Almost No One Can Read -- [Podcasting Over PSP #7]

[@mbase6469]

On the topic of "level 1 autism" - I've always seen it as the Sensing/Intuiting split most commonly associated with Myers-Briggs personality type. While that's largely considered pseudoscience, that particular split has always held very true in my experience. It describes the way we process the information we receive - with sensing individuals thinking in terms of literal events, words spoken, and actions taken through out a day. They are detail oriented and usually relate to others by telling stories of past experiences that are similar to ones they hear about. Intuiting people, on the other hand, think in pattern recognition, normally referred to as "thinking big picture." An intuiting individual won't tell you about a conversation they had that upset them, but rather would describe how it sucks that certain types of behaviors arise from people around them in common situations. This separation is one of the biggest communication hurdles possible, to the point where people across the fence will almost never befriend one another. I'd be willing to bet near 100% of Digi's viewership falls into this category. What's more, I personally consider being "intuiting" as the very beginning of the autism spectrum. The farther down you go, the more pattern-oriented your thinking becomes while your ability to recognize and process small individual details declines (such as recognizing the furrowing of someone's brow due to distress). Plus, a great way to tell if someone is on the intuiting side of things is where they look during conversation. Intuiting people always speak looking somewhere in the space above or beside the group, rarely making full eye contact. Notably - unlike most the categories in Myers-Briggs (like extrovert-introvert, which people commonly mistake for these categories), the population distribution is far from even. In fact, it's almost a 70%/30% split for sensing/intuiting individuals. Since intuiting folks basically can't even interact with 70% of the population, I think this is a major contributor toward thinking they are weird/unpopular/uncool/etc.

[@KeybladeSpirit]

As a diagnosed autist, I think that the recent boom in awareness of autism has done a lot to give words to feelings that most neurotypical people have, and I think that's what Digi's scale is describing. Based on my own experiences, autism as a disorder is characterized by the way that a person's filter for important and unimportant information is out of whack. For autists further on the spectrum, this manifests more as a sensory overload because their filter has gone wrong closer to the "front," so to speak, and so the raw information doesn't get filtered out, and that's why more autistic people have visibly unorthodox self-soothing methods to "ground" themselves with senses they can control and *severely* autistic people can be mostly nonverbal into adulthood because they take too long to pick up on speech as important sensory information. For me, the broken filter is toward the "back," which means that I'm automatically filtering most of the raw data just fine and even processing it pretty well through other filters like interest and passion, but once processed, ALL of the information is equally important to me. So for example, if you want me to explain the plot of Bionicle to you, I'll be able to go over a reasonably short and very broad outline of the entire series* but if you want the story in ANY more detail than that it could take me an hour just to go over the first arc. Because of that, I'm able to pick up on connections that most people don't see and in turn causes me to bring up [Topic B] in connection to [Topic A] even though it'll seem entirely irrelevant to most people. That's what makes it a disorder for me: I can end up going on and on about something irrelevant without realizing that it's irrelevant. Case in point: The footnote I made about the entire plot of Bionicle, which is only a footnote at the end of this comment because it got too long to put in parentheses. I think what's happened is that neurotypical people have picked up on the kind of experience with autism that I have and realized that they have those same experiences minus the difficulties that I mentioned. Because of that, I think a lot of neurotypicals have started to self-describe themselves as autistic, coining terms "tism" or describing themselves as being "autistic for" certain topics. Personally, I welcome this usage of the term because it validates my existence as an autist without having to describe it specifically as a disorder. *6 elemental heroes have to reawaken the Great Spirit Mata Nui. To that end, they must each collect six masks that will grant them additional powers in order to defeat Makuta, the evil spirit who put Mata Nui to sleep in the first place. After they do that, there's a few flashback arcs explaining why Mata Nui is asleep in the first place, then a few more arcs where we find out he's actually dying and some newly created elemental heroes (this just is a thing, throughout the series) have to find the Mask of Life to save him. That works but then Makuta does a body snatchers and traps Mata Nui's soul in the Mask of Life, which our heroes don't discover until they reawaken his body after the NEXT arc and that's when it gets crazy. It turns out that the ENTIRE UNIVERSE that we've seen up until this point has been INSIDE a planet sized robot that is Mata Nui's body. The last arc is about him getting his body back and banishing Makuta to a prototype of that body. Finally, Mata Nui and Makuta work together as brothers to reunite a planet (Bara Magna) and two moons (Aqua Magna and Bota Magna) that used to be one giant planet, Spherus Magna. This is all off the top of my head. Overall, probably a Level 4 Autism franchise.

