17 ms·

It’s interesting to muse about the larger picture here. What is it that makes autism so dangerous? To me it looks like part of an almost spiritual war against e

It’s interesting to muse about the larger picture here. What is it that makes autism so dangerous? To me it looks like part of an almost spiritual war against empathy/compassion by traumatized individuals trying to fight their own Jungian Shadow.

StefanBatory 2y ago
"Do not commit the sin of empathy"
- an0malous 2y ago
  “The fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy” — Elon on Joe Rogan It’s a core tenant of this Curtis Yarvin / neo reactionary ideology that seems to be shared by a lot of VCs
  - k__ 2y ago
    And then he cries on TV because people are not buying his cars. Can't make that crap up...
    - A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 2y ago
      The funny thing is it is the autists, who don't respond well to emotional appeals. Is that all it is? That it is harder to influence high functioning ones?
      - watwut 1y ago
        Was he ever diagnozed? Because all his success is charizma and social skills based. This claim appears only when he needs to be excused. Also, it is super possible to be a harmful asshole and autist at the same time. Musk also do not care about morals, ethics or laws based appeals.
        A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 1y ago
        I do not think he ever was. As you note, most of the 'accusations' come up without any real evidence. It is all basically the same story as with most remote diagnosis of all politicians that 99% talk show hosts play with their audiences. FWIW, I personally do not think he has autism. I do think his mind works differently from a good chunk of the population though.
        theartfuldodger 1y ago
        He said he had Asbergers in 2021 on SNL. There is no reason any further detail would be public.
  - cruzcampo 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - grafmax 2y ago
      A cadre of billionaires appears determined to institute fascism in the United States; there’s a very real chance they will succeed. Meanwhile, the climate crisis threatens the long-term survival of our species, yet efforts to steer us away from self-destruction are being actively sabotaged by the fossil fuel industry. This is to say nothing of the warmongering with China, another nuclear power. The concentration of wealth (and by extension, power) really has become an existential threat to humanity.
    - thrance 2y ago
      More often than not, it's the other way around. Being born in the bourgeoisie, like Trump and Musk, grooms you into a certain way of thinking. You're told your whole life you are exceptional, above everyone else. No wonder they turn out like that. Read up on both of these guys' educations if you're interested in this.
      - 47282847 2y ago
        Both Trump and Musk may have been born into “bourgeoisie“, but the connecting and relevant factor here is a highly traumatizing childhood with highly traumatized parents.
        thrance 2y ago
        I don't know why you put bourgeoisie in quotes like it's a ridiculous concept. With the kind of analysis you give we're stuck with surface level "oh they're just a bad batch", when they're pure products of a system that makes series of them. It's not like they are thousands just like Trump, ready to step in if he loses power. The bourgeoisie has a material interest in installing fascism, which is why we're here. Bezos, Musk and Zuckerberg are among the only ones to profit from the current circus. It's not the first time it happens either, this has been proven times and times again. Look up the relations of Hitler and Mussolini with the capitalist class of their times. I am not saying them having a shitty childhood had no influence on their politics, simply that it is not nearly enough to understand our current state of affairs.
  - tialaramex 2y ago
    The word you want is tenet A tenant is somebody paying to lease property, for example if you have a landlord, you're their tenant, and by analogy e.g. an Azure tenant is an organisation within the Azure cloud with a unique identifier. A tenet is a belief or principle that is important to some group, for example the IETF's Best Common Practice series are not just RFCs describing a protocol or technology but instead statements of principle such as BCP 188 "Pervasive Monitoring Is An Attack".
    - A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 2y ago
      << "Pervasive Monitoring Is An Attack". Hmm, thank you. This is by far the best pithy argument for privacy I have found thus far.
      - tialaramex 2y ago
