I fully acknowledge that conditions affecting the brain will have a much larger impact on one's identity. That much is obvious.
That being said, if I had the option to "correct" most of my personal atypical genetic "variations," I would do so.
Colorblindness? Yep, I don't want that.
Congenital flat feet? I don't need those.
IBS? No thanks.
Hair loss starting at 17? Nope!
Weird neurological symptoms no doctor has ever been able to fully diagnose? I would pay almost any amount of money to make those go away.
Everything you described is a physical trait, not something deeply intertwined with your personality and identity.
For people with mild autism, a closer analogy would be an aspect of your personality. Do you like to travel and explore new places? Imagine it was a major aspect of your life, to the point that you'd get uncomfortable staying in one place too long. How would you like it if someone told you that you should be cured of that, and you'd be better off able to settle down and be "normal"? Do you feel that you would still be you after that kind of change? If it helps, take the exact same question and reverse it. If you were told you had to be "cured" to love travelling to that degree, would you consider that a major change to your personality?
I'm purposely not speaking for severe autism here. I think the big problem with this debate is people arguing past each other, both sides saying "autism" and meaning wildly different things. I really wish they had different names.
But the reason it's called a spectrum is that there's no easy/non-arbitrary place to put a line between these "things that you wish had different names."
Sure, it's easy to see the difference between a very mildly autistic person and a non-verbal, highly interesting impaired person who can't possibly live alone. But when you fill in the population of all the people between them, it becomes clear that there's no natural place to draw a line.
Which is why there is a push to get rid of the 'disorder' wording in Autism Spectrum Disorder in the popular zeitgeist.
If all humans can be placed somewhere on the continuous spectrum of autism, then that's just a measure of humans. Just like how height or weight are continuous but normally distributed measures, autism is beginning to be seen as a normally distributed measure (more research required though).
Granted, how autism is measured is not at all the same as how something like height is measured. As we continue to advance with social media, digital tracking, etc, we may find a window into how to measure autism empirically, but who knows.
If/when that occurs, then yes, you could at least talk about standard deviations and start drawing borders between highly/mildly/average/low/lowest autism that a person has.
I’d argue that it’s only autism if it’s severe. During the 1980’s being socially awkward wasn’t a clinical medical condition.
If you disrupted class in the 1980’s, you got taken out of general population, and put into special education with a high ratio of teachers or aides, and received a proximity of attention as needed, and that was your generalized clinical marker for genuine problems. The consensus of the elementary grade day-care center we call kindergarten through fifth grade in public schools resolved who was incapable of participating at a reasonable level.
Meanwhile, being a weirdo with eccentricities and preferences wasn’t something that demanded medication and diagnosis and labels and highly precise rules for what’s normal and what’s not. You could be awkward. It wasn’t a big deal.
Now, that is no longer true. People are keeping score starting at five years old, boxing kids into limited futures of medication and unrelenting demands for strict behavioral protocols.
So, what changed? The schools. The doctors. The kids didn’t change. The adults did. The trend was to demand more from children, and thus force them into tighter constraints in adulthood. The trend was to try and force a society to do more with less, and to weed out the weak.
Kids have to do homework in kindergarten, and that is bullshit. They shouldn’t have homework until middle school, really. They should just be kids. They shouldn’t have anxiety about grades when they’re little. They should be permitted to exist as tiny little humans, getting a first look at a gigantic world. Up until age ten, they should just be exposed to what it means to be a person. By ten, their personality is developed, and with puberty around the corner, a few short years to tighten up the basics would work, if public schools were competent. Big if.
But, when it comes to “spectral autism” the premise is a joke. If you can brush your teeth, comb your hair, tie your shoes, and iron and fold clothes but choose not to then you aren’t autistic. If you’re capable of working at McDonald’s but choose not to then you aren’t autistic. If you could theoretically wait tables or tend a bar, as a capable server but choose not to then you aren’t autistic. If you can drive a car across town, you aren’t autistic.
Ain’t no spectrum about it. Either it’s debilitating pathology or it isn’t. People aren’t suffering from syndromes at unprecedented scales. The rules of society changed in the late 90’s, and judgement is passed with greater scrutiny than ever before.
Sorry, but you can't simplify autism into just two camps like that.
My personal example is I was diagnosed with autism in the early 1980s. And it really was warranted. I had serious difficulties with school – I had problems speaking, dressing myself and tying my shoes (amongst other things). I got into rages and fights. And my personal relationship skills with anyone outside of my family were zero. But I also had a pretty decent IQ, and I learned to manage the overstimulation and emotional tsunamis. Then I was able to survive.
There was also a high-IQ program in my school district, filled mostly with people 'on the spectrum' (not generally as disadvantaged as myself though), and the teachers involved with that helped me through school generally. But I couldn't go to college, it was just too much.
Life since hasn't been easy but I've been able to work as a technician and take care of myself. So I don't fit in either of your camps, and lots of other autistics don't either.
Thank you for your story. My younger son has been diagnosed with early childhood autism. My wife and I think that it is not in a very strong form, but our neuropaediatrician tells us that regular kindergarten would be too much for him.
In our opinion the problem is that regular school is just not flexible enough to accomodate children like him. So we are going to enrol him in a Montessori school where he already knows people from the playgroup. The headmistress told us that they accept him and they will employ a therapeutic education teacher for him and two other childrens who are also special.
>If you can brush your teeth, comb your hair, tie your shoes, and iron and fold clothes but choose not to then you aren’t autistic.
"Choose" is an awkward word here. There are autistic people who will do alk these things, have a slight road bump on life, and it will all fracture apart. Then they will self-isolate for awhile and eventually emerge and try it again. There's a sort of category of people who can do these things, want to do these things on a genuine and honest level, but can only manage them with great difficulty.
I do agree with the general notion that todays conception of autism was generated out of thin air due to the hypercompetitiveness of society. The entire concept of a "spectrum disorder" is a bit odd. I also notice how nobody seems to be correctly measuring if this new paradigm is actually helping the patients. The amount of stigma that exists now that did not exist in the 80s towards the exact same kind of person is incredible. Many of these people would manage, with difficulty, completely unassisted.
I sometimes wonder if the mental health field has damned the people they call autistic while believing they're helping them. The insistence on labelling peoples psychological quirks as a "disorder" it hurts people in profound ways.
> There are autistic people who will do alk these things, have a slight road bump on life, and it will all fracture apart.
This happens to everyone, including neurotypicals. It's what used to be known as a nervous breakdown, and more recently is labeled as acute stress disorder. Sure, the level of stress resilience can differ greatly among individuals, but that's the point: it's a difference in degree, not in kind!
I would argue it's messier than just variation in magnitude - there are different groups of behavioral changes that happen under different levels of duress.
