A revelation about getting on with people

I Sperg said:

The very foundation of humour is absurdity

Actually, the very foundation of humour is surprise. The joke-teller creates assumptions in the mind of the audience by beginning with one 'story', but then pivots with the punchline into an unexpected direction. It is this breaking of assumptions that makes you laugh.

There is  a strand of physical humour that deals with the absurd (slapstick), but you rarely find it in spoken language jokes.

I Sperg said:

I now live in a world where a man can have a cervix and you can field a viable immunisation strategy against a corona virus in a few months

Now this is a great source of humour. The potential for jokes is huge, and it's a lot more interesting than 'Take my wife...' jokes, which were popular in another era when heterosexual men and women were treated as a different species. 

I Sperg said:

I've tested that particular joke extensively in the real world, (and I have a good set of test subjects in my daughter and her mates), and it's done quite well overall so far.

Younger heterosexuals raised in a heteronormative environment would find it either mildly or wildly amusing. And there's no older strategy used to divide and conquer than the age-old male vs women paradigm. 

those in power want it that way and they will keep it that way I'm affraid

the only way is to escape this planet, or dimension, or time it would seem,

Myself I explore an idea of a hive mind. They by nature are able to control many bodies and are able as well to communicate with each other telepatically thus making deceit obsolete

Thanks Mariusz, this just moved from being a bit tedious to really interesting. I've long since suspected that humour is overrated in the world that exists outside of myself. It took me AGES to learn the "rules" of joke telling and humour generally, and it's always dismayed me how often absurd and silly humour which I like, can quickly turn into what looks like a sustained personal attack against a person or group.

Yet in normie world, being able to tell a good joke, that makes people laugh out loud, is a very prized skill!

I have picked up some truly horrible, horrible concepts over the years that were first presented to me in the context of a "joke". It may be that humour and levity generally are very bad things indeed, that lead to holocausts and victimisation. A whole side of my personality may have evolved entirely reduntantly! Personally, I could do without "humour", I like happiness more..

I think the falsity driving this is the oft expressed concept that humour is a way of coping with diverse ideas and situations and making them more palatable and understandable, or the idea that a humourless world would be a "joyless existence".

Clearly, humour is divisive & makes people unhappy! Glad we got that sorted out.

If we can all just rid ouselves of the false ideas, that somehow often seem to get acccepted as immutable truths, there would be a lot more "unity" and less "diversity". By the way, which of those mutually incompatible "ideals" are we actually pursuing today? When you get old you kind of lose track.. It seems very important these days, that we all think alike about the serious issues, which hints at "Unity" being the laudable objective du-jour, (We are the borg, resistance is futile, lower your shields, yoru distinctiveness will eb added to our own, etc, etc.) but the very idea of diversity would suggest that we should accept the murderous left wingers have a perfect right to exist as much as the *** do.

Whereas the presented reality, is currently that anyone who goes near a right wing or "old fashioned" concept (even one of the more sensible and workable ones) is instantly "cancelled", whereas one can spout the most unbelievable and demonstrably unworkable "socialist" ideas, and no one raises an eyebrow!

This double standard exists, and to me whether you have left wing tendancies, right wing tendancies, is totally irrelevant to the bigger question.

Will I be getting dragged off to the camps soon for holding a point of view that was installed in me as a child and that I hold to be sacred, like so many other people throughout history?

Or will humanity wise up and start seeking peace instead of conflict? With all these new "ism's" they keep coming up with, and ever changing rules of conduct, it isn't looking so likely from my perspective...  

I side with Tassimo on this

In my previous job, after I failed to endure for more than a week few of my colleagues and one manager joking around, that was nothing more than insulting each other. I had to lecture them, that vulgar and obscene jokes might be considered funny, but there is a million other ways to make a joke without insulting someone else, or others for their gender/race/etc, while it could be a passing by customer.

The very foundation of humour is absurdity, either contained within the joke itself, or it is designed to evoke absurd behaviour (usually laughter) from the recipient.

As I get older, the world provides me with more and more material to laugh at. It's either laugh or cry, and I'd rather try and be good humoured about things. After all I now live in a world where a man can have a cervix and you can field a viable immunisation strategy against a corona virus in a few months, both of which were absurd concepts when I learned my biology at school.

The thing I'm still struggling to get my head round, is why if there truly are no built in differences between the sexes, as the "enightened people" all know to be true, why does "gayness" exist at all? For gayness to be real and not an artificial construct created by old white men to oppress a bunch of people at random, there would actually have to be some inherent and pervasive differences between the sexes that drives their particular discriminatory tastes... And then it all gets a bit hard to sustain without a set of double standards having to be quickly erected to paper over the cracks in the logic.

I have yet to find a universally funny joke, so any attempt to add a bit of levity I know will fail with a certain percentage of the population. Since we are all currently labouring under a "divide and conquer" strategy being the current preffered use of the mass media, that fail rate can be as great as 50% as we are all very divided in a way that is completely alien to my recollection of living in Britain as a kid. You could leave your front door open in them days, people wuz all honest etc...

I've tested that particular joke extensively in the real world, (and I have a good set of test subjects in my daughter and her mates), and it's done quite well overall so far. People generally find the particular absurdity they resonate with, most of the best ones work on multiple levels, in order to make the most people laugh.   