        It's also helpful shorthand. One of the reason there is no RSA KEX† in TLS 1.3 is that under BCP 188 obviously aiding bulk surveillance technology isn't acceptable, so when you have a liaison from the ACLU saying yes, get rid of RSA KEX and a representation from EDCO (Enterprise Data Center Operators, basically big old financial companies) saying it'll cost them too much money to lose RSA KEX so it should be reinstated in the late drafts for the RFC, there was no need to re-explain in great detail why the ACLU are right here because there's already a document explaining to anybody who is new to this. † The RSA Key Exchange goes like this: We get the public key of a server from their certificate which they sent us, we pick a symmetric key at random and we encrypt our chosen key using that public key with the RSA algorithm, so that only the legitimate owner of the certificate can decrypt it, then we send that encrypted key to the server. Because they know the Private Key corresponding to the public key in the certificate they can decrypt the symmetric key we sent. This symmetric key is used for all further communication. This means if say, the Mad King's Secret Police obtain a copy of the RSA private key for the server at any time the Secret Police can decrypt every communication, even if the communications they're decrypting happened weeks, months or years before they obtain the key.
        WhatsName 1y ago
  - mycatisblack 2y ago
    The previous silicon valley giants were to a large degree followers of Ayn Rand. This society selects, grooms and idealises a certain psychological profile.
    - cruzcampo 2y ago
      There's a name for that psychological profile: Sociopathy.
  - throw0101b 2y ago
    > “The fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy” — Elon on Joe Rogan Also probably Nietzsche (not on Joe Rogan).
  - Manabu-eo 1y ago
    "I believe in empathy, like, I think you should care about other people [...] empathy is good" — Elon on Joe Rogan
ReptileMan 2y ago
>What is it that makes autism so dangerous? That the parents of severe cases eventually pass away and unless they figure out to take the kid with them, he is condemned at best to a life in mental health institutions - and usually they make One Flew Upon Cuckoo's Nest look like Teletubbies. Add to that more and more people are single kids and usually born out of geriatric pregnancy (which also increases the chances of autism somewhat) - aka above 35, so they really are alone. There are very good state and society interests in preventing autism. Mental disabilities are way worse than physical in today's society. Thankfully not every case is severe. But severe one's do exist.
- Doxin 2y ago
  Surely you can see that this isn't going to be about preventing autism?
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
skippyboxedhero 2y ago
This is like saying what makes cerebal palsy so dangerous. Why is trying to find out causes so dangerous? The dangers of empiricism in the 21st century. In the UK, there are regions where 50% of children born in the early 2000s have special needs, and more children than adults are claiming disability benefits. It is going to have a very big impact on the labour market when 20-30% of these cohorts cannot work and, therefore, need to obtain income support from everyone else.
- t-writescode 2y ago
  > It is going to have a very big impact on the labour market when 20-30% of these cohorts cannot work "Cannot work" has more to do (imo) with the American Welfare Cliff where if you accept disability, you're forced to not have a job because if you make even a small piddling of money (it's something like $600/mo), you lose all your disability. It's very disgusting, imo, and rejecting people's admission of a very real struggle they have because admission "does more harm than good" is, itself, harmful.
timoth3y 2y ago
“I told you once that I was searching for the nature of evil. I think I’ve come close to defining it: a lack of empathy. It’s the one characteristic that connects all the defendants. A genuine incapacity to feel with their fellow man. Evil, I think, is the absence of empathy.” ― G. M. Gilbert, American psychologist who worked on the Nuremberg trials
- ChrisMarshallNY 2y ago
  Didn't someone recently mention that "The fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy"? Sounds familiar...
  - notimetorelax 2y ago
    I didn’t know who that was, so googled. Apparently, Musk said that.
    - coldtea 2y ago
      [flagged]
      - hollandheese 1y ago
        Even autistic people can be jerks. Elon Musk doesn't have empathy because he's an asshole not because he's autistic. No one I've heard is saying Musk is an asshole because he's autistic. It's Musk himself that's making that claim by attempting to use it as a cover for his asshole moves.
        satanfirst 1y ago
        It's only like my opinion, but I think a man who describes his father as a "terrible human being" has enough awareness for self awareness unless the claimed disorder is something self obsessed like narcissism.
  - gruez 2y ago
cruzcampo 2y ago
Autists are just an easy group to target that can't fight back too hard. It's just the next step on the escalation ladder. They'll come for all of us eventually
