Worldview stuck in the past, self-called "progressives" walking blindly into failures.

For many reasons, I'm removing my participation in Twitter.  This includes looking at and deleting old messages.

Looking over older messages from 2022, I noticed something that I wanted to highlight: The same discussions are ongoing in 2024, with predictable outcomes.

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There was an Ontario provincial election in 2022 where there was so much talk from partisans about how "critical" that election was (like nearly every election in my lifetime), and how a specific "bad leader" needed to be kept out because of the damage this individual could do.

I fully expect Trump to be elected as President of the United States again, and for the Conservative party of Canada to win sufficient seats for Pierre Poilievre to become Canada's next Prime Minister.

For those who think this will be disastrous, who should they be trying to change the minds of?

I believe the problem lies with the alleged "opposition" party partisans (often who call themselves "progressives") who remain only concerned about their corporate brands winning.  They are largely uninterested in (or actively opposed to) putting policies into place that would make our democratic institutions less vulnerable to corruption. (Example policies include: ranked ballots, ensuring leaders are decided by caucus members and not people who buy a ballot from a corporation, ensure party affiliation is deemphasized as being only one demographic trait of candidates, etc).

Hyper-partisans wanting party lists (or proximations to Party Lists using their Gallagher index) continue to block attempts to make parliament less corrupt(able).

"Just vote for the other guy" is never a valid answer to critical discussions of systemic flaws in democratic institutions.

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Discussion of NATO expansion and the ongoing proxy war in Ukraine.

When the USA violated the UN charter multiple times (Afghanistan in 2001, Iraq in 2003, etc), it opened the doors to Russia to do the same in defense of ongoing NATO expansion.  NATO expansion is seen by Russia and several other nations as a threat to basic rights of self-determination of any non-Western nation since NATO was created as part of the launch of the cold war after WW2.

Discussions of the clearly racist nature of how Ukrainian land defenders are discussed in Western media and by Western politicians compared to any of the other ongoing global conflicts (including how Indigenous land defenders are covered).  This was also seen in the racist coverage of refugees.

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There was quite a bit of talk about Zionism, and how Zionism continues to be used to justify violence against the existing inhabitants of Palestine since the 1920's.

Contrary to those who believe history started on October 7, 2023, I was reading in 2021 and 2022 from many people of a variety of Indigenous nationalities on this continent how familiar the colonial techniques Zionists were using against Palestinians are.

There was related talk about how Zionism has been at the root of many antisemitic views/actions as well, and how Zionism has made all Jewish peoples less safe since its formalization in the late 1890's.

Then there was the related and far to common denialism by Canadians about the historical and ongoing genocidal policies of the settler-colonial Dominion of Canada since it was imposed by the British Empire in 1867.

In 2022, representatives of the Roman Monarchy (Absolute Monarch of Vatican City, Pope Francis) and the British Monarchy (Charles, then Prince of Wales, and Camilla) visited land claimed by the Canadian Crown.

I'm cisgender : Inclusion vs attempted erasure of the diversity of the human experience.

I’m an Autistic white cis-heterosexual male settler, claimed as a citizen by the Dominion of Canada at birth in 1968. I have lived on lands of Anishinaabe peoples my entire life.

I say all of this as an introduction for a very specific reason, which is to offer myself as a SAFE person for people who are ostracized by this society (some to the point of reduced lifespans, such as #MMIWG). I have been granted unearned privilege in this society because of many of those demographic traits I have (all but being Autistic).

Some of my traits are visible and some are not. Suggesting people to try to hide any normally invisible traits (neurotype, gender, sexual orientation, etc) is in my mind no better than saying out loud that being non-white is a bad thing that people should try to hide if they can.

The tendency to prejudge people negatively if they don’t match specific hierarchies of demographic traits is a feature of specific cultures. It is not universal, and not part of “human nature”. That negative judgment is something that needs to be corrected in specific cultures, and making people realize that this isn’t universal (by outing yourself as a safe person) is a critically important tool in ensuring that this type of conversation happens.

