The United States government will identify the cause of autism by September this year, U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said on Thursday.
“At your direction, we are going to know by September. We’ve launched a massive testing and research effort that’s going to involve hundreds of scientists from around the world,” Kennedy said at a meeting of President Donald Trump’s cabinet.
On another note, I wonder, as I generally do, how they define “autism.”
I wonder because my own opinion, quite seriously, is that an awful lot of what’s included in “the spectrum” is actually a superior way of seeing the world and of conducting human interactions - an evolutionary gain for humanity.
I think there’s no question that humans for whom the very idea of injecting unnecessary emotion into an interaction or hiding ones true motivations behind a screen of deception is entirely foreign are clearly superior to those who wallow in emotionalism and lies, and further, I think that at some level, the lying manipulators fear that that’s exactly the case. At the very least, they don’t know how to deal with us - they’re lying and manipulating for all they’re worth and we just insist on ignoring their emotionalism and rejecting their lies.
So again, as I generally do, I’m wondering how exactly these particular lying manipulators are defining “autism.”
Yeah, I think claims that it’s a “disability” have been a totally wrong way to look at it, but I also feel really strongly that any claims that one set of neuro/cognitive features is superior to another is inherently dangerous, because it’s almost necessarily an argument for eugenics and genocide (like, why keep the inferiors around if there are any?).
Moreover, I think we can’t be sure how our exactly how our whole environment (like, not just the “natural” world, also the things humans build on top of it, and the unexpected ways all the things interact with each other) is going to change, so I think our best evolutionary bet as a species is pursuing things that allow as many different kinds neuro/cognitive archetypes to flourish. Like, who knows, maybe we’ll be visited by an alien species that appreciates schozophrics’ ability to make unusual associations between thoughts and ideas, or maybe we’ll need a worldwide truth and reconciliation commission that could benefit from some ADHD hyperfocusing and sensitivity to justice.
The ways that society has thought about and treated people on the spectrum as inferiors are completely wrong and long overdue to be discarded, but we shouldn’t go from there to another supremacist mode of thinking. Pro-diversity is the way to go morally and evolutionarily.
As a sincere, long-term ideal, yes - I agree.
As an immediately gratifying self-indulgence, fuck 'em. Way WAY too much stupidity and ugliness has come at the hands of people for whom deception and emotional manipulation are the norms and sincerity and emotional honesty are aberrant weaknesses. And I want to revel in some schadenfreude at their expense.
The problem is that someone can display one set of traits one moment, and seemingly the opposite set of traits the next. People are absurdly adaptive.
Probably the bigger problem though is that evolution doesnt happen over such a small time frame, so planning for that is a bit meaningless. We all have the capability of adapting ourselves if need be, but most need a good reason to do so and there is a lot of conflicting information out there.
I think a good example would be any of the “I’m being mistreated at work” posts we see on social media. Youll find people who take the workers side and people who argue against the worker, and it all comes down to different sets of expectations of how someone should act in the workplace.
When it comes to different perspectives like that, I do think its usually beneficial to take advantage of differences and specialties but there are cases where conformance is more important than diversity so I wouldn’t want to generalize too much. I will say I think theres a place for all types of people when it comes to finding meaningful productive work they can be proud of.
Yeah my first thought reading the headline is “oh so we can spread it to more people and actually have a functioning society?”
Of course I don’t mean to offend those who suffer from it. But in small doses…
I am autistic and do not find that offensive at all rofl.
I often wish I could live somewhere that was some kind of safe haven, a zion for autistic people.
We can be extremely productive and creative when our boundaries are respected, but uh, when they aren’t, we either shut down or freak out.
I guess my only quibble would be… I do not ‘suffer’ from autism any more than a gay or lesbian or trans person ‘suffers’ from … being innately different from the social norm in a way they cannot fundamentally change.
Queer folk ‘hide in the closet’, autists ‘mask’.
It is society that causes us to suffer by generally consistently refusing to listen to us, respect and understand our differences, and instead pathologizes and patronizes us as ‘sick’ or ‘ill’ in some way.
If they start trying to ‘cure’ us, that’ll be basically a kind of genocide.
Yeah it’s a fine line to walk. There are people who are non-functional, who spend their entire lives unable to take care of themselves and function.
My older sister was a genius who, every couple of years, would have mental breakdowns and need to be institutionalized until she was diagnosed in her mid-30’s. Before the diagnosis I always considered myself a milder version of her- smart but not on her level, introverted but functional. Others in my life, without knowing about her have said they think I’m on the spectrum. So that’s a round about way of saying “there’s a good chance I’m on the spectrum too, but I don’t like self-diagnosing and haven’t had enough reason to get diagnosed.”
I think the real key is giving people the freedom and technology to choose. I could envision a world where people move along the spectrum from day-to-day based on what best serves them. And I think a lot of non-autistic people would find a bit of the spectrum helpful. But that’s probably just a utopian dream.
Autism does not have any known cause.
Genetically, there are some clusters of genes that seem to be present more often than not in Autistic people…
But it is very, very far from being any kind of conclusive ‘we found the autism genes.’
… And if you look into a whole lot of pharmacology/psychiatric research, you’ll find that a common practice is to give mice who are gestating chemicals that cause literal brain lesions and other physiological abnormalities and deformities, and this causes the brain fried mice to be less social, so they call that a good proxy of autism, and then test their drugs on these ‘autistic’ mice.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28472621/
This model is still common in modern studies and drug development because back in the 70s, a good number of pregnant women who took valproic acid (depakote) during pregnancy, gave birth to babies who were… well, to put it bluntly, retarded, seriously mentally impaired, as well as having mutations.
https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Valproate
But hey thats basically the same thing as autism right?
So yeah, many current psychiatric explorations ‘with the potential to develop a drug that treats the symptoms of autism’… are literally just retardifying mice with massive brain damage inducing chemicals,.pretending that is autism, and then testing their drugs on the retarded mice to see if it changes something.
… And thats all without RFK Jr in charge.