Someone once said:
If one assumes that autistic people, due to their special interests, are overrepresented among scientists, then it may not be a wrong assumption that autism can be the cause of vaccines.
this post was submitted on 22 Feb 2025
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I mean, you're a pretty horrible person if you'd rather have your child die of a completely preventable disease than have a kid with autism.
It's not that weird of a position. Penn and Teller did a show on it based on the then believed data that vaccines cause autism. (Which has now long since been discredited.)
They showed the statistics of dying/paralysis/etc were far greater than the chance of autism. So in their opinion, even if vaccines caused autism ( the debunked paper showed a tiny percent chance) , it was still safer to take the vaccine.
Even if it wasn't autism, there is a tiny chance your child can have a dangerous reaction to a vaccine. I was nervous with my children but had it done anyway. My son had a minor reaction to the Polio shot and lost the ability to walk for a couple of days.
i'm not sure what you mean by this, because you seem to be implying that autism is somehow dangerous? which just obviously isn't true?
autism isn't bad, it's just different. If anything it's better considering how much we rely on science and technology and organization these days, we could use more autistic people who'll raise a stink when people skirt protocol for stupid reasons.
It's worth remembering that autism is a spectrum. We are at the higher end, many benefits, with limited downsides. Others aren't as lucky.
The argument was also a bypass type. Even if vaccines cause autism, and even if autism is entirely bad, it's still worth getting vaccinated. It cuts a lot of the talking points off at the knee. Even if we assume our opponent's position, it's still not an argument in favour of what they are saying.
They're not saying it's bad. They're just saying "even if you do think it's bad, the chances are very slim and it's far better than the alternatives"
If that's how we're doing it, we should get more Asians considering how much we rely on maths. Because Asians are good at math, right?
It's not a great idea to stereotype people, even if you think you're giving them a compliment.
Autism: Better than polio
Autism isn’t an inherently bad thing. I have friends and a cousin with autism and they’re awesome and socialize and are just fine in society in every way. Stigmatizing it to make vaccinations seem horrible is just stupid in so many ways.
I mean autism is an inherently bad thing in that it's basically just raising the difficulty of life across the board, and that's for high-functioning autism. Low-functioning autism is its own beast. There are aspects to autism that would make someone think "oh no this could happen to my child?!". Still better than the imagined alternative obviously.
There are some examples I’ve seen where, frankly, the difficulty is more that neurotypical people who’ve never had to try or learn how to actually communicate get mad when the bullshit script isn’t being followed. The only problem is that that group of autistic people have more difficulty not being honest, even if politely and constructively, when “tradition” is horseshit.
The challenges are fake in way too many cases, is what I’m saying. Same with ADHD people being forced to fit into a mold that doesn’t even really fit the neurotypical people. It could so easily not be a fucking problem.
It's a little bit of columb A, a little bit of column B. Nothing about having to stim or occasionally going nonverbalhas anything to do with the bullshit script. And, while I also hate the bullshit script, it's unfortunately here to stay. Humans are social animals, so being less able to interact with society at large isn't a fake problem. If anything it's not unlike being unable to fluently speak your native language, which is quite obviously a problem. Of course society as a whole should accommodate people with autism, but that's a solution to a problem that very much exists.
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Going non-verbal or finding a less disruptive stim for work environments is a challenge but being able to do things like work from home more, or even just be left alone to do your fucking job, would help. Unfortunately there are too many people who believe that if you don’t love being in the office and prefer to stick to yourself that you’re “not a good fit”. So yea it really is part of the script.
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It does not have to be here to stay and things are getting better, just painfully slowly. Your lack of imagination or adaptability is part of the problem, though.
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The issue is more aligned with the joke “how do you spot a monolingual person? They’re speaking English.” Neurotypical attitudes dominate management positions(even if the people in them aren’t but have forced themselves into that mold) and refuse to budge. No communication breakdown is ever their fault, ever, but any kind of neurodivergent person must learn how to interact in their way, that person’s way, that other person’s way, etc.. It really is like an anglophone making fun of another’s accent while barely hanging onto English. I’m anglophone, and I learned French so that other’s around me didn’t have to feel like they constantly need to accommodate me.