- ryandrake 2y ago
  The administration's (and R party's) entire M.O. is now to find relatively small, easy-to-target demographic groups that can't fight back, exact cruelty on them to marginalize them even more or (in their view even better) stamp them out, and then go carve out another small, vulnerable group and repeat. We're going to see this pattern repeat over and over in the near future, and there will be many targeted groups.
  - cruzcampo 2y ago
    That famous Martin Niemöller quote comes to mind: First they came for the Communists And I did not speak out Because I was not a Communist Then they came for the Socialists And I did not speak out Because I was not a Socialist Then they came for the trade unionists And I did not speak out Because I was not a trade unionist Then they came for the Jews And I did not speak out Because I was not a Jew Then they came for me And there was no one left To speak out for me If we don't aggressively fight this at every step, it'll be our turn eventually.
  - gizzlon 2y ago
    > When the Nazis came for the communists, I kept quiet; I wasn't a communist. > When they came for the trade unionists, I kept quiet; I wasn't a trade unionist. > When they locked up the Social Democrats, I kept quiet; I wasn't a social democrat. > When they locked up the Jews, I kept quiet; I wasn't a Jew. > When they came for me, there was no one left to protest
- mrguyorama 1y ago
  My prediction will be that ADHD people are next. Only 2% of the population and the social conservative supporters of RFK Jr have always hated giving kids stimulants despite the clear evidence supporting its use. There is STILL an ideology among conservatives that the current crop of people being diagnosed as ADHD is "wrong" and that people "with ADHD" are just junkies abusing stimulants or otherwise "overprescribed", despite clear and obvious evidence that people diagnosed with ADHD struggle to get their medicine for utterly stupid reasons and that we objectively do not have the capacity to evaluate everyone who needs it. They will claim that ADHD people are a drain on society and are unproductive and are just being lazy.
em-bee 2y ago
an interesting book related to this discussion is "Speed of Dark" by Elisabeth Moon. It tells the story of an autistic person and their struggles while faced with the possibility of a "cure"
WhyNotHugo 2y ago
Autists (and neurodivergent people in general) tend to think more freely and follow the crowd less than average. I’d say they’re dangerous in the same way as librarians are dangerous.
throw16180339 2y ago
RFK has been quite clear that autistic people are undesirables. They're collecting our personal information so that we can be imprisoned or killed.
- nailer 1y ago
  He’s being incredibly clear that when he talks about people that have trouble participating in society, he is talking about the 26% of people with profound autism. Online autism conspiracy theory channels turn this into some kind of eugenics purge.
  - ModernMech 1y ago
    He's not being "incredibly clear" because he speaks about autistic people with one broad brush. And in calling this "a conspiracy theory" and "some kind of eugenics purge", you seem to be intentionally downplaying the very real and very legitimate worries of autistic people, a group who has historically been subjected to eugenics purges in the past, which started using the language and rationale Kennedy espouses. If Kennedy wants to be taken seriously and with good faith, he should put autistic people and experts in charge of this effort. That he doesn't speaks volumes about his true intentions. Sorry if that sounds like a conspiracy theory to you, but autistic people like myself see the obvious parallel here and we aren't going to just be quiet and allow it to happen again.
    - nailer 1y ago
      > He's not being "incredibly clear" because he speaks about autistic people with one broad brush. You’re watching edited videos.
      - const_cast 1y ago
        No, this is always the defense people come up when RFK says something insane. It's not deepfake, it's not edited, he is just actually a crazy person. Yes, he truly believes HIV doesn't cause AIDS. Yes, he truly believes vaccines don't work. We should not be listening to him on anything, let alone things that actually matter. There are people living on the side of the road with more credibility and reasonableness than him. And, we will not be gaslit by his defenders who, I can only assume, are equally as insane as him.
JumpCrisscross 2y ago
You’re really wondering why the administration that’s rejected habeas corpus, a right which pre-dates the Magna Carta in our system of law, is creating lists of undesirables?
rayiner 1y ago
Fixing diseases and abnormalities in humans is empathy and compassion.
- throw16180339 1y ago
