Frequently Asked Questions
Every question below was asked exactly as written. Every answer is given exactly as meant. The Ministry of Literal Interpretation has reviewed this document 3 times and found no ambiguity, which is the correct number.
Answers, in the order the questions arrived
Questions are answered once. A question that is asked again receives the same answer, because the answer did not change.
On the Front
Is this a joke?
The Ministry of Literal Interpretation does not process jokes. Under Circular 9, section 2(a), a question of this class is returned to the sender unanswered, with the stamp RETURNED: NOT A QUESTION. The stamp is red. It is applied once.
The Programme of the Autism Liberation Front is a programme. It has 16 planks, a Five-Year Plan, a flag adopted by resolution, a budget of which 41.7% is allocated to the People's Commissariat for the Cure, and a Treatment Pipeline of three compounds and five behavioral protocols. A document with a budget is a serious document. This is a matter of definition, not opinion.
The Ministry notes that this question has been submitted 1,204 times since Plan Year 1 began. Each submission was returned. Each return was logged. The log is 1,204 lines long and is itself serious.
What is the Autism Liberation Front?
A political front for the liberation of the precise, the literal, and the quiet. Its aim is the establishment of the Literal Society: a society in which what is said is what is meant, lights do not hum, and no citizen is required to ask another how the weekend was.
The Front will take power. It will then cure the population that did not vote for it. This will be done compassionately and on schedule.
Do you have a leader?
No. Leaders require meetings. The Front has doctrine.
Doctrine does not need to be introduced, does not run late, and does not open with a story about its commute. Decisions are made by the Central Committee, which consists of the doctrine and whoever has read it most recently. Names are not recorded. A name is a form of eye contact.
What is the Line of Literal Truth?
The flag of the Front: one yellow line, horizontal, on a red field, adopted by Resolution 3/2026. The line runs from the left edge to the right edge without deviation. It does not curve, wave, or imply. It occupies 12% of the flag's height, a figure that was calculated.
Citizens who look at the flag and ask what it represents are directed to the flag, which is a line.
How is the Front funded?
By the Small Talk Levy, projected. Under Resolution 12/2026, every instance of "how are you" not followed by a genuine wish to know will be assessed at a fixed tariff once the Front holds the Ministry of Finance. The Institute for Applied Literality estimates 9.4 billion such instances per year in a nation of average size. At the proposed rate, the Levy alone funds the Programme 4.1 times over.
Until the Levy is in force, the Front is funded by the fact that its members do not go out.
Where is your office?
In a well-lit room with the lights off. The room has one window facing north, no fluorescent fixtures, a clock that does not tick, and a door with a sign that says the text of the sign. Visitors are received by appointment. Appointments are made in writing. Writing does not require a face.
What do I call you?
Comrade is acceptable. Systematizer is acceptable where the rank applies. "Hey you guys" is not acceptable and is logged. "Mate" is under review. "Buddy" has been reviewed and rejected, 7 votes to 0, with 0 abstentions, in 0 minutes.
Use of a person's actual name is acceptable, provided it is spelled correctly and not followed by a question about their weekend.
On Normies and the Cure
Do you hate normies?
No. We want them to recover.
Hatred is emotional reasoning, and emotional reasoning is the condition under treatment. The Front feels toward the normie what a physician feels toward a cough: nothing, followed by a treatment plan. Every normie is a citizen of the Literal Society who has not yet arrived. We will hold the door. We will not make conversation while holding it.
Anyone who reads this answer and still asks whether we hate normies is instructed to read it again. It says No. No is a complete sentence.
I think I might be a normie. What do I do?
Sit down. Then take the Diagnostic Test (Form 22-C). It has 12 questions and takes 4 minutes if you do not add commentary. Depending on your score you will be classified as Comrade, Recoverable, Symptomatic, or Full Normie.
Intake for Symptomatic and Full Normie classifications begins with Fluorescent Detox, followed by Literalin, 40 mg twice daily. The People's Commissariat for the Cure projects a recovery rate of 6.2% in Plan Year 1, rising to 87.3% by Plan Year 5, with the fastest progress among patients who stop saying "no worries" in the first month.
Self-referral is the first sign of recovery. You have already begun.
What counts as small talk?
The Department for the Suppression of Small Talk maintains the following taxonomy (Classification Schedule 4, revised):
- Class I, Meteorological. Any statement about the weather made to a person who is also standing in it.
- Class II, Interrogative-Hollow. "How are you", "How's it going", "You alright", when the speaker does not want data.
- Class III, Calendar-Adjacent. "Any plans for the weekend", "Is it Friday yet", "Can't believe it's already October".
- Class IV, Transitional Filler. "Anyway", "So", "Right then", used to occupy air while no thought is present.
