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U.S. autism data project sparks uproar over ethics, privacy and intent

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Re: U.S. autism data project sparks uproar over ethics, privacy and intent

#121

Post by thrance »

0x1ceb00da wrote: post #78

One thing this will do is disincentivize high functioning autists from identifying themselves as autists, which is a very good thing IMO. Just look at this channel https://www.youtube.com/@NationalAutisticSoc/videos . There is a lot of survivor-ship bias on this channel towards high functioning autists who can talk in front of a camera. Just to give an idea to those not familiar with the difference between high funct…

"Actually, it's good they're registering every autistic persons in the country in a national database, under a president who is overtly eugenicist [1]."

No it's not. At minimum this is a horrible invasion of privacy, that I can't believe anyone on HN would defend. At worst this is straight Nazi shit, preparing the ground for extermination.

[1] https://time.com/7002003/donald-trump-disabled-americans-all...

Re: U.S. autism data project sparks uproar over ethics, privacy and intent

#122

Post by zeroto100 »

0x1ceb00da wrote: post #78

One thing this will do is disincentivize high functioning autists from identifying themselves as autists, which is a very good thing IMO. Just look at this channel https://www.youtube.com/@NationalAutisticSoc/videos . There is a lot of survivor-ship bias on this channel towards high functioning autists who can talk in front of a camera. Just to give an idea to those not familiar with the difference between high funct…

The high functioning folk are supposedly >6x more at risk of suicidal thoughts... and they're the folks society gets something back from.

I'm all for shaking our heads at young high functioning people flaunting it, but nobody gets the labels by having a good time. It's very rarely beneficial to disclose, even if disclosure is a choice.

Re: U.S. autism data project sparks uproar over ethics, privacy and intent

#123

Post by A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 »

arcticfox wrote: post #83

gift link to a related NYT Opinion piece by an actual (very liberal) parent living this reality that may surprise some people https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/25/opinion/autism-rfk-parent... As a very liberal parent of a profoundly autistic child, there has never been article I've related to more. The condescension of fellow liberals and advocates for level 1 autism for us, much of which is present in this thread alre…

I feel for you, because I am not sure how I would fare in that circumstance. That said, the opinion piece is in itself a frustrating.

I think, this sentence, more than anything else in that article aggravates me the most and I am not entirely certain why. It is not some sort of rhetorical question. I simply struggle to understand the obsession US denizens have with identity. Everyone is 2% cherokee indian, 2/5 italian and maybe a little dutch on non-pagan holidays. And this does not spare the parents. They are X parents. Puppy parents. Teenager parents. Autist parents. All in an attempt to establish some sort of identity that can be displayed to the society at large.

Sure, but at the expense of the non-autistic kids? What does that statement actually mean?

In case there is any kind of doubt, the society does. If the registry is not intended as an intentionally bad thing(tm) by RFK jr himself, you can rest assured it is absolutely seen as a way to ensure that more taxpayers exist ( and this is the charitable parsing of that registry ).

This is an interesting one. There are people who do derive meaning from service such as this, but they do not strike me as a majority of the population. At best, it puts a heavy strain on the familial ties.. and for a very obvious reason.. it is not a light cross to bear. And we do like easy mode. But to actively deny that it is a strain is silly.. because while it did not break the author, the same issue definitely took some families down.

I think most of us on this forum can agree that knowledge can be useful.

Re: U.S. autism data project sparks uproar over ethics, privacy and intent

#124

Post by tialaramex »

A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 wrote: post #107
tialaramex wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The word you want is tenet A tenant is somebody paying to lease property, for example if you have a landlord, you're their tenant, and by analogy e.g. an Azure tenant is an organisation within the Azure cloud with a unique identifier. A tenet is a belief or principle that is important to some group, for example the IETF's Best Common Practice series are not just RFCs describing a protocol or technology but instead st…

Hmm, thank you. This is by far the best pithy argument for privacy I have found thus far.

It's also helpful shorthand. One of the reason there is no RSA KEX† in TLS 1.3 is that under BCP 188 obviously aiding bulk surveillance technology isn't acceptable, so when you have a liaison from the ACLU saying yes, get rid of RSA KEX and a representation from EDCO (Enterprise Data Center Operators, basically big old financial companies) saying it'll cost them too much money to lose RSA KEX so it should be reinstated in the late drafts for the RFC, there was no need to re-explain in great detail why the ACLU are right here because there's already a document explaining to anybody who is new to this.