I know people who, under heavy stress, aggressively clean everything, even if it's just been cleaned, as a coping mechanism. I also know people who fail to clean anything under mild stress, and lots of somewhat odd subsets.
I would suspect you could pattern match these and get subsets which will be more commonly comorbid with some autistic traits, but the patterns can matter for what you can predict about other often-comorbid things, as well as which coping mechanisms may or may not work.
Note that "making choices" that expose one to extra sensory or other stimulation is a central difficulty in autism. You don't feel every hair on the toothbrush as a separate hit against your gums, but someone else may.
What we have here is a failure of imagination (leading to stark black and white thinking.)
The low functioning with autism by the way tend to be happier than the high functioning. So from the perspective of the person being curee I'm not certain being low functioning would make them want to be cured more.
How do you know its genetic? Things like mercury does that too. I don't like to bring this up too often if I have no data at all because it sounds so alarmist, but I can only post publically so just in case... My own unfortunate experience: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19575424 Do you have any tooth fillings, for example, if so what kind? Was the source in my case. Jaw bones in very bad shape, never noticed by x-ray, only when a doctor trying to inject into buccal mucosa ended up diving deep into the jaw bones was it discovered how bad it was. In four places - all of them ex amalgam tooth fillings for two decades, and healed by injecting chelator. Lots and lots of conditions cleared that are quite common, such as psoriasis, and where no doctor ever considers heavy metals. How much it had affected my brain, direction of thoughts, dreams (literally), I only noticed through years of (university clinic researcher doctor controlled) chelation (DMPS, DMSA). Huge changes. And until I was forced to look into my problems I called myself "health" all the way through three decades of suffering from things which are all completely gone now, but which I always thought were "normal" and/or "part of (my) life".
The extra copy alpha tryptase trait is may very well be involved in a large number (perhaps majority) of cases of autism, but it's very early days re that trait. Here, "involved" means a necessary condition (for those cases) but not a sufficient condition. PS - melanin (a tan) is more effective than chelation in sequestering mercury.
You'd pay almost any amount of money to make your color blindness go away? Do yo have one of the ultra rare varieties that severely impact your sight? As a person with run of the mill red-green color blindness, it doesn't affect me much at all.
I think that that list was in order of decreasing desirability and his opinion of color blindness was "I don't want that" and his opinion of weird neurological symptoms was that he would pay anything to make them go away.
I was thinking the same thing. In the genetic lottery, I have colorblindness and 20/13 vision. I would much rather that than normal color vision and 20/20 or worse vision.
You'd rather have color blindness than something that can be corrected by surgery so effectively that poor vision is no longer disqualifying for fighter jet pilots?
Yes. The only reason I notice I have color blindness is because it is pointed out to me. Outside of that, I would never know I have it. It is at best worst a mild annoyance once every few months.
On the other hand, eye corrective surgery does not correct to 20/20 unless your vision isn't very bad (to your fighter jet pilot reference, it says your vision must be correctable to 20/20). There is also a lot of side effects to corrective surgery. One is you suffer from dry eyes for the rest of tour life. You can also get halos at night and have permanent damage to night vision. This is on tip of the fact that corrective surgery is not permanent, age will revert the issue.
If I had a choice between the two, I would much rather take naturally good vision with colorblindness versus bad vision without.
Anyone who thinks autism is just a difference in personality that doesn't need treatment is welcome to foot the bill for all the people including my nephew who has difficulty talking and cannot live independently now and may very well continue to be this way long after his parents pass away.
It can be. It can also be more serious. This is the whole point of the article - everyone is arguing about two entirely different things, a most extreme version and a least extreme version, which need different ways of thinking about how they should be approached, and in some cases treated, and in others accepted.
Arguing in absolutes only serves to enflame both sides.
There's a difference between the treatment that his caregivers require in order to reduce their workload and manage their costs, and the treatment that he wants for managing his own condition.
(I appreciate that this is extremely difficult or impossible for the most severely impaired people, but the original article involves people with autism who are more articulate about their condition)
I think we need to accept that from this point forward some subset of the internet will be outraged about literally everything, and try not to let it have a disproportionate effect on our actions.
I believe there already is research as to whether or not autism is best understood as a medical condition (e.g. correlation with stress disorders, physical disorders, etc).
There is no reason we can't acknowledge "Hey we should find out the biological/environmental reason this is happening" while also not patronizing the people whom it pertains to.
Same for any form of attention deficit, depression, other involuntary but mostly benign deviances.
We’re probably all better off because some people have autism. I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s an evolutionary explanation for its prevalence. However, there are so many consequences to being “abnormal” that most neurotypicals would refuse to be reincarnated as autistic if given the choice. If you have autism, the traits conferred by the condition have become part of your identity. You very well may not see it as a disease the way that some people do. There’s no escaping society’s judgment though. Many social interactions are worse, and if they’re not it’s because you’re expending energy to hide yourself.
We must all become more accepting of each other and broaden the range of “acceptable behavior.” I was at Starbucks yesterday and overheard 2 friends dissecting everything they didn’t like about other people for over an hour. The subjects of gossip didn’t seem to have wronged them in any way. Why is this a normal thing in America? Do we have nothing better to do than judge others?
I’m going to guess gossip to that degree isn’t just an American thing. I’m 100% with you, though. My oldest daughter is autistic. She’s an amazing little kiddo, and I’m super proud of her. Her therapy has really helped her, but I’m worried for her. Society is going to black ball her and it’s fucking stupid. The parents are the worst too. My daughter has been friends with a handful of kids since she was 2, and, after her diagnosis, she started not getting invited to parties and other gatherings “because we don’t want to cause her stress”. Any parent reading this that decides to not invite a kid because they’re autistic — here’s a big fuck you. Don’t try to pretend you’re doing my kid a favor.
so what should they do? explain how they should think about inviting your kid to events that they might worry would be too much? It's an awkward conversation for them to have too. What is the consideration? is this different for every autistic kid?
No 2 autistic people are the same. For example, my girlfriend is sensitive to certain sounds. Our daughter appears to have the same issue, but we don't know for sure yet. I learned to get less sensitive to it over the years.
As for your question: invite the kid and take their needs into account? Is it really that hard to grasp? I don't get it. Some kids have an allergy. Some kids have lice. Some kids have tamper tantrums. Some kids have farts. Some kids have skin infections. Some kids pee in their pants. Some kids have ADHD. Some kids have.. well I guess you get the point by now.
Try out the children playing at your (or their) premises, see if they get along with each other without too much hassle. Make clear rules. Explain things in a positive way. If it doesn't work out, be honest about it to the parents. Don't make it as if "you want to do your kid a favor". You're doing it for selfish reasons because you cannot handle the kid. That's fine (though not ideal), but do say that. Cause that's actually what you're really saying in a kind of nice package which is as fake as you can make it.
