Category: the Rant Board
As some members may already be aware, I'm not blind, but I have
mild/moderate autism. I'm a dork and I know it.
Anyways, for the last few months, I figured that I would dabble in autism
activism, since, well, being autistic and having a job, I thought that I
would be a good person to help out others. Boy was I wrong about that!
The movement in general is an extremely vocal movement that is extremely
unwilling to take a perspective outside of its own bounds. Truly
unfortunate is it that all of the stereotypical weaknesses of autism activism
are apparent in its movement...
First and foremost, Autism gets possibly the shittiest big-name "Activist
group" out there - Autism Speaks. Basically, do me a huge favour and don't
donate to these guys. A big problem with them is that they advocate for
some pretty awful treatments that if performed on others, would be called
abusive. In addition, they also fund towards exterminating something that,
frankly, doesn't have a ton of information on it yet - including possible
positive traits. Most people with autism are against the organization.
But honestly? What we actually have isn't much better.
First, many individual autistic bloggers are absolute MORONS. And I do not
say this lightly. Oftentimes they advocate for things that are either 1) too
difficult to implement, 2) unnecessary or 3) things that aren't even true. 1
usually manifests itself in adding additional provisions for autistic people -
which sounds reasonable at first until people request that they are catered
to every individual's personal needs. 2 often straddles on word use and the
whole bullshit of first person-third person pronouns (I really hope you guys
don't have to deal with that one, it's as every bit as asinine as it sounds),
and 3 usually is just exaggerating facts like saying that 99% of the
population wants autistic people dead because Autism Speaks exists... yes,
it's really that bad.
What's worse is that, when these people are brought onto the debate
team. First, these guys pretty much define debate as they want, and
oftentimes it only supports a single position.
For example, I recently got in a heated debate about why Devil's Advocate
is a completely valid tactic to criticize bad activism. Instead of
acknowledgement of examples or even the basic premise, I am presented
with the straw man that claims that "using devil's advocate in civil rights
has no place because by using such you must imply that some people
shouldn't have rights." Yep, that happened.
Another absolutely atrocious thing that they do is that oftentimes they will
outright ERASE a diagnosis if they disagree with you. A common remark is
that "oh well if the first time you ever cared about autistic people is when
they said something about you"... hello I AM AUTISTIC you can't just
assume shit because it's convenient!
Hypocrisy is common within these advocates. One issue that many
autistics disagree with, including myself, is the use of something called
Functioning Labels. These are basically "High-functioning" and "low
functioning". I disagree with them because they do not present an
adequate representation of what autism actually is, which is a set of many
different problems at different rates. Of course, these idiots throw this out
the window when they disagree with someone. People who advocate
against their use consistently say I am too "high-functioning" to have an
opinion. Holy shit wat
In addition, the movement often ignores the perspectives of other groups
that may have related issues, such as the elderly regarding issues with
caretakers, or the deaf regarding issues with sign language. It's absolutely
abysmal how much these morons care so little about anyone else but
themselves. It's practically an ego stroking contest, with extra oppression
olympics thrown in. Wait until they met one of you guys, then they'd really
learn what "oppression" is!
Oh, and blind people? Well, they'll just assume that shit. Yep, so much for
"nothing about us without us". Also, there are people who claim that
autistic people came up with that and will lose their absolute shit if you
even suggest otherwise. It's... absolutely a spectacle.
URGH I DON'T EVEN CARE ANYMORE. I have a job, I have a life, I really
don't give a shit about these morons. I want to actually help people who
aren't pretentious, ignorant, hypocritical, angsty, lying, self-obsessed
pieces of shit.
Hopefully your activism isn't this batshit insane. Do yourself a favour, if
tumblr ever becomes accessible, avoid it like the plague. It will damage
your brain.
I'm not a fan of Autism Speaks either, which is why I don't support them.
In real life, I attend an adult Aspie meetup group, but that's all. I am not involved in activism. How is walking for autism going to change it?
Online, I have a magical power I don't possess in real life - the power of alt F4. Try availing yourself of this key combination when you encounter idiots online in the future.
