there are folks who consider discovering the gene for ASD to be eugenics
Thursday, 13 Mar 2025
Exclusive insights, data, and analysis for financial market experts.
Search
Have an existing account?
Sign In
i’m reminded by that Crying Baby Moral Dilemma, it’s very clearly a thought experiment but I’ve met people that think I want to kill babies for talking about it.
When I was young and active in various leftist groups on Facebook, I remember a trend among anarchists, like across multiple groups, was to extend the definition of “cop” to an absurd degree.
Like, “cop” means Oppressive State Apparatus, per Althusser? Makes sense, it’s just a bit linguistically confusing.
Somehow, though, that evolved into “literally anyone who works for the government is a cop”, in the most literal sense possible: people would joke, like asking “are garbage men cops?”, but there would inevitably be roughly half of the comment section unironically saying that they uphold state control, which makes bin collections an act of violence and they are therefore an oppressive instrument of the government, just like cops.
Mainstream leftism and social democracy may be lame, have no aesthetic and project “stepdad trying to be the cool dad” vibes, but at least they tend to avoid devolving into the ideological thunderdome…
I was talking about this with a friend last night. I think part of the issue is that the nature of internet discourse (and the state of the privatised, views-at-all-costs platforms most of it takes place on) is that all issues become completely polarised. Not a hot take, sure, but what this means is that you become paranoid and suspicious of other people’s motives and ideas, while becoming rigidly defensive of your own. This makes a lot of sense, and I do it myself- as a neurodivergent trans person, I have to hold the line or forfeit my right to exist- but in person it usually isn’t like this at all, outside of fringe zealots.
In my experience, trans people or ND people talking *in private, particularly in-person* have far more nuanced and fully-developed views on a range of topics relating to these things. You can’t share them publicly online because of the state of the discourse and the fact you will be dogpiled, but these conversations are out there and happening. It feels like we’ve been locked into this trench warfare situation online to prevent nuanced, informed opinions from forming, totally subverting the internet’s potential as a space for progressive discourses.
Reading the argument about how cochlear implants are bad, actually, was the point when I stopped engaging in online discourse.
Yes, this! For example, a lot of people flat out don’t hear the distinction between “Men have real problems related to social expectations and gender roles, and it would be best if progressive communities left room for discussions on how to address these” and “MEN ARE THE REAL VICTIMS, WOMEN NEED TO FIX EVERYTHING FOR MEN!” And once people decide they’re hearing the second one, it’s very hard to get them to not write off everything you’re saying.
Puritanism bad.
Searching for genes isn’t euginics
That said, I don’t believe the findings will not be used for eugenics, same as what happened with Down syndrome
>title
Silver lining, ASD people are both the populace this is most directly relevant to and also the populace most perfectly predisposed to discuss these things without giving a shit about the normie bullshit around it
This is how I feel about conversations surrounding pedophilia. Obviously anyone who does anything to a child is evil, and that deserves punishment. But a lot of people simply feel attraction to children, but don’t act on it. It’s not as if people who otherwise didn’t like kids will themselves to suddenly get turned on by them. I can’t imagine a worse curse than nature just deciding that’s something I have to deal with in life.
And there’s a distinct lack of research that would otherwise be super useful in *preventing* child abuse because we can’t do studies on pedophiles since anyone who self-identifies as one is likely to get harassed and attacked. Maybe giving pedophiles access to AI-generated child pornography lowers rates of actual assault on children. Maybe it raises it. But we don’t know, because we can’t do studies on this because of the stigma, and danger for anyone who tried to participate. We could be making strides trying to figure out how to treat people and give them help preventing their urges, but the stigma is just too strong to do anything meaningful.
And I get it, the knee-jerk reaction makes sense. You don’t want to give any credibility or acceptance to people being attracted to kids, because it’s not a good thing. But it’s impossible to talk about the actual nuances without getting labeled a pedo and undesirable
I mean. There probably isnt a singular autism gene that causes it in everyone, theres more to it than that
I have been downvoted for arguing this before, but I’m going to say it again, because I believe it to be true:
“Think of the children” being a dogwhistle doesn’t allow you to *not* think of the children (as per its literal, benign meaning).
