SMBC Comics Forum

Loraxxe wrote: Your family curiously goes without the label of "loving," so perhaps that covers it? God or no, most parents seem to deserve their children.

Lol. I can dig it. Seems to be the case a lot of the time. Personally I think any problems I have diagnosis wise are more a matter of genetics. Lots of mental instability on both sides of the family, though it's more extreme in one than the other. A whole lot of health concerns too. I do not come from a noble family tree so to say.

"Undiagnosable" might have been a bit of an exaggeration though. Mentally we did finally settle on autism around tenth grade. There are a couple minor things that seem odd with it, but it's as close a match as we're ever gonna find. There's some separate diagnosis that supposedly explains the hallucinations but I never can remember what the name was. I've had a pill for that since pretty early in the childhood, so it's not often the subject of discussion and I was a bit young to understand it all during the diagnosis process. Never did figure out what the deal with the smokers cough is though. Not as big a deal anymore though, since it's just not questioned as much in an adult as a seven year old, and it doesn't seem to hurt anything.

My family was actually quite loving, and I also feel they've been understanding on a level that is unusual even by familial standards, but then again my father was also a drug abusing bipolar man who went undiagnosed and untreated despite what in my opinion, were some pretty blatant and obvious signs of instability until I was around nineteen, so your mileage may vary. Certainly got my fair share of memories out of that;)

Of course, this is getting overly serious now. Didn't really intend for the conversation to go there, but I didn't feel like I could just not address comments about the loving nature of my family. There were problems to be sure, but I think I still got a better childhood out of it than most, and I've successfully grown into a respectable and capable adult, which from a parental standpoint is pretty much mission accomplished. I was a high maintenance child to be sure, but all in all I got no regrets.

All being said and done the only lesson I'd take out of this is that if both you and your significant other have gene pools riddled with numerous and blatant deficits, then maybe considering adoption might not be a bad move. Don't necessarily have to do it, but try and remember that it's an option. Lord knows I've got no particular desire to pass my genetic code on to the next generation. I'd hardly be doing the kid a favor.

Now my brother on the other hand is a textbook example of getting the child you deserve. They fought him tooth and nail, just trying to force him down the path of godliness and righteousness. Just about every decision he made met with terribly overaggressive confrontation. So guess who hangs out with "The Wrong Crowd" as an adult

(Chronical) hallucinations and a (permanent) pill to make them go away => probably psychosis.

(The other types are hearing voices and when it messes with thinking. Surprisingly the one with visible hallucinations seems to be the least problematic and patients - who have never been medicated for it - can choose to go without medication, if they can deal with it. Once medication starts, it shouldn't be stopped.)

Gangler wrote: "Undiagnosable" might have been a bit of an exaggeration though. Mentally we did finally settle on autism around tenth grade.
(...)
My family was actually quite loving, and I also feel they've been understanding on a level that is unusual even by familial standards, but then again my father was also a drug abusing bipolar man who went undiagnosed and untreated despite what in my opinion, were some pretty blatant and obvious signs of instability
(...)
All being said and done the only lesson I'd take out of this is that if both you and your significant other have gene pools riddled with numerous and blatant deficits, then maybe considering adoption might not be a bad move.

"For UCSF neurologist Kirk Wilhelmsen - who describes himself and his son as being "somewhere on that grand spectrum" - such statements cut to the heart of the most difficult issue that autism raises for society. It may be that autistic people are essentially different from "normal" people, he says, and that it is precisely those differences that make them invaluable to the ongoing evolution of the human race.

If we could eliminate the genes for things like autism, I think it would be disastrous," says Wilhelmsen. "The healthiest state for a gene pool is maximum diversity of things that might be good."

One of the first people to intuit the significance of this was Asperger himself - weaving his continuum like a protective blanket over the young patients in his clinic as the Nazis shipped so-called mental defectives to the camps. "It seems that for success in science and art," he wrote, "a dash of autism is essential."