Heh, that's true. I honestly tried to help lol. Now I'm just done with it.
Watching cartoons now.
Okay, I need to chime in:
I am a member of the NFB and yes I am active. I do not agree with many of the crazies that tend to populate the activism circuit I can tell you! However, this actually encourages me to continue. The goal is reform. Yes, it will take time but I have to believe it matters. Block out the idiots and fight for the issues you care about.
Hello Daigonite,
I don't know a lot about autism activism or the situation for autistic or other disabled people in the US. However, I reead your first post in this threadd with interest.
I think the points you raise apply across the disability spectrum and are not limited to autism. In the UK, we have a charity for the learning disabled which has colluded with social services to ensure disabled parents cannot see their children or each other unsupervised despite never causing any harm to anybody. Therre is a big scandal of learning disabled parents having their children taken from them and charities creating the impression that they serve them while stpping short of demanding social services return their children so they won't lose their funding.
More generally, disability activists have resorted to scaremongering over welfare, to the extent that they use any suicide of somebody who is on benefits as a political weapon. The national disability charities are so huge that to me charity isn't an accurate description for them. Corporate empires is what they are. I don't claim the current welfare forms are perfect, but the charities, with their huge research gudgets criticise the forms while not submitting alternative forms to the government that would ensure genuinely disabled people got benefits and fewer people could commit benefit fraud.
I too have encountered activists who make unreasonable demands instead of making more sensible demands. The locality where I live is generaly divided in two. There are several libraries in the locality. Years ago, when Jaws was the only good screenreader, blind activists demanded that it was installed in every library so they could use the computer facilities of the library. They could have made a more sensible demand, that Jaws was put on a computer in each half of the locality. This would have meant that though most libraries wouldn't have Jaws, library computer services were within reasonable distance for blind people - a short taxi journey.
The activists are always mor organised. Many disabled people believe what ever the charities they use tell them and always support the charities and activists. Those of us with alternative views and ideas are not heard because the charities and activists claim to speak for everybody in the groups they campaign for. We are not heard by society and as we don't know each other, we are not heard by each other so we cannot exchange views and come up with alternative answers.
So what can we do about this?
"Yes, it will take time but I have to believe it matters. Block out the idiots and fight for
the issues you care about."
Honestly, it gets to be exhausting, and in my current situation, I don't need that. I am
inspired to make a cartoon about this whole debacle though.
Most times my "activism" just resorts to showing people how I am like and teaching
them that preconceived notions is wrong. It goes such a long way.
"More generally, disability activists have resorted to scaremongering over welfare, to
the extent that they use any suicide of somebody who is on benefits as a political
weapon."
Oh my GOD they do this all the time in autism activism! ASAN is really bad about this.
Basically, some sadistic son-of-a-bitch kills their kid, blames their autism, and
practically EVERYONE loses their shit over it, turning it from one incident to "all non-
autistics want us dead". And yes people completely buy this bullshit as legit. Its the
most passive aggressive bullshit ever. I do have to give SOME credit where credit is
due - ASAN has corrected themselves a few times after I had called them out for
spreading either propaganda and/or hateful posts. Of course, they still need a shit ton
of work and that's just something I simply cannot address anymore, especially when
it's a literal shit mountain.
I think the biggest problem relating to self-advocacy regarding autism is that,
basically, Autism Speaks exists (and they act a lot like what you describe with the
charities in your post) and they just fucking run with a doozy with it. A lot of people
even act like Autism Speaks is a hivemind for non autistics. Not only this, but these
people are extremely hesitant to criticism and self regulation and it turns from a set of
completely reasonable requests to absolute insanity.
Another big problem with autism advocacy, somewhat induced by the fact that it is
autism advocacy, is that it expects people to accommodate for everyone's problems
(of course, except for those who hold dissenting opinions). The biggest problem with
this is something I like to call the 95% rule - if 95% of people would not benefit from a
change, it is likely too strenuous on society to implement it, with a negative net
benefit. Of course, the percentage is arbitrary but the point still stands.
