“Autistic people don’t understand hierarchies.”

Ho, ho, hold the fuck up, I understand hierarchies and their uses, I just don’t see what you fuckmuppet with the skills and spine of a wet sponge do all the way up there, and the people working their asses off knowing their shit are doing down there.

I also don’t see why the person responsible with their decisions isn’t the one taking the consequences for their decisions if they’re bad - like, isn’t that 95% of your fucking job description, carrying the risk and responsibility?

Maybe YOU don’t understand hierarchies, actually?

@thatfrisiangirlish 💕 💕💕
Don't ask for respect, if you have nothing to offer but your position.

@thatfrisiangirlish

i understand hierarchies perfectly clear, i'm just calling them bullshit

i see them as much a systemic tool as other things, and i will (ab)use it to get things done

("you" = generic you) if you care that much about the hierarchy, explain to me why it exists in its current form, why that's important, and why i should care

if not, or if you don't want to, then i will take it upon myself to see if it stands the test of time, and/or if it should even exist or not

@thatfrisiangirlish

We *understand* hierarchies, therefore we only *respect* them if they make sense.

@thatfrisiangirlish one of the most interesting things to me is that, while working in a company that essentially has flat structure, i start to see the need for hierarchy, or at least the motes for it, and why it exists conventionally

learning hierarchies from first principles, how they are supposed to function, and most crucially; how they can become gears that crush people between them

i want to make sure that if i ever am in charge of making something like that, i inject as much humanity in it, because while hierarchies increase efficiency, they systemically lose sight of certain things, if not built into their design, or if/when removed, and so you can VERY easily fuck that up, and blind yourself institutionally

and also; hierarchies are a guiding tool, not an iron mould. if someone breaks them, for a good reason, then be open and receptive.

a hierarchy that people need to rage against is one that is not legitimate, and needs to be reconstructed.

@thatfrisiangirlish 💜 💜 💜 💜 💜 💜 💜 💜 💜 💜 💜

@thatfrisiangirlish idm that much about hierarchies, tho a lot of times hierarchies are very bloated (sometimes with a reason, because “too big company at the point where higher ups should probably be replaced by athenisian election lottery”)

i have more issues with bureaucracy, even tho i underatand why it exists, just really annoys me really

@ShadowJonathan @thatfrisiangirlish I'm sometimes wondering if this boils down to trust.

And that many autistic people developed an absence of trust (not mistrust) due to systematic oppression and spend more time thinking about if a system makes sense or not and therefore find flaws in almost every hierarchical structure.

Where NT people simply "trust" and move forward with whatever they find and don't bother thinking about it.

@karolherbst @ShadowJonathan @thatfrisiangirlish

Mostly they just don't bother thinking at all in my experience. Accepting the way things are and playing along is just what they do

@ShadowJonathan @thatfrisiangirlish I don't think an explanation that refuses agency of others is a useful one.

And it also sounds very dehumanizing to me the way you put it here.

@karolherbst @ShadowJonathan @thatfrisiangirlish
They literally take it like things are "given by god" and we should not again and again be the rebels against what "someone who must know it better" has told

@Laberpferd @ShadowJonathan @thatfrisiangirlish yeah, that's called "trust".

@Laberpferd @ShadowJonathan @thatfrisiangirlish maybe to be a bit more explicit here: "trust" helps you making decision by not having to wonder if a person would act against your interest

If you "trust" then you can say: "what they do is for the best in the end and there is no point in spending mental capacity on it any further"

and the "spending mental capacity" is the critical point. If you "trust" you simply don't have to verify, because it's the entire purpose of trust itself

@thatfrisiangirlish yeah I understand hierarchies fine - I just don’t give them arbitrary respect or special recognition.

> respect me

lol
@thatfrisiangirlish

@thatfrisiangirlish sometimes I feel the divergence is on the sodevpf non-autistic people. how can you see it NOT like that.

@thatfrisiangirlish We understand hierarchy, we just don't see any intrinsic value in them.

When they aren't adding any value, why construct them at all?