Yeah, I don't want kids with lice, skin infections or temper tantrums over at my house. So I'm not sure the burden is on me to take their needs into account.
What they should do is invite the person and the person can decide if it’s too much for them. In this case, my wife and I are perfectly capable deciding if she’s not going to handle it well. If she was older she would be perfectly capable of deciding if she can handle it or not. The thing that makes me the most upset is that the person having the party decides that it’s too much for another person, and then acts like they’re doing you a favor. Don’t take the decision away from the person.
> 80% of people with autism have intellectual disabilities(low iq) and as many as 50% are non-verbal.
That's because diagnosis is geared to those people. Adults who cope relatively well in most situations don't know they have autism, don't seek a diagnosis, and there isn't a dx service available to them if they do know what to ask for.
Hmm... I hope someone more knowledgeable than me in biology jumps in to lend their thought, but I'm extremely skeptical of takes like this - another one I see a lot online is that somehow homosexuality has "evolutionary explanations." It doesn't jive with my understanding of how evolution works.
Statements like that seem to imply there is some sort of intelligent force or plan behind evolution, when instead it is "directed" by noise, not "reacting to" noise.
As far as I know there's no way for evolution to "sprinkled a bit of autism" across a population for an increased chance of population survival - I don't see how such a mechanism could exist.
That's not to say that autism doesn't somehow improve society or populations, maybe it does, I don't know. But I don't think we can point to evolution as the mechanism.
Evolutionary pressures aren't as simple as "if it lowers your chance of reproducing it's bad." You can read "The Selfish Gene" for more info.
Consider a gene that promotes compassion, selflessness and sharing. While it may lower your individual fitness, groups with some individuals with this gene may fare better as a whole.
Same as autism. For example, say autistic people see connections that other people don't. Having a low rate of "different thinkers" is positive for the group as a whole, even if the individuals may be disadvantaged in other ways.
Why would an individuals fertility be increased because the fertility of his group is increased? The gene would not propagate unless he has more children than his peers. There is no evidence of evolution by natural selection to begin with, though.
If the group with the trait has on average a slightly higher reproduction rate than a group without, that is sufficient.
This doesn't mean that any particular individual will have a higher rate (although most will).
One hypothesis for the spread of Christianity in the Roman Empire is that Christianity provided social services that improved reproductive rates by a couple of percentage points. Maintain that over a particularly stressful upheaval in the social order and you don't need many generations to significantly outbreed your rivals.
> Christianity provided social services that improved reproductive rates
Social services, and perhaps this might have some impact:
"In 1968, Pope Paul VI issued his landmark encyclical letter Humanae Vitae (Latin, “Human Life”), which reemphasized the Church’s constant teaching that it is always intrinsically wrong to use contraception to prevent new human beings from coming into existence."
The gene can be propagated by individuals who did not express it - it could be sex-linked, it could be recessive, it could require two or three conditions to be met, etc. (Also, propagation doesn't require 'more children than his peers', it just requires children that go on to reproduce).
> As far as I know there's no way for evolution to "sprinkled a bit of autism" across a population for an increased chance of population survival - I don't see how such a mechanism could exist.
Not strictly autism, but sickle cell anemia is a disease caused by carrying two copies of a recessive gene. If you have two copies of the recessive gene, you suffer from a debilitating illness. If you carry one copy of the normal gene and one copy of the disease causing recessive version, you have increased resistance to malaria, which has killed more humans than everything else combined. So evolution definitely does contribute to the prevalence of sickle cell anemia. Almost everyone in the US we suffers from sickle cell anemia is of sun Saharan African descent, where malaria is especially relevant.
While autism certainly isn't as simple as sickle cell anemia, there does exist the possibility that genetic components which contribute to autism can also contribute to other, more positive traits with fewer risk factors.
Well, I think one issue is that evolution acts on base-pair mutations and not traits. So (to wildly make a possibility up) suppose that mutations X, Y, and Z are each individually beneficial, but having all of them at once gives you autism. Then the population probably converges on a distribution that has some nonzero probability of X, Y, and Z.
That’s another 100% plausible evolutionary explanation. Autism is caused by genes that correlate with intelligence, which is positive for evolutionary fitness. If you get a certain mixture of those genes, you get autism. That won’t stop the genes from propagating though.
You're right and evolution is easily misunderstood as deterministic when it is only the result of random mutations in a population over time. Every variation you see does not mean it has a positive evolutionary advantage, only that those it wasn't prohibitive to reproduction
It's a normal thing all over the world. The answer unfortunately is yes, most people are shallow and vindictive in a negligent sort of way. There's a saying that great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss things, and small minds discuss people. By this metric the majority undoubtedly possess small minds.
> I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s an evolutionary explanation for its prevalence.
It's kind of a corollary to the No Free Lunch theorom, really. The genes that cause autism in one configuration are probably vital in most other configurations and turning them off willy-nilly would likely be bad.
>> Do we have nothing better to do than judge others?
That's kind of what you're doing right now. We use judgement all the time but the definition of acceptable criteria is not universal nor static. You can work to change the narrative but you can't fix the game.
I’m sure that exists everywhere, but if the magnitude is greater in America, I’d guess it’s because we live in a culture of hyper-optimization. Autism is just another thing that can be deemed as sub-optimal. It doesn’t even help that we’re more individualistic, because at least in conforming cultures there are simple rules that you can follow for social acceptance.
Part of the problem is given the "spectrum" you can have people from wide ranges (and their supporters, caregivers, detractors) all talking about their truth and getting up in arms when people advocate solutions globally that wouldn't apply on their side.
There's an observation I made a while ago: pretty much all people that I heard stating that they are "on the spectrum" were americans.
Why is that? I never checked but I would be surprised if the prevalence is higher than in other western countries. So what is it? Is it better diagnosed or just wrong (wrong diagnosis, self-diagnosis, pidgeonholing bc it's cool to be non-average,...), or maybe there is an issue that people in Europe wouldn't admit that they are on the spectrum and the prevalence is actually on the same level as in the US?
Every human is "on the spectrum". The guidelines are extremely flimsy and if you've ever been stressed in a social situation you're essentially on the spectrum. In software engineering I hear it almost as a joking term of endearment.
This sort of folk-argument is common vs depression, too, and works just as well - yet there is such a thing as clinical depression, and it's just a different animal than a reactive funk.
An acquaintance was involved in diagnosis of autism in US schools.
There are autistics that clearly have something severely wrong with them. They flap their hand, frequently have extremely low IQs, and are not going to be able to effectively participate in society in any meaningful way. You don't need much any expertise to diagnose these people, other than to know that autism exists. Her expertise came in diagnosing people whom I think many would challenge the diagnosis of. It seemed anybody who exhibited less interest in social interactions or engaged awkwardly, and had 'quirks' was designated as being "on the spectrum."