For example, adjusting dollar bills to be accessible to the blind would benefit most blind
individuals. But an individual who claims that he needs chairs modified to accommodate
his blindness (for whatever arbitrary reason, I've seen people say worse), when the
chairs available accommodate almost all other blind people, it is unreasonable to
expect that all of society accommodates for this particular issue.
While both can be worked around, only one makes a major improvement on most blind
people's ability to function independently - the dollar bills.
Autism advocacy absolutely refuses to understand this concept (probably because
they were raised to be special snowflakes), and, due to the wide variety of problems
with autistic individuals, they expect EVERY one of their needs covered. I can
understand having obscure needs - for example I have a ridiculous aversion to wet
bread. But I do not EXPECT every single place in society to accommodate for this
problem. I ask people politely to not talk about it around me and to toast my bread
before making sandwiches and that's about it.
They consistently play victim and act like because society won't cater for things which
are clearly special snowflake bullshit, they simply cannot function.
Another HUGE problem with autism advocacy that I'm fairly certain does not occur so
much with the blind are people who PRETEND to be autistic. Unlike blindness you can't
really "see" autism and people can learn to mask it, so it can be difficult to tell the
difference between someone who genuinely has problems and someone who thought
that WebMD is the equivalent of a diagnosis. This causes the advocacy to take these
people in as anyone else, and usually these types tend to play up their autism to the
nth degree. The problem? These people are actually having a say in matters that are
probably not even RELEVANT to them. Their words still echo through the halls after
they leave their "I might be autistic" phase. Not only this, but the group finds it
demeaning to attempt to be critical of this kind of behaviour (which is a massive
plague on the entire internet, believe me) and thus refuses to regulate people talking
LITERALLY BULLSHIT. EVEN WORSE is that these same chucknuggets have the
AUDACITY to erase people's diagnosis that they don't agree with AND PEOPLE
ACTUALLY ALLOW THIS BULLSHIT TO PASS. People actually think it's okay to erase
people with professional diagnosis (such as myself) because they made the sin of
DISAGREEING with them, but when it comes to some dipshit who discovered google
search and autism and self diagnoses, if they happen to agree with them nobody is
allowed to question them. IT GETS BETTER - when you PROVE to these numbfucks
that you are, indeed, a diagnosed autistic, they then throw their "everyone counts"
ideology out the window and hypocritically state that your opinion doesn't count
because of some bullshit reasons. It is absolutely as asinine as it sounds.
Finally, and perhaps most irritatingly, these people have a HUGE fucking superiority
complex. They act like the world owes them something because they have autism. It
gets better - they often deride non-autistics for the simple fact that they were not
autistic - something that you are born with and cannot choose to be one way or
another. Perhaps most jarringly is their interpretation of the definition of
"neurodiveristy" - apparently neurodiversity only counts if you're not "normal" because
clearly people who have various cognitive issues are much more important than those
who do not. I have brought this up MULTIPLE TIMES to many unsatisfying responses,
the most ridiculous claiming that they were special and somehow more important than
non-autistics. Another common one that I saw in a parenting group was that certain
common teaching styles in the United States, which affect BOTH autistic AND non-
autistic children, were only seen as potentially dangerous to autistic children. Uh,
hello, shouldn't we be trying to ensure that ALL of our children get the best education?
Maybe as a problem for ALL children we should try to reform our way of thinking.
It's absolutely mind-numbingly irritating. I was diagnosed as an adult, so maybe I
missed the moron bullet, but clearly it is having an effect on almost everyone else. I
don't get this attitude at all. 50 years ago, most of these people would be labeled as
strange or eccentric; it's the minority of individuals who have severe problems who
would need the advocacy in the first place - but they're not the idiots who are talking.
The idiots who are talking are the ones telling these individuals that people want them
dead, books written by non-autistics are always bad and that non-autistics have
supremacy over all and we should exterminate them.
I am dead fucking serious and unlike the blind activist movement these people are
actually not just a vocal minority, they are in such numbers that they cannot be
silenced.
