Obviously. It would come off as sarcastic humor if so many of the basic facts were correct. Neurotypical people are only just above 80% of the population, so the author is in more common company than they believe.
> wont accept clear straightforward plain language explanation of what others want
From experience this feels to me like a very NT thing to say (apologies if you're not NT, no context to determine either way) - it comes across as written: "Why can't you just do what I ask you".
Often it feels atypical people require a logical understanding from first principles of why something should be done.
Then, once they have that they need to come to the same conclusion of what the course of action is.
If they're aligned, awesome.
If not, then the work is to try to make them understand why, given the current constraints and cultural context, their optimal approach is suboptimal in this situation.
Something as simple as "yes your idea is great, it will work better then theirs, but sometimes others need to fail so that they can learn from their failure" - exact quote.
I'm speaking to a very limited subset here based on quite a bit of exposure in many contexts.
What? You try reading the actual written policies of any large organisation. Then find the places where they aren't following their rules, then point out with reference to the written rules what they're doing wrong. Then see what happens.
I don’t think it’s so much as fighting fire with fire, as just reframing and correcting the usual biased assumptions about what it means to be “typical”.
It’s obvious that this page was written by an autistic person because the top third is a fairly witty and insightful joke and the bottom third is an explanation of the joke.
Is there value to people constantly self-diagnosing themselves or seeking clinical diagnoses for neurodivergency? I don't mean this in a disparaging way; but surely constantly seeking to remind both yourself and society of your neurodivergency and any shortcomings you have with that seems almost like a crab bucket mentality that you are enveloping yourself with.
I don't have a problem with people looking inwards, but surely to maintain any kind of rationality you need to balance it by also reminding yourself to look outwards.
Some can be improved with meditation. For example there is a roughly 60% comorbidity of ASD and ADHD and the ADHD portion can be improved with certain nonstimulant medications. Another example is that some disorders like psychosis and schizophrenia could pose harm that demands intervention.
Yes. We seek answers to why we feel so different or out of place socially living in a society. It has nothing to do with reminding ourselves of our shortcomings (although some do find humor in self-deprecation), but with the ways that society constantly reminds us that our brains are not wired the same way as everyone else. Frankly to even consider neurodivergency as shortcomings or a crab bucket mentality only furthers the narrative that neurodivergency is inherently a negative trait, when that is categorically false. It is much closer to feeling like a square in a world full of circular holes and the desire for diagnosis lies in understanding that.
Some folks won't get it, no matter how well you explain it, because they do not seek to understand in the first place. For them, being reminded that there is somebody out there that is somewhat different from them is already an annoyance, even before they realize they don't even understand you.
Whether you are neurodivergent, LGBTQ, or you get around on a bicycle, they treat you with the same derision and lack of sincere curiosity. Lindsay Gibson has written about these sorts of folks.
Is this actually happening widely, or just in some spaces and it blows it out of proportions?
> constantly seeking to remind both yourself and society of your neurodivergency and any shortcomings you have with that seems almost like a crab bucket mentality
Is this what's happening or what you believe is happening? To me, it however looks like much more people are getting the help and support they need for this, compared to when I was a teenager. To me it's not learned helplessness or what it is you're trying to describe, but learning how to navigate society, and society being more aware of other's struggles. In the same vein that learning about structural racism isn't about disparaging people, but lifting everyone.
Yes. It tells you to stop trying to fit in with the NT world and get on with being who you are. It could save you from a neurodivergent breakdown in your 40s that could take years to recover from. I trivialise because my wife is pressuring me to get of hn and drive her somewhere.
I got more things done in one week on ADHD meds than in the three months before that. And the only reason I went out to get a diagnosis was an ADHD meme community that constantly made me go "haha, that is so me".
If I got diagnosed 10 or 20 years earlier, I wouldn't have dropped out of university and my life would have been profoundly different and better.
Maybe you would have developed much different but still interesting and useful skills if you didn't take the meds. The meds were good for the work you needed to do, but maybe without the meds you would develop into other kinds of work?
For me I just kind of ignore the fact that I am neurodivergent, it really doesn't matter. I always refused in school to get any help for it since it really bothered me that I should be treated different. I haven't even gotten diagnosed since I wouldn't take any medications anyway.. But to answer your question it's extremely obvious if you are neurodivergent, it's not really a question that you have to ask yourself. If you need to research or seek answers you are probably pretty normal, there's things you notice in your day to day life that people around you do not have and over the course of your childhood you will have a pretty good understanding of it.
Obviously, this is a sample of 1 so take it with a grain of salt. I am just naturally stubborn which helped me learn to deal with these problems on my own.
Depending on your context professional diagnosis might be expensive and out of reach and more importantly not incentivized. It's a space where self-diagnosis is more often than not the only path to diagnosis and understanding.
I'm myself bipolar (diagnosed) and very likely autistic (undiagnosed) and having a base understanding on the why and how my brain works has been a significant improvement.
This appears to assume that seeking diagnosis is somehow self-limitation instead of functional troubleshooting.
In practice, understanding one's neurotype can provide the foundation necessary towards addressing friction, dealing with environments developed exclusively for a radically different baseline, and getting the support and care necessary to have a reasonable quality of life.
The alternatives often lead to massive dysfunction, especially since it compounds with systemic gaslighting and being told that the hell you're experiencing is normal and that it's a character flaw to have any difficulties or differences.
The satire of ISNT frames the very real negative framing that was already deeply pervasive 28 years ago.
I'm 42. Autism as it applies to me wasn't really on the radar for most of my life. I have always had to deal with the majority of people thinking different to me. Knowing the label gives me access to tools and research, so I'm not just one weird individual.
Well, it is a mistake. It is a deviation from the normal path. But so what? This is not a moral codemnation of any individual. Without any mistakes, there would no be life in the world as we know.
> I and my experience of life is not inferior, and may be superior, to the NT experience of life.
I am not quite able to put in words right now, but the sentiment expressed here seems like a perfect illustration of what happens when we let society become hyper-atomized and the fetishization of the individual.
