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Chris Packham's Facebook page


Bear68
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Sorry, lads. You're probably getting a bit bored of posts like this. Chris Packham is mounting a campaign against M&S selling grouse. I have never shot driven grouse but this is the tip of his anti-shooting iceberg. If you are on Facebook please could you visit his page and dislike his posts about grouse shooting / gamekeepers etc? Admin, please delete if you consider this inappropriate.

Edited by Bear68
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I realise Packam is a right royal pain in the neck but we should all realise that he's a diagnosed Asperger's sufferer and therefore logic and common sense - as most of us know it - will have very limited effect on his mindset. His thoughts, ideas and beliefs are the only ones that he's truly aware of. Five minutes watching his contempt for his co-presenters on Springwatch demonstrates that.

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Whether he has aspergers or not is irrelevant. He's abusing his position and relying on "fame" to make sure people hear him, whether they want to or not. And i don't.

True, but you'll never convince him of that because his sensitivity and understanding of people and society is diminished by his condition. Remember, this is a guy who likes grey squirrels!

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its a free world and he is welcome to his opinions.

He is indeed. But the point is that he is using his "celebrity" status, afforded to him by his work with the (supposedly unbiased) BBC, to push his personal bias and anti-shooting agenda. BBC engagement/employment regulations quite clearly state that this is not allowed.

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He is indeed. But the point is that he is using his "celebrity" status, afforded to him by his work with the (supposedly unbiased) BBC, to push his personal bias and anti-shooting agenda. BBC engagement/employment regulations quite clearly state that this is not allowed.

Also he happily lies and spreads ignorance about even the most trivial things regarding wildlife to push his agenda, all sponsored by the bbc.

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Also he happily lies and spreads ignorance about even the most trivial things regarding wildlife to push his agenda, all sponsored by the bbc.

 

Ain't this what the animal protectionists have been (and are still) doing for years? They were caught out recently spreading their lies regarding the dangers to human and animal health by the use of lead shot!

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Of course he is. I don't mind anyone opposing what I do so long as it is done in honesty, and have their basis in fact, and not their own biased agenda.

 

that's gracious of you allowing people to have an opinion just as long as its the same one as you

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that's gracious of you allowing people to have an opinion just as long as its the same one as you

 

I know you like rowing for rowing's sake, but that isn't even what he said. Do you just read stuff then put your own slant on it regardless of the content?

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that's gracious of you allowing people to have an opinion just as long as its the same one as you

Where is the exasperated shaking head in disbelief emoticon when you need one?

Can you in fact read? Where in the post you have quoted does it even suggest that?

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I realise Packam is a right royal pain in the neck but we should all realise that he's a diagnosed Asperger's sufferer and therefore logic and common sense - as most of us know it - will have very limited effect on his mindset. His thoughts, ideas and beliefs are the only ones that he's truly aware of. Five minutes watching his contempt for his co-presenters on Springwatch demonstrates that.

 

If you don't mind, I'll just interject here to speak on behalf of those of the population with Aspergers, since I have a reasonably good understanding of what the condition entails: you're doing them a disservice and if he is on the spectrum, Chris Packham gives the rest of them a bad name, frankly.

 

Since I'm firmly of the belief that Aspergers is an advantage more than it is a disability, I won't call them "sufferers". (Most of the suffering is in fact on the part of the parents who have to deal with the fact that the "perfect" child they were expecting is actually a perfectly beautiful but quite different person to the one they wanted and they suffer the guilt that comes with feeling like that. The good ones do, anyway.)

 

Anyway, of the people with the syndrome that I am currently aware of:

- one would almost certainly argue for grouse shooting / grouse in supermarkets in the same way he'd argue against vegetarianism - i.e. that we have no right to refuse to eat / prevent others from eating certain foods whilst at least some of humanity does not have enough to eat - any other position is immoral.

- another would simply pick holes in any position he took because she treats argument as a source of entertainment - and even if she couldn't prove she was right you'd be hard pressed to argue against her, since she's bright as a button and impeccably (irritatingly) logical.

- a third is a friend and fellow hunter and holds much the same opinions as expressed here and elsewhere.

 

I'd also like to point out that whilst there are "low functioning" "Aspies" (coll.) who do need a lot of help and basically don't have much awareness of other people's thoughts, opinions, feelings, etc. (and need a lot of help surviving life because of this) there are also a large number who are quite aware of other peoples feelings, cognize them (i.e. empathise) very easily.

 

The latter group are often very good - better than "normal" people, even - at picking out the patterns in feelings, emotions and the like and understanding the reasons for them. It is not a coincidence that many of them go on to become psychiatrists / psychotherapists / counselors, and they tend to do well in these professions because they are less likely than "normal" people to suffer things like confirmation bias or fear of "treading on" people's feelings - if they think something is the case, because logic has led them to a particular conclusion, they'll often have no fear of saying it. The apocryphal story of the autistic kid standing up and calling the headmistress fat in the middle of school assembly - for example - is probably true: a willingness to stare facts in the face and state them, regardless of how others might feel about them is one of the characteristic Aspie traits, and can be extremely useful in a clinical setting where issues like entrenched denial or abuse are being dealt with.

 

The reasons that this latter group sometimes come across as disinterested in anyone else's views are usually threefold. First, Aspies tend to find empathy rather "over-powerful". They tend to be very imaginative, but because of this, less able to "dampen down" the feelings they'll experience on behalf of others when they're being empathetic. Some of the things that we encounter daily, but which we normally write off as extreme possibilities are much more real to people (especially children) with Aspergers. This usually quickly results in the development of a coping mechanism of allowing no feelings at all to cross the threshold, so to speak, so that they stay in control of themselves without having meltdowns in the middle of the street. This can make them appear cold to others, when in fact this is not the case.

