6 ms·

Note: The title set off all my alarm bells for some kind of ragebait piece, but the title is ironic - this is actually a painfully thoughtful 1-hour exploration

Note: The title set off all my alarm bells for some kind of ragebait piece, but the title is ironic - this is actually a painfully thoughtful 1-hour exploration of the topic from a philosophical/political angle. I really liked the beginning but personally am firmly convinced that autism is a serious biological problem/phenomenon that can only be understood by hard-science. It's true that like other disorders (depression, anxiety) it manifests in a wide variety of symptoms, but for sake of illustration if you ate a bunch of lead (causing a strictly biological problem) it'd likely manifest in a whole host of different ways among different people (one might be withdrawn, another might be violent). Frankly if we're seriously concerned about understanding whether autism is growing, we should develop software-administered questionnaires and take annual samples, you'd only need 2,000 people a year to have a very significant sample.

maxbond 3y ago
I'm under the impression people who have autism take issue with pathologizing it and calling it a "problem" or "illness," and want to be accepted as people who are simply different. The people I know with autism diagnosis are just people, they aren't ill. They might interact with you in a way that feels overly blunt and awkward - but when you understand that's a problem of mismatched expectations, similar to interacting with someone from a different culture who unintentionally comes off as rude, it stops being a problem. I've been told I'm probably autistic (no formal diagnosis, no interest in pursuing one, I don't really see how that would benefit me and my therapist isn't really interested either) and certainly am neurodivergent in a variety of ways, and when it causes me problems it's usually because I'm a round peg which society wants to shove into a square hole. Not because there is something inherently wrong with me.
- zug_zug 3y ago
  Don't mean to offend -- my intent there with the slash is to convey that I give each individual the right to independently label it as a problem if they feel it is, or to label it as a mere phenomenon if they feel it isn't.
  - maxbond 3y ago
    Gotcha. To be clear I don't take offense, I just thought it was worth pointing out. I do see what you were going for there, but it is sort of undone when you seem to compare it to eating lead immediately after. I understand you weren't intending to do that, you never draw a direct comparison, but the juxtaposition seems to imply it. The lead thing was what tipped the scale and made me decide to write a comment, I was on the fence about it.
- temp-word-hose 3y ago
  I do not have autism or ADHD, but a significant number of people in my family do* such that the behaviours popularly believed to be associated with autistic people are the cultural norm in my family, it took me a few years, and many missteps to adjust to the wider cultural norms, and even now after decades as a functional neurotypical, there is a joy, and a sense of slipping back into speaking my mother tongue when I find myself in conversation with someone who speaks and acts with the patterns of my childhood. When for example, last week - an 11 year old was barely able to meet my gaze begins arguing a strongly articulated position on the nature of mosquito consciousness or my work colleague who cannot bare turning on his webcam, leaps straight into a discussion of the relative merits of different data structures. *in my close family - two women - both formally diagnosed as autistic, and at least 4 men among the family elders who trained as mathematicians or engineers are assumed by other family members to be on the autism spectrum, but I am not privy to any formal medical diagnosis.
- faeriechangling 3y ago
  >I'm under the impression people who have autism take issue with pathologizing it and calling it a "problem" or "illness," and want to be accepted as people who are simply different. If you're talking on Hacker news, this is correct, don't pathologize autism or you are condescending to and infantilising your peers. It is obvious autism played into the success of many in this field, treating autistics as if they simply have an illness is unfair. This is CONTEXT DEPEDENT though. If you're talking to a mother of an 8 year old who is having problems with their child damaging their brain by smashing their head on the wall repeatedly to self-stimulate, and they say to you "I wish we could cure this disease of autism", that's when you go with the flow.
  - atlas_hugged 3y ago
    Context dependent indeed! My nephew and I both have it. I just seem like a weird guy to the average person, and sometimes people will even get offended if I mention that I’m autistic. My nephew, on the other hand, is what people think of when they think of autism: Arm flapping, making stimming noises/hums, echolalia, etc. And boy do I just adore that kid. His sense of humor is one of a kind. Anyway… I wish there were subcategories like there are for Depression or ADHD. People getting mad at me for misunderstandings gets old.
    - faeriechangling 3y ago
      There are "levels", but people ignore them. The status quo is that everybody gets put in one bucket called "Autism" regardless of if they're unable to live independently or are multi-billionaires like Elon Musk. That is not socially useful.
faeriechangling 3y ago
>I really liked the beginning but personally am firmly convinced that autism is a serious biological problem/phenomenon that can only be understood by hard-science. Autism is a sociopolitical concept which transcends science where anybody considered sufficiently impaired is deemed "Autistic" regardless of the underlying scientific cause of that impairment. Consequently, Autism is really multiple independent medical issues with overlapping symptoms all hiding in a big trench coat. It is hopelessly entangled with a ton of societal baggage and is not and most likely will never be a hard science concept. >Frankly if we're seriously concerned about understanding whether autism is growing, we should develop software-administered questionnaires and take annual samples, you'd only need 2,000 people a year to have a very significant sample. We have plenty of sampling to test autism incidence.
- zug_zug 3y ago
  Hard disagree. Currently in the US the CDC puts incidence of Autism at 1/36, a number that has changed significantly every year for the last 30 years. There is no longer a scientific consensus that the rate is not changing because we have little incidence data that is judged by in a consistent manner over decades
  - faeriechangling 3y ago
    I mean, I understand that, yet I just see that as more evidence that Autism sociopolitical concept rather than a scientific one since we seem to keep changing our opinion of what Autism is. I see the incidence data as reflecting changes in the sociopolitical environment, and only being loosely connected to any actual population-wide biological changes. I don't think you're ever going to objectively measure how much "Autism" as a scientific biological concept is in the population because again, Autism is a bunch of separate conditions wearing a trench coat. If you ever measured it scientifically and objectively, it would risk people losing their diagnosis and the would be unacceptable. You simply can't objectively measure a subjective concept. More likely when we start measuring thing scientifically and independently we will start testing for the conditions in the trenchcoat rather than for "Autism" itself.