- Class V, Coffee Deferred. "We should get coffee sometime", which proposes an event with no date, time, or venue and is therefore not a proposal.
- Class VI, Acoustic. Laughter emitted at a statement that was not a joke.
Exchanges of information with a purpose are not small talk, regardless of length. A 40-minute explanation of the 1839 Bradshaw timetable is not small talk. It is infrastructure.
Why is eye contact surveillance?
Because it is the collection of data from a citizen's face without a warrant. The normie demands that the speaker look at them not in order to hear better, since the ear is elsewhere, but in order to monitor for approval, doubt, and "tone". The Bureau of Eye Contact Abolition classifies this as unlicensed observation.
The Front's position is that the words are the message. If the words are insufficient, add more words. Do not add a face.
Is the Cure mandatory?
The Cure is voluntary. Then it becomes compulsory. Then, once the patient is cured, it becomes voluntary again, and the patient will find that they volunteer.
This sequence is described in the Treatment Pipeline as three stages. It has been reviewed by the People's Commissariat for the Cure, which found it consistent with itself.
What is your position on the weather?
The weather is not a topic. It is a condition, observable by all parties, requiring no announcement. The Front acknowledges that the weather exists and that it is, at every moment, some way.
Statements about the weather are accepted only when they contain a number: a temperature, a probability of precipitation, a wind speed in metres per second. "Lovely day" contains no number and is returned under Circular 9.
What is Emotional Reasoning Disorder?
ERD is the chronic condition in which a citizen treats a feeling as evidence. The normie who "just has a feeling" about a decision, who is "not sure why, but", and who reads the punctuation of a text message for its mood is presenting with ERD.
It is characterised by hint-based communication, the phrase "it's fine" spoken in a voice that is not fine, and a documented intolerance of silence lasting more than 4.2 seconds. It is treatable. The treatment is precision.
What is Literalin?
Literalin is the flagship compound of the People's Commissariat for the Cure. It is administered in tablet form, twice daily, with water and no comment. In Phase II trials, 40 mg of Literalin twice daily reduced the use of "kind of" by 63.8% and eliminated "literally" as an intensifier in 100% of subjects, who thereafter used the word correctly.
Side effects include an increased interest in timetables. This is not a side effect.
On Joining and Civic Duty
Can a normie join the Front?
Yes. As a Candidate, under supervision, after Fluorescent Detox. The Candidate is assigned a Cadre who monitors their conversation for 30 days. A Candidate who completes 30 days without a single Class II Interrogative-Hollow utterance is promoted.
Candidates may attend Front functions but may not open them. A Candidate who says "so, what do you do" at a function is returned to Detox without judgement, which is what we said.
What happens after I file Form 14-B?
Nothing is transmitted. The Front does not operate a server, a mailing list, or a telephone. Your report exists in triplicate in your conscience, where it is filed by date.
The Register of Reported Normies is a state of mind that is also a filing cabinet. It has 4 drawers. The bottom drawer is for repeat offenders. Filing the form is the civic act. The form is complete when you have stopped tolerating the conduct it describes.
What if I am autistic but like small talk?
The Front recognises the Recoverable. Enjoyment of small talk is not a neurotype. It is an exposure. Many comrades acquired the habit in open-plan offices between 1994 and 2019 and have since recovered in full.
The Recoverable are welcome at full rank. They are asked only to note, privately, on Form 22-C, the number of times per day they ask a question whose answer they do not want. Most stop counting after 3 days. Most stop asking after 9.
What are the ranks?
Candidate, Cadre, Systematizer, Commissar, Central Committee. Promotion is by demonstrated precision, not by seniority, charm, or "being a people person".
A Systematizer has alphabetised something that was not theirs. A Commissar has written a directive that was obeyed without a meeting. The Central Committee has read all of the above and said nothing.
Do I have to attend meetings?
No. The Front holds no meetings. Resolution 1/2026, which founded the Front, was adopted unanimously with 0 minutes of discussion, and this standard has been maintained since.
Business is conducted in writing. A comrade who calls a meeting is asked to circulate a document instead. A comrade who calls a meeting "to align" is reassigned to the Bureau of Taxonomy until they can define "align".
What are Quiet Hours?
Quiet Hours are the interval, under Directive No. 7, during which speech in shared spaces is permitted only when it conveys information. They run from 13:00 to 15:00 daily. They begin in Plan Year 2 (2027) in every space the Front administers and extend to all premises in Plan Year 4 (2029).
The Ministry of Sensory Environment reports that productivity during the pilot Quiet Hour rose by 31.2% and that nobody minded. This was measured.
Ask precisely.
Answer exactly.
Unlisted questions are answered by the Diagnostic Test. It has 12 questions. Most citizens find their question is one of them.
Take the Diagnostic Test (Form 22-C)