Haha, well, I’ve had many people tell me that I might be and I’ve had my own suspicions for a while. I am terrible in social situations (actually really good at them, on the surface. Good at pretending, but I hate it), I hate crowds, noise, flashing lights etc. But honestly, at this point I’m not sure what difference a diagnosis would make.
I perform well in areas I have interests in. Thus, by coincidence, I can appear capable in those areas. I’m also shockingly stupid in other areas. I’ve noticed a few things about how I learn: it has to be practical. Nothing theoretical will stick, unless put into practice. Thus, school was hell. I am also a devilish combination of a very slow learner who thinks differently about things. When a teacher taught things to the class, everyone got it immediately and I always somehow managed to come up with my own, weird, wrong interpretation of things. Once I have finally learned something, I am very accurate and precise, which is fairly useful in the fields I’ve worked in. I also have a flexible mind, which is great. I can usually reason outside of the confines most people think within. Which, see school, can be a blessing or a curse.
I’ve met truly intelligent people. Like, real freaks of nature types. PhDs in aerospace engineering, that sort of thing. Their universal intelligence is something else. It has shown and demonstrated to me beyond a shadow of a doubt that there are levels of comprehension, both in the uptake and subsequent processing of almost any information, that I will never reach.
But don’t for a minute think that these were happy people.
How is your German? In Berlin you’ll be fine with English. In the other big cities, you’ll already notice less proficiency. You’ll be fine, but you’ll notice it from time to time and English speaking jobs will be few and far between. Rural areas are hopeless lol
German here. Lived in Hamburg and Munich for about half my life each. They call Bavaria the Texas of Germany, but that’s just in relation to the rest of Germany politically. German conservatism is nothing like American conservatism, thank God. Right-wing disinformation cancer is spreading in Germany, like it is anywhere else (AFD in the east). Any LGBTQ folks don’t need to worry in any big cities. I’d recommend Munich over Berlin, but that’s personal preference (Berlin is like Germany’s London, loud, dirty, exciting, more crime than any other part of Germany, which is still less than most places in the US). Like, you won’t ‘feel’ the difference between Hamburg and Munich politically. In Berlin you might find a few more people openly displaying their left or right leaning tendencies. It’s also much cheaper than Munich, not sure if that matters.
Capitalism requires coercion to function. Capitalists openly admit this by being staunchly against removing ‘incentives’ (read the coercion) to work. The ‘incentive’ is goddamn starvation and being exposed to the raw elements with no shelter. And apparently, if this was a basic human right provided to everyone, we’d all stop working over night and become lazy. It’s just such an ass-backwards way to look at the world. People are not inherently lazy. But they need to be forced to work shitty jobs under unacceptable conditions. That’s the crux of the matter. The ultra-rich require wage slaves. Not free-thinking, educated people who go after their own interests and are productive in their own ways. I’m interested to see how the system will hold up when all the shitty jobs have been automated away. My guess is that the rich will flee to some kind of Elysium type paradise, while robot police keeps the masses in check and ‘poor’ people, aka 99% of humanity goes extinct.
This feels closest to the response I would have written. I would perhaps add, that one of the consequences of this system is, that money insulates you from having to improve. Someone like Trump will never go to a therapist to fix whatever mental illness made him turn into who he is, precisely because he doesn’t need to. Money can prop up the most evil, stupid, useless people for generations and generations. If they had to live examined lives, they’d stop being evil. The only ways to fix this, that I can see, are all utopian sounding, but shouldn’t be. Wage ratios for example. As CEO you simply shouldn’t be able to hold more shares or earn more income than, say, 10x that of the lowest paid worker in your organisation. And that needs to include subsidiaries and 3rd parties. This system would have to be implemented globally. Never going to happen though. We can fight a pointless global war on drugs, but we definitely won’t reduce CEO income.
They must have a lot of departments full of white, straight men to compensate, otherwise the company would surely go under. /s
edit: before anyone thinks I actually meant this seriously…I was reacting to a ridiculously bigoted comment by some troll (I know…I shouldn’t have reacted) claiming their company had entire departments full of women+minorities not doing any work. The comment no longer exists of course. I