tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8353442983052145851.post5141216266779322311..comments2024-03-14T18:26:18.208-07:00Comments on autism's gadfly: Left Brain/Right Brain: tries againjonathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14972394536850151087noreply@blogger.comBlogger17125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8353442983052145851.post-45908731207022224242009-05-31T12:18:29.136-07:002009-05-31T12:18:29.136-07:00No problem, I just want to hear some sources. Bot...No problem, I just want to hear some sources. Both his and my opinions are irrelevant (though I would dare say I have worked with more aspies then he has ever met) so I wonder where he gets his information from, or if they are all just assumptions.Enderhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13936753464525224578noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8353442983052145851.post-27971731828196003342009-05-31T12:10:57.559-07:002009-05-31T12:10:57.559-07:00Jonathan
I agree with you that endless arguing is...Jonathan<br /><br />I agree with you that endless arguing is fruitless. As of myself, I try hard not to repeat myself, although I know I fail many times this goal.<br /><br />Ender<br /><br />I presented "easier life" as defining the norm from an evolutionary perspective.<br /><br />It has nothing to do with happiness which, in my opinion, is a strictly personal matter.Marius Filiphttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11369035654997497568noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8353442983052145851.post-54481756694202903172009-05-31T08:19:01.327-07:002009-05-31T08:19:01.327-07:00Ender, I published your comment and Marius can ans...Ender, I published your comment and Marius can answer it if he wants. I don't mind being challenged. I just don't believe it is productive to get in a circular nonending argument. This is why I did not publish your last post after there had been 46 comments in this thread and you would just not give it a rest and I closed out the comments. I will publish this last one for now, but i don't want a circular argument to go on forever between you and marius.jonathanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14972394536850151087noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8353442983052145851.post-3561695506804059202009-05-31T00:44:05.067-07:002009-05-31T00:44:05.067-07:00Marius, Jonathan never let me ask you this, but I ...Marius, Jonathan never let me ask you this, but I figured I would try to do it here too (he can close this thread too if he wants to, or just block this message, I know he hates being challenged.) But I have just one challege for most of you. I want you to find me any expert (for sake of arguement I will say an expert has to have a book published or serve on some sortof board or whatever) in the area of Asperger's who agrees with you that there are no positives.<br /><br />I have read many experts: aspies, psycatrists, teachers, professors, parents, doctors, etc. and all of them seem to agree that there are some positives to the condition. Now things might change if you make it low-functioning autism, I have no clue there (and not really much desire to find out), but all experts in the area of Asperger's agree that there are possitives. Same thing with high-functioing autism. So I am curious where you get your information from and how many HFA/AS kids (or hell even adults) you have worked with to get this information. I could quote any number of experts here and they would all say the same thing, that there is the good along with the bad.<br /><br />Now earlier you seemed to suggest it was bad for the simple reason that it makes life harder. To quote Col. Graff (if you can't tell I sortof like Ender's game), "I am not a happy man, Ender. Humanity does not ask us to be happy. It merely asks us to be brilliant on its behalf. Survival first, then happiness as we can manage it." I could easily say the same thing about an easy life, which means thats hardly the way to measure anything.<br /><br />As for why so many aspie teens get depressed, I think I will let Metallica handle that one...<br /><br />"New blood joins this earth<br />And quikly hes subdued<br />Through constant pain disgrace<br />The young boy learns their rules<br />With time the child draws in<br />This whipping boy done wrong<br />Deprived of all his thoughts<br />The young man struggles on and on hes known<br />A vow unto his own<br />That never from this day<br />His will theyll take away"<br /><br />It is not our own though processes that make us depressed, just everyone else reacting to our thought processes, to quote Luke Jackson, "Being different may not be a problem for me, or other kids like me, but it sure seems to cause problems for "normal" (ha!) kids." Course according to Johnyboy he was just brainwashed by a movement he helped unite. Makes ya wonder.Enderhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13936753464525224578noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8353442983052145851.post-6898226584529482442009-05-25T23:39:50.374-07:002009-05-25T23:39:50.374-07:00I've read the article. There are two questions in ...I've read the article. There are two questions in there:<br /><br />"The question is, if life is made easier for you because of your neurology, does that make you “normal”? More importantly, if your neurology makes your life easier, doesn’t that give you the responsibility to help out those who may need a hand?"