Humour. It's a serious business!

I Sperg, that's such an old-fashioned, sexist dad joke. I'm surprised at you! It's the kind of dumb, sexist joke a group of simple-minded, heterosexual men throwing beer down their necks would find funny.

How can you say you don't understand someone because they have different genitals from you? Is it all women or just straight women? What about gay women or bisexual women? 

Most people don't like it when people they work with are efficient. It shows up their own inefficiency.

There's this bloke, digging in his back garden and he unearths an old bottle. Upon opening it a genie pops out and offers him a wish. After a bit of to and fro along the lines of "how come there's only one wish", Our man screws up his face and finally admits his deep seated desire to drive to America to see San Francisco, and his deep seated aversion to boats and aeroplanes, means that he requires a motorway to be built from Sussex to San Fran for his wish...

Bloody hell! (Exclaims the genie) I've been in there for 3000 years and you set me a task like that, all that concrete, the piling? It'll be ages before I see the inside of a decent club at this rate...

Tell you what, says the bloke, I can see your point, perhaps you could just answer me this one small question instead, as my wish? 

Women... I can never really get a sense of understanding them, how do they really work, and how can I make and keep my wife, etc. happy?

The genie pauses, for quite a long time, then asks...

"Was that thee lanes or four, you wanted on that motorway?"

Some things are beyond explanation.

That is all.

FWIW I quite like what I've read of your posts. You also handled someone attempting to suck you into a recent forum controversy involving myself very well.

Yes, I've been told that my tone can be flat, negative, or sarcastic... even when I'm trying to be upbeat or funny.

I was once discussing how a particular word could be interpreted to mean different things depending on tone, by saying it three different ways. The person I was talking with then said I'd said it exactly the same way three times. 

I suppose I'm not good with intonation. Or, in my head I get the tone right but it doesn't translate into speech.

Or, I've spent so long being cynical and sarcastic that I've forgotten how to speak any other way

I suppose it's also the beauty and the problem with the English language, words having multiple meanings, but then context should solve that problem.

It's too confusing, hahaha

I'm new here and I've just been having a look around the Community pages, and I found this discussion. I think I've been masking for too long because I have the "chit-chat" ingrained into me - I can do the whole "hi how are you doing?" etc but it isn't what I want generally - I would rather ask/offer a genuine comment or just be silent. I spent most of my time at school being quiet, so much so I was branded "the quietest girl in the whole year group"...yikes!
Anyway, my point is that silence comes naturally to me. I can really understand your situation here, chit chat is such an obstruction and I also find there's something in British culture that just expects it - we are so polite and 'nice' and it can be so stifling. I don't mean that in a weird or rude way, I just feel like its part of our conditioning, or at least the neurotypical conditioning.
I wish I could be more direct, I think it is actually more my natural state, but I'm so scared of being found out, being rejected, of losing people too - that I usually just keep the mask on and smile and make myself talk. I really admire you for getting straight to things. I haven't reached that point, yet.

I've been marginalised many times in business for being seen as an "empire builder" or "acting above my station", when to my mind I was humbly trying to get my work done as efficiently and effectively as possible. 

That sounds like me too.

Aha! Now that is useful information. It must apply to me too! Maybe that's the key. Not what I say, it's how I say it. With the wrong emphasis? Or facial expression? 

I thought humans were adaptable and could understand lots of things. Seems they aren't.

The abilty to appear "mad and confusing to others" I have used consciously to ward off drunken aggression directed at myself randomly in the past to great effect. There's always a period of "sizing up" in these things, and it is super easy to look completely unafraid when you are an Autist, with your mind too busy evaluating the situation to actually be afraid like an NT would instantly be.

I've been marginalised many times in business for being seen as an "empire builder" or "actiing above my station", when to my mind I was humbly trying to get my work done as efficiently and effectively as possible. Apparenlty I exude confidence and leadership when I actually have none to give! (Which lead to inevitable disappointment, on many occasions of course, until I learned about this aspect of my presentation.)

Most people see what they expect or anticipate usually, not what is actually in front of them. Autists are always (I believe, correct me if you find me to be wrong) a threat to established power structures based on anything other than competence, so we face opposition, usually from the get go from someone in a position of power, (often laterally) as soon as we speak.

Bah!   

got it in one

My partner often tells me that it's not what I say, it's the way I say it.

My response is often to say that the words are literally the same so it's obvious what I meant. Of course, that's not really how language works. Intonation and all that...

Sometimes the problem is what I say.

I just had a  round table meeting with colleagues - all full of good will and friendly and a relatively light business agenda to get through. I knew intellectually I had valid relevant points to make - which I did - always striving to smile and look nice even if I didnt want to be there and wasnt enthused by the business. I made some relevant points to one of the members and her face froze. What I said was relevant and useful - but something in the way I spoke or articulated the comments was unwelcome. Maybe I was too direct and brusque. Yet I consciously tried hard to be nice and collegiate and friendly. I end up blurting out things in some inappropriate way - instead of honeyed and polished. I can never learn the right attitude and manner. I start humourous and pally and then it quite quickly breaks up into that oddball being blunt and impolite. Wierdo.

'you're totally different when I get to know you, you're actually

a nice person

I heard once

the only time ever someone told me he changed his initial first impression of me, which is usually impertinent