If we are talking about genes, the goal is to keep the ability to duplicate itself. If there is anything about this duplication process that has lead to the individual's brain development with difficulties to adapt to life with their tribe, socialization and chances of finding a mate are also hindered.
So if all the tribe goes to one water source because that's what they always do. And someone decides they want to try other water sources because they don't want to use the traditional source just because it's always been done that way.
What happens when the traditional source gets contaminated?
The outsider then has an advantage.
Yes tribal dynamics require people to act like sheep, but that can lead to getting stuck in local maxima, and not having any diversity.
" the goal is to keep the ability to duplicate itself"
You are talking about putting all your eggs in the tribal cohesion basket.
That doesn't deal very well with black swan events. Not putting all your eggs in one basket maintains the ability of the tribe to "duplicate itself".
So given that I have provided an mechanism for improved survival of the group, that doesn't require the group to be completely homogeneous, please explain how I strawmanned your argument.
Or maybe point out what point you were trying to make, as it evidently isn't very clear
> You are talking about putting all your eggs in the tribal cohesion basket.
Sorry, that's waaaay off the mark.
I am taking about OP's remark where he wants experts to not "talk about his brain (development) having a genetic mistake", and I am saying that any individual with a brain that has developed in a way that diverges from the norm (and consequently makes it more difficult to socialize, empathize and find a mate), then we can definitely say that this brain has a "genetic mistake".
So explain
"If we are talking about genes, the goal is to keep the ability to duplicate itself"
That is your basis for 'mistake', and the general position that you are objectively right.
I am saying divergence from the norm can also be a benefit towards the goal of keeping the ability to duplicate. Therefore you can't say that the genetic imperative to duplicate proves you are objectively right. Therefore you can't really support the view that it is a "genetic mistake", unless you want to make the claim that everything thatmakes us different from our proto 1 celled ancestors is a "genetic mistake".
You are once again taking the worst possible interpretation: every mutation is a "mistake" in the process of cellular duplication, that's all I said. Whether this "mistake" will have good or bad consequences will depend on how this is manifested in the individual and how it will fit with the environment.
No. I don't think so. Your original comment is basically 2 parts.
"If we are talking about genes, the goal is to keep the ability to duplicate itself."
We have already discussed the above. You then proceed on that basis.
"If there is anything about this duplication process that has lead to the individual's brain development with difficulties to adapt to life with their tribe, socialization and chances of finding a mate are also hindered"
You are basically restating evolution through the process of natural selection, with the implication that Neurodivergency is bad, because you are less genetically fit.
I have, I hope demonstrated that that isn't necessarily the case. Neurodivergency can make the tribe more genetically fit, therefore the inference we are meant to draw from your post is incorrect.
Unless we are expected to ignore the context, and you are just talking about evolution abstractly. But I would hope everyone here knows the basics of evolution, so why did you repeat them for no particular reason?
Edit. Ps. My first response was more than fair, and you accused me of constructing a strawman, so please don't accuse me of using an unfair interpretation.
> I hope demonstrated that that isn't necessarily the case. Neurodivergency can make the tribe more genetically fit.
You are conflating fitness of the individual with population robustness against systemic shocks.
> But I would hope everyone here knows the basics of evolution, so why did you repeat them for no particular reason?
Because (1) not everyone understands the basics of evolution, (2) to make my argument I wanted to establish where I am coming from and (3) this is a public forum and I am not addressing you in the particular, you might feel like I am "stating the obvious" but to other people this is a pretty standard and effective way to ensure the communication is clear.
> the implication that Neurodivergency is bad, because you are less genetically fit.
I am not implying anything and I tried to be clear that there is no "good" or "bad" when you have "experts describing what is normal/typical".
>You are conflating fitness of the individual with population robustness against systemic shocks
Yes and as per my first example, the ones who don't drink the contaminated water survive. The population robustness is people doing things differently and not dying. Fitness of the individual is population robustness where that individual does something different.
>(1) not everyone understands the basics of evolution, (2) to make my argument I wanted to establish where I am coming from
Right. So did you get past (1) or not? Your argument seems to be that neurodivergents are less likely to pass on their genes. I'm saying that isn't necessarily so.
> the population robustness is people doing things differently and not dying.
No, you created a completely contrived example in an absurdly complex and dynamic system and assumed your outcome is the only one possible. You are fantasizing a completely stereotypical behavior (neurotypical people act like sheep) to say "they would all drink poisoned water and die", when the story could just as well be that the second group of people would notice the source of danger and go after the others who are drinking something else.
The advantage of diversity in the population would be determined if individuals in an heterogeneous group by the same threat or pathogen survived at different rates.
> I'm saying that isn't necessarily so.
Not necessarily so doesn't stop it from likely being so, and I posit that neurodivergent people are likely to have far fewer children than neurotypical ones.
You do realise that modern germ theory was discovered in the 19th century due to cholera in a well. The 19th century! So no it isn't obvious. London's sewers were originally built to get rid of the smell, ie 'miasma'.
The outcome doesn't have to be likely. Just likely enough.
Yes perhaps I was over egging the pudding with the sheep comment. The point that we both agree on is that neurodivergents think differently.
> modern germ theory was discovered in the 19th century due to cholera in a well.
So what? If you see people getting sick after drinking from a well, you don't need to know the science to know that water is not safe. Birds do not need to know the laws of physics in order to fly around, etc.
If anything, you should look at your contrived example to understand that most people will not wait for a scientific explanation to establish social norms. A lot of Organized Religion "doctrines" are just learned behaviors that gained some metaphysical explanation in order to be passed down the generations. To this day we have people who do not eat pork out of the belief that they are not "clean", and while this is would be a perfectly valid assumption millennia ago, no amount of "Science" and laboratory analysis will convince an observant Muslim, Jew or Seventh-Day Adventist to go eat some bacon.
> The point that we both agree on is that neurodivergents think differently.
This is tautological and never has been the point of disagreement. If you don't mind, I'd rather just let this go now...