If we hide the reality of diversity and intersectionality, those who want to crush diversity or impose social hierarchies where they put themselves as superior will always win (white supremacy, Androcentrism/misogyny, etc). Only by recognizing and embracing who we actually are as intersectional and diverse beings can we move forward.

I feel it is important to point these issues out. After trying to erase someone for discussing their being nonbinary, claiming caring about “labels and differences” of demographic traits shouldn’t be a focus, the person in the above exchange wanted everyone to focus on their gender and age to try to claim that calling out their behaviour was a form of bullying. It feels obvious that what they meant is they believe their demographic traits matter, and they are part of “shared humanity”, but other demographic traits are not part of shared humanity and should remain hidden and never mentioned. It is unfortunate that those who uphold such divisive ideologies will regularly claim it is those who are inclusive that are focusing on what divides us.

Autistic Adults, Autism Parents, and why we seem to be arguing

I recently read I Will Die On This Hill: Autistic Adults, Autism Parents, and the Children Who Deserve a Better World by Meghan Ashburn and Jules Edwards.

I am a late diagnosed Autistic Adult, and not a parent. While I can’t understand the experience of being a parent, I do have memories of my own childhood and interacting with adults that have only made sense in recent years as I've learned about Autism (and Allism).

When I heard about the book in July 2023 I added it to a goodreads list. I had what turns out to be a misconception that the book would be a debate between an “Autism Mom” (Allistic parent who thought of Autism as a disease that took their child, and who wanted sympathy for themselves and their hardships) and an “Autistic Mom of Autistic Children'' (who can remember how it felt to be treated as diseased by others). 

As an Autistic Adult I was going to read feeling like I was rooting for one of the "sides".

Spoiler: I was wrong!

I will keep this strong book recommendation as brief as I can, given there are many ways this book intersects with other learning I have been doing in the past few years.

My journey

My understanding of my own autism came in a very fortunate and privileged way. Starting in 2020 I started what I have come to understand as a “special interest” when I recognized I didn’t actually understand what Racism was.

Learning about Racism led me to learning about Anti-racism (Ibram X. Kendi), anti-colonialism/decolonization and intersectionality. I am a systems person, so I wasn’t stuck on individuals and individualism (and the myth racism is about individual racial prejudices) once I had done sufficient reading.

I had opportunities to learn, but being White has the privilege of racism being academic as real racism (as opposed to individual prejudices) will privilege rather than target individuals included in “Whiteness”. I am now aware so-called “Reverse Racism” isn’t a real thing.

While I have been in a so-called "mixed marriage" since 1997 (different races, different genders, etc), that lived experience does not in any way ensure someone understands what Racism is.

I had quite a bit of unlearning to do.

When I started to learn about Autism and other neurotypes I immediately recognized it as fitting within an intersectionality lens.

I do not accept the “medical model” around Autism any more than I accept the “medical model” around Race (IE: the pseudoscientific beliefs around scientific racism, eugenics, etc), gender or sexual orientation. (Note: Conversion Therapy for gender or sexual orientation was only outlawed under Canadian law in 2022, but similar techniques are still the most common alleged "treatment" for Autism) 

Depending on the audience, I see value in discussing two different models of understanding Autism.

• The Social model of disability. I don’t see my Autism as what disables me, but how my differences aren’t accommodated in a society that incorrectly presumes there is only one “correct” way of being a human. This is what reduces my ability (dis ability) to participate.
• Neurodiversity Paradigm, which sees neurotypes as being as a natural form of human diversity. Problems are generated by supremacist societies who "other"/exclude individuals and groups with different demographic traits.

The Authors

I believe intersectionality and specific lived experience meant that while these two mothers seemed to disagree at first, that neither actually represented the “Autism Mom” which I have observed online.


While one of the authors is a White Allistic mother, she is a mother in a mixed race family and knows what it feels like to be extra worried about police and other “authority” interactions with brown and black children. She taught elementary school for six years, and was already well-versed in developmentally appropriate practices. The other author is Anishinaabe, and has lived with cultural teachings that are quite different from Eurocentric colonial teachings.

