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Velociraptor
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27 Feb 2012, 9:41 pm

Longshanks wrote:
webcam wrote:
Longshanks wrote:
RandomNickname wrote:
What is with all the autie/aspie pride? Although, It's great that people have pride in themselves, there's a point where it goes from pride to narcissism. I've seen literally hundreds of posts claiming that people with AS are of some superior race. Have i been missing something? Aspergers has been nothing but a struggle.

Even on the bottom of all the webpages on this website, it has the footer 'Asperger's is not a disease'.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/disease wrote:
dis·ease   [dih-zeez]
noun
'a disordered or incorrectly functioning organ, part, structure, or system of the body resulting from the effect of genetic or developmental errors, infection, poisons, nutritional deficiency or imbalance, toxicity, or unfavorable environmental factors; illness; sickness; ailment.'


How does Asperger's not fit into that definition?


I'll start off by saying that if you can get a hold of Aghogday and Webcam, go for it! If anyone can answer your questions, they can! These guys really get technical but they are also very patient and all around great American guys to hang out with. Gadge is another guy you should get to know. The three of them help keep me sane. Auntblabby is also really helpful in keeping your sanity in check.

Aspergers is neurophysical - meaning that your brain is literally hard-wired differently. That means that the electrical impulses in your brain fire differently. It doesn't affect IQ. Just how you think. Having said that, a disease, as I was taught years ago, is an organisim that is introduced into your body. Chicken-pocks, for example is a disease because it is an organism and it enters your body. Pregnancy is technically a disease. With Aspergers, there is no organism or introduction. It's physical - or neurophysical if you like, and it just happens.

Does that help?

Longshanks


@RandomNickname

I'll start by explaining that pregnancy isn't a disease/parasite and that its technical convention as being one is simply the result of someone being comical by neglecting the fact that all multicellular organisms that reproduce do so to survive and that since the the "parasite" is of similar DNA, it can't be called a parasite. People often use this convention to justify abortion, but it's really just an entertaining notion based on the fact that kids cost money. A parasite must be of a different species. The rebuttal to this would be "parasitic twins," a situation that exists when one twin gets more nutrition than the other and weakens their sibling in doing so. Calling them parasitic is fallacy however as the mechanics involved don't quite match, but that is an explanation for another time... Just saw this as an opportunity to tout my pro-life agenda :)

Anyways, we are in fact hardwired differently as we have different DNA from neurotypicals that can be expressed to produce our phenotype or type of person. This is not to say that NTs don't also have our DNA, it just isn't being expressed in them. Now as for Aspergers not being a disease... I would rather define it as being a disease that develops when one doesn't have a self identity or like minded peers to mirror, when social norms and communication conventions separate someone from a homogenous existence with their fellow man. The disease isn't a problem with us, but rather a misunderstanding based on communication conventions that develop differently from which a disease of social and existential isolation can develop. So what I'm saying is that our understanding of Aspergers is wrong and the result of unnatural social structures, or rather just a shift in population and social leaders.

So we have a social disease, but not the one people think we have. The metrics are flawed and not attributed properly. We are by my measure a developing species of man in the process of evolution struggling to find ourselves. We are on the cusp of evolutionary change and working through our diversity as nature works out a stable solution to our existence. Some may point to our Neanderthal heritage and say we are subhuman, but no one is without "legacy" genetics, we all share genetics that have originated from sea mammals and whatever else we will eventually discover that is in our lineages, and evolutionary genetics are about developing traits for survival, the age of one's genetics doesn't really mean anything if it endows you with something.

I'd like to further expand this line of thought, but it's late and I have to work in the morning.


A couple of things: 1) I'm pro life as well. 2) Pregnancy is classified as a disease in the ICD-9 that doctors use to list diagnoses. I should have mentioned that as a source. I have an ICD-9 that I still occasionally use when I investigate a medical fraud case in the civilian world.

Longshanks


I wasn't saying you weren't pro-life... I just have an aspie "thing" for the the subject of pregnancy as a disease.

ICD-9? For real doctors? I thought you guys were supposed to be good scientists!



Longshanks
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27 Feb 2012, 11:08 pm

webcam wrote:
Longshanks wrote:
webcam wrote:
Longshanks wrote:
RandomNickname wrote:
What is with all the autie/aspie pride? Although, It's great that people have pride in themselves, there's a point where it goes from pride to narcissism. I've seen literally hundreds of posts claiming that people with AS are of some superior race. Have i been missing something? Aspergers has been nothing but a struggle.

