Im almost positive that Andrew Wakefield has caused more harm to modern medicine than any other person in the last 200 years.
His human megaphone, Jenny McCarthy, isn’t much better. No one heard of him before she advocated for his findings to be mainstream.
Don't forget Oprah who amplified the idea more than they ever could have done on their own
and got Dr. Oz his start in daytime TV.
The Four Horsepersons of the Horseshitalypse.
Lol jokes on you. I already have autism. So, vaccines just make me stronger.
I'm getting tested for autism as an adult next week. If it turns out I am, who do I contact from the Autistic community? Or does a representative contact me? I don't want to mess this up and I have a costume ready and everything.
I tried to think of a witty response to your funny joke but I'm apparently too tired for that, so instead, I'll wish you good luck for next week, and the weeks that follow it; getting a diagnosis as an adult is often cathartic in the short term, liberatory in the long term, and in between those points is a long period of introspective untangling a web of messy feelings and possibly internalised ableism. I wish you the strength to endure and to emerge with a better understanding of who you are, regardless of the outcome of the assessment.
Kindest words anyone has shared with me since I can remember. Thank you.
Jesus fuck, you need kinder people in your life. I hope you find affection at every level of your needs. Proud of you for seeking growth and self awareness. I have high hopes for you and best wishes.
Can you tell me your secret? I've been waiting 8 years for an adult diagnosis. It doesn't really matter in the sense that I know I'm some flavour of ND, though. And I work in education, and people around me have been pretty accepting.
Secret? I don't even know if I am neurodivergent, I am getting tested to figure it out, I have taken a dozen online tests of various efficacy and they all come up "borderline" so I am getting a professional diagnosis. It may also be a very strong case of CPTSD mimicking the effects of autism and/or ADHD.
Otherwise, I have been struggling my whole life with things that should be a lot easier for me, and if I DID have a secret, all my best successes and largest achievements have been a result of pushing myself out of my comfort zone and pushing into more challenges, not listening to my reasoning because my reasoning is flawed, our brains just tell stories to explain how we feel and those stories don't necessarily have to make sense, it's just stories to make you feel like the world makes sense. It doesn't.
Understanding nuance of people's feelings and emotions was always hard for me, so I pushed myself to lead more, to be a team leader or a project leader, and put an emphasis on instead of retreating from giving everyone personal attention, I leaned in harder always and have always made a policy to listen and genuinely be compassionate to others and exercise empathy.
I also pushed myself to do more public speaking and leading lectures, MC'ing social events, and giving speeches when appropriate.
In my last job I was afraid of failure because I have been laid off so many times in the past, so I paid careful attention to that worry about messing up, and every time I had that worry I did the exact opposite of what my gut was telling me. I got laid off from that job as well anyway, because that's how business is now, but not before becoming a general manager and well-liked by hundreds of people.
The number of times I've put myself in trouble by resisting the "Safe" route is not insignificant, but each of those times has been easily navigated and more than rewarded by the successes which were a result of speaking up when I would normally keep quiet.
So your secret should be to value yourself. Even if you don't feel it, act like it. Pretend you are valuable and important and people will treat you like you're valuable and important.
This is a great comment but I think by "secret" they meant in terms of getting an appointment for a diagnosis, since they've been unsuccessfully trying to get one for a while.
Gotcha, remains to be seen... doctor hasn't been very affirmative with me about what exactly we're doing next week, I assumed from his language it would be a diagnosis/test but they say frequently it's all "more complicated" than we tend to think, so the reason some people might have a hard time getting a diagnosis is because particularly as you get older a lot of conditions and symptoms kind of blend together and make certainty much, much harder, and it is sometimes more efficient to just focus on managing the symptoms no matter what the underlying cause may be.
I guess I'll find out and try to update others as I go through the process.
I’ve got an appointment in a few months. No idea if you’re in the US but, if so, the secret is the same as everything in American health care - money, debt or navigating insane bureaucracy to get insurance to cover it. And, in my case, also traveling a long way to a place that does adult evaluations and scheduling the appointment nearly a year in advance.
Apparently you haven’t been vaccinated enough. Double up on your shots and you’ll make it fir sure
Anthony Hopkins will get in touch with you about filing all the paperwork.
The fact that you have a shred of humor in your system means you aren't autistic.
E’eryone, git your pitchforks!! They’re coming to force you to wear SOCKS WITH SANDALS!!!
socks with crocks
Alright. I got nothing. You win.
enjoy shopping at walmart.
If wearing Crocs with socks is wrong, I don't want to be right.
My all-time favourite graffiti I've seen in the wild is "Don't touch my croc socks". Sound advice.
Hey. Be comfortable. if you're comfortable in crocs and socks...
i'm more laughing at the suessian rhyme. "would you wear crocs with socks... and a fox?"... "WHAT MOXIE! I would not, could not, should not wear crocs with socks... not in a box, not with a fox.... "
It's because there is no punishment for spreading false information. These cunt celebrities and politicians spread their fucking lies and if they are found out, they make an empty apology that reaches 1% of the people that they lied to, and it's all forgive and forget. Fuck all of that. Every anti-vax, anti-mask, anti-education cunt out there needs to be strung up from the societal rafters. They have to be made an example of. At the bare minimum they should be doing tours helping to correct the lies they have spread, spending time on social media and running commercials like fucking community service hours. There has to be a punishment for this shit.
I’m curious as to how that law would be written and what it would look like in practice.
Ideally, you wouldn't have to write a law for it, and the people would be held accountable by others. That's a BIG wish, though, and I'm a realist--it'll never happen. Instead, if it were written into law, it would have to be done the same ways that libel and slander laws are written, and there would have to be a criminal trial for it. I understand that up front that seems like a lot of extra work for the courts, but if the punishments were severe enough, then hopefully we would see an outright reduction on it.
Some precedent for it would be libel laws as previously stated, false advertising laws, and public health laws like what Germany has instituted (NetzDG) that required social media to remove false health information within 24 hours.
And just to make it clear, I don't want to infringe on anyone's right to free speech, but just like libel and slander laws, when that free speech damages others, then it has to be curbed. The scientific evidence is there for things like the mask mandate and the efficacy of vaccines, we just have to prove it in court and punish those who are guilty of spreading that false information.
I'm all in favour of this, and I try to do keep people accountable for what they say, even though I often end up getting insults for it.
But to judge in court someone for spreading lies you would need to know the objective truth, and setting truth into stone would compromise science'a ability to propose radical new ideas.
I think there are ways to do this without compromising science, though. But they are all susceptible to the 50% attack, made famous by cryptocurrencies. If you rely on a community to certify what truth is, you are exposed to a potential attack where a powerful enemy buys more than 50% of the network to make them say their lie is true and the actual truth is a lie.
I don't have a solution for that yet.
I'm not saying that the idea is perfect by any stretch, but we also can't be beholden to what ifs. If we give up before we try because we might see failure down the line, then we might as well just start drinking bleach to cure our illnesses. Science can be proven. Mask mandates weren't a hypothesis. Vaccine efficacy isn't a hypothesis. If we get to where people in power are buying facts and we can no longer prove a truth in court, then we are beyond "mis-information" already.
I'm collecting vaccines like infinity stones. I'm going to unlock complete autism.
Oh, you're autistic? Name every time someone said you don't look autistic and that everyone is a little bit autistic
plus you get amazing hair
And you know what happens when you unlock complete autism? That's right: you gain the power to create your own vaccines, making you capable of reaching even new heights.
Is that what the anti-vaxxers refer to as shedding? They're shedding vaccine particles everywhere as a community service?
I'm already autistic, what's it gonna do, give me a software update?
i already have
hbomberguy did a fantastic video debunking these claims. Now if only the antivaxxers would actually watch it instead of staying in their own bubbles.
oh they loooove YouTube videos, trust me. Just not THOSE videos
I just wish it had less zany YouTube BS. I'd like to send it to my mother, but there's zero chance she would take it seriously.
Bold of you to presume they ever cared if they were wrong.
Penn and Teller did a fantastic demonstration on Bullsh!t (I wanna say 15 years ago?). The only real flaw in the demo was when Penn pulled the "autistic" pin out at the start, because that child would still be vaccinated and thus safer than the unvaxxed group.
Obviously, hbomberguy is just in league with the vaccine cartels.
And don't forget his allegiance to Sobek.
Link to the video, since no one has done so yet. Warning: this video is 1 hour and 44 minutes long, and if you're anything like me you will want to watch hbomberguy's entire catalogue afterwards.
