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diff --git a/content/entry/dont-overthink-it.md b/content/entry/dont-overthink-it.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..57b0491 --- /dev/null +++ b/content/entry/dont-overthink-it.md @@ -0,0 +1,62 @@ +--- +title: "Don't Overthink It" +date: 2025-04-26T00:00:00Z +tags: ['autism'] +draft: false +--- +Many of us autistics have a habit of overthinking things. When I say overthinking, I'm referring to using thinking as a *substitute* for other things like socializing, feeling, and taking action. + + +## Socializing + +For example, I used to avoid asking questions. Instead, I'd try to figure everything out on my own. If I didn't understand some part of a lecture, I wouldn't raise my hand in class or ask my study group. I'd go back and read the textbook, or research it by myself. If I didn't understand how to do a work task, I'd try to deduce it instead of asking my boss or coworkers. + +I think it was partly a masking thing. Sometimes when I ask questions, people tell me nobody else has ever asked them that. Also, I sometimes ask very basic questions whose answers are obvious to neurotypicals from context that I don't pick up on. So to not stand out, I used to avoid asking questions. + +Another part was social. Sometimes the person I'm talking to either doesn't have the answer or doesn't understand *why* I'm asking. If they don't know the answer, it can make them feel bad, which isn't my goal. And when they don't understand *why* I'm asking, they provide me with what they think I want to know rather than what I asked for literally. + +Despite that, I still regret not asking more questions when I was younger. The best way to get better at asking questions is to ask lots of questions, and realize that it's not always that you asked a bad question. Sometimes the other person's reaction has more to do with them than your question or the way you asked it. So don't do what I did and waste lots of time trying to piece things together on your own when you can just ask. + +There are times to use your problem-solving skills to figure something out, and there are times to use your social resources instead. Relying too much on either one isn't good. When you overrely on socialization, it can get annoying and waste other people's time. When you rely too heavily on problem-solving, you're not making an efficient use of your limited time and cognitive resources. The way you find that balance is not by thinking about it, but by asking questions. + + +## Feeling + +Another example is using your problem-solving skills as a substitute for feeling. This is related to [alexithymia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexithymia "Alexithymia"), a phenomenon characterized by difficulties in noticing, sourcing, and expressing emotions. It co-occurs with autism at a higher rate than in the general population, but it's also not uncommon in the general population. To give you a better idea about it, I wrote a few statements that might describe an alexithymic: + +* I don't know what I feel +* I can't explain how I feel +* I get happy/sad/angry/[generic emotion] without knowing why +* I (don't) like it when... (using "like" instead of an emotion word) + +Alexithymics might do something like create a pros and cons list, assigning points to each item, and calculating the total to decide whether to be with someone *instead of* feeling out the relationship. It's turning an emotional matter into a logical analysis. Another way to think of it is literally using the logical brain for a situation that calls for the emotional brain—you're *thinking* when you should be *feeling*. + +Regardless, the reason it's so bad to use the thinking mind instead of the feeling mind is that you never actually process your emotions. They're suppressed, which leads to health problems, directionlessness, and an inability to account for your own actions. E.g: + +* I woke up angry. It must be because my roommate didn't do the dishes yesterday + +You're not *recalling* what made you angry. You're *deducing* it post hoc, because you don't actually know. Your logical brain and emotional brain aren't communicating properly, so the logical brain fills in the blank the only way it knows how. + +This can lead to serious consequences for your relationships. Since you can't identify your feelings or motivations, all you can offer others to account for your behavior are post hoc rationalizations (i.e. guessing). When these guesses contradict each other, or they don't seem to line up with the other things you do, you appear unpredictable and untrustworthy. + +Lack of trust quickly erodes relationships. So if I just described you, taking steps to become more familiar with your emotions should be a top priority. + + +## Taking Action + +The last example I want to cover is when people sit around overanalyzing a situation and making no progress. This is called [analysis