I sometimes wonder if there are other possible neurodivergence, I'm not neurotypical, but I'm also not autistic (at least according to the criteria I've seen), just a bit odd or quirky doesn't seem to be enough.
Thanks, I didn't really mean it was a negative, perhaps this is indicative of the problem - someone finds things odd, therefore here's a list of diagnoses. I should up my dosage of soma probably.
thats ok, I'm not really disturbed. I do wonder if there's evolving a restricted definition of 'normal' in some circles. I am older and it never used to be this way, it's the internet of course. People aren't that homogenised (imho).
oh ok, thats classified as neurodivergent to, there we go, seems a poor way to organise things. It wasn't a thing when I was young, good to know, thanks
The neurodivergent label was always incredibly stupid though. It's an entire movement trying to make it sound that having a pathological condition is fashionable. Something like a super quirky, human difference, as opposed to a health problem. Even though the condition is defined in the context of reduced functioning in society. OPs site is a good example of that flawed line of thinking.
The bigger issue is that the various illnesses under the "neurodivergent" umbrella have wide differences in impact. So you might get people who function in society and others who can't do anything. The former of which wants to make it some quirky personality trait. They both still have the condition though...
It's not a health problem though. Neurodivergency (christ I hate that word) is far more prevalent than you'd expect, particularly ASD and ADHD, some 20% of the population. These traits have self selected for a reason, and any issues encountered are a fault of modern society not the individual imo.
> These traits have self selected for a reason, and any issues encountered are a fault of modern society not the individual imo.
I mean, quite apart from the fact that you can be so profoundly autistic that you are vulnerable and cognitively limited, and so profoundly ADHD that you are incapable of keeping yourself safe.
I am as yet formally undiagnosed ADHD; it is obvious, so obvious to me that either I am in later life finally unable to blunder through with the ADHD patterns that are evident throughout my life, or I have early onset dementia (which is how severe it often feels).
It is in no way society's fault that I am impaired. I have no special talents from my condition that other people with better time management could not also have acquired (and often do, better than me).
There may be a benefit to society from my profound inability to manage time leading to me productively hyperfocussing on something that society wants, but this comes at a cost to my health.
So I don't really care for the idea that these traits might "select"; it is a disorder.
Sorry for you struggles. Not to speak to your specific experience but in evolutionary terms there are other ways to look at neurodivergence besides the challenges: https://complementarycognition.co.uk/
Hyperfocus for example can be highly beneficial if you manage to point it in the right direction, and in general neurodivergence tends to specialise either into explorers or exploiters, that is, those who are good at exploring the space of possible solutions, and those who are good at applying a specific solution to solve the problem at hand. Such skills can be problematic in isolation (as you've described), but in combination can be very powerful and could've therefore been instrumental to our past success as a species.
I understand this is not much comfort for an individual who is struggling, but I second the GP in saying that many modern societies are not setup to provide the best environment for the neurodivergent among us to thrive, to the detriment of everyone.
> Hyperfocus for example can be highly beneficial if you manage to point it in the right direction
If you have the social support to cope with the costs of hyperfocus: forgetting to complete other tasks, losing track of broader priorities, and the risk of burnout.
Hyperfocus is dysregulation. It just looks productive. But it is stealing from your present (other tasks you are neglecting) or your future (burnout).
Sure, there are autistic and ADHD traits that are primarily a problem because of the structure of our modern society.
But just you try being severely ADHD, and ending up with your yogurt going bad on the counter and growing mold because your clutter blindness made you not notice it was there for 3 weeks. Or you start reading a good book, and 10 hours later you realize that you haven't had anything to eat all day, and neither has your cat. Or you just literally cannot force yourself to do basic household chores, and because you're undiagnosed you don't know why, and your roommates/significant other just decide you're lazy and selfish and kick you out.
There are plenty of neurodivergent traits that have never been net-positive, regardless if they have some specific evolutionary reason for existing. (We don't even know that they do; they may just come along for the ride with the other traits. We don't yet understand the neurophysiology of these conditions well enough to say to what extent they're just knock-on effects of something deeper.)
I used to think that the hyperfocus and the many small talents I have acquired were a net up-side to my disorder. But now I see they don't even fully compensate, and neurotypical people are just as good at all those things as I am if they dedicate similar time, and they don't struggle to pay their bills or do paperwork.
I am still undiagnosed — because even getting that done involves a level of organisation — and it has taken me fully burning out and trying to learn how to do things without relying on hyperfocus and deadline adrenaline, two mechanisms that fully broke, to realise that I was always impaired. I was just skating by because I went to a good school and had attentive parents.
The superpower narrative makes me mad. The Alex Partridge "ADHD people are experts at <whatever>" bullshit makes me mad.
> Mental disorders are clearly not “natural kind” categories that can be defined using polythetic symptom checklists, which assume that a symptom can only be “present” or “absent” (9). In fact, it is debatable whether any medical conditions have this property. […] Thus, clinicians use the DSM framework not as the final word on psychiatric nosology but rather as one tool among others for treatment selection and communication with patients and families (11, 12).
In fact, in the case of autism, and if autism is conceptualised as a lifelong neurodevelopmental difference, the criteria logically can’t be the definition since they reference “current functioning”, which could go one way or the other for the same person depending on their circumstances.
If you were immensely intelligent to the point that most of the population found your ground breaking insight boring. Would you think you were deficient? Or different? What would others think of you? If they don't appreciate your immense intelligence they'd just think you're boring because you talk about random maths nonsense.
Is the $SPORT fan that insists on discussing sport, in a group where no one else likes sport 'deficient'? What about the non $SPORT fan in a group of fans who insist on discussing the latest game?
As someone who relates to the article, it reads a lot less like humor. It's a grim reality.
Constantly being told there's something wrong with you, only to see clearly those around you, has a profoundly awful impact. Eventually it's replaced by more accurate internal modeling.
> Constantly being told there's something wrong with you
Worse yet, there's likely much less wrong with you than there is with those who feel they need to label you as somehow "less" to feel like "more" themselves.
