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An immune molecule can sometimes influence the social behavior of mice: study

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Re: An immune molecule can sometimes influence the social behavior of mice: study

#41

Post by detritus »

r00fus wrote: post #38
detritus wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having had a child this year, my greatest fear was that it might be profoundly autistic. I can't begin to imagine what it must be like to be stuck with a physiologically-broken child, for life, that is incapable of empathy or love for its parent. I appreciate that's the sort of thing that happens at the extreme ends of the spectrum and not at all representative of many high-functioning autists, but I don't think it's…

(I'm a parent of a kid on the spectrum) While the fear is natural, there are tons of other childhood conditions that are, in fact, worse than autism. Would you decline vaccines for yourself or your child because you fear they might "get autism" (which has been debunked). Edit: clarity

Nope, and I'm not sure I even began to infer that.

And also nope, because we ran the gauntlet despite our slightly higher age and subsequent increase in probability of autism (amongst many, may other conditions).

As I say, I don't think it's wrong to fear the possibility, and as your post admirably points out, life is inherently full of risks.

Re: An immune molecule can sometimes influence the social behavior of mice: study

#42

Post by spazx »

detritus wrote: post #33
spazx wrote: post #26

Autism is characterized by autistic behavior. You cannot separate autistic behavior from an autistic person, it is simply their nature. These "mouse models" are inaccurate, as they're based on behavioral observations in the mice and likening them to human behavior. We don't really know how autism works and why, and we haven't discovered actual autistic mice. In other words, it's mostly extrapolation. Anything can "re…

Having had a child this year, my greatest fear was that it might be profoundly autistic. I can't begin to imagine what it must be like to be stuck with a physiologically-broken child, for life, that is incapable of empathy or love for its parent. I appreciate that's the sort of thing that happens at the extreme ends of the spectrum and not at all representative of many high-functioning autists, but I don't think it's…

>incapable of empathy or love for its parent

Autistic people are not sociopaths, they are not incapable of empathy or love, they just struggle to understand when you're expressing it, or to express it in appropriate way.

Your fear of being unable to communicate with your child is valid, but autistic people are not "broken".

Re: An immune molecule can sometimes influence the social behavior of mice: study

#43

Post by ThrustVectoring »

detritus wrote: post #33
spazx wrote: post #26

Autism is characterized by autistic behavior. You cannot separate autistic behavior from an autistic person, it is simply their nature. These "mouse models" are inaccurate, as they're based on behavioral observations in the mice and likening them to human behavior. We don't really know how autism works and why, and we haven't discovered actual autistic mice. In other words, it's mostly extrapolation. Anything can "re…

Having had a child this year, my greatest fear was that it might be profoundly autistic. I can't begin to imagine what it must be like to be stuck with a physiologically-broken child, for life, that is incapable of empathy or love for its parent. I appreciate that's the sort of thing that happens at the extreme ends of the spectrum and not at all representative of many high-functioning autists, but I don't think it's…

Autists have empathy and all the other emotions that neurotypicals think they lack. They're simply deficient in learning the complicated ways that neurotypicals use to credibly signal their internal state.

Re: An immune molecule can sometimes influence the social behavior of mice: study

#44

Post by opportune »

spazx wrote: post #34
mamon wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's weird that it has to be repeated so often on HN, but: Autism is not a superpower. Yes, sometimes mildly autistic people can become genius mathematicians, or whatever, but most of autistic people simply cannot function by themselves, they struggle with everyday things. So no, we can't just "leave them alone", we should try and understand what causes autism, and maybe someday we can cure it.

It's not so black and white. Most autistic people aren't distinctly "low" or "high" functioning like that. They are otherwise fairly average people with a few traits that make things difficult, and appear "high" or "low" functioning depending on the environment they are subjected to. Why don't you ask an autistic person if they want to be cured? Go ahead. Jump on r/aspergers and ask them. They will tell you to go fly…

I am sure most nonverbal low functioning autistic people would want to be “cured” if they could answer.

I agree there is no need to treat autistic people who get along in society mostly fine, but people who can’t work, talk, or live on their own is probably where I would draw the line of those people needing actual treatment if it ever exists

Re: An immune molecule can sometimes influence the social behavior of mice: study

#45

Post by spazx »

anotherman554 wrote: post #39
spazx wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not so black and white. Most autistic people aren't distinctly "low" or "high" functioning like that. They are otherwise fairly average people with a few traits that make things difficult, and appear "high" or "low" functioning depending on the environment they are subjected to. Why don't you ask an autistic person if they want to be cured? Go ahead. Jump on r/aspergers and ask them. They will tell you to go fly…

It's possible that people so invested in the identity of having Aspergers that they hang out on /aspergers would tell you to fly a kite. That's hardly a representative sample of people with the condition. Most are probably living their lives and not hanging out on /aspergers.