Both authors approach this topic with an intersectionality lens.

Why the disagreement?

The book brings to the foreground something that everyone, regardless of their neurotype or if they are parents, should become aware. The problem isn’t that one of these mothers was Autistic and the other was Allistic, and that this would suggest they had different goals.

The problem is that everyone in society, but especially parents, are inundated by special interest groups (political and economic) who have ideological biases towards the Medical model of Autism. They will frighten parents into believing that there is something wrong with their children (and sometimes themselves) that needs to be fixed. As with the Medical model of Race, otherwise known as scientific racism and eugenics, there are even those looking for measures to prevent additional births of Autistic people.

I believe once we recognize the common problem, that we can all work together to make the lives of Autistic children better. This will allow them to grow up without the trauma some Autistic adults constantly live with.

Eternal September

“Eternal September” is a slang term I’ve been aware of since the early 1990’s. In the early days of the Internet (and Usenet, that I participated in using UUCP) it was filled with technical people and students, where new batches of students would join in September and would need to learn how to (appropriately) interact online. In the early to mid 1990’s (depending on location), the Internet became available to the general public and thus there were “newbies” joining all the time and the need to bring these new people up to speed on how to use the tools and interact was needed.

This is going to be a fact of the Autism community for the foreseeable future. New parents of newly diagnosed children, newly diagnosed adults, and fairly often both in a short timeframe (parents learning they are autistic because of their children) will always be finding the Autism community. They will most often be coming with harmful misinformation they have been offered by the medical profession and the horribly wrong and harmful information from The Autism Industrial Complex.

We need to remember they aren’t the enemy, even if they will use words that will be very hurtful to Autistic people. As hard as it will sometimes be, especially for us Autistic members of the community, we need to help them unlearn misinformation in as welcoming a way as we can.

I continue to see similarities between affirming Autism advocacy and support, and similar supports in gender affirming, sexual orientation affirming, and even Anti-Racism work. In fact, it all feels as if the problems come from the same place: vested interests in creating a hierarchy of humanity that puts specific (often extremely arbitrary) demographic traits above others.

An acquisition means a new job, not merely a different name on paychecks.

I wish to be open about a mistake I have made in my career, in case it helps someone else avoid something similar.

For most of my career I was brought into organizations (as an employee or contractor) by someone who knew me, what I could do for them, and how I worked.  An exception was when I was part of an acquisition. The new management team didn’t know who I was, only what was written in my job description.

I have had many job titles and descriptions, and none of them have been very meaningful. I work by trying to figure out what the project needs to get done, and then apply any skills I have towards whatever is the highest priority goal.

While I had the title of “Lead Systems Engineer” at the pre-merger organization, I was also actively involved in managing an OAIS preservation system (lead developer, support, data and metadata manager, etc), and lead developer of the metadata management system (we called it the “metadata bus”) for Canadiana.org's Access system.

After the merger I was told that I should continue the work that I was already doing, but I should not have taken that literally. I should have ceased any software development, data management, metadata management, or anything else not explicitly understood by the new management team as part of my job.  While the previous employer encouraged me to help anywhere in the organization I could, the new employer focused much more on social hierarchies, organization charts, and jurisdiction described in job descriptions.


At the time of the merger I had been given a choice:  Do I want to accept the reduced scope of this *new* job, or resign and look for a better matching job.

Instead of making an informed choice, I incorrectly believed nothing had changed. This only generated confusion and conflict between my style of working and the hierarchical corporate culture of the new organization.

I eventually resigned, but only after I had been pushed into Autistic Burnout. I have learned from this mistake, and I hope other people can as well.

(Reposted from LinkedIn)

My Autism Burnout story

Embrace Autism is creating an "Ultimate Guide of Autistic Burnout", and asked their online community for their Autistic Burnout stories. This was limited to 350 words, and I focused on what lead up to my burnout.