I find this almost a lost cause. I represent nobody else but myself. Nothing about ME
without ME, because I can't speak for others, which "us" implies. But clearly these
retards can speak all the fuck over everyone else, and the moment that someone has
the audacity to disagree with them talking over them, they cannot even handle it.
Isn't this the shit they were trying to fight in the first place?
Fucking imbeciles.
All I can do is to continue to climb this mountain myself, I guess. People who aren't
complete fucking morons tend to find my experiences and stories interesting. I have
thought on multiple occasions of producing memoirs on my adventures with autism,
blindness and all that fun jargon. Eh, idk.
One word I got out of Post 1: Tumblr.
Tumblr is a rat-infested shithole from what I have seen. Someone kind of pranked me by sending me videos of these Tumblr Suffragettes, all these otherkin (people who think they're trans-species) tranf-fat trans-abled preferred pronouns like she, zhir and thon, all sorts of crazy things. I said they pranked me, as in they sent the vids claiming it was just elaborate hoaxes / people clowning around. I took the bait, had a good laugh, ... ... and then found out these people do exist, on Tumblr anyway.
It was then I learned about the term Oppression Olympics. Seriously? I couldn't have made shit up like this when I used to do drugs in college!
My bet, these kids will grow up and get jobs and get over themselves, eventually. Too optimistic? Maybe.
Autism speaks is not a great organisation. Fine, I understand people wanting to develop cures for things, blindness, autism, hearing impairments, the list goes on...but there's a difference between advocating for experimental and often harmful treatments on people and investing money in research that A. could develop a cure and B. raises understanding of the condition therefore helping people who live with it. Unfortunately autism speaks generally does the former.
However, moving onto your comments about activists, a lot of disability activists in any group are like that, my family refer to them as the proffessionally disabled. They live their disability, that is all they are. The wider world is out to kill disabled people by starving them to death and depriving them of basic human rights, or so they seem to think. Unfortunately you get that in all groups.
The best form of activism you can engage in is living your life and educating other people by showing them what you are capable of.
"One word I got out of Post 1: Tumblr."
I would agree with you if this bullcrap hasn't already spread to other
places. The final pushing point for me was a Facebook post about
"supportive" parents. Just a friendly reminder that these people are out
there and are parenting kids and aren't just little butthurt kiddies on the
internet. Frowns
I don't even think it originated on Tumblr, tumblr just helped put gasoline
on the fire - tumblr is a fantastic platform for getting people to access
your voice via their tag system, and people just love scandalous things.
Personally, I think it started with WrongPlanet - Wrongplanet forums is
loaded with people who are unwilling to look past their autism and use it as
a crutch, and it may have evolved from some radicals on there. This was a
problem way before the social justice scene happened on Tumblr and
maybe along with the radical feminists they're what caused it.
You're right though, people from the social justice side Tumblr are
completely unmanageable. There is an anti-social justice warrior side of
tumblr where people who aren't completely batshit insane discuss their
problems, but they're pretty much outnumbered by pretentious little shits
who are busy trying to make themselves oppressed. The biggest reason
why it's spread so much is Tumblr's format - one, its tagging system makes
posts readily available to many people and they don't get swamped in the
main feed (it's based in discovery after all) and two, it doesn't present
itself like a forum - here, you can read the person's response to a post, no
matter how ludicrous or logical it may be. There, since it is a blogging
platform, a person may simply refuse to "Reblog" a response, thus
completely censoring the response to their followers. If that person has
many followers, those followers would have to dig through the notes to
actually read the response, thus being influenced that this person's post
HAS no response.
I once had a "blind" person (I have no idea how, I've heard that tumblr is
completely inaccessible for the most part, hmm sounds fishy) claim that it
was okay to steal from shops and their only defense was, "I'M BLIND YOU
HATE ME DISCRIMINATION WAAH". Lol if only they knew me. I linked her
several times here and told her to see what the blind community thinks on
her views, for some reason she rejected my request? I wonder why lol
I stopped following most of the blogs that post that kind of content more
than once a day. I typically follow birdie blogs now and that's fine by me. If
you avoid that bullshit scene, the site is actually pretty cool, although it's
not the best for the blind considering how image oriented it is.
