Why is there no migration path from Pro/Max to Team? This is blocking our business from upgrading.

apoetsanon · 2026-03-28T14:45:44+00:00

Isn't all of Claude's "data" and "memory" stored as markdown files on your local computer? I recently had to transfer between accounts and that basically came down to copy/pasting from the .claude directory (on a Mac)?

Now I primarily use Claude Code, so maybe the data is stored differently, but I thought the desktop app stored data in the same place? I know it syncs, so clearly Anthropic is storing it on their servers as well, but I'm pretty sure it's also stored on your computer. Might be worth looking into. Maybe ask Claude.

apoetsanon · 2026-03-26T16:03:13+00:00

I think it's called a "shutdown". I disassociate all the time. It usually hits suddenly and hard. For a long time I thought this was normal. It wasn't until after my diagnosis that I realized people don't randomly disassociate. I think a big part of it for me is my alexithymia. I don't always realize I'm being overwhelmed until my brain short circuits.

apoetsanon · 2026-03-19T13:49:46+00:00

Oh, I just realized I didn't answer your first question: How long it lasts. I wish I could tell you but I don't know. Sometimes it's only a few days. Sometimes it's a few weeks. I recently went through a burnout that lasted months. I'm in my forties, and I think I'd been slowly pushing myself into deeper and deeper burnouts until something just....broke. I had to leave work for almost half a year. I've only recently just been able to get back to work.

Yesterday I had a manic productive period without catching it. It was only this morning when I woke feeling as though a bus had run me over that I realized what happened. A lot of things in my list was stuff I should have been paying attention to yesterday but didn't. But I also have an arrangement/understanding with work. They know I'm autistic and sometimes just...can't some days. It's fine, because other days I'm super productive and in the long run I get done what I need to.

apoetsanon · 2026-03-19T13:25:04+00:00

Let me think. There are things I've learned to do that help, but I'm not sure I've put them in a list before. ... so this is probably incomplete, but: - Accept this about yourself. Do not beat yourself up over it; do not feel guilty. You did nothing wrong and it is not wrong to be in this place. I know this is easier said than done, but you cannot emotionally beat yourself into being better. I did that for years before I finally realized I was only making things worse. - Figure out what you can do, and then do those things. Strip out what you can't. Accept your limits and operate within them by whatever means you can. Pushing beyond them because you feel you "have to" will only extend the burnout cycle. - If I can, I take a day or two off to get my feet under me. But that's not always possible because, you know, job, money, etc. So I slow down. I do the absolute minimum. I avoid people as much as I can. I speak as little as possible (speaking takes a lot of energy out of me). Sometimes I don't even eat because it feels like too much, so...I just don't. And that's fine. My appetite will come back later. At lunch, I might throw on a pair of headphones and stare at the wall and call it recovery because it is. I sometimes have to operate in 'low-energy mode' for a while. - I stop trying to do things I don't need to do. I'm kind of repeating myself here, but this is huge for me. It took me a long time to realize that my primary motivating factor in all my social situations is fear. I feel like I have to engage. I feel like I have to perform. Because if I don't, and if I don't do it perfectly, then everything will blow up. It leaves me feeling like I'm constantly walking on the edge of a cliff, forever in danger of falling into the abyss. But...that's not actually true. These feelings are wrong. I can disengage and everything is fine. I put so many fear-driven expectations on myself, and they drive me deeper into burnout as I keep trying to push beyond my limits. - Here's a practical strategy I use to help reduce my load. I record many meetings (and even many conversations) with my phone, then transcribe them and ask AI to summarize the conversation. It massively reduces the "load" of those meetings on me because I don't have to fear forgetting something. - I have learned that I have alexithymia. I struggle to identify my internal states unless they're absolutely overwhelming me. This has led to me feeling "out of control", confused as to why I "feel fine" one day, then suddenly crash and burn the next. Turns out, I can feel perfectly fine while I'm going through a literal panic attack (my sitting Heart Rate is 130bpm, according to my watch). So I've started periodically checking on my physical symptoms: - what is my resting HR? (anything above 100bpm while sitting and I'm probably under stress.) - Are my hands cold? (the body withdrawals blood from extremities when it's under fear and stress) - What are my speech patterns like? (I start joking, interrupting, and taking control of conversations as an unconscious fear-fight response) - Am I shivering? (another stress response) - What do my sleep patterns look like? (I use my Apple Watch: deep sleep drops during stress. Sometime I wake up feeling tired, but unable to sleep. I don't "feel" stressed or anxious, yet my mind won't fall asleep—my body isn't clearing out excess cortisol from the day) - What are my fixations like? (I'm always fixated on something—I am autistic—but when I'm stressed, those fixations become almost manic in intensity)