Nice goalpost scoot. I'm telling you that if you ask any autistic person, they may express dissatisfaction with their autistic troubles, but they would tell you they would not want to be "cured" or "changed", because they would no longer be themselves.

Re: An immune molecule can sometimes influence the social behavior of mice: study

#46

Post by detritus »

spazx wrote: post #42
detritus wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having had a child this year, my greatest fear was that it might be profoundly autistic. I can't begin to imagine what it must be like to be stuck with a physiologically-broken child, for life, that is incapable of empathy or love for its parent. I appreciate that's the sort of thing that happens at the extreme ends of the spectrum and not at all representative of many high-functioning autists, but I don't think it's…

>incapable of empathy or love for its parent Autistic people are not sociopaths, they are not incapable of empathy or love, they just struggle to understand when you're expressing it, or to express it in appropriate way. Your fear of being unable to communicate with your child is valid, but autistic people are not "broken".

You seem to be, by choice or haste, missing the conditions in my post - profoundly autistic people at the ends of the spectrum are, by societal standards 'broken' and are indeed incapable of empathy or love.

It's not a nice thing to say or admit, but it is .. well, true.

I have an autistic uncle who is not profoundly so, but is hard to communicate with and has problems existing by himself, often getting into trouble that is hard for the rest of the family to understand the logic of.

Re: An immune molecule can sometimes influence the social behavior of mice: study

#47

Post by i_am_proteus »

spazx wrote: post #35
zozbot234 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Leave autistic people alone and let them be themselves. Seriously, I can't believe some people would rather let their kid die of polio than believe they could be autistic. If you think having an autistic child is that terrible, you probably shouldn't have kids. That's very much not the case, unfortunately. Many autistic kids are very low function. Their deviations in behavior are way more serious than just some qui…

And is that worse than getting polio?

I consider low-functioning autism to be similarly debilitating; both mean that the afflicted individual will not have a "normal" life, the manifestation is of course completely different.

But this is a bizarre strawman because vaccines do not cause autism.

Re: An immune molecule can sometimes influence the social behavior of mice: study

#48

Post by detritus »

ThrustVectoring wrote: post #43
detritus wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having had a child this year, my greatest fear was that it might be profoundly autistic. I can't begin to imagine what it must be like to be stuck with a physiologically-broken child, for life, that is incapable of empathy or love for its parent. I appreciate that's the sort of thing that happens at the extreme ends of the spectrum and not at all representative of many high-functioning autists, but I don't think it's…

Autists have empathy and all the other emotions that neurotypicals think they lack. They're simply deficient in learning the complicated ways that neurotypicals use to credibly signal their internal state.

I did think about clarifying that point of my post, and should have, I suppose. What I mean is that 'from the perspective of a parent' no signalling of empathy or love is essentially the exact-same outcome as there not being empathy or love.

I know I couldn't handle that lack of feedback.

Perhaps that's a severe failing, but there we are.

Re: An immune molecule can sometimes influence the social behavior of mice: study

#49

Post by thr483900 »

i_am_proteus wrote: post #47
spazx wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And is that worse than getting polio?

I consider low-functioning autism to be similarly debilitating; both mean that the afflicted individual will not have a "normal" life, the manifestation is of course completely different. But this is a bizarre strawman because vaccines do not cause autism.

[dead]

Re: An immune molecule can sometimes influence the social behavior of mice: study

#50

Post by thebean11 »

corodra wrote: post #36
bsdz wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A mouse model for human autism is contrived at best. The cynic in me feels that some researchers are running out of ideas. The only experimental apparatus are poor knockout mice. Arguably an analogy is trying to fix a compiled binary with a hex editor and replacing all your 0x11s with 0x0a. Then claiming the segfault is a good model of how another binary crashes (due to a null pointer exception or whatever really).

Oh my shit, they don't claim to have an answer. They have a direction. Not an answer. There's a very large difference. The entire language in this is extremely aware and careful that they don't have a cure. Quit acting like this is a CNN article saying "Scientists cured all disease because of a 2 person study". They have some survey based evidence that it happens in humans too. With a potential replication in mice, t…

> They have a direction.

Sure, the question is whether that direction significantly better than a randomly selected direction

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