But yeah, all the kinds of people you describe totally exist. There's an
entire reddit dedicated to ridiculing their bullshit called "Tumblr in Action".
"It was then I learned about the term Oppression Olympics. "
Actually, Oppression Olympics is not a term the social justice warriors on
tumblr came up with - it's a criticism of their methods. They essentially try
to boil down oppression down to looks, and it's unbelievably racist, sexist,
and everything else-ist. Humourously though they tend to use terms
arguably worse, like calling every non-white person "people of colour".
hahahaha, they actually think that's more "politically correct" than just
calling them their race.
Tumblrinas (and sadly other places on the internet too now, it's like a
cancer) have a tendency to try to measure oppression, despite oppression
being completely unquantifiable, and judge those who they presume to
have less oppression than them. That's why critics call it the "oppression
olympics". It's like two 8 year olds arguing over who is the stronger super
hero, it's completely retarded.
"Autism speaks is not a great organisation. Fine, I understand people
wanting to develop cures for things, blindness, autism, hearing
impairments, the list goes on...but there's a difference between advocating
for experimental and often harmful treatments on people and investing
money in research that A. could develop a cure and B. raises understanding
of the condition therefore helping people who live with it. Unfortunately
autism speaks generally does the former."
Honestly it's not just that, although that is a big part of it.
One of the biggest problems internally regarding Autism Speaks is that it
really isn't understood whether or not Autism is a full fledged disability in
most people or if it's society's problem - in that, autism speaks brands
autism with all the negative traits while ignoring the possibility that in
milder forms it could have benefits. I've always held this particular
perspective, especially considering myself, because I had to approach life
in a different way than others, but I wouldn't necessarily call myself
disabled. It's just that my challenges are different and people who aren't
autistic notice them more than with people who are not autistic.
I'm not sure if the same logic would apply to the blind - I've heard opinions
all over the place - but in it's current state, most people I've talked to
view themselves more as "different" and it's other people who disable them,
because they're used to what they have to deal with. That's kind of how I
feel. With autism, there's a further wrinkle - while I know many people
would choose to not be born with blindness if they had the choice to
prevent it, autism is more of the way your brain works - making that
decision a lot more dabbling into morality. I can't speak for anyone here
regarding blindness, but I would be willing to bet most people would have
at least, given the choice, would be happy to have prevented their
blindness, regardless of its cause.
With autism, since it's a pretty big part of who you are, a "cure" suggests
erasure of a kind of people neurologically. It's extremely hard to draw the
line between those who are completely dependent and those who are not -
of course we want to help those who cannot help themselves, but then
there are people like me and many others who are capable of helping
themselves via different approaches. When you're that young, how can
you tell the difference? There is NO way of telling the success of a child at
that age - and by stripping away that "autism" you could be stripping away
a major part of who that person is - and by stripping away autism from
society you strip away a large part of humanity neurologically. If that
makes any sense.
"Unfortunately you get that in all groups."
I know that, but I sure as hell hope they aren't as common in the blind
community as they are in the autism community! Hooo boy! Seems like the
less of a challenge you have the more idiotic your activism gets lol
"The best form of activism you can engage in is living your life and
educating other people by showing them what you are capable of."
Totally true. This is what I pretty much live by. I found that just showing
people what I'm capable of changes their opinion of the disorder pretty
quickly. That's all it really takes, most of the time. Sometimes there's some
mild misunderstandings, and I understand both sides of this back since I
was once friends with That One Blind Guy, but I think that (while he wasn't
being completely fucktarded about his girlfriend) that he understood that
we mutually cared about each other and that even when we made
mistakes that we apologized for them on both sides. That's honestly all it
takes. A little bit of reasonableness.