  Are you referring to the Trump government's treatment of trans people? RFK views autistics as undesirables, so it's absurd to believe that he'll be any nicer to us. > “These are kids who will never pay taxes, they’ll never hold a job, they’ll never play baseball, they’ll never write a poem, they’ll never go on a date, many of them will never use a toilet unassisted,” What makes more sense is that he's collecting our personal information for imprisonment and execution.
  - rayiner 1y ago
    > RFK views autistics as undesirables >> “These are kids who will never pay taxes, they’ll never hold a job, they’ll never play baseball, they’ll never write a poem, they’ll never go on a date, many of them will never use a toilet unassisted,” This is true of people with severe autism. I know someone whose autism is severe enough she'll probably never be able to live independently. Doesn't everyone view that medical condition--the condition, not the person--as undesirable? Doesn't everyone view being healthy as better than being unhealthy? I have ADHD. I'd rather not have ADHD. I take a pill every day to control it. My kid has it too. He'll have to take a pill every day for the rest of his life. I'd love to avoid that outcome. Avoiding disease is a good thing!
    - throw16180339 1y ago
      If he had made the same statement about Bangladeshi-Americans and was collecting their personal information, how would you feel about it?
      - rayiner 1y ago
        Your comparison makes no sense. Bangladeshi Americans, as a group, are normal and healthy. They don't suffer from a medical condition that could be cured. But to use a better example, south asians have a significantly higher risk of developing Type 2 diabetes. Almost everyone in my family has it. It would be great to cure that or figure out how to avoid that. I'd be fine with the government collecting data about that, so long as there was an opt-out.
blahblahblhu 1y ago
This is an interesting narrative. I think competition has something to do with it in our modern society. If I work at a company and someone is so competitive that I end up getting fired for whatever reason. I'm not going to all of a sudden care what happens to that person. Because they didn't care what happens to me. So you extrapolate this to the societal level, mix in the different cultural and clan ideological backgrounds of the occupants on the society and you can see how autism is a scapegoat for side effects of competition in many levels of our lives. Then you add the time dimension into the mix and yeah, maybe it looks like autism but maybe it's just, hey were all competing in many different ways and at some point. You stop giving a f*^k.
neom 1y ago
Conditioning is a powerful thing. I'm autistic, but my mother refuses to accept it, every 5/10 years she comes up with a new reason I'm not autistic, the latest one is that it's "hip to have autism now", hah. I think she thinks it's a failing of her parenting maybe, who knows, but the older I get, the more I realize lack of empathy does not arise spontaneously, but from repeated conditioning to mistrust empathy itself. When my mother wanted to be a special needs teacher, my grandmother couldn't understand why she wanted to look after "spastics". My former best friend, despite having $100MM++ is paranoia about kindness, he theoretically should be liberate to express generosity, but his father taught him anyone being kind or receiving kindness is about someone taking from him. His father’s voice has become his own internal voice creating huge amounts of mistrust and suspicion, ultimately robbing him of any connection unless he paid for it directly, so zero meaningful connection.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
aaron695 1y ago
[dead]
coldtea 1y ago
>What is it that makes autism so dangerous? In higher support needs, reduced autonomy (to the point of total dependency for ASD 3 cases), plus reduced social and intellectual capacity. Plus several commorbidities, in mental and bodily health. It can be beneficial for society to have laser-focused and social-consensus challenging individuals with higher intelligence, but that's hardly the only or even the main way autism manifests - just the pop culture popular one (and the one whose members can more easily advocate for themselves, and present their cases as the sole representative, summed up in the "autism is a superpower" slogan).
jrflowers 1y ago
> It’s interesting to muse about the larger picture here. I love the idea that, upon seeing the government compiling a database of undesirables under the pretense of fighting autism(?), one can zoom out and discover that the “big picture” is, uh, about autism. That is like watching The Sixth Sense and then writing about how it is a movie about the challenges of being a bald guy.
- m463 1y ago
  > The Sixth Sense ... a movie about the challenges of being a bald guy. wow, am I going to have to go back and watch it a third time?
MisdiagnosedMan 1y ago
[dead]

