The importance of civility

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Ok I'm expecting to be shot down in flames. Even though most WP members are delightfully straightforward, civil and smart the uncivil ones seem to have very loud voices.

I'm an NT. I know nothing about Autism Speaks, I think I clicked on AFF once (with the rainbow?) and found it a poor alternative to WP.

But I am confused about what you are discussing when you say you are "anti-cure". I'm anti-Eugenics and I see the Aspie brain as just being a different neurology. Not better, not worse, just different.

But when you are 'anti-cure' are you also anti "cure" of the problems that severe non-verbal autistics experience? If you do mean you are anti cure of health problems for all autisms, do you have intimate knowledge of a severe nonverbal autistic? You need to know their name and have spent hours and days in their company.

The extreme pain that many experience is heartbreaking, as is the dedication of any mother who will not leave their sides. They give up every minute of their lives and suffer all the pain they see their baby suffer as they grow. Its truly f*****g awful.

So any research that can help ease that pain, support development and health problems is needed.

Qualifications/clarification needed

you won't be shot down in flames on this thread. i'll make sure of that. it depends what a cure means. i have specifically stated what i think is right and wrong. i will repeat here again just to make sure everybody is on the same page.
post copied from previous discussion on this topic:
I got into an argument with someone over whether it was right to cure autistic people. it turns out there was no real difference in opinions, just a difference of what the word cure meant to different sides. Most good parents want their kids to be happy. they will do anything to see this happen. i support that. however, some parents will go for inhumane cures for their kids. this defeats the purpose because if a cure damages the child then they are not doing whats best for their child.

i want to specifically define my beliefs about cures.
i do not believe in ineffective, misleading and time wasting quack cures: chelation therapy, stem cell therapy, hyperbarics, homeopathy, lupron, and "packing"
I do not tolerate abusive treatments: shock therapy, behavioral shock therapy, seclusion, restraint, torture, mis medication, aversives, beatings, thorazine, removal from family, or any other abuse a perverted quack can think of.
i do not support eugenics. i believe that any autism screening test should be given after birth to prevent selective abortions.
I DO believe in helpful treatments: social stories, speaking devices, self advocacy, ABA (as long as it is helpful), and other therapies for co-morbids.
the trouble in the past is that in some circles of autistic advocates the term "cure" got a bad connotation. that is because they believed that autism could not be eradicated without eradicating the autistic people themselves. they took "cure" to be some sort of threat to autistics.

Trainwreck averted. Good job.

quite a feat these days.

Yay!

@Aspie48, excellent points. I agree completely. I'd really like to see the word "cure" replaced with "cures" (plural). There is not one single form of autism, and cure, as a blanket term, really upsets people.

People take the marketing very literally, and believe curing autism means wiping out autistics. I think a plural version of the word would help to end some of this confusion.

Your views are mainstream. A Difference of Thought and Perception is the defining issue. Many are barely Aspies, and with a bit of work, could blend into the world even better than we did in prior generations.

Some, the non verbal, are fewer, there is less hope, and they are a burden born by parents.

The Mainstream View, help those who are going into the world do it better, we can tell many stories of how not to do it.

Support the parents who are spending their lives, fortunes, whose other children also suffer, needlessly.

Adult Autistics were denied to exist, banned from the Autism Speaks web site, and parents were told they could donate to research.

Their one goal was Stopping the Autism Epidemic, this Disease that is stealing your children, and all funds went for office expense and research, which used up a Billion, and found nothing.

Now Autism Speaks has failed in their mission, eradicate us, they now want to take over the Mainstream View.

They want to be in charge of something, they have Suits, and Expenses.

We have never changed, but we do ignore them.

Medical Research is always welcome, the conditions that are co morbid with Autism are not exclusive to it. Medical Science studies the whole human, not some Pop Disorder. Also, hundreds of Billions have been spent, on wide ranging Medical Research, and no one quotes Autism Speaks funded research.

Now if we will go tell them everything, they will now accept us, if we are Civil?

Eugenics, attempted Genocide, and now teamed up with the Chinese State, I think their past and present define them.