So, the universe is like a video game but the lesson is morality. Long story short, i have met the antivaxers and i understand. They are dishonest people. I dated their daughter. They will not listen because they're arrogant. They will face horrors until they learn their lesson. The point is, this is a morality problem, not an education problem. Nothing will save them but their own misery you're honestly trying to prevent.
I'd say it is ,at least partly, an education problem.
Sure, education is less likely to correct a deeply engraned false belief, but education is one of the most effective tools to prevent the lies, misinformation, and manipulation from taking hold in the first place.
However, like most preventative measures, it will take a long time to see results.
OK, if you can educate them early, yeah. However, these folks were homeschooled. They were elitist and arrogant.
Widespread homeschooling is definitely problematic.
Yes, but i bet you don't know how bad homeschooling is. It's one of the few beliefs i share with the left that homeschooling is bad. It's so bad that when people defend homeschooling, they get the objections wrong. Homeschooling fails so socialize children, and homeschooling advocates say that means children have no friends. Nobody says that. It's so embarrassing. I dealt with homeschool kids and they're fragile and weak.
If i was on the left, i would cerebrate this like crazy. They are scared and they're running away and what's more their making their children weak.
My friends family is a bunch of trumpers, she's apolitical and vaguely socially liberal.
At her graduation party, they hung up a HUGE Trump banner. It wasn't already up, they put it up before most people started showing up. Fucking insane.
Sounds insane. However, mother nature will correct their attitude problems. Just wait patiently.
So the same behavior as the folks of the rainbow flag then?
Can we convince people that Andrew Wakefield, Jenny McCarthy and RFK, Jr. cause autism?
(I don't believe there's anything actually wrong with being autistic, I have multiple autistic people in my family. I just think that would be amusing.)
Steps:
be (usually born) rich
have an agenda
use your wealth to accomplish it
lie, cheat, steal, do whatever you have to in order to "win"
Did I leave anything out? :-P
You forgot step 5: once you have won, change the rules so nobody else can play anymore
Damn, now I'll never be a billionaire! 😂
Eh, you're still on time. Wait (checks papers) no, sorry you aren't. They just changed the rules.
It's okay, I'll live.
Wait no, I just checked the rules, none of us will. Oh well.
Carpe diem baby! :-D
Carpe noctem
Okay (1) FUCK YEAH, but also (5) did you just change the rules there - are you a billionaire? Or just (d) viva la vida loca:-P.
I'm sure the moment I were to become a billionaire people would finally pull out the guillotines.
Nah. Except yeah, probably. People aren't great at handling subtleties - e.g. "tax the wealth" becomes "kill the billionaires", as if the taxation part wasn't the point, or the fact that actual trillionaires exist is somehow not relevant, etc. It's easier to shoehorn facts into what people already want to do:-P.
Carpe jugulum
I said carpe? Sorry i meant carpet
Being a Kennedy is more likely to cause lobotomies.
If the quacks don’t do it the worms will
Can we convince people that Andrew Wakefield, Jenny McCarthy and RFK, Jr. cause autism?
Not autism. They cause death.
For the idiots who avoid vaccinating their kids because "it causes autism," death is preferable. Consider that they would rather take that risk than be put in a situation of having to parent a neuroatypical child.
This is what always got to me the most. Even if vaccines caused autism, wouldn't that be preferable to your kid dying? Like, what the fuck is wrong with these people.
If their child isn't perfect (by their standard of perfect), it's worthless.
Narcissistic parenting.
(I don’t believe there’s anything actually wrong with being autistic, I have multiple autistic people in my family. I just think that would be amusing.)
there's probably a less tenuous correlation there, though. just saying. Granted, correlation is not causation, but, eh... yeah.
I know, but imagine all of these people in this ludicrous panic suddenly thinking Wakefield is the culprit for autism...
I don't care if these anti vax idiots kill themselves, I care that they are killing people with weakened immune systems or children that are either too young to get them or they didn't vaccinate them. This is all 100% the fault tRump and Russian propaganda, it's sad soo many fall for it.
survival of the fittest is doing its thing, even if innocent people go down as victims of stupid people, such is life and death.
That is a complete misunderstanding of how evolution works. This does not weed out the people who are not genetically immune from a disease. If civilization died and measles came back in force in two generations, it would be just as deadly as it was before vaccines were developed. Because this does nothing to genetically change humanity's ability to fit into an ecological niche.
I'm ok with them harming some innocent people in the process of killing themselves. Greater good.
All the information available to us now and yet all people care about is if someone the Internet likes them.
While I hate what the internet is becoming because of AI, and I dread what's going to come from the better systems down the road, and all the people who will be utterly lost as they fall in love with their phones, I am wondering if just maaaybe these LLM's will be able to satisfy some people's desperate craving for attention and acceptance with simulated social circles and virtual supportive communities and give people at least some kind of outlet or if nothing else keep them out of the way while the rest of us make progress.
Can I have the smart autism please
Only if you're smart anyway since autistic people have the whole distribution of capability represented. Then being smart isn't enough. You also have to be resilient, lucky, and privileged (not enough systemic factors outside of systemic ableism to wash you out in a psychological and logistical pincer attack), and also lucky again to get past the many societal filters that block most autistic success and create the illusion of some unicorn like uniqueness in all visible versions of autistic success.
Sure, make sure to go back in time so that you aren't overestimulated in your environment, don't get bullied until you suffer an anxiety disorder, and have someone inspire interest in you for something capitalist society pays well for.
yes come to my house
Aspergers is still a stony route.
We run into a few interesting possibilities here. Start with the assumption that more children are being diagnosed as being on the autism spectrum. That gives us a few possibilities.
Because there's more and better screening autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is being caught more often. Okay, maybe. But.
1.a) If more children are being appropriately diagnosed with ASD, then perhaps the criteria needs to be tightened up; at a certain point, behavior/feelings/thoughts are just normal.
Because there's more screening--but not necessarily better screening--children are being pathologized as having ASD when they do not, because too many clinicians don't have the necessary expertise. This is a distinct possibility, in much the same way that kids are being labelled as having ADD/ADHD--and then getting drugs--when they're more frequently just being kids.
More children are actually on the autism spectrum now than there were 30 years ago. E.g., it's not that more kids slipped through the cracks 30 years ago, but there is actually a higher rate of ASD than there was 30 years ago. This is the one that should cause the most concern; if this is actually the case, and can be demonstrated to be the case, then what factor is causing this maladaption?
Agree on the better testing for ASD. According to the CDC, autism rates have doubled from the year 2000(1 in 68, vs 1 in 150).
The consensus is that ASD is mostly genetic, however, there is some research going into other causes of autism, such environmental/biological causes. Personally, I think growing up with modern technology(kids being raised by YouTube/TikTok) impacts brain development/connections, so there are people with symptoms of ASD that otherwise would be "normal"
The issue with diagnoses like this is that you arrive to the conclusion by looking at the symptoms. And there's a lot of fucked up things going on right now that could cause more and more people to show symptoms.
i've worked on building better habits such as exercise, maintaining social connections, and working through my emotions instead of repressing them, and I've noticed that many symptoms that I used to associate with ASD were really depression. Like some sort of coping, catatonic state. I'd imagine that with mental health being what it is, there's probably a lot of people similar to me. Surprise, did you know ASD is far more common in males? 1 in 42, vs 1 in 189, for females.
There's some thought that autism rates are identical in men and women, and that the difference in diagnosis has more to do with the presentation. It's plausible.
My ex wasn't diagnosed with anything, but has an autistic sister and strange behaviors herself. Being suspicious of myself (I was diagnosed with ADHD during a time you couldn't have both) and having always carefully observed people (to mask better), I noticed some qualities the two shared, but the symptoms were more subtle in my ex. She has been tested but not diagnosed, and I think the doctors were wrong. But, yes, symptoms observed had a distinctly feminine skew, or even a different mode of application. She did not get the help I know she needed (and she mistakenly held the opinion that the doctors are nigh-infallible, and that I am not ASD either).
Yeah, I've suspected for a while that some of the autism spectrum is just the brain allocating resources differently to different things. It has a finite number of neurons (which is true even if it can grow new ones over time), so a higher emphasis on learning one thing could come at the cost of something else.
Or it could even be a matter of some people not building as strong of a foundation in some areas because their brain didn't figure out something that others did, and it snowballs from there as peers develop on that stronger foundation of things they think they just inherently know and can't imagine someone not knowing it and those without that strong foundation try to develop along with their peers but can't because of what they are missing.
