should autism be cured?

[Dyakovo]

I'm not avoiding, I'm pointing out that I have already provided you with the answer to your question.

Then please, again, show me.

Read the whole thing, All of it is important, but the key part is section "D"

[Condunum]

He's not doing that, you're denying there's a downside.

I never did that. Ofcourse it has its issues/problems, but those aren't really harmfull and they can be overcomed by the simple means of some focus and all. If not (for the more severe cases) people could also just adapt to them instead of thinking about their own.

And why does this mean we should not make strides to eliminate those problems permanently?

[Degenerate Heart of HetRio]

He's not doing that, you're denying there's a downside.

Some of the most objectively noticeable ones are not even associated to the way we work on an everyday basis but by how rude or just overall inappropriate we can be interpreted as and the way many forms of stimming can attract negative attention (though most people showed neutral curiosity in my experience to the way I look like I am desperately popping bubble wrap on the skin of my fingers when my reasoning flies too far away, I was raised in an unusually open-minded environment in general and had tons more of reasons to be used to be deemed as eccentric/odd).

I'm preeeeetty sure sometimes we need to take lessons of sociability as one would have of Math, and that stimming is kind of a subconscious activity (I'd know since I feel heavily embarrassed when I do it with other people around, but I start to do it without really noticing; also I had a callus on my right hand's ring finger this week and when I saw it the stimming was already there causing me pain).

The worst of the high functioning kind of autism isn't that you need intelligence, because intelligence we do have in a level that pairs along neurotypical peers in tests fitted to their conventions, what is complicated is dealing with other people.

[Degenerate Heart of HetRio]

And why does this mean we should not make strides to eliminate those problems permanently?

Looking at the source Dyakey provided... Well I can be making a dumb assessment but it seems that

Pills that "cure" "autism" social disability-wise as a spectrum = pills that cure stupidity, lack of empathy and human douchebaggery in general

I don't really think it will ever exist. '-'

[Limborg]

I never did that. Ofcourse it has its issues/problems, but those aren't really harmfull and they can be overcomed by the simple means of some focus and all. If not (for the more severe cases) people could also just adapt to them instead of thinking about their own.

And why does this mean we should not make strides to eliminate those problems permanently?

eliminate those problems, sure, eliminating autism as a whole, no.

[Limborg]

Then please, again, show me.

Read the whole thing, All of it is important, but the key part is section "D"

I'll do that tomorrow, to tired right now.

[Degenerate Heart of HetRio]

I'll do that tomorrow, to tired right now.

It's really short.

[Limborg]

I'll do that tomorrow, to tired right now.

It's really short.

Its 3:16 here, i'm falling asleep as we speak, its better to do it tomorrow when i would actually read it instead of just staring at the letters.

[Dyakovo]

And why does this mean we should not make strides to eliminate those problems permanently?

Looking at the source Dyakey provided... Well I can be making a dumb assessment but it seems that

Pills that "cure" "autism" social disability-wise as a spectrum = pills that cure stupidity, lack of empathy and human douchebaggery in general

I don't really think it will ever exist. '-'

Don't call me that. If you need to shorten my name use Dya.

[Condunum]

And why does this mean we should not make strides to eliminate those problems permanently?

eliminate those problems, sure, eliminating autism as a whole, no.

herpderp thats the idea derpaherp

[Limborg]

eliminate those problems, sure, eliminating autism as a whole, no.

herpderp thats the idea derpaherp

The idea goes about curing autism, not curing its problems solely

[Limborg]

I read the whole thing and literally learned nothing new, i still don't see how it would be harmfull or objectivly bad. Please, again, explain.

1.It only lists problems, knowing the problems does not mean you know autism.
2.The whole report depends 100% on the severety of the autism, wich makes alot of the report kinda useless. Autism is everything but that black and white, its more like a million shades of grey.
3.It only lists some problems/issues that can (in most cases) be overcome by the person itself. No need for a cure.

[Wind in the Willows]

Yes, it would be nice if there was a cure.

