The Pro-Cure Thread
19 Dec 2008, 1:48 am
Enjoy your discussions of holocaust-style genocide and x-men 3, because I am out of here.
PS, I am deleting my initial post here, so as to not reduce my future contribution to this thread. It is not as though I am deleting any record of it, as it has been quoted enough times.
Don't get it to heart Mystic. That was a nice try. I appreciated it and Iam sure a lot of other people do. Yours were rather logical posts ... At least you made some points, which I cannot say about so many other posts which only point was to show that they are able to engage in their speach all sorts of scientific words and employ complicated constructions.
19 Dec 2008, 1:52 am
There are approximately 100 billion neurons in the human brain. The Milky Way galaxy alone contains about 400 billion stars. There are at least 100 billion galaxies or more in the universe. And you think the human brain is more complex? Hell, the new Intel i7 processor has over 700 million transistors. While the brains programming may be complicated and somewhat mysterious, it's structure is not and we know a great deal about it. How can you have such a low opinion of science? It is not a point of shame that we were once cave-dwelling mammals, drawing on rocks. It is a point of triumph and pride. Those cave men, through thousands of years of hard work, sacrifice and determination....walked on the moon. We walked on an object that our ancient ancestors saw in the sky and worshiped as a god. We have made equally impressive progress in every other field, including neuroscience. The people you so callously refer to as "brain doctors" successfully operate on the human brain every day, treating conditions that were once attributed to demonic possession. They can actually pinpoint specific areas of the brain while the patient is awake to cause various muscles to contract. This is not progress to you?
19 Dec 2008, 2:13 am
I'm sorry but I probably shouldn't knock the pharmaceutical industry as hard as I did. In all honesty, my whole family just got over this aweful stomach virus. If it weren't for Phenergen, I wouldn't have made it through it as I did, and if it weren't for Zofram, my 2 year old would have been crying in my arms nonstop for a good 2 days.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that it's not the drugs that are bad as much as the people who abuse it (i.e. the extreme marketing, medical industry receiving benefits and kickbacks, and patients who feel the need to sell them or abuse them, and other problems in ethics). But, if the pharmaceutical industry wasn't making the money they were, they wouldn't be doing the research for newer safer drugs that they do. Zofram is new, and considering Phenergen has shown to cause seizures in young children, it's nice to have something safer for nausea and vomiting.
Maybe i look at it like this... drugs like your antihistamines (i.e. Phenergen, and I'm not sure if I've been spelling these correctly), would probably equivilate to your illegal weed. It isn't that bad unless you abuse it. Drugs like your psychostimulants and SSRIs more equivilate to cocaine. Those are bad no matter what in my mind, but less bad than the following. Drugs like your morphine is more like heroine...very bad, so only take it when completely necessary like you are already dying, so let's ease the pain of death, or right after a bad surgery when your vic's don't seem to do anything (which it never has...and many people agree that vicodines don't stop that pain but give you a really cool buzz to where you don't care that the pain is there). Oh, and if you totally disagree with what I'm saying here, please be nice about it because I'm more just thinking out loud. That's why I said maybe. I just got a guilty conscience all the sudden for bashing someone I don't even know, but then I don't want to say that it's okay to forget that the body should be treated as a temple (coming from a smoker, yeah, I'm a hyppocrite, but admitting the problem is the first step toward recovery).
19 Dec 2008, 2:30 am
1. reduce your phisical clumzieness
2. learn to understand other people jestures and facial expressions better
3. trying to understand other peoples concerns better and being less self-centered while interactoin
4. reduce all sorts of things that appeared wierd to others like biting nailes, jerking movements
5. learning to be more organized and learning accepting responsibilities
That said, i really do not believe that there are such things as "going to NT and returning back" . The whole migration speculations sounds really childish, I am sorry to say.
I agree there is nothing wrong with trying to do all those things. I don't think it's a cure though, but I think it's a matter of lessening the weaknesses associated with AS while still reaping the benefits of the strengths (whereas some people assume a cure would rid you of your strengths, and that could be true since we wouldn't know because there is no cure, but it could also be false). I don't think it's a matter of going NT and returning back but a balance. One could easily try to reduce their AS symptoms and fully go to the other end if they tried hard enough and lose themselves in the process and feel like they can't return back, or that to get back a little piece of their old selves they must do a 180. Ones who believe that is all there is to it probably experienced it and couldn't find balance. I've even read on here about the school teacher in Ohio (I've seen her around in more than one thread), and she seems to have found that balance. More power to her.
