"I resign my roles at Autism Speaks" John Robison

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I agree. There is such a breathtaking arrogance about the posters agenda driven ramblings; I can't help, however, but think of the story of the Emperor’s New Clothes.

I guess we shouldn't be surprised that a forum for people with a diagnosed condition that can include communication issues can attract contributions that are polarised, or even just plain wrong; however there is no space for rudeness. I wouldn't accept that type of condescending, passive aggressive bullying tactics from somebody I was in a room with, so why should I accept this from a total stranger online, who could be absolutely anybody, but states on their profile they don't actually have a diagnosis. I am very wary of anonymous self-proclaimed 'experts' who deign to enlighten the masses with their superior intellect, especially when there is little evidence of said expertise.

There has been virtually no debate, simply increasingly angry exchanges; if any of you think this is constructive then you are sadly mistaken. Indeed if you do think this has been, in any way, a positive thread and you have contributed to it, then I despair. I would like to give the poster the benefit of the doubt and say they aren't a troll, but I don't actually know. I'm sure there will be a response to this, but I don't care, I won't be reading or responding to this person again.

There only ray of light came a few pages back from btbnnyr about how to make real changes in the lives of people diagnosed as being on the spectrum in light of the failings of 'autism speaks'. That deserves a thread all of its own.

I don't see ideas. I see the typical negativity expressed about disability and expressed about activism. I am indeed working from a script because you are working from a script. Actually a couple of scripts. Scripts so pervasive and so fundamental to how this society works that most people never realize they're scripts. But when you've been in hundreds of conversations with hundreds of people on the same topics and they all basically say the same things, I am not going to assume that the next person to come along to say those same things actually means something different.

There's nothing special or unique or interesting or even accurate about criticizing what others do for activism. People who themselves do not engage in activism do it all the time. It's especially common for people who are not impacted by what the activism is about (for example, straight people have a universe of ~ideas~ about how LGB people should conduct their activism, cisgender people have a universe of ideas about how trans people should conduct their activism),. Strangely, these ideas often boil down to things like "You're too angry" and "the way you're doing activism doesn't work, so you should actually do something totally impractical or ineffective or both that I believe you should do instead, and it has the added advantage of not challenging my assumptions about the world or people like you."

Similarly, it is often the case that many abled people do not want to hear the realities of being disabled. Many disabled people don't want to hear it. They construct elaborate explanations as to why speaking honestly about being disabled is somehow harmful or hurting the cause or playing the victim or being too negative.

There is a genuinely new idea in this thread, but it came from btbnnyr, and was her idea for something to do that she would be interested in doing. I'm not in this thread to introduce new ideas because basic disability 101 stuff is actually being challenged and debated as if it's not actually how things currently are. We have to establish that there are in fact more than two kinds of autism, that autistic people are more diverse than that, that functioning labels are insufficient to describe the complexities of living with autism, that it is actually okay and standard accepted English to call torture what it actually is, instead of finding ways to frame it in euphemism to avoid causing some kind of nebulous "harm."

And the approach to dealing with these things in these threads is so superficial. I can't speak for anyone else, for example, but I didn't even watch the video. I've read reams of material about that particular case and about JRC in general. I mean, the whole question as to whether JRC engages in torture and abuse is pretty much settled among disability rights activists, most of whom I know do not participate here. That this was even considered to be up for debate in this thread is such a basic question that it amazes me that anyone would actually try to argue any kind of uncertainty. There's nothing new there. Like I said, it's stuff I've seen many times before, and will probably see many times again.

So whatever your hidden rhetorical question was, it's basically vaporware. Meaningless. It doesn't really do anything but reassert the status quo in which it is considered appropriate and reasonable to take extreme measures with some children. Which is an echo of the idea that aversive ABA should be implemented without clinical trials or studies to determine its safety, efficacy, and whether it's even ethical to use such treatment on the basis that autistic children are automatic emergencies and it is time for triage rather than ethics.

But this information is several years old to me. I'm not outraged by the video posted in this thread. I object to JRC's continued existence on the basis of those several years. Not one of us came into this thread fully formed as if we'd sprung Athena-like from Zeus' forehead. My perspective on JRC and Autism Speaks is simply not informed by the information provided in this thread, but it seems from reading your arguments that at the very least, your position on JRC is informed by the information provided in this thread, and little more than that at best.