Like imagine that while learning math, you somehow miss learning the number 3. This would be pretty obvious because math is a rigid system, but imagine it wasn't as strictly logical like language or social interactions. Maybe a better example would be developing drawing skills without knowing anything about perspective or lighting. Sure, there's plenty of styles that don't need that foundation, but if you want to draw photorealistic pictures, they are going to look off or even bad, even though they might still be recognizable. Kinda like socializing with someone with autism who isn't good at masking.
Though the ability to mask itself might indicate it's deeper than that. It indicates that some are capable of adjusting for their foundation, does being able to mask while still having those gaps mean the gaps are genetic? Or can we only develop by building on what we have, so the best we can do is put patches over the shortcomings we recognize in ourselves and want to correct instead of being able to truly fill those gaps in the foundation?
And all of this doesn't even go into sensory issues related to autism. If there's different mechanisms that result in the different aspects of autism, should they even be considered the same thing? How would one even figure out if they share mechanisms?
1)a) you missed the part where you clearly said "spectrum" before.
maybe instead, you/we need to change how we react to parts of the spectrum. That is a) it isn't "normal" and b) that's okay.
Even though it's a spectrum--in that it's comprised of a number of different characteristics that are present to varying degrees--I think that perhaps some of those characteristics have been overly pathologized. I'm not sure exactly how to explain it. If I made up a disease--I'm going to call it Short-Man Syndrome (SMS)--and said that any male under 5'2" had SMS, then someone that was 5'2.1" wouldn't fit the criteria. But wait!, he says, I feel short. So maybe that definition gets widened a little bit. So now a person that's 5'2.5" says, well, I feel short too, and maybe a doctor disagrees, since 5'2.5" is pretty short, and that definition gets even wider. Eventually maybe someone that's 5'11" is saying, well I feel short compared to Yao Ming...
And maybe that's what's happening here. I don't know. Even though all of these characteristics may exist on a continuum, you need to have a definite cut off point where you say, this point and beyond is pathological, and anything up to that, no matter how close, isn't. Otherwise your definition becomes pointless.
When I was a kid, I used to have a button on my backpack that said, "why be normal?" Of course, I got bullied for it. Because the worst thing you can ever be is non-normal. Fuck 'em, I'm still weird.
If there ARE more cases of autism(which we dont know if there are, or if it's a result of better screening. Smarter people than me would have to determine that) my first instinct would be to look at microplastics and other environmental pollutants. Again, more qualified people than me would have to look into that, but it seems to be a better hypothesis than the conspiracy theory about vaccines.
This is pure speculation, but since we found Lead caused so many development issues when it was so prominent in everyday life, and plastic has been likened to this generations lead- poisoning, I wonder if there is a link between the prevalence of micro plastics and the increase in ADHD and ASD.
The plastics are blocking my dopamine receptors
kids are being labelled as having ADD/ADHD–and then getting drugs–when they’re more frequently just being kids.
I might go a level deeper and argue that the formal education process requires a degree of attention and focus that lots of kids don't have. The "autism" diagnosis and subsequent treatment is more about fitting round kids into square holes than it is treating an actual mental disorder.
I can say from personal experience that Adderall helped me study even without ADD. Its a performance enhancing drug, of sorts. And if landing a diagnosis means giving your kids a chemical edge on the next state exam, then more parents are going to discover their children have a problem.
I might take this one step deeper and assert that the real problem we're attempting to medicate isn't autism, its poverty. The underlying fear of an autistic diagnosis is that the child won't grow up to be self-sufficient. The drugs (whether they're necessary or simply a competitive edge) are intended to turn children into the successful mindless drones who are capable of churning mechanically through rote exercises that the school system / workforce demands of them.
This is the one that should cause the most concern; if this is actually the case, and can be demonstrated to be the case, then what factor is causing this maladaption?
Its possible that this is entirely due to a survivorship bias. Kids with autism are considered "salvageable" in an age where drowning the weakest of six children in the bath tube because they're dead weight on the family income is no longer consider practical (fewer kids) or acceptable (surveillance state).
Also possible that autism - like a number of other disorders - is linked to aging mothers or sunlight deficiency or toxic food/water/air in a heavily industrial society.
Autism could arguably even be a kind-of beneficial mutation - the result of increasingly smart people having increasingly more mentally adapt babies with mental talents the rest of us dumb-dumbs only see as a handicap, because we're trying to fit them into those aforementioned square holes.
I might go a level deeper and argue that the formal education process requires a degree of attention and focus that lots of kids don’t have. The “autism” diagnosis and subsequent treatment is more about fitting round kids into square holes than it is treating an actual mental disorder.
Okay, but that seems to be more prevalent now than it used to be. Is it really more prevalent? Or maybe the way we teach things has changed, leading to worse outcomes? Full disclosure: I was formally diagnosed with ASD in my later 30s; Asperger's didn't even exist as a diagnosis until after I had graduated from public schools. I had a very hard time focusing in all of my classes.
Also possible that autism - like a number of other disorders - is linked to aging mothers
I know that there's a strong link between trisomy-23 (Downs Syndrome) and older mothers, but I hadn't heard of other genetic issues. I'm not disputing it, just saying I wasn't aware of them.
more mentally adapt babies with mental talents the rest of us dumb-dumbs only see as a handicap,
It is absolutely a handicap. This is undeniable. It's a handicap because it hinders your ability to interact appropriately with the world. I have greatly reduced empathy and communication ability; I can usually guess how people are feeling, but I don't really feel it in the way that most people say they do, and I don't really feel much of my own emotions. I can't just power through shit like some people can either; I'll sometimes go into complete shutdown when there's too much going on, things that most people have no issues with. There's a lot more, really. But trust me, it's a handicap in dealing with life.
Okay, but that seems to be more prevalent now than it used to be. Is it really more prevalent? Or maybe the way we teach things has changed, leading to worse outcomes?
Our education system has grown more rigid, more test-centric, and more exhausting under iterative attempts at reform. I'm not even speaking to "worse outcomes" so much as maladaptation. Kids with ADD are going to be more prone to exhibit symptoms in an environment that buckles them down and compels them to concentrate on singular tasks for longer amounts of time.
I know that there’s a strong link between trisomy-23 (Downs Syndrome) and older mothers, but I hadn’t heard of other genetic issues.
I have greatly reduced empathy and communication ability; I can usually guess how people are feeling, but I don’t really feel it in the way that most people say they do, and I don’t really feel much of my own emotions. I can’t just power through shit like some people can either; I’ll sometimes go into complete shutdown when there’s too much going on, things that most people have no issues with.
I've heard different takes on this from different people. And I've seen at least a few people horrified at the idea of any kind of change in their condition, for fear of it taking away something fundamental about them.
So... idk. I definitely understand wanting relief from a handicap. But I've also heard people describe the tunnel vision and detachment as comparable to the deep immersion one gets in a state of flow.
And the tech school I got a degree from now hosts courses on "Reiki healing" and "Crystal healing". America is fucking doomed.
I met a nice lady at the dog park, we vibed, she was into reiki and tarot, I dipped.
duh...they cause magnetism not autism. /s
So thats why everyone with Autism is magnetic
That explains why I repel people.
But only other autistic people, right?
One of my high school acquaintances posted on Facebook that Peppa the Pig causes autism.
I like that conspiracy theory much better, despite how illogical it is that watching a cartoon pig can cause a neurological disorder.
That is hilarious. I wonder what caused autism before 2004?
Silly, autism didn't exist before 2004. It's just like the dinosaur bones, Satan put that evidence there to confuse us.
... but you know what will eventually die? People who do not believe in vaccines
Too bad they will take many with them because of their wilful ignorance... but eventually the problem will correct itself
Someday I hope to live in a society where confidently saying something idiotic is shameful as crapping your pants in public or realizing you have a bugger hanging off your nostril
It'll take a really deadly disease for that to happen. Smallpox and the plague could kill over 50% of the population in an area they hit. No one had vaccines (though some portion would have had incidental previous exposure to cow pox, which became the first vaccine, but I wouldn't guess that all survivors had been previously exposed to cow pox). Note that that's 50% of the total population, it's not just looking at those who were confirmed to be infected. Nothing that currently exists (considering treatment options, since the plague does still exist) comes even close to that, so don't hold your breath that they'll go extinct from catching easily preventable diseases that they chose not to prevent.