The scenario which drives me insane is; someone tells me some popular mainstream narrative about why we should do something in a particular way. Essentially just parroting expert consensus on a similar topic. I tell them exactly why this approach wouldn't work in that particular case and they concede to all my points. They fully agree and don't push back on anything.
But then a few minutes later, they're still pushing for the exact same mainstream expert consensus approach and ignoring all my earlier points which they had literally just agreed to. WTF.
The impression I get is that they liked how my arguments sounded superficially and felt that other people in the meeting also agreed but they didn't actually understand any of it! It's like they only absorbed it in a very superficial way; just enough to allow them to rephrase it or to add a few supporting points but somehow they really didn't actually understand the essence of the argument.
This has been a theme for me over the past couple of years.
I'm noticing the limitations of words and language, including those that come out of my own mouth.
You can choose your words carefully, but it's useless unless your audience knows to look for those nuances.
Sometimes I've caught myself repeating something twice in a slightly different way to increase the probability that people understood it correctly. But you can't repeat yourself all the time or else people will think something's wrong with you... Or they will find it condescending.
Try writing down the points you’re trying to get across.
I often have half baked ideas that only form properly from either attempting to write it down succinctly, or hashing it out in a small group (2 others max) for a longer time.
Succinctly is doing a lot of work too. Anything more than a few small paragraphs is too much for people’s attentions spans.
It might also be that they just agree with you to not get into conflict with you because they know you won't want to see their perspective, and once you're done with your monologue they happily move on to the next person and you don't even realize they didn't care anything about what you told them
“Neurotypical syndrome is a neurobiological disorder characterized by preoccupation with social concerns, delusions of superiority, and obsession with conformity.”
But then the author says:
“My brain is a jewel. I am in awe of the mind that I have.”
In my opinion, that’s just a victim mentality. There is a lot of suffering in this world. When you’re above average, like the author, you should be able to recognize that, put your own problems into perspective, and compare them to what’s happening around you. From there, the natural conclusion should be to stay quiet about it
what?? such an absolutely tone-deaf and privileged thing to say. just because there is suffering in the world means that the suffering that i and others experience isn't worth speaking out about? You do know that when people talk about their problems other people that have those same problems can relate to them, and it brings a sense of relief to both parties, right?
I lose respect when I see this kind of incongruency. If you talk about other people's delusions of superiority, then how is it possible to think of yourself as a jewel? I didn’t create the account to shit on the person; it’s just rare that I comment.
"Neurotypical syndrome is a neurobiological disorder characterized by preoccupation with social concerns, delusions of superiority, and obsession with conformity.”
- Yeah, those people are super annoying!
“My brain is a jewel. I am in awe of the mind that I have.”
Given the author of the page, I would completely agree with her assessment-- especially given what's happened in the ~28 years that have passed since the site went up.
You "instantly losing respect" because an autistic person dares value her own mind when others pathologize is part of the point of why it was posted. The satire wasn't there to seek approval in 1998 in the first place, amazingly.
Oh yes and probably the authors themselves have a related form on neuro-atypical-divergence know as neuro-tragically-compulsive-analisys disorder, related to a quite common social-accademic-pressure about being in control and classificate all things they do not have in control and that they do not clearly can relate with, causing a pathology, relatively benign, consisting in create pseudo-scientific-terms to apply to all those things, and disseminate it at large for their inner-related causal-impulse of saving all the world, and their social-satisfied ego.
seriously (just a little): the world, the life, is way more various then all their philosopy.. live and let live is a good starting point for anything..
After reading this several times, I've tried to identify if your satire is trying to meet the author's satire somewhere over the Atlantic, or if it's aimed at some kind of self-reference or in-joke that I'm just not parsing.
It demonstrates the author's point from back in the 1990s so well, but also makes its own biting social commentary on how often authoritative-sounding language gets weaponized by a majority to dismiss and mock that which they fail to understand.
Impressive level of historical continuity. The dryness nearly threw me.
maybe you are right, quite sure is all 3 things at the same time :) about something that, by my point of view, is -very- easy to understand, but, i know, ymmv.
I feel that in this kind of matter, demonstrations (an others things) are in the eye of beholder, and a language that has a specific weight much greater than what it seeks to represent, set afloat in the sea of life, runs the risk of capsizing and sinking (feel free to laugh here).
it's inevitable and i'm (partially) resigned to the implications it has on whole (modern) life, but anyone who wants to continue to pathologize vivisect and classify human experience is free to do so, but (for me) regarding life, true knowledge comes first over (presumed) academicism
[Following note]: If the author's satire is (as it may seem, and perhaps even understandable) in practice it perfectly overlaps with truly serious "studies" (including his own?) that are the true object of various reflections and some counter-satire, a bit mimetic, a bit casual. It is the true "author" behind the author, the excuse for another reflection: on something as mysterious as the human mind, countless theories can be invented, current therapies, schools, and fortunes can be built upon it, which may perhaps interest and even help someone (really?). But none seems to go beyond that, on something (diversity, strangeness, pain, and joy, and even madness) that in ancient times were the sign of the divine, of everything that goes beyond comprehension.
Today, everything seems to be resolved by applying a "cure" to a more or less tailor-made "pathology," but this is a very narrow horizon within which we lock ourselves away from life and the mind, and it is easily abused and degraded in its socio-industrial theorizing and applications.
Therefore, in my opinion, particularly regarding "preoccupation with social concerns, delusions of superiority, and obsession with conformity" (avoiding laughing, because maybe someone is genuinely worried), I believe that we need to put the spotlight on other things, such as society, culture, education, and inner growth, and the "pathologies" will be reduced to the minimum real number, on which to then elaborate a deeper reflection.
"What if I'm the normal one and the rest of society is wrong"
This kind of framing-inversion might work as a coping mechanism to get you through some dark times as a spergy adolescent. But eventually you have to reconcile yourself to the reality of autism: it really is a neuro-developmental disorder and you actually do have deficits in social understanding, which you might be able to improve with deliberate effort. You have a lot stacked against you, but if you're well into adulthood and still stewing in this self-defeating resentment, that is a moral failing.
