Ending the "epidemic" epidemic...

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HP has had a series of problems. Depression has set in, they were even thinking of dropping computers. Their stock price is back to May of 2005.

Hacking something in medical technology? They have a lot of people standing around, waiting, donate their time to some good press, and some tax deduction. Link up with a charity? Why not, the tech world has gone around them in the passing lane. Perhaps an app for selling Girl scout cookies.

So they show an emotional passion and involvment, now does anyone have any ideas? Anybody?

I own a good deal of HP, they made some good LaserJets, then improved them to be like the cheap stuff on the market. They ranked high in laptops, customer service, then offshored that, and left their customers with faulty Chinese goods, and Asian Tech Support. After Dell self destructed, HP followed the same path. China is blocked from just buying the American tech sector, but they seem to be renting it.

Touch Screens! Touch Screens will work!

We can make expensive tablets that show a picture of a pig, and when they touch it it says pig, and oinks! Other applications will teach them to watch sports on TV!

Staying close to home, there are the fifteen million who used to work, no one has an app for that, and they were social. So there are some who are not social, mostly do not want to be, and what is the goal?

Perhaps it is me, perhaps the writer, but what I take away from the Hackathon, is if you do not read eyes, tears, body language, status, nothing much happened. I have also read HP documentation for years, language is not their thing.

They are hired Management, who would do the same running a car company. There is a Sales and Marketing Group, who trains to show passion and commitment, they believe in their products, and then there is Engineering who has to produce designs that meet the needs of Accountants, Management Ideas, Read Dilbert, and the People's Liberation Army who actually runs production.

Dilbert calls them Vendors.

So they have a Customer, one that has tried drugs, on other people, Psychology, Psych Warfare to scare them stright, then Genetics because it sounds scientific, white lab coats and all. When nothing worked, someone said, "I know! Technology!"

So now we have a meeting, with lots of ceramony, between Marketing, and Marketing, both showing Passion and Commitment, as Marketing does.

Marketing is not allowed to talk to Engineering, it not only gives them headachs, but those Engineers know they will fidget with anything, so leave charged capasitors on the table. It works just like Pavlov said.

So Management will draft a note to an Assistant, that is to be made into a Management Directive by a Secretary, who generally passes it on to the Tech Writers, who also write product documentation, to be forwarded to the Engineers. The Engineers will try their best to understand how the company plans on leveraging a buzz word or ten into a new vision. What that has to do with hardware evades them. But as Wally says, I get paid for doing this. This is a sound idea, we need a new coffee machine.

Engineering will submit a proposal, besides the new coffee machine we need a dozen autistics in cages, a zoo keeper, and legal immunity. Unlike Psychology, Engineering has Ethics, always have a good cover story.

Then there is always the problem, define what you want this product to do.

Also if Communication is the goal, why don't we put Marketing in the cages for testing? It is win win, no loss if they die, become autistic, or are cured. It is all in house, they did sign that Employment Agreement, are Organ Doners, this could work. Wally actually works on this one, he has a passion and commitment, designs based on cattle prods, to teach Marketing to speak sense and listen, or else.

This gets kicked upstairs, floor at a time, which is what everyone does, till it lands at Legal. They point out Marketing is covered by the Health Plan, rates would go up, so they suggest hiring Temps, Inturns, who will not be covered.

Management calls reducing headcount, The Bonus Plan, so nothing happens, and Marketing gets to explain how hard they are working on it to the Customer, and even puts out a Press Release. Wally never gets the new coffeee machine. He does order a time programed thermal device for processing liquids, which is approved by Accounting.

He also says that Alice is the best person to be the Engineering Departments lead in the team effort with Marketing to design the prototype.

From the Data Sheet, Autistics rarely speak, ignore all social interaction, live in a world of their own, are focused, persistant, so Engineering suggests they replace Management.

Just another day in Neurotypical Land.

Because you say so. I already said why you are wrong.

Could we not have real counter reasons to this rather than what amounts to fatalism?


You spoke about autism speaks as if they were a seperate organisation you were talking to originally. Now you're posting articles all over their website and you're constantly bigging them up. And now you're trying to complain that hacking isn't a word with negative connotations even though you were making such a massive deal about other words being changed on the autism speaks website.


Even worse! Of course there are some low-functioning who need treatment of some kind. You were saying that yourself when linking vids to self-harming autistics and so forth. It's us with next to nothing wrong, especially in my case because I don't need any medication or support, that shouldn't be under a 'cure' label.

Tambourine-man wrote:

This is exactly how I hope things will pan out. I really hope that the times are a'changing and it isn't just the PR that is a'changing.