Your attempt at critiquing activism might be effective if I weren't actually experienced with activism, with everything from local protests to global information campaigns. I've seen the benefits and results, as well as the outcomes from badly handled and botched situations. You can say that spreading the word is not enough, but you're wrong. For some people, spreading the word is all they can do. But that word gets spread to other people who engage in offline activism, who take those ideas and that information and put it to practical use - and people who work primarily online put it to practical use online, for that matter, although possibly in different ways. People also connect online, form coalitions and alliances and share information and create networks and motivate movements. People organize online, and organize effectively. I've seen all this. I've participated in it. What you describe is indeed from a different perspective, but it seems to me - based on my experience - that said perspective is different largely because it is uninformed. You appear to speak from theory, and I speak from practice.

This is why I found aghogday's dismissive comments about "online discussion" so objectionable (to the point of meltdown the other night). Because I know people who have put their lives, their hearts, their blood, their love, and their passion into activism that involves or even focuses on online discussion. I know people who if it were not for the internet would never ever be heard, but the world is better because they are heard. Because they have a platform. And they connect with each other and with others and that generates even more that would never be heard without the internet and the many social networking sites to serve as platforms.

To put that into a far more concise statement: You will never convince me of something that I have learned through experience is simply factually incorrect.

This thread is on the verge of being locked if the flaming continues. Formal warnings may be given to those who continue to trade personal attacks.

Yep btbnnyr made some very constructive suggestions and it does indeed deserve a thead of its own.

iN my opinion this truly is a great quote to put this nuance of understanding into words..

It is very difficult to find metaphors to explain some nuances of perception..knowing..understanding..and perspective...

I try so hard to do this..now that I have IT.and yes IT is a beautiful healing thing in what I describe as offline or real life...

Sometimes there are no words that can describe these connections and understandings..

But the seed of words can remain in one's mind until they actually experience some of these nuances outside of what might be described as the human experiences that are more directed by illusions of culture making many humans live a life as zombie rather than fully human..

Now please...noKNOw that is not directed personally at anyone in this discussion..

I have no idea how anyone experiences life in real life in these discussions...

This is a forum for people with serious social reciprocal communication difficulties along with a demographic that is comprised of an estimation of 85% that has challenges even describing their emotions in words..as opposed to these much deeper nuances of life experience..that the greatest spiritual teachers of history...have trouble getting across to their audience...

Ergo..the modern day fundamentalist ideas that Jesus is actually the one and only son of GOD..

When he didn't want any frigging attention for 'worship' in the first place..and just a carpenter philosopher at heart...that came to similar insights with different vehicles and vessels of words to arrive at a similar destination..as all other human beings..finding the essence of what is..is..whether..TAO..ZEN..YOGa..TAI CHI..or whatever frigging works to get in a state of homeostasis...

That comes free for most animals..simply away from the basic need to hunt and survive..at times of rest and basking in the sun...

Abstract thought and complex languages..can be used for great comforts in life..

But nah..they are far overrated..as all that counts in the long run are human connections that last and are love..in my opinion..

But I am out of that rat race..with plenty of time to relax now...

Just like my cat basking in the Sun...

Or a carpenter nailing nails..without much thought..required to get through the day..without stress...

It's just a beautiful place TH@ISALL....

And yah..the autism speaks thingy is just a habit..that's all for me..so see ya..later...and smiles...

And do as thou wilt..whatever it may be..as paraphrased from another great philosopher of history..Aleister Crowley..the wickedest man of the 20th century...

That simply refused to run with the herd..in every way possible..

Not much different than me..walking in reverse..in my local mall..haha..hehe..and yah..again..seeya later...who knows maybe in reverse....

Well..objectively speaking the thousands and thousands of words of criticism that have been poured into autism speaks have not made one bit of difference in how Suzanne Wright views the spectrum per her words back in 2009..if i remember correctly when she said autism should be eradicated in the future...

So in effect an actual change in autism speaks has not been effected at all..by anyone's time and effort in discussing them in all these hundreds of topics on autism speaks of criticism across the internet....

At some point in time one understands that they change the things they can and let the stuff they can't change go...

Ergo John Robison's resignation..nothing he did made any difference to his real desire to change the perspective of the folks at the top of autism speaks...

But as I said before do as thou wilt..who knows maybe the discussions here serve other purposes of people anyway..that are indeed constructive...but depending on individual perception and perspective..

I learn a lot about human nature from observing these conversations..that is Kool for me..and makes it worth my time..