Learning the cues isn't the only problem. It's also about being able to relay those same expressions back. Considering NT's only listen for key words or have different motivations in their listening (such as trying to find something to use against you), it's really hard to get your point across. When any AS person tries to understand an NT, the AS person is generally (not always) the only one putting forth the effort to understanding. Motivations between the two are highly different. It's like a cat trying to explain to a dog how to hunt. The cat hunts to eat and the pride behind it. The dog hunts to please it's owner.
I will also add that on the accepting responsibility, I still can't seem to tell the difference between a reason and an excuse. I sometimes have to remind myself of Yoda saying, "Do, or don't do. There is no try."
19 Dec 2008, 3:02 am
I personally don't think there is a direct cure, especially a cure in some sort of pill form. Thats like trying to "cure" dyslexia, its how your brain works. Its not a chemical imbalance. In order to cure autism, you would have to rewire some ones brain, and change who they are. Autism goes beyond externally NT observed traits suck as physical clumsiness, tics, nervousness, etc. Its how your mind works and is built, you can't alter it. But there are things you can do that are learned, such as trying to improve social skills, but there is no pill cure that would poof make you talk to people like a magic trick.
19 Dec 2008, 3:19 am
It is as if the low-self esteem and personal self-hate of the individual who wishes they weren't AS comes out in how the talk about others who don't want a cure, I.e. directing at others the same kind of low language behavior to refer to other AS that they have in their own head's self-talk. You may hate your own AS but don't use the belittling language to project disrespect for others' AS.
Particularly when you don't offer any enlightening information to relieve us of our hateful ignorance.
Hahaha, no. I always talk like this. Check out my other posts.
As for "relieving you of your ignorance" as you call it, I find the general premise flawed. It is like people who are "against global warming". It does not make sense. They don't make sense. I don't wish to be dragged so deeply into nonsense.
If you cannot even explain your position, beyond railing at those who you say oppose it, then all you have done is set up a "straw man" argument -- you just declare an issue and then start dumping on those who you claim is on the other side. I.e. stuff like this is just an excuse for AS haters to dump on AS with demeaning language. It's an AS-bashing op.
I would not call it "railing", but if you want to call it that, then fine. All I did was "rail".
Not everyone that makes a claim is constructing a logical argument. The key is that I made no defense of any claim, nor did I elaborate on anything. So in the sense I am not having an argument, you are, hah. All that I have said afterwards were elaborations on my character.
Hah, this is why I did not want to actually get embroiled in an argument. Our thinking is just too different. It would be like a german arguing with a frenchman over what is the best italian dish. They are not even speaking the same language. For example, you compared my poorly written paragraph with "the people who are 'for global warming'...". That's ridiculous. Those "people" are not simply "for global warming". They are scientists, and the suggestion of a for/against dichotomy is fallacious. What you have are the people who do science on climate change, and those who don't. Those who don't are not necessarily for or against anything, but some are. But those who claim fault with scientific conclusions, but are not themselves scientists, nor do they do any science, are creating a false dilemma. "Either you are for or against global warming". There is no such scientific debate. Now what does this have to do with any claim about AS cures? Nothing. I am now merely elaborating on why I am not arguing about AS cures with you.
Now, an issue about your character and style of analysis and debate. If you called that an "explanation", then I don't want to bother hearing your "explanations" in a real debate. I merely elaborated upon an analogy, and with an anecdote no less, lol.
Not that I can't, but rather I was initially hesitant, and now I won't with you. Unwillingness is not inability. I barely said anything, and have not elaborated on anything, and yet this is how I am received. I doubt I will engage in any rational discourse in this thread, so I probably won't bother. As I shan't expect to receive any rational discourse, I shan't give any.
Now about that second part. That borders on a personal attack, and makes unjustified assumptions about me. Greater caution is required when making statements or claims about an individual than one does generically. However, I shan't even argue that point any further. So don't bother.
Should I even bother replying to this? *thinks*....
I think I shall avoid this and not feed into it anymore.
The end.
You didn't have to bother explaining how absurd your "for global warming" reference was. Or how lacking in argumentation your rail about AS people, that used belittling and offensive language was. It was obvious, and all of those things you describe or claim about your statement simply support my initial comment that you were simply engaging in a classic "straw man" argument: setting up a straw man and attacking it. Framing something that gives you permission to dump some insults on your imagined opposition, giving you an excuse to obliquely unload unacceptable rhetoric on people you disrespect.
Whether or not you framed anything coherently or even stated anything specific enough to claim that you main any claims, is really irrelevant to whether or not you might have made a straw man argument attack.
