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This is just the same excuse as the age old "Boys will be boys" excuse. Just because somebody is different doesn't mean they can be a creep and general unpleasa

This is just the same excuse as the age old "Boys will be boys" excuse. Just because somebody is different doesn't mean they can be a creep and general unpleasant person to work with, without there eventually being repercussions.

serf 6y ago
not really. 'boys will be boys' doesn't assert that 'boys' get away with whatever they want because they are neuro-divergent, it asserts that gender allows for additional privilege. >Just because somebody is different doesn't mean they can be a creep For the sake of argument : what if that person has neurological quirks which disallow 'non-creep' , to use your parlance, behavior? To take the example even further , it's illegal with fine attached to say curse words on certain beaches in the United States. Is it reasonable to fine an individual with Tourette Syndrome when they scream expletives on such a beach?
- patmcc 6y ago
  Take it to the extreme - murder is illegal; if you kill someone because you're a bad bad person, we jail you. If you kill someone because you're "insane"...we still remove you from society, but you just get treatment instead of punishment. We still consider the act of killing someone unacceptable. If swearing at the beach is unacceptable, full stop, then it's unacceptable for a person with or without TS. (Personally, that sounds like a dumb law, but what do I know)
  - linspace 6y ago
    I think there is a clear distinction. People have a right to live above insane persons freedom. TS people have a right to freedom above people's inconvenience to hear curse words. Law balances these kind of things all the time, that's why we don't slave people when they own money anymore, to put one of many examples.
  - sellyme 6y ago
    Weirdly I think taking it to the extreme made your point somewhat worse. Something like theft versus kleptomania is just a punishment versus treatment scenario, but I would definitely perceive someone who commits an unprovoked murder to inherently require psychological treatment, even if they don't meet the requirements of an insanity defence. But I do agree with the idea that letting someone off the hook for all consequences on account of a mental illness isn't viable. That makes things a lot harder for neurodivergent individuals, but that's why we should have extensive support programs and provide resources to help them cope with the expectations of general society. It's a tricky problem, because to meaningfully distinguish between someone who is mentally incapable of following a law and someone who is capable of doing so but systematically elects not to, you are functionally deciding which humans do and do not have free will on an individual basis. I think most people would believe that either all humans have free will, or no humans have free will, not somewhere in between, so this is a scenario that is uncomfortable to pretty much everyone.
  - buisi 6y ago
    They're removed from society to protect society from them. However, depriving someone of their liberty is a pretty extreme step to take, and not one which should be taken lightly. A TS individual for instance may be annoying, however they aren't causing actual physical harm to other people, in the same sense that a murderer might be.
- kodah 6y ago
  "Boys will be boys" was usually said when boys were doing something asinine. I've never heard someone frame it the way you did.
metalforever 6y ago
I am not sure if you or a lot of the posters here really understand autism . This is someone with an extremely low emotional iq and an extreme emotional difference.
- geofft 6y ago
  Maybe someone with an extremely low emotional IQ should not be the public face of an activism organization whose primariy job is to persuade the public, then? A lot of the internal-to-the-free-software-community frustration with RMS was how he had basically stopped contributing code to GNU but still felt entitled to overrule maintainers. He is a talented coder! He could have continued to use his skills to write free software and delegated the work of being the face of the movement to others. He could have listened when people suggested to him that he'd be of greater service to the movement that way. He didn't do any of that. Not everyone is ideally suited for every role. That's part of being understanding of neurodivergence.
  - watwut 6y ago
    Sounds like stereotypical manager that used to code, stopped doing and slowly forgot how it is done, but still think it is good idea to talk about it constantly.
HideousKojima 6y ago
"Boys will be boys" was (and still is) a phrase used by most to describe to idiotic stuff boys do like firing roman candles at each other or brothers wrestling with each other and breaking a lamp in the process. How it got twisted to mean that people using it are excusing sexual harassment and assault is beyond me, other than being an obvious attempt by the woke to subvert a common phrase for political purposes.
commandlinefan 6y ago
> a creep and general unpleasant person to work with In my experience, the same sort of people who crusade against the Richard Stallmans of the world are the creepiest and by far most unpleasant to work with, yet they themselves are constantly being celebrated, uplifted, and raised into positions of real power and real harm.