[@leomadero562]

I usually feel like that except repressed, i usually have so much to comment but then i think its too long and delete the entire thing

[@H-Shot_Tunez]

57:37-58:33 That basically sums sums up my entire experience in grade school, minus the internet thing because I had parents that actually regulated my activities on the computer, which has mostly been a good thing I'd say. I'm personally loving this autism conversation you've started. It's actually given me more acceptance and a better understanding of myself because there might be a diagnosable answer to my social issues. (I think I'm a strong level 3 or 4, based on your chart and the length of this comment.) It's like, "I'm not crazy, I'm just autistic!" And that makes me feel a hell of a lot better, knowing that there's a strong possibility that my brain is just wired differently from most other people, and that's why I have a hard time understanding most people and those people have a hard time understanding me. I was almost diagnosed with autism when I was a kid too, but my mom refused to have that label put on me because she thought I couldn't be autistic due to my good grades. (I'm not sure if that makes perfect sense, but whatever. Basically she recognized that my autism isn't "severe".) Then I went to an audiologist and was diagnosed with Auditory Processing Disorder, and it turns out that there may be a correlation between issues with processing sound AND autism! HMMMM...!

[@thegreatcheesedemon]

I looked up “autism dyslexia” and got results about people with both autism and dyslexia, and stuff about how they might correlate.

[@superdriver]

hey man what's up

[@qaztim11]

I 100% agree that people cannot read at an above high school level. Playing table-top RPGs is becoming a huge pain due to this fact, the amount of misinterpretation of clear cut rules is astounding to me. A rule may say "You may only do this under condition X and when an ally is helping you." And people for some reason think the "and" is actually an "or", this happens with a ton of rules and drives me endlessly mad. I do live in Brazil though, where over 50% of people that are older than 16 years are Functional Illiterates, meaning that even though they can read, they cannot analyze a text, extracting vastly different meaning from what is in the text. We are fucked.

[@matt_4249]

I think the example you cited is more of a logic thing than reading. Understanding AND/OR logic and such. I agree with the overall point of people not being able to read at an above high school level though.

[@JayceCH.]

In that regard, I think something like Yugioh with its dense texts helped me a lot in my high school years for reading comprehension. In particular debating with friends on what the fuck the priority of chains are or what the cards do lol.

[@ArgoIo]

Not to mention, that natural language is notoriuously unreliable at conveying instructions and logical information.

[@TheProphessionalGeek]

So I know reading comprehension has gone down but I had to look it up and was horribly surprised. According to what I’ve found, 4% are nonliterate, 14% read between a first to third grade level, 34% read between fourth to fifth grade level, 36% 6th-8th, and 12% read 9+. But the most depressing part of the article is that the 12% group is actually whole new group. Not counting the nonliterate group we now have 4 general levels of reading comprehension when for decades there used to be five....but during the latest study only 2% of adults tested at level 5. So congratulations, if you can read at an 11th grade or higher you’re in the top 2% of readers. Which is why nothing is written for you anymore and everything seems stupid. Among other reasons. www.wyliecomm.com/2019/03/us-literacy-rate/

[@TheElectricUnderground]

Killer ep! Enjoyed the whole discussion. Also I defintely agree with the autism reading theory. I love books and reading and my parents were also a bit concerned with me being possibly autistic.

[@skroychan]

I was terrible at literature classes because they gave us books to read that I absolutely hated and couldn't get past a few pages. Same with writing essays, I couldn't care less about their topics. But I've been reading a lot in my spare time and had zero problems with grammar

[@nika8620]

This is low key the best episode so far.

[@MonkeyShinesu]

Digi, did it not even cross your mind that that kid was targeted and bullied for his race?

[@qaztim11]

DIGI FINALLY CHANGED HIS WEAPON!!!!!!!!!!!!! Still does not have any skills linked to it, but i will take any victory i can get.

[@SoreTvGamer]

I love this podcast!!

[@cruelcumber5317]

The weirdest moment for me reading wise was in 6th grade I had to take a test to determine my reading level and it was something like 12th grade or early college level, and I was so surprised because all I did was read a bunch of YA novels. I wouldn't think of anything I read as particularly high level, but I guess the standards for reading are just that low.

[@playmaker7910]

As someone who always did terrible in his English/ literature class my biggest problem always came from English not have enough constant rules. I’ve always been terrible with spelling the most because I was never sure how letters should pronounced. The fact that B, bi, bit, and bite change the way you say all the individual letters is really hard for me to understand to the point that when I started to learn Spanish and Japanese I understand the rules better for them. On a side note though I will praise English for being really easy to understand when spoken

[@chaosdragoon1]

(Me sitting here thinking about how I was born in Norfolk, but I didn't grow up there because my mom moved to Ohio with my stepdad when I was like 2 years old.)

[@DMadHacks]

Top 10 Anime Podcasts

[@DMadHacks]

@@fabricatorzayac Indeed it is, my dude...