The linked article is old so it pre-dates the "neurodivergence" idea, but the comments here are using it uncritically. "Neurodivergence" de facto just means "autistic and/or ADHD", usually with a particular kind of autistic taking a dominant role in discussions and advocacy. It has always been a political coalition (quite an esoteric one).
But when you take ADHD on its own terms, the social-model extremism of "neurodiversity" advocates is particularly silly and harmful. ADHD people are perfectly happy with the disability-model; there clearly is something wrong with our brains, it's measurable with brain scans, and the symptoms can be improved with drugs. Don't tell me that ADHD is some equally-valid "attention orientation" or whatever social-model pretzel phrase you might come up with.
As for autism: try telling someone with severe autism, someone who can't speak or clothe or feed themselves that what they are living with is just another perfectly valid neurotype. Try telling it to their caretakers. It's a risible luxury-belief enjoyed by autistics only slightly on the spectrum, and indulged by people who don't know better.
> "What if I'm the normal one and the rest of society is wrong"
You do realise they’re not saying that in earnest, right? The point is to demonstrate the absurdity of it.
> But eventually you have to reconcile yourself to the reality of autism: it really is a neuro-developmental disorder and you actually do have deficits in social understanding, which you might be able to improve with deliberate effort.
The reality is that what you just wrote is just as true in the non-autistic → autistic direction (https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1362361320919286). Blaming one side for this bidirectional mismatch is not a universal truth.
“If we start from the assumption that neurotypicals are ‘normal,’ and Autistics are ‘disordered,’ then poor connections between neurotypicals and Autistics inevitably get blamed on some ‘defect’ or ‘deficit’ in Autistics. If an Autistic can’t understand a neurotypical, it’s because Autistics have empathy deficits and impaired communication skills; if a neurotypical can’t understand an Autistic, it’s because Autistics have empathy deficits and poor communication skills. All the frictions and failures of connection between the two groups, and all the difficulties Autistics run into in neurotypical society, all get blamed on Autism. But when our vision is no longer clouded by the illusion of ‘normal,’ we can recognize this double standard for what it is, recognize it as just another manifestation of the sort of privilege and power that dominant majorities so often wield over minorities of any sort.”
>This kind of framing-inversion might work as a coping mechanism to get you through some dark times as a spergy adolescent. But eventually you have to reconcile yourself to the reality of autism: it really is a neuro-developmental disorder and you actually do have deficits in social understanding, which you might be able to improve with deliberate effort. You have a lot stacked against you, but if you're well into adulthood and still stewing in this self-defeating resentment, that is a moral failing
You do realise Neurodivergent people have spent their life trying to make sense of the rest of the world in a way that NTs don't need to.
You call it "deficits in social understanding" I call it not understanding why people lie, and not mean what they say.
Do you term it "deficits in social understanding" when someone thinks it's wrong to murder people?
Do you term it "deficits in social understanding" when you don't understand a Neurodivergent person?
You're just equivocating statistical frequency with 'normal' and then with 'correct'.
The point of the article is to point out those flawed assumptions. Obviously your 'deficits in social understanding' prevented you from realising that.
The point is to parody the pathologisation of cognitive functioning that differs from the societal norm (see: “neuronormativity”). You’re just reasserting that pathologisation.
If peoples' attributes exist on a normal distribution and you keep coming up with new attributes to measure, eventually everyone will have at least one extreme attribute..
There is no "next step" in evolution, nor any concern for what is or is not "detrimental for us as a spieces".
Evolution is much simpler, at its core: Is autism heritable and do autistic people leave behind more viable offspring than the non-autistic? Then the proportion of autistic people can be expected to grow, otherwise it most likely won't
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[ 0.33 ms ] story [ 5.6 ms ] threadObviously. It would come off as sarcastic humor if so many of the basic facts were correct. Neurotypical people are only just above 80% of the population, so the author is in more common company than they believe.
That, IMHO, is what makes it so delicious.
Autistic and neuroatypical are not better critical thinkers. Fairly often they just ... dont understand certain things.
And wont accept clear straightforward plain language explanation of what others want, because in their heads they should not.
From experience this feels to me like a very NT thing to say (apologies if you're not NT, no context to determine either way) - it comes across as written: "Why can't you just do what I ask you".
Often it feels atypical people require a logical understanding from first principles of why something should be done.
Then, once they have that they need to come to the same conclusion of what the course of action is.
If they're aligned, awesome.
If not, then the work is to try to make them understand why, given the current constraints and cultural context, their optimal approach is suboptimal in this situation.
Something as simple as "yes your idea is great, it will work better then theirs, but sometimes others need to fail so that they can learn from their failure" - exact quote.
I'm speaking to a very limited subset here based on quite a bit of exposure in many contexts.
"Neuroatypical" shows up in many, many ways.
And wont accept clear straightforward plain language explanation of what others want, because in their heads they should not.
I don't have a problem with people looking inwards, but surely to maintain any kind of rationality you need to balance it by also reminding yourself to look outwards.
And looking outwards is exactly what it does since it references societal neuronormativity. It’s not about the “shortcomings you have”.
It does if you require to be treated specially.
Whether you are neurodivergent, LGBTQ, or you get around on a bicycle, they treat you with the same derision and lack of sincere curiosity. Lindsay Gibson has written about these sorts of folks.
Is this actually happening widely, or just in some spaces and it blows it out of proportions?
> constantly seeking to remind both yourself and society of your neurodivergency and any shortcomings you have with that seems almost like a crab bucket mentality
Is this what's happening or what you believe is happening? To me, it however looks like much more people are getting the help and support they need for this, compared to when I was a teenager. To me it's not learned helplessness or what it is you're trying to describe, but learning how to navigate society, and society being more aware of other's struggles. In the same vein that learning about structural racism isn't about disparaging people, but lifting everyone.
If I got diagnosed 10 or 20 years earlier, I wouldn't have dropped out of university and my life would have been profoundly different and better.
Obviously, this is a sample of 1 so take it with a grain of salt. I am just naturally stubborn which helped me learn to deal with these problems on my own.