[SD_Film Artists]

Autism is part of Autistic people's identity¹. Suggesting that Autism is somekind of false shell where an NT is trying to escape from² is just as offensive as suggesting that homosexuality is a false shell waiting for the strait person to "escape" from. Both of these things are said by homophobes and people advocating an autistic cure.

1: And being a sociopath is part of a sociopath's identity. Your point?
2: Good thing I never suggested that then.

1: Read the second sentance.
2: Aye you didn't say that, but unless I'm mistaken you seemed to doubt the ethical and practical problems involved with removing someone's Autism, thus I gave an example of the wider issues regarding this subject.

[SD_Film Artists]

The professional who has dedicated his life to learning about mental disorders.

I would argue the autistic, since he already knows what it's like to have it and how if effects them, good and bad.

Why not value both? They're not mutually exclusive.

[Zavea]

i have asperger's syndrome. i'm fortunate that i can live a relatively normal life. i had major problems as a kid, but as i've grown, i've found new ways of coping with stress that let me function regularly in society. these days, i think of my AS as more or less a series of traits that underwrite my entire personality. on one hand, it's tempting to ask for a miracle pill that fixes my worst shortcomings, but on the other hand, i wouldn't be able to think of such medicine as a "cure" since possessing those flaws also defines my strengths by contrast. IOW, in context, it's hard for me to see my brand of AS as a disease to be cured since it's not much of an illness

this said, i have sympathy for low-functioning autistics (having worked with them extensively in a school program which paired up high-functioning kids with low-functioning kids for their mutual benefit) and as with any serious developmental disorder, i would go to bat for any therapy or program which helps them function as healthily as possible. i admit it can be a subtle distinction between high-functioning and those on the darker end of the autism spectrum, but i think if you have a developmental disorder which impedes how you live your life, it's worth healing

just, for someone like me who is lucky enough to have been born with enough cognitive capital to direct my own life, i think the best "cure" is just to live and learn. for those low-functioning, i would like to think of any "cure" as an aid to get them to the point where they can stand on their own two feet.

[Dyakovo]

1: And being a sociopath is part of a sociopath's identity. Your point?
2: Good thing I never suggested that then.

1: Read the second sentence.
2: Aye you didn't say that, but unless I'm mistaken you seemed to doubt the ethical and practical problems involved with removing someone's Autism, thus I gave an example of the wider issues regarding this subject.

So you are admitting that that was just a strawman. Good.
It's rather difficult to address the ethical and practical problems of something that doesn't exist as anything but a hypothetical. Obviously in a real life situation you'd have to consider exactly how autism is being cured and what, if any, negative effects there are with the cure. However, since it is only a hypothetical, and thus we don't have any reference for those two things, the only question left is (in general) should it be used? To me the answer is a "yes".
Well, okay... There's also the question of "should people be forced to avail themselves of it?" For that the answer is a "no". Autism isn't a transmittable disease, so a person is risking harming others by not availing themselves of the cure, so there is no reason to force people to do it.

[SD_Film Artists]

1: Read the second sentence.
2: Aye you didn't say that, but unless I'm mistaken you seemed to doubt the ethical and practical problems involved with removing someone's Autism, thus I gave an example of the wider issues regarding this subject.

So you are admitting that that was just a strawman. Good.

And by thinking that it was a strawman, do you accept that there is not a metaphorical NT trying to be saved from the Autism?

It's rather difficult to address the ethical and practical problems of something that doesn't exist as anything but a hypothetical. Obviously in a real life situation you'd have to consider exactly how autism is being cured and what, if any, negative effects there are with the cure. However, since it is only a hypothetical, and thus we don't have any reference for those two things, the only question left is (in general) should it be used? To me the answer is a "yes".

Prenatal screening is the most prominent form of proposed "cure", and it is things like that which we have to question. Anyway, why do think there should be a cure? And before you say "because there are negative traits", I'll post something that I've already said:

That to be genuinely diagnosed with autism, you have to have a number of detrimental effects associated with autism. That's how psychiatric diagnosis works.

