New, Improved Autism Speaks Slogan!

Post Reply New Topic

gwenevyn wrote:

Anubend said,



There is nothing I would like more that to start the threads I have talked about. Selo vs Darwin thread and a NBD vs Darwin thread. I would like to make these threads to be open to comment, but my conversations with Selo, and NBD will be head to head debates on these subjects. I want them to be original, no plagiarism, no links, civil, and without personal attacks. I think the discussions will be fruitful, and explain our points of views, I would like them to remain on topic as well.

I will first address the attacks made on my case and then highlight the key voting issues for the round.

I never said this. I never denied that AS presents challenges. I only stated that AS can enhance one's mind and experience and that the disadvantages of AS can be negotiated with support. Also, the words here are primarily inflammatory and not substantive.







1. I never denied your right to have an opinion and woe betide anyone who has. However, in stating your opinion, you subject yourself to debate. You can try to end with a "Jade's trick", but ultimately, you must expect at least two rebuttals (one criticising your position and one crystallising the argument).

2. This is not a fight. This is healthy debate.



Your evidence presents instances. Many instances imply truth, but are insufficient to prove a claim as absolutely true. One counter-example disproves a generalisation. While what you said may be usually true, it is not always true. The way you stated it implies the it is always true. If you did not wish to give this impression, word your statements more carefully.



These are not the "cures" that Autism Speaks and C.A.N. propose. They want to eliminate autism from the person altogether. They fail to recognise that autism encompasses all of one's consciousness, it cannot be extracted, as the Jim Sinclair article stated. The anti-cure autistics' phrase is "Acceptance, not a cure". What you have proposed is some of the help for which autistics are fighting. A "cure" is something different.

Autism is genetic:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entre ... s=17033636

as stated above, the Thiomersal Theory is a myth. It has not stood up to peer review.

(Feel free to ignore this. I'm doing this like an LD round in which this is a 1NR.)
My opponent failed to address my contentions "AS is not a defect.", "Atypicality is not inherently wrong.", so these contentions flow through the round. As her method of gathering evidence to support her claims that "Aspies don't empathize. They don't understand half of what they're being told. They don't get along with others. They don't get included in groups. They don't want to do anything except their narrow interest. Hell, 99% of the time they don't even talk." only showed instances and failed to prove these statements, they must be assumed to be only sometimes true. My claim that parents would feel lucky that their child has AS was never addressed and therefore flows through the round.

Key Voting Issues:
My opponent is arguing my position ("Acceptance, not a cure"). Therefore, we both win the round. YEA!!

I wish real debate rounds could work like that. Whatever. Q.E.D. biznatch.

True. You probably won't have a falling out with TLPG.

I do not. I don't agree with it. Do you agree that an Australian Railway company is Aspie Unfriendly because they won't let people sleep on the floor of the train?
His blog entry on that was to annoy people, make people angry. He proposed it due to the reasons which they ignore, as all they care about is what he writes that they can use to attack him.

I don't support him. I detract from the people who're just there to get all self-righteous about having Aspergers, and act like they've got the same challenges as those with LFA. I really dislike the blanket phrase of Autistic when Aspies use it to hide behind, so they can challenge things that in no way apply to them. I really hate it when people try to represent themselves as something they just aren't. Would you feel dislike if someone "normal" was speaking for you, and against what you believe? Compared to LFA, Aspergers is perfectly normal, no disrespect meant to those diagnosed with LFA.

Acceptance of who we are, bah. Did the blacks just become accepted because they asked? No. They worked for it, they made sacrifices, they fought to win their rights, they didn't just ask for them to fall into their laps. They fought, in church, in school, in politics and in every facet of soceity for equality.
But I digress. I think acceptance needs to be earned, does it not? We gain what we want, what we need, by the sweat of our brow, by the effort we give, by the work we put in. Any other "normal, neurotypical" person doesn't become accepted "just cause."
You harp about "cure" as if there's only one path, and that path is wrong. You need to open your mind a little, to accept that not every cure is a shot, a pill, or a Final Solution. We need to learn how to act properly in soceity, not just act however we please, and the rules of social conduct be damned. It's not like we deserve to break social taboos. Ignorance of law is no excuse for breaking it. Why are we to be excluded from the rules everyone must follow? It's not fair to everyone else, for them to modify the rules simply for those who don't want to follow them.

