Would you take the cure if offered $1 million?

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Make it $10 million, and the answer would still be no. Why? well, if you gave me a cure, i would then be normal. If I become normal, then I will be like everyone else, and do foolish things with that money, like put it into a failing bank, or a corrupted stock market and loose it all, or at least most of it. The i would have to get a job to support my life. This would leave me with the same feeling of worthlessness that businesses everywhere are leaving there employees with now, as I would become a slave to a corporation, that didnt really care about me, but would be willing to trade me in for the first thing that comes along offering to work for less that I would. Eventually, the loss of money, the feelings of self-worthlessness, and the lack of feeling "individualized" would leave me depressed. Great, now I need to see a shrink again, and or put on anti-depression medication. Hopefully, I won't loose my job and its health benefits, or have it outsourced somewhere, so that I can keep paying for the meds that make normal people feel happy. And of course, the fact that I am either back on the meds that I thought i would never need again, or seeing a shrink, whichever is the road I choose at the time, leaves me with this strange feeling of deja-vous, as I am certain i have been here fefore...oh yeah! I have....cool, $10 million dollars to go full circle......I could have stayed here the whole time for free! On the flip side of the coin, at least now I fit in.

So NT's don't get excited at having a million bucks to spend ?

Why can't you see that you'd have different sensibilities ?
Why is your mind so closed to new experiences ?
Why do you imagine that life is so much worse as an NT, when all the evidence points in the opposite direction ?

Personally, I find that attitude comparable to the child who when offered a new food, imagines that he'll hate it and says "ooh, but I don't like it" when he has absolutely no idea as to whether that'll be the case or not.

GRRRR!

Absolutely, they couldn't wait to spend it on status-items like new cars, fashion-cloth, airplanes or houses. Things I have no interest in, but as an NT I would be forced to enjoy status items, otherwise I wouldn't be fully cured.

As an Aspie, I would stop working so much, and use the money on research on Autism and personality-issues, and possibly genetic issues. A DNA sequencing machine would be high up on the list of things to buy. As cured, I couldn't persue any of these interests, as they go against the mentality of being NT.



Yes, I'd have to hang out with people 24/7. That would leave no time for intectually stimulating things.



Life would be easy and boring. I prefer life to be difficult and interesting.

You might be surprised to learn that not all 'NTs' are materialistic, self-absorbed, and/or only interested in cars, holidays and women/men. If you were 'cured', that would simply mean that you would no longer have what is clinically determined to be a disability. You could still enjoy the same things... you could still be a good person who devotes his/her life to wonderful things like scientific advancement or charity. Not all NTs are social machines. Some enjoy solitude, research, studies etc. You have a very narrow view of NTs...

Yes, this is the primary problem with all of the cure-talk. People pushing cures never define what they want to cure. What I wrote above is typical traits in the NT-population, and if you interpret cure as fixing all the oddities on the Autism spectrum, you would also have to cure the status seeking traits, the herd mentality and become a "social machine". Additionally, liking solitude, doing research on spare time and things like that are typical Aspie traits that need to be cured if the definition is to cure all oddities.

Great point well made, Tails.

But isn't that the whole issue with AS ?
That it's very blinkering and restricts imaginative capacity ?

You'd be 'curing' a LOT more than autism if you were to wipe out all those things. That wouldn't be making a person NT. All it would be doing is removing any and all idiosyncracies from a person. Being NT doesn't mean ticking off a hundred boxes. NTs are hugely different and diverse. Being idiosyncratic and being Aspie are not the same thing at all.

Edit: sorry, didn't see your reply there, too! I suppose that's true... although I have AS and I can see this. That may be because of the direction I took my life, however. It dawned on me at some point.

Quite unlikely. Most Aspies have superior imaginative capacity. This is one of the issues in the AQ-test that simply falls flat as the scoring on this issue is the opposite as it should have been.

However, you prove yourself that you do not actually know what you would want to cure. Should we cure hyperfocusing and preference for detail over superficial information? It seems like you think we should. And if yes, wouldn't we also want to cure preference for solitude, research activities and force herd mentality and social machinery onto Aspies to really make them 100% cured?

Yeah, I would take the million.

I'm not being rude or anything, my friend - but I think it would be better if you were to stop trying to 'answer' my posts.
Your last response demonstrates quite clearly that you lack the ability to step back and see things from a perspective sufficiently broad to enable useful observation.
IOW, you seem unable to see the wood for the trees.
No offence, but I think it would mean less chance of a flame war - which is something that as a cureby, the mods would be more than willing to jump on my back about.

Thankyou for your interest, and have a nice life.

It seems to me that in this context, 'cure' does NOT mean 'remove elements of disability' or even 'make NT'. It seems to me that 'cure' in this context means 'turn every Aspie into a clone based on our most stereotypical view of what an NT is'. Weird.

I'd gladly hack mine off for $1 million also, but there's not enough money or power available on earth to make me change who I am on a fundamental level.

What else should I interpret it to mean? As far as the results from Aspie-quiz is concerned, the only way to make a suitable definition of Aspie vs NT is to include most of human diversity into these concepts. There are no other (natural) way to draw the border between AS and NT. And to say "remove the elements of disability" isn't exactly informative, as most of the disabilities are grounded in simple preferences, and are not well-defined. It is not even well-defined what constitutes disability in this context and what does not. For instance, is hyperfocusing a disability? Is liking solitude a disability? Is disliking socializing with strangers a disability? Is having weird facial expressions a disability?

Well, I'd wear socks with sandals for cash like that, mate...

Just kidding, I would rather fall off the Empire State Building than take a cure. I don't know just how much of me is part of Asperger's. What if my writing talents are from Asperger's? If I took a cure, I couldn't write, and then I really WOULD jump off the Empire State Building.

Why are you sure you couldn't do what you can now ?

I mean, have you ever BEEN NT ?

No. But aspie is what I am, and I don't want to take risks as to how MUCH of what I am.