<br /><br />Well, my answer to both questions is YES.<br /><br />Indeed, the fact that life is easier for neurotypicals makes them the norm.<br /><br />Why?<br /><br />What is normal is not decided by me, by LB/RB or by any human alive today. It has been decided during the 100s of thousands of years of evolution of the human race. If having obsessive interests a la Asperger's had given an evolutionary advantage, then Aspergian obsessions would have been the norm for humans.<br /><br />But they were not and they are not.<br /><br />An Asperger's guy asked me once: "If we had been in majority, what would you have done?". I replied "then you would have been normal and I would have been ill and have to adjust".<br /><br />Amanda Baggs in one of her videos draws a parallel between color acuity and sound acuity. She claims to have both, while most humans lack the latter. So, she claims, this is "diversity" and her perfect pitch (which is found in autistics with a much higher rate than in neurotypicals) is an "advantage".<br /><br />No. This is a useless sensitivity that she has from her autism. Color sensitivity is a trait that was crucial to the human race to survive. Sound sensitivity was not.<br /><br />So, "easier life" DOES define the norm because "easier life" was EXACTLY the mechanism that shaped the human race by natural selection throughout the whole evolutionary process.<br /><br />Not everything that is different is diversity. A person born with one kidney does not form diversity with another born with two kidneys.<br /><br />The guy with two kidneys is normal, the guy with one kidney is ill - but still functioning.<br /><br />The same with autism, although autism impairs completely different areas of human functioning.<br /><br />What I agree with, though, is that the society must do MORE for autistics and for disabled people in general.<br /><br />That's why I respond YES to the second question as well.Marius Filiphttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11369035654997497568noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8353442983052145851.post-42277313160019864642009-05-25T22:20:06.446-07:002009-05-25T22:20:06.446-07:00I finally took the time to read the initial post o...I finally took the time to read the initial post of Mr. Leitch. This fragment intrigued me:<br /><br />"You see our error as trying to prevent your child being treated. My own daughter receives PECS and Speech Therapy. I would not stand in any parents way who wanted to alleviate the suffering of their kids. Having terrible constipation is suffering. <B>Having a different kind of thought process is not.</B>" (emphasis is mine)<br /><br />The fragment above is utterly false. A "different" kind of thought process IS suffering.<br /><br />Although autism is not the same as schizophrenia, I use it as an example. Schizophrenia, which is characterized, among other things, as a distorted way of thinking, IS suffering.<br /><br />The schizophrenic sees or hear things, he has obsessions, he may hurt himself or others while being haunted by the turmoil in his mind.<br /><br />I want to state clearly that autism is NOT schizophrenia, because it is not as chaotic as the last one.<br /><br />Yet, the autistic person may suffer for a seriously distorted vision of the world. Even Temple Grandin testifies for it.<br /><br />Seeing distorted writing, not being able to evaluate spatial depth well, hearing noises louder than they are, taking the meaning of words otherwise than they are, having various phobias (my son has just gotten a fear of dogs, birds and some kind of rolling stairs in shopping malls) all these form a distorted view of the world which vary greatly from one autistic person to another.<br /><br />How can all these distortions NOT produce suffering? It's like living in a world you cannot make sense of or terribly fear.<br /><br />If the "different" thought processes do not produce suffering, then why are the Asperger's folks more prone to depression in their teens, why the temper tantrums and why the head banging (which the ND folks pretend are attempts to communicate) which occur in so many autistics?<br /><br />I call this suffering. Autism DOES produce suffering. The "different" thought processes DO produce suffering.<br /><br />It's not just a difference like being black versus white or being Chinese versus Tanzanian or being an introvert versus an extrovert.<br /><br />It is the difference between being ill and being healthy.Marius Filiphttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11369035654997497568noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8353442983052145851.post-31971397147009819192009-05-25T18:55:27.745-07:002009-05-25T18:55:27.745-07:00I think they are trying to muddy the waters. And b...I think they are trying to muddy the waters. And backtrack a bit. Some of the positions various people have taken are very extreme, some truly nasty comments have been spread around. To sum up, neurodiversity is trying to become respectable.<br /><br />In addition, the scientific evidence is piling up that some cases of autism are clearly the result of environmental factors and that some kids with autism are obviously physically ill. Another reason to try to sort of gently wipe out bits of the past...Minorityhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12834476072596898758noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8353442983052145851.post-81290986044046041772009-05-24T15:56:36.602-07:002009-05-24T15:56:36.602-07:00The irony is that if you look at posts from places...The irony is that if you look at posts from places like WrongPlanet.net, you'll see people who post dumb topics like, "Why do I never notice my Asperger traits?"