From the very get go ..i understood that criticizing autism speaks would never change the viewpoints of the people who run that organization..per Bob and Suzanne Wright...

They are in their 60's or 70's and have their viewpoints fairly well set about life..

AS anyone else that age usually does..

But that is common sense and truly that is what cognitive empathy is.. common sense..per human communication in any type of relationship..online...offline..real life..or whatever...

I lacked it for decades..and yah..i got some now..through the process of neuroplasticity and or epigenetics..and adaptation to real life...and maybe some other people will have more later too..but that is for them to know or experience not me....

It's one of those things..where one understands what makes people tick..and what ya can change and what ya can't change..and yah..Suzanne Wright and Bob Wright are fairly superficial people..in my opinion..not at all hard to predict...

But changing their perspective..nah..simply ain't gonna happen yesterday..today or ever..again in only my opinion..and John Elder Robison's opinion now too..apparently from reading his statement....

Davvo7 wrote:

This thread has been a positive experience for me, though I have experienced sorrow, but that is part of life. I have not experienced anger, though kind of irked and very frustrated at a couple of points. Sorry if expressing my heart-felt ideas got some people so worked up.

These are the ways it has been a POSITIVE experience for me:..

Though I was on a thread with Aghogday when I first came to WP, I had not read much of his communications since he entered this poetic mode, except for one brief interchange..Anyway, aside from being amazed at the brilliance of his thinking and level of articulation, at one I broke down and sobbed, as I felt he understood how much I care about other people. It was an amazing experience to cry like that as it put me back in touch with a part of myself. I would like to live from that part

Also, by participating on this thread I got a clearer idea of what reality is for some people by seeing how some people process data and how meaningful it is to them and got a chance to FEEL things from their angle.

Something Tuttle wrote gave me something to really chew on about how the brain works and how a person can flip in and out of a state of clarity. Right before she wrote this I was watching a portion of a video where a mother is talking about her severely adult autistic son and she was talking about how her son on rare occasions flips into a state of articulation and how this gives her hope, and then I read Tuttle's message and realized I do this myself to some degree.An interesting question arose for me out of this realization about brain function and genetics. I will be writing about this later on another thread.

I felt Vicky and I really communicated, and this meant a lot to me.

I also feel I was able to get across what I mean by the idea of grading and sorting, thanks to a message posted by one person which message I responded to. Maybe not everyone understands now, but I feel that some people who did not understand before now do.

To communicate on WP has meant a lot to me. It has changed my life and helped to transform my mind (transformation not finished yet:-). I have always been an odd bird in the way I think and process data, and that is a strange feeling being on the outside like that, even here, but I guess many people have this kind of feeling.

What is amazing and saddening to me is that I put a lot of material out here with love in my heart and a desire to communicate and share, but many people attacked me or there was no response to what I consider to be important material, such as the quote about the black liberation movement (re the subject of sorting and grading and how activist movements worked (meaning did not work) in the seventies for black women in that they felt they were being left out of the black lib movement and diminished by the vernacular of black men who framed their liberation rhetoric in terms of manhood, and also they felt left out by in the women's lib movement because white women did not understand their unique position of being oppressed from two different angles.

Finally the subject of active thinking is very important.It is with great love that I am sharing the idea of active as opposed to mechanical, reactionary thinking (and I have acknowledged that I,too, sometimes do the latter kind of thinking)..In my opinion anyone who processes data actively is in a much better position to change the world, but if emotionalism is coloring the process, then it turns into a reaction and creates a leak of potential. To me the internet is real life in the sense that it is a material process occurring by physical sensation on an electromagnetic medium and so is potentially world changing. It is a location, a spot. I heard this yesterday on a video made by a male relationship expert, Christian Carter, which I chanced to watch, and I jotted it down:

He was talking about communication and understanding. Imo, ideas are material and can change the brain, but also, in communication there is necessary for there to be contrast. Without male and female a baby could not be born. If everything merges into one big generality, that does not offer a dynamic springboard to harness potential. Nothing can move or happen.

