4 ms·

Because to people who are neuro typical, these terms suggest that other people are just making things up to not seem stupid, incompetent or lazy, unfortunately.

james_s_tayler 6y ago
Well if you're an ignorant cunt, maybe.
- tremon 6y ago
  Point is, these labels make it easier to be an ignorant cunt because they allow you to classify people as an out-group.
  - WalterSear 6y ago
    To refuse to identify the issue is to do exactly what the ignorant cunts are doing.
  - james_s_tayler 6y ago
    Well, it's the exact opposite. They allow people qualified to diagnose the condition to identify those of us who have a pervasive developmental disorder with well known brain correlates that give rise to our behavior that appears as lazy, selfish, forgetful and stubborn. If anyone wants to tell me "nah man, you're just a bad person" I'll tell em right back "Nah man, you're just an ignorant cunt." Normally when you meet such people they are explicitly trying to reject the label based on a single data point and a piss poor understanding of the condition. It usually goes something like "But you can't have ADHD because you're a successful software engineer, so you must be able to focus right?". Sorry, but yes, yes I can and if you want to try and comment on whether I do or do not have ADHD then you'll have to go through the full diagnostic assessment and that first entails getting board certified and then gaining significant clinical experience with ADHD or being under the supervision of someone who does.
BerislavLopac 6y ago
I agree with you here, but this raises an honest question: for all practical purposes, what is the actual difference between "being neuro atypical" and "being stupid, incompetent or lazy"?
- chownie 6y ago
  Wow, that's not very nice to read as someone neurodivergent (in my case Autism). I'll use ND further on since it's pretty long to re-read. ND people are all very different, with their own strengths and needs. A lot of it can be environment based, autistic people struggle very commonly with environmental overstimulation. Moving from an open place office to my own living room seems to have freed up about 30 IQ points previously dedicated to constantly scanning a busy room for threats, I'm suddenly more productive. My neurodivergency did not change, if I appeared incompetant before I suddenly appear far more competant now. For all practical purposes, what's the difference between "pain fatigue" and being stupid? "dyslexia" and incompetance? "receiving chemo" and laziness?
  - BerislavLopac 6y ago
    My apologies, but I was not trying to imply what you seem to have read. My point was -- how do we define any of these things? Neurodivergency is a scientific term, and it ios reasonably well defined -- but the other set of terms ("lazy", "stupid" etc) are labels that have been used to generalise some, for lack of better term, "traits" perceived -- by some people, in some historic periods -- as undesirable. Or to put it another way: neurodiversity is a real thing; "laziness" and "stupidity" probably isn't.

james_s_tayler 6y ago

Well if you're an ignorant cunt, maybe.

tremon 6y ago
Point is, these labels make it easier to be an ignorant cunt because they allow you to classify people as an out-group.
- WalterSear 6y ago
  To refuse to identify the issue is to do exactly what the ignorant cunts are doing.
- james_s_tayler 6y ago
  Well, it's the exact opposite. They allow people qualified to diagnose the condition to identify those of us who have a pervasive developmental disorder with well known brain correlates that give rise to our behavior that appears as lazy, selfish, forgetful and stubborn. If anyone wants to tell me "nah man, you're just a bad person" I'll tell em right back "Nah man, you're just an ignorant cunt." Normally when you meet such people they are explicitly trying to reject the label based on a single data point and a piss poor understanding of the condition. It usually goes something like "But you can't have ADHD because you're a successful software engineer, so you must be able to focus right?". Sorry, but yes, yes I can and if you want to try and comment on whether I do or do not have ADHD then you'll have to go through the full diagnostic assessment and that first entails getting board certified and then gaining significant clinical experience with ADHD or being under the supervision of someone who does.

BerislavLopac 6y ago

I agree with you here, but this raises an honest question: for all practical purposes, what is the actual difference between "being neuro atypical" and "being stupid, incompetent or lazy"?

chownie 6y ago
Wow, that's not very nice to read as someone neurodivergent (in my case Autism). I'll use ND further on since it's pretty long to re-read. ND people are all very different, with their own strengths and needs. A lot of it can be environment based, autistic people struggle very commonly with environmental overstimulation. Moving from an open place office to my own living room seems to have freed up about 30 IQ points previously dedicated to constantly scanning a busy room for threats, I'm suddenly more productive. My neurodivergency did not change, if I appeared incompetant before I suddenly appear far more competant now. For all practical purposes, what's the difference between "pain fatigue" and being stupid? "dyslexia" and incompetance? "receiving chemo" and laziness?
- BerislavLopac 6y ago
  My apologies, but I was not trying to imply what you seem to have read. My point was -- how do we define any of these things? Neurodivergency is a scientific term, and it ios reasonably well defined -- but the other set of terms ("lazy", "stupid" etc) are labels that have been used to generalise some, for lack of better term, "traits" perceived -- by some people, in some historic periods -- as undesirable. Or to put it another way: neurodiversity is a real thing; "laziness" and "stupidity" probably isn't.