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Loop

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About Loop

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  • Birthday 02/21/1970

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  1. How about people with AS stop being expected to fend off all kinds of moronic and negative generalisations from folks who can't be arsed to educate themselves on diversity? How about folks stop using cheap hand-me-down labels when considering those deemed 'different'? I'm getting kind of sick of the 'are AS people more vain/egotistic/self-obsessed/unmotivated/angry/unstable etc etc etc? We are individuals, not a bunch of misfits that can be summed up with a few catch-all descriptions, ffs. Never mind the question about AS people, answer this one - are complete ars*holes more likely to use generalisations when referring to minorities?
  2. You've made the basic error of circular reasoning - that because such an identity isn't apparent means that it must not be present. It's also a basic logical error to suppose that absence of evidence is evidence of absence and that no further enquiry is necessary. My argument is to challenge precisely that faulty sort of thinking. As for your argument about a 'huge spectrum', we already exploded that particular myth - I repeat, the 'huge spectrum' of multiculturalism and gender/sexuality choice was, at one point, marginalised within our society and without identity, yet the challenging of preconceptions has led to subcultures that are now celebrated. That's subjective to the point of obscurity. I have no idea what you mean. Are you generalising? That's another logical fallacy when not substantiated. Where does a 'high-functioning aspie' communicating such ideas come into this? Have I missed something about neurodiversity ideology? Or is this a basic ad hominem? I wasn't aware that I'd been solely responsible for the articles printed in publications such as the New York Times, some of which I've sourced above. Ultimately we seem to be proving my point beautifully here - that people are willing to resort to previously held preconceptions and argue from entrenched positions against that which they know little about. Read the articles.
  3. Can't you see the faulty logic in that statement as clearly as I can? It's faulty because you havn't proven the latter part of the statement. It's an arbitrary and subjective preconception. And you think there wasn't and always has been a vast spectrum of differences as far as race, sexuality, and gender are concerned? Could it not be that we recognise those differences better now simply because of increased awareness and acceptance of differeing cultural values? Are you stating that such inreased comprehension and awareness that has facilitated the acceptance of the 'rainbow' of multi-culturalism and gender/sexual preference cannot be applied to nerodiversity? Where's your argument that substantiates that? I don't see one. The growing awareness of multi-culturalism etc didn't start out from a 'purely objective set of arbitraty and subjective preconceptions' did it? The starting point was actually in challenging those things that were already present. Can you see the difference? The mistake you're making is the assumption that I'm subjectively proposing a set of cultural values. I'm not. I'm advocating the objective discovery of the ones that I know are very definitely already there but aren't generally recognised.
  4. And many do feel that way, yet only you have mentioned 'blame'. That's not a concept I considered at all. Like I said, challenging preconceptions or misconceptions is not a negative thing, nor a matter of 'blame'. As you said yourself in your previous post, the world does not understand us. Given what I've said in a post on another thread about the tendency for democratic concensus to overlook poorly represented minorities and work purely in the interests of the majority, Is this something we should leave unchallenged? Leaving my own experiences aside, I hear much about lack of support networks, lack of support in employment, and problems with commonly held misconceptions elsewhere. Personally I think that needs to be addressed with much more than a shrug, and that has nothing to do with 'blame'.
  5. Yes, it does. There are those who decide to abort after such an investigation. Can that fact be used as a sweeping justification for other 'disfunctions'? Where does that end? If people are willing to abort over the sex of the baby, what about any other number of conditions that science might allow us to test for? We could end up with testing for the perfectly healthy baby, but who decides what's 'healthy'? The search for the healthy baby would essentially become the search for the healthy society by current NT definitions. That's eugenics, and I consider myself perfectly healthy, mentally and physically, thank you, and simply different. Those are questions you need to answer first. You state that the knowledge that science gives us is important, but I say it's potentially far too arbitrary and too weak a justification when abortion is present as a choice. In a judgemental society hung up on perfection, and especially physical perfection, and where conditions such as ASD's are still demonised due to lack of awareness, you have to consider the consequences if that knowledge is given out without caveat to those armed with the choice of abortion. It's morally questionable. The example you give about abortion due to gender choice only serves to strongly reinforce that, don't you think? When I consider how embracing and recognising neurodiversity could enrich our society with extra cultural contribution, and make conditions far better for those with ASD's, the thought of giving people the choice to eliminate that minority with surgical precision and medical efficiency, rather than learn to accomodate it, makes me shudder.