There are radically different different rates of diagnosis in the US by state. Though there are going to be some biases between states, this does seem at least reasonably strong evidence against any sort of genetic, environmental, or other factor. It's obvious that "autism", whatever it may be be, does exist but I think the sharp differences in diagnostic rates are probably simply down to the clinician choosing to diagnose (or not) people who do not clearly exhibit as autistic. It'd be interesting to have 10 clinicians each independently diagnose the same 1000 children. I expect you'd see some fairly sharp differences between them. Go figure, another aspect of psychology that's not replicable.
> There are radically different different rates of diagnosis in the US by state. Though there are going to be some biases between states, this does seem at least reasonably strong evidence against any sort of genetic, environmental, or other factor.
It's not, since there are strong environmental differences between states, and probably significant differences in population genetics.
There may be clinical biases, too, but there existence dish by open our the other factors.
As noted elsewhere here by others, the clinical definition of Autism has radically changed recently, with Asperger's being folded in. This was done- in a vain attempt to increase funding for children with Asperger's, IMHO.
The entire DSM-V definition of autism was transparently guided by political concerns such as making sure nobody no longer qualified as disabled. Which fundamentally makes it an expansion of the prior definition.
It's absolutely mind boggling how the bible of psychiatry can be so dominated by politics and have very little actual connection to replicable science or empirical data.
My impression is that not all cultures demand extroversion so much. See Japan, Austria, etc as some easy throw away examples. No one there is considered strange for being a bit stiff and un-expressive.
Hikikomori sure as hell isn't extroversion. It's going to encompass a lot of introverts. And it is considered at the level of an offense against society.
> No one there is considered strange for being a bit stiff and un-expressive.
While you may not be expected to express your emotions, Japan has lots of public "rituals" that you WILL comply with or be labeled "strange". (The late evening salaryman drinking party, for example.)
Maybe it's not "extroversion" toward strangers, but Japan is extremely uptight about your interactions within your "in-group". You will interact and you will show proper deference, etc. Attempting to duck these public rituals or not interacting at them with gusto will very quickly get you approbation.
That's extremely hostile to introverts--probably more so than even the US where there are areas where people will simply leave you alone.
Only "H implies I" is necessary for his statement to go through, not "H IFF I." Do you intend to say that recluses who are mostly interested in what other people are up to, or think, exist?
But he didn't make a statement, he asked a question about why the previous poster mentioned Japan with regards to extraversion when they have such a thing as hikikimori.
By comparing the two he appears to be suggesting that hikikimori are just introverts, and as such proof that Japan does in fact have a cultural obsession with extraversion.
It's not the assertion that Japan is a largely extraverted country that I took issue with (though I would say it is debatable), it was the (it seems to me) equating of introverts and hikikimori.
I just wanted to point out that hikikimori are not introverts. Introversion is not a mental illness. Hikikimori may very well be, depending on the individual.
I find that most people have a poor understanding of the introversion/extraversion spectrum and wrongly attribute things like social anxiety, timidity, lack of confidence agoraphobia etc. to introversion.
Then again I may have misunderstood the point of his question and read too much into it.
It’s a hot diagnosis to get IEPs, and attracts a lot of attention in media. (Extra school services) That has made it part of the vernacular.
It sucks for parents and adults with more serious spectrum disorders as getting the help you need is subject to constraints and schools try to push kids out who start to do well.
The intersection of disability and identity has a huge number of consequences. Some of them are beneficial, in the creation of communities, support structures, and the like. Some of them are harmful, like the aggressively anti-medicine activities of some communities who see the advance of science threatening the future existence of their identity.
Autism is right on the edge of this phenomena, as it's a disorder that arguably isn't a disorder and its harmful effects mostly attributable to society's reaction. I would argue it still counts as a disorder in the same way a hypothetical condition which prevented someone from speaking Spanish is only harmful if the person lives in a certain type of culture (Spanish-speaking) is still a disorder.
But if the cause is genetic and is due to a particular combination of otherwise harmless or even beneficial genes, as it has been speculated here in the comments, then autism itself won't disappear. What would disappear is the need to care for such a child or to watch it deteriorate and die early as with Tay-Sachs. I.e. basically a Spartan way to deal with this. Is this what you meant?
As frequently noted here the definition of "Autism" has changed, and now folds in Asperger's Syndrome. You're talkin' old definition; but even then you're assuming no compensating features in relatives (which the multiple-copy alpha tryptase genetic trait, to name one likely suspect, almost certainly confers.)
A stark reminder that not only do people who think like this exist, they express it freely in public. While there is a discussion to be had around eugenics, that attitude is not it.
If women have a right to terminate a pregnancy within whatever time limits society imposes, should society also impose motivation limits? That sounds like a very slippery slope.
Hey guess what? I've had friends with autistic kids. It ruined their relationship with their "neutotypical" offspring, who says the same thing (and now no longer talks to her parents).
Some people's only real purpose in life is to serve as a warning to others; the people who raise a severely autistic child are in that camp.
Forty years or so ago, we decided that many of the people in total mental institutions would have better lives outside of those institutions---there was no need for them to be effectively incarcerated.
So we closed the institutions.
For the last forty years or so, we have had a growing problem of those with severe mental illnesses becoming homeless. Progress?
I was in government as a policy analyst in just this area when these changes were happening, and fulsome promises of just such a third way were made endlessly at the time. I knew perfectly well even then that these promises were just hot air, because it was conservative governments were closing institutions, merely to save money and reduce taxes. But people elect whoever is willing to provide them with the lies that excuse the voter's most preferred (cruel-but-cheap) options.
Or perhaps we can just let them fend for themselves and if they end up living under an overpass until they die of something entirely preventable, well, to paraphrase a Firesign Theatre skit, "that's their thing."
Is this site unusable on mobile for other readers? I got a flash of the content, then just a blank page, and then a modal. I don’t want to sign up for a newsletter before I’ve even read an article... I’m glad reader mode exists or otherwise I wouldn’t be able to use it at all.
Writing from the awards ceremony ballroom at INSAR, I just want to say that this was a beautiful article that perfectly captured my own thoughts on the matter as an ASD researcher.
I think the conflict is the idea of the majority claiming what "normal" is for everyone and the real problem being society is structured for this normal; not designed for the non-standard persons. The persons who think they should prize their difference are either deluding themselves of the negatives experienced or are seldomly at an advantage than the majority classified with the same illness. Maybe it's also needed to just get through a miserable day.