Honestly, good activism is like what MLK did. He didn't just whine about
how it was to be black, because he wouldn't have gotten very far with
that. He described things that anyone could understand, and that's why
they sympathized with him. He never was violent, nor told anyone else to
die. He was a true egalitarian. I wish more people would actually read
about what MLK did as opposed to ignorantly using his quotes to justify
their own hubris.
WrongPlanet used to be an interesting place, about 7 years ago. Now it takes at least 30 seconds to load, and I learn almost nothing once it's loaded. Most of the "autism news, activism and media representation" threads are started by people who want to rant about themselves and have nothing to do with actual news.
If I were given the chance to see, I would still be the same person I am today but with better hardware. A "cure" for autism would likely involve a radical reorganization of the brain, so I don't think that a non-autistic me is even possible. I believe the restructuring would create another person, and I would cease to exist.
Leo, I had to Google Oppression Olympics because I'd never heard of it before. Since then, I've thought of an example: Some asexual people seem to think they're the most discriminated-against orientation in the world. Supposedly some survey indicates that landlords are more likely to rent to a gay person than an asexual person. Yeah, if you're fired, beaten, or refused medical treatment and can prove it was because you're asexual, then I want to hear about it. Discrimination does not equal someone said something about you which hurt your feelings.
@ScarletSky this goes for any activism. Look at religious evangelists, only live their religion, and everything that goes wrong must be the devil. Look at feminist activists, where everything is misogyny even if it's about rocks and gems. All these little groups just want to be little special snowflakes, in my opinion, and never really deal with real troubles real people face.
How many antitheists actually raise money to help atheist kids who are cut off from their college money or booted from their parents' houses? All these social justice warriors are all about themselves showing how victimized they are and making the story about them and their cause. Look at how scandalously everyone behaved on Twitter and elsewhere after the Elliot Roger incident, when every little rich kiddo got on there to claim they are just as victimized as the people executed by Elliot Roger? Everyone wants on the gravy train, apparently, provided the gravy train's last stop is the oppression Olympics. You know, South Park or Family guy couldn't have topped this in a show. And a show it is, until you realize they're real.
Voyager, Wrongplanet takes so long to load to avoid DDOS attacks, which
presumably they have been getting from 4Chan because most people insist on
being sperglords.
A FITTING PUNISHMENT
Oh man, I forgot to mention - there was one time that some tumblrina in
Skype got butthurt because I was telling them an (admittedly
heartwarming) story about fanmail someone sent me about the Braillemon
project, and they had to make it all about gender based issues because I
had the audacity to call someone named Caitlin a she. How do these
people even breathe?
I was so peeved that someone turned a happy story about someone being
able to play their favourite game again after going fucking blind into a "me
me me oppreshun" issue I wrote a very angry post about it, which can be
read here: http://daigonite.tumblr.com/post/79887928437/an-illustration-
of-why-i-do-not-like-the-sjw-movement (let me know if the layout isn't
accessible, I don't mind reposting it here).
Damn kids these days must be really bored.
I can empathize with your frustration about autism speaks, but, as has been said, I'm certain that this sort of thing isn't specific to that group, and that group only.
I think, though, that it's hard to see that, sometimes, especially if you feel a certain group's practices/beliefs so personally affect you.
so, I'm not sure if this helps, but just know that, at some point in our lives, we all experience things of this nature, to one degree or another.
The dollar example in the post of mine is spot on. There are people who are reasonable about trying to make things more accessible and there are people who are extre.e. The accommodation extremists expect everything to be adapted to fully accommodate every need they claim to have. If they adapted themselves a bit more they may not have so many needs.
I have never felt I am in the majority. The majority seem to be the people and organisations I described in my previous post. If I am part of a majority, it is a majority that is so silent that it cannot b noticed by anybody who is part of it.
The people and organisations I described in my previous post have such an advantage. they are well organised, they are perceived to be representative, they have money, they have influence, they have connections, they have respect and they have power.
As bad as things are in atutism and vvisual impairment, nothing is as bad as the mental health sector in terms of activism and how it responds to opposition. Who ever fights the mental health sector is very brave.