StefanBatory 2y ago

"Do not commit the sin of empathy"

an0malous 2y ago
“The fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy” — Elon on Joe Rogan It’s a core tenant of this Curtis Yarvin / neo reactionary ideology that seems to be shared by a lot of VCs
- k__ 2y ago
  And then he cries on TV because people are not buying his cars. Can't make that crap up...
  - A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 2y ago
    The funny thing is it is the autists, who don't respond well to emotional appeals. Is that all it is? That it is harder to influence high functioning ones?
    - watwut 1y ago
      Was he ever diagnozed? Because all his success is charizma and social skills based. This claim appears only when he needs to be excused. Also, it is super possible to be a harmful asshole and autist at the same time. Musk also do not care about morals, ethics or laws based appeals.
      - A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 1y ago
        I do not think he ever was. As you note, most of the 'accusations' come up without any real evidence. It is all basically the same story as with most remote diagnosis of all politicians that 99% talk show hosts play with their audiences. FWIW, I personally do not think he has autism. I do think his mind works differently from a good chunk of the population though.
      - theartfuldodger 1y ago
        He said he had Asbergers in 2021 on SNL. There is no reason any further detail would be public.
- cruzcampo 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - grafmax 2y ago
    A cadre of billionaires appears determined to institute fascism in the United States; there’s a very real chance they will succeed. Meanwhile, the climate crisis threatens the long-term survival of our species, yet efforts to steer us away from self-destruction are being actively sabotaged by the fossil fuel industry. This is to say nothing of the warmongering with China, another nuclear power. The concentration of wealth (and by extension, power) really has become an existential threat to humanity.
  - thrance 2y ago
    More often than not, it's the other way around. Being born in the bourgeoisie, like Trump and Musk, grooms you into a certain way of thinking. You're told your whole life you are exceptional, above everyone else. No wonder they turn out like that. Read up on both of these guys' educations if you're interested in this.
    - 47282847 2y ago
      Both Trump and Musk may have been born into “bourgeoisie“, but the connecting and relevant factor here is a highly traumatizing childhood with highly traumatized parents.
      - thrance 2y ago
        I don't know why you put bourgeoisie in quotes like it's a ridiculous concept. With the kind of analysis you give we're stuck with surface level "oh they're just a bad batch", when they're pure products of a system that makes series of them. It's not like they are thousands just like Trump, ready to step in if he loses power. The bourgeoisie has a material interest in installing fascism, which is why we're here. Bezos, Musk and Zuckerberg are among the only ones to profit from the current circus. It's not the first time it happens either, this has been proven times and times again. Look up the relations of Hitler and Mussolini with the capitalist class of their times. I am not saying them having a shitty childhood had no influence on their politics, simply that it is not nearly enough to understand our current state of affairs.
- tialaramex 2y ago
  The word you want is tenet A tenant is somebody paying to lease property, for example if you have a landlord, you're their tenant, and by analogy e.g. an Azure tenant is an organisation within the Azure cloud with a unique identifier. A tenet is a belief or principle that is important to some group, for example the IETF's Best Common Practice series are not just RFCs describing a protocol or technology but instead statements of principle such as BCP 188 "Pervasive Monitoring Is An Attack".
  - A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 2y ago
    << "Pervasive Monitoring Is An Attack". Hmm, thank you. This is by far the best pithy argument for privacy I have found thus far.
    - tialaramex 2y ago
      It's also helpful shorthand. One of the reason there is no RSA KEX† in TLS 1.3 is that under BCP 188 obviously aiding bulk surveillance technology isn't acceptable, so when you have a liaison from the ACLU saying yes, get rid of RSA KEX and a representation from EDCO (Enterprise Data Center Operators, basically big old financial companies) saying it'll cost them too much money to lose RSA KEX so it should be reinstated in the late drafts for the RFC, there was no need to re-explain in great detail why the ACLU are right here because there's already a document explaining to anybody who is new to this. † The RSA Key Exchange goes like this: We get the public key of a server from their certificate which they sent us, we pick a symmetric key at random and we encrypt our chosen key using that public key with the RSA algorithm, so that only the legitimate owner of the certificate can decrypt it, then we send that encrypted key to the server. Because they know the Private Key corresponding to the public key in the certificate they can decrypt the symmetric key we sent. This symmetric key is used for all further communication. This means if say, the Mad King's Secret Police obtain a copy of the RSA private key for the server at any time the Secret Police can decrypt every communication, even if the communications they're decrypting happened weeks, months or years before they obtain the key.
      - WhatsName 1y ago
- mycatisblack 2y ago
  The previous silicon valley giants were to a large degree followers of Ayn Rand. This society selects, grooms and idealises a certain psychological profile.
  - cruzcampo 2y ago
    There's a name for that psychological profile: Sociopathy.
- throw0101b 2y ago
  > “The fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy” — Elon on Joe Rogan Also probably Nietzsche (not on Joe Rogan).
- Manabu-eo 1y ago
  "I believe in empathy, like, I think you should care about other people [...] empathy is good" — Elon on Joe Rogan