One issue that impacts this debate is the general trend that only severely impaired people self identify as disabled. People who are able to get adequate accommodation to function in life without such labels tend to distance themselves from such labels.
My ex husband had severe handwriting issues. He was a cis het white male with a serious career. He was able to use his favorite pen, among other things, without needing a label -- like dysgraphia -- to qualify for accommodation.
Both of our sons were labeled as having dysgraphia. They needed the label to get accommodation in public school.
We eventually pulled them out and homeschooled. I have formal diagnoses for some of their issues in part because of the time they spent in school. But I don't have formal labels for everything, in part because I no longer needed a formal label to accommodate a thing while homeschooling.
Their dad did everything in his power to insist his problems were not like the problems his children had. I saw this in other parents who had children with labels.
I recently posted a thing to HN that got no traction. Some years ago, Microsoft did a study designed to investigate limitations without using words like disabled or handicapped. It found that about 60% of respondents had difficulties with day-to-day tasks if you just asked about tasks without using stigmatizing labels, like disabled. In contrast, only 15% to 20% of people self identify as disabled.
People who self identify as disabled get very up in arms about "normal" people using, for example, "Spoonie" language. So both those who self identify as disabled and those who don't are equally touchy about such things. They want some clear dividing line that may not genuinely exist.
I'm "Twice Exceptional." I'm gifted and disabled.
Various groups, such as gifted students or men able to claim male privilege, are able to get a lot of accommodation for their preferences with a non stigmatizing label. Their position of privilege gets them the best of both worlds.
I strongly suspect that a lot of people use privilege to demand accommodation for mild to moderate disabilities while side stepping the stigmatizing label of "disabled."
I think there's a lot of other stuff going on, more than I'm going to fit into a single comment. But, in a nutshell, if we lived in a world that more consistently let you go with your personal preferences without needing a justification, we wouldn't battle nearly so much over such labels.
(Yes, I know: Sometimes it's important for things to be done X way. But it often really isn't and what happens is privileged people wind up free to do whatever and underprivileged people get their lives turned upside down on silly excuses, basically.)
Can I just say that this is the most interesting thing I've read on HN all week? Thankyou for writing it.
You've reminded me of all the "kitchen gadgets" that are mocked for uselessness when really they're accomodation devices, but for marketing purposes they absolutely cannot be described as that.
> would you say that I'm not in a state of health because I'm allergic to nuts?
Yes, definitely - wouldn't you? It's a flawed behavior of the body that causes disadvantages, for some people it's life threatening, so it's definitely a health issue; If that would be easily and permanently curable without side effects, then it would and should be cured en masse as a common healthcare procedure.
I agree with that description, but is the conclusion that I'm permanently unhealthy? And is that a useful definition—isn't everyone permanently unhealthy in one way or another?
While almost no one has perfect health, a key factor there is the ability to correct the issues and the cost/benefit of doing so.
It's not worth mourning about a nut allergy because (as far as I understand) there's not much that we can do about it, so one might as well as just accept it as the way things are. However, if it could be easily and permanently curable without side effects, then not doing so would be an intentional choice to remain permanently unhealthy.
However, for the original discussion about autism, it may be relevant to consider the analogies (and differences) to the hotly debated issue regarding cochlear implants for deaf children. Both sides have a lot to say and I'm probably mangling their opinions, but in essence there's a situation where certain types of deafness can be "fixed" (albeit imperfectly) by cochlear implants; but many in the Deaf community don't want to be "fixed" to become more like hearing people; and in order for hearing/speech centers to develop properly the procedure needs to be done in childhood as early as possible, before they can decide for themselves. So there's a rather emotional debate on whether deaf kids should "be fixed" if they parents prefer that they would not (because e.g. they want their kids to be a full part of the Deaf community, using ASL instead of spoken English as their native language) - and if that raises a lot of questions regarding what should be considered states of permanent unhealth, then the mental issues would be even more contestable and contested.
There is no genuine debate to be had. No one who has the ability to not be autistic, would choose to be.
This is yet another example of how our toxic modern culture turns everything into an "identity". Some people are less healthy than others. That's potentially sad, potentially not a big deal.
Neither way is there any excuse for this faketroversy.
It's completely untrue that "no one who has the ability to not be autistic, would choose to be"; plenty of autistic people are happy to be the way they are and would not want to change.
(Pedantic note 1: If you're super-duper-literal about what you said, and take it to refer only to people who actually have the ability not to autistic, rather than speculating on what would happen if autistic people had the ability not to be, then it might be true. Though I'd guess it still isn't; I bet there are some not-autistic people who would like to be slightly autistic.)
(Pedantic note 2: I suppose it's possible, for all I know, that autistic people who say they wouldn't want to be "neurotypical" are actually lying. But I don't see any reason to think they are.)
It's also untrue that "no one who has the ability to not be deaf, would choose to be". It happens that communities of deaf people resist cochlear implants. A feeling of belonging to a group seems to have major influence on one's opinions.
> plenty of autistic people are happy to be the way they are and would not want to change.
How can you objectively claim to prefer autism over non-autism if you've never experienced the latter?
It's like me being completely content with my mechanical Ford Mustang and refusing to switch to a computerized car on the grounds that I'm happy with my Mustang and it's impossible for me to imagine what driving a computerized car could be like. I've never tried a computerized car that has lane assist and anti-lock brakes, mind you, but I'm just afraid I would like it less than my trusty old Mustang I've used my whole life.
Presumably in this hypothetical situation where you can "cure" autism, you can also "uncure" autism.
My point is that austistic people who choose to deliberately stay autistic without experiencing what it is like to be non-autistic are making a biased choice (likely rooted in fear of the unknown).
The objective course of action is to experience being non-autistic for a few years before deciding whether you actually like being autistic...
> Presumably in this hypothetical situation where you can "cure" autism, you can also "uncure" autism.
For one, I don't see how that's justified. There are plenty of diseases we can't uncure?!
And then, the choice to try out non-autism is already a decision to be non-autistic, even if only temporarily.
> My point is that austistic people who choose to deliberately stay autistic without experiencing what it is like to be non-autistic are making a biased choice (likely rooted in fear of the unknown).
Well, yes, obviously. And how is that relevant, when noone claimed they were making an unbiased decision?
> The objective course of action is to experience being on-autistic for a few years before deciding whether you want to "uncure" yourself.
More subjective experience doesn't make the decision objective, just better informed. And in any case, it's still besides the point, because noone was making claims about how objective or how informed the decision is?
When someone says "Plenty of people don't drink alcohol, and are happy with it, and have no interest in trying alcohol", it's simply a non-sequitur to respond "But the objective course of action is to experience drinking alcohol for a few years." Yes, the decision would be better-informed, but being better informed is not a prerequisie for being happy with what you are doing, nor does the fact that you could try drinking alcohol have any relevance to the assertion that some people just aren't interested.
