Passionately Promoting A More Perfect World

transgirlkyloren:

evolution-is-just-a-theorem:

transgirlkyloren:

I think the thing people are complaining about in the bay area rationalist community is, basically, that when a community consists of mostly men and disproportionately autistics or broader autism phenotype people, waaaaaay fewer people are going to realize that relationship management and community logistics work is real, time-consuming, important work that somebody needs to do

and then the few people who do do it are going to be overstretched and burned out, and everyone else is going to be unhappy but uncertain of how to solve this problem

it turns out PTA moms and church ladies were actually doing something that was kind of useful for a functioning society? who knew

Right because if there’s one group that’s known for its lack of petty drama it’s PTA moms.

More seriously I think you are correct that this happens, but I question your identified causes.

Petty drama is not really in the set of problems people are identifying. It’s like “newbies are left out, lots of people feel lonely and this does not result in them forming friendships, bad actors don’t get identified, events are often put together through stressful scrambling at the last minute, no one helps party hosts” which I think (?) is something this class of skills can improve 

There is a limit to how well-informed my opinion can be though; I am definitely an autistic dude and do not actually have this skillset at all

>no one helps party hosts

Oh, right! I forgot to mention the last time I reblogged this: If anyone is hosting an event I’m invited to and would like me to help you handle stuff as the event is occurring, please message me beforehand to tell me this.

I will generally be happy to help, if I attend (and you’ll triple the chance of my actually attending if I think there’s a Role I’m needed for). I am quite happy to be a helper and do a lot of work that way - I just can’t self-manage wrt stuff like that, so I’ll need to be told what to do.

Also, definitely message me beforehand to ask about my being an event-worker. Even if it’s “I don’t know if I’ll need your help at this event, but would you be willing to help if it turns out I do?”

Part of this is that I don’t end up going to most parties I’m invited to (though do attend if I RSVP), because I’m not really a party person, and it’d suck if you planned on me being there and then I wasn’t (especially since I’d be more likely to show up in the first place if you asked).

The other part is that being asked to enter a role in the middle of the overloading sensory environment of a party is a terrible time to think about what I want and I’ll feel very pressured. Anyone can ask me beforehand, but I’d rather only close friends ask me in medias res (and then only if they really need me).