[@zkrust5406]

This is the best because they don't talk about anime

[@sebastiansanfunas4674]

Digi, I think your theories about autism are really on the right path, but you may also be mixing it with behaviours related to general intelligence. I think the phenomenon of extroversion keeps people from reading, and the answering of the outside call is the main characteristic of normies in your theory, but maybe we aren't talking about only autism anymore. I felt I could relate to the autism levels 3 and 4, but some of those characteristics would be that I pay a bit more atention to shows than the average person, just because I'm really into getting everything I can out of a piece of media. I suspect I'm autistic, family members, friends and even teachers have told me that they suspected so. But I'm inclined to believe this observations of autism levels are related both to actual autism spectrum traits, and intelligence traits. You could really benefit from getting a large sample of people, testing them on your autism scale (I really like how "The Conrad Scale" sounds, it'd be easier to cite in a book than "The 7 levels autism scale"), testing them on standard intelligence tests and testing them on some personality test like the Myers-Briggs. You could incorporate it to your Patreon and KZbin and get a sample of thousands of people, samples for which psychologists would kill. Then, you could try and find the impact of each variable on the individual and if they had correlation with the autism scale. You could have on your name a major finding on autism and psychology, fullfiling the prophecy foretold since the beginning regarding your genius nature. I'm majoring in economics, and I'd love to make my bachellor's thesis about the impact of autism in production, so make it as soon as possible.

[@mason8787]

What was the story about him writing an edgy story and getting almost expelled

[@skroychan]

I think it's in the PCP episode on school. SPOILER: Basically it had a character who wanted to kill his teacher

[@wolfrox777]

The reading problem sounds like an American problem. Ireland and UK definitely aren't that bad.

[@superunknown2728]

I can't figure out whether I am autistic or not, but what I do know is that I'm fucking mental and I am leaning towards level 1 or 2 autism in terms of what I can identify within myself.

[@Timaeus3]

We need more autism chart related videos. That’s a fact.

[@kendog84bsc]

49:45 This is good stuff

[@sekaedy]

I want to hear about this edgy story that almost got digi expelled

[@MizantropMan]

You need to play "Patapon 2" on one of these one day.

[@DeadPig325]

MizantropMan tf u say

[@MizantropMan]

@@DeadPig325 Shit, muscle memory took over and I wrote the wrong title. Edited it. Thx for alerting me to it.

[@DeadPig325]

MizantropMan np I was confused bc they been on that Silver for the past months

[@breannaw7254]

@Digi I'm only 1 fan, but for me the appeal of Cum Town is the blunt and/or profane nature of the humour and talking points, it has a lot of the appeal of the dick show in that regard, in that there are no filters or niceties..can any other fans concur to this?

[@procrastinating384]

Important question: How the fuck does one differentiate hyperfixation due to autism traits vs hyperfixation from ADHD? Both have a lot of overlap but are different neurological conditions. Would you consider ADHD traits to also count towards autism levels?

[@phoenix019]

They never talked about Asterios darn

[@deadgavin4218]

even acknowledging that whatsup is supposed to mean anything is autism

[@constraintautomaton9547]

1984 is sci-fi? we clearly haven't read the same book ...

[@RabidCupcake2010]

You realize 1984 was written in the 40's right?

[@kendog84bsc]

1:18:02 Oh, right, didnt realize it was still about the autism level

[@ArgzeroYT]

Yo, a fellow Rochesterian I see!

[@ThatguycalledJoe]

I just wanna point out that I find Stardust Crusaders to be the weakest part of Jojo's, at least up to Diamond is Unbreakable because I haven't gone through any other parts since I don't read anime and am not a manga reader. The high points of Stardust just aren't high enough to compensate for low points. Alessi is unjustifiable. The amount that I write is really absurd for how much I don't like reading literature.

[@thynErro]

KZbinrs are not employees of KZbin.

[@MasterStacona]

'neuro-' just has to do with the brain.

[@SleepyMatt-zzz]

1:27:00 "I think only autistic people can read at a high level", ignoring the fact that Autistic people are notoriously bad at reading comprehension skills. Being interested in categorizations doesn't mean you're autistic. Come on dude, I'm Autistic, and even I can't handle this level of cringe. You are stretching this way to fucking far, and I think it's actually starting to cloud your perception of reality.

[@thepovertysoldier9220]

Damn KZbin is throttling the shit out of you. 360k subs and your PSP podcasts get around 7k views.

[@Never_Know_Best]

Jordan Peterson is your idea of a far-right figure? They think he’s soft and a Jewish shill dude

[@incarceratedGenetici]

'literal nazis don't like him, so there's no way he can be right wing, he must be an enlightened centrist'

[@Never_Know_Best]

incarceratedGeneticist Huh? The context was basically “he’s too right-wing for May, who has just described herself as sorta conservative”. Peterson ultimately just wants people to be strong enough to tackle life, and not throw the traditional baby out with the bath water. He ain’t that far-right, ya hysteric.

[@Trixiethegoldenwitch]

May literally knows absolutely nothing about Peterson

[@Never_Know_Best]

I figured. Do you?

[@DM_NY92]

You're stupid.

[@voxvire2350]

Third!

[@burntreynolds1068]

First?

[@burntreynolds1068]

Fuck yeh 8^)

[@DMadHacks]

cool don't care

[@burntreynolds1068]

@@DMadHacks Great, your opinion is meaningless.

[@wickedarctiinae4132]

But why do you want to write "first"? What makes is special?

[@burntreynolds1068]

@@wickedarctiinae4132 Oh, it's all for my own satisfaction. I don't even like anime.