And the objective course of action for any neurotypical person is to spend a few years autistic. I imagine you'll be first in line to sign up, given your penchant for objectivity.
You can prefer X over Y if you have (or reasonably think you have) good reason to think that X suits you better than Y would. That can happen without experiencing both X and Y. I'm pretty sure I'd prefer to have $1M more than I do, even though that's not a situation I've yet been in. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't want to work as a hairdresser, even though I've never done that.
I could be wrong -- it might be that hairdressing would suit me much better than I think, or that having the extra money would lead me to make decisions (earlier retirement? moving to a larger house? a generally spendier lifestyle?) that would be bad for me. But I have, or think I have, a pretty decent idea of how my life would be different if I were a hairdresser or $1M richer, and I can compare that against how things are now and make a reasonable guess at whether the change would be an improvement.
It doesn't need to be a matter of X being objectively better than Y. Would I like to be obsessively interested in fashion, celebrity gossip, and sport? Nope, I'm happy being a geeky intellectual type. It's entirely possible that those other folks are happier than I am (for the avoidance of doubt, I genuinely mean that and can think of some fairly plausible mechanisms that might make it so); but I'm used to being the way I am and have no wish to change in that way, and it would be a big upheaval in my life if I did.
Would I prefer to be autistic? Nope, I think it would be a nuisance and in any case I've grown used to being how I am. But I can (or at least I think I can) imagine being autistic and feeling much the same way about becoming not-autistic as I now feel about becoming autistic.
Severe autism is a big disadvantage in life and I think it's defensible to say that even if some severely autistic people wouldn't want to change that's a mistake on their part. But there's a whole spectrum, and over at the not-so-severe end any shift has both advantages and disadvantages, and I think it's very reasonable for someone to say that they wouldn't want to give up the advantages to get rid of the disadvantages, and that in any case autism is part of who and what they are and taking it away would mean taking them away and replacing them with someone else.
Incidentally, I think it's also perfectly reasonable to say "I like the car I'm driving now; I've had it for years and grown accustomed to its foibles; it's nice of you to offer me that extremely different car with a bunch of features this one doesn't have, but they don't sound very useful to me. I'll stick with the one I know I like, thanks." Someone who says that might turn out to be "wrong" in the sense that if you gave them the new car they'd eventually be glad you did, but so what?
This depends a lot on the severity of the condition... I have autistic traits, and although they do cause me some problems, they also give me advantages (an excellent career in software development due to unusually good logical thinking for example). I'm not convinced that I would choose to be otherwise.
I think that severely autistic people have an emotional life as real as anyone else, probably more empathy than they are able to express, but neurotypicals have a hard time having empathy for them.
Thus i think the puppet is insulting to severe autists as well as less severe autists. It is typical neurological thinking to see somebody different as less than human.
Well, there are quite a few people who lack empathy to such an extreme extent as to be quite cruel to others. We all want to avoid these people, so we expect those we interact with to express strong empathy-signals, and distrust them if they won't. It's absolutely normal for autists to be inconvenienced by this, since - their empathy-ceilings being lower, as a rule - they have to pay a higher personal cost than most to send these reliable signals. But this is not in principle different from any other problem that may be experienced due to having autistic traits. It's surely better than the alternative of being distrusted, or else of enabling cruel abusers.
I meant that people on the spectrum can come across as cruel or abusive or hurt others without intention to and regardless of what they feel inside. That is not about signals only. I mean the impact on others is there. Unintentional, but real.
Then it leads to retaliation which in misunderstood and whole thing may lead to escalations and at worst bullying. That is more then inconvenience.
Retaliation is a strategic last resort that is intended to deter cruel people from hurting us, when appeals to empathy are expected to be ineffective. If someone hurts you accidentally, and you can tell (because he can reliably express empathy), you won't retaliate; you'll ask for an apology. If someone hurts you out of cruelty, expecting an apology is actually counterproductive; you'll either get the authorities involved, or if you're in an especially shitty situation where no authority will back you with force, retaliate swiftly and perhaps at disproportionate cost to yourself, so that whoever hurt you understands that it was a bad idea - and so that, ex-ante, even the cruel aren't tempted to hurt you in the first place.
The teachers just didn't get that I had a right to be free of harassment. They didn't punish the harassers, but they did punish me when I fought back. So they were implicit in the harassment and this was a deadly part of the curriculum.
That is something I understood only after I became adult and had kids. It is not that they don't get it. It is that they prioritize lack of visible disorder over fair resolution and don't want things to escalate to even bigger disorder.
Dealing with bullies is hard frustrating long term work. Forcing victim to be silent is easier and gets "result" faster. Moreover, they can convince themselves that they at least made victim act well behaved. It is just easier and more comfortable to blame the victim, really.
Okay. So if you're autistic and upset somebody have a choice now. Tell people you're disabled so they don't take offence but stigmatize/patronize you instead. Or tell people nothing and let them be pissed off at you. They will jump right to retaliation like you say for seeing you as cruel.
No matter what you do. You always lose. The only escape is withdrawal. Temporary or permanent.
Wait, what? If you show that you're willing and able to take responsibility for what you did, and engage in compensation as needed, no one will be offended. Indeed, many will be favorably impressed because this is not something that antisocial people do often - as a rule, such people tend to be highly entitled, and have trouble with the whole idea of engaging in a successful negotiation with others. There is no quicker way to encourage the stigmatization/patronization of autism, than allowing the term be used as an excuse or a get-out-of-jail-card for bad behavior!
That is not how it works for many reasons on both autistic and non-autistic sides. First, not everyone is as forgiving and willing to engage in difficult conversation over this or that, especially not after being treated badly or seeing someone he likes treated badly. Some people hold grudges, some are cruel, etc.
Yes people will take offense. The performance needed for effective apology or "show of responsibility" is not something autistic person can easily do. It requires skills they don't necessary have. It requires knowing what you have done wrong and they often don't know. It requires being good in politics.
Also, when you tell people diagnoses, they may discriminate. They may start avoiding you and may interpret everything you do as autism - meaning you will be dismissed and your opinions ignored even when they would not otherwise.
On other side, the issues in communication are not just about not understanding super subtle cues, but also in the communication overall becoming abusive - think senior developer micromanaging junior with all the negative consequences on junior that micromanagement has. Or insisting on my way and claiming everyone else is incapable or blocking the project unless everything is my way. Or treating junior with contempt every day or repeatedly claiming that colleague done shit job when colleague is not present because of basically disagreement.
Simple apology wont make people forget those and moreover, autistic may be utterly confused over what it is that come across as micromanagement and contempt to junior.
