Fucking Insults, How do they Work?

[Orion]

In California I had a physician named Dr. Troll. I guess it's just a name.

[Tumbling Down]

I assumed that someone who called himself Trollman on the DnD messageboards would be Norwegian or Danish, so I was rather surprised to learn that Frank was actually American.

[tussock]

For someone who claims he can't handle seeming normal you sound very normal while apparently trying to claim not to be.

Writing gives one time, and everyone reads as smarter and more interesting that they normally are when they take a little time with their writing. If I just sperged out a stream of consciousness it would read a lot like Shadzar's posts, or something less intelligible.

Of course, I also have ... about fifteen years of experience in forum posting, so I'm a good bit clearer-spoken than I was in the past. Not to mention that face-to-face stuff is vastly more complex with the multiple channels of simultaneous communication going on.

seeming normal on the Den

And yes, specialist forums full of rants about the adult minutiae of ongoing hobbies from childhood (and how change ruins everything) are quite likely exceptional in their concentration of autism spectrum participants, and the same with cons and "yes, I still run D&D games at 40" type people in general. If you know a lot of those folks then anything Aspergers will seem rather more normal.

Also; http://books.google.co.nz/books/about/P ... ormal.html

But check out any facebook threads of normal people telling each other how wonderful their latest cat picture is and how sad everyone is about an insufficiently hot coffee or how "their team" is doing at a sport or how their car "looks fast" while parked in a garage for a view of the other 99% of the planet, where people are elected to govern us because they have a "warm smile" or "exude confidence".

That shit is the real world, and I do not even pretend to understand it (other than to accept the banality of it's existence as something that will never change, given how deeply important it all is to normal folk because of how their brains are structured).

[Username17]

and now i kinda wonder where his family name stems from O.o

Austria. Well, it's Serbia now, but it was the Austrian Empire at the time.

Some prominent Trollmanns include:

Field Marshall Ignaz Freiherr Trollmann
Boxing Legend Johann Trollmann

Both of those people look a whole lot like modern family members. Ignaz looks like my uncle, and Johann looks like my cousin. In any case, my branch of the family has been in the US long enough that the "Johanns" are now "Johns", and "Trollmann" is now "Trollman".

Near as I can figure, the family is originally from Northern India several hundred years ago, moved into Europe and largely assimilated into German culture. They seem to have turned into full-time warriors when the Austro-Hungarian Empire created a standing army. Presumably, the Acremann system looked suspiciously like being offered a ticket to permanent Kshatriya caste. They joined the Emperor's army for life in exchange for the family being granted land, which was given in occupied Yugoslavia in order to help Germanify the countryside there.

"Troll" could validly mean "to sing", "to fish", or "to be a terrifying monster". Since they appear to have been Sinti who swore allegiance to the Emperor and turned themselves into warriors, both the "singer" and the "monster" are likely origins for the name. "Mann" of course just means "person", and is there to indicate that it is the name of a person rather than a verb or noun.

-Username17

[DSMatticus]

Very brief google searches show a lot of records for Trollman/Trollmann's around the turn of the century (not the latest one, if I for some reason need to make that clear) from Hungary, Yugoslavia, Germany, and Austria. So that story hits all the right places, but if it's true the name probably shows up first in Germany and means either "singer" or is a bit of good ol' "gypsies eat children" racism that somehow got turned into a family name.

[Voss]

But check out any facebook threads of normal people telling each other how wonderful their latest cat picture is and how sad everyone is about an insufficiently hot coffee or how "their team" is doing at a sport or how their car "looks fast" while parked in a garage for a view of the other 99% of the planet, where people are elected to govern us because they have a "warm smile" or "exude confidence".

That shit is the real world, and I do not even pretend to understand it (other than to accept the banality of it's existence as something that will never change, given how deeply important it all is to normal folk because of how their brains are structured).

I'm not clear on your connection here. Rather boring 'normal' people who are unthinkingly comfortable with their 9 to 5, their family and their cat/coffee/sports/whatever is actually the center of their existence and maybe watch half an hour of Fox news are pretty much a puzzle to everyone with intellectual aspirations. And most of the Den leans more that way (or at least the pretense of such aspirations) than towards 'normal.' The general American public is really very comfortable with its lack of self-awareness and self-reflection, and that tends to be confusing, irritating, or sad to everyone else.

I'd be more confused if someone posting here didn't find mundane existence fairly banal.

[tussock]

Fine, I can't express it well. Such is life. Back to basics.