Finally on faking disabilities, I am able to tell whether somebody is genuinely disabled orfaking/exaggerating their condition. I cannot be the only one surely. Charities don't like the media reporting stories about people faking disabilities. I think that is because they help them. I know of people who have faked or exaggerated disabilities to get more welfare getting help from charities.
Chel, I'm sorry if I'm implying that it doesn't exist in other things. I'm
reporting what I've seen personally. It seems to be a cespool on most
online places - from what I've noticed at least online, at least the blind
community sometimes self regulates this kind of nonsense - ASD doesn't
seem to have that maturity.
"If they adapted themselves a bit more they may not have so many
needs."
This is super true. I feel like a lot of problems that many of these autistic
people face would be resolved if they attempted to view things from a
different perspective - and while it is more difficult to do such a thing if
you're autistic (I know personally), it is not impossible. I think people are
much too quick to draw that it is impossible to "whatever" when in reality
many times they really do need to try harder - some things are true
limitations but just because something is more difficult doesn't mean it's
impossible. I've lived my whole life with this mantra and it has accomplished
me so much, despite having very moderate autistic traits when I was
younger. If I took a far less "do-it-yourself" perspective I think I would be
in a totally different position today.
Honestly, it's just depressing. I really do want to help these people, and I
understand and sympathize with many of their problems. But they're so
arrogant to others that it's impossible to help. They're so judgmental, so
quick to act like something is an offence. It's exhausting, and it just makes
me turn back to me and go back on my own path than to help wayfarers.
"Finally on faking disabilities, I am able to tell whether somebody is
genuinely disabled orfaking/exaggerating their condition. I cannot be the
only one surely. Charities don't like the media reporting stories about
people faking disabilities. I think that is because they help them. I know of
people who have faked or exaggerated disabilities to get more welfare
getting help from charities."
Oh, some people are good at it. When it comes to autism over the internet,
unless it's obvious, I kind of suck at detecting it. It's really annoying when
you do uncover the "Web MD PHD" though hahaha.
I don't think that your statement regarding charities is necessarily true - at
least regarding autism charities (I can't speak for the blind). Most autism
charities seem to ignore that completely and instead seem to prey on
parents and their upset feelings of feeling that their sons and daughters
are incapable of loving them, a common misconception of autism that is
spread by malicious organizations.
You're right on the mark about resources being sapped up by people who
don't have a problem though. I actually met a woman who had the gall to
tell me that I should go to over 5 doctors if they won't diagnose me so
that I can get on disability. She then would parade her "autistic" child
around like a fancy pet. It was mind numbingly irritating. Her son was
probably not autistic because the symptoms apparently became apparent
when his parents were in the process of divorce, but they collect social
security checks anyhow. When she pressed me to collect disability, I told
her that there are people who actually need it - I have been able to carve
my own path despite my flaws; disability is for people who have not been
able to do that. This was 2 years ago but still has an influence on my life
because I think about it a lot.
I wonder how many other autistics were influenced by ideas like this and
truly believe they are not capable of great things when they have only
been told these things since they were young children? Honestly this goes
for all disabilities too.
I remember one tumblr kiddie was trying to claim that because I had
autism, that I was disabled, because of something called "the social model
of disability" or something or another. While technically I am disabled, I
think what is more important is independence. My ex-friend was disabled
because he was born blind, but he was incredibly independent. He did
everything himself. And so did I. Honestly, this kind of attitude is much
more of a disability in most cases than almost anything else, except in the
most crippling of circumstances.
A little off topic, but a few weeks ago, I went to Baltimore to participate in
a panel at Bronycon (yes, a my little pony con - but I don't know much
about the source material lol) regarding a panel on disabilities. I talked
about how sometimes it's hard when you're different to find "your purpose".
But a unique perspective in the world can help someone who is truly unique
find a unique way to benefit society. I think a lot of people view autism as
being wrong, since in severe cases it is crippling and stigma doesn't help,
but I honestly believe variety is the spice of life, and it helps us all find
things important. To go and claim that because you have autism that you
are automatically incapable is to give up before even going up to bat. :(
Daigonite,
Your posts are so articulate and well-thought-out.