In later posts I will likely discuss what I have learned to help reduce Autistic meltdowns (autonomic storms) and hopefully avoid future Autistic Burnouts (crossing fingers, toes, etc, etc).

See also: Embrace Autism articles on Burnout

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I’m a white cis-gender heterosexual male born in 1968, formally assessed Autistic in 2024. 

I have been part of the high-tech sector since my teens. In 2000 I was told there was quite a bit of Autism in the sector, and I should look into it.  I saw the ways Autistic people were alleged “defective”, so assumed that had nothing to do with me.

My mother’s death in 2018 caused me to see a psychotherapist, and after seeing me for several months I was asked if I had considered I was Autistic. I had doubts, partly because of the concept of an Autistic mask. I was bad at acting.

I never had regular job interviews, and was brought into organizations because someone knew my skills and way of working.  An exception occurred when I was part of a merger in 2018 of an organization I had been at for 7 years. The new employer was a strict hierarchy with a strict chain of command, which saw job titles as exclusive jurisdiction.  While I was focused on trying to get high-priority work done, working the way I had at the previous employer, all some people saw was me violating a social hierarchy.

In summer 2022 I contracted Lyme Disease. Fatigue meant I didn’t have the energy to mask, and thus I finally accepted I had been masking. Accusations of being rude and condescending to an allistic coworker were made. I would respond explaining Autism, and with logic and data, but that only made things worse.

By spring 2023 I was accused of workplace harassment and placed on sick leave. That threw me into a full-on burnout, unable to manage regular life tasks. I lost all personal doubt I had about Autism. When sick-leave ran out at the end of the summer I resigned, not seeing any room for me in that organization. 

As I write this in summer 2024, I’m much better, but still recovering. I believe learning I’m Autistic, and learning about spoon theory, will help me avoid similar situations in the future.  Learning about Autism includes learning about Allism.

Is there a religious war in Western Asia? It certainly isn’t a war between two “countries”.

I want to encourage people to gain the context of these events rather than believing what happened this year is new or surprising.

This is what I do: I analyze policy like I analyze software, and look for interactions between policies as well as operating systems and other aspects of the environment. I don’t blindly accept what I’m told by marketing material, but analyze the actual policy/code. I look for logical fallacies in claims being made, and try to figure out the truth under those fallacies.

A previous LinkedIN connection wanted to talk about “Hamas” and the most recent skirmish, rejecting that there could be any context required to understand what was happening. They were responding to a post that suggested, “If you have ever wondered what you would do during The Holocaust, Slavery, or the Civil Rights Movement: You’re doing it NOW.”

The previous LinkedIN connection posted: “What do you believe the appropriate response to the Hamas war crimes, as you admitted they are, should have been?”

This is a pretty typical loaded question logical fallacy.

This is the nature of most discussions on this topic: loads of logical fallacies. There is a desire for this to be black-and-white (it isn't even close), that it is clear what "started it", for there to be "two sides" to pick from, and so-on.

It is possible to recognize and mourn the deaths of people on all sides of today's borders between land declared the jurisdiction of a UN created UN member (Government of Israel) and those in the Gaza Strip and West Bank where self-determination has been blocked by external forces for over a century.

Any attempt to "two sides" discussion of this centuries-on Holy War is false, as this is not a "war" between two countries, and has been ongoing since long before “Hamas” was founded in 1987. While I strongly condemn the violence from all belligerents, I rightfully hold UN member states – especially those which claim to be democratic and protective of human rights – to a higher standard than angry mobs or terrorist groups.

I am aware that the “Change and Reform list“ that “Hamas” campaigned within was “elected” in 2006 under a Plurality Block Voting system. I have been critical of claims that brand-centered “elections” are representative of populations for a very long time. However, to claim that Gaza is currently under a democratic government, or that residents of that region (not “citizens”) should be held accountable in the same way for actions carried out under the “Hamas” brand as citizens of a “democratic” UN member state branded "Israel", is a total misrepresentation of reality.