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/9.12/aqtest.html

People who score 32+ (/50) on that standard quiz and have difficulty functioning in normal everyday life probably have Aspergers in a way that is stunting their ability to function. Lots of people meeting the full diagnostic criteria do not have problems and no one cares about them, it's fine, you may be one. Standard methods of coping with Aspergers can be taught to the more troubled and explained to their friends, family, and colleagues that will alleviate some or all of their problems.

I get, something like 42, and I have a lot of difficulty functioning in normal everyday life in a lot of super-inconvenient ways (social phobia, anxiety disorder, depression, dissociation, bla bla bla). My coping mechanisms have improved (or I'm just massively less self-destructive, either way), but life is still really hard for me in a lot of ways that people around me routinely do not accept and refuse to understand because I am otherwise very well spoken and highly knowledgeable and opinionated.

And, obviously, after years of people telling me I'm an asshole or whatever, despite trying incredibly hard not to be (including some time hiding away from it all), it gets kinda frustrating that there's still people who simply refuse to fucking get it, even when I do my best to explain.

Especially when that's because I sound so normal. How else can anyone sound when they want to be clearly understood?!? I had a fucking shrink tell me once that I couldn't have any real problems because of how smart I was. Idiot.

[Voss]

Yeah, I'm a little creeped out by the idea of stripping a psychological study out of its context and plopping into wired so it can freak self-diagnosing geeks out about their social habits. Seems a nasty way to reinforce negative stereotypes about geeks and Aspergers to me.


My point was merely that being confused by a cultural group you aren't part of is fairly standard, not a failure. Assuming you aren't part of any of these groups, do you understand their viewpoints and why they do the things they do? Klan members, Religious Right Republicans, Anarchists, Hippies, Buddhist Monks, etc, etc? Average Americans are their own cultural bubble, and not understanding them is pretty normal if you aren't in it.

[tussock]

Seems a nasty way to reinforce negative stereotypes about geeks and Aspergers to me.

I don't understand that view at all. There's a stereotype about Aspergers because there's a shared set of challenges and difficulties for people with Aspergers, and some of the groups once labelled "nerds" were high-concentration Aspies.

My point was merely that being confused by a cultural group you aren't part of is fairly standard, not a failure.

That's not what I was trying to argue. Further, in general, nothing is a "failure" about having a genetic difference. My skin doesn't fail to produce melanin, I just carry a gene that succeeds at making me a freckled redhead instead.

So I don't "fail" to notice and enjoy common social cues, I actually have an advantage in learning and problem solving where it's very unusual for little noises and smiles and glances and anything else to distract me from my work, even so far as including loud alarms and hunger and sleep deprivation, once I get into something.


What I meant was that thing where normal folk can feel good because they chatted about some pointless crap, or as you say maybe feel good because they agreed to collectively belittle people who talk about pointless crap, I don't "feel" any of that, even though I totally understand it. As a result I don't have to waste a huge amount of time on any of that, and can instead waste all my time here or on other boards talking about facts and reality (on a D&D group, because ironically enough that works).

And IRL, when anyone feels like a four-hour one-sided information transfer about the social implications of political party funding laws, including rambling histories, theoretical prognostication, and likely personal implications for the listener. Or whatever other topic comes to hand. That shit's immensely enjoyable. Listening too, if anyone else would fucking talk. Right up until people want to go the pub afterwards or something. I understand that bit too, it's just not fun for me, in any way, and in fact rather ruins the whole experience should I foolishly accept being dragged along.


And yes, I understand the dynamics of group empowerment, constant validation, and mirroring behaviour for people, at least from a meta-perspective. It's not totally absent from my own life, like here. I just enjoy the bits where people don't agree with me so we can have a discussion about the truth of something, often leaving me less wrong than I started it. I'm not comfortable in places where everyone agrees, because to me that means everyone's lying quite a lot, hiding their own feelings and views, and that is horrible.

Moderated forums where they ban people for arguing? Hell. Actual living nightmare if I had to be there. Real life people who only make small talk and just smile and nod at anything more? Less interesting than the fucking trees, and I would rather watch paint dry than go through that.

And it turns out I'm not a snob, not shy, not an asshole, I just have Aspergers syndrome, which is to say I'm just a bit Autistic, even though I talk just like a normal person, if a little precisely and sometimes/often getting the wrong end of the stick when others aren't precise.

[PhoneLobster]

There's a stereotype about Aspergers because there's a shared set of challenges and difficulties for people with Aspergers, and some of the groups once labelled "nerds" were high-concentration Aspies.

I'm sorry, but no, that's just fucking stupid.

You might as well say the same thing about sociopaths and jocks. Or sociopaths and nerds. It's just utter bullshit.