There are traits which are used to diagnose Autism/Aspergers, that's how psychiatric diagnosis works. Some of these may be negative traits, and the doctor/phychiatrist might even focus on the negative traits as that's the pressing part of their job, but that doens't mean that they deny or criticise the positive traits.

Well, okay... There's also the question of "should people be forced to avail themselves of it?" For that the answer is a "no". Autism isn't a transmittable disease, so a person is risking harming others by not availing themselves of the cure, so there is no reason to force people to do it.

No one is saying that Autism is transmittable, so why include it? It couldn't be that it's just a thinly-veiled way of you spinning the question from a civil rights issue into a damage prevention issue, could it?

[Dyakovo]

So you are admitting that that was just a strawman. Good.

And by thinking that it was a strawman, do you accept that there is not a metaphorical NT trying to be saved from the Autism?

By saying it is a strawman, I am saying that it is a strawman. That you are arguing against something I never said.

It's rather difficult to address the ethical and practical problems of something that doesn't exist as anything but a hypothetical. Obviously in a real life situation you'd have to consider exactly how autism is being cured and what, if any, negative effects there are with the cure. However, since it is only a hypothetical, and thus we don't have any reference for those two things, the only question left is (in general) should it be used? To me the answer is a "yes".

Prenatal screening is the most prominent form of proposed "cure", and it is things like that which we have to question. Anyway, why do think there should be a cure?

Prenatal screening would not be a cure, so I'm not sure why you're bring it up. I never said that there should be a cure, so congratulations on creating another strawman.

Well, okay... There's also the question of "should people be forced to avail themselves of it?" For that the answer is a "no". Autism isn't a transmittable disease, so a person is risking harming others by not availing themselves of the cure, so there is no reason to force people to do it.

No one is saying that Autism is transmittable, so why include it? It couldn't be that it's just a thinly-veiled way of you spinning the question from a civil rights issue into a damage prevention issue, could it?

I didn't say that anyone had said that it is transmittable, I included that simply because it is part of my reasoning as to why if said hypothetical cure actually existed it need not be forced on people.

[Nanatsu no Tsuki]

Last thing. His source comes from the DSM-V. That's actually strong evidence. The DSM-V is none other than the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.

http://www.dsm5.org/Pages/Default.aspx

Well, that's just the work of hundreds of people who have dedicated their lives to understanding psychiatric disorders...
It obviously doesn't carry as much weight as an unsourced page on about.com.

Obviously the words in the DSM-V, pretty much the the people who know mental disorders because they're the leading experts and researchers in the fiel of psychiatric health, mean nothing...

[Nanatsu no Tsuki]

Note that this is a hypothetical cure we're talking about. Also note that people like you and KAS are high functioning ASD. Note that you can probably objectively choose what you want. I want you to then think about those in the spectrum who aren't as fortunate and tell me, is it really terrible to want to bring them out of that shell?

I'm aware that you're a diverse group, but I wonder if you understand that it's irresponsible to assume that autism, as broad as it is, doesn't have any detrimental effects on many of you.

Oh, but that point wasn't really that well-structured. People talked about curing autism without defining clearly either cure, or autism, or both.

I am fine about asking those that can talk whether they'd want it or not, and bringing those that can't talk to the last state.

Then they can be aspie-like or high functioning-like or whatever. I just really doubt people would get out of the last reaches of autism as a pathology, and doubt even more about getting out of the spectrum that connects ASD to the usual allistic phenotype, falling in the latter.

People will still cause issue by stuff like not looking at the eyes (not all of us: for example not me), not being affected by other people's yawns (not all of us, but including me, what seems to creep the fuck out of people who realize it) and having a weird form of auto-stimulating behavior such as stimming. I don't know if the cure will correct elements such as these.

The not looking at the eyes bit, for example, is constructed, from how our eye movement works when we were children (my mom once said somebody told her that my eye who could keep idle at great lengths of time meant something bad, but she didn't pay attention), is kept ignoring said necessity from use (perhaps because humans only "like" it because they were constructed as such as part of our evolution to sociability, because among wild-roaming animals it tends to be "bad interpretable" body language), and is not really correlated to our brain structure.