Only adult Autistics know this from the inside, NTs in Marketing in New York are as far from us as China.

We need education suited to the autistic mind, skill development, and we do have a great track record in some types of work, and broader employment.

We also need direct support for the parents, who like our own, have labored day after day to do their best, not knowing, but never giving up. Some of us were real brats as children, and did grow out of most of it.

In general, autism was considered a childhood disorder, that they aged out of. I think in all the choices, follow Mother Nature, and give a hand where you can.

Supporting Suits in Marketing in New York makes the bottom of my list.

its slightly difficult to understand what you say, so i will tell you how i interpret it. i think you are telling me that there is a wide spectrum. you tell me that autism speaks was misguided in the past, they have failed their goal. they denied us the right to speak. they gave the eugenics info to china. they attempted and failed eugenics here. autistic people were disillusioned and turned away.
thats the gist of your post. correct me before the discussion moves on if i am wrong. now i think it is time to strike. they are weak. its time to get them to accept our demands. it doesn't matter how we do that as long as we do no harm. i agree with everything you stated about autism speaks. you don't need to tell me i agree with you, and i have done research. the china issue only i have only recently become aware of. any other alerts of big issues like that one would be great i think we are both arguing a brick wall, although i don't know how to tell you that. the bottom line is that i am part of your group. i'm a member of aff, not an active one, because most of my time is spent here. i think you will find that i do not support autism speaks. because i joinerd a forum does not mean i support the organization running it. i debate the same topics as i do here. i am not apologetic, never was, and i never will be. i know the facts, i know my rights. autism speaks sees that they can no longer hold us back, so we must go forward. we caused an uproar and we proved ourselves. it is now time to get an apology from them, and move forward in a new direction. i am not all about stop bashing autism speaks. i posted a thread to say that i thought people were trusting autism speaks too much. that thread was locked because of incivility on the part of some people, people who agreed with what i was saying, but attacked me for the sake of attacking. this is all on record if you don't believe me.

the majority were in the past evil. i would not propose violence like terrorists. it is unfair that you have in the past accused people of diminishing the jews struggles to nazis but here you go diminishing 9-11 to prove a point. i think skepticism of people who are in the past misguided or evil is entirely justified.

"The evil that men do lives on, while the good is often interred with their bones."

Like Leahman Brothers, Enron, Worldcom, they are the Charity version, working it for all it is worth in the last days.

The Children's Crusade aside, they are their record. It took them all of their history to lose any trust or goodwill from the people they claimed to be helping.

Autistic, a fantastic memory for facts and data.

Perhaps Marketing does think Public Opinion can be changed, but we are not the public, we are a very involved party.

The New and Improved Model? I will wait for Service Pack 3.

Now they are researching our ideas? So said ASAN, with their full service program.

As Mick Jager summed it up, "Performance."

I see nothing I can support, and much I want nothing to do with.

For you it might just be a job, for me it is the one life I have.

Aut, turning inward, I can still see the big picture, the lack of performance where needed, and many behaviors that repel me.

They are all employees of an "IT." The It is hungry, has ravished it's food supply, and is looking for new feeding grounds. It's nature is to consume everything, It should starve to death.

The Research excuse has dead ended. Funding dries up when you fail to produce.

Support has never been there from the community involved, because the community was denied, excluded, and not the target of where Autism Funds were spent. There are Ethics questions about grabbing all of the funds and excluding everyone who was autistic.

So China is their friend? Only for money. American Research, Education, is being treated like Autistics.

Let us see who donates to China, and who leaves.

Someone who never did anything for you, grabbed everything they could, defamed your character, in National Press, over and over, excluded you, claimed you were mentally incapable, now invites us to join them?

Many parents have joined us, 58,048 Members, 1,458 on line now, says this is the future.

Over 10,000 new in the last year, coming to hear autistics talking about being autistic. We are a Media Market, and Autism Speaks wants that.

Starve the Beast!

you would suggest ignoring them, see if they run out of resources. plausible, it might take a while though. in the mean time we would have to deal with them. what i'm trying to do is get people to turn away faster by representing our side and our problems positively.