paralysis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analysis_paralysis "Analysis Paralysis") and I have a good story for this one: + +I once met an older autistic man online who, judging by his career history and how good he was at strategy games, certainly had some impressive skills. But he had been out of work for a very long time and was struggling to find employment. What was he doing about that? + +Well, he created a very detailed requirements list of what he wanted out of a job. He took into account factors that he thought were preventing him from getting a job. He shared his thoughts on the job hunt process. He talked about potential mental blocks he was facing and the therapies available to overcome them. He received feedback from others, and came up with reasons that the feedback either wouldn't work or didn't apply to him. + +In short, he was stuck in analysis paralysis. He was wasting tons of energy *thinking* about how to get his dream job. Now in my experience, it can be useful to take a step back and reconsider the strategy you're using to find a job. What isn't a good use of your time though is spending *all day* considering and reconsidering your options as a substitute for actually doing something. + +What became clear to me was that this guy needed to *stop thinking* and *start doing*. Even if you start with a really ineffective strategy for getting a job, you can iterate on it to improve your chances over time. You can apply with different versions of your résumé. You can apply for different positions. You can gain experience interning for a non-profit project. Getting firsthand experience by doing, even if it takes you a long time to refine the process, is more valuable than just aimlessly second-guessing yourself over and over. + + +## Conclusion + +It's important to point out that non-autistic people also suffer from overthinking. Personally though, I've seen it way more in autistics. It's something I can speak to because I've personally battled against it. People still tell me all the time that I overthink, and I know they're not wrong. I just don't always notice when I'm doing it. + +So if you know someone who's autistic, or who tends to overthink things, please share this with them. If my experiences with it help even one person, this entry will have been worth it in my book. diff --git a/content/entry/on-personal-cybersecurity.md b/content/entry/on-personal-cybersecurity.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a07b58e --- /dev/null +++ b/content/entry/on-personal-cybersecurity.md @@ -0,0 +1,40 @@ +--- +title: "On Personal Cybersecurity" +date: 2025-04-05T00:00:01Z +tags: ['computing'] +draft: false +--- +I think the recent [US government Signal chat leak](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_government_group_chat_leak "United States government group chat leak") creates a good opportunity to talk about personal cybersecurity and offer a few high-level tips. + +[Signal](https://signal.org/) is a private messaging application. It prevents specific types of adversaries from accessing the contents of your calls and messages, and their metadata. But if you, the human, choose to use it for adversaries it was never designed to defend against, that's a problem the technology can't fix. **The biggest vulnerability in cybersecurity is not the tools, the protocols, nor the cryptography. It's the human.** + +Often, it's the human not understanding the limitations of the tools they're using. If you think that using Signal is all you need to do to secure your messages, you are so wrong. Consider that Signal is not designed to protect you against any of the following threats: + +* A weak phone password +* [Phishing attacks](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phishing "Phishing") +* [Shoulder surfing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoulder_surfing_%28computer_security%29 "Shoulder Surfing") +* Inserting a malicious USB device masquerading as a charging cable into your phone +* Your virtual keyboard app collecting your keystrokes +* Vendor spyware installed on your phone's stock operating system +* Hardware backdoors installed by governments or corporations acting on their behalf +* Someone stealing your phone while it's unlocked and impersonating you +* Someone installing a rootkit on your phone while you're away, sleeping, or distracted +* Someone screenshotting your disappearing messages +* Someone replacing your phone with a lookalike that sends them your password +* Being [drugged and hit with a five dollar wrench](https://xkcd.com/538/ "XKCD: Cybersecurity") until you give up your messages +* Being overheard while on a phone call +* **Adding the wrong person with the same name to a private group chat** + +What happened with the Signal leak was government officials used Signal for a purpose it wasn't designed for — sharing military attack plans. There's a proper tool for doing that. It's called a [SCIF](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensitive_compartmented_information_facility "Sensitive compartmented information facility"). It would've prevented the mistake that caused the leak. The fact that they used a mobile chat app instead of a SCIF is a *monumental* [OPSEC](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operations_security "Operations Security") failure, and *somebody* should be held accountable for it. + +Unfortunately, instead of owning up to their error, they made excuses and blamed Signal for being "insecure". This leads me to another point which is important to understand for personal cybersecurity: + +Calling an application "secure" or "insecure" is an oversimplification. **No one has ever managed to build a foolproof communications system. We only have systems that are secure against certain types of attacks carried out by certain adversaries.** As you can see with Signal, I just listed a dozen ways its security could be bypassed right off the top of my head. + +Another thing to keep in mind for your personal cybersecurity is that it's easy to get tunnel vision, focusing only on the technicals while overlooking more basic threats that are far more likely. Your messages aren't going to get compromised by a vulnerability in the [Double Ratchet algorithm](https://signal.org/docs/specifications/doubleratchet/ "The Double Ratchet Algorithm") or [Post-Quantum Extended Diffie-Hellman](https://signal.org/docs/specifications/pqxdh/ "Post-Quantum Extended Diffie-Hellman") that Signal uses. But have you ever sent a message to the wrong person because you were distracted or intoxicated? Exactly. **You are the biggest vulnerability to your personal cybersecurity, not the technology.** + +Also, you need a cohesive strategy. Merely using Signal, or merely having a password manager, is not enough for good cybersecurity. Good tools are necessary for good cybersecurity, but cybersecurity is more than a set of tools. It's a mindset. It requires you to think like the adversaries you're likely to face, anticipate their attacks, create strategies to impede them, and update those strategies when circumstances change. + +Although "cyber" is in the name, sometimes the most effective measures you can take to improve your cybersecurity are non-technical. They have more to do with social awareness. Do you have any enemies? A jealous ex? A roommate who can't stand you? A dirty cop whose ego you bruised? What information do they have on you? What information can they find out? What are their available resources? How might they carry out an attack? How dedicated are they? To create a sensible personal cybersecurity plan, you must **know thine enemy**. + +Just one more thing I want to mention before signing off. Personal cybersecurity is an *endless* rabbit hole one can go down. You're free to go down that rabbit hole to your heart's content. Just be sure to prioritize the threats to your security posture. **Address the most likely attack vectors first, and the least likely ones last.** And finally, don't rely on any single technology to protect you one hundred percent. diff --git a/content/entry/on-the-term-low-functioning-autism.md b/content/entry/on-the-term-low-functioning-autism.md index dce87f2..935cc56 100644 --- a/content/entry/on-the-term-low-functioning-autism.md +++ b/content/entry/on-the-term-low-functioning-autism.md @@ -1,5 +1,5 @@ --- -title: "On the Term \"Low Functioning Autism\"" +title: "On the Term \"Low-Functioning Autism\"" date: 2023-01-31T00:00:02 tags: ['autism'] draft: false diff --git a/content/entry/snow-white-syndrome-the-autism-version.md b/content/entry/snow-white-syndrome-the-autism-version.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b0cfb09 --- /dev/null +++ b/content/entry/snow-white-syndrome-the-autism-version.md @@ -0,0 +1,107 @@ +--- +title: "Snow White Syndrome, The Autism Version" +date: 2025-04-26T00:00:01Z +tags: ['autism'] +draft: false +--- +## Introduction + +This journal entry is supplements a previous entry I wrote titled "[Why Autistic People Are Targets of Manipulation and How to Avoid Becoming a Victim](/2022/06/07/why-autistic-people-are-targets-of-manipulation-and-how-to-avoid-becoming-a-victim/ "Journal Entry: Why Autistic People Are Targets of Manipulation and How to Avoid Becoming a Victim")". In it, I wrote about a common autistic trait that makes us vulnerable to manipulation. First, I'll explore that trait and its consequences more deeply, then I'll share some advice for autistics on how to avoid being manipulated. + +Please keep in mind that my writing in this entry comes from my own personal experience as a [low-support-needs](/2023/01/31/on-the-term-high-functioning-autism/ "Journal Entry: On the Term 'High-Functioning Autism'") autistic person. Other autistic people may have different experiences. + +With that out of the way, let's move on to the meat and potatoes of this entry. + + +## Analysis + + +Here's the quote from the