That still doesn't change anything...

He is being too absolute OrangeCloud. I do not like how he says people will not need a cure when some lower functioning people do need cures.

No one has suggested that HP change the name at this point, except you as far as I can see from the posts. Some people including me have suggested they could have come up with a word that has less of a literal negative connotation than hacking. Lau didn't suggest that it could be changed at this point either, although he did suggest that it should have been from the beginning.

Your reason that I was wrong was that the reason given wasn't going to convince the jury here. I haven't heard anyone else suggest that they change the word now other than you, so it appears to be a Jury of one.

There is no evidence I am aware of that Autism Speaks came up with the name, or could control it's usage even if they wanted to, because this is HP's project. Whether or not it has anything to do with Autism Speaks directly is a matter of conjecture, unless evidence is produced.

As far as HP changing the name now as a corporation, they might if they got enough negative input; the only negative input I have actually heard was in the last week or so, now that people have become more aware of the project.

I brought the topic up in another thread, because someone suggested that neurotypicals should spend more money for communication devices for Autistics.

They then responded the name made them nervous, and I responded to use this as an example of why it is important that marketing teams measure the literal impact of words that they us on autistic people, and then several people agreed that a better term could have been used.

The fact, is a corporation isn't going to change a name of something if one person complains about it. Get a thousand people to sign a petition, and it might be a different story.

I don't think anyone is hot and bothered enough over what seems to be an overall good iniative, not to overlook a poor choice in words for Autistic ears, in this case. At least, it appears this way judging from people's overall reaction to the program, here.

Those are the counter reasons I provide for why the name won't realistically be changed at this point. Do you have any potential realistic idea, on how HP could be convinced to change the name? If not, it is simply not a realistic scenario to change the name, at this point. If there was any serious concern about it in the autistic community, ASAN would likely have initiated a protest against it months ago.

Autism Speaks has full responsibility and control of over their mission statement, that is an area that could be realistically changed at this point, with input to Autism Speaks. Per the evidence in posts here in the past, people have expressed much more discontent over Autism Speaks Mission Statement.

Not true. I said that lau argued correctly that hacking has negative connotations and that HP could change it.
This is why you quote, not just leave everything as a block at the top because you're putting words in my mouth.

No offence but don't the first quotation and second quotation say the same thing just with different people?

Aghogday1: Only you suggested that they change the word.
Aghogday2: By the way I and other people suggested that HP should change the word.

Even more damning, you didn't suggest anything of the sort at all. You were saying that it was impossible for HP to change it:

Gedrene wrote:

I definitely think that lower functioning people need much more support, and what you could describe as "treatments" for many of their co-morbid issues. But I don't personally think that there is any such thing as a cure for Autism. And I think it would be better to ditch the "cure" philosophy and replace it with a "helping Autistic people" philosophy.

Really I think we need to get away from the idea of autism as being us. It is an idea that originally referred to psychopathy and it's a junk taxon of psychology too.

No offence to Leo Kanner but autism isn't an accurate word for us. We can get along with others of our kind just fine as long as we try not to imitate NTs. There are some NTs who say that their sociopathic traits make them autistic...

Furthermore Tambourine-man if he is being ingenuous is not actually portraying autism speaks' agenda correctly. He is also inconsistent himself. He says 'YAY autism speaks has blacklisted the word epidemic' at one time yet the silence is deafening when we talk about 'hacking'.

I didn't state that only you said anything, as you attribute to me above, I said "No one has suggested that HP change the name at this point, except you as far as I can see from the posts".

This is your post that I was responding to in stating you are suggesting they could change the slogan now. You stated it in present tense, stating I doubt this is going to ruffle their feathers, if they are decent:



Lau wasn't suggesting they could change it now, he was suggesting they should have changed it in the past if they were decent.

In the thread that Aspie 48 started about the autism speaks apology, etc., where you got the other quote that Lau made, I suggested there that another word with a positive literal meaning would have been more appropriate, considering how autistic people might intrepret the slogan as offensive. I agreed with another individual that bridging autism would be a more positive choice of a term than hacking autism.

Here is Laus's quote from this thread:


I stated no one is suggesting to change it at this point, other than you as far as I can see from the posts. "At this point means now", not in the past. He states here it is too late to do anything about it. My statement that it is unrealistic to change it at this point is in agreement with his point.

Are you not suggesting that they could change the slogan, now at this point?

I am in agreement that another word should have been used at the start of the program, and if Autism Speaks had the influence they should have suggested another word. But as I stated no one has presented evidence that they did have this influence. It is HP's program, supported by Autism Speaks. If I had to guess, I would think they probably did have the influence at the start of the program, but without evidence I can't say for sure.