@thatfrisiangirlish We not only understand the hierarchy, we also understand how the organizational structure is being abused in a way that those who are doing the abuse would prefer not to be scrutinized or explained. We understand how to repair the intentional brokenness of the hierarchy that would--coincidentally, I'm sure--reduce the hierarchal influence of the person saying we don't understand. We also understand unfounded smear rumors used to discredit opposition.

@thatfrisiangirlish I thought about this just today, but what I thought was that we have no "instinctive" understanding of human pack hierarchy. Heck, it was only recently I figured out normally people care about things like feeling socially dominant, to a degree where people actually feel someone high in a corporate hierarchy deserve more benefits and less responsibility solely on the merit of their rank. If you don't feel that way but stop and think about it it's seen as not understanding it.

@thatfrisiangirlish Word

@thatfrisiangirlish God that's a mood...

@thatfrisiangirlish Another aspect is that we might tend to be polite (or not) to all people, and not especially polite to people "above", because we see hierarchy as functional and not as "worth" of a person.

@thatfrisiangirlish The problem is the heirarchy is based on who is closest to the money, so sociopathic marketing whores rule over capable, well-educated engineers.

@thatfrisiangirlish I *understand*, I just disagree.

@thatfrisiangirlish More condescending & hopelessly wrong bullshit about #autistic people! I'm fed up with it! Who are these idiots who claim we "don't understand hierarchies"?

@thatfrisiangirlish It makes perfect sense to me.

“We take the credit - you take the blame.”

@thatfrisiangirlish I have little to no innate understanding of why people persist in upholding hierarchies. It's a weird primate holdover that makes no logical sense. It seems like evolved people should be able to shake it.

As an adult, I've acquired more insights into how it works, and how important status is to NTs. So while I don't understand hierarchies on an intuitive basis (and never will), I unfortunately understand aspects of its social impact.

@thatfrisiangirlish they can’t fathom we fully understand it and reject it

@thatfrisiangirlish

Decision-makers are called
"Entscheidungsträger" (lit. "decision carriers") in German language.

Unfortunately many also are
"entscheidungsträger" (lit. ”more inert of actually deciding").

@thatfrisiangirlish allistic people don’t understand how to describe observations of humans that are different from them without speaking of said humans as beneath them.

Nah we get it just fine, we just don’t give a single solitary greasy shit about your social hierarchies.

@thatfrisiangirlish
We understand hierarchys we just don't accept them unquestioningly.

@thatfrisiangirlish As Homer Simpson put it, just because I don't CARE doesn't mean I don't UNDERSTAND.

@thatfrisiangirlish
💯

@thatfrisiangirlish I never really saw any worth in badges. Maybe they can motivate people. Maybe they can make people feel good. In many cases they are a tool, that helps to manipulate people. If you really, seriously do what someone wants you to do, because you want to earn the batch itself, it shows to me, that you fell for a trick.
Is that also an autistic way to see things?

@thatfrisiangirlish we understand hiarchies too well to go along with them

@thatfrisiangirlish Peter’s principle: You get promoted until you eventually achieve a job for which you are hundred percent incompetent. That is middle and higher management knowledge. As for the top echelon, you get that job if you are good with investors and shareholders. Any knowledge about company, production, work mechanics, staff policy, human resources or such is just icing on a cake that you slice for other people.

@thatfrisiangirlish
It's not that I don't cognitively understand hierarchy, I make all sorts of faux pas because I focus on transmitting or obtaining information without going through rituals of domination or submission first. Or if I account for that, my attempt at those rituals is disrespectfully farcical.
This is true regardless of which way the hierarchy flows. I was in charge of a committee, thinking I'm doing it right; some frustrated person said, "We need leadership!"

@thatfrisiangirlish nah that on-paper description of hierarchies is just self-serving bullshit, in reality hierarchies are a self-serving structure that accumulates power to the top while shifting work and accountability to the bottom

@thatfrisiangirlish Here's how I explained hierarchy to my children when they were young:

"Humankind is the most advanced form of life on Earth, according to every metric humans have chosen for measuring *advanced*.”