Common decency? Please. What were you saying on his site? Did you say he was a Nazi? Did you accuse him of murder, claim that he's abusing his son, any one of many twisted things that people have seen fit to call him? Tell me, Cdarwin, did you examine the Phil's World wiki site's section on Fore Sam? Have you seen the things that have been said? You really seem to be ignorant of what goes on, only choosing to see the worst of him, and ignore the atrocity that is led against him in fervor and self-assurance of being "right" in doing so. I was once like you. I even posted on his Blog, to say some of that stuff. Surprising, really, to find that now I'm defending him from someone who only wants to smear him, especially after he's been stripped of his voice here. It must take some guts to taunt someone while they cannot speak back.

I'm surprised that people can feel so hard done by, when they were the ones to pick the fight. Why should it be so surprising to you?
Here, Zarathusa, or whoever, invited him. Others have done the same. Each time, he's been banned and the forum members have been set loose to ravage him and go without consequence. All because he'd been invited and challenged. Ironic, no, that he's banned from the sites where he's invited by these amoral people who seek confrontation with him? They declare him evil from going as far as he feels neccesary, while going as far as they feel neccesary? Hypocrisy.

I call Bull***t. That blog I linked to, and the blog in question are NOT the same. One has banned any and all comments, and the other has enacted comment moderation due to idiots posting all kinds of crazy stuff. He's not on a computer 24/7 like some people, and I have been forced to enact comment moderation for the same reasons as he has; Harassment, the posting of personal information like, oh say, home addresses. It's happened. It was not a good sight. I was luckily just checking in and it'd only been posted half an hour before I pulled it. Addresses of, TLPG, another individual, and myself. My address was incorrect, and I have no idea about the others(I sent theirs by email/PM); only they know. TLPG simply wants to gain immunity from criticism. All he does, he gets away with, because there is no one to stop him from doing whatever he pleases. Is this the acceptance he preaches, to say and do whatever he pleases with no consequence?

He does let comments through. On the other hand, that one doesn't even have comments. It isn't edited. You obviously don't know how Comment Moderation works. You have two options. Publish, or reject. That's it. And if someone's saying otherwise, they're insulting your intelligence by lying to you.

Are you supportive of TLPG, supportive of what he has to say, what he does, and so on? Do you back him 100%?

You will address Selo, answer her in TLPG's stead? No, that is not fair or right. It's TLPG that's the one who wrote it, it's him that has to answer for his actions. Consequences.

Pssh. C'mon. Do you speak for the WP community, are you a spokesman for WP, does the community accept you as their speaker? I support acceptance of who I am. This doesn't mean I don't work hard on learning the rules of soceity, how to behave, how to control myself. I work hard. I earn it. You just demand it. How about making an effort, Cdarwin?

I hate to break this to you, but it's their world, their rules, their soceity. They are the ones who are in control, it's them that own soceity.

Normal is average, you say, mediocre, you say. How do the normal people feel about this? The normal people, they're average, mediocre, not exceptional. Such pride. Average this, mediocre that, and it's all not exceptional. Do you even listen to yourself? In but a short few sentences, you've managed to lower everyone who's not Autistic down to being lessers.
You revel in your AS, and use it as an excuse. You want everything, but you want it to be given to you, and by the people you disregard as mere average and mediocre people. If they are so worthless, why do you need their acceptance?

What is so wrong with being normal?
*edited at request of Moderator, and may be further edited if the moderator is dissatisfied with the edit*

Last edited by Joeker on 27 Dec 2007, 5:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I'm watching the thread, so don't anybody worry about needing to report anything. The mods are aware.

I think the original topic may have run its course. Participants in the side discussions are welcome to create new threads in order to continue those discussions. This thread may end up needing to be closed.

Of course, I will not respond to Joekers post, There are far to many insults. I still would like to debate Selo ,and NewportBeachDude, In another thread, like I said in my former posts. I am interested in having a civilized discussion where we can answer each others questions. If either of you, Selo, or NBD would like to start a thread, or if you would like me to start the threads, PM me.

Joeker, how can you talk about decency while you are being rather insulting?