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Extra note: a lot of the people I know who follow that script don’t even understand it that well themselves. They’re clutching at some “rules” that say what is and isn’t polite conversation, which tell you when to do what, and which say that include, for some reason, the idea that nothing can just be talked about point-blank which leads to all-to-common problem of people not knowing what the fuck is going on. These are the rules that state that if you don’t swear or yell while actively harming someone then you’re “polite” but if they resist at all then they’re being “rude and making a scene”(even if all they’re doing is respectfully trying to understand why you’re being awful). If you watch two neurodivergent people talk they get along just fine, better even because they’ve had to learn how to adjust, how to have patience, etc. and aren’t spend the conversation impose some fucked up sense of morality on the other person.
TL;DR: You’re kinda proving my point by saying that there’s really only one valid way to communicate and softly fighting the notion that things can get better. Also yes agree that there are the low functioning cases but the bar for “low functioning” is way higher than it needs to be. I’m
TL;DR: You’re kinda proving my point by saying that there’s really only one valid way to communicate and softly fighting the notion that things can get better. Also yes agree that there are the low functioning cases but the bar for “low functioning” is way higher than it needs to be. I’m
I think you got me wrong there. I'm not saying there's only one valid way to communicate. However, neurotypical people will always use the bullshit script when talking to each other and will try to apply it when communicating with neurodivergent people. You can educate them to be more accommodating, but it'll always be like one person speaking English and the other Chinese; no matter how much you teach them most people will only vaguely understand what's going on, and when you add all the bullshit that comes with large organizations there's a fundamental limit on how much things can get better.
Except that I can understand them, better than they seem to understand themselves, honestly, and the main reason for any issues is that I refuse to play the game, not that I can’t. Neurodivergent people need to know how to handle that stuff and in order to learn to communicate with so many different people they need to actually understand how these things work. And there are neurotypical people who aren’t so full of themselves, who have had experiences where they’ve learned that other people aren’t simply “broken”, who have come to be able to communicate and respect just fine with everyone else.
But anyway, why are you so against even trying? If I and many others can learn to move through the world and communicate with others then how come neurotypical only get “actually, you guys don’t need to get better”? And holy shit, there are plenty of people who become fluent in other languages including people who speak English and then learn Mandarin or Japanese or Korean to a fluent level. And we just need enough of an effort to make sure that NT folks understand that their way isn’t the only way! I’m not asking for mastery, I’m asking for an anglophone living in France to be able to order their dinner without an English menu.
Why do you keep repeating that we cannot do this? Why do you keep saying that it’s a lost cause and we shouldn’t try? It’s such a lame stance to take that we should just throw our hope in the trash because it might be difficult to bring positive change. You don’t need to be on the frontlines but holy hell please at least stop actively demoralizing everyone to justify your absence.
But anyway, why are you so against even trying?
Oh no don't get me wrong I'm very much for education. I just convinced the results won't be anything spectacular. I don't see a future where the average neurotypical person will be able to communicate with neurodivergent people with no friction, but there's absolutely a lot to be gained from trying to achieve such a future anyway.
Now if you're wondering why, then, I'm saying all of this, remember the very start of this conversation. I was trying to argue that there are real negative aspects to autism and that it's not all "fake problems", and then tried to argue that even the "fake problems" are very much real due to the nature of humans as social animals, and that no matter how you improve society those problems won't go away 100%. Ergo, they count as negative aspects in this discussion, was what I was trying to say. I was not trying to argue that because those problems can't be completely eliminated we shouldn't try; that'd be pretty fallacious logic.
It’s such a lame stance to take that we should just throw our hope in the trash because it might be difficult to bring positive change.
I don't think I ever said said anything like that throughout this whole conversation. Are you sure that was me?