I hope I'm not stereotyping, but aren't autistic people good with the sciences? I seem to
remember someone when I was younger who they said was autistic, and he asked me
really tough questions about geology, and I've always been an avid reader of the sciences.
I confess, he perhaps inadvertently pushed me beyond the limits of my knowledge in the
short time I knew him. Safely, I never knew much else about him.
Anyway, I hope this isn't offensive. But perhaps I understand their balking at people
talking attitude. I tend to see that stuff like religious evangelism. But if they're
scientifically inclined, prrhaps you can.persuade them to be a bit more neuroplastic by
appealing to our knowledge of life at ten end of the last Ice Age. Their Paleolithic
ancestors watched their whole way of life get washed away in a matter of decades due to
glacial melt and rising sea levels. Surprisingly, there was no population crash, as one
might expect when they could no longer freeze food in the ground, herds of game died,
and the landscape as they knew it changed in a number of decades. They are the heroic
ancestors of you, me, and the activists you are running into. A greater testament to the
human spirit and the emergent propertjss of ingenuity and adaptability. Tell them to crack
a book on the Upper Paleolithic Era. Just a suggestion: don't know if it'll work.
"It is not the strongest species that survive, nor is it the most intelligent: but the least
resistant to change." -- Charles Darwin.
I hear what you're saying, but it's definitely not specific to autism groups. there are radical people/immature people everywhere.
Leo, since I'm on the autism spectrum I'll give an answer to your question. It depends on the autistic person. In the meetup group I attend we say "if you've met one Aspie, you've met one Aspie." Many of us are scientifically minded, but not all of us. Some of us are intensely interested in foreign languages or history or mathematics, or just about anything a human being could possibly be interested in.
It sounds like you met someone with what we call a special interest in geology. The main difference between a special interest and the passing interest most people have is its intensity. Special interests tend to be areas where you can amass lots and lots of data. Think of it like collecting facts instead of objects. I'm remembering someone I met who knew just about everything there was to know about the Beetles.
Special interests also tend to be closed systems with consistent rules. That's why many but not all of us are drawn to scientific and technical subjects.
Voyager, thanks for the response. Yeah I sort of wanted to take that back, not wanting to assume all are like the one, as it were.
But I do beg to differ with you on one point: Science is not a closed system, and its rules are merely expressions of what we have figured out thus far. In point of fact, science, even computer science, is a wide open space where so much discovery can be made, where preconceived ideas get overthrown when new data comes along. When I think of closed systems with a lot of rules, I think religion.
Lol. I know of an Aspie who is obsessed with his religion to the point where he talks about it incessantly and drives his family crazy.
I guess when I said "closed system" I was thinking of a programming language where I only have a small number of commands, but I can combine them in infinitely many ways. The rules which dictate the program's behavior are not dependent on how I or others feel or some magical external force. If it doesn't work the way I want the problem is most likely in the source. You're right, science is definitely not a closed system or we would never discover anything new.
I can get into subjects like politics as much. I like to try to recognize patterns and predict outcomes, but large groups of humans and forces I don't understand very well are hard to predict.
Daigonite, I could read the page you posted in Post 13. The Notes system is a bit different you have to click on some of them to get the full note of what someone said, but most of them are just reblogs, sounds like what other services call sharing I guess.
But I found your post interesting and insightful
Daigonite,
Your desire to help autistic people online to change is great.
The problem is, that online you are limited in what you can do. For you to be able to mmake a real difference in the lives of other autistic people who are reluctant to change, I think yu would need to meet them offline, and demonstrate how you benefit from your approach and how their approach disadvantages them. It would require patience and gentle persuasion.
Sadlyl, sometimes when you have not succeded in helping somebody who needs to change, you have to admit that you have not succeded and may never succeed with that individual. It may not be your fault that you have failed. If the website community or at least, the people in charge of it have a particular approach that is different to yours, and the person you wish to help agrees with that approach, you are at a disadvantage. At least you tried.