that's a lot of autistic reindeer to herd.
this post was submitted on 18 Feb 2026
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I think this is a good reminder that traits we label one way today could have been real strengths in different contexts. Deep focus and strong memory would’ve been incredibly valuable skills in many ancient communities. It’s all about perspective.
Man it's almost like society is broken and not our brains.
Some people are broken. They’re the narcissists and psychopaths and people who refuse to address their trauma(having trauma is fine, doing nothing about it and making it everyone else’s problem is less so) who we keep handing power to for some fucking reason.
"Those who seek power, rarely deserve it. And those who deserve it, rarely seek it."
So I get to endlessly catalogue stuff and be around creatures who don't judge me and, best of all, I don't have to deal with any humans.
Sign me up baby
and in the times you must speak to a human, it's someone who's coming to you deeply interested in your big tree diagram of reindeer
So I get to talk at a rapid pace without any pauses whilst going into incredible detail about reindeer????
Stop I can only get so excited.
Reindeers are better than people. Sven, don't you think that's true?
Sven is more of a Germanic name, in Siberia reindeer herders are definitely not speaking Germanic languages.
It's a line from a song, the reindeer's name was Sven. But yes, I did think about that after I posted my comment...
And honestly even the reindeer herders in Scandinavia are probably mostly Saami, so it would be more accurate to use a Finnic name anyway...
See also:
Before there were trains, there were the ships.
Before there were ships, there were horses.
And I know what you're going to say. Yeah, but before there were horses there wer-NO. Nothing existed before horses, and I'll hear no more of that slander anti-horse talk.
Before that, there were unicorns
Its still so upsetting that they send him to the doctor who was like, “that thing that makes you happy and does not hurt anyone”, lets help you stop doing that.
He might have been neglecting other responsibilities.
But yeah he hopefully could have kept it as a hobby!
But was he actually cured, or did he instead just get better at hiding his compulsion?
That "in this way he was cured of his illness" is doing a LOT of heavy lifting there. I'd bet that the method used could also be described as torture until he agreed to stop or acted like he no longer wanted to.
I wonder how much faith in doctors came from vague references like this that only talk about the outcome and skips over the fucked up shit they called "treatment" back in the day. Makes me wonder if many people at the time saw doctors for the "knows a few things about some herbs and setting broken bones but otherwise is just a scam artist that might kill or maim you for no benefit" they were.
And the sad thing is that a lot of doctors these days are still like that; their body of knowledge is better than back in the plague doctor days, but if a patient strays into unknown territory, they often keep up the "I'm an expert in this" front while talking out of their ass (often an indirect accusation of just trying to get the pain meds they used to push, or some other brush off).
I immediately thought of this, and you beat me to it. Honestly it seems to be a very nuanced account of autism. It's certainly unusual but bro got great joy from watching ships and people only found it a bit odd.
@fossilesque This does not surprise me at all. I used to work in the horse racing industry and there were legends of stable managers who had memorized the genealogy of the horses going back generations. Supposedly, these are the people who guided the horse breeding once upon a time.
My brain skipped over "herder" the first time and I was very very confused.
I read "hoarder" and everything made a lot of sense, but felt wrong.
Would explain why there were that many reindeer, though. lol
Well, if autism exists in animals (pretty sure i've heard that it does) i bet there are savants especially talented at communicating with humans.
That would be awesome. :)
World is full of pet owners gatekeeping the knowledge of their pets who speak full sentences
I misread "medical" as "mental.". Not so far off, still, I think.
Boats just do many boats.
Ancient people had to remember/memorize a lot more things just to get through their days, before writing existed.
Yeah, prehistoric life is sometimes portrayed as simplistic, skipping the fact that hunter-gatherers knew the landscape and all plants, grasses and animals for kilometres around. Kim Stanley Robinson's novel ‘Shaman’ does a decent job of depicting what life in those times might've been like.
Granted, I instead memorize my city's streets and organization of my computer stuff.
"Was that rock always there, or was it disturbed by a predator?"
"Hmm. That rock I remember, rough sandstone, 25 sides, angled south-east. I'm unsure of its neighbour though with rough sandstone, 25 sides, angled south-south-east."
It takes a village to survive. Some to remember the exact differences between safe, fun, and deadly mushrooms and others to turn predators into prey.
And some stay up all night to watch the fire and be the guard when everyone else sleeps. And some see and remember the weather patterns and can tell when it's a good weather and when the winter is going to come. And some look at the stars and the moon and can always remember and tell the directions where to go. And some know all the animal tracks and know all the animal sounds. And some smell and taste a lot better when things are funky, so nobody dies. And...
I initially misread that as 'gynecological and medical history' and it put an entirely different and quite unpleasant spin on the whole story.
Gynecology is part of medicine so it's already included!
What?! It gets lonely herding reindeer!
Every tribe can use a Rain Man. 👍
Rein Man
👏👌
👉 👌
🫣🤔👌
✌️ 👅
🎵 Reindeer are better than people..
Hey just so that you know, it is not polite to discuss reindeer count with outsiders.
But I know people just like that.
I am not clear if this comment is a joke or serious.
If serious, what do you mean, and why is that? I am curious.
It is serious. I have no clear explanation on "why", it's just a taboo, kind of good to know in case you happen to come to the reindeer herding area. I've learned it from basic reindeer herding dog training program orientation; I don't have any reindeer, but I do have reindeer herding dogs. They only allow a few breeds there that naturally know the drill and can survive for hours having fun in savage frost.
Reindeers are so small IRL, about human-size, incredibly warm to touch, and they make sounds like pigs. They are also somewhat afraid of humans, unlike regular livestock, they usually run away from you same as from a dog and sometimes counterattack the dogs, which is scary. Herders would be happy to tell you about their life and everything, but just don't discuss the head count.
How do we categorize someone who is less than this at reindeer herding?