And personally, I think shame isn't a great teaching tool and is a mechanism that leads to people doubling down on incorrect beliefs rather than correcting them as well as attacking new ideas that conflict with currently accepted ideas. I'd like to see a society where being willing to admit you were wrong is respected and where everyone can appreciate that whatever they currently believe, reality is likely more nuanced and complex than their model of it suggests, if it's even on the right track at all.
And personally, I think shame isn’t a great teaching tool and is a mechanism that leads to people doubling down on incorrect beliefs rather than correcting them as well as attacking new ideas that conflict with currently accepted ideas.
I don't really get this about people. Someone told me I should eat less meat and I went, "Yeah, you're right" instead of doubling down into shame insanity.
I probably do it sometimes without realizing it.
It does depend on the way it's said. Some people think aggression or condescension helps convince others when it might be more likely to make the person rather be wrong than agree with them. People like that can say a few words and increase resistance to their beliefs even if someone later presents them in a less offensive way. And unfortunately, Russian troll farms (and others wanting to sow division and discontent) know about this and lean into it.
It also makes a difference if you already feel that way. Like if you have a bad habit and know it but just have trouble stopping or reducing it, it's easier to agree when someone points it out vs if you're in denial about it and want reasons to continue.
Though I should have said some people because it doesn't apply to everyone. Once you're aware of how you might react to that, you can adjust. Personally, I'm of the mind that if what you think is true, then it can't hurt to challenge it or follow other lines of thought that contradict it, and if what you think isn't true, then it's better to realize that.
I want to be right about everything, but in the sense that I will change my positions over time to align with my current experience and knowledge, not in the sense that I insist that what I've previously said is true. What past me believed is irrelevant, only current me matters, and future me will likely think current me is an idiot about some things, and then I'll die later (or sooner, who knows) and it won't matter either way.
Having a bugger hanging off your nostril isn't shameful, it's weirdly impressive
Just give the option to be injected with a vaccine or with chlorine. Watch the numbers drop spectacularly.
Something of a selection bias on this experiment, as you're not going to make the wrong choice twice.
Nah, the "chlorine" is actually a microdose of ecstacy.
I would choose the vaccine.
I sure hope I can get some autism for the bird flu.
Specifically, the survey asked them to assess the accuracy of the statement that the CDC has said there is no evidence linking vaccines to autism.
That is an such a poorly conceived question for a researcher to pose. I don't even know what else to say tbh.
I shake my head.
I'm not surprised. The quality of education has been going downhill and there's been a recent vaccine scare.
Vaccine scare? What?
I'm not endorsing it ffs, I mean a bunch of people have gotten spooked by vaccines over covid.
Gotcha, just making sure you weren’t trying to delve in anti-vax misinformation stuff
The fact they think they can definitively state this just proves they don't actually care about science.
What do you mean?
The autism fear stems from the historical use of Thiomersal as a preservative.
the autism fear stems from one quack asshole intentionally skewing data for profit, then granola hippy moms holding him up as some bastion of truth, Which then evolved into right wing idiocy of medicine bad (until they are sick and think it could help them (which by then its probably too late) )
And yet he tried really hard to make people believe it was just the one vaccine causing autism, so he could sell his other, worse, replacement vaccine.
Hey hey hey!
Don't be dragging granola into this fuckwit-ocracy. It's a perfectly reasonable low effort breakfast for those of us that are unable to cook for ourselves because we can't find our arses with both hands for the first hour of semi-consciousness in the morning.
While I agree in general with your post, there must be a valid reason why thiomersal is no longer allowed in vaccines inside North America and Europe. It's not only because of a quack doctor.
Thimerosal does not stay in the body a long time so it does not build up and reach harmful levels. When thimerosal enters the body, it breaks down to ethylmercury and thiosalicylate, which are readily eliminated.
and
Influenza (flu) vaccines are currently available in both thimerosal-containing (for multi-dose vaccine vials) and thimerosal-free versions.
the point
how much is needed to cause autism?
The point is to not be half-ass your way to middle ground fallacies. When you promote this muddying of water, you're doing their work.
how much is needed to cause autism?
Mercury has been identified as a risk factor. There is no Xmg=autism answer.
This risk was recognised because Thimerosal is no longer used in USA and EU.
I'm not muddying anything. I'm showing where the original fear stems from. I can state clearly that there is no need to have autism fears with modern vaccines.
The original fears are much more complex than that. Fear isn't a pharmaceutical thing that you can read a paper about.
On the broader topic of fear and medicine, yes.
But specifically the fear of autism being caused by vaccines is (probably unjustly) centred on Thimerosal.
Fear is the reflection of ignorance, and the ignorant don't read the facts. When you're basing your hypothesis of influence on the notion that these people know facts, you're being overly (erroneously) generous.
First comes the fear of vaccines, then comes the pseudoscientific justification.
Fear of autism is in the same realm as fear of queerness. It's the same hateful assholes trying to pathologize human non-average human behavior, trying to blame conspiracies, trying to "deconvert" the victims of said conspiracies.
Well, no. I'm fearful of parachute jumps. I know they are 99% safe.
When you're basing your hypothesis of influence on the notion that these people know facts, you're being overly (erroneously) generous.
Yes. No-one need know anything about Thimerosal. The only reason it has reached the public consciousness is because of fearmongers.
First comes the fear of vaccines, then comes the pseudoscientific justification.
Fear of autism is in the same realm as fear of queerness.
There is an element of environmental influence in autism (risk factors linked to various chemicals) that doesn't exist in sexuality.
It's the same hateful assholes trying to pathologize human non-average human behavior, trying to blame conspiracies, trying to "deconvert" the victims of said conspiracies. And anti-vaccine history is as old as vaccines, and it's the same assholes
The Venn diagram may overlap but I don't think they are the same. There is lots of left wing distrust of anything big pharma related, and things like the Tuskegee experiment didn't help.
Well, no. I’m fearful of parachute jumps. I know they are 99% safe.
Right, and do you feel fear about parachute jumps or do you avoid them because you're smart and don't engage in such behavior?
There is an element of environmental influence in autism (risk factors linked to various chemicals) that doesn’t exist in sexuality.
A whole lot of fear now about "chemicals", especially microplastics and PFAS, is tied to this fear of tainted blood that's popular among conservatives. It's incorrect, of course, even with plastics... the ones messing with hormones aren't those. You'll see this discourse firstly tied to sperm counts, then it gets into fertility and queerness.
The people trying to "fix" people who are autistic are the same ones who are trying to "fix" gay people. Same conversion therapy torture too.
The Venn diagram may overlap but I don’t think they are the same. There is lots of left wing distrust of anything big pharma related, and things like the Tuskegee experiment didn’t help.
This is bullshit enlightened centrism. The myth of the "hippie leftist" was demolished thanks to the COVID pandemic, as we've seen these supposed leftists becoming fascists.
That was one of the original proposed mechanisms to explain how the (obviously false) autism was caused.
But since then, since thiomersal was removed, other 'causes' and moral issues have been invented, including cells from abortions.
The one that makes me laugh the most is that it's terrible that the poor poor baby is exposed to so many illnesses (measles, mumps, rubella, polio, tetanus, notovirus, rotovirus and more) in such a short space of time, it's no wonder the poor dear's immune system is compromised. And then the same mother drops the kid off at daycare and exposes the poor dear to all those viruses and more - and live viruses at that.
There is no bleeding logic, just feels. And they get so angry at the fake harm that medicine is causing, and simultaneously actually causing real harms to real people.
The new vaccines generate lots of profits for the pharma. Therefore, what incentives will ALWAYS there be for the owners and creators of the vaccines? Not vacciness in general, but SOME vacciness, against SOME diseases-19.
Would or could they, the pharma, ever reveal that some vaccines, especially their own, especially the newest ones, may be harmful to people in any way? That they could cause delayed negatives consequences and side-effects?
Therefore, who, or ironically WHO, has all the incesitves to always try to prove that all the negative data about the newest vaccines is a lie? And "in fact, it's getting worse". Yeah, worse for the those manufacture the vacciness and try to jab people like pigs :)
This may not prove that they, the vaccines, are or may be indeed harmful. Or not that all of them, for all people, not against all the viruses. Nonetheless, the incentive of hidding the truth about this exists and for one side only.
I think you should watch this video. The orgional paper linking vaccines to autism was specifically made to further the authors ambition. He lied and withheld or manipulated data in order to support his work.