ReptileMan 2y ago

>What is it that makes autism so dangerous? That the parents of severe cases eventually pass away and unless they figure out to take the kid with them, he is condemned at best to a life in mental health institutions - and usually they make One Flew Upon Cuckoo's Nest look like Teletubbies. Add to that more and more people are single kids and usually born out of geriatric pregnancy (which also increases the chances of autism somewhat) - aka above 35, so they really are alone. There are very good state and society interests in preventing autism. Mental disabilities are way worse than physical in today's society. Thankfully not every case is severe. But severe one's do exist.

Doxin 2y ago
Surely you can see that this isn't going to be about preventing autism?
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]

skippyboxedhero 2y ago

This is like saying what makes cerebal palsy so dangerous. Why is trying to find out causes so dangerous? The dangers of empiricism in the 21st century. In the UK, there are regions where 50% of children born in the early 2000s have special needs, and more children than adults are claiming disability benefits. It is going to have a very big impact on the labour market when 20-30% of these cohorts cannot work and, therefore, need to obtain income support from everyone else.

t-writescode 2y ago
> It is going to have a very big impact on the labour market when 20-30% of these cohorts cannot work "Cannot work" has more to do (imo) with the American Welfare Cliff where if you accept disability, you're forced to not have a job because if you make even a small piddling of money (it's something like $600/mo), you lose all your disability. It's very disgusting, imo, and rejecting people's admission of a very real struggle they have because admission "does more harm than good" is, itself, harmful.

timoth3y 2y ago

“I told you once that I was searching for the nature of evil. I think I’ve come close to defining it: a lack of empathy. It’s the one characteristic that connects all the defendants. A genuine incapacity to feel with their fellow man. Evil, I think, is the absence of empathy.” ― G. M. Gilbert, American psychologist who worked on the Nuremberg trials

ChrisMarshallNY 2y ago
Didn't someone recently mention that "The fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy"? Sounds familiar...
- notimetorelax 2y ago
  I didn’t know who that was, so googled. Apparently, Musk said that.
  - coldtea 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - hollandheese 1y ago
      Even autistic people can be jerks. Elon Musk doesn't have empathy because he's an asshole not because he's autistic. No one I've heard is saying Musk is an asshole because he's autistic. It's Musk himself that's making that claim by attempting to use it as a cover for his asshole moves.
      - satanfirst 1y ago
        It's only like my opinion, but I think a man who describes his father as a "terrible human being" has enough awareness for self awareness unless the claimed disorder is something self obsessed like narcissism.
- gruez 2y ago

cruzcampo 2y ago

Autists are just an easy group to target that can't fight back too hard. It's just the next step on the escalation ladder. They'll come for all of us eventually