I’m not a fan of the electoral system or other weak democratic institutions of Israel any more than I'm a fan of Canada’s weak democratic institutions. However, I do not believe this is about Benjamin Netanyahu or any other individual. If Israeli citizens feel their government doesn’t represent them and is inducing violence and making them less safe, they have mechanisms to fix that which residents in regions that don’t have an alleged “democratic” government claiming jurisdiction do not. If citizens of other nations recognize the Israeli government is in violation of International Law, they can push their governments to hold the Government of Israel to account (including holding governments like the US, which regularly blocks accountability, to account for regularly disrespecting International Law).

The previous LinkedIN connection suggested this is about “Radical Islam”. The Government of Israel was created via “Radical Zionism” and “Radical Christianity”. The then-Christian Empire dominated United Nations (formed 1945) created the Government of Israel in 1947 via partitioning British occupied Palestine.

We should discuss the Balfour Declaration of 1917. 

We should discuss the Likud Party Platform (such as from 1973) and its genocidal call for "between the Sea and the Jordan there will only be Israeli sovereignty". We should talk about Irgun/Etzel, the political predecessor to Likud, which operated between 1931 and 1949. It was generally recognized as a terrorist group before rebranding.

We should discuss how the United States (or sometimes Britain) will veto any resolutions to try to hold the Government of Israel accountable at the more modern United Nations.

We should discuss oil under the Gaza Strip.

We should discuss how Evangelical Christians believe Jews having exclusive control over that land will lead towards the Rapture / Second Coming of Christ. From that randomly chosen article: "What happens to the Jews and Palestinians is, to put it very mildly, collateral damage."

It is obvious that the United States and other parts of the Christian Anglosphere are as much a part of the violence in the region as “Jews” and “Arabs” (including Arab Jews, given those aren't distinct categories). This is not what we under Christian Anglosphere governments are indoctrinated to believe are the only belligerents.

Anthropocentric Environmentalism, Anthropogenic Climate Change, and All Our Relations.

I've been (or was) part of what was called the environmental movement from an early age, having a respect for plants and animals that I was told was kinda weird by family and friends growing up. I worry about the mental state of people's pets, and never felt comfortable with the idea of "owning" an animal (no judgment on anyone else -- this is only a personal discomfort).

I eat animals, but prefer to do it in what in my mind is respectful. The closer plants and animals look like themselves the better -- fish have just always "tasted" better to me if the head and tail are still all there.

When I moved from Sudbury to go to Carleton University, I met up with "fellow" environmentalists that connected me with the Peace and Environment Resource Center and from there to the Green Party, etc, etc.


Fast forward to the early 2000's and I started to not see myself in the Green parties, and started to not see myself in PERC. I saw interconnections between the Open (source, access, government, science, etc) movements and Climate Change and other "peace" and "environmental" policies which they did not.They would regularly tell me it was the wrong priority and to stop talking about anything outside narrow silos of thought.

I had to move my activism elsewhere.

Green Party leadership would say things such as "the Economy is a wholly owned subsidiary of the environment" and the GPO even said it would abolish the provincial Environment ministry as all of the government is subservient to the environment and those policies should be core to every operation of government and every department.

They would say these things, but not believe it or echo it in policies: they were apparently brand slogans, nothing more.


Increasingly in the 2000's I became depressed. I didn't think "humanity" was ever going to change, as "humans" were simply too disconnected from the real physical living reality to understand how to protect their own species, let alone any other.

Logically I felt the big problems wouldn't happen in my or Rina's lifetimes: we don't have children, so I simply have to stop caring about these things at all. I'll be long dead before things get really bad. It was a very hard and depressing way for me to try to think, but that is what I was actively trying to do : to distance some of my emotions from my Godkids/etc, and what their lives might be like.


Then in 2020 I finally/properly bumped into anti-racism, from there anti-colonialism, and to learning about domestic (meaning Indigenous) nations.

My stress levels dropped considerably. I felt hope for the first time in an extremely long time.


The "problem" wasn't humanity or human nature, but specific problematic worldviews. Worldviews can be changed by reversing ongoing colonial/genocidal policies (Save the Indian, Save the Man ; Save the Indian in the Child ; protect Indigenous languages/cultures in the Constitution/Charter rather than English or French ; etc) .