Even on the bottom of all the webpages on this website, it has the footer 'Asperger's is not a disease'.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/disease wrote:
dis·ease   [dih-zeez]
noun
'a disordered or incorrectly functioning organ, part, structure, or system of the body resulting from the effect of genetic or developmental errors, infection, poisons, nutritional deficiency or imbalance, toxicity, or unfavorable environmental factors; illness; sickness; ailment.'


How does Asperger's not fit into that definition?


I'll start off by saying that if you can get a hold of Aghogday and Webcam, go for it! If anyone can answer your questions, they can! These guys really get technical but they are also very patient and all around great American guys to hang out with. Gadge is another guy you should get to know. The three of them help keep me sane. Auntblabby is also really helpful in keeping your sanity in check.

Aspergers is neurophysical - meaning that your brain is literally hard-wired differently. That means that the electrical impulses in your brain fire differently. It doesn't affect IQ. Just how you think. Having said that, a disease, as I was taught years ago, is an organisim that is introduced into your body. Chicken-pocks, for example is a disease because it is an organism and it enters your body. Pregnancy is technically a disease. With Aspergers, there is no organism or introduction. It's physical - or neurophysical if you like, and it just happens.

Does that help?

Longshanks


@RandomNickname

I'll start by explaining that pregnancy isn't a disease/parasite and that its technical convention as being one is simply the result of someone being comical by neglecting the fact that all multicellular organisms that reproduce do so to survive and that since the the "parasite" is of similar DNA, it can't be called a parasite. People often use this convention to justify abortion, but it's really just an entertaining notion based on the fact that kids cost money. A parasite must be of a different species. The rebuttal to this would be "parasitic twins," a situation that exists when one twin gets more nutrition than the other and weakens their sibling in doing so. Calling them parasitic is fallacy however as the mechanics involved don't quite match, but that is an explanation for another time... Just saw this as an opportunity to tout my pro-life agenda :)

Anyways, we are in fact hardwired differently as we have different DNA from neurotypicals that can be expressed to produce our phenotype or type of person. This is not to say that NTs don't also have our DNA, it just isn't being expressed in them. Now as for Aspergers not being a disease... I would rather define it as being a disease that develops when one doesn't have a self identity or like minded peers to mirror, when social norms and communication conventions separate someone from a homogenous existence with their fellow man. The disease isn't a problem with us, but rather a misunderstanding based on communication conventions that develop differently from which a disease of social and existential isolation can develop. So what I'm saying is that our understanding of Aspergers is wrong and the result of unnatural social structures, or rather just a shift in population and social leaders.

So we have a social disease, but not the one people think we have. The metrics are flawed and not attributed properly. We are by my measure a developing species of man in the process of evolution struggling to find ourselves. We are on the cusp of evolutionary change and working through our diversity as nature works out a stable solution to our existence. Some may point to our Neanderthal heritage and say we are subhuman, but no one is without "legacy" genetics, we all share genetics that have originated from sea mammals and whatever else we will eventually discover that is in our lineages, and evolutionary genetics are about developing traits for survival, the age of one's genetics doesn't really mean anything if it endows you with something.

I'd like to further expand this line of thought, but it's late and I have to work in the morning.


A couple of things: 1) I'm pro life as well. 2) Pregnancy is classified as a disease in the ICD-9 that doctors use to list diagnoses. I should have mentioned that as a source. I have an ICD-9 that I still occasionally use when I investigate a medical fraud case in the civilian world.

Longshanks


I wasn't saying you weren't pro-life... I just have an aspie "thing" for the the subject of pregnancy as a disease.

ICD-9? For real doctors? I thought you guys were supposed to be good scientists!


@Cousin Webcam: Yes, the ICD-9 is for real doctors. No I am not a doctor, but I did investigate medical fraud for four years for DoD and will occasionally get involved in a case. I also know you didn't say I wasn't pro-life, but you know how we aspies love to clarify things. Lastly, I found another mutual relative, but going the other direction. Think back to Charlemagne. You have to go back a few generations to the family of Roman senators (Ferrolus) who governed Gaul. Turns out that through them we are both descended from the Roman Emperor Avitus. Just found that out today! I dunno cuz. Sometimes I just can't predict where that Ancestry.com software is going to take us next!