I'm myself bipolar (diagnosed) and very likely autistic (undiagnosed) and having a base understanding on the why and how my brain works has been a significant improvement.
In practice, understanding one's neurotype can provide the foundation necessary towards addressing friction, dealing with environments developed exclusively for a radically different baseline, and getting the support and care necessary to have a reasonable quality of life.
The alternatives often lead to massive dysfunction, especially since it compounds with systemic gaslighting and being told that the hell you're experiencing is normal and that it's a character flaw to have any difficulties or differences.
The satire of ISNT frames the very real negative framing that was already deeply pervasive 28 years ago.
Well, it is a mistake. It is a deviation from the normal path. But so what? This is not a moral codemnation of any individual. Without any mistakes, there would no be life in the world as we know.
> I and my experience of life is not inferior, and may be superior, to the NT experience of life.
I am not quite able to put in words right now, but the sentiment expressed here seems like a perfect illustration of what happens when we let society become hyper-atomized and the fetishization of the individual.
If you say it is a mistake, then you must know what the goal is.
What happens when the traditional source gets contaminated?
The outsider then has an advantage.
Yes tribal dynamics require people to act like sheep, but that can lead to getting stuck in local maxima, and not having any diversity.
You are talking about putting all your eggs in the tribal cohesion basket.
That doesn't deal very well with black swan events. Not putting all your eggs in one basket maintains the ability of the tribe to "duplicate itself".
So given that I have provided an mechanism for improved survival of the group, that doesn't require the group to be completely homogeneous, please explain how I strawmanned your argument.
Or maybe point out what point you were trying to make, as it evidently isn't very clear
Sorry, that's waaaay off the mark.
I am taking about OP's remark where he wants experts to not "talk about his brain (development) having a genetic mistake", and I am saying that any individual with a brain that has developed in a way that diverges from the norm (and consequently makes it more difficult to socialize, empathize and find a mate), then we can definitely say that this brain has a "genetic mistake".
That is your basis for 'mistake', and the general position that you are objectively right.
I am saying divergence from the norm can also be a benefit towards the goal of keeping the ability to duplicate. Therefore you can't say that the genetic imperative to duplicate proves you are objectively right. Therefore you can't really support the view that it is a "genetic mistake", unless you want to make the claim that everything thatmakes us different from our proto 1 celled ancestors is a "genetic mistake".
"If we are talking about genes, the goal is to keep the ability to duplicate itself."
We have already discussed the above. You then proceed on that basis.
"If there is anything about this duplication process that has lead to the individual's brain development with difficulties to adapt to life with their tribe, socialization and chances of finding a mate are also hindered"
You are basically restating evolution through the process of natural selection, with the implication that Neurodivergency is bad, because you are less genetically fit.
I have, I hope demonstrated that that isn't necessarily the case. Neurodivergency can make the tribe more genetically fit, therefore the inference we are meant to draw from your post is incorrect.
Unless we are expected to ignore the context, and you are just talking about evolution abstractly. But I would hope everyone here knows the basics of evolution, so why did you repeat them for no particular reason?
Edit. Ps. My first response was more than fair, and you accused me of constructing a strawman, so please don't accuse me of using an unfair interpretation.
You are conflating fitness of the individual with population robustness against systemic shocks.
> But I would hope everyone here knows the basics of evolution, so why did you repeat them for no particular reason?
Because (1) not everyone understands the basics of evolution, (2) to make my argument I wanted to establish where I am coming from and (3) this is a public forum and I am not addressing you in the particular, you might feel like I am "stating the obvious" but to other people this is a pretty standard and effective way to ensure the communication is clear.
> the implication that Neurodivergency is bad, because you are less genetically fit.
I am not implying anything and I tried to be clear that there is no "good" or "bad" when you have "experts describing what is normal/typical".
Yes and as per my first example, the ones who don't drink the contaminated water survive. The population robustness is people doing things differently and not dying. Fitness of the individual is population robustness where that individual does something different.
>(1) not everyone understands the basics of evolution, (2) to make my argument I wanted to establish where I am coming from
Right. So did you get past (1) or not? Your argument seems to be that neurodivergents are less likely to pass on their genes. I'm saying that isn't necessarily so.
No, you created a completely contrived example in an absurdly complex and dynamic system and assumed your outcome is the only one possible. You are fantasizing a completely stereotypical behavior (neurotypical people act like sheep) to say "they would all drink poisoned water and die", when the story could just as well be that the second group of people would notice the source of danger and go after the others who are drinking something else.
The advantage of diversity in the population would be determined if individuals in an heterogeneous group by the same threat or pathogen survived at different rates.
> I'm saying that isn't necessarily so.
Not necessarily so doesn't stop it from likely being so, and I posit that neurodivergent people are likely to have far fewer children than neurotypical ones.
The outcome doesn't have to be likely. Just likely enough.
Yes perhaps I was over egging the pudding with the sheep comment. The point that we both agree on is that neurodivergents think differently.
So what? If you see people getting sick after drinking from a well, you don't need to know the science to know that water is not safe. Birds do not need to know the laws of physics in order to fly around, etc.
If anything, you should look at your contrived example to understand that most people will not wait for a scientific explanation to establish social norms. A lot of Organized Religion "doctrines" are just learned behaviors that gained some metaphysical explanation in order to be passed down the generations. To this day we have people who do not eat pork out of the belief that they are not "clean", and while this is would be a perfectly valid assumption millennia ago, no amount of "Science" and laboratory analysis will convince an observant Muslim, Jew or Seventh-Day Adventist to go eat some bacon.
> The point that we both agree on is that neurodivergents think differently.
This is tautological and never has been the point of disagreement. If you don't mind, I'd rather just let this go now...
This is a non sequitur. Why do you assume variation is a “mistake”? And how do you define “normal”?
I don't display the obvious traits, like stimming.
And then there's autistic burn out, where you can't concentrate on things anymore.
I found the Austistamatic YouTube channel quite helpful fwiw.