Drug companies go through extensive trials before bringing vaccines to the market. So who do you believe? Extensive peer reviewed studies or one guy clearly furthering his own agenda?
Im almost positive that Andrew Wakefield has caused more harm to modern medicine than any other person in the last 200 years.
His human megaphone, Jenny McCarthy, isn’t much better. No one heard of him before she advocated for his findings to be mainstream.
Don't forget Oprah who amplified the idea more than they ever could have done on their own
and got Dr. Oz his start in daytime TV.
The Four Horsepersons of the Horseshitalypse.
Lol jokes on you. I already have autism. So, vaccines just make me stronger.
I'm getting tested for autism as an adult next week. If it turns out I am, who do I contact from the Autistic community? Or does a representative contact me? I don't want to mess this up and I have a costume ready and everything.
I tried to think of a witty response to your funny joke but I'm apparently too tired for that, so instead, I'll wish you good luck for next week, and the weeks that follow it; getting a diagnosis as an adult is often cathartic in the short term, liberatory in the long term, and in between those points is a long period of introspective untangling a web of messy feelings and possibly internalised ableism. I wish you the strength to endure and to emerge with a better understanding of who you are, regardless of the outcome of the assessment.
Kindest words anyone has shared with me since I can remember. Thank you.
Jesus fuck, you need kinder people in your life. I hope you find affection at every level of your needs. Proud of you for seeking growth and self awareness. I have high hopes for you and best wishes.
Can you tell me your secret? I've been waiting 8 years for an adult diagnosis. It doesn't really matter in the sense that I know I'm some flavour of ND, though. And I work in education, and people around me have been pretty accepting.
Secret? I don't even know if I am neurodivergent, I am getting tested to figure it out, I have taken a dozen online tests of various efficacy and they all come up "borderline" so I am getting a professional diagnosis. It may also be a very strong case of CPTSD mimicking the effects of autism and/or ADHD.
Otherwise, I have been struggling my whole life with things that should be a lot easier for me, and if I DID have a secret, all my best successes and largest achievements have been a result of pushing myself out of my comfort zone and pushing into more challenges, not listening to my reasoning because my reasoning is flawed, our brains just tell stories to explain how we feel and those stories don't necessarily have to make sense, it's just stories to make you feel like the world makes sense. It doesn't.
Understanding nuance of people's feelings and emotions was always hard for me, so I pushed myself to lead more, to be a team leader or a project leader, and put an emphasis on instead of retreating from giving everyone personal attention, I leaned in harder always and have always made a policy to listen and genuinely be compassionate to others and exercise empathy.
I also pushed myself to do more public speaking and leading lectures, MC'ing social events, and giving speeches when appropriate.
In my last job I was afraid of failure because I have been laid off so many times in the past, so I paid careful attention to that worry about messing up, and every time I had that worry I did the exact opposite of what my gut was telling me. I got laid off from that job as well anyway, because that's how business is now, but not before becoming a general manager and well-liked by hundreds of people.
The number of times I've put myself in trouble by resisting the "Safe" route is not insignificant, but each of those times has been easily navigated and more than rewarded by the successes which were a result of speaking up when I would normally keep quiet.
So your secret should be to value yourself. Even if you don't feel it, act like it. Pretend you are valuable and important and people will treat you like you're valuable and important.
This is a great comment but I think by "secret" they meant in terms of getting an appointment for a diagnosis, since they've been unsuccessfully trying to get one for a while.
Gotcha, remains to be seen... doctor hasn't been very affirmative with me about what exactly we're doing next week, I assumed from his language it would be a diagnosis/test but they say frequently it's all "more complicated" than we tend to think, so the reason some people might have a hard time getting a diagnosis is because particularly as you get older a lot of conditions and symptoms kind of blend together and make certainty much, much harder, and it is sometimes more efficient to just focus on managing the symptoms no matter what the underlying cause may be.
I guess I'll find out and try to update others as I go through the process.
I’ve got an appointment in a few months. No idea if you’re in the US but, if so, the secret is the same as everything in American health care - money, debt or navigating insane bureaucracy to get insurance to cover it. And, in my case, also traveling a long way to a place that does adult evaluations and scheduling the appointment nearly a year in advance.
Apparently you haven’t been vaccinated enough. Double up on your shots and you’ll make it fir sure
Anthony Hopkins will get in touch with you about filing all the paperwork.
The fact that you have a shred of humor in your system means you aren't autistic.
Uh...autistic people can absolutely be funny. Like this funny ass mother fucker https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k82dywiOjFE
Watched the entirety with my autistic son and we both laughed our asses off. Thanks for that.
😆
did the vaccines update the autism hud?
Yeah. After I got the covid shot it added a steps counter.
I make this joke every time I get a vaccine. I ask them if it'll make me extra autistic and for how long. I've never gotten a laugh.
I would have laughed (except I don't administer vaccines).
Man, your autism makes the vaccines stronger.
The circle is complete
There’s a correlation between wearing socks and athlete’s foot. Socks cause athletes foot, clearly, and so we shouldn’t wear socks when wearing shoes.
Amen, brother! I have long freed my feet from the prison that is the sock!
That just seems like a practical cost cutting measure for a squid.
Meanwhile, shoes for cloven hooves are custom and they cost a fortune. And I need four. :(
True. Also, buying five pairs of socks at once gets expensive.
I think the air gets colder the higher up you go, so maybe that?
So I can walk on uneven surfaces. Duh.
Wait. Real question. How does a squid wear footwear? they don't have feet.
Squid or not, the ends justify the means!
actually yes https://lunasandals.com/products/mono-winged-edition
You wear socks…. With…. Sandals?!?!?
E’eryone, git your pitchforks!! They’re coming to force you to wear SOCKS WITH SANDALS!!!
socks with crocks
Alright. I got nothing. You win.
enjoy shopping at walmart.
If wearing Crocs with socks is wrong, I don't want to be right.
My all-time favourite graffiti I've seen in the wild is "Don't touch my croc socks". Sound advice.
Hey. Be comfortable. if you're comfortable in crocs and socks...
i'm more laughing at the suessian rhyme. "would you wear crocs with socks... and a fox?"... "WHAT MOXIE! I would not, could not, should not wear crocs with socks... not in a box, not with a fox.... "
socks with sandals: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7En0z2A38c
It's because there is no punishment for spreading false information. These cunt celebrities and politicians spread their fucking lies and if they are found out, they make an empty apology that reaches 1% of the people that they lied to, and it's all forgive and forget. Fuck all of that. Every anti-vax, anti-mask, anti-education cunt out there needs to be strung up from the societal rafters. They have to be made an example of. At the bare minimum they should be doing tours helping to correct the lies they have spread, spending time on social media and running commercials like fucking community service hours. There has to be a punishment for this shit.
I’m curious as to how that law would be written and what it would look like in practice.
Ideally, you wouldn't have to write a law for it, and the people would be held accountable by others. That's a BIG wish, though, and I'm a realist--it'll never happen. Instead, if it were written into law, it would have to be done the same ways that libel and slander laws are written, and there would have to be a criminal trial for it. I understand that up front that seems like a lot of extra work for the courts, but if the punishments were severe enough, then hopefully we would see an outright reduction on it.
Some precedent for it would be libel laws as previously stated, false advertising laws, and public health laws like what Germany has instituted (NetzDG) that required social media to remove false health information within 24 hours.
And just to make it clear, I don't want to infringe on anyone's right to free speech, but just like libel and slander laws, when that free speech damages others, then it has to be curbed. The scientific evidence is there for things like the mask mandate and the efficacy of vaccines, we just have to prove it in court and punish those who are guilty of spreading that false information.
I'm all in favour of this, and I try to do keep people accountable for what they say, even though I often end up getting insults for it. But to judge in court someone for spreading lies you would need to know the objective truth, and setting truth into stone would compromise science'a ability to propose radical new ideas.
I think there are ways to do this without compromising science, though. But they are all susceptible to the 50% attack, made famous by cryptocurrencies. If you rely on a community to certify what truth is, you are exposed to a potential attack where a powerful enemy buys more than 50% of the network to make them say their lie is true and the actual truth is a lie. I don't have a solution for that yet.
I'm not saying that the idea is perfect by any stretch, but we also can't be beholden to what ifs. If we give up before we try because we might see failure down the line, then we might as well just start drinking bleach to cure our illnesses. Science can be proven. Mask mandates weren't a hypothesis. Vaccine efficacy isn't a hypothesis. If we get to where people in power are buying facts and we can no longer prove a truth in court, then we are beyond "mis-information" already.