Longshanks


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jcsesecuneta
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28 Feb 2012, 12:30 am

Verdandi wrote:
jcsesecuneta wrote:
I don't consider AS as "disorder" either. Why? Because it was labeled as such based on the… drum roll please… "majority"! Anything that doesn't conform to the majority is almost always branded as "weird", "disorder", "abnormal", "freak of nature", "odd", "out-of-this-world", "impossible", you name it.

Think of it this way, if people with our kind of brain-wiring is the majority and the NTs are the minority, would the NTs call label us as a "disorder"? No, obviously, right? The NTs will surely be the ones being labeled as a disorder, a disease, etc. etc. So for me, no, it is not a disease, it is not a disorder. Those definitions were given by the majority. The majority always win. If you are not like them, then you are a disease. Very bias point-of-view I say.


But what is the point of arguing that it's not a disorder on the basis of neurological relativism? The fact is we don't live in a world where autistic neurology is dominant, and I am uncertain that this would even be remotely possible, The world we do live in is one that presents numerous challenges.


Nothing, which is exactly my point. This "grouping", "labels", and "aspie pride" is all, thanks for the word, relative and for-need. Example, I was happy to find there's an online group for people like me, all the time in my 30 years of life, I thought I was alone so I struggle alone.

Declension wrote:
There is some kind of assumption that "autistic supremacists" seem to have, which is that Aspies only have difficulty because the world is built by and for Enties.

If you really think that this is true, you have to be able to imagine a world built by and for Aspies, in which Enties would struggle. I don't think there can be such a world.

Aspies are simply not good at doing certain things, such as running societies. Aspies can only exist in the context of an Entie society that supports us. I'm not saying that Aspies are parasites! Rather, I'm saying that Aspies are luxuries. We can be very useful in the right places, but we could not be useful at all without an Entie society already built for us.


Exactly. Which is why I don't call it a "disorder", rather it is the way things should be if this world of ours, this society of ours, should survive. Each one of us has a purpose. Each one of us contributes to the greater good of humanity. I doubt an NT-only world would have survived this long if not for us.

Sweetleaf wrote:
jcsesecuneta wrote:
I don't consider AS as "disorder" either. Why? Because it was labeled as such based on the… drum roll please… "majority"! Anything that doesn't conform to the majority is almost always branded as "weird", "disorder", "abnormal", "freak of nature", "odd", "out-of-this-world", "impossible", you name it.

Think of it this way, if people with our kind of brain-wiring is the majority and the NTs are the minority, would the NTs call label us as a "disorder"? No, obviously, right? The NTs will surely be the ones being labeled as a disorder, a disease, etc. etc. So for me, no, it is not a disease, it is not a disorder. Those definitions were given by the majority. The majority always win. If you are not like them, then you are a disease. Very bias point-of-view I say.


Well for some having a form of autism causes difficulties...for instance it causes me to have slower processing speed of information so as a kid I got to get called 'ret*d' all the time by other kids. I have sensory issues so sometimes an amount of light or noise that is tolerable for a typical person is painful for me and should I express that unless someone understands they are just going to say 'oh quit whining, not understanding its actually painful for me and if anything I would prefer to scream about it than simply complain.

If you have no impairments whatsoever I'm curious why you consider yourself autistic? because it is actually a disorder that causes impairment in functioning...this is not to say anyone with autism is defective, inferior ect. but you can't very well claim autism causes no impairment because that is kind of insulting to people who are impaired by it.


I didn't say I don't have any impairment whatsoever. I have, a lot if I may say, base on NT standards. OCD, AD, to name two, but we're talking about Aspie not OCD. As I've said above, each of us have a purpose, have a contribution. Humanity wouldn't have survived this long if everyone's an "NT". It survived because we're all different, unique, have qualities the others doesn't have. Have abilities the others doesn't have. If the Aspies in our history were never one, can we say that we'll be in the world that we know today?

It's just that. The way I see it from my perspective, that's where the so-called "Aspie pride" is coming from. We contributed to the world in so many great ways that we can say this world would never have been as it is today if not for the you and me. The way I see it, it's how "nature" "balanced" it out.

If all of us are managers and presidents, who will build our skyscrapers and houses? If all of us are builders and planners, who would lead us to greatness? Does it mean that the poor are to be pitied because of their social status? Does it mean that because one's a construction worker or a jeepney driver, that they have to be pitied because society dictates so?