Not that I can't, but rather I was initially hesitant, and now I won't with you. Unwillingness is not inability. I barely said anything, and have not elaborated on anything, and yet this is how I am received. I doubt I will engage in any rational discourse in this thread, so I probably won't bother. As I shan't expect to receive any rational discourse, I shan't give any.
Now about that second part. That borders on a personal attack, and makes unjustified assumptions about me. Greater caution is required when making statements or claims about an individual than one does generically. However, I shan't even argue that point any further. So don't bother.
I don't think it is a personal attack, but an obvious implication of your post. However, it is a personal comment. If it is inappropriate to draw personal conclusions on why someone would post what you did, then I should not have said it. On the other hand, I feel my comment about the personal implications of your post are relevant to the thread topic, obviously, and why you are not only pro-cure but give yourself permission to speak contemptuously to those who do not seek a cure.
There is nothing you have said in your post that indicates you were doing anything other than what I originally claimed -- engaging in a diffuse straw man argument attack against people you disrespect.
Edited to add: In none of these posts attacking those imagined "NT-bashers" and rabid, ignorant "anti-cure" folks, has anyone offered any specific examples of the complained-of behavior nor will they explain how they are justified in using the kind of insulting, belittling rhetoric they do against AS people. These "haters that claim to hate hating" seem to have an inchoate worship of NT-ness and look down on AS. Period. And feel a need to periodically vent their dislike for their condition by disparaging other AS.
Last edited by ephemerella on 19 Dec 2008, 3:26 am, edited 4 times in total.
19 Dec 2008, 3:21 am
hey deanfoley. i struggle with my AS and have a love/hate relationship with certain traits i exhibit. I am who i am. At the same time, i think it is pretty cool that you voiced your feelings and your views and it is a very valid postion to hold. in my view, you are an independent human being and you have a right to hold whatever view you want to hold. it differs from mine considerably. but if we were all the same what a dull and boring hellhole of a world it would be.
stay true to your own views. and remember....Everybody has a room in god's hotel.
19 Dec 2008, 4:10 am
Great point! The Neanderthals were well-adapted to Ice Age conditions physically, appeared to have high intelligence and there are genetic indications they interbred with Cro Magnons anyways (so are not really extinct).
I've been asking the same Q, but the people who open these threads and claim they are creating some kind of dialog, never explain what they are attacking, what they mean or what the imagined "opposition" is. I have no clue. They are like snowball throwers who just pop out to lob a few in the general direction of some alleged enemy, who appears to be an archetypal "ignorant AS" who doesn't appreciate how degraded they are for having/being AS.
I tend to agree with you that anyone who makes a "social skills" pill that makes you popular and socially successful, will make a lot of money. I suspect that this is what the "pro cure" people are most interested in.
A "social skills pill" along with a true "fat burning pill" and "beautiful skin pill", would put its creators in the money,
None of these things ever worked for me.
Don't know anything about X-men so that reference went right over my head.
19 Dec 2008, 4:30 am
Speaking personally, over my lifetime, I have "beaten" AS in the sense that I have relationships. I can have friends if I want them (but I lack a social drive and have anti-social impulses in that I don't like NT society or groupthink cultures much). I was in the military, I went through college. I have a very successful husband. I could have more money and a lot of things if I really wanted to. I could work if I had to.
I was traumatized twice, but not because I was AS, but because I was an attractive woman in math/engineering. The hurdles faced by attractive women in post-baccalaureate math/engineering are greater than those faced by AS. There are far more AS in post-bacc eng/math than there are attractive women. MY AS just made me unable to withstand and survive the discriminatory sexual misconduct that drives most women who attempt it out of the field. If it were not for my AS, I would have conquered the discrimination. So my AS was not a disability in the sense that it kept me from living my life or doing normal things, but it handicapped me in my attempt to go where few attractive women succeed in going.
I don't want to be "normal" or like an NT. I am better than most NT's, at least as far as my own standards about what makes a good life - having my special interests, having my sensual makeup and so on. My standards that make up a good life include a lot of things that AS like, because I like myself and most of my AS traits. So to me, being NT is a step down, as it is a step away from my AS "special interests" and traits. Just as an NT who is a social butterfly and executive-minded success would dread being put in the life of a cloistered nun.
I work on my social mind and social skills separately, as part of a discipline, because they are needed in the NT world, but I take no pleasure in them. If I did, I'd BE an NT. My special interests in cognitive systems would allow me to develop into an NT. I don't want to be one.