I'm collecting vaccines like infinity stones. I'm going to unlock complete autism.
Oh, you're autistic? Name every time someone said you don't look autistic and that everyone is a little bit autistic
plus you get amazing hair
And you know what happens when you unlock complete autism? That's right: you gain the power to create your own vaccines, making you capable of reaching even new heights.
Is that what the anti-vaxxers refer to as shedding? They're shedding vaccine particles everywhere as a community service?
I'm already autistic, what's it gonna do, give me a software update?
i already have
hbomberguy did a fantastic video debunking these claims. Now if only the antivaxxers would actually watch it instead of staying in their own bubbles.
oh they loooove YouTube videos, trust me. Just not THOSE videos
I just wish it had less zany YouTube BS. I'd like to send it to my mother, but there's zero chance she would take it seriously.
Bold of you to presume they ever cared if they were wrong.
Penn and Teller did a fantastic demonstration on Bullsh!t (I wanna say 15 years ago?). The only real flaw in the demo was when Penn pulled the "autistic" pin out at the start, because that child would still be vaccinated and thus safer than the unvaxxed group.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQqBvH4Be6U
Obviously, hbomberguy is just in league with the vaccine cartels.
And don't forget his allegiance to Sobek.
Link to the video, since no one has done so yet. Warning: this video is 1 hour and 44 minutes long, and if you're anything like me you will want to watch hbomberguy's entire catalogue afterwards.
So, the universe is like a video game but the lesson is morality. Long story short, i have met the antivaxers and i understand. They are dishonest people. I dated their daughter. They will not listen because they're arrogant. They will face horrors until they learn their lesson. The point is, this is a morality problem, not an education problem. Nothing will save them but their own misery you're honestly trying to prevent.
I'd say it is ,at least partly, an education problem.
Sure, education is less likely to correct a deeply engraned false belief, but education is one of the most effective tools to prevent the lies, misinformation, and manipulation from taking hold in the first place.
However, like most preventative measures, it will take a long time to see results.
OK, if you can educate them early, yeah. However, these folks were homeschooled. They were elitist and arrogant.
Widespread homeschooling is definitely problematic.
Yes, but i bet you don't know how bad homeschooling is. It's one of the few beliefs i share with the left that homeschooling is bad. It's so bad that when people defend homeschooling, they get the objections wrong. Homeschooling fails so socialize children, and homeschooling advocates say that means children have no friends. Nobody says that. It's so embarrassing. I dealt with homeschool kids and they're fragile and weak.
If i was on the left, i would cerebrate this like crazy. They are scared and they're running away and what's more their making their children weak.
My friends family is a bunch of trumpers, she's apolitical and vaguely socially liberal.
At her graduation party, they hung up a HUGE Trump banner. It wasn't already up, they put it up before most people started showing up. Fucking insane.
Sounds insane. However, mother nature will correct their attitude problems. Just wait patiently.
So the same behavior as the folks of the rainbow flag then?
Shut the fuck up fascist.
That's a leap.
Can we convince people that Andrew Wakefield, Jenny McCarthy and RFK, Jr. cause autism?
(I don't believe there's anything actually wrong with being autistic, I have multiple autistic people in my family. I just think that would be amusing.)
Steps:
Did I leave anything out? :-P
You forgot step 5: once you have won, change the rules so nobody else can play anymore
Damn, now I'll never be a billionaire! 😂
Eh, you're still on time. Wait (checks papers) no, sorry you aren't. They just changed the rules.
It's okay, I'll live.
Wait no, I just checked the rules, none of us will. Oh well.
Carpe diem baby! :-D
Carpe noctem
Okay (1) FUCK YEAH, but also (5) did you just change the rules there - are you a billionaire? Or just (d) viva la vida loca:-P.
I'm sure the moment I were to become a billionaire people would finally pull out the guillotines.
Nah. Except yeah, probably. People aren't great at handling subtleties - e.g. "tax the wealth" becomes "kill the billionaires", as if the taxation part wasn't the point, or the fact that actual trillionaires exist is somehow not relevant, etc. It's easier to shoehorn facts into what people already want to do:-P.
Carpe jugulum
I said carpe? Sorry i meant carpet
Being a Kennedy is more likely to cause lobotomies.
If the quacks don’t do it the worms will
Not autism. They cause death.
For the idiots who avoid vaccinating their kids because "it causes autism," death is preferable. Consider that they would rather take that risk than be put in a situation of having to parent a neuroatypical child.
This is what always got to me the most. Even if vaccines caused autism, wouldn't that be preferable to your kid dying? Like, what the fuck is wrong with these people.
If their child isn't perfect (by their standard of perfect), it's worthless.
Narcissistic parenting.
there's probably a less tenuous correlation there, though. just saying. Granted, correlation is not causation, but, eh... yeah.
I know, but imagine all of these people in this ludicrous panic suddenly thinking Wakefield is the culprit for autism...
I don't care if these anti vax idiots kill themselves, I care that they are killing people with weakened immune systems or children that are either too young to get them or they didn't vaccinate them. This is all 100% the fault tRump and Russian propaganda, it's sad soo many fall for it.
survival of the fittest is doing its thing, even if innocent people go down as victims of stupid people, such is life and death.
That is a complete misunderstanding of how evolution works. This does not weed out the people who are not genetically immune from a disease. If civilization died and measles came back in force in two generations, it would be just as deadly as it was before vaccines were developed. Because this does nothing to genetically change humanity's ability to fit into an ecological niche.
I'm ok with them harming some innocent people in the process of killing themselves. Greater good.
All the information available to us now and yet all people care about is if someone the Internet likes them.
While I hate what the internet is becoming because of AI, and I dread what's going to come from the better systems down the road, and all the people who will be utterly lost as they fall in love with their phones, I am wondering if just maaaybe these LLM's will be able to satisfy some people's desperate craving for attention and acceptance with simulated social circles and virtual supportive communities and give people at least some kind of outlet or if nothing else keep them out of the way while the rest of us make progress.
Can I have the smart autism please
Only if you're smart anyway since autistic people have the whole distribution of capability represented. Then being smart isn't enough. You also have to be resilient, lucky, and privileged (not enough systemic factors outside of systemic ableism to wash you out in a psychological and logistical pincer attack), and also lucky again to get past the many societal filters that block most autistic success and create the illusion of some unicorn like uniqueness in all visible versions of autistic success.
Sure, make sure to go back in time so that you aren't overestimulated in your environment, don't get bullied until you suffer an anxiety disorder, and have someone inspire interest in you for something capitalist society pays well for.
yes come to my house
Aspergers is still a stony route.
We run into a few interesting possibilities here. Start with the assumption that more children are being diagnosed as being on the autism spectrum. That gives us a few possibilities.
1.a) If more children are being appropriately diagnosed with ASD, then perhaps the criteria needs to be tightened up; at a certain point, behavior/feelings/thoughts are just normal.
Because there's more screening--but not necessarily better screening--children are being pathologized as having ASD when they do not, because too many clinicians don't have the necessary expertise. This is a distinct possibility, in much the same way that kids are being labelled as having ADD/ADHD--and then getting drugs--when they're more frequently just being kids.
More children are actually on the autism spectrum now than there were 30 years ago. E.g., it's not that more kids slipped through the cracks 30 years ago, but there is actually a higher rate of ASD than there was 30 years ago. This is the one that should cause the most concern; if this is actually the case, and can be demonstrated to be the case, then what factor is causing this maladaption?
Agree on the better testing for ASD. According to the CDC, autism rates have doubled from the year 2000(1 in 68, vs 1 in 150).
The consensus is that ASD is mostly genetic, however, there is some research going into other causes of autism, such environmental/biological causes. Personally, I think growing up with modern technology(kids being raised by YouTube/TikTok) impacts brain development/connections, so there are people with symptoms of ASD that otherwise would be "normal"
The issue with diagnoses like this is that you arrive to the conclusion by looking at the symptoms. And there's a lot of fucked up things going on right now that could cause more and more people to show symptoms.
i've worked on building better habits such as exercise, maintaining social connections, and working through my emotions instead of repressing them, and I've noticed that many symptoms that I used to associate with ASD were really depression. Like some sort of coping, catatonic state. I'd imagine that with mental health being what it is, there's probably a lot of people similar to me. Surprise, did you know ASD is far more common in males? 1 in 42, vs 1 in 189, for females.