serf 6y ago

not really. 'boys will be boys' doesn't assert that 'boys' get away with whatever they want because they are neuro-divergent, it asserts that gender allows for additional privilege. >Just because somebody is different doesn't mean they can be a creep For the sake of argument : what if that person has neurological quirks which disallow 'non-creep' , to use your parlance, behavior? To take the example even further , it's illegal with fine attached to say curse words on certain beaches in the United States. Is it reasonable to fine an individual with Tourette Syndrome when they scream expletives on such a beach?

patmcc 6y ago
Take it to the extreme - murder is illegal; if you kill someone because you're a bad bad person, we jail you. If you kill someone because you're "insane"...we still remove you from society, but you just get treatment instead of punishment. We still consider the act of killing someone unacceptable. If swearing at the beach is unacceptable, full stop, then it's unacceptable for a person with or without TS. (Personally, that sounds like a dumb law, but what do I know)
- linspace 6y ago
  I think there is a clear distinction. People have a right to live above insane persons freedom. TS people have a right to freedom above people's inconvenience to hear curse words. Law balances these kind of things all the time, that's why we don't slave people when they own money anymore, to put one of many examples.
- sellyme 6y ago
  Weirdly I think taking it to the extreme made your point somewhat worse. Something like theft versus kleptomania is just a punishment versus treatment scenario, but I would definitely perceive someone who commits an unprovoked murder to inherently require psychological treatment, even if they don't meet the requirements of an insanity defence. But I do agree with the idea that letting someone off the hook for all consequences on account of a mental illness isn't viable. That makes things a lot harder for neurodivergent individuals, but that's why we should have extensive support programs and provide resources to help them cope with the expectations of general society. It's a tricky problem, because to meaningfully distinguish between someone who is mentally incapable of following a law and someone who is capable of doing so but systematically elects not to, you are functionally deciding which humans do and do not have free will on an individual basis. I think most people would believe that either all humans have free will, or no humans have free will, not somewhere in between, so this is a scenario that is uncomfortable to pretty much everyone.
- buisi 6y ago
  They're removed from society to protect society from them. However, depriving someone of their liberty is a pretty extreme step to take, and not one which should be taken lightly. A TS individual for instance may be annoying, however they aren't causing actual physical harm to other people, in the same sense that a murderer might be.
kodah 6y ago
"Boys will be boys" was usually said when boys were doing something asinine. I've never heard someone frame it the way you did.

metalforever 6y ago

I am not sure if you or a lot of the posters here really understand autism . This is someone with an extremely low emotional iq and an extreme emotional difference.

geofft 6y ago
Maybe someone with an extremely low emotional IQ should not be the public face of an activism organization whose primariy job is to persuade the public, then? A lot of the internal-to-the-free-software-community frustration with RMS was how he had basically stopped contributing code to GNU but still felt entitled to overrule maintainers. He is a talented coder! He could have continued to use his skills to write free software and delegated the work of being the face of the movement to others. He could have listened when people suggested to him that he'd be of greater service to the movement that way. He didn't do any of that. Not everyone is ideally suited for every role. That's part of being understanding of neurodivergence.
- watwut 6y ago
  Sounds like stereotypical manager that used to code, stopped doing and slowly forgot how it is done, but still think it is good idea to talk about it constantly.

HideousKojima 6y ago

"Boys will be boys" was (and still is) a phrase used by most to describe to idiotic stuff boys do like firing roman candles at each other or brothers wrestling with each other and breaking a lamp in the process. How it got twisted to mean that people using it are excusing sexual harassment and assault is beyond me, other than being an obvious attempt by the woke to subvert a common phrase for political purposes.

commandlinefan 6y ago

> a creep and general unpleasant person to work with In my experience, the same sort of people who crusade against the Richard Stallmans of the world are the creepiest and by far most unpleasant to work with, yet they themselves are constantly being celebrated, uplifted, and raised into positions of real power and real harm.