NOT GOOD, Connecticut shooter was diagnosed with Aspergers..

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'wealthy businessman'
say no more

The causality of such things is a complex matter. Our actions depend on a multitude of factors which can correlate, and causality is a matter of degrees. AS or other conditions of the kind can't be distinguished from the rest of the personnality and character, it's a whole, while a moment of madness or a clearly identified and circumstantial dysfunction, provided it would happen without a preceding cause in the personnality of the person, could in some way be cut from the rest. Since I'm telling that, I have remarked that in some media, american or french (I'm French), they didn't point out the specificity of AS (and other conditions of the kind) as a "disorder", not a malady, reinforcing the confusions with different things (for example some mental illness).

The causes... This is a topic for the specialists and those who are interested in that kind of research, which can be endless. But what the general public wants is something else in his quest to understand these events, and I think it can be satisfied with some crude explanation, while the reality is always more, much more complex (I must admit that, if Lanza had AS, saying that it was not a factor in some extent, at some level of causality, for this chain of events, seems wrong, of course - but you don't need and it's actually better if you don't say that to the general public through the media - and, as many have said or quoted here or elsewhere in these past days, correlation is not causality, and I would add that causality is not a simple "he had X or he was that, so he did", most of the times.. In order to hope to understand things like that, you must write a paper, or a book.). That's why some discourses are dangerous and reinforce the prejudices, whether it be about AS, or altogether different things (think about the misconceptions about schizophrenia).
Although we're in societies where the knowledge about these matters have tremendously progressed, and although there is education about them, human nature itself is relatively permanent and the fear or concern about what is different is deeply anchored in it. Of course, this is a pretty known fact, and we know that atrocities have been perpetrated against ethnical, religious and sexual-orientation-linked minorities and populations. People tend to forget more easily than the same kind of atrocities were perpetrated against different populations in term of mental condition or functionning, and that this is an area where discrimination and reject could happen in more insidious ways, semi-accepted by the majority (of course, the great democraties of the world are preserved from this, today).



Hey, it can be pretty natural for someone to be skinny. Myself, I'm 52 kg for 1,79 m and it's perfectly fine given my morphology/my metabolism or whatever (it seems that all goes to the brain, even though it doesn't seem to make it more efficient than if it didn't...).
It's true that people have also prejudices against physiognomy. It makes me remember that some people can have said to me, half-jokingly (but where is the joke in that ?), in the past that I looked as a "psychopath".



We haven't really the knowledge, so we can't really say that, but it's sure that his life ended in murder and in a tragedy for himself too, since it seems all this could have been avoided, or that, if he was determined to end his life, Lanza could have done it without killing others. Alas. What is tragic is that, for many, his horrifying last acts have teinted his whole life under the color of sin and atrocity, while it is not the case, of course.

Last edited by Ascagne on 18 Dec 2012, 4:03 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I'm from Australia and I am deeply saddened by what happened in Cunnecticut Newtown. I am also concerned at the hysteria and the perception people in general have of all of us due to this, I have noticed ever since what happened at Newtown people who have been bullying me have now just stopped it is dead set quiet now and I have noticed that when I walk out to my driveway to go out somewhere instead of someone yelling nasty names at me and making stupid comments at me it has gone dead quiet and the people who bullied me have suddenly disappeared or if they have their doors open the minute they see me they quickly shut their doors when before they would leave their doors open when I walked passed to go out. Its a relief that they have stopped bullying me I am now being left alone to go on with my life its sad though that its taken this to make the bullies stop. I've also noticed the friendly neighbours in my units are avoiding me like the plague ever since what happened at Newtown and whenever anyone sees me now the run into their units, they avoid looking at me they look at the ground when walking past me when before they would come upto me say hello and see if I am ok and have a conversation with me, everyone in the set of units I am in now keeps their doors closed and there is this eerie silence in the units now when before people left their doors open people were talking and neighbours would speak to each other out in the carkpark. I have even noticed people who know me and know that I have AS looking at me weird in the shopping centre pointing at me and actively trying to avoid talking to me even to running in a retail store to avoid me ever since this has happened people should not be scared of me or any of us I am not going to hurt anyone I'm just going shopping not hunting anyone down it hurt seeing one of my closest friends run scared into a retail store so frightened of me hiding behind a rack of clothes due what happened at Newtown its wrong.

