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In search of a truce in the autism wars

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Re: In search of a truce in the autism wars

#51

Post by keenmaster »

tines wrote: post #34
keenmaster wrote: post #17

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…

Is America unusual in this regard?

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.

Re: In search of a truce in the autism wars

#52

Post by NeoBasilisk »

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.

Re: In search of a truce in the autism wars

#53

Post by umvi »

zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC wrote: post #43
umvi wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't; the only way to have objective preference is by experiencing both for the same period of time before choosing

Which is relevant to what people would choose, lacking that experience, how exactly? Because that was the topic being discussed ...

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...

Re: In search of a truce in the autism wars

#54

Post by charliesharding »

komali2 wrote: post #40
keenmaster wrote: post #17

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…

>evolutionary explanation 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 evoluti…

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

Re: In search of a truce in the autism wars

#55

Post by chungleong »

DiseasedBadger wrote: post #2

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.

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.

Re: In search of a truce in the autism wars

#56

Post by red75prime »

gjm11 wrote: post #7
DiseasedBadger wrote: post #2

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 no…

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.

Re: In search of a truce in the autism wars

#57

Post by 0815test »

zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC wrote: post #50
0815test wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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 catastroph…

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.)

Re: In search of a truce in the autism wars

#58

Post by PaulHoule »

Angostura wrote: post #39
PaulHoule wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> It is typical neurological thinking to see somebody different as less than human. The puppet was used because it would be almost impossible for a child of the right age to act the part.

It is still a clear message of dehumanization.

Re: In search of a truce in the autism wars

#59

Post by dooglius »

komali2 wrote: post #40
keenmaster wrote: post #17

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…

>evolutionary explanation 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 evoluti…

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.

Re: In search of a truce in the autism wars

#60

Post by red75prime »

microtherion wrote: post #44
msla wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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, difficult…

If you want 1D, project that vector onto social functioning axis.
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