The Lancet: Does autism need a cure? bySimon Baron-Cohen

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Free time and the ability to walk into a prison and visit are also gifts. You're not obligated to use one in particular, or all of them, but you are obligated to work to the best of your ability, as time and resources allow, to make the world a better place. If you can't use one ability for that without going crazy, then pick another. I don't think we actually disagree on this-- do charity, keep yourself sane. I'm just arguing semantics.

It's a touchy thing for me because people tend to ignore that I do prison work and work with dogs at the animal shelter and instead get on my case because I don't write for publication any more as if I'm doing nothing because I'm not writing books and knitting for charity. I'm sorry, I have the right to only keep a personal journal and only knit for myself and doing prison work and shelter work is not doing nothing!

That sounds annoying. I can see why you're upset.

In this particular case, you didn't mention that immediately, so I couldn't know. But good for you.

I guess I can understand why people to that to me. Imagine if David Bowie didn't want to make music anymore. People wouldn't care how many starving children he fed or prisons he visited or homeless he helped -- they would just keep pressuring him to go back to making music. (not saying that I'm as good at writing or knitting as David Bowie is at singing.)

People get nosy and decide that if I'm not sharing the things I do the best, it doesn't matter if I share everything else. I think it's an annoying and grasping thing when people do that and meddling, like they're trying to tell me how I should live my life or like I don't belong to myself -- like I'm some kind of publically-owned property instead and I hate it.

Thank you. What is your source for saying Autism Speaks is in it for the money? It sounds about right, but point me to some cold hard facts to back it up, please.

I am now reading Ethics and Autism, by the way. I had absolutely no idea any of this stuff was going on and it is a huge eye-opener. Now, I've felt like a freak my whole life but it never even occurred to me to doubt my person-hood. The fact that there are actually people with advanced degrees who peddle this kind of nonsense really draws my attention to the sad state of affairs that is academia.

Autism raises some fascinating questions about the nature of consciousness. What kind of small-minded jackasses raise questions about whether or not we're fully human or even "persons" at all? And this "moral community" they want to exclude us from, is that the one that reads about celebrity gossip, that places a greater emphasis on comformity than it does creativity?

I don't know what it is that is missing or broken in me. But whatever it is, the people who have it don't exactly strike me as the most moral of groups as a whole.

Look up their Tax from the IRS. Link
They get around 700,000 dollars a year for personal use. Bastards.

Thank you, danieltaiwan.

We lack morals? Were we the ones in school making fun of others and making others lives hell because they act different?! Were we the ones that would not listen to others problems as high school counselors because "its just you"?!

It sounds like the book may be presenting the "not really human," argument just to show how ridiculous it is.

You are correct. It still caught me by surprise, but that's probably because I live under a rock and don't even watch television. It's easy to forget that all kinds of idiots get advanced degrees that give them a platform for saying ridiculous things.

I think I've come up with a valid metaphor for those who think we need a "cure", who think we need to be "fixed"...

A Porsche Carrera cannot haul three tons of cargo. A Ford F-350 cannot do a quarter-mile in four seconds. Neither of these vehicles is broken - both operate properly, within their design parameters.

My daughter is not "broken" - she functions properly, within her design parameters. The fact that those parameters differ from the norm doesn't make them "wrong", any more that it's "wrong" that my Hyundai Accent can't drive off-road reliably.

Pretty sure the only reason they say we are not human is a mix between a lack of what they see as human compassion and a different take on emotions. She brought up the lady talking about her father dying, who just understood he was gone and moved on quicker then most. Which is seen as not caring entirely, and i am pretty sure that if someone sees you acting like that they will think your insane.

Read it last year, but much more for the first part (on the condition itself and it's revelations in philosphy) rather than the second (mostly activism).

It was alright, but nothing terribly shocking. Ethics is little more than the unwritten rules of the majority, and cannot really be a "moral" system/code, in the absolute sense, because ethics is not absolute, it is democratic. Ethic is not right and wrong, it is what works for who has the power.

And we are the minority in this democracy.

Oh I'm not a person, OK fair enough.

Anyway jokes aside, this looks like an interesting read, might check it out.

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Emotions are don't always make for good ethical decision if your unable to change your opinion base on evidence then you fail at being ethical. The role that I think emotions and empathy play in ethic is a motivators to sacrifice especially when the consequences are large to the person doing the sacrifice. If there was a person that was 100 rational and for hypothetical he a god like power to be aware of every thing but lack empathy would that person risk him to stop a disaster even it meant giving up the quality of his life. The problem that people with AS/HFA some times hurt people that are around them with out being even aware of this. Usually they don't do it to be intentionally evil but it hurts none the less for the unaware nt victims might think they did it intentionally. I have been hurt by other aspies before some times there worse then the bullies.