I was very specifically never absolute and even started with “there are some cases…”. There are absolutely cases where severe ADHD and low-functioning autism are objectively challenges no matter who you are, and I will never refute that. There are also so many instances of neurodivergent people able to do their jobs, have their friends, and go out for errands without much of an issue and in fact it can even be super helpful for them and a strength that, if fostered instead of rejected, can lead to some pretty amazing things.
Of course there will be friction, communication is inherently an activity with friction no matter who you are. The choice you have is whether you want to find understanding or to blame the other person for not reading your mind/holding your hand. “The perfect is the enemy of the good” is a saying that I believe would fit well here, because I never asked for perfection and understand that there’s a lot of value in simply trying and knowing that, despite friction, the person across from you still values your humanity the same as their own.
All I’m asking for is that NT people stop treating everyone else like they’re problems. If I wanted to throw it back in their faces I’d say “yea, those NT people must have a really hard time in life. They struggle so much with forming deeper, lasting friendships and they’re so afraid of standing up for themselves and rocking the boat. And heck, they don’t even care that they’re working so inefficiently, they really just gotta take a step back and try some new things. Like, ok, you can “focus” for 8hrs a day but you’re exhausted and not getting anything done!” They are treated like and act like they’re the perfect ideal but have flaws just like anyone else. Honestly I wish we changed the label because calling them “typical” has the same energy as making the colour “skin” in the crayola pack a light pink.
We’re all in this together but there’s distinctly one group that, generally speaking, doesn’t play nice with others.
Man I was so on board with what you were saying until you referred to autism as a “problem” that needs a “solution”. Autism isn’t bad. Autism isn’t a problem. Autism doesnt need a solution.
I think you misunderstood me there. Autism isn't a problem*; people with autism not being able to effectively communicate with neurotypical people (and vice versa of course) is.
*some exceptions apply.
this isn't true, lots of aspects of autism make life way way way way easier especially in the age of technology. There are so many things that are utterly obvious and trivially easy for me that allistic people around me can barely wrap their heads around.
autism in a society that doesn't hate nonstandard people is just a sidegrade, there isn't really anything about autism that is inherently difficult, it's just different.
I have an autistic parent. Family that I had to rely on as a child. Autism is not a positive thing. It doesn't make you a bad person or somehow morally less, but it does make you an emotional drain on everone you interact with.
Yeah vaccines being good/bad is one set of politics. It's a whole other thing to add autism in just to use it as a reason to hate something else.
Autism or death? And she chose autism apparently.
As an autistic person, the world would be much happier of we all were. You neurotypicals need to stop lying to eachother every chance you get for y'all have any idea how confusing your casual dishonesty is?
Thankfully my mom was one of these. She became anti-vax after I got my first shots; I think she was a bit traumatized by seeing her little baby be so scared and then so sick, but thats just how vaccines work. She believes all the nonsense about heavy metals in the vaccines and 5g radio waves in the needle giving us autism, but she also believes that they do work and that an autistic child is better than a dead child. Therefore, I was a fully vaccinated child and all my shots were on time.
5g radio waves in the needle
ಠ_ಠ
How does that work then? 😂
Idk. I was exaggerating, but if memory serves during COVID there was a conspiracy theory that the new 5G towers could interact with heavy metals in the COVID vaccine and do...something? Dad and I still got our boosters.
Yeah I remember that, my guest network's SSID is still '[HIDDEN]5G_COVID19_#7738', because I found it funny at the time and never bothered to change it.
Robert DeNiro has a child with Autism he is absolutely positively convinced was caused by vaccines, he's shushed a lot in public, but it's a rock solid belief of his. I have no idea what to say except, the science says it's not true, so I either believe one man's (more than that but still) personal experience and unimaginable pain at the unfairness of life, or I believe demonstrable scientifically tested fact. I go with the later, but still with Bobby well.
What gets me is the people so concerned about vaccines seem to completely ignore PFAS, pesticides, and the spoonfuls of microplastic we're finding in people's brains, cells, everywhere. Like, sure, something could be causing more autism, but why single out vaccines when there are so many other things it could be?