The harm is done, the cause is inability to put himself from other peoples shoes, but they will interpret it as hostile action and proceed to protect themselves by attacking your credibility back.
Well, Bernard Crick's definition of good politics is "ethics done in public". One can obviously quibble with that (ethical negotiation is generally informal and goal-directed in a way that political activities or processes can't feasibly be), but the basic point stands - what exactly is wrong with expecting people to be ethical?
My concern wasn't getting offended. Nor is my intent to use autism as a "get out of jail free card". Yet its simply true that if you don't communicate you have a disability with people they will not understand your situation, misinterpret the situation, and assume things about you which are not true. This leads to stigma. You can try as hard as you want to accomidate others but if you have a social disability you will always fall short in some way that others do not. That is the nature of being disabled.
The issue is that taking responsibility for what you did involves clearly communicating that you have a disability or at least that you have specific social problems. If you don't do this the lack of communication WILL cause confusion and harm where it otherwise would not have happened. Communicating you have a disability is NOT a "get out of jail free card" its a way to explain you have some differences and when you act a bit differently it's not because of any ill will towards other people. It's about helping people to help you to learn how to interact with people more harmoniously.
Yet being open like this does cause stigma and patronization. Disclosed I was disabled to a job placement agency once in the efforts of clearly communication. I am closed and cautious about disclosing disability but I've had so many good experiences with public servants I trusted them. Huge mistake. I wanted try to get a job the same way as everybody else with no preferential hiring or special recruiters involved. I got assigned two case workers. Neither of them sent my resume to anybody but a disability recruiter. The jobs they found for me were bad fits for my skillset because they were more concerned with finding me a "disability job" than something I could do well.
I eventually got what I wanted by searching for a job on my own getting hired after a single interview with no disclosure of my disability. I do my job well. Yet now the lack of communication gets me in trouble at work.
Retaliation is something people do. Sometimes as last resort, oftentimes as warning or attempt to look like bad target to pick. Yet other times out of habit. Plenty times it is done out of anger not as thought out strategy.
Also, people do not see inside other people. Not just that, but when you are causing someone harm, you not meaning to will become irrelevant after certain treshold. That person will move to protect himself or his friends will mve to protect him.
I think it shouldn't go unmentioned that at the same time, the reliance on those signals is a huge vulnerability that is massively being abused by manipulators? I guess you could say that is how authoritarian leaders get into power. So, it's not so obvious it's actually a useful mechanism. Rather, it seems that it maybe works better in small structures and/or for short time horizons, but regularly leads to catastrophic failures in the long run/in larger groups.
It is being abused, but not "massively"; it's working just fine in many other cases which are just not explicitly salient to us. Only the very best manipulators are able to fool others about being sufficiently empathetic and even then, only just barely; many, perhaps most people can see through the ploy but go along with it for all sorts of recognizable reasons. (By and large these are not good reasons, of course.)
Remember, this is one of those situations where you don't have to outrun the lion - just the other guy. But here, the other guy has advantages over someone who's neurodiverse.
Asking every autistic person to outmimic sociopaths (with fewer diverse traits) who dedicate their lives to such mimicry is asking the impossible. Psychopaths aren't rare, violent psychopaths are rare.
Wow, you're assuming that the neuro-diverse can mimic these signals so much better than sociopaths that any citizen will cheerfully hand them a (false!) "yes quite empathic" sticker. And that they can do so at little cost! Not so and not so. The usual result of this strategy is that in return for their heroic efforts, the neuro-diverse person appears "very plastic" and falls heavily into the "uncanny valley." This can result in extremely intense antipathy to them.
> Wow, you're assuming that the neuro-diverse can mimic these signals so much better than sociopaths
Given how little we know about the inner mental states of sociopaths (as opposed to their outward behavior), I don't think we can simply assume that they're closer to the neurotypical ideal than autistics. (There's even some speculation that they may essentially be "emotional Reptilians", with an emotional palette that's essentially restricted to relatively basic drives - and that their consistent manipulation of others is in fact driven by the resource-acquisition drive.) There may even be multiple dimensions of viable empathy-signals; one kind may be especially cheap for neurotypicals, whilst a different kind may be cheap for the autistic.
I don't think we're disagreeing much about the background. But as for results: I've known both - the sociopaths were much better in my experience. More repetitive, granted, but with far fewer obvious misfires and much less strain.
I mean, the repetitiveness itself should be kind of a tell-tale sign, shouldn't it? And for that matter, I'm not even convinced that sociopaths have that highly-developed of a TOM (Theory Of Mind) either. Their manipulations seem to be skin-deep, and they have deeper problems with succeeding in negotiation and letting go of entitlement attitudes, even when they would stand to gain significantly from doing so - that are hard to explain other than via a defective TOM. (It might even be possible to explore these things via formal research, such as by enticing/incenting sociopathic subjects to play properly-specified games/puzzles that require them to manipulate someone in just the right (and increasingly complex) ways, and looking at their outcomes.)
Interesting followup. Re repetition - it's a sign but only after a couple months do you notice that all these pleasing utterances you keep hearing are expressed with one of the same three emotional notes. Sociopaths have no real theory of mind, I agree, just a lot of stimulus-response mimicked behavior, lifted from those who do have a theory of mind. Negotiation is a very interesting topic in this regard. I like your research program proposal. I've noticed a lot more pleading or demanding than trading from sociopaths; good trading/negotiation pretty much requires a theory of the other's mind, needs, etc.
> Sociopaths have no real theory of mind, I agree, just a lot of stimulus-response mimicked behavior
I mean, it might be that they do have a core TOM in addition to the stimulus-response stuff - but one that fails, because by default they're generalizing their own mental states/emotional ranges to others, not the neurotypical's or for that matter the autistic's. (Thus, even their TOM defects would be - at least to some extent - a consequence of them lacking certain drives. Including, of course, the uniquely-human drive to "truck, barter and trade" that makes people willing to engage constructively with others, even when pursuing entirely-selfish goals.)
Well, honestly, it often directly creates cruelty, I've witnessed consistent breathtaking cruelty from one adult on the spectrum; but in contrast to that, people on the spectrum have explained to me that emotional over-stimulation is just as painful to them as any other kind; and that those on the spectrum (but not too severe) therefore have the difficult choice to become empaths affected by everything others experience (or evince) or just shut it down and (functionally) lose empathy. As a general rule, most human beings choose to avoid pain, but not all.
A lot of people have excellent careers within software development without those traits though and it is possible that you would have an equally as good career without autistic traits.
Daily stand-ups are a torture for just about everyone.
Therr is this fallacious thinking amongst autistics that 'normals' just breeze through social events without stress or angst. That's completely wrong; most people find social engagement tiring and difficult ( hence the resort to alcohol or drugs as a 'social lubricant' ). We just don't have a diagnosed excuse for avoiding it or acting in a manner seen as rude.