If you get offended, I'm sorry. I come from a country with a high poverty level and a family experience that no one believe exists. We happen to view things differently, in a positive way, especially myself, in a broader picture. I have friends who are jeepney drivers, I have relatives who are autistic too, and the way we cope and adjust is to see things positively. My jeepney driver friends said to me before: "Without us, this country would never have existed this long".

If I go to tantrums, or meltdowns, it's their turn to understand and adjust. Because when I'm not, I'm the one adjusting and understanding. We all need each other. We are all equal. Each with a purpose to the survival of the human race down to the smallest unit - our families. I am like this not because I'm whatever-the-NTs-dictates, I am like this because the world needs of me. They are NTs not because they're "normal". They are NTs because the world needs them.


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28 Feb 2012, 12:54 am

jcsesecuneta wrote:
Sweetleaf wrote:
jcsesecuneta wrote:
I don't consider AS as "disorder" either. Why? Because it was labeled as such based on the… drum roll please… "majority"! Anything that doesn't conform to the majority is almost always branded as "weird", "disorder", "abnormal", "freak of nature", "odd", "out-of-this-world", "impossible", you name it.

Think of it this way, if people with our kind of brain-wiring is the majority and the NTs are the minority, would the NTs call label us as a "disorder"? No, obviously, right? The NTs will surely be the ones being labeled as a disorder, a disease, etc. etc. So for me, no, it is not a disease, it is not a disorder. Those definitions were given by the majority. The majority always win. If you are not like them, then you are a disease. Very bias point-of-view I say.


Well for some having a form of autism causes difficulties...for instance it causes me to have slower processing speed of information so as a kid I got to get called 'ret*d' all the time by other kids. I have sensory issues so sometimes an amount of light or noise that is tolerable for a typical person is painful for me and should I express that unless someone understands they are just going to say 'oh quit whining, not understanding its actually painful for me and if anything I would prefer to scream about it than simply complain.

If you have no impairments whatsoever I'm curious why you consider yourself autistic? because it is actually a disorder that causes impairment in functioning...this is not to say anyone with autism is defective, inferior ect. but you can't very well claim autism causes no impairment because that is kind of insulting to people who are impaired by it.


I didn't say I don't have any impairment whatsoever. I have, a lot if I may say, base on NT standards. OCD, AD, to name two, but we're talking about Aspie not OCD. As I've said above, each of us have a purpose, have a contribution. Humanity wouldn't have survived this long if everyone's an "NT". It survived because we're all different, unique, have qualities the others doesn't have. Have abilities the others doesn't have. If the Aspies in our history were never one, can we say that we'll be in the world that we know today?

Never said we where talking about OCD, I said my AS symptoms cause some impairment....I don't think everyone should be NT that is ridiculous I just don't see how its not a disorder.

It's just that. The way I see it from my perspective, that's where the so-called "Aspie pride" is coming from. We contributed to the world in so many great ways that we can say this world would never have been as it is today if not for the you and me. The way I see it, it's how "nature" "balanced" it out.

Maybe, I don't know it is kind of impossible to know who in history actually had AS...Some people do make huge contributions and such some people don't I don't think people with AS as a group have accomplished all that much more than any other group of people.

If all of us are managers and presidents, who will build our skyscrapers and houses? If all of us are builders and planners, who would lead us to greatness? Does it mean that the poor are to be pitied because of their social status? Does it mean that because one's a construction worker or a jeepney driver, that they have to be pitied because society dictates so?

Not sure what exactly you're implying.

If you get offended, I'm sorry. I come from a country with a high poverty level and a family experience that no one believe exists. We happen to view things differently, in a positive way, especially myself, in a broader picture. I have friends who are jeepney drivers, I have relatives who are autistic too, and the way we cope and adjust is to see things positively. My jeepney driver friends said to me before: "Without us, this country would never have existed this long".

Then I guess I view things differently, though my background is not all that great either but some difficulties I have definitely have to do with the AS...also it is in the DSM so it is considered a disorder even if that's not how everyone wants to define it.


If I go to tantrums, or meltdowns, it's their turn to understand and adjust. Because when I'm not, I'm the one adjusting and understanding. We all need each other. We are all equal. Each with a purpose to the survival of the human race down to the smallest unit - our families. I am like this not because I'm whatever-the-NTs-dictates, I am like this because the world needs of me. They are NTs not because they're "normal". They are NTs because the world needs them.


I can't disagree there, I just don't think it makes sense that AS is not a disorder considering it causes impairment for most who have it.


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