For all we know, the first tools on earth might have been developed by a loner sitting at the back of the cave, chipping at thousands of rocks to find the one that made the sharpest spear, while the neurotypicals chattered away in the firelight. Perhaps certain arcane systems of logic, mathematics, music, and stories - particularly remote and fantastic ones - have been passed down from phenotype to phenotype, in parallel with the DNA that helped shape minds which would know exactly what to do with these strange and elegant creations.

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/9.12 ... rs_pr.html

Gangler wrote:

Loraxxe wrote: Your family curiously goes without the label of "loving," so perhaps that covers it? God or no, most parents seem to deserve their children.

Lol. I can dig it. Seems to be the case a lot of the time. Personally I think any problems I have diagnosis wise are more a matter of genetics. Lots of mental instability on both sides of the family, though it's more extreme in one than the other. A whole lot of health concerns too. I do not come from a noble family tree so to say.

"Undiagnosable" might have been a bit of an exaggeration though. Mentally we did finally settle on autism around tenth grade. There are a couple minor things that seem odd with it, but it's as close a match as we're ever gonna find. There's some separate diagnosis that supposedly explains the hallucinations but I never can remember what the name was. I've had a pill for that since pretty early in the childhood, so it's not often the subject of discussion and I was a bit young to understand it all during the diagnosis process. Never did figure out what the deal with the smokers cough is though. Not as big a deal anymore though, since it's just not questioned as much in an adult as a seven year old, and it doesn't seem to hurt anything.

My family was actually quite loving, and I also feel they've been understanding on a level that is unusual even by familial standards, but then again my father was also a drug abusing bipolar man who went undiagnosed and untreated despite what in my opinion, were some pretty blatant and obvious signs of instability until I was around nineteen, so your mileage may vary. Certainly got my fair share of memories out of that;)

Of course, this is getting overly serious now. Didn't really intend for the conversation to go there, but I didn't feel like I could just not address comments about the loving nature of my family. There were problems to be sure, but I think I still got a better childhood out of it than most, and I've successfully grown into a respectable and capable adult, which from a parental standpoint is pretty much mission accomplished. I was a high maintenance child to be sure, but all in all I got no regrets.

Well, hopefully it was obvious that I was kidding, despite my dry tone. I enjoy deliberately taking people literally and overreading their statements. Other people don't see the humor, or seem to assume it's just inability to read them, but really, it's deliberate. ... Okay, so I do have some autistic tendencies, admittedly -- about 40% of the way to autistic from normal, if the test I took is valid (it was legit, but reductive). Your post was interesting, in any case. And the bit about gene concentration reminded me of the best part of this standup: http://comedians.jokes.com/louis-katz/v ... arried-men

Gangler wrote: All being said and done the only lesson I'd take out of this is that if both you and your significant other have gene pools riddled with numerous and blatant deficits, then maybe considering adoption might not be a bad move. Don't necessarily have to do it, but try and remember that it's an option. Lord knows I've got no particular desire to pass my genetic code on to the next generation. I'd hardly be doing the kid a favor.

Now my brother on the other hand is a textbook example of getting the child you deserve. They fought him tooth and nail, just trying to force him down the path of godliness and righteousness. Just about every decision he made met with terribly overaggressive confrontation. So guess who hangs out with "The Wrong Crowd" as an adult

@Eikinloster: For sure. If all I had to worry about is the kid getting what I got I wouldn't really have to worry at all. Sure, it's taken me ten years of actively working towards the goal to become capable of working through most casual social encounters with a favorable success rate, but I pulled it off. A little introspection and reclusiveness is hardly a curse at this point in the process, and even if I don't properly understand things like tone of voice or body language I've been able to refine my system to the point that it doesn't limit me. The voices are no big deal either. Really more of an annoyance that manifests itself in times of stress than anything else since I got the pills. Just can be a little distracting during exams is all. Smoker's cough is mysterious, but as I've mentioned ultimately harmless.