> There is no genuine debate to be had. No one who has the ability to not be autistic, would choose to be.
That is definitely not true. I know people who consider their autism a strength, something that gives them different ways of focusing and understanding. For myself, autism gave me a lot of problems as a kid, but as an adult I've learned to cope with it very well. It doesn't really bother me anymore.
Your comment is symptomatic of the ongoing problem with the autistic community: high-functioning autistic people and the parents/caretakers of low-functioning autistic people refuse to acknowledge that the other exists. You have neurotypical people telling perfectly functional, happy adults that they're broken and need to be cured, and then you have those some adults acting like a kid who can't speak or dress himself at 11 years old isn't really a problem. It's maddening.
>No one who has the ability to not be autistic, would choose to be.
How do you know that? You aren't an autistic person, what gives you the right to suddenly speak for autistic people?
>This is yet another example of how our toxic modern culture turns everything into an "identity".
Google literally defines identity as "the fact of being who or what a person or thing is". Ergo a person with autism can have autism as apart of their identity. You can't just act like something someone is born with isn't apart of their identity.
Yeah, not everything someone is born with is worthy of making a fuss about, but I think things that do actively impact a person's wellbeing and interactions with society (developmental disorders, disabilities, race(?), etc.) are worthy of having a discussion about how to deal with them.
I know almost any autistic people is capable of living just as fulfilling of a life as anyone else, the bigger issue for me is people like you looking down on those who have slight deviations from established ideas of "normal" - but who are none the less capable of living fulfilling lives, contribuing to society, and interacting with others.
>You can't assume everyone is equally able to speak for themselves.
Okay some people can't speak for themselves, what gives you in particular any authority to speak for those who can't? Even then, that doesn't deal with the matter of those who can speak for themselves.
Charity, sometimes. Self-interest other times, but maybe charity this time. As long as children exist, we'd best all be capable of speaking for at least some of those who can't speak easily for themselves.
That's generally because one fears retribution from a tyrant. Autism is not a tyrant and has neither desire nor means of retribution, so your argument makes no sense. You're just grasping at explanations to dismiss arguments that make you unhappy.
Echoing nicoburns: We really, really need to do something the DSM seems dead-set against, which is distinguishing between fine gradations of autism, and realizing that not making those distinctions results in people talking past each other.
For example, why are some people so afraid of autism? Is it bigotry against people like me who stim every so often and avoid eye contact? No, it's fear of a condition which leaves victims nonverbal and stimming to the point of self-harm. That is the fear which drives some nontrivial number of anti-vaxxers. Yes, their fears are utterly unfounded, but using the language to prevent people from even focusing on what they're afraid of is wrong.
> distinguishing between fine gradations of autism
I'm not sure how useful that would be. It's hard enough to agree on a diagnosis of autism at all. Agreeing on finer gradations would be all but impossible.
And I'm concerned that "gradations" would lead people to think of autism as a 1D scale, when, as I'm sure you'd agree, it is anything but! Each individual experiences autism related challenges (stimming, difficulty in social interactions, sensitivity to noises, intellectual disabilities, mutism) to different degrees (and, as the article point out, these also vary day to day), and they also receive autism related talents (superior memory and ability to focus) to different degrees. And all of these are not all that correlated with each other. You'd need a 20 dimensional vector to truly establish "gradations".
Instead, it might make more sense to establish for each individual in what, if any, areas of life they need possible assistance.
That's not 1D either. What is "social functioning"? Making eye contact while speaking? Refraining from stimming? Respecting social boundaries? Figuring out when it's time to move on from discussing the merits of various Yu-Gi-Oh! cards? Knowing how to take public transportation?
How about a probability of ending up broke and with no work? I don't say that we don't need nuanced ways of dealing with each other. But you need 1D measure to compare incompatible decisions.
That depends on where the person is on the spectrum. People who suffers from mild autism--those who can maintain normal social relations with some efforts--probably would choose to not have the condition. People at the extreme end would choose otherwise, I suspect. Caring about what others think or feel is a burden after all.
That is... extremely untrue. I can point you in the direction of dozens, if not hundreds, of people who would not choose to not be autistic if the option was available, and would give you an angry dressing-down for even bringing it up.
> No one who has the ability to not be autistic, would choose to be.
Bullshit.
Don't you dare presume to speak for people other than yourself, or people whose position on the subject has been explicitly disclosed to you. You do not get to extrapolate from that to speaking for anyone else, let alone everyone else.
EDIT: Yes, I am taking the parent comment utterly literally. In context, I think that's appropriate.
I don't know if it's kosher to respond to one's own comment, but I didn't see an option to edit. So I'll just say this:
I choose that phrasing for a reason. Because I know that some people choose beliefs based on how hurtful an idea might be, not on it's logical merits.
There is no link between how a person irreparably in a given situation, describes that situation, and how anyone not in it, regards it. Almost every comment fails that most basic understanding. That is my point.
There is no real debate. Only a lot of modern people without the fortitude to realistically consider unpleasant things. Feels before reals, indeed.
You are refusing to consider "reals"—people telling you that no, you're factually wrong—because you cannot conceive of holding a certain opinion and therefore your "feels" have you convinced that nobody holds it either. Facts don't care about your feelings, and you'd be well advised to gather some facts.
Your phrasing was quite confusing: it could mean either that no one who is autistic would choose to remain autistic if they had the option of choosing to not (which has been debunked) or that no one who is not autistic would choose to become autistic if they had that option. The second may or may not be true, but what does it prove? I'm not white. I don't think I'd choose to become white if I had the option, because I wouldn't be me any more, and that's valuable to me. Does that mean I think being white is inferior in any way? Certainly not! It just means that people generally wish to remain themselves, and that doesn't prove your point; in fact, it argues against it.
As someone not autistic, I look at people with autism and I say, oh, you have autism. They look at me and say, oh, you have food allergies. That's it. Sure, both are medical conditions, but I don't find a need to pity them for their medical condition any more than they find a need to pity me for mine and talk about how they wouldn't want to have allergies and how surely I must wish to stop having allergies.
Maybe there is no real debate because none of your input to the discussion so far constitutes a reasoned argument. You have presented no evidence to your support your conclusions, yet you've written paragraphs of vapid fluff as if that somehow validates your opinion as fact. Feels before reals, indeed.
That being said, if I had the option to "correct" most of my personal atypical genetic "variations," I would do so.
Colorblindness? Yep, I don't want that. Congenital flat feet? I don't need those. IBS? No thanks. Hair loss starting at 17? Nope! Weird neurological symptoms no doctor has ever been able to fully diagnose? I would pay almost any amount of money to make those go away.