ryandrake 2y ago
The administration's (and R party's) entire M.O. is now to find relatively small, easy-to-target demographic groups that can't fight back, exact cruelty on them to marginalize them even more or (in their view even better) stamp them out, and then go carve out another small, vulnerable group and repeat. We're going to see this pattern repeat over and over in the near future, and there will be many targeted groups.
- cruzcampo 2y ago
  That famous Martin Niemöller quote comes to mind: First they came for the Communists And I did not speak out Because I was not a Communist Then they came for the Socialists And I did not speak out Because I was not a Socialist Then they came for the trade unionists And I did not speak out Because I was not a trade unionist Then they came for the Jews And I did not speak out Because I was not a Jew Then they came for me And there was no one left To speak out for me If we don't aggressively fight this at every step, it'll be our turn eventually.
- gizzlon 2y ago
  > When the Nazis came for the communists, I kept quiet; I wasn't a communist. > When they came for the trade unionists, I kept quiet; I wasn't a trade unionist. > When they locked up the Social Democrats, I kept quiet; I wasn't a social democrat. > When they locked up the Jews, I kept quiet; I wasn't a Jew. > When they came for me, there was no one left to protest
mrguyorama 1y ago
My prediction will be that ADHD people are next. Only 2% of the population and the social conservative supporters of RFK Jr have always hated giving kids stimulants despite the clear evidence supporting its use. There is STILL an ideology among conservatives that the current crop of people being diagnosed as ADHD is "wrong" and that people "with ADHD" are just junkies abusing stimulants or otherwise "overprescribed", despite clear and obvious evidence that people diagnosed with ADHD struggle to get their medicine for utterly stupid reasons and that we objectively do not have the capacity to evaluate everyone who needs it. They will claim that ADHD people are a drain on society and are unproductive and are just being lazy.

em-bee 2y ago

an interesting book related to this discussion is "Speed of Dark" by Elisabeth Moon. It tells the story of an autistic person and their struggles while faced with the possibility of a "cure"

WhyNotHugo 2y ago

Autists (and neurodivergent people in general) tend to think more freely and follow the crowd less than average. I’d say they’re dangerous in the same way as librarians are dangerous.

throw16180339 2y ago

RFK has been quite clear that autistic people are undesirables. They're collecting our personal information so that we can be imprisoned or killed.

nailer 1y ago
He’s being incredibly clear that when he talks about people that have trouble participating in society, he is talking about the 26% of people with profound autism. Online autism conspiracy theory channels turn this into some kind of eugenics purge.
- ModernMech 1y ago
  He's not being "incredibly clear" because he speaks about autistic people with one broad brush. And in calling this "a conspiracy theory" and "some kind of eugenics purge", you seem to be intentionally downplaying the very real and very legitimate worries of autistic people, a group who has historically been subjected to eugenics purges in the past, which started using the language and rationale Kennedy espouses. If Kennedy wants to be taken seriously and with good faith, he should put autistic people and experts in charge of this effort. That he doesn't speaks volumes about his true intentions. Sorry if that sounds like a conspiracy theory to you, but autistic people like myself see the obvious parallel here and we aren't going to just be quiet and allow it to happen again.
  - nailer 1y ago
    > He's not being "incredibly clear" because he speaks about autistic people with one broad brush. You’re watching edited videos.
    - const_cast 1y ago
      No, this is always the defense people come up when RFK says something insane. It's not deepfake, it's not edited, he is just actually a crazy person. Yes, he truly believes HIV doesn't cause AIDS. Yes, he truly believes vaccines don't work. We should not be listening to him on anything, let alone things that actually matter. There are people living on the side of the road with more credibility and reasonableness than him. And, we will not be gaslit by his defenders who, I can only assume, are equally as insane as him.