What I see is different people with certain agendas feeling thwarted by other people with differing agenda, and then some of us may not yet have completely developed the skill to handle being thwarted, so we lash out. That is a natural thing for young children, but a new way needs to be learned. We all want to impose their own structure of understanding upon the world and that does come with an agenda, meaning a plan of action. You can see it even in the play of young children. The girls might might to play house and some other people might want to play cowboy or cops and robbers. This kind of thing needs to be worked out, and exchanging ideas is a good way to do it, but if rules of logic are not applied to the dialogue, then it all goes into the nether. Can rules of logic be be used by the mind while at the same time feeling compassion? Yes, pure logic can lead to a great compassion, but the subjective element is completely removed, then it is not alive. So is it possible to have both together? To me that is the question and the ultimate aim. Feeling thwarted, getting angry and then simply abandoning logic is not the solution.. .
.

We might not change autism speaks from the inside, but we can change culture from the outside. That has happened repeatedly, including in disability rights.

Whether we change it inside of autism speaks wrong change that. But if the autism speaks changes happen sooner it'll be easier.

It's a question of when and how it'll change. But it is already changing. So let's do this.

And for now, let's do everything we can fit ourselves and for other autistic people, whether that is forming new grips for education purposes, which I still love the idea of, speaking up about the fact that with accommodations we can work to employers, or simply refusing eye contact with someone who it would hurt to make eye contact but non understanding NTs are trying to force the child to learn eye contact through forcing it...

It is changing, and we are making it better fit ourselves and the next generation.

So let's do this. It can help a lot even sort term, and it build up.

I' not an epidemic and neither are my students no matter how hard it gets. And I will make it better for them and already have. Because I can understand things others don't and I can make it better because of that. And that is needed. And while they meltdown, can't focus, and have communication issues that amuse me, that's fine. We can work with that anyways.

btbnnyr will start a thread about new kind of autism organization and projects as soon as btbnnyr survives today's stack of expts and driving home for thanksgiving (thankfully only lost angleles to carmen santiago).

Hopefully, people will be interested and motivated to get something going.

My comments to the below in black.

Okay. I am starting to review this entire discussion to try to discover where things went wrong here. I think it is a very important discusssion and should not be let go of just because it gets a little difficult to sort things out. It is very difficult for me, and I have already speant two hours on the internet this morning looking at various videos, reading about Autism Speaks and rereading the first few pages here up to and including my first message. This link brings you to the top of page 4, and the message I am quoting (which is followed by my first message on this thread).

http://www.wrongplanet.net/postp5750380.html#5750380

His message is a pretty interesting to me in that he does seem to accurately seem to very articulately a certain situation with Autism Speaks,, though he is only pinpointing the entire situation from one angle..


He has given a very good description of how black and white thinking is working in this instance. The problem is, black and white thinking cannot really be combated by further black and white thinking in the seemingly opposite direction (though this approach may work in specific situations such as stopping this kind of shock treatments) which is what it seems to me I have seen happen on this thread. This kind of situation is very difficult to sort out. but very worthwhile to try to do, and the big prize at the end is mental clarity and the ability to act sanely, intelligently and effectively. In order to know what to do, it is necessary not to just look at things in terms of the opposite of another thing.


A lot of people are doing that in all aspects of life and all situations. As stated previously, I have surely done it myself and sometimes still do. But I suggest we should all make a practice of watching for this.

This is how the problem goes, speaking of it metaphorically in terms of atheism: If I say that I do not believe in an external deity or a primal cause, which I surely do not, this technically makes me an atheist in terms of the thinking of most Christians, but all Christians do not think of God as an external deity and a primal cause. Some, even perhaps many, think of God as an incomprehensible and mysterious principle interconnected to their own mental processing (and so sense organs), so not literally outside of themselves, meaning their own sense organs..But according to the reasoning of many Christians, I could not be a Christian because I do not believe that an external deity created the world in seven days. However:-) many Christians who do believe that God is an external deity and a primal cause also do not believe that this God actually created the world in seven days, so when you talk about this subject you had better be aware of what you are saying to whom, as different people believe so many different things and have strong feelings about it, and also it would be very helpful to have in mind your aim, meaning the end result you are striving to accomplish, which could even be simply mental clarity, or stopping torture, or both. This is why, in elections people running hirie political strategists, but hopefully the aim here is more than to just get elected or to shut down Autism Speaks or to stop a specific form of torture. As I wrote, there will always be cruelty unless people change their own thinking. There will always be more cruel people, and even cruel people who think they are being kind. This is NOT to imply not to try to stop a specific form of cruelty.

Here is a link to a very interesting and informative article which gives a very detailed and seeming to me scientific description of success with this treatment. This is in no way meant to imply that this other center is not misusing this treatment, as it seems to me they probably are, but rather to point out that there are different angles from which to look at and try to evaluate this kind of material. Again this is not to imply that various cruel treatment should not be stopped.

