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by abz10 1827 days ago
I wonder how much of personality is genetic and largely out of the control of the person. I know mine is. I have two separate anxiety mutations - basically high functioning autism. I often find myself accidentally offending people. I preemptively cancelled myself as a precaution long ago.

It seems society has decided that some traits are innate and deserving of understanding and others are not.

2 comments

Well autism is sometimes labelled as individuals that are less "self-domesticated". Animals can be domesticated by humans and breeded to be tamer. Tame animals are more sociable towards humans, also have lower intelligenc and brain capacity since alot of their needs are met by the domesticator I guess. See the difference between cats/wild cats, dogs and wolves or foxes and domesticated foxes. Self domestication is the concept that we as humans have domesticated ourselves. At one end of the spectrum you have individuals that are less domesticated and fit in less with society (autistic people or psychopaths: generally lacking some sort of empathy (respectively cognitive and affective because there is a difference). On the other end of the spectrum you have Prader Willi and Angelman which are very tame and sociable but with lower cognitive abilities. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-imprinted-brain/...
My grandparents were farmers and used generic selection to pacify their cattle herd. It was very clear from their work that behavior was inherited. I was already predisposed to the concept. Even still it was a surprise when I found out just how much of my behavior was genetic.
How does one preemptively cancel oneself?
I quit my BigTech job and all social media. Something I said was misinterpreted as condescending to a female colleague and I was reprimanded by HR. Within a year she made the same complaint against everyone else in the office but by that time I had already left.