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zeropiwa
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30 Dec 2015, 9:04 pm

I mean earlier if you were interested in science, math, art etc. you would not be labelled as "autistic" but "gifted", "talented", "intelligent". Now if you care about anything other than beer, repetitive cliche interactions or want your conversations to be meaningful or dislike socializing with shallow people you are "autistic".

If you do have a chance to follow your curiosity and develop your skills then you excel at something and are called a "genius" and featured on tv shows and "allowed" to pursue your curiosity or creativity. But if you run into a lot of shallow-minded bullies, regardless whether they are classmate-bullies, teacher-bullies or worse still, family-bullies - you end up psychologically messed up, you cannot unfold your true self and end up being incapacitated rather than a celebrity. But if you are "lucky", you may not even discover what the autism label is all about, not to mention being "diagnosed".

Has it ever occured to you that we are a bit like X-Men? We all have certain superpowers but we are in the minority and forced to hide from or compromise with people who do not possess them and are simply driven by envy and hatred towars anything that goes beyond their mindframe?



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30 Dec 2015, 9:16 pm

zeropiwa wrote:
I mean earlier if you were interested in science, math, art etc. you would not be labelled as "autistic" but "gifted", "talented", "intelligent". Now if you care about anything other than beer, repetitive cliche interactions or want your conversations to be meaningful or dislike socializing with shallow people you are "autistic".
You seem to be operating under the mistaken belief that all people with autism are high-functioning. Many of us are barely functional, lacking the ability to speak or even tolerate the presence of others without first being heavily medicated.
zeropiwa wrote:
... if you run into a lot of shallow-minded bullies, regardless whether they are classmate-bullies, teacher-bullies or worse still, family-bullies - you end up psychologically messed up, you cannot unfold your true self and end up being incapacitated rather than a celebrity.
This can happen whether or not the victim has autism.
zeropiwa wrote:
Has it ever occured to you that we are a bit like X-Men? We all have certain superpowers but we are in the minority and forced to hide from or compromise with people who do not possess them and are simply driven by envy and hatred towars anything that goes beyond their mindframe?
This concept has been repeatedly debunked. We are not the next stage in human evolution; we do not have "super powers"; we are not psychic beings; and many of the traits that define us actually limit or completely inhibit or chances for reproduction, so that for many of us there is no next generation.

But if such wishful thinking makes you feel better about yourself, then don't let me or anyone else discourage you from it.


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kraftiekortie
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30 Dec 2015, 9:18 pm

You should really read up on Autism, my friend.



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30 Dec 2015, 9:19 pm

kraftiekortie wrote:
You should really read up on Autism, my friend.
I hope that you were directing this at Zeropiwa.


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kraftiekortie
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30 Dec 2015, 9:28 pm

I was.



LupaLuna
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30 Dec 2015, 9:39 pm

zeropiwa wrote:
I mean earlier if you were interested in science, math, art etc. you would not be labelled as "autistic" but "gifted", "talented", "intelligent". Now if you care about anything other than beer, repetitive cliche interactions or want your conversations to be meaningful or dislike socializing with shallow people you are "autistic".

If you do have a chance to follow your curiosity and develop your skills then you excel at something and are called a "genius" and featured on tv shows and "allowed" to pursue your curiosity or creativity. But if you run into a lot of shallow-minded bullies, regardless whether they are classmate-bullies, teacher-bullies or worse still, family-bullies - you end up psychologically messed up, you cannot unfold your true self and end up being incapacitated rather than a celebrity. But if you are "lucky", you may not even discover what the autism label is all about, not to mention being "diagnosed".

Has it ever occured to you that we are a bit like X-Men? We all have certain superpowers but we are in the minority and forced to hide from or compromise with people who do not possess them and are simply driven by envy and hatred towars anything that goes beyond their mindframe?


I use to believe that same thing when I was younger. I always believed that my social problems where based on the fact that I was a nerd/geek. (BTW: I used to live out on a farm and lived the country life.) But when I started going to nerd/geek socials and events (when I was older). I found myself in the same social situation that I was when I lived out on the farm. So to put it simply "YES! Autism does exist.".



zeropiwa
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30 Dec 2015, 9:44 pm

Reading up on something that is far from being conclusive would not change much, would it?

If at some point someone decides that everyone who refuses to drink Coke and prefers apple juice is "not normal" and publishes lots of faked or inconclusive or insufficient research to support it, are you willing to deem yourself or others the ultimate misfits based on your beverage preference and the possible social drama resulting from your refusal to drink Coke or refusal to pretend that you like it?

I have indeed only read just a little bit and it is supposedly speculated that people like Einstein etc. were actually what we would now call "autistic" but at the time "eccentric" and also "highly gifted" would be used instead. Had Einstein run into more bullies than he did, ones that would eventually completely hamper his further development, he would have probably ended up classified as a "misfit" and frustrated into madness and medicated. Now I do not claim that all autistic people are geniuses but maybe we are just intelligent, emotional and talented people who run into small minds who hate and despise us and label us with a label that is largely made up.

Let me give you an example: if someone is into maths and has supportive parents he will end up enrolling in college as a child prodigy and have a bright future. If on the other hand his parents have small minds and are unsupportive, he will end up misunderstood, very upset and "medicated".

I suppose anyone simply gets upset upon losing control or when something goes strongly against their preference but when this happens to an intelligent and emotional person and naturally has a greater magnitude at some point we decided to call it a "meltdown" and "medicate" the individual rather than remove the root cause which seems to be having a social milieu not in alignment with one's interests and personality etc.

