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- Hacker News
- Being somewhat odd is normal.by glimshe
- agree, as being normal is somewath odd.by effed3
- 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..by morkalork
- "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.
by _dain_ - >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.
.... Or is that a moral failing?
by benj111 - > "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.
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.”
> 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.
As for womanhood: try telling someone with severe endometriosis or menstrual pain that what they are living with is just another perfectly valid gender.
by spider-mario - 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...
by Uptrenda - 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.
- It's understandable though. Would you like to think of yourself as deficient, even if you really are?by stephbook
- This kind of reaction is exactly why the ISNT page appeared in 1998.
- ^ Bulverism.
> 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.
by spider-mario - How many out of every 10k _bloggers_, or even blog readers, are neurotypical
- Or even HN commenters?by childintime
- > This site is an expression of autistic outrage.
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.
- Well the original is more than 20 years old; hopefully they are feeling a bit happier now.by danparsonson
- 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.
- Have you looked into ADHD?by danparsonson
- Well it is a spectrum.
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.
by benj111 - I'm highly gifted, which has overlap with many autism traits. Maybe something to look at.by jochem9
- ADHD, OCD, BPD, bipolar are all forms of neurodivergent. I'm sure there are more too.by wyre
- Neurodivergent is absolutely not a synonym for autistic.
https://sherlocksflataffect.tumblr.com/post/121295972384/psa...
https://neuroqueer.com/neurodiversity-terms-and-definitions/
by spider-mario - I'm torn on whether I like this parody.
It is quite funny and IMO in good taste (which is hard to do when diagnosing 9,625 out of every 10,000 as deficient). It probably works well as an in-joke for people who prefer critical thinking to social proof.
But it isn't really appropriate to fight fire with fire when it comes to calling people disordered and the people who need to hear the message won't understand it because they key off social proof. In fact, they may literally not understand the gentle ribbing and might respond poorly.
3/5 stars.
by roenxi - I like to call NTs Neuro boring. Or 'Nobs' for short...by benj111
- 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”.by antonvs
- It’s probably worth noting it’s (2002) too. The internet was a different audience.by soneil
- > t probably works well as an in-joke for people who prefer critical thinking to social proof.
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.
by watwut - >In fact, they may literally not understand the gentle ribbing and might respond poorly.
That, IMHO, is what makes it so delicious.
by cam_l - Reminds me of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dihydrogen_monoxide_parodyby amelius
- So true. NT people are so frustrating!
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 kind of situation reminds me of the wordcel vs shape rotator discussion from a few years back. NT people are like wordcels.
by jongjong - 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 themby gitaarik