Quote:
Originally Posted by Serpentine Leaf
A 2-tier economy is becoming standard; it isn't at all unique to your area. The middle class has been shrinking for a long time and even the working class seems to be closing off. Moving up is a thing of the past. It takes everything we've got just to maintain a precarious hold on what little we have.
Gender conflicts among rigidly cicgendered people, both within and between their polarized groupings, is also not unique and something that both bores and annoys me. I dream of a post-gender society. And also one without the concept of money. What you're descirbing is classic gentrification, though at a much higher scale than in most areas. And you're right, Social Darwinism plays a huge underlying role in defense of the practice.
The DSM5 changed it to autism spectrum disorder for a reason. There are no clear tiers, it's a wide range of overlapping traits that aren't at the same level for everyone. One person on the spectrum might have no trouble with humor or sarcasm but have ultra-high sensory sensitivities. Another might be almost nonverbal but handle change almost as well as an NT. It sounds like it's the nonverbal stuff you have trouble with if languages come with relative ease if you put effort but have no success with NT communication. People judge a lot more harshly on facial expression, tone, and body language than the words you speak. Writing frees people of those constraints.
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True, both in Britain and USA, as well as Canada and various European countries, the working class are being relegated to a status where no one really addresses concerns. Monied interests just care about maintaining the status quo and power. The only places where the working class have power are in the Scandinavian countries like Norway and Finland.
I often get berated for being very left-wing economically. I also believe in a society without money, without social and economic classes. A lot of my economic philosophy is based on the anarcho-communist government of Barcelona and Catalonia in general in the 1930s. No money, no classes, everyone equal. Close to no one whom I have met knows what I am talking about here. And if I explain it, you can imagine why people making six figures or millions hate me. And my trying to date women who make six figures or millions--which I have tried before because I had not known about their income levels before--quite clearly never works out.
At meetups, often you encounter people who are unbelieveably proud that they work for a big tech company like Facebook or Google--indeed, walking Downtown you see all of the headquarters for tech companies like Google, Uber, Twitter, Facebook, Lyft, Dropbox, etc--but often you will see how they often find themselves to be better than others. A few acquaintances told me, "Some guy asked what I did. I said I do sales. He said that he is a coder at Google. Then he basically brushed me off as a nobody." and similar comments. In addition to discrimination based on class, there is also a discrimination based on profession. Non-tech people are of a lower social stratum compared to tech people. Finance people get a pass, as well as high professions like doctors and lawyers. But anyone less than that is relegated to the second (or third) division. People like me.
I think that Social Darwinism is particularly popular in San Francisco due to the IT sector. I have met countless people in data or IT who basically treat people like data points. In other words, they treat people as numbers--as entities that have no feelings or worth as human beings. So the attitude of displacing working class people from their homes is nothing to them. They think of it as, "Well, if we shift 100000 poor ones out, we can get 100000 rich IT ones (one of us) in the city." People are just a number to them. Likewise, I am a "number" and they consider me as less than they are because, also due to numbers, I earn less, I have less wealth by number, less cars, less space in my home (sq.ft. or m2) than they do, I have a lower number of friends than they do, a lower number of girlfriends than they have had, a lower number of sex experiences than they have had--the list goes on.
It took me a long time, probably just until October, to realise that I was living in some sort of dystopia where I was not the only one being treated like this. I notice that I am also not the one with low self-esteem. I have met a lot of male acquaintances at meetups who had told me that they also had some self-esteem issues based on how they get treated, both in dating and in social gatherings. Probably not as bad as my case, because they do sometimes have success, but there is a general sentiment.
But thanks for telling me about my self-esteem. I am very dense when it comes to interpreting things. I am basically of the nature, "If I am not told, I never know". So when people hint things at me, I often do not even sense it in the first place. Yet people think that I am purposely ignoring their subtle hints. I have to be told extremely explicitly to the point that it is blatantly obvious.
We often have differing traits no matter having ASD, true. Everyone has a little bit of a better understanding on how to do A, and another person maybe B. I have a poor, almost non-existent, sense of humour. This probably puts off many women here, since I have heard many times that sense of humour is important in a guy, in addition to physical looks, sexual history, income, etc. My sense of humour is quite lacking to the point that I cannot tell when someone is making a joke. My default is to think that someone is always talking literally and seriously. If someone wants to make a joke to me, they must tell me explicitly, "I am only joking" or, "This is a joke", lest I just think that they are speaking factually. This weird quality, in addition to my aversion to smiling or any sort of body language, probably contributes as well to my being considered "unattractive" in dating.