<br />Then as you read the post, you'll see he answered his own question. <br /><br />You'd think if this guy was so insecure about himself, he'd be able to come up with a solution or two, but like me, he'll never know what to do since he'll remain stuck for a huge portion of his life asking other ASD individuals online questions that they themselves cannot help him with due to their own impairments and inability to know this guy well enough face-to-face. <br /><br />I also love it how the oldest adult male at the Asperger's support group, which is an oxymoron, gets to assist the facilitator despite the fact he's so slow to help run things smoothly with things like making sure every person in the group gets enough slices of pizza (like that's such a challenge), and that we all are allowed to stand up in a line to grab a second, third (sometimes) or even a fourth slice (rarely) only when he gets to have at least two slices of pizza. He had to recount the remaining slices of pizza available like three times at one point. Then you've got a couple others asking why we have to have a slice of pizza one at a time like it's such a hard concept to figure out, so it's no wonder why no one thinks about the reasons as to why ASDs are serious disorders. <br /><br />The same type of people who lack this kind of common sense are the ones who see autism as a beautiful and unique way of being and living.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8353442983052145851.post-24020538991946335162009-05-24T14:17:09.254-07:002009-05-24T14:17:09.254-07:00I agree Jonathan, all these people do is goal-shif...I agree Jonathan, all these people do is goal-shift. They are not worth taking seriously and yet the media buys into them all the time.Jake Crosbyhttp://www.ageofautism.com/jake-crosbynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8353442983052145851.post-12911010169885574552009-05-24T06:34:50.219-07:002009-05-24T06:34:50.219-07:00thanks, Marius I will try very hard to remember th...thanks, Marius I will try very hard to remember the correct spelling of your full name from now on.jonathanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14972394536850151087noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8353442983052145851.post-30124063357543079802009-05-24T02:49:17.916-07:002009-05-24T02:49:17.916-07:00Jonathan
My name is Filip (pronounced as in Phili...Jonathan<br /><br />My name is Filip (pronounced as in <B>Philip</B>).<br /><br />To add to the picture one of the insults coming from the ND yard, one guy tried to put this comment on my blog (where I describe the progress of my son and the efforts I do to enable him to function as well as possible):<br /><br /><B>"Idiot! No wonder children are treated so badly in your country."</B>A double insult: personally to me and to my nation which went through the tribulations of communism (OBS: the horrors of that regime included indeed terrible conditions in orphanages and the enforced production of babies. I must state clearly that the things have changed tremendously in the past 20 years of democracy).<br /><br />Obviously, I filtered the comment out.Marius Filiphttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11369035654997497568noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8353442983052145851.post-6899316624877581152009-05-23T20:54:33.647-07:002009-05-23T20:54:33.647-07:00Jypsy I see you managed to find what you said that...Jypsy I see you managed to find what you said that I was alluding to. I have printed out your comment and anyone reading this can judge for themselves. There was definitely the intimation that there was any possibility at all that I was being intentionally nasty to people in order to deliberately generate traffic to my blog offensive. It was rude and disrespectful on your part and you know it, no matter how much phoney baloney spin you want to put on it. It was you who brought my name out of the clear blue sky completely off topic on that comment thread in left brain/right brain. It was clay adams and other people who brought my name out of the clear blue sky and started being abusive to me on the comment thread of the whose planet is it blog. I believe you should apologize to me for this, but I don't expect you to, as you can never seem to admit you are wrong about anything. The comment you made which I have printed out was definitely rude and disrespectful and I took great offense to it. Offense is certainly in the eye of the beholder. <br /><br />I did not react in anger to your rude comment. I took the high road and ignored it. In this post I am attempting to do the same, not responding in anger to your complete refusal to admit the comment was disrespectful and totally out of line. You challenged me for any example at all of how you were ever disrespectful to me. I met your challenge this example clearly shows that you were. <br /><br />Unless you apologize to me and you admit you were wrong to intimate that there was any possibility at all that I deliberately was nasty to people to generate traffic to my blog which is utterly absurd I am not going to discuss the matter with you further. Have a nice