And then being a nerd does not seem to be enough, with technology becoming widespread and fashionable, even mediocre minds are becoming involved with it and follow their mediocre interaction patterns, their idle small talk and repetitive social shallowness, leaving the "autistic people" with no match and nobody to interact with in a meaningful way, leading to social clashes and imaginary labels.

Just speculating, perhaps it is a good idea to keep an open mind and not follow everything someone is forcing upon us in the form of printed word.



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30 Dec 2015, 9:51 pm

Autism is a real entity. It is a most evident phenomenon when you deal with autistic people who cannot speak and who do not initiate contact with others.

There is a fine line at the "high-functioning level," between being autistic and merely being eccentric/odd/nerdy, etc.

The DSM V and the ICD-10 diagnostic manuals are not perfect--but they provide something of a framework.

Autism is a Spectrum, with a wide variety of symptoms.

Just because one is gifted doesn't mean one is autistic. That's obvious. Just because one is nerdy doesn't mean one is autistic. Just because one is eccentric doesn't mean one is autistic.

Yes, it's possible that people are erroneously called autistic because they are eccentric, gifted, nerdy, shy, etc.

But autism, definitely, exists as a state of mind--and as a neurological disorder.



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30 Dec 2015, 9:59 pm

kraftiekortie wrote:
... Just because one is gifted doesn't mean one is autistic. That's obvious. Just because one is nerdy doesn't mean one is autistic. Just because one is eccentric doesn't mean one is autistic...
And just because one's parents are small-minded jerks doesn't mean that one is autistic.

What Zeropiwa seems to be proposing is that we all ignore the decades of clinical research on autism by thousands of educated and experienced scientists, and instead believe whatever ersatz speculations he posts as gospel truth.

This is a common practice among conspiracy theorists, by the way.


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BeaArthur
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30 Dec 2015, 10:10 pm

I was going to respond to the OP but after reading Kraftiekortie and Fnord's posts - I find I have nothing else to contribute! Well done, gents.


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30 Dec 2015, 10:26 pm

BeaArthur wrote:
I was going to respond to the OP but after reading Kraftiekortie and Fnord's posts - I find I have nothing else to contribute! Well done, gents.
Thank you, Bea!

After 8 years on this website, I've seen the same arguments and claims that "There is no such thing as autism" over and over again. Nothing new has been posted in this thread, and I predict that someone may soon direct a few Ad Hominem attacks toward KK and I for deprecating the OP's claims.


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zeropiwa
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30 Dec 2015, 10:34 pm

I do not propose to "ignore the decades of clinical research" but sometimes if evidence is no longer consistent with theories developed over the decades, the theories get changed, at least this is what happens in normal science unless it is not science but some kind of perverted dogma.

I am not interested in "the gospel of truth", just truth. I suppose this is what science is about - does not matter how many decades of research, if suddenly it turns out scientists were wrong, then they were just wrong. Something being published as research does not automatically mean it is THE utlimately conclusive research. Sometimes there is even faked or misinformed research, there were conditions in the past which were considered medical abnormalities to be cured and medicated e.g. female masturbation in the 19th century etc. and yet all those research papers went straight to the trash bin because we finally learned what the truth is. Having words printed in scientific journals does not make them automatically true, does it?

At some point somebody came up with the autism label and the theory. And of course it is the established view at the moment. But anyone can question this at any point. And it has many weaknesses, one of them being the "spectrum" itself which means the supposed symptoms are very diffuse and poorly defined and seems to justify forcefully medicating any individual that happens to be somehow socially impaired while also being gifted in some other way. I am even a bit shocked that the opposite has already been coined, namely: "neurotypical". So if someone is narrow-minded and submissive we call them neurotypical and if someone seems to be showing a slight excess of intelligence, emotion, assertiveness, curiosity and creativity which MIGHT lead to social clashes and frustration, we call them "ill" and qualify them for medication...

Using the food analogy, if you dislike junk food loved by everyone else and have social issues arising from your instances of expressing your preference for gourmet cooking, then you are "foodo-autistic". But if you do eat your burgers and gulp your sodas, then you are "foodo-typical" and do not need to be medicated...

There are not going to be any personal attacks on anyone, Fnord, I have already been attacked as a "fan of conspiracy theories" etc. but I shall not try to seek revenge for that in any way. I am not interested in flame wars, I was just asking if you think autism might be another imaginary disease just like hysteria, but apparently you don't think that.



kraftiekortie
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30 Dec 2015, 10:40 pm

I'm about as anti-medication as anybody in this world.

I can't stand it. I wish people with autism didn't have to be medicated at all.

I wish people with any sort of disorder didn't have to be medicated at all.



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30 Dec 2015, 10:42 pm

Autism is neither imaginary nor a disease. It is a real disorder, affecting millions of people.


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kraftiekortie
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30 Dec 2015, 10:48 pm

Ask the parents of severely autistic people whether autism is real.



zeropiwa
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30 Dec 2015, 11:04 pm

Deprive any "normal" person of sleep for an extended period of time. They might score high on the autistic tests all of a sudden - withdrawal, communication difficulty, depression etc. Now frustrate a normal person beyond some limit. They will become violent or at the very least socially awkward.

Symptoms usually have some root cause. Masking them over with sedatives does not look like real medicine to me. Is it absolutely certain that this is not situationally motivated? A long series of repetitive stimuli that result in a certain developmental pattern of an individual, e.g. constantly being frustrated by a mismatched environment of NOT like-minded relatives etc.? Would that same "highly autistic" person be on a different level had they been given a chance to dwell in an environment that is not frustrating them?



Last edited by zeropiwa on 30 Dec 2015, 11:25 pm, edited 1 time in total.