In a family tree riddled with an abnormally dense saturation of bipolar disorder for a condition that's not supposed to be hereditary, depression, extreme delusions, elevated suicide rates, diabetes, heart problems, and minor other concerns I drew a winning deck of cards. It's all that other stuff I worry about passing on. It's really more the fact that the crazies outnumber the sane people in my family by about 4 to 1 that concerns me. I'd like to know that the kid's not gonna be a danger to himself or others. Certainly if I ever find myself making the decision I'm gonna have to do a lot of reading to see exactly what I should expect from a product of my seed. Weigh the options so to say.

Nice article. Haven't actually read up on the condition in ages, and that was a bit of a blast from the past so to say. Brought back a lot of memories. I'd forgotten for example what life was like before I got to create my own routines, or that everyone used to doubt whether I'd ever be able to take care of myself. People used to actually accuse my mother of the refrigerator mother thing. It was the darnedest and most confusing thing. Really an enjoyable read.

Loraxxe wrote: Well, hopefully it was obvious that I was kidding, despite my dry tone. I enjoy deliberately taking people literally and overreading their statements. Other people don't see the humor, or seem to assume it's just inability to read them, but really, it's deliberate. ... Okay, so I do have some autistic tendencies, admittedly -- about 40% of the way to autistic from normal, if the test I took is valid (it was legit, but reductive). Your post was interesting, in any case. And the bit about gene concentration reminded me of the best part of this standup: http://comedians.jokes.com/louis-katz/v ... arried-men

Doesn't play in Canadia. Pursuit of the bit brought me here. While I'm pretty sure it doesn't have what you were linking to in it, still quite funny.

"That's a foot tit, and I'm gonna suck on it". Fucking gold, man. Love it.

I'm just going to leave this here http://dresdencodak.com/2010/06/03/dark-science-01/

What? Because you didn't think we'd notice your other post? I'm not clicking on the links just because your boring.

To be fair, dresden codak isn't boring.
Or it wasn't when I was reading through it at work during one of those all too common months where I had nothing to do.
The first time, anyway.

You know what? Maybe when people tell us how unoriginal Zach is, we should link to the millions of other people who've said the same thing. To show them how original they are, yes?

Basis is from a dilbert comic several years ago, about spinning in their graves due to poor policy and generating power.

He took a simple idea that already existed (whether he was aware of it or not doesn't really matter) and created a new idea from it. I hate to break it to you, but that's actually how creativity works. There's no such thing as completely original ideas, it's all just people building on what's come before.

smiley_cow wrote:. There's no such thing as completely original ideas, it's all just people building on what's come before.

This is true. And it offends some people.
But we aren't grown in test-tubes and emerge with full cognition and completely unbiased learning.
Even if you've never heard Mozart, you are still growing up in a society where that is part of the culture, and Mozart has informed some who've informed others who've informed still others, and so on.
And music is a bad example as the correlation is oftentimes very obvious.
I can think of a number of times that I've had "original" thoughts, only to find so-and-so said it X years ago. And they were original, to a degree. It might make me momentarily sad that I wasn't the start, but it usually ends with "Damn, I had the same conclusion* as that revered person, without having even known their stuff? F'in right!"

*This usually has to do with philosophical/theological stuff with me. Like when I wrote a paper on a theorist who I disagreed with, but couldn't really nail down why. Light-bulb moment! I figured out why, and doing some more research for the paper, found out that Dooyeweerd had the same issue/response with another group (who must've ultimately informed the contemporary theorist). And that extra resource to back up my claim definitely helped my grade. And that, friends, was my favourite educational moment of university.

About five years ago when I was plotting zany characters for a book I wrote down some notes for a old British gentleman ninja called Frank. Several months ago I buy Shadow Hearts: From the New World (released in 2005 iirc) and what do I find but an elderly British chap who was trained in the ninja arts in Brazil by a talking Chinese cat. Oh and his name is Frank.

Moral of the story is smiley_cow and Lethal Interjection are correct.

Could have simply been a case of cryptomnesia.

Every time I think I think I've thought of something new, I do a quick Google to check if it's already been done. Case in point: vampirates.

I did the same thing, when I thought I had stumbled upon band-name pun gold with Apocalipstick, but then google showed me I was quite late to the party.