11–20 of 68 posts
I think this is a Hollywood view of autism - its not like that in real life, sure there's some people on the spectrum that are genius, but there are a lot that aren't and have more significant life challenges.
For every Elon Must there has to be a hundreds of thousands of kids like this.
I think this is a Hollywood view of autism - its not like that in real life, sure there's some people on the spectrum that are genius, but there are a lot that aren't and have more significant life challenges.
Not every autistic person is like Elon Musk. Many (maybe the majority) have significant difficulties in their life, which are not just due to a personality difference.
Not sure why there is this push to make it not considered a disorder. Just because you have a disorder doesn't mean you are worth any less than other people, or that you can't accomplish great things. It just means you will have extra challenged in your life. Acknowledging that isn't a bad thing, in my opinion. I'm not autistic though, so my opinion is somewhat less informed, although even one autistic person can't speak for everyone.
What irks me about this article is that autism could be replaced with practically any other identity. Different perspectives, hard workers, curious individuals are always valued whether neurotypical, neurodiverse, or of any other identity.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm pretty sure Elon Musk is much more intelligent than I am. I don't know why there's such a taboo over saying some people are more intelligent than others. It's not a moral judgment or a be-all-and-end-all of a person's value.
> It's not a moral judgment or a be-all-and-end-all of a person's value. But it is, even though it actually means nothing at all. Let me try and explain. Our society prides itself on being both rational and egalitarian at the same time. Its most basic ideological paradigm basically says: "everyone is equal". Of course, that is a meaningless statement - people themselves are not quantities to be measured and compared;…
Intelligence is but one value competing in an ecology of values.
I think this is a Hollywood view of autism - its not like that in real life, sure there's some people on the spectrum that are genius, but there are a lot that aren't and have more significant life challenges.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm pretty sure Elon Musk is much more intelligent than I am. I don't know why there's such a taboo over saying some people are more intelligent than others. It's not a moral judgment or a be-all-and-end-all of a person's value.
> It's not a moral judgment or a be-all-and-end-all of a person's value. But it is, even though it actually means nothing at all. Let me try and explain. Our society prides itself on being both rational and egalitarian at the same time. Its most basic ideological paradigm basically says: "everyone is equal". Of course, that is a meaningless statement - people themselves are not quantities to be measured and compared;…
Strong disagree. Intelligence is not a more valuable attribute than any other.
Concrete example: there's no point being a more intelligent officer in the Army if you aren't able to physically get yourself to the fight in time and someone else who's less intelligent but is more fit is there on time to have an impact.
>But we can conclude, and with absolute confidence: Elon Musk is not more intelligent than I am, or you. We’re different. Yeah okay.
I'm pretty sure Elon Musk is much more intelligent than I am. I don't know why there's such a taboo over saying some people are more intelligent than others. It's not a moral judgment or a be-all-and-end-all of a person's value.
Makes it easier to seed resentment and division. There's a notable cohort of ideologically-possessed individuals whose mission in life seems to be flatly denying the existence of meritocracy. If everyone is as smart as the smartest people in the world (and we'll repeat this until it's accepted as true), then some injustice logically must be taking place. Our ideology just so happens to have a solution to address this, so you should give us power. It's a pattern that's been playing out for a while now.
I think the author confuses a literal spectrum of behaviors with their clinical labels. The DSM is a diagnostic tool, not a catalog of identity labels.
The author gets it right that how autistic people work mentally isn't so much inferior as it is unpopular. You can go to a psychologist talking about how difficult digestive pain and sleeplessness are for you and they will mull about how awful it must be to be so socially awful since everybody must dislike me.
People are absolutely obsessed with the idea of the social inferiority of autistics, despite evidence that they're superior at social tasks like empathizing with other autistic people [1]. Autistics can regularly show bizarrely strong "social skills" like having an immense vocabulary, overall high verbal intelligence, or perhaps a steeltrap memory for personal facts about others. People give no value to these things arbitrarily. Nowadays I can go to a hirevue interview and be algorithmically denied a job because my eye contact is poor and my large vocabulary is actually a negative because it's unusual and thus not similar to the vocab of a companies "best hires". Rather than people going "what the fuck do we actually have legal minority filtering software being used by nominally reputable companies like major banks" people are more concerned that autistics are acting too different and should be more normal.
Yet the comorbidities which impact health makes me suspect that the disorder label is still useful especially because it can lead to accommodations regarding scheduling, workplace conditions, diet, and such. We don't have a conceptual alternative to disorder/disability that allows for the accommodations needed to help people succeed. I haven't even touched on the people who have severe issues and can't live independently or provide for themselves.
[1] https://www.autism.org.uk/advice-and-guidance/professional-p...