previous entry I mentioned that explains what this autistic trait is: + +> "[...] we tend to assume other people are always telling the truth. [...] +> +> I think the reason for this is due to a cognitive bias everybody has: we tacitly presume others are like us, that they do what they do for the reasons we would do them. +> +> So us autistic people assume everybody is straightforward and rarely lies. The problem with that is first, the average person communicates mostly via body language and doesn't say exactly what's on their mind. And second, the average person frequently lies." + +In my own life, I've had people tell me insane fabrications just to mess with me or see what they could get me to believe. I've also had manipulators tell me obvious lies in furtherance of their malicious goals. And all too often, I fell for it. + +I call this phenomenon of autistic people believing whatever we're told "Snow White Syndrome" because many of us autistics are like Snow White—innocent, naïve, and assuming that everybody has good intentions. Thus, like Snow White, we're also exceptionally vulnerable to deception. + +As a side note, there's already a condition called Snow White Syndrome, which is why this entry clarifies by appending "The Autism Version" in the title. + + +### Underestimating Autistics + +Now despite what I just said about autistic people being like Snow White, I don't think we're quite as naïve as non-autistics suppose, especially those of us like myself with low-support-needs autism. In fact, I think non-autistics underestimate our social understanding because they're so bad at reading us. They think our unusual gaze or lack of reaction means we don't know what's going on. They think we don't know when we're being made fun of even when we do. They think they're getting away with lying to us even when we're not buying it. + + +### Backfire + +Another observation I've made coming from my own personal experience is that those who do manage to deceive me in an attempt to gain an advantage for themselves very rarely achieve the results they're hoping for in the end. I'll attempt to explain why I think this is using the plot of [Atypical](https://libremdb.iket.me/title/tt6315640 "TV Series: Atypical"), a comedy-drama following the life of Sam, an autistic teenager. + +In Season 2 Episode 5, Arlo, a school bully, suggests that Sam donate $700 to a party at Arlo's house. Arlo, knowing that Sam loves penguins, offers to let Sam watch the penguin egg hatching on Arlo's home theater system at the party as a ploy. Sam falls for it and gives Arlo the $700. Then Sam tells his mom Elsa about the party because he doesn't realize it's a secret. Elsa then tells Arlo's mom about the party, and Arlo's party is spoiled. In anger, Arlo smashes Sam's phone at school while Sam is watching the penguin egg hatching, then pushes Sam down to the ground. Another student lends Sam her phone to watch the penguin egg hatching. Later, Sam's parents visit Arlo's parents, and Arlo's parents return the $700 with a new phone for Sam. + +So in the end, Arlo not only didn't achieve his goal, but also ended up ruining his party and costing his parents money. I think this is a good portrayal of what can happen when non-autistic people try to take advantage of autistic people for personal gain. + +It could be that people just overestimate the chance of a favorable outcome when tricking someone in general. But what if tricking autistic people actually has a *greater* chance of backfiring than tricking non-autistic people? To be clear, I don't have any hard evidence that this is the case. It's just a hypothesis, but allow me to explain why I think it *might* be the case. + +If you're not aware of the [double-empathy problem](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_empathy_problem "Double-empathy problem"), it posits that the struggle of autistics to understand and empathize with non-autistics isn't always an inherent deficit of ours, but rather stems from *bidirectional* differences in experiences between neurotypes. I.e, non-autistics *also* struggle to understand and empathize with us. + +Therefore non-autistics' attempts to trick autistics for their own gain often fail to take into account *how we're different from them*. Think about it. If the person you're trying to trick doesn't share your motivations, has different emotional reactions to situations, perceives the world in a different way, has a different brain structure than you, then why would you expect that deceiving them would result in a predictable outcome that's favorable to you? What if, like with what happened in Atypical, we act on the information you give us in ways you didn't anticipate? + +For me, even when their only goal was to provoke, my reaction never satisfied them. We don't necessarily react in ways that non-autistics recognize. Many people with bad intentions have made themselves extremely frustrated, almost to the point of madness, trying