@cdarwin: I am perfectly fine with a separate debate thread to continue this discussion, and to keep this thread on-topic. Feel free to start up a new one and use my last post as the starting point.

I'm trying to respond to some of the concepts here, without getting into some of the personal feuds people are discussing. I will not respond to any attempt in anyone's responses to bring up things that are essentially personal feuds (whether people's feuds with me or with people I'm supposedly associated with, or with Joeker or people he's supposedly associated with), so please don't bother at least if you want me to reply to it, I'm just not into that crap.

I only partially agree with you here.

I am autistic, and diagnosed as autistic.

I do not mind if people with Asperger diagnoses use the word autistic to apply to themselves. I believe what is known today as Asperger's is a form of autism that has neither a delay in speech nor certain unusual patterns of learning speech. I also believe that the current designation of Asperger's has no more to do with the autistic people Asperger met (some of whom did have delays in speech earlier in their lives, and Asperger met them later in their lives than Kanner generally did) than what most people today take "Kanner's" as has to do with the autistic people Kanner met (all but one of whom had speech, many of whom had no delays in speech, some of whom would have been diagnosed with Asperger's today, and all of whom who had an IQ taken tested anywhere from the 90s to the 140s).

What I do have a problem with is something that applies across the board to any sort of autistic person, regardless of their official designation. I have seen people with labels of LFA, HFA, and AS all make this identical mistake, and I have probably made it myself sometimes.

That is, to not take into account that another autistic person might not be able to do something that you can do, or the reverse of that.

I don't have a problem with having an ethical position that does in fact encompass all autistic people (just as there are ethical positions that encompass all people in general). Non-autistic people do this all the time, autistic people can do it too. What I do have a problem with is not taking all sorts of autistic people into account.

For instance, you talk a lot about learning social rules. I learn them too, often as I go along because it's not like I can just make a list if I don't even know what they are. But all the learning in the world doesn't make me able to apply all of them. I can apply some of them some of the time, I can't apply all of them all of the time. Any set of ethics about learning social rules in order to be accepted should not only apply to those who are capable of learning and applying them them, but also have situations that take into account the fact that some people, even if they learn them, cannot always apply what they learn (to different extents in different people -- I can sometimes smile and wave, I know people who never can and may never do so, even if they understand perfectly they're supposed to), and also that some people cannot even learn them (or not learn all of them).

I also don't believe that you can simply say "Those with AS or HFA should not claim to have the same challenges as those with LFA." It's more complex than that, which is why I've said people shouldn't claim to have difficulties they don't have, or not take difficulties they don't have into account, rather than assigning labels to them.

I have met several people labeled with LFA, for instance, who never had much trouble understanding language. They knew what it was for, they just couldn't talk, or couldn't talk in a way people understood, etc., so they got considered "low functioning". This isn't true of all people with that label, of course, but it is true of some. And several of the same people I know who have that problem, have been incredibly dismissive and occasionally even nasty to people (whether such people were labeled LFA, HFA, or AS) who had real trouble learning receptive language.

This is possibly because some of those labeled (or formerly labeled) with LFA were stuck with endless lessons on receptive language when they already knew it, and have fought that misconception for a long time, that there was something they didn't understand, instead of just couldn't do. So when they became able to speak or write they kept insisting, "Autistic people have no trouble understanding what language is." But wait. Some people do. Even some who speak. Even some who spoke very young. In this case the trouble is some people labeled or formerly labeled with LFA assuming that everyone else autistic (including those labeled HFA or AS) finds the same things easy that they do.

So this whole practice of assuming that all autistic people find easy the same things you (general you) find easy, it can go both ways and it can go in any direction within the set of official labels that exist. Which is why I prefer using the general situation instead of making the assumption that the labels will do it all.

I also know a man with an AS diagnosis, because he spoke young and has a normal measured IQ and self-care skills and all that, who has an extreme stutter, near-constant unusual mannerisms, and a very strange appearance by typical standards. I have never seen him pass for "normal" in any situation ever. I have seen people labeled with autism (whether high-functioning or low-functioning) who look far more "normal" than he does, and whose speech passes for normal far more easily than his does, even if they have more trouble in some other areas. So among them, he is the most likely to be discriminated against on a "sight" basis (I listened to some of the awful threatening and verbally abusive messages a neighbor left on his answering machine, which included calling him a "ret*d" and stuff), and the others might be discriminated against in other ways but not usually just by looking at them.

