In search of a truce in the autism wars • Hacker News Board

Re: In search of a truce in the autism wars

#151

Post by Nomentatus » Fri, May 03, 2019, 3:21 PM UTC

klonderdonk wrote: post #117

ekimekim wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 shoul…

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 elemen…

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.)

Re: In search of a truce in the autism wars

#152

Post by watwut » Fri, May 03, 2019, 3:36 PM UTC

0815test wrote: post #146

TheOperator wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 quick…

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.

Re: In search of a truce in the autism wars

#153

Post by 0815test » Fri, May 03, 2019, 3:44 PM UTC

Nomentatus wrote: post #145

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…

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 ca…

> 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.

Re: In search of a truce in the autism wars

#154

Post by 0815test » Fri, May 03, 2019, 3:51 PM UTC

watwut wrote: post #152

0815test wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 quick…

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" i…

> ...It requires being good in politics...

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?

Re: In search of a truce in the autism wars

#155

Post by mcguire » Fri, May 03, 2019, 4:01 PM UTC

shkkmo wrote: post #96

mcguire wrote: post #92

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?

How many of those homeless would choose to re-enter those institutions if they were available? Would you rather be homeless or in jail if given the choice? Perhaps we can find a third option where safe and supportive communities are provided that have various levels of minimal removal of agency.

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."

Re: In search of a truce in the autism wars

#156

Post by watwut » Fri, May 03, 2019, 4:15 PM UTC

PaulHoule wrote: post #73

0815test wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 in…

That was a problem for me in childhood. 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.

Re: In search of a truce in the autism wars

#157

Post by aetherson » Fri, May 03, 2019, 4:46 PM UTC

aetherson wrote: post #112

ekimekim wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 shoul…

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 natur…

(Sorry, missed a phone autocorrect. It was supposed to read "highly intellectually impaired person")

Re: In search of a truce in the autism wars

#158

Post by Balgair » Fri, May 03, 2019, 4:47 PM UTC

aetherson wrote: post #112

ekimekim wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 shoul…

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 natur…

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.

But, again, we're a long ways away from this.

Re: In search of a truce in the autism wars

#159

Post by pure_ambition » Fri, May 03, 2019, 6:45 PM UTC

klonderdonk wrote: post #117

ekimekim wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 shoul…

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 elemen…

this person doesn't understand spectrums

Re: In search of a truce in the autism wars

#160

Post by TheOperator » Fri, May 03, 2019, 9:51 PM UTC

0815test wrote: post #146

TheOperator wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 quick…

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.