The idea of an AS cure...

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18 Oct 2012, 9:13 pm

I also don't want the Jenny McCarthys of the world messing with my big, clean and beautiful autistic brain with their dirty hands, pills, diets and cocktails.

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18 Oct 2012, 9:22 pm

My union has an affirmative action policy for the weak that states that if you can't hold down a job for more than 40 hours you get to keep your spot on the out of work list. I got fired from 12 jobs in a row and when I made it to the top of the out of work list my phone was ringing off the hook with job offers from 30 to 40 dollars an hour with all the overtime I could handle. After years of bullying and discrimination now everyone thinks I'm taking advantage of the system.

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19 Oct 2012, 1:15 am

While I like the debates; I was talking literally...

If we get the tech to restructure AS into NT, then the reverse can be done as well.

I.E - People can experience both in one lifetime.

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19 Oct 2012, 2:48 am

Zodai wrote:

While I like the debates; I was talking literally...

If we get the tech to restructure AS into NT, then the reverse can be done as well.

I.E - People can experience both in one lifetime.

it is quite literally more feasible that we will travel to the stars, at least that is theoretically doable,
whereas trillions of connections that need carefull restructuring in new pattern where there probably isnt any sort of average baseline.

so it is like building a trillion piece puzzle out of another trillion piece puzzle, without knowing the picture on either.

far more likely that something like that will first be possible when we are already digitizing human minds, in such a scenario there quite simply wouldnt be something called NT, peple would be able to change and experiment with their minds on a daily basis, the very meaning of human would change.

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19 Oct 2012, 3:15 am

Well, it still remains that we can't discover an AS "Cure" without discovering an NT "Cure" at the same time.

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19 Oct 2012, 4:19 am

Zodai wrote:

Well, it still remains that we can't discover an AS "Cure" without discovering an NT "Cure" at the same time.

true

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19 Oct 2012, 8:21 am

thewhitrbbit wrote:

Thomas

1.) I'm thinking in the long term. You say it can't be done, maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but who knows what the future will hold.

You're still kinda missing the point. Our very personalities are part defined by our autism so if you remove the autism are we still us? Its an enormous elephant in the room which is constantly ignored by pro-cure people.

More over, i don't want to be co-erced by NT society into a situation where I are obliged to have my brain cut up purely because 'its available'.

thewhitrbbit wrote:

2.) People like Bill Gates are the exception to the rule. He got lucky. John Elder Robison got lucky. Temple Grandin found success, but I debate if she truly got lucky on the level of Gates and JER because she said she has given up relationships because of her AS. Yes certain traits of autism, in the right intensity, with the right surrounding variables, can make someone a huge success. But for every 1 Bill Gates, how many languish on unemployment? How many sit at home on the weekend not by their own choice?

You are ignoring the bad parts of Autism and Aspergers, I am advocating a cure that will keep the good parts, the things that made Bill Gates great, the things that made JER great, but will prevent the things that almost kept JER from ending up unemployed and alone.

In that case what you're advocating isnt a 'cure' for autism but a way to surgically augment different forms of intelligence. If NT's suck at logical and analytical areas why shouldnt they get analogous treatment?

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19 Oct 2012, 8:25 am

Zodai wrote:

Well, it still remains that we can't discover an AS "Cure" without discovering an NT "Cure" at the same time.

Thats a good point. What do you say if an NT wants to become AS?

Sometimes I wish i was even more autistic. I wish I had crazy savant memory or maths abilities. All I have is above average art skills and an encyclopedic knowledge of world capitals and flags.

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19 Oct 2012, 9:25 am

Sometimes I wonder if the ideas of a "cure" is way off.... yet than again..... I was thinking that way, when I was in self-denial.

Yet lets be honest here.... I'm fine with my traits... I might learn to socialize a bit differently, yet so what....

I'm hoping to improve no matter how hard it is.

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19 Oct 2012, 9:49 am

@thewhitrabbit

...another point I would like to make is all this money and goodwill being lured to autism speaks and pro-cure lobbies, I would much rather it is directed towards other autism charities without a medical agenda and much more focussed on straight forward awareness raising and advocacy initiatives. Things with both desirable, and acheivable goals.

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19 Oct 2012, 10:25 am

thomas81 wrote:

Just because I'm pro-cure doesn't mean I am pro Autism Speaks.

I would like to see money invested where it can do the most good. Science shouldn't stop looking for a panacea cure, but if we can develop advocacy and therapies to help with the disability part of autism, that is money well spent as well, and in a way, it is part of a cure.

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19 Oct 2012, 10:28 am

Quote:

I think it comes down to what your willing to trade. Ideally a cure would preserve the personality, but it may be that it could not. So if it doesn't, what are you willing to trade?

Some people would trade in a heart beat, some would think, and some wouldn't.

And that's ok.

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19 Oct 2012, 10:51 am

thewhitrbbit wrote:

thomas81 wrote:

It would be far better to educate NT society so that autism became 'accepted' like homosexuality.

In my experience 99% of the problems associated with autism comes not from autism itself but the ignorance surrounding it, from all levels of society. For example the general lack of knowledge in NT people dealing with us on a day to day basis or insistence of employers to look specifically for employee traits that are synonomous with NT strengths. Then the refusal of governments to do anything about this.

Most of our problems could be fixed legislatively, not medically.

If these things could be sorted out, we could look towards reasessing autism as more of a minority group than the able/disabled paradigm.

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19 Oct 2012, 12:07 pm

Education will help, but it's not going to be a magic cure all that some people think it will.

I can educate someone that autistic people have trouble talking to women, but if there's an AS guy and an NT guy in a bar and they both approach a woman, which one is naturally going to impress her more?

I can educate an employer about sensory friendly environments and making adjustments for people with AS, but there's only so much of a limit that is reasonable. This will def help some people, but it won't help everyone.

Now some will say that they don't care about dating, or friends, and just want to be alone. That's fine, but not everyone feels that way.

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19 Oct 2012, 3:28 pm

changing cultural attitudes and public perceptions has got to start somewhere. Most autistic people are unemployed, thats not coincidental but it serves to enforce negative stereotypes.

I made the point before that government ought to be doing more to attract the sort of industry that autistics can perform well in. Its an equality issue on a par with the gay marriage debate.

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19 Oct 2012, 3:47 pm

As far as the bar situation the neurotypical clearly wins out for his ability to impress women . But what if the autistic were a celebrity?

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