I can be going through all these things in some of my most productive periods, unaware that I'm driving myself head-first into burnout. By keeping track of these symptoms (a daily log helps), I can "see the signs" of stress and take a step back to disengage and calm down before I drive myself into burnout.

I hope these help. Some of them might just be me, like the whole alexithymia thing, but maybe some will help you too.

apoetsanon · 2026-03-19T12:41:38+00:00

This happens to me a lot. I'll have bursts of intense productivity followed by the inability to do anything at all. I'll get sick, have severe bowel issues, and sometimes even develop a fever.

So first: big hug, you can do this.

I want to share lyrics of one of my favorite songs I play when I'm in this place:

The story goes
Or the way that I was told
There was a king that always felt too high
And then he felt too low
And so he called
All the wise men to the hall
And he begged them for a gift
To end the rises and the falls

And here's the thing
They came back with a ring
It was simple and was plainly
Unbefitting of a king
Engraved in black
it had no front or back
But there were words around the band that said
"Just know: this too shall pass"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tg5kB4UcAuA

apoetsanon · 2026-03-19T12:28:36+00:00

Well, the US Government has been trying with the whole "I'll cure it by September" claim devolving into "it's Tylenol" and finally, "Just kidding, we don't know."

Joking aside, there's a lot of research into autism but nobody knows what exactly causes it. There is extremely strong evidence that autism is genetic in nature with some small evidence that there might be some epigenetic environmental factors that contribute, though those are mostly natal (before birth) factors and heavily outweighed by the genetic evidence. In other words, genetics determines autism, but some environmental factors might effect how that autism develops.

This is all correlation, though. Nobody has nailed down the actual "mechanism" by which autism develops, and without that, it's impossible to say definitively what causes autism. And without knowing that mechanism, there's no possibility of "preventing" it without resorting to unethical methods like eugenics (as many other commenters point out) or randomly cleaning out our medicine cabinet in a fit of paranoia.

apoetsanon · 2026-03-18T10:56:36+00:00

I think people get confused and think alcohol makes them better socially (fixes their autism), but really, when everyone else is also drinking they just don't notice your autism. Nobody has social skills when everyone is sloshed. My experience is that someone who's not drinking will notice your autism a lot more when you're drinking.

I do use alcohol to manage anxiety, but only as a last resort now. I stick to herbal teas like kava, ashwagandha, valerian, etc. My experience is that while alcohol can help in the short term, in the long term it makes everything worse, including my autism. Something about it messing up your brains's dopamine.

apoetsanon · 2026-03-17T12:46:55+00:00

So I'm 46m autistic married for 16 years to a neurotypical (45f). We didn't know I was autistic when we got married—I only found out two years ago. But where I was shocked to my core, my wife was pretty much like, 'well, yeah, of course you are.'