I feel like “I’d love this in theory, but the IRL execution makes it a terrible idea” should be a normalized stance to have on things. Like, in theory, I think that finding the gene that causes autism would be cool, but in practice, it probably wouldn’t be particularly helpful to literally anyone with ASD and would most likely be used to phase us out of existence entirely, which doesn’t sit well with me.
in my introduction to psychology taster class, we watched a lecture about a study where they were researching how women’s hormone levels during pregnancy are tied to fetal brain development in terms of sexuality and gender identity. i was super interested, and it made a lot of sense – higher testosterone during the [x] trimester of a XX baby could lead to them being trans, for example.
but my first thought, past interest, was fear how that study could be developed and used to ‘prevent’ gay and trans kids. iirc it was discussed in our group afterwards, whether it would be more positive or negative to continue that kind of research.
its a shame we even have to worry *at all* about that, simply because there will inevitably be *some* who could use research like that badly.
Yeah, that’s true.
Not only that, people who bring this up often still have the aforementioned blind-spots, just about different ideas than the ones they’re thinking of when they bring it up. I’ve only met a very few people who don’t have any taboo topics.
“I don’t get why people brand some R34 art as “forbidden” NSFW. Even if it’s things like depictions of rape or minor characters, isn’t all NSFW art based on the premise that what is shown is an unrealistic fantasy that shouldn’t be replicated IRL, similarly to how video games let players indulge in violence that they definitely wouldn’t perform IRL?”
“Oh, so you’re a pedophile and a rapist.”
“That’s not what I-”
“Why would you make an argument for this if you weren’t a pedophile or a rapist?”
It really sucks as a diabetic too, I would love a cure for diabetes. I’m type 1, as if many people know the difference.
Ok but looking for the “asd gene” almost always leads to trying to cure asd. When there’s a cure, then the government doesn’t need to protect the autistic population. Plenty of people with asd would rather not have it cured, but would need to in order to get a job.
About the title: Many autistic people really identify with their autism. It’s not something they have, it’s something they are. This is because it’s not a condition that can be separated from one’s normal thinking and personality like anxiety or PTSD, but rather the way their very brain developed. Therefore, many see it as eugenics because it would be “eradicating” them.
I am autistic, and I do not want to be “cured”. I want the things that are hard for me to be better, but I don’t want to have my very being changed. There are parts I like and parts I have accepted. Just accommodate the hard parts.
I also recognize that there are less fortunate people who would like to be “cured”, if that were ever possible. I think they have a right to that. As long as people aren’t aborting because their kid “might be autistic”, or forcing some cure on their kid I don’t mind. I think it should be the individual’s choice.
I think this is an interesting post but I think it more closely resembles what I and my friend call “the ratchet affect,” referring to the way in which a discussion only ever progresses in one direction. I’m sure this probably has been noticed by someone else who is far more intelligent than I am and has some other name, but alas this is the name I know.
This effect is when there are two sides to an issue, and one side is often universally recognized as bad. Take the example of “How many gallons of water is necessary for a fish in a fish tank?” There are pretty much two sides to this issue: more and less. More gallons per fish is widely recognized as good, since it means more space for the fish, more water volume for waste to be diluted in, etc. Less gallons per fish is widely recognized as bad because it provides the opposite of what more does and (importantly) is associated with abusive fish owners putting too many fish in too small of a tank out of convenience.
The only real disadvantage to the “more” argument is that it becomes very expensive for people to have huge tanks for small amounts of fish, while the disadvantage to the “less” argument is that, if you go too far, you’re causing harm to a living creature. As a result it’s really unpopular to argue that “less gallons per fish is necessary” but always acceptable to argue “more.”
This culminated in, for a time, people recommending shit like a minimum 29 gallon tank for a single betta fish (the ones you find in a store in those tiny jars) when 5 gallons had been previously well known as a great tank for a betta fish. I can’t confirm if this is still going on or not as I haven’t participated in the community in years, but if you post a tank that isn’t giving *plenty* of room for the fish in it (even if it’s totally normal based on accepted rules) people will attack you for being a fish abuser.
It’s really frustrating and hard to deal with, because as soon as you’re on “the bad” side, it becomes difficult to get people to take your point seriously (after all, you’re the Ontologically Bad Person(tm)). This is a big problem in political discussions as well, but I won’t name any here to avoid making this comment even more controversial.