this post was submitted on 09 Oct 2023
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Autism
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I don't have ASD but I have ADHD, and based on my experience I think it's extremely fair to see knowingly inflicting upon another living being a disability that causes great pain and suffering throughout their entire life, as fucked up and immoral
It's like pugs and pitbulls, many people can agree in the thought "why are we intentionally creating more canines with terrible disabilities which badly hurt them for the rest of their life?", so why is it so bad when the same logic is applied to humans?
I think it's dumb to describe it as "eugenics", considering that's a term almost entirely associated in the modern day with Nazism, forced imprisonment/torture/forced sterilization of certain groups, and racist beliefs. Wheras this seems concerned with wanting people to not suffer nearly as much after they're born, so they're expressing how they're upset that people chose to create a new life with more suffering than average when there's tons of equally good alternatives, and I think that's pretty different than flat out promoting genocide...
What's wrong with adoption anyways? It's pretty selfish to bring a new life into this world for your own personal satisfaction when you could literally just take a child who's already out there suffering and make them not suffer for no extra loss.
I find it stupid that they describe it as "ruined lives" though. Especially for the parents, like wtf just be a good parent? It's not like most parents have a kid with no difficult challenges to face whatsoever. When you become a parent you sign up to being exposed to any and every possibility that could come from a kid. If you become a parent and then go "woe is me, I didn't expect autism so I can't deal with this, don't blame me for not parenting correctly" then you shouldn't have become a parent. The only way parents can "ruin" their own lives is if they're a shitty parent, which unfortunately a majority of people are...
As an autistic person (diagnosed by an actual professsional, not by tiktok), I must say I am happy existing lol
My life can be pretty miserable sometimes but it is 100% not caused by autism and if anything, I'd say the autism helps.
True, but life is gud ngl
I have ASD and ADHD, generally pretty happy to be here.
Autism is a spectrum and most of us are perfectly functional, happy, productive people.
It's nothing like pugs or pitbulls, frankly that's kind of offensive. You're likening us to a genetic mistake. Most of the time I find myself wondering why the neurotypicals are so goddamn dysfunctional.
Who the fuck do you think you are too suggest that I, and many of my friends, shouldn't exist?
You're describing eugenics, call it what it is. It's not my fault you have shitty bedfellows.
Lmao everything you say is clearly purely out of hatred. Why do you value the life of a dog so much less than the life of a human to call them "genetic mistakes"?
And who said that you and your friends shouldn't exist? Certainly not me. You're likening "maybe it's a bad idea to knowingly create someone with a disability with a high likelihood of fucking someone over in life" to "i wish you and all your friends were dead and didn't exist".
It's actually pretty offensive to imply to the large portion of people who have their lives negatively affected by ADHD and ASD that it's not all that bad and they should suck it up and stop wishing they didn't have it. Clearly a lot of people in this thread disagree with you, those who have mental disorders including ASD.
Just because you were lucky and don't suffer much or even at all, means that it's fine that many (and in my experience most) other people affected by the disorder suffer? That's extremely selfish.
It is not describing eugenics. You are just saying emotionally charged words to try to make whatever you disagree with look worse. I could call what you believe in "sadism" and it'd have the same validity.
I believe it's bad to intentionally give a child bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, mood disorders, personality disorders, etc. because those can all cause extreme pain even if it doesn't seem like a problem when you're younger. I'm sure you'd agree that it's immoral to willingly afflict someone with that. But you draw the line at neurodevelopmental disorders for some reason?
The entire "your ADHD is a superpower" rhetoric is extremely harmful to people who have ADHD and generally leads to the struggles of ADHD not being taken seriously. I don't have a "gift" or a "superpower", I have a disability...
ADHD has many, MANY objectively bad things about it, and extremely few "good" things. I'd say the only thing that's positive that comes out of my ADHD is that I have a lot of interests, but even that is a problem in and of itself because it makes me divide my attention between many different things and never complete any of them... ADHD comes with a ton of executive dysfunction and self-regulation problems that tend to fuck you up a lot in life.
The hyperfocus is hardly a benefit considering it generally causes you to waste a ton of time on things that shouldn't get that much time, and even not considering that I'd say any benefit of hyperfocus is heavily outweighed by just being able to do anything at any time without having to constantly fight yourself over it, since you'd get so much more done. I find that people with both a good amount of Autism and some ADHD do a lot better than people who just have ADHD when it comes to these things, because the ASD can take actual advantage of the hyperfocus, but that's something a lot of people with ADHD do NOT have...
Also if someone was never born, they wouldn't know nor care that they weren't born since they never existed. There's literally 0 downside to not being born. Any sort of idea that you'd hate to not have been born or that you would prefer to be born than not to be is a purely irrational thought considering that.
And yes, there are people with ASD and ADHD and depression and whatever that live lives that they like. That's not the point. The point is that the disorders do cause an objective amount of suffering that is higher than those without, especially in this society, and in many cases the suffering causes a lot of harm to the person, so intentionally taking a high chance of that happening to your kid is immoral. I don't want to intentionally harm my kid, you shouldn't either.
Btw, it's not a "slightly higher risk" you are giving your kid like 9x the odds of having ASD if you yourself have ASD. And if you have ADHD you are almost guaranteeing that your kid also has ADHD.
Motherfucker what are you talking about? I am literally just here to vibe, it's the fault of the current system for refusing to support any kind of variety. Autism isn't fucking osteoporosis, I'm not in pain, I'm just fucking different.
Autistic people aren't suffering unless you're putting them in a system which refuses to treat them as anything other than subhuman.
Remind me when we're not going to be in a system which refuses to treat disabled people properly? We live in a world built against disabled people. That is NOT going to change soon. We are corporatist and in most of the first world the right-wing is on the rise. Look at Italy, look at most of western Europe actually. Look how much attention people like DeSantis got before blowing it, and how popular it is to hate on groups like disabled more than it has ever been in recent years – shit it only getting worse. Why bring an innocent kid into that?
Besides, neurodevolopmental disorders in many people can objectively just inflict suffering completely detached from the "system". I've seen them firsthand with both myself and friends with ASD. Especially socially. Obviously won't apply to every mentally disabled person, but it's extremely high likelihood – I meet almost entirely people with ASD and/or ADHD who feel extremely lonely and can't find comfort socially.
Even with treatment ADHD fucks me and many others over in ways completely unrelated to the system. Friends with ASD describe it similarly, especially when ASD doesn't have as many options in terms of treatment compared to ADHD. When it comes to ADHD, I can't enjoy myself with hobbies or the satisfaction of my productivity as a person without such a disorder can, I can't find happiness in my own hobbies if I can't do them, and I spend many days being upset that I can't make myself do the stuff I want to do even if I have medication. I can say with confidence I would 100% be happier if I was born in the same circumstances but without ADHD. And this is an extremely common sentiment for neurodevelopmental disorders, you can see it all over the thread.
It kind of sounds like you're saying these parents should have predicted their 3 twins would end up with autism. Which, you know, would be....deeply stupid