The bigger issue is that the various illnesses under the "neurodivergent" umbrella have wide differences in impact. So you might get people who function in society and others who can't do anything. The former of which wants to make it some quirky personality trait. They both still have the condition though...
I mean, quite apart from the fact that you can be so profoundly autistic that you are vulnerable and cognitively limited, and so profoundly ADHD that you are incapable of keeping yourself safe.
I am as yet formally undiagnosed ADHD; it is obvious, so obvious to me that either I am in later life finally unable to blunder through with the ADHD patterns that are evident throughout my life, or I have early onset dementia (which is how severe it often feels).
It is in no way society's fault that I am impaired. I have no special talents from my condition that other people with better time management could not also have acquired (and often do, better than me).
There may be a benefit to society from my profound inability to manage time leading to me productively hyperfocussing on something that society wants, but this comes at a cost to my health.
So I don't really care for the idea that these traits might "select"; it is a disorder.
Hyperfocus for example can be highly beneficial if you manage to point it in the right direction, and in general neurodivergence tends to specialise either into explorers or exploiters, that is, those who are good at exploring the space of possible solutions, and those who are good at applying a specific solution to solve the problem at hand. Such skills can be problematic in isolation (as you've described), but in combination can be very powerful and could've therefore been instrumental to our past success as a species.
I understand this is not much comfort for an individual who is struggling, but I second the GP in saying that many modern societies are not setup to provide the best environment for the neurodivergent among us to thrive, to the detriment of everyone.
If you have the social support to cope with the costs of hyperfocus: forgetting to complete other tasks, losing track of broader priorities, and the risk of burnout.
Hyperfocus is dysregulation. It just looks productive. But it is stealing from your present (other tasks you are neglecting) or your future (burnout).
Sure, there are autistic and ADHD traits that are primarily a problem because of the structure of our modern society.
But just you try being severely ADHD, and ending up with your yogurt going bad on the counter and growing mold because your clutter blindness made you not notice it was there for 3 weeks. Or you start reading a good book, and 10 hours later you realize that you haven't had anything to eat all day, and neither has your cat. Or you just literally cannot force yourself to do basic household chores, and because you're undiagnosed you don't know why, and your roommates/significant other just decide you're lazy and selfish and kick you out.
There are plenty of neurodivergent traits that have never been net-positive, regardless if they have some specific evolutionary reason for existing. (We don't even know that they do; they may just come along for the ride with the other traits. We don't yet understand the neurophysiology of these conditions well enough to say to what extent they're just knock-on effects of something deeper.)
I used to think that the hyperfocus and the many small talents I have acquired were a net up-side to my disorder. But now I see they don't even fully compensate, and neurotypical people are just as good at all those things as I am if they dedicate similar time, and they don't struggle to pay their bills or do paperwork.
I am still undiagnosed — because even getting that done involves a level of organisation — and it has taken me fully burning out and trying to learn how to do things without relying on hyperfocus and deadline adrenaline, two mechanisms that fully broke, to realise that I was always impaired. I was just skating by because I went to a good school and had attentive parents.
The superpower narrative makes me mad. The Alex Partridge "ADHD people are experts at <whatever>" bullshit makes me mad.
> Even though the condition is defined in the context of reduced functioning in society.
Diagnostic criteria are not a definition. Even the organisation that publishes the DSM acknowledges it: https://psychiatryonline.org/doi/10.1176/appi.ajp.20250876
> Mental disorders are clearly not “natural kind” categories that can be defined using polythetic symptom checklists, which assume that a symptom can only be “present” or “absent” (9). In fact, it is debatable whether any medical conditions have this property. […] Thus, clinicians use the DSM framework not as the final word on psychiatric nosology but rather as one tool among others for treatment selection and communication with patients and families (11, 12).
In fact, in the case of autism, and if autism is conceptualised as a lifelong neurodevelopmental difference, the criteria logically can’t be the definition since they reference “current functioning”, which could go one way or the other for the same person depending on their circumstances.
If you were immensely intelligent to the point that most of the population found your ground breaking insight boring. Would you think you were deficient? Or different? What would others think of you? If they don't appreciate your immense intelligence they'd just think you're boring because you talk about random maths nonsense.
Is the $SPORT fan that insists on discussing sport, in a group where no one else likes sport 'deficient'? What about the non $SPORT fan in a group of fans who insist on discussing the latest game?
Constantly being told there's something wrong with you, only to see clearly those around you, has a profoundly awful impact. Eventually it's replaced by more accurate internal modeling.
Worse yet, there's likely much less wrong with you than there is with those who feel they need to label you as somehow "less" to feel like "more" themselves.
The scenario which drives me insane is; someone tells me some popular mainstream narrative about why we should do something in a particular way. Essentially just parroting expert consensus on a similar topic. I tell them exactly why this approach wouldn't work in that particular case and they concede to all my points. They fully agree and don't push back on anything.
But then a few minutes later, they're still pushing for the exact same mainstream expert consensus approach and ignoring all my earlier points which they had literally just agreed to. WTF.
The impression I get is that they liked how my arguments sounded superficially and felt that other people in the meeting also agreed but they didn't actually understand any of it! It's like they only absorbed it in a very superficial way; just enough to allow them to rephrase it or to add a few supporting points but somehow they really didn't actually understand the essence of the argument.
I think in your scenario that’s applying both ways.
You can choose your words carefully, but it's useless unless your audience knows to look for those nuances.
Sometimes I've caught myself repeating something twice in a slightly different way to increase the probability that people understood it correctly. But you can't repeat yourself all the time or else people will think something's wrong with you... Or they will find it condescending.
I often have half baked ideas that only form properly from either attempting to write it down succinctly, or hashing it out in a small group (2 others max) for a longer time.
Succinctly is doing a lot of work too. Anything more than a few small paragraphs is too much for people’s attentions spans.
“Neurotypical syndrome is a neurobiological disorder characterized by preoccupation with social concerns, delusions of superiority, and obsession with conformity.”
But then the author says:
“My brain is a jewel. I am in awe of the mind that I have.”
Lost all respect instantly.