I do find it really upsetting and annoying when people form opinions about all autistic people that do not take into account the great variation among autistic people. I find it upsetting and annoying when people diagnosed with AS do it. I find it upsetting and annoying when people diagnosed with autism in any form (whether functioning labels are added or not) do it too. I do not find it all that upsetting or annoying when people form opinions about all autistic people that do take all sorts of people into account, and I do not think that people diagnosed with AS have either greater or lesser right to form those opinions than any other kind of autistic person.

The way I've formed my own opinions about who does this discriminating and why is possibly because I have worked in communities where most people were labeled with LFA, and communities where most people were labeled with HFA or AS.

I know a young woman who was a speaker at a conference last year that only in the past couple years has started really focusing on broadening their membership beyond a few people labeled with HFA or AS into a whole lot of people. Normally they focus on people who are labeled or have in the past been labeled with LFA. She was told at that conference that she was too high functioning to have a disruption in her routine bother her. When in fact she has more trouble with disruptions in routine than many people there labeled LFA do. I knew a woman with a diagnosis of AS who tried to go to that conference years and years ago. She was told that she was the only autistic person they had ever heard of who took things literally. (Because they had been trying to get away from the stereotype that autistic people are over-literal, so they had abandoned the idea that it was even possible, altogether.) She never went back because they consistently refused to believe she had trouble with these things.

At the same time I have been in communities where most of the autistic people were diagnosed with AS (including this one). Many people in this community right here, as well as a real-life support group I tried to attend, have assumed that if I had difficulty with certain aspects of self-care (which is something that is supposed to be at normal levels or close to it in AS, although there are many people diagnosed with it who do have at least a few of those problems) then it must be something unrelated to autism, such as depression, low-self-esteem, self-pity, or even a veiled death wish. One person here told me they had no sympathy for anyone who would starve while sitting within arm's reach of food, not grasping the great difficulty I have had at times, because of elements of the perceptual aspects of autism combined with the necessity of doing everything myself (thus taking a lot of my overload threshold down) and the mind-messed-up-ness inherent in not eating, with the act of figuring out where my body parts are and how to move them in certain ways. So there is sometimes lack of acceptance that autistic people have difficulty with some things in the other direction, whereas the community I describe above would have taken my difficulty in that situation for granted (and many people there have probably been in similar or worse situations to mine and would have immediately grasped the problem I had).

I've also seen it go within-group, too, where a person with a certain label thinks everyone with the same label has no difficulty in some area where many people with the same label really do have that difficulty. Whether this be "AS" to "AS", "HFA" to "HFA", or "LFA" to "LFA".

So, I agree with you that it is a problem when it happens. I probably disagree with you about which labels are involved and when and why. And I quite possibly disagree with you that when someone opposes curing autism then they necessarily have not taken these differences into account when forming the opinion they do (I don't know if you hold that opinion or not).



A couple of things:

1. They still aren't entirely accepted, regardless of all the hard work they've done. And I don't just mean open racism, there is still a lot of basic inequality in general.

2. While the fact of having to work for and make sacrifices for equality might be a reality that people have to accept, for a number of different sorts of people, it sounds like you're suggesting that black people should not have been considered equal until they worked for it. You seem like you try to be fair-minded, so I imagine that's not what you mean. I can't figure out what you do mean though, because it sounds like you're saying anyone who acts like they're equal to those in power before they are considered equal by whoever has that power, is just being spoiled and uppity. And since you've indicated to me on a number of occasions that you're extremely dedicated to fairness, I can't see you meaning that, but again I can't figure out what you do mean.



Actually, in some senses they do. Put a "normal" person (where in all other characteristics they are the same as me), and have them walk down the street alone. Then put me down and have me walk down the street alone. Chances are, even though neither of us is doing anything remotely harmful to anyone, I'll be the one who will experience a number of people (possibly even including police) acting like I have no right to be outdoors alone.

And there are a number of other occasions where you could do the same thing with a "normal" person and an autistic person and get very different results, where the "normal" person will just be accepted and the autistic person won't.



It depends heavily on which rules are being violated.