This forum is a joke. It's an echo chamber meant to confuse and mislead rather than serve as a platform for truth and understanding. I made a post showing the poor logic being used by the "experts" right now and it gets deleted.

Again, this forum does NOT reflect reality. It is a place that people are fed comforting lies. Like pathetic livestock.

television is a conditioning vehicle too, but dont take it personal....
NT's are treated just the same
The world has always been this way

Hear ye hear ye
The king has an announcement
hear ye hear ye

Poke, you just want to see things the way Picachu would I guess.

If you hate it that much, then leave. No one's forcing you to stay. Have a good trip and don't let the firewall port hit you on the way out.

I'm not seeing a whole lot to justify a causative connection between antipsychotics and violent behavior...

...unless the antipsychotics are being used to suppress violent behavior that is rooted in an experiential reason, something that has happened or is happening in the patient's life that would be a reasonable cause for agitation and irritability.

Basically if someone has legitimate cause to be upset and irritable, trying to invalidate that and medicate it away is only going to increase frustration, thereby increasing the risk of violent behavior assuming sufficient motivation can be found.

Sounds familiar to me. Don't know if that's your situation or not, but it might bear thinking about.

The important question is, can we say that truth is our goal, or simply finding evidence to support conclusions that serve as pacifiers? What's the GOAL here?

Really, the view I expressed in the thread of mine that was deleted was more nuanced and comprehensive than any I've seen expressed in the news or on this forum (in regard to the possible relationship of the shooter's Asperger's to the shooting). Yet no one is willing/allowed to discuss it. Pretty poor, I'd say. Pretty poor effort from the grandchildren of the scientific revolution. What we have here is a lot of flotsam moving with the current, postmodern plankton, mere things. Come on, people. Really.

I can explain, from top to bottom, beginning to end, why the psychiatric "party line" that's being held in the news right now is ill-considered, full of problems, and at times even meaningless/contradictory. But it won't be had. It won't be had because it makes people uncomfortable. Big deal. Is this forum really just a giant digital udder meant to feed mere calves, or is it a living community of people, many of whom are quite intelligent and extraordinarily honest (when discussing anything but this stuff)?

Tell me why it's wrong, or bad, or whatever, to simply say: The concept of severity is a big issue in the "field" of autism right now. The people who developed the modern clinical concept of Asperger's ended up producing a clinical profile that could feasibly be applied to people whose behavior seems to have little in common (except for some broad generalities) with people traditionally labelled "autisitic". This was likely one of the reasons that recent changes were made to the DSM which seems to cause the "cutoff" for severity to be lowered somewhat. You will find that there are a variety of other diagnostic labels that describe these "excluded" individuals as well as Asperger's does, if not more vividly and instructively?

What would be wrong with simply stating that this might possibly be true?

Oh, I see.
http://www.wrongplanet.net/postx172789-15-0.html

Does this hit a little too close to home for some of you? That's life, I'm afraid. What I wouldn't give for someone to provide a thoughtful response to any of this. Too much to ask, right?

I've just quickly skimmed this thread, so excuse me if this has already been posted,
ASAN's (Autistic Self Advocacy Network) response to this is the best I've seen so far
autisticadvocacy . org /2012/12/asan-statement-on-media-reports-regarding-newtown-ct-shooting/
(I'm apparently not allowed to post links yet)

I've seen some people that say we shouldn't be worried about NTs witch hunt "because we're not all like that, duh" - most NTs are highly irrational and prone to prejudice. Ableism is more socially accepted than racism - which is the closest analogy to what is happening, judging an entire population based on one individual. Because many of them already unfairly hate us because we're not like them, don't you think they will jump on another reason to justify that hatred? That's not okay, even if someone personally feel "whatever don't care what they think" it will hurt us, and with us I don't just mean autistics/aspies, I mean every neurodiverse person in the world.
All this is just so heartbreaking.

basically this is the fault of all medications, expression must occur, repression and masking always leads to bad results, they will resurface with more vigor

Her blog reads as if she has ASD.

