Earlier quoted context omitted.
>It is well understood already that the number of autistic people is not actually increasing. What is increasing is our understanding of it and the number of diagnostics. I see this idea thrown around whenever this topic is brought up, but this is just a contemporary opinion of certain researchers and science commentators. It is both unprovable and unfalsifiable. >Autism is not a disease, it's a neurodivergence, and…
Please read through this page shared here on HN a few days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43813441
U.S. autism data project sparks uproar over ethics, privacy and intent
321–330 of 377 posts
Re: U.S. autism data project sparks uproar over ethics, privacy and intent
#322Earlier quoted context omitted.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43826940
Like I said, I've heard all those words already. They don't clear anything up. I'm asking you if there are more words I haven't heard. Here's the transcript: https://singjupost.com/rfk-jr-holds-press-conference-on-new-... When he speaks here he says things like: So about 25% of the kids who are diagnosed with autism are nonverbal, non-toilet trained, and have other stereotypical features, headbanging, tactile and lig…
Yes, RFK said that and then I do think some extreme members of the autism community are conspiracy theorists. Literally nothing that he has said that you have quoted indicates that he wants to create concentration camps or kill everyone or anything else said on the autism community channels we have both read.
Re: U.S. autism data project sparks uproar over ethics, privacy and intent
#323Earlier quoted context omitted.
>It is well understood already that the number of autistic people is not actually increasing. What is increasing is our understanding of it and the number of diagnostics. I see this idea thrown around whenever this topic is brought up, but this is just a contemporary opinion of certain researchers and science commentators. It is both unprovable and unfalsifiable. >Autism is not a disease, it's a neurodivergence, and…
Please read through this page shared here on HN a few days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43813441
"We can be certain that autism rates have gone up for artefactual reasons—diagnosis, changing awareness and incentives, etc. rather than real increases in the number of people with autism—by exploiting policy changes. For example, above, I mentioned the Massachusetts saw autism reports increase 400% in one year due to a change in school reporting."
This is exactly the issue that I'm getting at, which is shared with the above user's assertion. We cannot be certain of any of this. Especially not because of some handpicked examples by the author. None of this is provable or falsifiable, even if a the handful of disparate examples picked by the author seem compelling. Besides the examples of reporting changes, the author's arguments almost wholly rely on untestable counterfactuals.
Also:
"A single piece of evidence indicates that there is no real epidemic of autism. As remarked in a review in a 2020 Nature Reviews Disease Primers article:
No significant evidence is available supporting that autism is rarer in older people, which provides further evidence against the suggestion that autism is increasing in prevalence over time."
This doesn't provide evidence of anything. The absence of evidence does not constitute evidence. This is just an argument from ignorance. This is little different from saying that there is no significant evidence that people 500 years ago had lower rates of being diagnosed with a given disease, therefore the rates of people with that disease were likely the same as now.
Re: U.S. autism data project sparks uproar over ethics, privacy and intent
#324Earlier quoted context omitted.
Please read through this page shared here on HN a few days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43813441
From the linked article: "We can be certain that autism rates have gone up for artefactual reasons—diagnosis, changing awareness and incentives, etc. rather than real increases in the number of people with autism—by exploiting policy changes. For example, above, I mentioned the Massachusetts saw autism reports increase 400% in one year due to a change in school reporting." This is exactly the issue that I'm getting a…
Previous generations didn't grow up with all the comfort that we have today, such as games, internet and technology, and thus didn't have as many ways to isolate themselves in more comfortable hobbies. Because of this, they could develop stronger masking skills, which helps them a bit more than current generations, but does not fix the problem and made the understanding of it more difficult.
Re: U.S. autism data project sparks uproar over ethics, privacy and intent
#325Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Just because we sit them in front of textbooks and lectures for 8 hours a day for 12 years (plenty of kids drop out of highschool or take fairly nonstandard "get to work" programs that de-emphasize education.) doesn't mean they learn anything. Plenty of kids sat next to me in precalc learning how to calculate mortgage rates and then complain that school doesn't teach useful skills like how to calculate a mortgage. At…
Re: U.S. autism data project sparks uproar over ethics, privacy and intent
#326Earlier quoted context omitted.
Like I said, I've heard all those words already. They don't clear anything up. I'm asking you if there are more words I haven't heard. Here's the transcript: https://singjupost.com/rfk-jr-holds-press-conference-on-new-... When he speaks here he says things like: So about 25% of the kids who are diagnosed with autism are nonverbal, non-toilet trained, and have other stereotypical features, headbanging, tactile and lig…
Yes, I would consider an adult that bangs their head to stim to have profound autism. Yes, RFK said that and then I do think some extreme members of the autism community are conspiracy theorists. Literally nothing that he has said that you have quoted indicates that he wants to create concentration camps or kill everyone or anything else said on the autism community channels we have both read.
Even the Nazis didn't have the political capital to plainly admit to their own atrocities. They tried to keep it secret for as long as they could, then they denied the camps' existence, denied the abuse in those camps, denied the genocide, falsified medical records to make it appear that people died from pneumonia and unfortunate medical complications.
In reality they were injecting children with pathogens, experimenting on them, torturing them, starving them and ultimately killing them. In the end they even tried to make their families pay for their "care". Officially, nobody knew anything terrible was happening. Unofficially, everyone was complicit.
Re: U.S. autism data project sparks uproar over ethics, privacy and intent
#327Earlier quoted context omitted.
This entire term so far has been one ratchet after another of "they will never do that" followed promptly by "wow, they just did that, nothing we can do about it now except deal with the fallout!" On the one hand they've proposed the autism database. On the other hand they've proposed the "wellness farms" for drug addicts. All that's left is for the right hand to start picking up what the left hand is putting down an…
I’m an immigrant and I’ve been treated fine, as has every other immigrant I know that has not broken the law. Wellness farms for drug users seems reasonable. They’ve cancelled the tracking database due to people’s concerns about privacy.
Re: U.S. autism data project sparks uproar over ethics, privacy and intent
#328Earlier quoted context omitted.
I’m an immigrant and I’ve been treated fine, as has every other immigrant I know that has not broken the law. Wellness farms for drug users seems reasonable. They’ve cancelled the tracking database due to people’s concerns about privacy.
Maybe you're the one watching edited clips if you're not seeing instances of innocent immigrants being mistreated.
Re: U.S. autism data project sparks uproar over ethics, privacy and intent
#329Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, I would consider an adult that bangs their head to stim to have profound autism. Yes, RFK said that and then I do think some extreme members of the autism community are conspiracy theorists. Literally nothing that he has said that you have quoted indicates that he wants to create concentration camps or kill everyone or anything else said on the autism community channels we have both read.
Let's assume they were planning to create concentration camps, do you naively expect them to publicly admit that in plain language or how do you think that would look? Even the Nazis didn't have the political capital to plainly admit to their own atrocities. They tried to keep it secret for as long as they could, then they denied the camps' existence, denied the abuse in those camps, denied the genocide, falsified me…
Godwin’s law.
Re: U.S. autism data project sparks uproar over ethics, privacy and intent
#330Earlier quoted context omitted.
This entire term so far has been one ratchet after another of "they will never do that" followed promptly by "wow, they just did that, nothing we can do about it now except deal with the fallout!" On the one hand they've proposed the autism database. On the other hand they've proposed the "wellness farms" for drug addicts. All that's left is for the right hand to start picking up what the left hand is putting down an…
I’m an immigrant and I’ve been treated fine, as has every other immigrant I know that has not broken the law. Wellness farms for drug users seems reasonable. They’ve cancelled the tracking database due to people’s concerns about privacy.