The United States government will identify the cause of autism by September this year, U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said on Thursday.
“At your direction, we are going to know by September. We’ve launched a massive testing and research effort that’s going to involve hundreds of scientists from around the world,” Kennedy said at a meeting of President Donald Trump’s cabinet.
Yeah, I think claims that it’s a “disability” have been a totally wrong way to look at it, but I also feel really strongly that any claims that one set of neuro/cognitive features is superior to another is inherently dangerous, because it’s almost necessarily an argument for eugenics and genocide (like, why keep the inferiors around if there are any?).
Moreover, I think we can’t be sure how our exactly how our whole environment (like, not just the “natural” world, also the things humans build on top of it, and the unexpected ways all the things interact with each other) is going to change, so I think our best evolutionary bet as a species is pursuing things that allow as many different kinds neuro/cognitive archetypes to flourish. Like, who knows, maybe we’ll be visited by an alien species that appreciates schozophrics’ ability to make unusual associations between thoughts and ideas, or maybe we’ll need a worldwide truth and reconciliation commission that could benefit from some ADHD hyperfocusing and sensitivity to justice.
The ways that society has thought about and treated people on the spectrum as inferiors are completely wrong and long overdue to be discarded, but we shouldn’t go from there to another supremacist mode of thinking. Pro-diversity is the way to go morally and evolutionarily.
As a sincere, long-term ideal, yes - I agree.
As an immediately gratifying self-indulgence, fuck 'em. Way WAY too much stupidity and ugliness has come at the hands of people for whom deception and emotional manipulation are the norms and sincerity and emotional honesty are aberrant weaknesses. And I want to revel in some schadenfreude at their expense.
The problem is that someone can display one set of traits one moment, and seemingly the opposite set of traits the next. People are absurdly adaptive.
Probably the bigger problem though is that evolution doesnt happen over such a small time frame, so planning for that is a bit meaningless. We all have the capability of adapting ourselves if need be, but most need a good reason to do so and there is a lot of conflicting information out there.
I think a good example would be any of the “I’m being mistreated at work” posts we see on social media. Youll find people who take the workers side and people who argue against the worker, and it all comes down to different sets of expectations of how someone should act in the workplace.
When it comes to different perspectives like that, I do think its usually beneficial to take advantage of differences and specialties but there are cases where conformance is more important than diversity so I wouldn’t want to generalize too much. I will say I think theres a place for all types of people when it comes to finding meaningful productive work they can be proud of.