making it up
I see this comment all the time and I don’t care. It’s entertainment and the last time I checked most movies were made up.
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The way I see it, don’t dish it out if you can’t take it…living memory or not
Who fucking reports comments made outside of work to HR? Learn how to handle uncomfortable social situations on your own you little tattler.
The fact that some event happened outside of work hours by no means disqualifies it as legitimate harassment. We should absolutely not be disparaging people for invoking this protection. Think of all the vulnerable groups who may be less likely to speak up after some shitty behavior if we start shitting on people for invoking this protection.
A hostile work environment claim may include conduct that occurs in a work-related context outside an employee’s regular workplace.[219] For instance, harassment directed at an employee during the course of offsite employer-required training occurs within the “work environment,” even if the training is not conducted at the employer’s facility.[220]
Example 53: Harassment During Off-Site Employer-Hosted Party Was Within Work Environment. Fatima’s employer hosts its annual holiday party in a private restaurant. One of her coworkers, Tony, drinks to excess, and at the end of the evening attempts to grope and kiss Fatima. Although Tony’s behavior occurred outside Fatima’s regular workplace and at a private restaurant unaffiliated with her employer, it occurred in a work-related context, the company-sponsored holiday party. Therefore, based on these facts, the harassment occurred in Fatima’s work environment for purposes of a Title VII sexual harassment claim.
https://www.eeoc.gov/laws/guidance/enforcement-guidance-harassment-workplace#_Toc164808037
I agree, this is a work function so HR could be invoked.
That said, I’m with Anon on this one. His coworker started it, and while on the surface Anon’s response sounds much darker, Anon is punching up and Israeli Coworker is punching down.
The potato famine was an economic genocide incited by colonial powers. You’d think if they get a laugh out of that they’d also get a laugh about currently ongoing genocides.
Yes please daddy HR please mediate this mild discomfort between two coworkers because we cannot be bothered to just apologize to each other and move on on our own
Dont get me wrong i dont disagree with you that some people depend on the protection it offers, but it also makes me wonder how the person gets by outside work when they have to solve disagreements and rude interactions on their own.
And my point is that this kind of thinking is what contributes to our abysmal rate of people speaking up due to harassment.
Maybe get rid of any walkie-talkies or pagers you might have.
“Haha, remember that time the Irish were nearly exterminated via forced famine?” Odd thing to joke about with a random coworker. Should’ve instead suggested potato vodka served by a teenage split-lipped ginger mother of six and then segued into the specific reasons Ireland deserved the troubles. Or just avoided atrocities entirely. Either/or
“Haha, remember that time the Irish were nearly exterminated via forced famine?”
Doesn’t seem too out of character for an Israeli.
One thing I learnt in Ireland is you better have a thick skin because no quarter is given when it comes to slagging and taking the piss. And the more you take yourself seriously and the more they will gang up until you learn to shut the fuck up. Absolutely love it.
So it sounds like the Irish and the Aussies would get along
Famously well, in my experience… as a Masshole who gets along with both groups equally well.
Funny thing, that…
Nearly a third of Aussies claim Irish heritage. And a lot of those families ended up there because of, you guessed it, the Famine.
Man I thought that insult was golden.
Gotta say, it’s fun to read in-depth conversation explainers from other autistic people. As an autistic person myself I think it’s quite fun and informative.
Yes, there should be a book filled with these stories or something.
