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I would go further than that: It should be up for question whether the neurotypicals are actually the ones who are "retarded". Just because there's lots of a p

I would go further than that: It should be up for question whether the neurotypicals are actually the ones who are "retarded". Just because there's lots of a particular phenotype of a species doesn't mean they have to be the most apt at what they're doing. - I don't know if I have autism, but I can observe lots of ways of thinking which are deemed as "autistic" by neurotypicals, and to me those are always the ways of thinking which just make the most sense. Or well, at least the high-functioning autism ones to be fair. The neurotypical way of maneuvering through the world in contrast seems rather childish usually. Things don't have to make sense there. They just are declared as "that's the way it is done, we've always done it like that", and off you go. Sometimes I wonder if such people even think anything at all about what they're doing most of the time.

DoreenMichele 6y ago
If you see people as defective rather than simply different and you try to force them to "be normal," you may be actively damaging them and creating a lot of the ways they are dysfunctional. I am suspicious that some fairly large portion of problems in people who qualify for various labels is rooted in the world actively breaking them rather than some inherent shortcoming per se.
kypro 6y ago
I feel bad saying it, but my experience of neurotypicals as an autist is exactly this and I've wondered the same thing my whole life. I don't think I'll ever understand why neurotypicals get so emotional about everything. There's often been times in my life where I've tried to make indisputable logical statements based on hard facts, but someone will decide to take offence and complain because the reality isn't to their liking. My whole life I've had to navigate around childish neurotypicals who can't handle straight forward conversations about things without getting overly emotional. Just look at what happened to James Damore because he made the mistake of trying to use logic with neurotypicals. When I was a kid it used to really upset me. I got in trouble several times for trying to explain why various religious stories didn't make logical sense. I also got in trouble for saying I didn't like the head teacher which was an objectively true statement. When I look back now I realise it wasn't me who had the problem. If anything it was them.
BurnAphterRead 6y ago
There is no real neurotypical.
- DoreenMichele 6y ago
  "Normal is a setting on a washing machine." (Saying from some group I used to hang with.)
  - BurnAphterRead 6y ago
    Precisely. I know a lot of people, and I know that a lot of those people all display distinctive disorders of one kind or another. Like alcoholism, or risk-insensitivity, body dysmorphia, depression, narcissism, psychopathy. All normal does is describe the fact they can spin about in place for their social contract quota, once that's over they're all fucked up, in one way or another. Some ways are just less salient than others I suppose.

DoreenMichele 6y ago

If you see people as defective rather than simply different and you try to force them to "be normal," you may be actively damaging them and creating a lot of the ways they are dysfunctional. I am suspicious that some fairly large portion of problems in people who qualify for various labels is rooted in the world actively breaking them rather than some inherent shortcoming per se.

kypro 6y ago

I feel bad saying it, but my experience of neurotypicals as an autist is exactly this and I've wondered the same thing my whole life. I don't think I'll ever understand why neurotypicals get so emotional about everything. There's often been times in my life where I've tried to make indisputable logical statements based on hard facts, but someone will decide to take offence and complain because the reality isn't to their liking. My whole life I've had to navigate around childish neurotypicals who can't handle straight forward conversations about things without getting overly emotional. Just look at what happened to James Damore because he made the mistake of trying to use logic with neurotypicals. When I was a kid it used to really upset me. I got in trouble several times for trying to explain why various religious stories didn't make logical sense. I also got in trouble for saying I didn't like the head teacher which was an objectively true statement. When I look back now I realise it wasn't me who had the problem. If anything it was them.

BurnAphterRead 6y ago

There is no real neurotypical.

DoreenMichele 6y ago
"Normal is a setting on a washing machine." (Saying from some group I used to hang with.)
- BurnAphterRead 6y ago
  Precisely. I know a lot of people, and I know that a lot of those people all display distinctive disorders of one kind or another. Like alcoholism, or risk-insensitivity, body dysmorphia, depression, narcissism, psychopathy. All normal does is describe the fact they can spin about in place for their social contract quota, once that's over they're all fucked up, in one way or another. Some ways are just less salient than others I suppose.