(Edited to include link): http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/article ... leID=99615

This is the day of a very big holiday in my country and also a precious day off from work for myself, a person who is stressed and exhausted,, and I have a lot of important stuff to do today around shopping and cooking, but I have taken my time to write this....not to win a game, not debate, and not because I feel superior, but because i do care. I will not engage in the fight or flight mechanism as I am on here to enquire (flight being idle social chatter or just stop talking) when a subject as important as this comes up, and it was not fun to spend the last three hours researching material and writing this message, but rather a form of effort, though kind of interesting . I would call joyful effort.

Last edited by littlebee on 29 Nov 2013, 12:13 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I am thankful (pun intended) that my rant/theory provided you with some joy on a holiday.

Thanks:-) It took me about ten several minutes to figure out the thanks part of the pun and a couple more minutes to figure about the "full"part.

Though I am full of turkey and somewhat content and thankful, it is kind of painful for me to write on this thread at this point as I feel that anything I say will be taken the wrong way, and in short it is just hard. I don't want to push the river, but I feel I should not just quit speaking about an important topic because it gets difficult. .

littlebee wrote yesterday:

It looks like I forgot to give the link. It is just as well, as it will be highlighted now, and I will go back and insert the link into my original message.

http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/article ... leID=99615

The problem with this kind of material is it is very difficult to sort out. Apparently in this instance, though who knows for sure, the use of ETC was very benevolent and helpful, but in some other instances, seemingly the one shown in the video, it was probably misused. So now people want to stop the use of ETC, and maybe they should--what do I know?---but a problem for me which I tried to write about and will still try to, though it is very difficult, especially since I was attacked and accused of bullying, which is one thing I have never in my life done( except in one instance many years ago when my older daughter and I were so fed up with the behavior of my younger daughter we said some negative stuff about her in front of her for a minute or so with the intent of scapegoating), and this still bothers my conscience to this day) is there was too much emotionalism and not enough information given, and this kind of tainted the presentation of that video for me, plus people's responses were all mixed in together with various feeling about the message of Autism Speaks, and to me these are kind of two different topics which in some way may overlap, but it is too vague, though each topic is important. I think there could be a way to look at both of these and gain insight from the one about the other, but the way people were doing it was to me very problematic and should be addressed.

I started about new kind of autism organization here: http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt246138.html

To continue, here is a link;

http://healthland.time.com/2012/04/23/s ... at-autism/

and in this article a link is given to this second article which talks about how power corrupts.

http://healthland.time.com/2011/06/07/w ... tial-care/

Yes, power can corrupt, but the power of clear thinking in connected to compassion. Imo, the most important thing is for a person to develop his own thinking capacity in such a way that the mind becomes compassionate. This does not mean not to try to stop abuse of power.

Also, interestingly, a child really has no power. He is completely under the control of his parents and generally speaking all kinds of atrocities, both subtle and overt. Only the most overt instances of atrocities parents commit on children every come to public attention, if they even do, and most of the time they probably do not, but there are all kinds of atrocities committed upon children, many involving speech, and who are the people who commit these atrocities on their children? Often people like us....And no, I am not blaming the victim, but rather saying that there is a vicious circles interconnected with wrong thinking.

Autism Speaks--I do not know much of anything about this organization except what I have read here on this thread, but-I was thinking yesterday, what a beautiful name this is, and how much love must have gone into the selection of that name...it conveys so much...And why should she include higher functioning autistics into her movement? Not saying she shouldn't, necessarily but that would greatly dilute the focus and imo decrease the results she has been getting.

And again, it is my opinion that higher functioning autistics should not be placed in the same category as people who cannot work, cannot take care of themselves in life, will never marry etc. The original article I quoted maybe made sense to me. I was surprised at the negative response i got, as to me what she said made perfect sense, so I would like to go over all of this material and discover what exactly it is that I am missing, as it was not at all made clear to me. Though I did get some new ideas.and it was interesting, I cannot see how much of that material applies to the original topic of this thread. It seems clear to me that the founder of Autism Speaks wants to mainly focus in a certain direction and is getting a lot of results by doing this, and the person who resigned has a different kind of agenda that did not fit in with that organization which did not fit in with the way the founders of Autism Speaks perceived their own mission.