In any case, I think it is a bit exaggerate to claim that all of our general personality and behavior that were shaped by an autistic neurology can really be redirected at allistic-typical behavior, or that we won't severely miss how we were before, even the "medium functioning" minimally social kinds with higher scores at objectively cognitive tests [shaped by traditional understands of neurotypical intelligence] who can communicate they'd want to change.

Perhaps not in the OP, but it's a point that has been made throughout the thread several times.

[SD_Film Artists]

And by thinking that it was a strawman, do you accept that there is not a metaphorical NT trying to be saved from the Autism?

By saying it is a strawman, I am saying that it is a strawman. That you are arguing against something I never said.

And since you are rejecting the earlier statement as a strawman, do you accept that there is not a metaphorical NT trying to be saved from the Autism? That's the 2nd time I've asked. Are you just going to give another lesson in semantics or post a DSM link?

Prenatal screening is the most prominent form of proposed "cure", and it is things like that which we have to question. Anyway, why do think there should be a cure?

Prenatal screening would not be a cure, so I'm not sure why you're bring it up. I never said that there should be a cure, so congratulations on creating another strawman.

Prenatal screening (and the subsequent termination) is the most prominent form of proposed "cure".

No one is saying that Autism is transmittable, so why include it? It couldn't be that it's just a thinly-veiled way of you spinning the question from a civil rights issue into a damage prevention issue, could it?

I didn't say that anyone had said that it is transmittable, I included that simply because it is part of my reasoning as to why if said hypothetical cure actually existed it need not be forced on people.

It seems like a rather moot reason though, don't you think? As even if it was transmittable, that doesn't address the core principle of people having a right to be Autistic. The only objection you could possibly apply in that "transmittable Autism" scenario is that some people may want to maintain their right to stay NT.

[Galloism]

And by thinking that it was a strawman, do you accept that there is not a metaphorical NT trying to be saved from the Autism?

By saying it is a strawman, I am saying that it is a strawman. That you are arguing against something I never said.

Prenatal screening is the most prominent form of proposed "cure", and it is things like that which we have to question. Anyway, why do think there should be a cure?

Prenatal screening would not be a cure, so I'm not sure why you're bring it up. I never said that there should be a cure, so congratulations on creating another strawman.

No one is saying that Autism is transmittable, so why include it? It couldn't be that it's just a thinly-veiled way of you spinning the question from a civil rights issue into a damage prevention issue, could it?

I didn't say that anyone had said that it is transmittable, I included that simply because it is part of my reasoning as to why if said hypothetical cure actually existed it need not be forced on people.

So wait, we're not putting the cure in a gun?

Why do you wait until. *after* I've done all the R&D on that to tell me these things???

[Farnhamia]

By saying it is a strawman, I am saying that it is a strawman. That you are arguing against something I never said.


Prenatal screening would not be a cure, so I'm not sure why you're bring it up. I never said that there should be a cure, so congratulations on creating another strawman.


I didn't say that anyone had said that it is transmittable, I included that simply because it is part of my reasoning as to why if said hypothetical cure actually existed it need not be forced on people.

So wait, we're not putting the cure in a gun?

Why do you wait until. *after* I've done all the R&D on that to tell me these things???

We like to keep you occupied, dear. It's all for the best.

[Dyakovo]

By saying it is a strawman, I am saying that it is a strawman. That you are arguing against something I never said.

And since you are rejecting the earlier statement as a strawman, do you accept that there is not a metaphorical NT trying to be saved from the Autism? That's the 2nd time I've asked. Are you just going to give another lesson in semantics or post a DSM link?

I'm ignoring the question because it is stupid.

Prenatal screening would not be a cure, so I'm not sure why you're bring it up. I never said that there should be a cure, so congratulations on creating another strawman.

Prenatal screening (and the subsequent termination) is the most prominent form of proposed "cure".

Refer back to my last response.

I didn't say that anyone had said that it is transmittable, I included that simply because it is part of my reasoning as to why if said hypothetical cure actually existed it need not be forced on people.

It seems like a rather moot reason though, don't you think?

No.