Comment by dimal

Comment by dimal 2 days ago

> Her video on autism is considered super harmful and misleading by actual autistic people.

I’m autistic and I just watched her video. I found it to be one of the best primers on autism I’ve seen. Not complete, of course, and there’s a lot more nuance to it, but very even handed. She doesn’t make any judgements. She just gives the history and talks about the controversies without choosing sides, except to say that the idea of neurodiversity seems reasonable to her. When compared to most of the discourse about autism, it stands up pretty well. Of course, there’s a lot more I want people to know about autism, but it’s an ok start.

Actually, many autistic people (myself included) would find your statement far more harmful. You assume that all autistic people think alike and believe the same thing. This is false. You try to defend us without understanding us.

Don’t do that.

I suppose there’s a possibility that you’re autistic and found it harmful to you. If so, don’t speak for me.

And she was commenting on an AI’s knowledge of Bell’s Inequality, which is PHYSICS. If she can’t comment on that, who can?

cardanome 2 days ago

There is a misunderstanding: I did not specify that ALL autistic people think like this. Just that autistic people found it harmful and misleading. There is quite a lot of autistic content creators criticizing the video. It does not mean every autistic person needs to feel the same way.

I am neurodivergent myself but (probably) not autistic. The first time I watched the video I actually didn't think that it was that bad and had a similar reaction to you. But once I started to think about it and educate myself more on the topic I realized how bad it is.

Sure it is not the worst video on autism but it still promotes some really bad ableist views.

Autism speaks it is a horrible hate organization. I don't think there is a spoiler tag here so please skip this paragraph if ableism is triggering to you but there is a video of the autism speaks founder where she talks about how she at one point wanted to kill herself and her autistic child because she couldn't cope with having an autistic child and only didn't do it because of her other non-autistic child. She says that while her autistic child is in the background.

I also didn't know about "aspie supremacy" and why people still use the term "asperger" despite being outdated. Hans Asperger was a Nazi Scientist who is responsible for killing thousands of children. He thought some autistic children might be useful as future scientists for the Nazi regime so assigned them the diagnoses "asperger syndrome" while the other autistic children were to be murdered.

I recommend you watch Ember Green on this topic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vaZZiX0veFY

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dimal 2 days ago

You said "Her video on autism is considered super harmful and misleading by actual autistic people".
While you didn't say ALL, you didn't clarify, so your wording says that autistic people categorically think her video is super harmful and misleading. That's simply not true.
I'm in a bit of a minority in that I see autism through the neurodiversity lens, but I also think this tribal us-vs-them mentality is doing us more harm than good. Tarring and feathering people for not getting everything exactly "right" by my standards isn't helping anyone. It just causes people to throw up their hands and vote Trump.
So, while I disagree with Autism Speaks on pretty much every point and I think they're extremely harmful, labeling them as a hate group is self-defeating. Parents with high-needs autistic children look to Autism Speaks. These parents love their children, but are being mislead. When you push people, they push back. If we shout "You're a hate group!" then all dialogue stops, and we can't help their children. And helping those children the important thing.
Ironically, I think the problem for Sabine is simply miscommunication, which is due to her probably being autistic and not communicating according to neurotypical standards. She ended the video by showing how she scored high on an online test (which isn't definitive, of course), but then she dismisses it out of hand.
I dismissed those tests too when I first took them, but that's because I still didn't really know what autism is, even after I did tons of research. I couldn't really know that by reading studies or talking to a psychologist. I didn't really know until I met other autistic people and realized that they actually "got" me in a way that no one else ever has.
Her behavior is VERY typical of autistic people. Monotone voice, hyperlogical, hypermoral. She quit a successful career in physics for moral reasons. No neurotypical person would do that. An autistic person would. She wears the same velour shirt in every video. Sensory issues(?), repetitive behavior.
It's up to her to make the call as to whether she's actually autistic or not, but I see her as one of us.
And... I'm going to need a TLDR on that Ember Green video. It's a 2 hour commentary on a 25 minute video. Instead of asking me to unpack the arguments, make them.

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