There's some thought that autism rates are identical in men and women, and that the difference in diagnosis has more to do with the presentation. It's plausible.
My ex wasn't diagnosed with anything, but has an autistic sister and strange behaviors herself. Being suspicious of myself (I was diagnosed with ADHD during a time you couldn't have both) and having always carefully observed people (to mask better), I noticed some qualities the two shared, but the symptoms were more subtle in my ex. She has been tested but not diagnosed, and I think the doctors were wrong. But, yes, symptoms observed had a distinctly feminine skew, or even a different mode of application. She did not get the help I know she needed (and she mistakenly held the opinion that the doctors are nigh-infallible, and that I am not ASD either).
Yeah, I've suspected for a while that some of the autism spectrum is just the brain allocating resources differently to different things. It has a finite number of neurons (which is true even if it can grow new ones over time), so a higher emphasis on learning one thing could come at the cost of something else.
Or it could even be a matter of some people not building as strong of a foundation in some areas because their brain didn't figure out something that others did, and it snowballs from there as peers develop on that stronger foundation of things they think they just inherently know and can't imagine someone not knowing it and those without that strong foundation try to develop along with their peers but can't because of what they are missing.
Like imagine that while learning math, you somehow miss learning the number 3. This would be pretty obvious because math is a rigid system, but imagine it wasn't as strictly logical like language or social interactions. Maybe a better example would be developing drawing skills without knowing anything about perspective or lighting. Sure, there's plenty of styles that don't need that foundation, but if you want to draw photorealistic pictures, they are going to look off or even bad, even though they might still be recognizable. Kinda like socializing with someone with autism who isn't good at masking.
Though the ability to mask itself might indicate it's deeper than that. It indicates that some are capable of adjusting for their foundation, does being able to mask while still having those gaps mean the gaps are genetic? Or can we only develop by building on what we have, so the best we can do is put patches over the shortcomings we recognize in ourselves and want to correct instead of being able to truly fill those gaps in the foundation?
And all of this doesn't even go into sensory issues related to autism. If there's different mechanisms that result in the different aspects of autism, should they even be considered the same thing? How would one even figure out if they share mechanisms?
1)a) you missed the part where you clearly said "spectrum" before.
maybe instead, you/we need to change how we react to parts of the spectrum. That is a) it isn't "normal" and b) that's okay.
Even though it's a spectrum--in that it's comprised of a number of different characteristics that are present to varying degrees--I think that perhaps some of those characteristics have been overly pathologized. I'm not sure exactly how to explain it. If I made up a disease--I'm going to call it Short-Man Syndrome (SMS)--and said that any male under 5'2" had SMS, then someone that was 5'2.1" wouldn't fit the criteria. But wait!, he says, I feel short. So maybe that definition gets widened a little bit. So now a person that's 5'2.5" says, well, I feel short too, and maybe a doctor disagrees, since 5'2.5" is pretty short, and that definition gets even wider. Eventually maybe someone that's 5'11" is saying, well I feel short compared to Yao Ming...
And maybe that's what's happening here. I don't know. Even though all of these characteristics may exist on a continuum, you need to have a definite cut off point where you say, this point and beyond is pathological, and anything up to that, no matter how close, isn't. Otherwise your definition becomes pointless.
no. in so many ways, no.
I like "Normal is boring" as a slogan.
I like boring
Beautiful is Boring
When I was a kid, I used to have a button on my backpack that said, "why be normal?" Of course, I got bullied for it. Because the worst thing you can ever be is non-normal. Fuck 'em, I'm still weird.
If there ARE more cases of autism(which we dont know if there are, or if it's a result of better screening. Smarter people than me would have to determine that) my first instinct would be to look at microplastics and other environmental pollutants. Again, more qualified people than me would have to look into that, but it seems to be a better hypothesis than the conspiracy theory about vaccines.
This is pure speculation, but since we found Lead caused so many development issues when it was so prominent in everyday life, and plastic has been likened to this generations lead- poisoning, I wonder if there is a link between the prevalence of micro plastics and the increase in ADHD and ASD.
The plastics are blocking my dopamine receptors
I might go a level deeper and argue that the formal education process requires a degree of attention and focus that lots of kids don't have. The "autism" diagnosis and subsequent treatment is more about fitting round kids into square holes than it is treating an actual mental disorder.
I can say from personal experience that Adderall helped me study even without ADD. Its a performance enhancing drug, of sorts. And if landing a diagnosis means giving your kids a chemical edge on the next state exam, then more parents are going to discover their children have a problem.
I might take this one step deeper and assert that the real problem we're attempting to medicate isn't autism, its poverty. The underlying fear of an autistic diagnosis is that the child won't grow up to be self-sufficient. The drugs (whether they're necessary or simply a competitive edge) are intended to turn children into the successful mindless drones who are capable of churning mechanically through rote exercises that the school system / workforce demands of them.
Its possible that this is entirely due to a survivorship bias. Kids with autism are considered "salvageable" in an age where drowning the weakest of six children in the bath tube because they're dead weight on the family income is no longer consider practical (fewer kids) or acceptable (surveillance state).
Also possible that autism - like a number of other disorders - is linked to aging mothers or sunlight deficiency or toxic food/water/air in a heavily industrial society.
Autism could arguably even be a kind-of beneficial mutation - the result of increasingly smart people having increasingly more mentally adapt babies with mental talents the rest of us dumb-dumbs only see as a handicap, because we're trying to fit them into those aforementioned square holes.
Okay, but that seems to be more prevalent now than it used to be. Is it really more prevalent? Or maybe the way we teach things has changed, leading to worse outcomes? Full disclosure: I was formally diagnosed with ASD in my later 30s; Asperger's didn't even exist as a diagnosis until after I had graduated from public schools. I had a very hard time focusing in all of my classes.
I know that there's a strong link between trisomy-23 (Downs Syndrome) and older mothers, but I hadn't heard of other genetic issues. I'm not disputing it, just saying I wasn't aware of them.
It is absolutely a handicap. This is undeniable. It's a handicap because it hinders your ability to interact appropriately with the world. I have greatly reduced empathy and communication ability; I can usually guess how people are feeling, but I don't really feel it in the way that most people say they do, and I don't really feel much of my own emotions. I can't just power through shit like some people can either; I'll sometimes go into complete shutdown when there's too much going on, things that most people have no issues with. There's a lot more, really. But trust me, it's a handicap in dealing with life.
Our education system has grown more rigid, more test-centric, and more exhausting under iterative attempts at reform. I'm not even speaking to "worse outcomes" so much as maladaptation. Kids with ADD are going to be more prone to exhibit symptoms in an environment that buckles them down and compels them to concentrate on singular tasks for longer amounts of time.
There's a number of physical and psychological correlations but not a ton of causation. So its mostly a conjecture.
I've heard different takes on this from different people. And I've seen at least a few people horrified at the idea of any kind of change in their condition, for fear of it taking away something fundamental about them.
So... idk. I definitely understand wanting relief from a handicap. But I've also heard people describe the tunnel vision and detachment as comparable to the deep immersion one gets in a state of flow.
And the tech school I got a degree from now hosts courses on "Reiki healing" and "Crystal healing". America is fucking doomed.
I met a nice lady at the dog park, we vibed, she was into reiki and tarot, I dipped.
duh...they cause magnetism not autism. /s
So thats why everyone with Autism is magnetic
That explains why I repel people.
But only other autistic people, right?
One of my high school acquaintances posted on Facebook that Peppa the Pig causes autism.
I like that conspiracy theory much better, despite how illogical it is that watching a cartoon pig can cause a neurological disorder.
That is hilarious. I wonder what caused autism before 2004?
Silly, autism didn't exist before 2004. It's just like the dinosaur bones, Satan put that evidence there to confuse us.
... but you know what will eventually die? People who do not believe in vaccines
Too bad they will take many with them because of their wilful ignorance... but eventually the problem will correct itself
Someday I hope to live in a society where confidently saying something idiotic is shameful as crapping your pants in public or realizing you have a bugger hanging off your nostril
It'll take a really deadly disease for that to happen. Smallpox and the plague could kill over 50% of the population in an area they hit. No one had vaccines (though some portion would have had incidental previous exposure to cow pox, which became the first vaccine, but I wouldn't guess that all survivors had been previously exposed to cow pox). Note that that's 50% of the total population, it's not just looking at those who were confirmed to be infected. Nothing that currently exists (considering treatment options, since the plague does still exist) comes even close to that, so don't hold your breath that they'll go extinct from catching easily preventable diseases that they chose not to prevent.