I have done the things I attempted to do, except to be an attractive woman in post-baccalaureate math/eng, and most sexy women are driven out of that, so I would have been beating the system that beats a lot of intelligent NTs had I succeeded. I have found ways to make myself be able to do things that I was not equipped for. My life has been full of adventure and challenge. I don't even really need to hammer away at fixing the academic traumas, were it not for the fact that I am constantly optimizing and need to face up to the challenge of fixing my damaged psyche to get my PhD (yes, I have figured out how I can do that without running the gauntlet of sexism in math/eng academia).
I don't want to not be AS. NTs aren't better than me and I can do things that most NTs cannot. I may be AS, but on the performance bell curve of "normality" in the things that I like to do, I'm always one standard deviation above the norm and usually more than that. Even in the things that I am "impaired" in, like paying my bills on time and keeping the house in order, I'm bad but not crippled. I do not envy NTs and would not trade down to be one of them just to fit in better or be more popular.
And I WILL succeed in getting past a gauntlet of sexist discrimination to get my PhD in math/eng, even if few attractive women do. My biggest problem in life is that I refuse to set limits on what I can do, and then I batter myself against my own limitations to try to get to where I want to be. All my trauma is self-inflicted in the sense that I put myself in situations that were high-risk and high-performance and drove myself to get what I wanted without regard for limitations. I WILL succeed in fixing my academic trauma and going forward. My problem has never been the AS. I like the AS.
I didn't choose to be AS, but having been born and developed into AS, it would make me irretrievably less of a person to trade who I am and what I value in myself, in order to be more popular and sociable. I suspect that people who do that, are they able, find little personal realization in the superficial popularity they buy by becoming other than what they are in order to grease their path to having more friends. Even if I am not popular, the personal judgments of others don't make me not like myself or hate AS.
IMO the posts and rants that launch disparaging broadsides at "ignorant" AS people who don't know better than to want to be NT, create a kind of verbally toxic environment where it is supposed to be safe to express yourself and be yourself, in a sometimes hostile world.
19 Dec 2008, 1:27 pm
I don't want to be "normal" or like an NT. I am better than most NT's, at least as far as my own standards about what makes a good life - having my special interests, having my sensual makeup and so on. My standards that make up a good life include a lot of things that AS like, because I like myself and most of my AS traits. So to me, being NT is a step down, as it is a step away from my AS "special interests" and traits. Just as an NT who is a social butterfly and executive-minded success would dread being put in the life of a cloistered nun.
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You are better then most NT's, huh? That really tells a lot about you if you make such a generalizatoin about the rest of the people in this world. So, is it your ASD that makes you better? or what? what particular traits make you better? Are they really rooted in your ASD, or are they the traits of your personality regardless to the Neuro system that you have?
Anyway, the person who makes such a generalization about NT , denigrating them.. oh well, is he really better then the most of the rest of the world?
And you never gave a single expample of a particular Apie trait that puts you above most of NTs. That weakens your argument.
Do you want me to help you with this and tell you about one of particular Aspie traits that I can see in your posts?
Here is a quote from Wikepedia
" the conversational style often includes monologues about topics that bore the listener, fails to provide context for comments, or fails to suppress internal thoughts. Individuals with AS may fail to monitor whether the listener is interested or engaged in the conversation. The speaker's conclusion or point may never be made,"
Are these traits make you think you are better then the rest of the world?
19 Dec 2008, 1:47 pm
I don't want to be "normal" or like an NT. I am better than most NT's, at least as far as my own standards about what makes a good life - having my special interests, having my sensual makeup and so on. My standards that make up a good life include a lot of things that AS like, because I like myself and most of my AS traits. So to me, being NT is a step down, as it is a step away from my AS "special interests" and traits. Just as an NT who is a social butterfly and executive-minded success would dread being put in the life of a cloistered nun.
.
You are better then most NT's, huh? That really tells a lot about you if you make such a generalizatoin about the rest of the people in this world. So, is it your ASD that makes you better? or what? what particular traits make you better? Are they really rooted in your ASD, or are they the traits of your personality regardless to the Neuro system that you have?
Anyway, the person who makes such a generalization about NT , denigrating them.. oh well, is he really better then the most of the rest of the world?
And you never gave a single expample of a particular Apie trait that puts you above most of NTs. That weakens your argument.
Do you want me to help you with this and tell you about one of particular Aspie traits that I can see in your posts?