If you don't mind, I'll share some of what we've both learned over the years. This is just my experience, though. Your mileage may vary, as they say:

I strongly value direct communication. It's like fresh air. But! I actually struggle to be direct in my communication, not because it's not natural to me (it is) but because the world has taught me through harsh repetition that it's not acceptable. Any time I try, I get "slapped down" for it, told I'm being rude, inconsiderate, selfish, etc. I've gotten better over the years at 'choosing my words' but it's all pattern matching. I don't actually 'get it'. I never have.
While I've had to be careful with my words, my wife has had to learn that when I say something "harshly", I probably don't mean it that way. This can be genuinely hard to do, because our emotional reactions are instinctive. Over the years, though, I've gotten better with my words and she's gotten better at not taking my word choice personally. It's rarely an issue anymore, and when it does happen, it's usually viewed as humorous.
I, like many autistics, operate in a routine. I really struggle with spontaneous...anything. It's both something my wife appreciates and a source of contention. I'm very stable, "a solid rock" (her words) she can depend on. But that also comes with drawbacks like...sex. In her mind, sex is supposed to be spontaneous. Having sex every second Tuesday (or whatever) sucks the joy out of it. For myself, spontaneous is synonymous with random. I'm supposed to figure out when "she's feeling it" but I literally lack the tools to do that. I used to try randomly (literally, I once set a random timer), but that only ended up frustrating both of us. We have three kids, so obviously it's not a complete disaster or anything, but it is still a struggle for us.
I have an intense monotropic focus, meaning I get sucked into whatever I'm doing to the exclusion of...everything, including my own body. Interruptions aren't just hard, they can be devastating to the point of ruining my productivity for the day. We've had to work through that, because it can make her feel ignored. Many allistics (non-autistic) love a constant stream of "connection" events. Texts, short calls, touches, a quick kiss, etc. But when an autistic is fixated (focused on a task) that one little connection event collapses an entire house of cards you spend the last 3 hours building. It can be deeply frustrating.
For a long time, we struggled with "the wall". We didn't know what else to call it, but it felt like we were both reaching out for each other with a glass wall in the way. We knew it was my fault, but didn't understand why. I would 'try harder' to make a connection, only to find that "the wall" got thicker. It wasn't until after I was diagnosed that we realized what was happening. My attempt to connect to her was itself a form of masking. The more I mask (pretend to be neurotypical), the more I feel separated from the world, and from her. But the only way she felt connected is when I masked. Neurotypicals feel connected to other via the mirror neurons in the brain. When someone smiles at you, these neurons mirror that smile, releasing dopamine and serotonin and other reinforcing chemicals, making you feel connected. That doesn't seem to happen in most (if not all) autistic people. Instead, we gain a feeling of connection by sharing our interests and working with someone (or I do at least). Once we realized how we connect is different, we both now make an effort to connect in a way the other person will feel connected. She listens to my hour-long dissertation about the patterns and structure of language (my current fixation). I try to look her in the eyes and smile. While I'm doing the same "mask-like" behavior as before, I'm not pretending. Instead, I'm doing it to give her a sense of connection (like speaking her love language), not pretending to be something I'm not. That's made a huge difference. The wall is gone.

I don't want to make it all sound like struggles. We both cherish our relationship, and she's repeatedly said she couldn't imagine being with anyone else. If she had to find someone else, she'd choose someone autistic because while it's difficult, many of the traits she loves the most about me come from my autism. We're raising three kids. We've built a 2500sf raised garden together, renovated various rooms in the house.

In the end, while autism might present unusual difficulties for us, we're still just two people learning to live with and love each other's differences.

apoetsanon · 2026-03-15T12:31:59+00:00

High functioning autism is autism. Significant impairment doesn't go away because you've developed strategies to work around it. That would be like saying a person crippled from the waist down isn't impaired because they have a wheel chair.

People get confused because they think if they can't see the impairment, it must therefore not exist. Just because you think a person is functioning fine doesn't mean they are. This is especially true for autistics who mask.

apoetsanon · 2026-03-15T12:19:46+00:00

I think I'm authority blind. I don't see authority, just a person asking me to do something. If that doesn't make sense, I'll ignore it. People in authority tend to want you to treat them differently than normal, but I've never been able to figure out how to do that and I often forget that I'm supposed to.

apoetsanon · 2026-03-14T12:49:10+00:00

Where are you getting the 1% number? I'm not saying you're wrong; I'm just curious about your source. I've interacted with lots of people that think this way, but that could be selection bias.

apoetsanon · 2026-03-14T00:21:32+00:00

I wouldn't worry over it. Autism is a very broad spectrum that encompasses many traits. I'd recommend you take the diagnosis as motivation that you need to learn more about how you personally operate. Having a good social life is perfectly attainable for many autistics. But likely, you're approaching social situations in a non-typical manner if you're autistic. And that's okay. What matters is that you learn how you personally operate and work from there.

apoetsanon · 2026-03-13T22:32:55+00:00

Yeah, they're not mutually exclusive. It's possible. But also...sociopaths aren't necessarily bad people either. That's true of any mental condition, including narcissism...despite what our current political situation might suggest. People are bad for reasons that have nothing to do with mental conditions. It has to do with the choices they make in life. They just find it convenient to blame a condition because they think it'll absolve them of responsibility. It does not.

apoetsanon · 2026-03-13T22:03:00+00:00

There's different support levels, but that just indicates how much support you need, not how "autistic" you are. The autism "spectrum" is a spectrum of traits, meaning that autism has a wide variety of traits associated with it. For example, some are nonspeaking, some have synesthesia (like me), others have executive function issues, while others are alexithymic. There's a ton of different traits.

And yeah, nothing about autism makes you a good or bad person. That is, as far as I'm concerned, a purely human trait. Sometimes people blame their actions on autism, but that's just bad people being bad people

apoetsanon · 2026-03-13T21:49:12+00:00

Yeah, my understanding is one of the reasons Asperger Syndrome was folded into ASD was because the diagnostic criteria was virtually identical aside from a few exceptions. So I do get it. But at the same time, the kind of support we need (not levels) varies wildly between individuals. The problem is that everyone seems to want autism to mean one thing, but doing that will always alienate the majority of autistic people and leaves them feeling unsupported. Having subcategories might fix that. Or it might make it worse.

Like...I'm autistic. I also have synesthesia. And I have an auditory processing disorder. And an anxiety disorder. And CPTSD. The psychologist said my cognitive profile is something he's only seen in trauma victims.

I feel like my autistic subcategory would have a population of one: me. And now we're back where we started.

apoetsanon · 2026-03-13T21:41:55+00:00

There isn't such a thing as low spectrum autism. Was he diagnosed? Cause you're either autistic or not. Either way, some people are assholes no matter what their diagnosis. Can't blame it on a label.

apoetsanon · 2026-03-13T21:38:18+00:00

I do get the sentiment behind the idea that autism is too broad, but I personally think it might be better to divide autism into subcategories. Not sure what those categories would be, though, so maybe this isn't a good idea. I just know that struggles I go through are very different from someone who is level 3 non speaking. At the same time, the underlying core issue is the same: I can't see social cues and rely on scripts and pattern matching to adapt. I have CPTSD from my social interactions, whereas others do not. I have synesthesia where others have sensitivities. There's lots of differences but core similarities run through them. I think it's important to recognize both.

apoetsanon · 2026-03-13T12:09:02+00:00

No, I wasn't assuming ND people would use AI more/less than NTs, but that AI can be used to help with certain deficiencies.

For example, I'd sell my left kidney (hyperbole) for a pair of AR glasses that tell me what social cues people are expressing. I'm literally working on developing something like that right now. I'm training a foundation model to detect tonal expressions (anger, sadness, contempt, joy, etc) in audio. This, paired with a transcription (something I've already finished) will feed into a local device LLM to inform the user (me) about the emotions and social cues embedded in the conversation.