We do not have to deal with them, that has been our program all along.

We even let them post here, their spokesman, and there has been a long standing invitation to come discuss the issues, which they have declined.

All we get is they are not their past. Everyone else is, this is no time for fiction.

Wrong Planet with hardly any noticable structure, 58,050 Members, 1,557 on line now. 10,000 new in the last year.

Speeding up the process could be best done by posting here.

Politics does produce conflict when you discus how long hated groups that have been ignored should be part of the process that they excluded us from.

You get a pass on youth, but I think the majority here do not forget the past, and have no faith in the New and Improved Marketing Plan.

There will not be a prenatal test, even if all the 130 or so genes that might be considered were checked, the odds would still be 100 to 1, the same as shooting random people. We might have an edge, not going out as much.

The groups that would score the highest would be Engineers, Scientific Researchers, and University Professors.

They are a Corporation in Mordor, where the landscape is in grey and black, the twisted charred stumps of trees long dead as all life was sucked from the land. Their Minions are no longer families concerned about their children, for they went for help, and were told that their spawn should be exterminated from the face of Mordor. All that are left are Orcs, who seeing Genetic Eugenics will not work, put their faith in very late term abortion, like within five years after birth.

As you describe yourself, I am sure my condolences to your parents are in order, and to all of our parents, who did get through those formitive years. Long after they gave up hope but stuck with the job, we did get better, in spite of everything.

While I cannot give a great report on my early years, even I noticed the difference before reaching double digits. We are strange children, and mostly almost passable adults.

It could be better, that would take a study of those who lived through it and prospered anyway. This is the source material, and even without trying, just recounting our past, stating our views, we give insight and hope to parents.

A few warnings, any effort to teach me team sports involving a ball would be wasted. Not all children speak, it does not mean they are missing, just nothing to say. Historic records put speaking somewhere between one year and four, with most at eighteen months. The results are the same, you can not get them to shut up.

You get used to teens that mumble and grunt, and get surprised when they speak a sentence at fifteen. They were not non verbal, they were teens, enjoy it while it lasts.

Anyhow, at that other site this is a business, Professionals willing to take your money waiting for nature to take it's course. Here we will make fun of you and your teen. For free, indirectly and impersonal.

We give away what they sell, classic web marketing.

Join the Leader, no Degree needed, extra points for autistic humor.

Inventor, is Wrong Planet Alex Plank? Is Wrong Planet Zeraeph? Is Wrong Planet any one person or idea?

If we are not to take their PR at face value, then what is Autism Speaks.

I've given a far more detailed response over on the Speaking and Listening thread. I really don't want to jump all over the place.

Could we discuss Autism Speaks in one thread? Pretty please?

"Nothing has the power of a thought who's time has come."

Wrong Planet is not Alex, it is just one of his thoughts. I have been around for a good while, the pattern has not changed. Autistics discussing Autism, and a few other things. I have no idea what it is because I only visit parts.

As far as I can tell and have heard, the Mods do not have a lot of work, most things just run. I see a process rather than a goal, but that is me, King Alex might have a vision of hundreds of years from now, we just live day to day. Alex posts at least once a year as proof of life. Autism TV has racked up an impressive score of programs produced.

In "Performance." Alex impresses me.

It is the first town where autism is the norm, and at one in a hundred, or thousand, we never had a peer group till now. I think the place runs well because we all respect that.

Autism is equal oppertunity, one of the big changes which was unexpected, is girls, here they are half, Psychology was claiming one in five, it lead to rewriting the books, girls are different, but the same percentage self identified as autistic, but cute and well behaved, unlike boys.

That worldwide change came because of Wrong Planet.

No one ever had an autistic group to observe, Tony Attwood when asked how he came to understand autism, said he listened to autistic people. It seemed radical at the time. He also wrote a book about girls, and how they present differently.

To me Wrong Planet is a place where the autistic worldview is common, and very much alike. For all of our differances, we have a common differance of thought and perception. It fits with the Anthropological view of a Culture. Also self discovered, we group strongly around INTP, ENTP.