JumpCrisscross 2y ago

You’re really wondering why the administration that’s rejected habeas corpus, a right which pre-dates the Magna Carta in our system of law, is creating lists of undesirables?

rayiner 1y ago

Fixing diseases and abnormalities in humans is empathy and compassion.

throw16180339 1y ago
Are you referring to the Trump government's treatment of trans people? RFK views autistics as undesirables, so it's absurd to believe that he'll be any nicer to us. > “These are kids who will never pay taxes, they’ll never hold a job, they’ll never play baseball, they’ll never write a poem, they’ll never go on a date, many of them will never use a toilet unassisted,” What makes more sense is that he's collecting our personal information for imprisonment and execution.
- rayiner 1y ago
  > RFK views autistics as undesirables >> “These are kids who will never pay taxes, they’ll never hold a job, they’ll never play baseball, they’ll never write a poem, they’ll never go on a date, many of them will never use a toilet unassisted,” This is true of people with severe autism. I know someone whose autism is severe enough she'll probably never be able to live independently. Doesn't everyone view that medical condition--the condition, not the person--as undesirable? Doesn't everyone view being healthy as better than being unhealthy? I have ADHD. I'd rather not have ADHD. I take a pill every day to control it. My kid has it too. He'll have to take a pill every day for the rest of his life. I'd love to avoid that outcome. Avoiding disease is a good thing!
  - throw16180339 1y ago
    If he had made the same statement about Bangladeshi-Americans and was collecting their personal information, how would you feel about it?
    - rayiner 1y ago
      Your comparison makes no sense. Bangladeshi Americans, as a group, are normal and healthy. They don't suffer from a medical condition that could be cured. But to use a better example, south asians have a significantly higher risk of developing Type 2 diabetes. Almost everyone in my family has it. It would be great to cure that or figure out how to avoid that. I'd be fine with the government collecting data about that, so long as there was an opt-out.

blahblahblhu 1y ago

This is an interesting narrative. I think competition has something to do with it in our modern society. If I work at a company and someone is so competitive that I end up getting fired for whatever reason. I'm not going to all of a sudden care what happens to that person. Because they didn't care what happens to me. So you extrapolate this to the societal level, mix in the different cultural and clan ideological backgrounds of the occupants on the society and you can see how autism is a scapegoat for side effects of competition in many levels of our lives. Then you add the time dimension into the mix and yeah, maybe it looks like autism but maybe it's just, hey were all competing in many different ways and at some point. You stop giving a f*^k.

neom 1y ago

Conditioning is a powerful thing. I'm autistic, but my mother refuses to accept it, every 5/10 years she comes up with a new reason I'm not autistic, the latest one is that it's "hip to have autism now", hah. I think she thinks it's a failing of her parenting maybe, who knows, but the older I get, the more I realize lack of empathy does not arise spontaneously, but from repeated conditioning to mistrust empathy itself. When my mother wanted to be a special needs teacher, my grandmother couldn't understand why she wanted to look after "spastics". My former best friend, despite having $100MM++ is paranoia about kindness, he theoretically should be liberate to express generosity, but his father taught him anyone being kind or receiving kindness is about someone taking from him. His father’s voice has become his own internal voice creating huge amounts of mistrust and suspicion, ultimately robbing him of any connection unless he paid for it directly, so zero meaningful connection.

deleted 1y ago

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aaron695 1y ago

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coldtea 1y ago

>What is it that makes autism so dangerous? In higher support needs, reduced autonomy (to the point of total dependency for ASD 3 cases), plus reduced social and intellectual capacity. Plus several commorbidities, in mental and bodily health. It can be beneficial for society to have laser-focused and social-consensus challenging individuals with higher intelligence, but that's hardly the only or even the main way autism manifests - just the pop culture popular one (and the one whose members can more easily advocate for themselves, and present their cases as the sole representative, summed up in the "autism is a superpower" slogan).

jrflowers 1y ago

> It’s interesting to muse about the larger picture here. I love the idea that, upon seeing the government compiling a database of undesirables under the pretense of fighting autism(?), one can zoom out and discover that the “big picture” is, uh, about autism. That is like watching The Sixth Sense and then writing about how it is a movie about the challenges of being a bald guy.

m463 1y ago
> The Sixth Sense ... a movie about the challenges of being a bald guy. wow, am I going to have to go back and watch it a third time?

MisdiagnosedMan 1y ago

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