Autism vs the World: My Fears

Post Reply New Topic

Autism remains a subject of controversies on how to deal with it. We've seen and heard the worst of what France has done (see Shameful: Autism In France). Two controversial methods on how to deal with it exist: To Cure or not to Cure and how to contain the epidemic. Anymore methods, let me know. Here's a fun fact: There are parts of Christianity that believe autism is "generational curse" to punish the sins of a parent and can be cured through repentance and divine healing. And cancer is Jesus' way of saying "Don't marry outside your own race" (yes there are some sections of Christianity that actually believe that).

Curebies around the world fear our condition desperately begging medical scientists everywhere to make a cure. So let's say a cure was finally made then how would they convince us to take it. I hate my sound and taste sensitivities and my lack of inborn social skills. I also love my good symptoms (too many to describe actually). So they get some auties and aspies cured while the rest of us who actually have a will choose not to be cured, what are they gonna do about it? They could leave us alone peacefully or cause civil unrest as they capture everyone of us, line us up one by one, and administer the cure. I would lose my bad symptoms but what of my good symptoms? Would I become a completely different person with personality changed and all? Will I have to start my life over to rediscover what I like?

Neurotypicals would love to keep the birth of autistic children to a minimum. I can picture the frowns upon our rights to have children right now. I had a nightmare where a group of twisted psychologists convinced the government (who knows how they did it) to put me and others like me to be part of a Compulsory Sterilization project. Now I hear that in 3 years (this rumor started in 2005) there will be prenatal genetic test available to detect the likelihood of autism in unborn fetuses. I can now picture the rise of abortions left and right.

If my fears becoming a reality are possible then Neurological Genocide is within their reach. Robot Chicken has already described a future where "perfect" babies are born and the world is without disease (or midgets). A woman gives birth and the baby is a grown muscular man with blonde hair and blue eyes and he gives a salute and says "Heil". That scared the **** out of me.

Doing bad things to people with brains might hurt for the ones doing it.. bad idea

Neurocide might succeed in the short term. But it would likely stall those societies and they would be marginalized by competing societies with access to independent thinkers.

There's also the possibility that existing aspies screws up any such scheme..

I'm assuming you're another one of the high functioning elite so I doubt anyone can convince you to see the other side but...

First, No one is going to cause civil unrest trying to force people to take a care. That's silly.

Second, believe it or not, a lot of those curbies are people on the spectrum.

Third, you do raise an ethical question for those on the spectrum who receive public assistance.

Our system of disability is based on the idea that it is incurable. How does society address a population that willingly chooses to be disabled?

If you're unable to work because of AS, and you choose to not get cured, how is that addressed?

Fourth: Your statements about a cure. It's a common theme in the anti-cure crowd that it will ruin who they are. The truth is no one knows what a cure would do. There is an equal chance a cure will remove the bad and preserve the good.

It looks to me that our society is on a trajectory of ever greater leniency. There's ever less stigma attached to: gay lifestyles, out of wedlock births and drug addiction. In general autistic issues are flying way under the radar of our society. Heck, I have @ 10 folks in my workplace with multiple, clearly aspergian traits and no one says a word about it. From my viewpoint, aspergers in adults is unrecognizable to almost everyone including many of themselves.

Beside that, I think we're safe from an autistic cure anytime soon. (See cures for ADHD, cancer, aids, addiction etc.)

Well I've mentioned in other threads, I would give an arm and a leg to be 'cured', i.e. relieved of the negative symptoms that are associated with the spectrum.

You cannot ignore the 60% majority results of this poll on WP
http://www.wrongplanet.net/postx143823-15-0.html

You are trying to force your own "aspieness is great" opinions onto the rest of us, and should some treatment ever be available to relieve us of the negative aspects of being on the spectrum, then you do not have the right to block it to those who want it.

I get the impression that you would love to enforce a lifetime of continued depression, anxiety, confusion, sensory overload, meltdowns, and other negative traits onto others who would love to be relieved of some of their difficulties. On the opening post of this thread I smelled some sort of sick intention to actually promote continued suffering.

You are entitled to your desires to stay as you are. Please do not ram it down our throats.

As for good symptoms, the passionate defenders and anti-curebies usually produce justifications along these lines:
"I love my aspieness, because there are these guys next door called Beavis and Butthead, they are neurotypical, and they are really dumb and stupid. Those dumb idiots Beavis and Butthead can't do complex math puzzles like I can. So aspie rules".
In other words, use of careful selection of the lowest functioning non-aspies as a reference point with which to preach aspie superiority.

I'd love to see some good symptoms being advocated in an alternative style to this. But so far, I haven't seen many.

That poll is about whether or not many of us are suicidal. It has little to do with our opinions of our autism. I voted yes partly because I live in an abusive household and can't get out. Even if I wasn't autistic, my dad would still be abusive.

Oh! Oh! Pick me! I have one!

You know how some of us lack the filter that turns a mass of sounds into "noise" like static on the radio? While that lack causes migraines in noisy environments, it also allows me to have a conversation [if I can indeed follow social protocol] while eavesdropping on another. I also lack these filters visually. So in a test like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1D07neiB ... re=related I'm of the minority who will know when the weird thing happens.

It helps when I'm trying to find small expensive things, like my English teacher's ring, or my gameboy. It's not as much fun when I need to recognize faces, because I can't find a specific feature that seems familiar, and a different hairstyle will throw me off.

well from that very thread,


Many posts on that thread are very much opinions of living with autism. There are other posts like that, there are other posts that are not. I would have thought the context of that poll would have been from a perspective of living on the spectrum.

I'm sorry to hear about your abusive father though. That definitely sounds like hell to me.

Interesting item there.
I counted 13 passes but was completely oblivious to the gorilla because
a) I was focusing intensely on the ball passes.
b) I was still in a state of "wow that girl in the white shirt (at 00:06), is *hot*"
Very sad and pathetic of me, I know.

some NT colleagues at work just did the test, some male, some female, and just like me, they all counted 13 and did not spot the gorilla first time.
It seems many (presumably NT) respondents on YouTube counted 13 passes and also spotted the gorilla first time ; or at least claim that they did. ( so big pinch of salt there ). Are you suggesting that aspies would count the passes and spot the gorilla the first time? That would be a very interesting test (idea for a poll thread maybe).

I'm not sure how this test is supposed to demonstrate any advantages with being on the spectrum, since it seems many NTs (or at least from the comments) claim to get the count as well as noticing the gorilla first time.

Maybe I've missed something obvious though ; it wouldn't be the first time for me.

Oh, I just want to say some things, don't know if they are relevant:

Then how do they explain where the cause of cancer is known, like cigarettes, asbestos and working for Westinghouse? Some people do everything right and still get cancer and that is a mystery.



I would be in favor of "Cure" but really a treatment to alleviate some of the worst symptoms and sensitivities. After that, isn't it more a matter of parenting and teaching? For example, some people did not believe I was on the spectrum because I was not rude, but that is because my parents did not let me be so. The sensitivities to sound, I do have an it can be hell.



Yet it seems like most neurotypical people are all into sex and keep on having babies, so much that there are 7 billion people. If they really did not want autistic kids why are so many couples having kids at all, let alone 3 to 5 kids like some I know of?



What if the grown muscular man has an ASD? Oh, and the gay community is going to love it! But not the Heil part.

And Imma stop you there.

http://www.relevantmagazine.com/god/chu ... out-autism

Only Pentecostal and Charismatic Christians believe what I put there. Hell, even the Jews are using prayers, blessings, recitations of religious text, holy water, amulets, changing the child's name, and exorcisms on kids with autism.

Link?