Killing the disabled

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Neither is it any better. Don't forget that.

Fine, we're better than the rest of nature. We don't need to limit ourselves to what other animals do, otherwise you may as well say it is a universal law that any successful species has to defecate outside.

In some areas, there is too much bureaucracy. In some areas, there is not enough.

Enforcing non-discrimination laws is (nearly always) a good thing.


Humanity's best interest is that all humans are cared for.

What a rubbish analogy.

This is the danger of collectivist thinking, your life is only as valuable as you are to the group. If you don't produce to their liking or if you're just too much of an annoyance to the collective then to them you are better off dead. One of the most common arguments in the abortion debate is that abortion should be legal because we don't support the kids when they're born anyways which is a)not true and b)essentially saying that these unborn children are better off dead then to burden their mothers and the collective.

That is, in fact, a very nice encapsulation of the problem.

+2 for being succint (a skill I do not possess).

And just where exactly did I either view or treat Autism as a disease? I made it very clear indeed that I object to the whole idea of autism being viewed as a disease, which is why I objected to your ridiculous rotten potato analogy. Your attempt to ascribe viewpoints to me that I have never held, and never will hold, are as patently ridiculous as you rotten potato idea.



I'm not going to continue to use the term 'Village idiot' as that point has been made and I do not wish to perpetuate that particular term.

But what makes you think the ratio of Autistics to NT's were any different back then to what they are now? ASD has always been around - it just wasn't understood for what it was.

Also what makes you think that the autistics back then didn't work just as hard if not harder that the rest of the villagers? They were mentally handicapped not physically.



This is just plain offensive - you know nothing about me yet have the temerity to suggest that I spend my life thinking I'm 'disabled' and expect handouts or whatever.

I have worked all my life, even at the age of 13 I went out and worked in a paper recycling plant at the weekends just to raise spending money for myself. Most of my adult life has been spent in self employment because I believe in taking control of my own life and making my own career. I had a very successful prototyping business working with multinational toy companies for many years and made a ton of money out of it. Nowadays I prefer to keep things low key for health reasons, but I'm still self employed as a private art tutor. When I'm not at work I volunteer myself to help the disabled, such as for example providing free art lessons for the local Autism group or donating paintings to raise funds for charities across the UK. I hate being inactive and unproductive with a vengeance and hate the idea of being a burden to anyone!

But being self reliant and hard working does not make me look down on those less fortunate than myself. I don't expect everyone to be as successful as me just because I could do it. And I don't object to a portion of my taxes being used to help those less fortunate than myself - if anything I wish more was spent on the disabled not less.

Why? because I have a conscience.

No, of course not; they are equally valuable.

The trouble is that autistic people are often more vulnerable to murder, and to other results of prejudice, than neurotypicals are. That means that we have less protection against mistreatment than most people do, which points to inequality.

But that's a good question: Where do we stop? Well, "tolerance" and "anti-discrimination", technically, are things you can never have too much of; it's just that they have to apply to everyone. If we were ever to get to the point that neurotypicals suffered because autistic people were too much preferred, that would be discrimination the other way. But the problem would still be the same; we'd still be fighting against discrimination and working toward tolerance.

One way to accommodate diverse groups in the same environment is to design things that can be used by everyone. I don't know if you've heard of it, but it's called "universal design", and it's kind of an engineering term that means creating an environment that is either flexible or can be used in many different ways, so that many different people can use it. For example, an automatic door-opener helps people who are pushing wheelchairs with their hands, but it is also useful for people carrying packages. Handicapped parking permits are useful for people who have a chronic physical disability, and for people who have heart or lung problems, as well as for people who just need a close-up parking spot while a broken leg heals or during their last month of pregnancy. Books on tape are great for people who are blind; they're also great for people who are dyslexic, or people who are entertaining themselves on a long commute, or people with ADHD who find it easier to listen when their hands are busy, or people who simply prefer listening to reading.

Flexibility is a big help here, too. Let's say we design a city bus that can be used by lots of different people. We have floor space where things can be tied down, from cargo to wheelchairs to strollers. We have seating up front that's easy to get into, for anyone with mobility issues. The bus lowers down, so that anyone who can't negotiate steps can get in. We can also issue special bus passes to people with disabilities who will need assistance, and train the driver to do things like give a verbal reminder to someone who can't see the signage or forgets where to get off. We can also train staff at bus terminals to offer assistance to anyone who needs it, whether they're tourists, passengers with disabilities, or people who haven't ridden a bus before. The point isn't to anticipate every possible need; the point is to create a system that can be adjusted enough that new, unforeseen needs can be addressed.

We should try to create buildings, tools, and ways of doing things which can be used in many different ways, so that people--disabled or not--can all access them. Many of these features will be convenience features for non-disabled NTs as well as accessibility design for disabled or neurodiverse people.

That's right--engineering is part of the solution to discrimination. Suck it, social scientists--the nerds and their computers are just as useful as you are!

I think it is the engineers who should be offended by that...