Culture infers knowing each other, we are a type, a breed, a sub species.

Some reports, World War II, our type was chosen for critical work, assemble the Norton Bomb Sight. Focus, attention to detail, an ability to learn technical things, and perfectionism.

In other times we may have just ground lenses, were precision metal workers, and the Universities of 1500, those made Professor, brought their own room full of books.

In Science there are many stories of someone who studied some obscure field for forty years, just because they took a Special Interest in it, and left behind whole fields of Science.

The life of Prentice Boys seems autistic, spending fourteen years learning one trade, then becoming Guild Masters, who controlled all trade.

We do seem to show up in history. In the modern era Geeks and Nerds have done well, and we identify.

Sometime in the Oughts during the Reign of Little Bush, The WDM, A Eugenics movement suddenly arose that under the banner of Autism, set out to eradicate it, and they included Mental Retardation, Birth Defects, and a lot of other things under ASDs.

Genetics was the new Magic Weapon that revived the sleeping Eugenics Movement. Downes Syndrom had been mostly eradicated, they tried for a clean house. They portraid Autism as the worst of all possible horrors.

I read a lot, if Genetics could find a way, it would have already happened. They had less knowledge, more drive and money, which people will take, and a half dozen years later reached the same result.

All during that time they rejected those who while autistic, do speak, think, read obsessively, who tried to inform them. They were not on speaking terms with the vermin they were going to eradicate. Not us, just all of us in the future. We still took it rather personal.

Many fell away from their message, and constant fund raising. They had a kid, not perfect, but they were going to keep it and try for the best. They fill the Parents Forum here. The Kid's Crater is because some as young as six and eight showed up. There is another for young pre and early teens. They want to have friends and hang out with kids like themselves, without the you will all be eradicated message. Kids are touchy about that.

Teens, the web, they just moved in, I have no idea, but they find places and fill them, speak in some code us old folks do not understand. It is a social world they desire, are excluded where they live, it is real.

As they get older, go from complaining about high school to complaining about college, then the work world and social life. They behave just like everyone else. They had some knowledge, were raised on the web.

Most interesting to me, over thirty to over sixty, showing up, saying this all makes sense, for the first time in my life, and diving in, being welcomed, and finding they are not the only one.

I recall mothers coming in desperation, chatting, and wondering where the autistics were. They had a Dxed child, were sold a horror story, were not sure who they were talking to, and meeting some autistic teens, would be happy to have children like that.

So where did this bad message for profit come from, who played on mothers fears, told children they should not exist, and would not in the future? Who failed to deliver to their Eugenics Supporters? The Koch Brothers? I hear they do not forgive failure.

Autism Eugenics now joins the Hall of Failure, Iraq, Afganistan, WMDs, Deregulation of Banks and Wall Street, Globalization, Free Trade, the Graveyard of Right Wing Ideas. In a last step they are trading a broad base of American DNA to China.

Is this your America?

I find it sad that your thread about reaching out to the AS forums was locked. I think it was a good idea. It's run inline with something my aspie friend told me. That the biggest advantage
Autistics have is with "Soft Politics". As she put it we have to ability the affect change on a person to person level. As opposed to trying to influence large institutions like AS from the top.

And like you said civility is crucial. Being combative and direct may be satisfying to the to people who do this, it it the fastest way to ensure that the person your attacking will never change their mind again. When people go on the defensive people don't listen. Worse people will start to "rally around the flag" turning a cause into a crusade. I have seen these kind of arguments across the internet. As entertaining as they can be. they are intellectual dead-ends.

Very well said. In some circles, such a statement is viewed as blasphemy, but I wholeheartedly agree with you.

In that other angry thread I couldn't understand a word anyone was saying.

Now I can read and understand perfectly clearly. Thank you, I think just learnt a lot from inventor.

No-one can understand stuff when the thread is all shouty, or trolly. My body reacts so my brain can't work well. Communication works when all those body reactions aren't going on.

Sadly the internet is full of forums where people do that - threads get locked and people get banned. Its all so pointless.

This one seems to work pretty well.