Is it the rule that used to exist in many places against allowing children in wheelchairs to attend school in classrooms full of "normal" kids because their appearance might disturb their classmates?

Or is a rule against killing people?

And that rule, even though it is one of the strictest rules in a society, most societies acknowledge differences based on circumstances. For instance, does the killer have the capacity for understanding right and wrong at the time of killing? Is the killer an adult or a child? How many people were killed? Was the killing completely by accident? Was the killing premeditated? Was the killing by accident but in a situation where the person was being reckless (such as drinking and driving, which would be different than being sober and driving and accidentally hitting someone who ran into the road really fast and you hit the brake and swerved but still hit and killed the person)? Was the person killed specifically because they were a member of a disenfranchised group? Did the killing involve torture? Was it in self-defense? Was it a police officer or soldier killing because it was part of their job? Did it happen "in the heat of the moment"? Did it happen because a person was trying to hurt someone in a way lesser than killing but ended up killing them? Was torture involved? Etc.

And it's notable that even that rule, usually the strictest of all rules, often includes a variation for whether the person knew they were doing wrong at the time. The person still has to be held accountable for breaking the rule, but it will not be considered the same as if they knew it was wrong and did it anyway. And breaking the rule by accident, even if the person knew the difference between right and wrong in general, is also often considered different than breaking it on purpose.

So if one of the strictest rules in existence has variations for understanding of the rule and deliberateness of the act, one would think that much lesser rules would give even more leeway for variation, especially when they are not rules (such as rules against murder and violence) that are for the protection of people, but more arbitrary ones. This does not mean that people who are capable of doing so should not aspire to learning them, but there will always be people for whom exceptions should be made.

For instance, there are rules in some sorts of meetings where people have to stand at certain points and not others. People who cannot stand, or who find standing extremely painful or difficult (or where it induces vertigo or somesuch), or who could learn to stand in time but have not yet done so (including people where standing would be an extremely difficult thing to learn, and while it would be possible for them to learn it, it would detract substantially from getting on with their lives, this applies to many people with paraplegia for instance, who could learn standing given lengthy physical therapy but who could get a job and earn a fair bit of money in the same amount of time if they learned how to operate a wheelchair instead -- and believe it or not this used to be a majorly controversial issue), should be exempted from those rules and allowed a different signal for whatever the standing was supposed to signify.

I know an autistic man who has been hassled pretty seriously (and possibly bodily, I can't remember, I just remember it was by some kind of guards) for either failing to remember to tip his hat, or being unable (because he uses a cane and was possibly carrying something in the other hand, I just don't remember the exact circumstances) to someone in a higher ceremonial position of power than him. In the past, people of my religion were often jailed for refusing to tip their hat to people of higher social status even outside of more formal situations, in the same country he lives in. That's a sort of rule I consider ridiculous if applied to that level. It might be okay to request such a thing, but to hassle or jail people for not doing so, especially if they have a good reason not to do so, is overkill.

Wow, what a loooong topic!

It took me a couple of hours to read all all the posts. I have a very strong attention span.

I know very little about Autism Speaks, but I certainly know about Asperger's Speaks (All the posters on this forum). I suppose there are a few NTs as well.

I do not understand about the concept of banning, When I see that someone's name is banned, that person is still posting. I suppose I should pm a Mod about this. Just wondering.

I liked many of the posters' arguments as they were very articulate. I could not begin to requote them here.

I like the "trippy" image a while back by cdarwin. Amazing visuals. I am not sure what it is supposed to mean.

The list of slogans for the "Autism Speakeasy" is hilarious.

I have glimpsed the enemy, and I am relieved it is not us.

I hope to read more comments in the near future.

Posters that are banned are not allowed to continue posting. They posted those comments and were banned later on.

Speak for yourself.

(In less flippant terms, even for those who believe in a hard-and-fast division between autism and AS, there are people meeting the definition of autism (both diagnosed and undiagnosed, as well as, if one believes in the division, some undoubtedly misdiagnosed as AS or PDD-NOS) on this forum. As well as quite possibly a good number of people who are neither autistic nor NT (dyslexic, etc).)



(Meaning, in other words, you can't tell the difference by posts on a forum.)

Notion seconded.
Poor debate form.