I don't know if this is a hypothetical situation or an example of real life accommodations, but where I live we have just that. Our busses are designed so that when they come to a stop, the front of the bus lowers to almost kerb height so that it is easier for wheelchairs to get on and off (they are called kneeling busses). They also have built in ramps to help wheelchairs get in more easily, and there is dedicated wheelchair / buggy space at the front and accessible seating for the elderly. The bus drivers are trained to get out of their seat and help with the wheelchair users etc, and there are staff at the bus station to help the disabled / elderly where needed.

All of these accommodations are a great boon to young mothers as well as the infirm. When not used by wheelchairs, the space is excellent for pushchairs and prams. And the kneeling busses mean they can simply wheel their prams/pushchairs directly onto the bus without having to fold them up or disturb their babies. The staff in the bus station spend just as much time if not more helping peoples old grandmothers as they do with the disabled. If people are paid to be customer service staff then it costs the employer no more for them to help the disabled than it does for them to help the 'able bodied'.

All this talk of impending doom because we help those less fortunate than ourselves simply has no basis whatsoever in reality.

In fact it just occurred to me - if we are going to kill off the weak and unproductive, does that mean we have to kill off all our grandparents? After all we can't have them sponging off society just because they had the effrontery to grow old and weak (sarcasm)

Not at all. A stout hearted libertarian is willing to pay for police to protect life and property.

No one is obliged to raise a finger to help another except for one's own children or in case one has a contract to guard some one's life or property.

For strangers with whom you have no connection you can help them or not help them as you see fit. You are under no obligation to help them but you can if you want to.

ruveyn

I think we have an obligation to help each other simply because we're fellow humans.

That doesn't mean I believe in absolute communism; it's more of an individual-responsibility thing. If your neighbor needs help, you help them; tomorrow, they'll help you. If both of you can depend on the other to help when the chips are down, you can both take risks to better yourselves, innovate, and specialize, without constantly worrying about yourself. That's what a community is about.

Altruism is not unnatural. There's a reason why helping someone else makes you feel good. That's your brain saying, "Yay! You've just done something that helps your survival!" Just like when you eat or drink or find warmth or companionship, your positive emotions that come with helping someone else are feedback that say you're doing something right.

Psychologically, we're wired to help and wired to empathize. When you help another person, your relationship with them is strengthened, creating social bonds. Reciprocity, socially and materially, creates a network of specialists, a pool to which you contribute and from which you withdraw others' contributions. Sometimes we make it explicit in the form of paying money to each other; other times, it's a more casual connection between people who just feel that it's perfectly natural to help each other.

We evolved in small groups--no more than two hundred people, often as few as thirty. We have problems with large-scale organization beyond the number of people we can personally relate to. Creating governments, allocating taxes, arranging welfare systems, are not intuitive for us. But we do have the advantage of language and culture. Through culture, we can pass on useful ideas that help us form larger social structures even when we cannot keep a relationship with every member of a society. Ideas compete with each other, just like genes do; those cultures which make best use of their members' skills, which can best support specialization, will gain a selective advantage over cultures where "every man for himself" must provide only for himself and his immediate family and thus cannot specialize nearly as much.

As time passes, culture is becoming more and more important. The evolution of culture is far faster and creates changes much more quickly than genetic evolution ever did. Cultures which support weak members have tangible advantages over cultures which do not--even when resources are limited. Animals may leave the weak behind; even social animals may be unable to support weaker members of a group during hard times. Sociocultural animals like humans are a different story. For us, even someone who contributes very little (say, an elderly person with end-stage Alzheimer's) becomes a symbol of the fact that we help the weak. That knowledge lets people risk spending energy on something other than survival, to add to our pool of cultural knowledge, and to make the world better for everyone involved.

Tell that to some of the people who once in a while send me hate mail wishing autisticp people like myself to be rounded up and euthanized to better society!

What about not feeding the hungry or curing the sick. Is that the same thing as doing positive harm and wrong?

Do you know the difference between Something and Nothing?

ruveyn

not feeding the hungry or curing the sick IS the same as doing positive harm!

To allow someone to die out of ignorance is one thing. To deliberately allow someone to die because you want it to happen is murder by passive aggressive means.

Where do we go from there? do we put people into concentration camps and 'forget 'to feed them - after all doing 'nothing' is not the same as killing them is it! Or maybe we should start expecting people to prove they have no disability before they are allowed any kind of medical treatment?

Oh wait you are Autistic too aren't you - so that would mean you don't get medical treatment either, and no-one should bother to worry if you should live or die

Only in a twisted and psychopathic society would wilfully allowing people to die be acceptable behaviour. You can try to twist your perceptions of human behaviour any way you like in any way you like. But you will never make it acceptable to wilfully allow harm to others!

Are you serious? Because--that's a death threat. You need to report that stuff to the authorities. You may be okay with it, but imagine what might happen if they sent a letter like that to someone with serious depression. It might literally be a matter of life or death.

You remember that one kid who got a letter very much like that from a neighbor? People were outraged. That kind of thing is not cool.

And, yes, the people sending those letters are psychopaths.

Yeah its also hate speach I get used to it over the years and they are usually some teenage dumbass with insecurity issues who decide to be a**holes on line. I usually troll them back then block them and move merrily on my way if i feel really threatened i report them but usually i either ignore them or outfox and make a huge fool out of them and troll em back then block them. I mean such hatred might have worked on me maybe 10 years ago or in times where i feel really depressed but not normally.