The "Conservationist" movement I had believed in was based on the notion that all humans were Anthropocentric and Androcentric, which is simply false (and is in fact part of White Supremacy).

I see connecting to local Indigenous Communities (such as can be found via the Native Friendship Center movement -- Odawa NFC for me) to be critical for any actual Climate Action. These are groups connected to peoples who have had worldviews/laws/etc that help deal with Climate Change -- and these laws were put in place on this continent long before European contact. Domestic (meaning Indigenous) law itself is a form of Climate action policy, long before Climate Change became a visible problem to anyone.

Westerners aren't going to be leaders and should never stand in front of Indigenous peoples. We must show up and be willing to be students, followers and helpers. We still need to unlearn the very worldviews and mindsets which are the cause of existential problems such as Climate Change, and this will happen through interacting with and helping the community.

I don't actually believe in "Anthropogenic Climate Change" as it is not "human activity" in the generic sense which is the problem, but activities originating from a very narrow set of worldviews which have been extremely colonial/genocidal in spreading across large parts of the planet.




There is an extremely common belief that there is no way to solve this problem, or that "democracy" is too slow to deal with it. That policies to deal with Climate Change could somehow hurt "the economy" (however subjectively that term is used). Etc, etc... Over the decades I have heard so many excuses for inaction.

• One of the "slowest" forms of democracy is participatory democracy, where all citizens with near-universal suffrage have a say in decision making.
• This is in contrast with representative democracy where a small subset of people make all the decisions.
• This is in contrast with a Constitutional Monarchy where all the power is actually vested in the crown through a crown created/authorized/etc Constitution. Canada's constitution has only received minor amendments since the first of 11 British North America Acts was passed in 1867 by the British Parliament -- against the wishes or even awareness of the VAST majority of the relevant stakeholders on this continent.
• This is in contrast with a Monarchy/Dictatorship/etc where one person (with the help of their chosen aids/etc) make all the decisions. The Westminster Parliamentary System was first designed as a debating club to advise the Crown. (And the Senate? )

The Haudenosaunee Confederacy is the oldest participatory democracy on the planet, with non-western scholars generally agreeing that it was likely founded in 1142 (For comparison, John II Komnenos /  Comnenus was the Eastern Roman/Byzantine emperor at the time).

The English called them Five Nations and then Six Nations when the Tuscarora joined this advanced democratic League of Nations in 1722. (which predates the European League of Nations, later called the United Nations, or the European Union, by quite a bit). Their Constitution is generally called the Great Law of Peace in English.

For Comparison, Britain only had comparable suffrage for its weaker democratic Constitutional Monarchy in 1928.

When did the Haudenosaunee confederacy start advocating for policy changes in reaction to climate change? From what I've heard from a few people who are citizens of one of the six nations, their elders started in the 1970's.

Canada, on the other hand, is one of the weaker forms of "Democracy" as a colony with a Constitutional Monarchy, and still actively lobbies internationally for PRO-Climate Change Policies (policies which are universally understood to make the issue worse).


Democracy isn't the problem. In fact, if Canada more closely resembled a democracy, it would not be engaged in so many horrible activities (on this continent and beyond). These are not activities "Canadians" have approved of, but activities they aren't even accurately informed about.

For me, the #LandBack movement and the restoration of Indigenous self-determination (as should be protected under the UN charter as well as UNDRIP) isn't only a matter of "the morally right thing to do". It is a key policy to help protect life on this planet. Global Indigenous peoples saving themselves can serve as examples to teach those that still hold harmful/shallow anthropocentric and androcentric worldviews how to survive, as westerners have totally disconnected themselves from life itself.


Some other potentially interesting links:

• Thought Experiment: Is Canada a democracy?
• Why I don't believe Alberta is bullied by extractive industries such as Big Oil
• Paper: Decolonization is not a metaphor
• Historical process that has so far lead to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), and will continue.