day/night.jonathanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14972394536850151087noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8353442983052145851.post-60970021562285085182009-05-23T19:11:27.459-07:002009-05-23T19:11:27.459-07:00Camille Clark called me "the clown blog's new frie...Camille Clark called me "the clown blog's new friend," Kathleen Seidel called me a "callow youth" and being used as "ideological cannon-fodder," Kevin Leitch called me a "bitch boy" and accused me of writing a hit piece on Ari Ne'eman when I was only asking Newsweek for equal representation, and Phil Gluyas called me an "idiot" and said I was "brought up to hate" myself. These people have no argument, all they have are personal attacks; even before taking them on directly I knew this would be the case and sure enough I was right.Jake Crosbyhttp://www.ageofautism.com/jake-crosbynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8353442983052145851.post-6543949331189103832009-05-23T17:14:44.899-07:002009-05-23T17:14:44.899-07:00Mr. Mitchell,
You misrepresented what I said. Her...Mr. Mitchell,<br /><br />You misrepresented what I said. Here is our conversation:<br /><br />You said:<br />"As far as you and jypsy’s one-sided presentation of the arguments I got into on ABFH’s blog, I will just say this: They are the one’s who started it by being abusive and insulting to me and calling my mother a witch and calling me a traitor and other abusive comments. They were the aggressors. Perhaps I should have taken the high road and turned the other cheek and not responded in kind and I now have some regret for stooping to the level of those who were attacking me. but sometimes turning the other cheek is hard to do when I am constantly being abused by you and others in the ND movement. I am not going to comment on all of the other mistruths and misrepresentations that you and the rest of the people here are saying.<br /><br /><B>However, I would like to thank you and all the others for the increased traffic you have helped to generate to my blog.</B>"<br /><br />(Emphasis added by me)<br /><br />I replied:<br />"As far as you and jypsy’s one-sided presentation of the arguments I got into on ABFH’s blog”<br /><br />You brought up institutionalization here and there and were asked about it here, I merely pointed to your opinions stated elsewhere and gave a link so people were free to read the whole ugly mess (and made it clear the ugliness was not being done by a single person). Please explain how it was a “one-sided presentation of the arguments I got into on ABFH’s blog”.<br /><br />I hope your comments over there aren’t just an effort to generate traffic to your blog. I have found since I posted that the comments there were “ugly”, yours have slipped to something even darker than that. This is no spin and I acknowledge that you were provoked, still you did write those words, they did come from you. Likewise, the other commenters there are responsible for their words and actions. It’s all very, very, sad."<br /><br />To say that *I* "made the allegation that I was deliberately doing this to generate traffic to my blog" is false. <B>*YOU*</B> made that statement, thanking me and others for your increased traffic!! I said "I hope your comments over there aren’t just an effort to generate traffic to your blog." and I truly meant it.<br /><br />The full conversation is at <A HREF="http://leftbrainrightbrain.co.uk/?p=1797" REL="nofollow">http://leftbrainrightbrain.co.uk/?p=1797</A>jypsyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01105669108222678038noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8353442983052145851.post-86366448415836565172009-05-23T16:52:36.941-07:002009-05-23T16:52:36.941-07:00"you made the allegation that I was deliberately d...<I>"you made the allegation that I was deliberately doing this to generate traffic to my blog"</I>No, I don't believe this allegation. That is something I would never say, I believe you must have me mixed up with someone else. Without proof I'll have to say you are mistaken. Please provide a quote and/or link. I deny ever having said that and if you prove me wrong you'll get a very humble apology from me. If you can't back that up please retract your statement.<br /><br />I also don't "take cheap shots", if you took any of my comments that way I'm sorry, that was not how they were intended.jypsyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01105669108222678038noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8353442983052145851.post-71203621053973966672009-05-23T16:22:43.047-07:002009-05-23T16:22:43.047-07:00Usually, yes, always no. In the past you have tak...Usually, yes, always no. In the past you have taken cheap shots at things I said several years ago and also accused me of deliberately provoking a fight where it was the NDs who were the aggressors and you made the allegation that I was deliberately doing this to generate traffic to my blog and I found that very insulting. I don't consider that treating someone with respect. Ms. Bain.jonathanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14972394536850151087noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8353442983052145851.post-3566579646020820872009-05-23T13:10:44.667-07:002009-05-23T13:10:44.667-07:00"Since when have neurodiversitites treated anyone ...<I>"Since when have neurodiversitites treated anyone with respect."</I>Do I not treat you with respect?jypsyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01105669108222678038noreply@blogger.com