maxbond 3y ago

I'm under the impression people who have autism take issue with pathologizing it and calling it a "problem" or "illness," and want to be accepted as people who are simply different. The people I know with autism diagnosis are just people, they aren't ill. They might interact with you in a way that feels overly blunt and awkward - but when you understand that's a problem of mismatched expectations, similar to interacting with someone from a different culture who unintentionally comes off as rude, it stops being a problem. I've been told I'm probably autistic (no formal diagnosis, no interest in pursuing one, I don't really see how that would benefit me and my therapist isn't really interested either) and certainly am neurodivergent in a variety of ways, and when it causes me problems it's usually because I'm a round peg which society wants to shove into a square hole. Not because there is something inherently wrong with me.

zug_zug 3y ago
Don't mean to offend -- my intent there with the slash is to convey that I give each individual the right to independently label it as a problem if they feel it is, or to label it as a mere phenomenon if they feel it isn't.
- maxbond 3y ago
  Gotcha. To be clear I don't take offense, I just thought it was worth pointing out. I do see what you were going for there, but it is sort of undone when you seem to compare it to eating lead immediately after. I understand you weren't intending to do that, you never draw a direct comparison, but the juxtaposition seems to imply it. The lead thing was what tipped the scale and made me decide to write a comment, I was on the fence about it.
temp-word-hose 3y ago
I do not have autism or ADHD, but a significant number of people in my family do* such that the behaviours popularly believed to be associated with autistic people are the cultural norm in my family, it took me a few years, and many missteps to adjust to the wider cultural norms, and even now after decades as a functional neurotypical, there is a joy, and a sense of slipping back into speaking my mother tongue when I find myself in conversation with someone who speaks and acts with the patterns of my childhood. When for example, last week - an 11 year old was barely able to meet my gaze begins arguing a strongly articulated position on the nature of mosquito consciousness or my work colleague who cannot bare turning on his webcam, leaps straight into a discussion of the relative merits of different data structures. *in my close family - two women - both formally diagnosed as autistic, and at least 4 men among the family elders who trained as mathematicians or engineers are assumed by other family members to be on the autism spectrum, but I am not privy to any formal medical diagnosis.
faeriechangling 3y ago
>I'm under the impression people who have autism take issue with pathologizing it and calling it a "problem" or "illness," and want to be accepted as people who are simply different. If you're talking on Hacker news, this is correct, don't pathologize autism or you are condescending to and infantilising your peers. It is obvious autism played into the success of many in this field, treating autistics as if they simply have an illness is unfair. This is CONTEXT DEPEDENT though. If you're talking to a mother of an 8 year old who is having problems with their child damaging their brain by smashing their head on the wall repeatedly to self-stimulate, and they say to you "I wish we could cure this disease of autism", that's when you go with the flow.
- atlas_hugged 3y ago
  Context dependent indeed! My nephew and I both have it. I just seem like a weird guy to the average person, and sometimes people will even get offended if I mention that I’m autistic. My nephew, on the other hand, is what people think of when they think of autism: Arm flapping, making stimming noises/hums, echolalia, etc. And boy do I just adore that kid. His sense of humor is one of a kind. Anyway… I wish there were subcategories like there are for Depression or ADHD. People getting mad at me for misunderstandings gets old.
  - faeriechangling 3y ago
    There are "levels", but people ignore them. The status quo is that everybody gets put in one bucket called "Autism" regardless of if they're unable to live independently or are multi-billionaires like Elon Musk. That is not socially useful.

faeriechangling 3y ago

>I really liked the beginning but personally am firmly convinced that autism is a serious biological problem/phenomenon that can only be understood by hard-science. Autism is a sociopolitical concept which transcends science where anybody considered sufficiently impaired is deemed "Autistic" regardless of the underlying scientific cause of that impairment. Consequently, Autism is really multiple independent medical issues with overlapping symptoms all hiding in a big trench coat. It is hopelessly entangled with a ton of societal baggage and is not and most likely will never be a hard science concept. >Frankly if we're seriously concerned about understanding whether autism is growing, we should develop software-administered questionnaires and take annual samples, you'd only need 2,000 people a year to have a very significant sample. We have plenty of sampling to test autism incidence.

zug_zug 3y ago
Hard disagree. Currently in the US the CDC puts incidence of Autism at 1/36, a number that has changed significantly every year for the last 30 years. There is no longer a scientific consensus that the rate is not changing because we have little incidence data that is judged by in a consistent manner over decades
- faeriechangling 3y ago
  I mean, I understand that, yet I just see that as more evidence that Autism sociopolitical concept rather than a scientific one since we seem to keep changing our opinion of what Autism is. I see the incidence data as reflecting changes in the sociopolitical environment, and only being loosely connected to any actual population-wide biological changes. I don't think you're ever going to objectively measure how much "Autism" as a scientific biological concept is in the population because again, Autism is a bunch of separate conditions wearing a trench coat. If you ever measured it scientifically and objectively, it would risk people losing their diagnosis and the would be unacceptable. You simply can't objectively measure a subjective concept. More likely when we start measuring thing scientifically and independently we will start testing for the conditions in the trenchcoat rather than for "Autism" itself.