And personally, I think shame isn't a great teaching tool and is a mechanism that leads to people doubling down on incorrect beliefs rather than correcting them as well as attacking new ideas that conflict with currently accepted ideas. I'd like to see a society where being willing to admit you were wrong is respected and where everyone can appreciate that whatever they currently believe, reality is likely more nuanced and complex than their model of it suggests, if it's even on the right track at all.
I don't really get this about people. Someone told me I should eat less meat and I went, "Yeah, you're right" instead of doubling down into shame insanity.
I probably do it sometimes without realizing it.
It does depend on the way it's said. Some people think aggression or condescension helps convince others when it might be more likely to make the person rather be wrong than agree with them. People like that can say a few words and increase resistance to their beliefs even if someone later presents them in a less offensive way. And unfortunately, Russian troll farms (and others wanting to sow division and discontent) know about this and lean into it.
It also makes a difference if you already feel that way. Like if you have a bad habit and know it but just have trouble stopping or reducing it, it's easier to agree when someone points it out vs if you're in denial about it and want reasons to continue.
Though I should have said some people because it doesn't apply to everyone. Once you're aware of how you might react to that, you can adjust. Personally, I'm of the mind that if what you think is true, then it can't hurt to challenge it or follow other lines of thought that contradict it, and if what you think isn't true, then it's better to realize that.
I want to be right about everything, but in the sense that I will change my positions over time to align with my current experience and knowledge, not in the sense that I insist that what I've previously said is true. What past me believed is irrelevant, only current me matters, and future me will likely think current me is an idiot about some things, and then I'll die later (or sooner, who knows) and it won't matter either way.
Having a bugger hanging off your nostril isn't shameful, it's weirdly impressive
Just give the option to be injected with a vaccine or with chlorine. Watch the numbers drop spectacularly.
Something of a selection bias on this experiment, as you're not going to make the wrong choice twice.
Nah, the "chlorine" is actually a microdose of ecstacy.
I would choose the vaccine.
I sure hope I can get some autism for the bird flu.
That is an such a poorly conceived question for a researcher to pose. I don't even know what else to say tbh.
I shake my head.
I'm not surprised. The quality of education has been going downhill and there's been a recent vaccine scare.
Vaccine scare? What?
I'm not endorsing it ffs, I mean a bunch of people have gotten spooked by vaccines over covid.
Gotcha, just making sure you weren’t trying to delve in anti-vax misinformation stuff
The fact they think they can definitively state this just proves they don't actually care about science.
What do you mean?
The autism fear stems from the historical use of Thiomersal as a preservative.
the autism fear stems from one quack asshole intentionally skewing data for profit, then granola hippy moms holding him up as some bastion of truth, Which then evolved into right wing idiocy of medicine bad (until they are sick and think it could help them (which by then its probably too late) )
And yet he tried really hard to make people believe it was just the one vaccine causing autism, so he could sell his other, worse, replacement vaccine.
Hey hey hey!
Don't be dragging granola into this fuckwit-ocracy. It's a perfectly reasonable low effort breakfast for those of us that are unable to cook for ourselves because we can't find our arses with both hands for the first hour of semi-consciousness in the morning.
While I agree in general with your post, there must be a valid reason why thiomersal is no longer allowed in vaccines inside North America and Europe. It's not only because of a quack doctor.
The autism fear stems from a grifter doctor.
Not only. Of these studies, the vast majority (74%) suggest that mercury is a risk factor for ASD.
And is the dose of mercury in the old vaccines enough to do cause such effects?
Probably not, but exposure is cumulative.
Modern vaccines with mercury used in the 3rd world are not considered to be a high dose.
50 micrograms/litre of blood is considered dangerous.
But the point being examined here is perception. Not actual danger.
hmmm https://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/concerns/thimerosal/
and
how much is needed to cause autism?
The point is to not be half-ass your way to middle ground fallacies. When you promote this muddying of water, you're doing their work.
Mercury has been identified as a risk factor. There is no Xmg=autism answer.
This risk was recognised because Thimerosal is no longer used in USA and EU.
I'm not muddying anything. I'm showing where the original fear stems from. I can state clearly that there is no need to have autism fears with modern vaccines.
The original fears are much more complex than that. Fear isn't a pharmaceutical thing that you can read a paper about.
On the broader topic of fear and medicine, yes.
But specifically the fear of autism being caused by vaccines is (probably unjustly) centred on Thimerosal.
Fear is the reflection of ignorance, and the ignorant don't read the facts. When you're basing your hypothesis of influence on the notion that these people know facts, you're being overly (erroneously) generous.
First comes the fear of vaccines, then comes the pseudoscientific justification.
Fear of autism is in the same realm as fear of queerness. It's the same hateful assholes trying to pathologize human non-average human behavior, trying to blame conspiracies, trying to "deconvert" the victims of said conspiracies.
And anti-vaccine history is as old as vaccines, and it's the same assholes. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02671-0
Well, no. I'm fearful of parachute jumps. I know they are 99% safe.
Yes. No-one need know anything about Thimerosal. The only reason it has reached the public consciousness is because of fearmongers.
There is an element of environmental influence in autism (risk factors linked to various chemicals) that doesn't exist in sexuality.
The Venn diagram may overlap but I don't think they are the same. There is lots of left wing distrust of anything big pharma related, and things like the Tuskegee experiment didn't help.
Right, and do you feel fear about parachute jumps or do you avoid them because you're smart and don't engage in such behavior?
You'd be surprised.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JRLCBb7qK8
A whole lot of fear now about "chemicals", especially microplastics and PFAS, is tied to this fear of tainted blood that's popular among conservatives. It's incorrect, of course, even with plastics... the ones messing with hormones aren't those. You'll see this discourse firstly tied to sperm counts, then it gets into fertility and queerness.
The people trying to "fix" people who are autistic are the same ones who are trying to "fix" gay people. Same conversion therapy torture too.
This is bullshit enlightened centrism. The myth of the "hippie leftist" was demolished thanks to the COVID pandemic, as we've seen these supposed leftists becoming fascists.
This is well documented in this podcast and book: https://www.conspirituality.net/
Drop the easy tropes.
That was one of the original proposed mechanisms to explain how the (obviously false) autism was caused.
But since then, since thiomersal was removed, other 'causes' and moral issues have been invented, including cells from abortions.
The one that makes me laugh the most is that it's terrible that the poor poor baby is exposed to so many illnesses (measles, mumps, rubella, polio, tetanus, notovirus, rotovirus and more) in such a short space of time, it's no wonder the poor dear's immune system is compromised. And then the same mother drops the kid off at daycare and exposes the poor dear to all those viruses and more - and live viruses at that.
There is no bleeding logic, just feels. And they get so angry at the fake harm that medicine is causing, and simultaneously actually causing real harms to real people.
The new vaccines generate lots of profits for the pharma. Therefore, what incentives will ALWAYS there be for the owners and creators of the vaccines? Not vacciness in general, but SOME vacciness, against SOME diseases-19.
Would or could they, the pharma, ever reveal that some vaccines, especially their own, especially the newest ones, may be harmful to people in any way? That they could cause delayed negatives consequences and side-effects?
Therefore, who, or ironically WHO, has all the incesitves to always try to prove that all the negative data about the newest vaccines is a lie? And "in fact, it's getting worse". Yeah, worse for the those manufacture the vacciness and try to jab people like pigs :)
This may not prove that they, the vaccines, are or may be indeed harmful. Or not that all of them, for all people, not against all the viruses. Nonetheless, the incentive of hidding the truth about this exists and for one side only.
I think you should watch this video. The orgional paper linking vaccines to autism was specifically made to further the authors ambition. He lied and withheld or manipulated data in order to support his work.
Drug companies go through extensive trials before bringing vaccines to the market. So who do you believe? Extensive peer reviewed studies or one guy clearly furthering his own agenda?
https://youtu.be/8BIcAZxFfrc?si=3gN3mTnJA3aVaHBP
It's been 4 hours... Do you think he watched it?
Retvrn To Tradition! Only get the flu shot from 10 years ago. Don't get the one that's been selected against the current flu strain.
Or maybe they have an incentive to use proven health care technologies that deliver effective treatment, because epidemics are bad for everyone?
I admire your brave attempt at writing in a second language.