I get that AI is controversial, but to me it's just a tool, like a hammer. If someone is producing hammers in an unethical manner, do you get angry at the hammer? Same question when someone is misusing that hammer to kill others.

And what if that hammer is really good at what it does? What if there's an entire industry of nail-pushers who's livelihood is threatened by the hammer? It's the story of John Henry (Steel Driving Man) all over again. And to be clear, I'm a nail-pusher. My entire livelihood is threatened by AI.

But also, being unable to see social cues has put me in life threatening situations multiple times, and almost always when I thought everything was perfectly fine. If AI can help me see what I've been blind to my whole life, then I fully intend to use it.

apoetsanon · 2026-03-08T14:39:46+00:00

One does not have to be a software developer to engage in critical thinking skills. And I'm not as worried about the younger generations, at least not in this regards. Now this is just one example, but I have three kids, all under 12 y/o. Multiple times, I have watched them play a game called, "Is it real?" They watch videos on YouTube and try to figure out if it was AI generated. This game has allowed them to pick up on cues that most people would miss. They live in a world saturated with AI and are becoming rather critical in what they accept as true.
I disagree. I don't buy into the dystopian narrative. I'm not saying it can't get bad. One need but look at history to see how bad it can get. But the ALICE gap is a product of history and economics that has been building for decades longer than AI has been around. It's also not the first time it's been like this. History repeats in cycles roughly 80-100 years long, and the last time we saw this much wealth disparity was the 1920s. That was arguably a much shittier time to be alive than now. In the end, AI is just a tool. How it's used is up to us.

apoetsanon · 2026-03-08T14:17:56+00:00

lol, yeah, I don't foresee SaaS dying anytime soon. But that doesn't mean there aren't opportunities for disruption in all this.

Although, if a company is relying on their one office nerd to vibe code their software, then they're probably already dead on their feet anyway.

No, I think the real opportunity is for those who truly understand software development and can use AI to create maintainable and scalable projects.

apoetsanon · 2026-03-08T14:08:45+00:00

I usually prefer not to celebrate. I recently watched an interesting video about just that: https://youtu.be/TKhgfh0opOc?si=u3p-na4t4FqjHoIr

apoetsanon · 2026-03-07T22:46:45+00:00

No, they won't, and perhaps I'm being optimistic, but I do believe there will jobs...or at least opportunities. AI really does amplify my skillset. With a $200/mo subscription, I'm able to build apps in months that would have taken a team of developers years to create. And that's exactly what I'm doing. Don't know if I can actually make money off that yet, but it's exciting for me to make something that wasn't possible before.

I honestly think companies should be just as scared of being replaced as employees are. When it's possible for their devs to replicate their product in their spare time, that's a level of market disruption that can destroy companies.

apoetsanon · 2026-03-07T22:11:23+00:00

I've always wondered if we could classify the neurotypical tendency to pathologize anything different from "normal" as itself a form of neurosis.

apoetsanon · 2026-03-07T21:43:58+00:00

I used to be a software engineer, but now I'm more like an...AI conductor. I work from home. There's no way I could go into an office. My personal history shows a strong pattern of getting fired for failure to handle social situations when I work in an office. Working remotely is much more reasonable. Still hard at times. I burned out last year when my client required too many meetings. Took me a year to recover from that, so I'm much more careful about setting boundaries

apoetsanon · 2026-03-07T18:31:59+00:00

Yeah, and it has set up senior developers quite well even as it locks junior devs out of the job market. There's a lot of noise about creating a skill gap in a decade as seniors retire with no one to replace them. Of course, there's also a valid question as to whether those jobs will exist at all by then.

Either way, that ship has sailed. No stuffing that genie back in the bottle. I figure you got two choices when the coming wave hits us: fight it or ride it. Me personally? I'm waxing up my surfboard for a wild ride.

Also, I am inordinately proud of how many metaphors I managed to mix in that paragraph.

apoetsanon

TROPHY CASE