 

In the past, I met a teenage boy who was terrified of the London Underground, even though he had to travel on it regularly. When he finally admitted why, it turned out that he had an irrational fear of the third and fourth rails, which are electrified of course. He was concerned that in the chaos of the station at rushour, that someone might fall (or be pushed) off the platform and get electrocuted. The traditional approach of devising a coping strategy (i.e. stand at the back of the platform, read the signs rather than look at the rails) helped, but it didn't put his mind at rest. Giving him a percentage chance of death (very, very small) calculated from the number of fatal incidents divided by the number of passenger journeys did the trick though - an appeal to mathematics helped effect a miraculous recovery. You and I would of course simply see electric trains as a manageable risk - if we don't stand on the rails we don't get hurt, and that's roughly where the thought ends.

 

Second, because they higher-functioning Aspies are often unusually imaginative, they tend to try to follow all possible paths that a thought might take and find it very difficult to let go of an idea without having explored it fully. This makes them very difficult to work with at times - they get bogged down in detail when a bigger picture perspective yields better and faster results. This means that they're often too distracted with the detail of their own interests to have time to process those of others. This does lead to a lesser appreciation (unless a conscious effort is made on their part) for others opinions and feelings - they simply don't have time to distract themselves from following the path of own imaginations to critically analyze others' viewpoints, unless they are of particular interest.

 

Third - and this will sound somewhat harsh to a "normal" human being - many Aspies find that, after some years of understanding their condition and themselves, that they retain very little interest in others' feelings. This is not because they are unable to comprehend them, but actually because they feel that they have sufficiently established the patterns of human behavior that they do not need to spend any more time learning about them. When we are children we all learn that when mummy smiles at us, it means she's happy and when she frowns or shouts that she's angry. As life goes on, we pick up the more subtle clues and eventually work out how to interact with other people and read body language and the like to a greater or lesser degree.

 

Some Aspies never get much past the smiling and frowning stage, but those that do often do so later in life and treat learning about these things as a scientific study. This development tends to coincide with learning how to handle empathy properly. Whilst imagining others' feelings remains too scary, Aspies tend to remain emotionally "closed off". Those that learn to manage their thoughts well enough to be empathetic in a controlled manner tend quickly to develop an awareness of human behaviour / motivation as good as, if not better than the majority of "neurotypicals". I've met Aspies - with no psychological training - who are unusually insightful when it comes to predicting people's behaviors and personalities from only observing them from the other side of the street. Some who are particularly able to spot patterns in human beings claim that they can tell how a person will behave or how trustworthy they will be from seeing a photograph of their face. This is obviously a hugely controversial area and I'm not qualified to make a judgement on whether it's true, but I will say that I've been impressed by these apparent abilities in the people I've met.

 

The downside of such a skill, if it really is a skill and not simply normal behavior or plain guesswork, however, is that those Aspies who possess it tend to be disinterested in others because their preconceived notions of who a person is, how they will behave and whether they are worth knowing tend to override any opportunities for conversation / interaction that might demonstrate that their assumptions are wrong or which will reveal something rewarding in the other person which they have not been able to predict. This naturally leads them away from interactions with others and back to their own concerns, potentially isolating them and exacerbating the effect of "my world is the truth" described above.

 

Again, Aspies are quite capable of processing other's thoughts / feelings / opinions, but taken from a logical standpoint, there is great effort involved in doing so but very little reward to be gained. Without some great motivating reason, to them, it simply isn't worth the bother. How many of us have argued with our wives about some tiny little thing and felt halfway through the argument that nothing will be achieved by it and that we are simply wasting our time? Now imagine that every interaction with another human being was just as predictable and just as pointless or ten times moreso - that is how a previously socialized Aspie might begin to feel about the majority of their interactions with other people. Repetetive. Boring.

 

I realize no-one asked for that lecture and I realize that it doesn't necessarily contradict the post to which I've replied, except on the point of "awareness". I also agree that, regardless, this is how Aspies can come across to "normal" people. What I have hoped to do though, is to throw a little light on the psychological mechanisms that (sometimes) make Aspies behave like this. Understood properly, they are some of the most interesting people you'll ever meet, but they are different in their particular way. I will simply say that I have a personal interest in their well-being without naming names or people, and that I take the time to write the above because whilst things have improved in recent years, much of what the media writes about those with the condition is still simplistic, inaccurate or inflammatory. Unless people hear the alternative point of view, they're likely to carry on thinking that all Aspies are freakish loners with a propensity to carry out mass shootings or whatever the most recent "headline crime" associated with them is. In most cases, that couldn't be further from the truth.

 

Anyway, enough. Apologies to the OP.

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My nephew and one of my friends both have Aspergers. One is withdrawn and shy but quite bright in his own way (he has many strengths but social awareness isn't one of them) and the other is an electronics genius, with genuine empathy for others but exhibits some OCD behaviour and dislikes or feels uncomfortable in large crowds of people.

 

As above, people wrongly ascribe prejudice to all Aspergers "sufferers" when the condition often entails subtle differences to how the brain works and cognisance operates, with many having strengths in certain areas giving them an advantage over others in those areas.

 

In Packhams case, he is clearly able to empathise with wildlife AND people, but his views are expressed very strongly and very narrow mindedly because he struggles to accept and see any viewpoint that isn't his own. Is that really the sort of person who should be fronting any programme where he's freely dishing out rubbish about shooting and conservation? The BBC know this but as it suits their left wing agendas, they do nothing. A formal complaint to the organisation policing the BBC's impartiality is what's needed, as they are tasked with advising on whether the Beeb are sticking to their remit of unbiased reporting. If there is evidence to suggest that they are breaking their licencing conditions, they can be taken to task.

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