You have NO numbers or facts to support that, just a sense of identifying with both Nerds and Aspergers and a desire to pretend they are associated.

REAL mental disorders that cause social difficulties do not automatically cause you to end up in a specific social clique. That is totally NOT HOW IT FUCKING WORKS.

People with Asperger's could potentially be in just about any social clique, just like sociopaths and paranoids and everyone else with disorders that are significantly MORE of a social interaction issue than Aspergers is.

What I will give you is that there is a large bunch of assholes on the internet who (probably inaccurately) self identify as nerds and also (probably inaccurately) self identify as Aspergers. But that is NOT the same as the reality of social cliques and social disorders.

[Cynic]

Near as I can figure, the family is originally from Northern India several hundred years ago, moved into Europe and largely assimilated into German culture. They seem to have turned into full-time warriors when the Austro-Hungarian Empire created a standing army. Presumably, the Acremann system looked suspiciously like being offered a ticket to permanent Kshatriya caste. They joined the Emperor's army for life in exchange for the family being granted land, which was given in occupied Yugoslavia in order to help Germanify the countryside there.

-Username17

Do you have any historical cites for this sort of move from India westward? I'm kinda curious as Indian history books don't really mention that sort of migration. Which, granted, is not all that surprising seeing how school systems apparently teach whatever tailored history/science they feel appropriate rather than what's true.

[Username17]

Sure. Trollmanns appear to be Sinti. They stopped counting as Gypsies when they became servants of the Emperor of the Ostreich. If you look at the history of Glogonj, which is where my father's family is proximally from, you can see that the Trollmanns were brought in from Salzburg in 1774 to increase Germanification of Serbia.

I have no specific histories of my lineage between leaving Northern India in ~1100 and being moved from Salzburg to Serbia by being given a land grand by the Emperor is 1774. I assume there was a lot of walking involved at some point.

-Username17

[Bihlbo]

I'll be honest, it took me a couple months of reading this board before I learned that "Frank Trollman" wasn't just a straight-forward alias for a guy who enjoyed blunt honesty and pushing people's buttons. For that type of person it would make a good alias.

And I would probably be posting as Bill Wiltfong in my posts if it weren't for Ultima Online getting me used to using an alias on message boards. Heck, even then I'd sign posts with "-Bill" because I really didn't want people thinking I was a moron who wanted to be Baggins but couldn't get the name past the filter or something ("Bihlbo" has a different origin than that).

[Shrapnel]

If Wiltfong is indeed your real name, than you, sir, have one awesome identifier. Not as cool as Bruce Babbitt, maybe, but definitely up there with Greg Killmaster.

[tussock]

There's a stereotype about Aspergers because there's a shared set of challenges and difficulties for people with Aspergers, and some of the groups once labelled "nerds" were high-concentration Aspies.

I'm sorry, but no, that's just fucking stupid.

You might as well say the same thing about sociopaths and jocks. Or sociopaths and nerds. It's just utter bullshit.

You really think there's not more sociopaths in a group where sociopaths have their usual advantages and disadvantages matched perfectly (say, not feeling anything when they hurt people and getting temporarily high social status that goes nowhere)?

Not more people with Aspergers in the mathletes and chess clubs (where quiet concentration and boundless knowledge of obscure detail is useful and rewarded)?

It's like you don't know anything about sociopathy or Aspergers. Or how people tend to associate with people who share their experiences and desires, in part by being directed there by others if they're a bit socially awkward. Have you studied any of this at all, or are you just butt-hurt about something you're not telling us?

You have NO numbers or facts to support that, just a sense of identifying with both Nerds and Aspergers and a desire to pretend they are associated.

I am overwhelmed by your own numbers there. I have also not presented numbers to show that gravity exists, so shall we take it that it doesn't?

<snip> Or are you just complaining that tendencies and stereotypes are not absolutes? If so, thank you captain obvious. Yes, most mathletes don't have Aspergers, and most people with Aspergers weren't mathletes, but the concentration is still hugely higher there.

Same with the internet, and forums like this one where people don't have to be nice. In comparison with a census where Aspergers is 1-in-400 or so, it could totally be a lot higher here, even though most people here are obviously not. Is that really a difficult concept? I guess it is. Welcome to learning.

What I will give you is that there is a large bunch of assholes on the internet who (probably inaccurately) self identify as nerds and also (probably inaccurately) self identify as Aspergers. But that is NOT the same as the reality of social cliques and social disorders.

And this is you, AGAIN, suggesting that people's genetic condition is not a real thing and they just need to get over it and be more like you. So on ignore you go, you fascist piece of shit.