Here is a quote from Wikepedia
" the conversational style often includes monologues about topics that bore the listener, fails to provide context for comments, or fails to suppress internal thoughts. Individuals with AS may fail to monitor whether the listener is interested or engaged in the conversation. The speaker's conclusion or point may never be made,"
Are these traits make you think you are better then the rest of the world?
I think she was simply trying to say that she likes being an Aspie more than she thinks she would like being an NT. She wasn't being derogatory at all. And she did state the traits that she feels makes her life better than if she were an NT. Most Aspies are bored by the things that NT's like, just as NT's are often bored by Aspie interests. What she said is essentially true of anybody that is happy with themselves.
I think it is quite rude to come into a forum for people with ASD and then try to point out their ASD traits for them and degrade them for being that one.
19 Dec 2008, 1:51 pm
The sum of all human brains is a subset of the universe, ergo universe complexity > brain. 
The only way to overcome that is to cherry pick what complexity level to peg your abstraction level for each at. Besides, the validity of the comparison is immaterial to it's [lack of] strength as excuse/reason, it is still an entirely backwards looking luddite position.
P.S. Apologies to the cavemen, I should have instead been talking about fear driven, early industrial era British workers. 
_________________
Please be kind and patient with the tourist. He comes in peace and with good intentions.
19 Dec 2008, 2:08 pm
I don't want to be "normal" or like an NT. I am better than most NT's, at least as far as my own standards about what makes a good life - having my special interests, having my sensual makeup and so on. My standards that make up a good life include a lot of things that AS like, because I like myself and most of my AS traits. So to me, being NT is a step down, as it is a step away from my AS "special interests" and traits. Just as an NT who is a social butterfly and executive-minded success would dread being put in the life of a cloistered nun.
.
You are better then most NT's, huh? That really tells a lot about you if you make such a generalizatoin about the rest of the people in this world. So, is it your ASD that makes you better? or what? what particular trai
ts make you better? Are they really rooted in your ASD, or are they the traits of your personality regardless to the Neuro system that you have?
Anyway, the person who makes such a generalization about NT , denigrating them.. oh well, is he really better then the most of the rest of the world?
And you never gave a single expample of a particular Apie trait that puts you above most of NTs. That weakens your argument.
Do you want me to help you with this and tell you about one of particular Aspie traits that I can see in your posts?
Here is a quote from Wikepedia
" the conversational style often includes monologues about topics that bore the listener, fails to provide context for comments, or fails to suppress internal thoughts. Individuals with AS may fail to monitor whether the listener is interested or engaged in the conversation. The speaker's conclusion or point may never be made,"
Are these traits make you think you are better then the rest of the world?
I think she was simply trying to say that she likes being an Aspie more than she thinks she would like being an NT. She wasn't being derogatory at all. And she did state the traits that she feels makes her life better than if she were an NT. Most Aspies are bored by the things that NT's like, just as NT's are often bored by Aspie interests. What she said is essentially true of anybody that is happy with themselves.
I think it is quite rude to come into a forum for people with ASD and then try to point out their ASD traits for them and degrade them for being that one.
If someone claims that he or she is better then NTs because he or she has Asperger's , it is a reasonable questoin: what particular ASPIE traits make you so damn good? And may be it makes sence to remind to a person what actually aspie traits are.
I have a lot of aspie traits and I hate them in myself. However, I do insist that this is not my Neuro system type that makes me the personality that I am.
19 Dec 2008, 2:09 pm
It's just the number of atoms (estimate) in the human brain. You can't compare that to the number of stars in the universe and say that the brain is more complex. It is like saying that my thumb is more complicated than my whole hand because my thumb has xxx number of cells and my hand only has five fingers.
And those atoms don't necessarily add to the brains ability or complexity. The atoms alone don't form thoughts or ideas. The article I found had very sloppy reasoning. It was the only article I could find, though. There isn't even a wikipedia entry on it, as the article stated. And there is probably a reason for that...
And regardless of how many "things" are in the brain, that doesn't make it an unsolvable mystery. It is a machine. No more. No less.
19 Dec 2008, 2:19 pm
I have a lot of aspie traits and I hate them in myself. However, I do insist that this is not my Neuro system type that makes me the personality that I am.
Again, I don't think she was making that claim at all. I think she was saying that *FOR HER*, being an Aspie is better than not being one. While you hate your Apsie traits, she (and I) do not. That is all she was trying to say, I think. And I don't think any of us need to be reminded what those traits are. We know, or we wouldn't be here.
I would also like to add that your neuro system type (not sure what you mean by that) IS the personality that you are. You are your brain.