Just imagine there’s a cult that tells everyone that you and people like you are a mistake that should have been killed or “fixed” in the womb.
I maintain respect for the author, they have a good attitude in a grim reality.
what?? such an absolutely tone-deaf and privileged thing to say. just because there is suffering in the world means that the suffering that i and others experience isn't worth speaking out about? You do know that when people talk about their problems other people that have those same problems can relate to them, and it brings a sense of relief to both parties, right?
How so? Why? What drove this comment?
"Neurotypical syndrome is a neurobiological disorder characterized by preoccupation with social concerns, delusions of superiority, and obsession with conformity.”
- Yeah, those people are super annoying!
“My brain is a jewel. I am in awe of the mind that I have.”
- Yeah, those people are super annoying!
You "instantly losing respect" because an autistic person dares value her own mind when others pathologize is part of the point of why it was posted. The satire wasn't there to seek approval in 1998 in the first place, amazingly.
seriously (just a little): the world, the life, is way more various then all their philosopy.. live and let live is a good starting point for anything..
It demonstrates the author's point from back in the 1990s so well, but also makes its own biting social commentary on how often authoritative-sounding language gets weaponized by a majority to dismiss and mock that which they fail to understand.
Impressive level of historical continuity. The dryness nearly threw me.
I feel that in this kind of matter, demonstrations (an others things) are in the eye of beholder, and a language that has a specific weight much greater than what it seeks to represent, set afloat in the sea of life, runs the risk of capsizing and sinking (feel free to laugh here).
it's inevitable and i'm (partially) resigned to the implications it has on whole (modern) life, but anyone who wants to continue to pathologize vivisect and classify human experience is free to do so, but (for me) regarding life, true knowledge comes first over (presumed) academicism
Today, everything seems to be resolved by applying a "cure" to a more or less tailor-made "pathology," but this is a very narrow horizon within which we lock ourselves away from life and the mind, and it is easily abused and degraded in its socio-industrial theorizing and applications.
Therefore, in my opinion, particularly regarding "preoccupation with social concerns, delusions of superiority, and obsession with conformity" (avoiding laughing, because maybe someone is genuinely worried), I believe that we need to put the spotlight on other things, such as society, culture, education, and inner growth, and the "pathologies" will be reduced to the minimum real number, on which to then elaborate a deeper reflection.
This kind of framing-inversion might work as a coping mechanism to get you through some dark times as a spergy adolescent. But eventually you have to reconcile yourself to the reality of autism: it really is a neuro-developmental disorder and you actually do have deficits in social understanding, which you might be able to improve with deliberate effort. You have a lot stacked against you, but if you're well into adulthood and still stewing in this self-defeating resentment, that is a moral failing.
The linked article is old so it pre-dates the "neurodivergence" idea, but the comments here are using it uncritically. "Neurodivergence" de facto just means "autistic and/or ADHD", usually with a particular kind of autistic taking a dominant role in discussions and advocacy. It has always been a political coalition (quite an esoteric one).
But when you take ADHD on its own terms, the social-model extremism of "neurodiversity" advocates is particularly silly and harmful. ADHD people are perfectly happy with the disability-model; there clearly is something wrong with our brains, it's measurable with brain scans, and the symptoms can be improved with drugs. Don't tell me that ADHD is some equally-valid "attention orientation" or whatever social-model pretzel phrase you might come up with.
As for autism: try telling someone with severe autism, someone who can't speak or clothe or feed themselves that what they are living with is just another perfectly valid neurotype. Try telling it to their caretakers. It's a risible luxury-belief enjoyed by autistics only slightly on the spectrum, and indulged by people who don't know better.
You do realise they’re not saying that in earnest, right? The point is to demonstrate the absurdity of it.
> But eventually you have to reconcile yourself to the reality of autism: it really is a neuro-developmental disorder and you actually do have deficits in social understanding, which you might be able to improve with deliberate effort.
The reality is that what you just wrote is just as true in the non-autistic → autistic direction (https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1362361320919286). Blaming one side for this bidirectional mismatch is not a universal truth.
https://neuroqueer.com/throw-away-the-masters-tools/
“If we start from the assumption that neurotypicals are ‘normal,’ and Autistics are ‘disordered,’ then poor connections between neurotypicals and Autistics inevitably get blamed on some ‘defect’ or ‘deficit’ in Autistics. If an Autistic can’t understand a neurotypical, it’s because Autistics have empathy deficits and impaired communication skills; if a neurotypical can’t understand an Autistic, it’s because Autistics have empathy deficits and poor communication skills. All the frictions and failures of connection between the two groups, and all the difficulties Autistics run into in neurotypical society, all get blamed on Autism. But when our vision is no longer clouded by the illusion of ‘normal,’ we can recognize this double standard for what it is, recognize it as just another manifestation of the sort of privilege and power that dominant majorities so often wield over minorities of any sort.”
You do realise Neurodivergent people have spent their life trying to make sense of the rest of the world in a way that NTs don't need to.
You call it "deficits in social understanding" I call it not understanding why people lie, and not mean what they say.
Do you term it "deficits in social understanding" when someone thinks it's wrong to murder people?
Do you term it "deficits in social understanding" when you don't understand a Neurodivergent person?
You're just equivocating statistical frequency with 'normal' and then with 'correct'.
The point of the article is to point out those flawed assumptions. Obviously your 'deficits in social understanding' prevented you from realising that.
.... Or is that a moral failing?
is it only me or this sounds crazy evil?
But… I can always make better decisions, coldly calculate pros and cons, dont let feelings take better of me.
Im much better at anything I do than your average person.
Example I started carpenting work, became better at it in few weeks than my teacher that does it for 20 years (his words).
Can start doing something new and become really good at it very fast.
In a logical sense - Im much much better than any average normal person at anything.
But Im deficient, because I have issues socializing or understanding ppl behaviour.
Ps. I also talk straight from heart, coz I see no value in lying.
Evolution is much simpler, at its core: Is autism heritable and do autistic people leave behind more viable offspring than the non-autistic? Then the proportion of autistic people can be expected to grow, otherwise it most likely won't