I am not quite sure how the video of the ect treatment fits in with that. Maybe they shouldn't have allowed those people a booth at their fair, but I do not know the particulars of the entire situation, and nobody really gave them. AS I saw it the posting of the video was kind of used as a device to drum up an emotional reaction against Autism Speaks, as that deflected enquiry and so lowered the possibility of sorting things out and coming to mental clarity..

Your connection of ECT (electroconvulsive therapy) to the methods JRC uses is extremely misleading.

Also, I think if one wishes to be "compassionate" it's generally a good idea to oppose torture, not try to make excuses for it.

You are missing that there are not two distinct groups here. You seem to think that autistic people are neatly separated into "low functioning autistic people who can't work, can't take care of themselves, will never marry" and then "high functioning autistic people who can do all of these things." But it doesn't work that way. There are autistic people whom you might describe as "low functioning" who do work, who do marry, who do take care of themselves and there are autistic people whom you might describe as "high functioning" who cannot work, who do not marry, and who are not able to take care of themselves. There are many combinations of these traits, hence the autistic spectrum.

Note that my argument here is that you cannot "grade and sort*" autistic people so easily into two strictly defined groups. That you cannot easily categorize autistic people like this.

I have made this point before, Callista made this point, Tuttle made this point. I don't remember but others have possibly made this point in this thread. Outside this thread, on this forum, this point has been made many times, but when some time passes without anyone reiterating this point, you simply reassert to original incorrect generalization. It seems to me that this generalization exists primarily as a silencing tool, much as it is when used by autistic parents to assert "You are nothing like my child" or "you can blog, so clearly you are high functioning and have no problems." If your intent is not to silence people, it might help you to use some of that ~compassionate mental clarity~ to find a different way to make your assertion.



This indicates a lack of understanding of the criticisms about autism speaks. I would go so far as to say that this is actively misleading. You see, Autism Speaks either speaks for or does not speak for all autistic people, depending on what they're saying and to whom. They will employ statistics that include all autistic children or all autistic people of all ages, but then characterize them all within the false dichotomy as "low functioning." And then they characterize so-called "low functioning" autistic children as reducing their families to "not living" but "existing." To despair. They present this as what autism is. And only - only when autistic people respond and say, "that's not autism" do they say "We don't mean you." But really, how can they know? Such an argument relies on the false dichotomy between "high functioning" and "low functioning" that does not exist in the real world among real autistic people. Autism Speaks puts a lot of money into defining autism for the public, and their definitions are unrelentingly negative and harsh, and paint autism as a horrible tragedy that leads to statements like "I'd rather my child had cancer. At least cancer kills you."

Autism Speaks uses emotionally manipulative language to present autism, which is apparently fine except when you're an autistic person responding critically to autism speaks and express any level of emotion in the process - then you're just ~deflecting inquiry~.



Deflected inquiry into what exactly? Whether it's effective to treat children by subjecting them to painful electric shocks through out the day? Or whether Autism Speaks truly views JRC's methods critically if they're allowed a booth at Autism Speaks' fair?

I also rather wish you'd stop trying to criticize emotions. You may not have noticed, but many of your posts are so full of emotional language that it is often difficult to impossible to understand what you are saying. There is one person on this forum who consistently posts unemotional language, and you are not her. I am not saying emotions are bad or that emotions automatically undermine one's argument. What I am saying is that from my perspective you do not seem to be as "above it all" as your posts seem to indicate.

Also, I rather wish you would stop claiming other people are "deflecting inquiry." You've made several arguments that people should essentially stop talking about things. You have made several responses that seem to be sterling examples of "deflecting inquiry." That entire thing about "if you're really against torture, quit your job and travel the country speaking out against it" was a rather blatant example of this, whatever you said you intended by it later, you were essentially saying that if one is not willing or able to dedicate their entire life to stopping torture, then one wasn't accomplishing enough. You have argued at least a few times that continuing certain lines of discussion "increase human suffering." Which gets back to the comment above about the emotional content of your posts.

* I have no idea what you mean when you say "grading and sorting" because you seem to apply it arbitrarily to things you disagree with, not specifically to arguments that involve actually "grading and sorting". For example, earlier in the thread you referred to the argument that you can't neatly sort autistic people into two groups as "grading and sorting." This is sort of like saying that a drought makes everything wet. Or for a more relevant example, it is like saying that factually correct written words are "slander."

Last edited by Verdandi on 30 Nov 2013, 7:55 pm, edited 1 time in total.