Linking ASD to mental illness doesn't feel right to me because, as far as I understand it, there is a physiological problem with the brain. Not just being pedantic, I feel that illness implies something could be done to cure it and outside of stem cells it doesn't seem likely. Although I'd love to be wrong. Certainly it's not something that can be cured with talk therapy.

Frankly, I feel it is a disability that I need help and support with and I'm okay with that being out there. Anyone that's worth letting into your life needs help and support, regardless of whether they have a disability or not.

We as a society need to stop blaming others and think what we can do personally and working alongside others if we're going to progress. The stupid thing smart people do is think you can logic people out of emotion. The insensitive thing emotional people do is feel you can sensitize rational people to empathy. When this conflict takes place in a productive manner we grow as individuals...hopefully!

...And funnily enough, a lot of the pro-gun people in online discussion come across as stereotypical aspergers whilst attacking it:

Strongly reacting to perceived criticism not of them, but their guns. Lashing out with verbal abuse. Black and white thinking, it can't be guns it's aspergers. Not understanding the fear others are feeling. Focusing on the gun aspect of the second amendment rather than the big picture view of protecting tools that allow for the security of a free state. I mean, where are all these folks at the net neutrality discussions. If they were really worried about security, they'd want to assure unhindered dissemination of information.

There is no way Adam was not put on psychiatric drugs. Look at the difference.

6th grade photo-



Highschool-



"undated photo"


I see a boy possibly robbed of his brain and future over parents who most likely didn't think of his intelligence as important as being thought of as '"normal"

Well, aside from your weird definition of "racism", which is actually a bit closer to stereotyping, no one is judging an entire population based on the behavior of one individual. For one, "stereotype" is just a word we've come to fear due to our forgetting (or giving up?) our capacity for generalization. Deep down, everyone knows that stereotypes very often do reflect reality somehow. Of course, people abuse (or develop misleading) stereotypes, which is how they end up being problematic. But if you think that I'm stereotyping when I say that black people like eating chicken, I have to imagine that you've not spent much time with black people.

That crimes like the recent shooting are often carried out by detached, emotionally disturbed, obsessive loners should not only be obvious to, well, anyone, it just makes sense. It's to be expected.

Read this article: http://www.forbes.com/sites/emilywillin ... s-meaning/

Now, again, cross reference with this poll: http://www.wrongplanet.net/postx172789-15-0.html

What does this tell you about the shooter? What does this tell you about the members of this forum?

This is a topic that has been boiling just under the surface for so long. Why isn't it being recognized or addressed? It's so flipping relevant! Why shouldn't this be discussed every bit as much as firearms right now? Why isn't 60 Minutes (or whoever) doing a segment on the nature of autism, heterogeneity, the battle for Asperger's, and how these things apply to the recent shooting?

Because all relevant outlets are preoccupied with providing a giant udder for all of the calves out there.

As far as I am concerned, those pictures tell far more truth than anything published in the media about Adam Lanza yet they keep focusing on that one blurred black and white picture of him from a tech club at school which imo is the worst one.

It's just so hard to believe and kind of heartbreaking to think he went from that smiling, happy sixth grader to what looks like barely functioning with no affect, practically. Maybe he was given some kind of anti psychotic. Supposedly, he was taken out of school and with privacy laws being what they are, the information is hard to access, but maybe, he was taken out of school, committed to some psychiatric facility for a short time where he was medicated, then released and homeschooled for a while.