† The RSA Key Exchange goes like this: We get the public key of a server from their certificate which they sent us, we pick a symmetric key at random and we encrypt our chosen key using that public key with the RSA algorithm, so that only the legitimate owner of the certificate can decrypt it, then we send that encrypted key to the server. Because they know the Private Key corresponding to the public key in the certificate they can decrypt the symmetric key we sent. This symmetric key is used for all further communication. This means if say, the Mad King's Secret Police obtain a copy of the RSA private key for the server at any time the Secret Police can decrypt every communication, even if the communications they're decrypting happened weeks, months or years before they obtain the key.

Re: U.S. autism data project sparks uproar over ethics, privacy and intent

#125

Post by notimetorelax »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #115
timoth3y wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“I told you once that I was searching for the nature of evil. I think I’ve come close to defining it: a lack of empathy. It’s the one characteristic that connects all the defendants. A genuine incapacity to feel with their fellow man. Evil, I think, is the absence of empathy.” ― G. M. Gilbert, American psychologist who worked on the Nuremberg trials

Didn't someone recently mention that "The fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy"? Sounds familiar...

I didn’t know who that was, so googled. Apparently, Musk said that.

Re: U.S. autism data project sparks uproar over ethics, privacy and intent

#126

Post by thrance »

timoth3y wrote: post #91
47282847 wrote: post #55

It’s interesting to muse about the larger picture here. What is it that makes autism so dangerous? To me it looks like part of an almost spiritual war against empathy/compassion by traumatized individuals trying to fight their own Jungian Shadow.

“I told you once that I was searching for the nature of evil. I think I’ve come close to defining it: a lack of empathy. It’s the one characteristic that connects all the defendants. A genuine incapacity to feel with their fellow man. Evil, I think, is the absence of empathy.” ― G. M. Gilbert, American psychologist who worked on the Nuremberg trials

It's crazy we got all those lessons figured out, clear as can be and right in the history books, that every kid is supposed to learn. And yet, here we are, back to square one.

Re: U.S. autism data project sparks uproar over ethics, privacy and intent

#127

Post by dns_snek »

monero-xmr wrote: post #99
0x1ceb00da wrote: post #78

One thing this will do is disincentivize high functioning autists from identifying themselves as autists, which is a very good thing IMO. Just look at this channel https://www.youtube.com/@NationalAutisticSoc/videos . There is a lot of survivor-ship bias on this channel towards high functioning autists who can talk in front of a camera. Just to give an idea to those not familiar with the difference between high funct…

There isn’t a definitive test for autism. High functioning autists would have been considered quirky or odd in the past. We label everything now though

> We label everything now though

Are "quirky" and "odd" not labels? How about "weirdo" and "creep", are those not labels?

These romanticized ideas of what autism is (or used to be) hit a brick wall when you consider that 2/3 of people with autism have contemplated suicide and 1/3 of people with autism have attempted it. Most of it could probably be attributed to social rejection, exclusion, and isolation perpetuated by people who don't suffer from these disorders.

Re: U.S. autism data project sparks uproar over ethics, privacy and intent

#128

Post by coldtea »

timoth3y wrote: post #91
47282847 wrote: post #55

It’s interesting to muse about the larger picture here. What is it that makes autism so dangerous? To me it looks like part of an almost spiritual war against empathy/compassion by traumatized individuals trying to fight their own Jungian Shadow.

“I told you once that I was searching for the nature of evil. I think I’ve come close to defining it: a lack of empathy. It’s the one characteristic that connects all the defendants. A genuine incapacity to feel with their fellow man. Evil, I think, is the absence of empathy.” ― G. M. Gilbert, American psychologist who worked on the Nuremberg trials

He said that because he couldn't empathize with those defendants...

Re: U.S. autism data project sparks uproar over ethics, privacy and intent

#129

Post by coldtea »

notimetorelax wrote: post #125
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Didn't someone recently mention that "The fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy"? Sounds familiar...

I didn’t know who that was, so googled. Apparently, Musk said that.

[flagged]

Re: U.S. autism data project sparks uproar over ethics, privacy and intent

#130

Post by A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 »

autoexec wrote: post #110
arcticfox wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's specifically talking about nonverbal kids like mine. I'm sorry, it's a disability, and I'm terrified what's going to happen to my kid when I'm gone. I don't think RFK Jr's policies will help and I didn't vote for them. But the amount of frustration I have towards comments like yours that ignore our worlds is immense. At least RFK Jr speaks honestly and candidly. The challenges a level 1 autistic person faces are…

> At least RFK Jr speaks honestly That's a very strange take considering he's known to spread lies. The very comment you replied to demonstrated that. He says that vaccines cause autism - they don't. He says that "Most cases now are severe." - they aren't. I wouldn't say his record shows that he is either honest or candid: https://apnews.com/article/rfk-jr-samoa-measles-kennedy-vacc... https://www.foxnews.com/politic…

It is that old joke from Seinfeld's Constanza:

It is not a lie, if you believe in it.

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