  6. Hmm, sadly, no. We can pin the wooliness down here: And it's a dangerous wooliness. You're asking for a knowledge to be given before any conditions are set on the responsible use of it. Let me explain... What's one of the choices that people have who are given this knowledge? If you give the knowledge of an ASD before birth in a society where abortion is legal, and where people routinely abort foetuses with certain conditions that are detected before birth, aren't you simply sneaking the choice in by the back door? What sort of precedent does that set? Where does it stop? I don't want to put up what seems like a slippery slope argument, but we all know how precedents work, it's in the meaning of the word. If you allow one person to abort a child because of an ASD that was detected then you've answered a moral question to whoever else might ask it. It becomes acceptable and institutionalised. Now, when we consider what I said earlier about certain minorities not being properly recognised or represented in a democracy, with such a precedent set we could one day see the elimination of ASD's. Can we give people the choice to eliminate a certain portion of the population because they have a certain neurological identity that isn't neurotypical? Now we can use that word 'eugenics' in the context I was referring to.
  7. You've taken something of a negative approach there by thinking in terms of 'blame'. Challenging preconceptions and misconceptions is not a negative thing, it's a positive step that enriches any society and should always be ongoing and evolutionary. The aim is not to point a finger but mainly to clarify a minority identity and even cultural values that will that give that minority better representation within their society. Here are some articles that were sourced on wiki: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/09/weekinre...html?sec=health http://www.nationalreviewofmedicine.com/is...actice05_8.html http://nymag.com/news/features/47225/ http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/199809u/neurodiversity
  8. If your counter argument can't stand on its own logical validity but has to cite some sort of precedent then that needs to be clear and directly applicable. But you'll have to forgive me, I'd just come from taking to task some bigots on a debate forum, so was still in 'faulty logic destruction mode' I guess I posted here after being alarmed by some of the stronger views on another thread, the aspie cure one, rather than in response to your good self. My points there are that when we take an institutionalised approach by parcelling up ASD's as something that can screened for before birth and eliminated by abortion you're sending out an horrific message to every living person with an ASD. Our society will not tolerate more of your kind. Maybe the use of the phrase 'backdoor eugenics' is a bit alarmist, but I'll make use of it to highlight an inherent problem within democratic systems - that the majority, by concensus decision, can sometimes badly treat a minority that has not been able to properly represent itself because its identity and rights have not been properly recognised.
  9. I think any rational mind can discern the context here. All you've offered is a logical fallacy of a false comparison, and a pretty woolly one at that.
  10. That's exactly the point. Recognising neurodiversity.
  11. The best answer on the whole thread. It's the rest of the world that needs to challenge its own preconceptions and approach. It could well be for the majority of us with an ASD that we'd be blissfully happy in a more accepting and aware world. We see our ASD's as part of an identity that just needs to be recognised. If that's the case, why make it worse by proposing more intolerance and seeking to 'get rid of the problem'? Why assume that we're a problem that needs to be cured? Why make sweeping assumptions that we're a drag factor to the health and happiness of a neurotypical society? That's simply a part of the intolerance that is actually the real 'problem' itself. This is something that can only ever be judged on an individual basis and should never take an institutionalised approach. We'd be generalising all of us who are happy as we are into something that needs to be corrected. Personally I'd sooner see the efforts going into developing a more supportive and accepting society. There are some that call the alternative 'backdoor eugenics', and I'd be loathe to mention the nazi's on this thread. Oh damn, I just did
  12. Are ASD's disorders and disfunctions that should be corrected? Or, as Neurodiversity ideology and increasing awareness says, are they simply human variation? Should we embrace neurodiversity, its equality, and establish neurodiverse cultural values, or should we see it merely as a disfunction and try to correct it? Or even look to eliminate it before birth? Personally I'm a happy aspie and I have no interest in a 'cure' or corrective treatment. I think that many with ASD's feel tortured by the world more than they feel tortured by their own condition as a result of unacceptance, or even ignorance or intolerance. I understand, though, that that's a subjective opinion of my own. What do you think?
  13. The first steps towards backdoor eugenics of ASD's?
  14. Loop

    Hello :)

    Thanks guys. I'll lurk around a bit and see if i can fit in someplace.
  15. Well, I went to the medical, and I can't help feeling that my worst fears have been confirmed. The examiner had no interest in anything I tried to explain and focused only on the answers to very simple questions. The fact that I have worked in the past, before my diagnosis, and that I managed to get a bus alone to the medical centre seemed to be the only things of importance. My explanations of the psychological stress and anguish that I've been through, the dozens of times I've lost jobs and homes, was of little consequence and were pretty much waved away. Still, I'll have to wait and see what the decision is, but I don't have a good feeling about it.
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