to get a rise out of me. + + +### Summary + +Summarizing my analysis of Snow White Syndrome, The Autism Version, we autistics *can* be overly naïve and trusting, *but* non-autistics overestimate their ability to trick us and, I believe, underestimate the chances of their schemes backfiring. + + +## How Not to Be Snow White + +So now that I've discussed Snow White Syndrome and explored how it plays out, at least based on my experience, I want to talk about what we autistics can do to prevent it from being exploited in the first place. This is important too because, although it often backfires for the person trying to exploit us, the consequences of their attempts can be ruinous for our lives. + + +### Talk is Cheap + +My first tip is to recognize that people can *say* anything. For all you know, this entire blog could be bullshit. It could be AI-generated. Maybe my name isn't even Nicholas. Maybe this is a copy of someone else's blog. It's not, but are you going to confirm that? + +We tend to assume people are being truthful unless we have a reason to suspect they're lying. This basic assumption holds society together, but it's problematic at the same time, because we know that **people lie a lot**. So take that as your new mantra, and repeat it to yourself until it sinks in: + +People lie a lot. + +People lie a lot. + +People lie a lot. + + +### Context is Expensive + +Another thing to pay attention to is context. I can't emphasize this enough. We autistics have such a myopic focus on **content** that we completely forget about **context**. *Content* is always intentional, which means it's the most likely way people will try to deceive you. *Context* is usually unintentional because it takes more mental effort to fabricate. + +Talk is cheap, but masking one's tone of voice, speech patterns, posture, mood, *when* one wants to say something, etc, especially over a long period of time, is very expensive. It takes a lot of cognitive resources to keep up an elaborate act, so you're less likely to be fooled if you focus on the overall context in which someone says something rather than just the content of what they're saying. + + +### "Vaccinate" Yourself + +I have one final strategy to avoid your Snow White Syndrome being exploited that I'd like to share in this entry. It might seem a bit unusual, but it's based on my own personal experience from enduring years of bullying, deceit, manipulation, and fake friends. The fact that I had to learn how to resist this the hard way had big negative impacts on my well being. *No one* should have to go through that, which is why I'm sharing this tip. I'll introduce it by means of analogy. + +Vaccines expose you to a weakened version of a pathogen that triggers an immune response. That way, if you come into contact with the real thing, your immune system will recognize it and be prepared to fight it off. You don't want your immune system to fight off the real virus first, because it may not figure out how to fight back in time. + +Likewise, you don't want your first encounter with malicious behavior to be with a highly manipulative person, because they can wreak havoc on your life. Ideally, you want to inoculate yourself against being taken advantage of *before* it happens. That means learning to recognize toxic and manipulative behaviors, and effective ways to respond to them, before you encounter them in the wild. Neurotypicals pick up on things more through socialization, but we autistics don't always. For us, it can be better to *explicitly* learn it. + +I'm not going to cover all that information here, because I'd be here all day. There are just too many ways people can fool others. But there are plenty of free online resources that cover how to recognize it, and how to fight back. Take advantage of those resources. + +Autistic people are seen as easy targets (regardless of whether we are or not) and it's frequently the very people we trust, like "friends" and family, who are taking advantage. That's why it's so critical to at least be aware of the telltale signs someone is being deceitful or manipulative. + + +## Conclusion + +To round off this entry, I just want to make a few comments. + +Manipulation is everywhere, not just in certain places. Autistic people can be just as manipulative as non-autistics. Someone who is mostly honest may be deceitful in certain situations or with certain people. Manipulative people can be very popular and charming. Deceit can take place inside trusting relationships too. You may be the manipulator in a relationship and not even realize you're doing it. + +Also, don't think you're above being tricked. None of us are. While we're not all equally vulnerable to it, all of us are vulnerable to *some* form of manipulation. + +Don't let that make you paranoid. My goal in this entry isn't to make anybody worry excessively, but rather to educate and prepare you so that you don't have to learn things the hard way, as I did. |