[PoliteNewb]

And this is you, AGAIN, suggesting that people's genetic condition is not a real thing and they just need to get over it and be more like you. So on ignore you go, you fascist piece of shit.

Not that I don't mostly agree with you (my son is diagnosed with Aspberger's, by the way), but please don't be one of those people who thinks the definition of "fascist" is "a bad person I don't like". It has a meaning.

I think the word you were looking for is "bigoted", maybe. Or "ignorant", or "callous".

[PhoneLobster]

People with real autism disorders do not automatically fixate on useful things or nerdy things like "math and chess" that is such an ignorant and stereotypical view.

At high end functionality there is utterly no reason why you wouldn't see people fixated on baseball and car engines or whatever the fuck random crap. At low end functionality Austics are as likely to fixate on duplo or toy cars and genuine "Idiot Savants" are a vanishingly rare thing.

And seriously you are the one saying "Nerds == Aspergers == Nerds == Mathletes == ME!" burden of proof is on you. Put up the numbers and details you are supposedly obsessed with but neither have nor talk about or shut the fuck up because you are making the case for everyone who says self proclaimed internet Aspergers guys are highly suspect in nature.

[tussock]

@Newb. That comes party from other issues I'm engaged with at the moment I suppose.

But I see the root of fascism (the bits of it that matter, rather than some particular relationship of the state to the economy) as one where people who do not like differences in minorities will belittle, demonise, argue for violence against, suggest it should be all hidden away for it's own good, and ultimately seek to destroy it, as demonstrated repeatedly in history to the world's great loss.

So I have an intense dislike for those who casually express their frustrations with people's difference as violence, especially my difference, to which I have faced more than my fair fucking share of violent opposition through the years, to which I would usually be told to just try fitting in, which doesn't actually work for me now does it.

I apply very serious labels to that with due care. It is a subtle expression of a very bad thing, and people should not do it.



You don't joke about violence to women when they want to share their feelings, and you don't joke about violence to aspies when they clumsily try to explain how offending people is just what happens sometimes when you're mind-blind, no matter your intent.

[Bihlbo]

But I see the root of fascism (the bits of it that matter, rather than some particular relationship of the state to the economy) as one where people who do not like differences in minorities will belittle, demonise, argue for violence against, suggest it should be all hidden away for it's own good, and ultimately seek to destroy it, as demonstrated repeatedly in history to the world's great loss.

Then either you see it wrong, or you are misapplying that word to what you're seeing. You have not described fascism.

If Wiltfong is indeed your real name, than you, sir, have one awesome identifier. Not as cool as Bruce Babbitt, maybe, but definitely up there with Greg Killmaster.

Yup, my name is William Wiltfong, and I go by Bill. Most people simply say, "I haven't heard that one before." Are you saying it's awesome because you haven't heard it, or are you finding something else there that others haven't?

[Ancient History]

Wiltfong is non-ironically associated with awesome.

[RadiantPhoenix]

Well, most of the salient points have been made already, but I figured I would comment on the shocking level of Asperger hipsterism on here.

"I was diagnosed before it was cool."

Well, nineteen years ago-ish.

The equivalent of 100 or so credit-hours of "human socialization" with multiple psychologists later...

[Bihlbo]

Wiltfong is non-ironically associated with awesome.

Oh, well yeah! Bob's a distant cousin, down the line of a brother of my great-grandpa I think, or one more generation back. Wiltfongs have this going for us: we're all descended from one guy. Incidentally, one of my first cousins looks a lot like a young Bob, mostly by coincidence.

[Maxus]

I've had folks doubt my last name, which was picked at random for a certain franchise.

But it seems that Leod, father of the clan founders Norman and Tarquin, was the adopted son of an Viking king named Olaf the Black.

1) This is awesome

2) I'm fairly sure this makes me ever-so-slightly, not-ever-gonna-get anything-from-it, a prince.

3) I am the authority on No True Scotsman arguments and settle them with an indisputable right. I'm American Scottish, which makes me better than normal Scots, and my word is the one which goes because I'm a McLeod and there can be only one.

[Bihlbo]

That's pretty cool, Maxus. On my mother's side a couple generations back I'm a Walace, and I'm named William, which of course helped me enjoy Braveheart at a level most teenagers probably couldn't touch.

[fbmf]

That's pretty cool, Maxus. On my mother's side a couple generations back I'm a Walace, and I'm named William, which of course helped me enjoy Braveheart at a level most teenagers probably couldn't touch.

Wait...are you from (or about ten years ago did you live in) Texas?

Game On,
fbmf