Modest Metamodernist

07/10/2024

Predators are not always recognizable to those who aren’t prey.

08/06/2024

Look, I have a confession to make.

I’m autistic (you might’ve already known), but I carry a belief that puts me fundamentally at odds with the whole autistic community.

I don’t believe in “masking”. I think it’s an unhealthy and fundamentally useless concept. Out in the world, every person uses their social skills to come off as polite and personable. So either everyone masks or no one does.

And that’s why it’s a useless term.

I was once kicked out of an autism group because I refused to believe that politeness was rooted in white supremacy. I still don’t believe that-it’s rooted in the modern development of highly dense population centres where more humans need to coordinate and need the social skills to do so. Nothing white supremacist about that. (Now, politeness can be used to mask white supremacy, and that’s a problem, however that is not the topic at hand.)

Learning politeness and personability is a skill. Anyone can learn it, whether autistic or neurodivergent. There are numerous books on the topic.

Only the autism community has made the concept of politeness alien to their being via the concept of masking, and I believe it makes us worse, not better. It disrupts our development.

If you’re like me, and believe that learning politeness is part of a growth mindset, sound off. I want to hear from you.

22/11/2023

Finally.

15/10/2023

Arinn Dembo, following up on her excellent work at cutting to the quick of the generative AI issue. If you are interested in the problems and weaknesses plaguing AI, give this a read:

Because apparently this conversation is far from over.

04/09/2023

Preview of my upcoming Substack article “Stage Theories-A Dialogue”:

The phrase “colonial as hell” naturally and quite easily invokes the horrors of European colonialism, the invention of race and its reification into a hierarchy that was used to justify the extermination of “primitive” peoples, and the enslavement of “impure” ones. And as Metamodernists, we are called to re-examine our usage of such Modern tropes. After all, reification of so called rationality, perspective, the Cartesian notion of “I”, hasn’t that been used to objectify and subjugate so many people that don’t neatly follow such notions? And anyway, if we really follow the Metamodern notion that we ought to solidly synthesize multiple perspectives into our own, an ongoing epistemological practice which I call Diunitalism (formerly Inductivism), shouldn’t we be taking seriously the perspectives of those who are trying to throw off the shackles of colonial European thought, instead of neatly ranking their thoughts in some hierarchical order?

Hmmm. These are actually valid points. Seems I could use an interlocutor here.

I will call them-Professor Decolonizer. They are quite new to Metamodern thought, but they are a deeply kind and open thinker. They also have a good grasp of postmodern and post colonial theory, which will be important as we navigate this. Also, in case you haven’t noticed by my pronoun usage, they’re nonbinary. Deal with it.

So Prof, I suppose we need to address this. Suppose I want to defend stage theories, as they’re used by Metamodernists. What questions should I attempt to answer, professor?

Professor Decolonizer (PD): First question-are stage theories purely a European invention, or can they be found among non-European thinkers?

Moses Cirulis (MC): That’s good, what else?

PD: Secondly, can stage theories be applied to decolonial and anti-racist thought? That is, can they be used to help free formerly subjugated peoples?

MC: I sense that will be harder to answer.

PD: Yes, that question most interests me, my dear.

16/06/2023

On my Substack-a bit of behind the scenes work. I’m starting something big….

I continue a project I started in 2021….

14/04/2023

A classic epistemological problem-confidence is so often mistaken for expertise. With AI such as ChatGPT, the problem is cranked up to 11. (See comment below)

How do we access the truth when it is so easy to be convinced by confident lies?

18/02/2023

The first Substack article is now out! Subscribe now to view more!

https://mosobot64.substack.com/p/a-modest-introduction-to-metamodernism

18/02/2023

Seen diunitally, fondant could be seen both as food and modelling clay.

10/02/2023

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