sal
@pathfinder @markusl @sentient_water @hosford42 @Tooden @actuallyautistic @neurodiversity How does it explain it? Autism is just a name for that cluster of traits that we already knew we had, it doesn't reveal anything about a cause.
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ScottinSoCal 🇺🇦 🕊 🏳‍🌈

@sal
I don't think he's talking about a cause, it's more "this is why".
For me, all my life I've wondered why am I like this? Why does that always happen to me? Why can't I just make friends/get along with people/feel comfortable in crowds?
Because I'm autistic. Not bad, not stupid, not broken, just autistic.

@actuallyautistic @neurodiversity @Tooden @pathfinder @markusl@fosstodon.org @sentient_water @hosford42

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sal
@ScottSoCal @actuallyautistic @neurodiversity @Tooden @pathfinder @markusl @sentient_water @hosford42 It's exactly the other way around though. We're autistic because of these qualities about us - we don't have these qualities about us because of autism. We're again repeating a tautology, nothing more: If we take it that 'autistic' describes people who have trouble socializing and feel uncomfortable in crowds and so on, and we find those things about ourselves are true, and later come to the term 'autistic', the only "explanation" we have gained is:

"Now I understand that I have trouble socializing and feel uncomfortable in crowds because I have trouble socializing and feel uncomfortable in crowds."

Answeing questions about stupidity or brokenness is something we can do through inquiry into the goals and ethics our social system handed to us. Not through holding a neat diagnostic box up as a talisman as if it explains something when it's only a subjective descriptor.
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ScottinSoCal 🇺🇦 🕊 🏳‍🌈

@sal

Autism is a physiological difference in the brain/nervous system. Our brains work differently.

@actuallyautistic @neurodiversity @Tooden @pathfinder @markusl@fosstodon.org @sentient_water @hosford42

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sal
@ScottSoCal @actuallyautistic @neurodiversity @Tooden @pathfinder @markusl @sentient_water @hosford42 Ok sure, and if I don't "have" that term, I already know that the way I experience the world through my mind/brain is different from the expected or imposed "norms" in certain ways.

What's more interesting to ask is: which ways of thinking and acting are demanded to be "explained," and which are treated as "the natural default needing no explanation"? Doctors and researchers may go around asking, "what causes this person to not make eye contact?" as they may ask, "what's making this person gay or trans?" or "what's making this person break laws?" Which all boils down to "what's making this person deviant?"

More seldom do they ask, "what's making these people straight?" "what's making these people follow the law?" or "what's making these people engage in eye contact, small talk, and an effort to 'do their best' at alienated labor?" But some do ask that - for instance The Straight Mind looks at how heterosexuality is produced, and the Prison Notebooks discuss how "common sense" is manufactured to keep people in line.
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ScottinSoCal 🇺🇦 🕊 🏳‍🌈
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@sal
I think you're on a mission, and that's totally valid, and I think you're asking good questions. But I'm not the guy to ask them of. I'm not on a mission, and I don't have the energy for one right now.

@actuallyautistic @neurodiversity @Tooden @pathfinder @markusl@fosstodon.org @sentient_water @hosford42

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