I didn't say it was impossible for HP to change the word, I said it was unrealistic to expect them to change it at this point in time. If you can come up with a thousand signatures, I might consider it more of a realistic scenario but at this point it does not seem to be, all factors taken into consideration.

Gedrene Wrote:

I totally agree, I've always said that Autism needs to be clearly defined as something "present" in the individual and not just a checklist of subjectively observed behavioral traits. (Or a junk taxon of psychology as you put it.) But you are going one step further and wanting to reject the concept of Autism altogether (and possibly replace it with something else?)

And you are right, the concept of Autism is a junk taxon of psychology and should be rejected, and to be honest, I think that psychology is a pseudoscience and most things based on it are junk. But I think that fighting for a re-definition of Autism could possibly prove more fruitful than the destruction of it.

My experience matches yours, I have found that I get on better with other Aspies than NT's, and no-one has the right to tell us that we are "deficit" or that we have a "disorder," there is no correct order that the human mind should take, and this fact makes the concept of Autism systematically bigoted as well as junk. And I think we both agree that it needs to change, I think maybe the only issue here is how much of a change is worth fighting for.

Leo Kanner came up with the idea of Autism Disorder. At that point in time there was no autism spectrum.

It wouldn't be until decades later, where people would understand there was a condition described as Aspergers by Hans Asperger. He described Aspergers as a form of autistic psychopathy, however his definition of psyhcopathy does not equate to the definition of psychopathy, that many find offense to.

It wasn't until 1980 until there was any DSM classification of Autism and atypical autism, later referred to as PDD NOS.

If autistic traits do not impair one in a major area of life functioning, they do not receive a diagnosis of either autism disorder or aspergers, so if one were to go in for a diagnosis, and explain how there is nothing about their autistic traits that is impairing an important area of functioning in life, chances are if the professional diagnosing them agreed with that assessment, they wouldn't receive a diagnosis at all.

Wouldn't mean they don't have autistic traits, instead like 30 percent of the population it would mean they share autistic traits with those individuals, as they do with those that are actually diagnosed with a combination of symptoms that are severe enough to cause the impairment in at least one important area of life functioning.

The fact of the matter is some people with traits of Autism truly do meet the criteria for Autism Disorder and Aspergers Syndrome that psychologists have established, and are indeed impaired in an important part of life functioning.

The diagnosis gives the opportunity for support, education, and legal protection in the workplace that is otherwise not afforded, without a diagnosis.

If one needs this kind of help there is no escaping a diagnosis, however if they are not impaired in life, and need none of this help, they can pretty much choose any name they want to describe their condition.

Some people here are proud that they are autistic indviduals. They are not seeing the association with Autism as a problem, some see the way it is described by others as a problem, instead. That is what we are trying to work on to improve on here, the portrayal of the condition in the general public.

At the same time, some of us are making the effort to understand that there are those more severely impacted that can potentially benefit from research to treat and potentially cure the co-occuring medical conditions associated wth ASD's, and to help people to adapt to the inherent syptoms of ASD's, that do impair some in major areas of life functioning.

Furthermore there are many autistic people that do get along just fine with NT's, and there are NT's that get along fine with autistic people. It depends on the individual in question and how they judge it in their own life.

And too, of course, as illustrated more times that I can count here, and on other support sites, there are often times where autistic people show little to no respect for each other, so there is no guarantee that two autistic people are going to get along, because they share some similarities in the way they think.

There is a huge gray area in who can get along with whom, that goes well above any pre-conceived notions of how people think, or act, autistic or non-autistic; their is no exclusive category of who can get along with whom.

Second. Autism has become a rather meaningless word at this point.

Good job Tam man.

It is. We must understand autism as being simply a generic term that doesn't consider the real causes underneath, especially in the heavily effected. one could easily understand autism as not existing at all, but simply being a convenient set of comorbidities that occur because they are involved in brain structure. it's not like epilepsy, where something is missing. And it isn't something simple like a part of the mind being snapped. It's literally different brain structure. It's a shift. When one scans the brains for different activity of many of us, you will find discrete patterns emerging that will clear up the junk.


There are certainly cloudy areas with psychology. but it is a useful tool. What makes people mess it up is that their minds works on the same principles. It is like staring in to yourself, and as Nietschze said, you may find a monster. People prefer not to see that.


Yes, and we must find out which parts of the false spectrum are worth a damn and which are simply bigot's nonsense.

And if we look above: