The view i have is that asperger's is not something i have but something that is part of me as a person. It is impossible to remove it from me because it is not a thing. If there was some magical way to take Autism away from me it would change my personality, my thoughts, i would most likey become less intelligent since Asperger’s (I am unsure about Autism as a whole) is very often associated with being very clever, especially in areas such as maths. If i was not Autistic then what would i have left of me? Surely things would need to be added to me otherwise i would not be complete. It think it would be a lot easier to make a nt person from scratch rarther than make an Autistic into a nt. I don't see the point (obviously i see the point with Autistics that are so low functioning they are only suffering but i see no way to be able define this accurately to make this judgement over someone)
Autism is a collection of behaviours that have been grouped by a human being and just because certain behaviours have been put under one group doesn't mean it is then suddenly something real. I realise i don't make a lot of sense but think of this, if one person says this is right and that is wrong, does that make that wrong? And is what the person just said real? It is only real if there are people around to define it as real. When those people are gone then it is obsolete. If we lived in a society that was mainly Autistic then those who are nt would have the disorder that needs curing. Just because there are less of us does not make us any less right or wrong.
I am glad i am autistic, but this doesn't mean i blindly ignore the negatives about Autism, i just accept them as part of what i need for my positives. No one is perfect and so if i were to become a nt it does not mean my life has been cured of difficulties which is what i feel pro cure people believe deep inside them. Nt's have plenty of difficulties that we don't have (i am now going to genralise, i know not every nt is like this but i am using my schema of nt's (schema=past experiences that make a generalised model in your mind of a certain thing) I also know many very nice nt’s)
Some nt’s have a very weak will, they are easily influenced and controlled, their opinions will change in a flash if there is risk of social rejection. They will waste tonnes of money on things they don’t need because they are told by advertisers that they need. They enjoy making other humans suffer though various methods such as mind games and cruel words, they design them to put you down and boost their self-esteem. I quote from a ex who was trying to tell me he was a better human because he was nt " I hurt people because i want, you do it by accident" Surely its better to hurt someone without intention that to hurt someone with especially since everyone causes upset to others.
And so because we all have weaknesses it cannot be used as a reason to get rid of Autism.
My views on life is that everything is based on contrasts, there is no light if there is no dark, it is impossible to feel happiness if there is no unhappiness to contrast it to because if you are happy all the time you know of nothing else and therefore you are unable to appreciate it or to acknowledge its existence. To get extreme highs you need to get extreme lows.
It can be hard to see the positives about Autism, especially when it is classed as a disorder and a disability. What is makes it even harder is we do not know what it feels like to be nt so the benefits that we have that nts don't cannot be contrasted and therefore are very difficult to acknowledge.
Also if you look at the other side, nt's don't know what it feels like to be Autistic so how can they make the decision for us to be cured if they know nothing of what it really feels like. Not that its their fault that they don’t know what it feels like because Autistics aren’t typically naturals with speech and also I feel the English language does not cover all the words I want to say. And so the words that we use to describe our experiences can be used by nt’s to describe their experiences even if they are very different intensities.
Lucario, you were wondering what was good about being an aspie, and I have so far made vague references to the greatness of it, I will now try and explain the greatness which I think is impossible to do, you need to bear in mind that you do have benefits that nts cannot experience to such a level which you do while living you life and you need to wait for such a moment to occur to realise how great it is being an aspie and understand me fully.
The greatness stems from our great abilities to concentrate which when I am concentrating is hard for me to realise because I have no consciousness of my concentrating because I am not concentrating on myself or my feelings, just what I am doing. Hours of work can seem like seconds, for example I have been writing my response for 2 hour now, but I feel like I only just sat down. Autistics have hypersensitivity and so although this can hurt, when I listen to a really good piece of music it feels amazing, the word amazing sickens me right now because it is not expressing what is in my mind. The feeling in my body is over whelming, it is so pure. Now do nt’s experience this? They might, I have herd of references of nt’s experiencing this perfect state (a person I know does extreme sports hoping to one day get to this state), but do they feel things like we do? Can they? And if they can and do I doubt it happens as often as I feel it.
A simpler benefit that Autistics have over nt’s (ones that are good at maths I am referring to) is that maths is fun, our brains are wired into a way that triggers pleasure from doing maths, by this I mean proper maths, not things like statistics which is very limited in logical thinking.
Its interesting to think if someone offered you a cure right now that would make you Autistic, would you take it? Even when I used to hate the fact I was Autistic I still felt I would say no because to become a nt is a complete void. My view now is obviously still no, I have lived my whole life in one way, how can I live it any other way? To go through that massive change frightens me although its interesting to think...if I was to become nt would that mean once I was nt I would not fear change because the consequence of having a meltdown would have been removed. But another way I look at that question is what would you choose if you could make that decision before you started your life, would you choose to be Autistic?
I believe that if they find a cure & want to make it mandatory, they should first do a check to see if that person is going for Aspergers or Autism skilled jobs like computer programming, graphic desing, tech, anything in math, making TV shows like....Pokémon, ect..
No matter what, if they make it mandatory to cure all aspies were gonna have a problem. All our technology's gonna die, computer softwares gonna come a pretty fast halt, computers will basicly be inoperable, no one will know how to program the computers we have in todays cars.
by the time they come out with a cure, they'll understand that we need aspies & high functioners. I think we can both agree that scientists know what their doing.
and therein lies one of the intrinsic reasons that a cure should not be developed.
where do we draw the line?
take Natalie.
Aspie.
special interests lie in nature, specifically (if memory serves) Snakes and marine biology.
under your categories, she would be "cured" and would lose those...specialisations.
take Ian.
Aspie
special interests lie in Business and sci-fi
under your categories, he would be "cured" and would lose those...specialisations and the perspective that may be needed for business sucesss
take Lestat
Aspie
special interests lie in..lets call it physics, pharmochemistry and biochemistry
under your categories, he would be "cured" and would lose the ability to rapidly work out chemical equations and the resulting effect on the human body
take Amanda
LFA/Classic Autist
Special Interests lie in ????, highly intelligent and very much able to communicate, albeit nonverbally.
under your categories, she would be cured, and potentially lose that intellect.
take Me.
Aspie.
Special interests lie in computers, networking, programming, Sci-Fi, Transhumisim and post humanism.
under your categories, I would [b]not[/n] be cured.
this strikes me as unfair.
if the critera for "curing" is decided exclusively on special interests, then I am sorry, but that is just stupid
and the "cure" would occur before such interests and abilities were made manifest, rendering the whole exercise....pointless!
well put Jeff.
i would add something about screwing with evolution, but i think you covered it...
Oh well, rumour has it that all of Hitler's "top people" in weapon/aircraft design..and even architecture had AS traits or something.
Albert Speer apparently had a touch.
*grits teeth*
not..helping..Ian...
I believe that a "cure" for autism should never be developed, even if it is not forced on autistics (and it certainly would be forced on many autistic children by their parents). I don't think that it is even possible to "cure" autism short of nanotechnology or implants of some kind, since it is (as far as I know) a fundamental difference in brain structure, not a simple chemical imbalance or the like. The only way to "cure" autism would likely be to completely rewire an autistic's brain.
mmh.technically possible,but not right now. (go watch Ghost in the Shell 
)
this strikes me as unfair.
if the critera for "curing" is decided exclusively on special interests, then I am sorry, but that is just stupid
and the "cure" would occur before such interests and abilities were made manifest, rendering the whole exercise....pointless!
I agree wholeheartedly on this. I can see that Jay9 is insecure with his AS status, and therefore enjoys jamming pro-cure propaganda down the throats of other ASers with his rather dubious technique. His words are a pox on this forum, a malignant cancer that threatens us all.
I think so too. I also wonder why his words are being tolerated so much when people had no hesitation in jumping on logicalconclusion.
perhaps because we have had a near steady stream of trolls since then, and the whole ED situation, and people are just tired?
So, was ED a troll too? He is also on Wrongplanet.
no, ED is the encyclopedia dramatica, and its a haven for trolls looking for victims and lulz.
and guess what website is listed, along with a link...?
What exactly is meant by 'troll'? How do you know if someone is a troll?What is lulz?
a troll is someone who goes to a website with the sole intention of creatig conflict, strife or choas.
and "lulz" is a pervesrsion of "lol"
the term is "pro-autism".
I don't think they teach ethics these days, Tig. Just economics.
(Yes, this IS on topic. Think about it.)
oh, that was cold.
You cannot deny it, many of us want what the NTs have, and if being them would make us have it, we would be them
One of the few real benefits I can see in being an NT is their ability to attenuate reality. They are like someone wearing sun glasses compared to our naked eyes on a sunny day. They have mittens in the cold, and ear plugs that block the constant hum of traffic. They can shake hands with lepers and hug porcupines. In short, the major difference between an autistic and an NT is that the NT has protected himself by heavily filtering reality. And I admit that this is an enviable ability.
However, there is a trade off. It's a tricky thing to see when you're so vulnerable that looking someone in the eyes gives you a headache, but the trade off is there nonetheless.
The person wearing sunglasses never sees the full spectrum of the colors of the world. He won't see the sheen of a crow's feather, or the matte finish on the surface of the river water. Mittens hide texture, and earplugs muffle birdsong. Their handshakes never actually touch you, and their hugs are just a bit cold. Basically, they are well-protected, and as difficult to connect with as a soldier inside a tank. And they can never remove the sunglasses, mittens, earplugs, or tank.
That
My sensitive ears can hear someone saying, “I’d gladly give up my ability to hear traffic three blocks away, if I could get a date once in a damn while!” Sure, the NTs get more sex than many of us. There always seems to be a lovely NT girl at hand for whenever the mood presents itself. But that’s a bit of a misinterpretation of reality, which I suspect is really some of that jive NTs are so good at. After growing up in several broken homes, and having managed 30 years of marriage myself, I’ve grown to believe that NTs don’t usually bond as closely as they think they do. Between the armor and the camouflage, it’s a wonder the even manage to reproduce. Don’t get me wrong. More power to them. They probably get just as close as they want to be, and no closer. But I can’t see voluntarily choosing to purposely deaden my heart and distance the people I love. Envying the NTs their constant boffing is like being jealous of the frequent donor at the sperm bank. An awful lot of sex about nothing.
And This
dammit Gitch, did you have to be so concise and correct?
dammit Gitch, did you have to be so concise and correct?
ooops. I'll shut up now ;-)
you do that
an idea hath occurred.
Gnosis;
Autism is a sign that the Human gene pool is still varied, and thus healthy.
however, if we start removing things from the gene pool, bleaching it if you will, removing...Autism, Dys/Hyperlexia, Downs, OCD and so on, you are in fact making the race as a whole weaker.
how?
say, in 50 years, a terrible disease appears.
it affects 70% of the population in affected areas, and it kills 15% of them, and cripples 45% of the rest.
pretty dire figures, yes?
however, a more diverse genealogy (is that a word?), for example the situation with Sickle Cell Anaemia and malaria, can lead to a lower prevalence; it may even be possible to extract a treatment from the "diverse" population.
I'll draw comparisons in fiction;
The Asgard in Stargate. cloned themselves to the point where they had no genetic variance, and made them all highly vunerable to a plague
The Jove in EVE Online, purged variance from their gene pool, and went from a galaxy wide empire to almost extinct
and of course, if a cure is developed, and we refuse it (which is highly unlikely, as it would be forced upon us, in restraints if need be (for "our own protection, of course)), you honestly think we would be able to find employment? support? sympathy?
if so, go watch Gattaca.
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