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February 2019

Now having said that, being as different as we are, in the ways we are, can certainly be a disability.  

But it’s important to remember the social model of disability.  The social model of disability basically is the idea that disability isn’t inherent in the person, it’s caused by the interplay between a person and their environment.  

This is very clear with autism.  Think about times you’re autism has caused problems.  You may have not gotten a job because eye contact is painful for us.  Is that objectively what should have happened?  Fuck no.  In fact there are many cultures, on this planet right now, where you would have not got the job if you had made eye contact.  

Also, how many times did you need a little bit of help or understanding, and didn’t get it.  Even if it would have been ridiculously simple to provide, and would have been a huge benefit to you.  Does that seem more like your fault, or societies bullshit?

Another thing that a lot of the modern research is finding is that feeling like you don’t belong and social ostracization are the major causes of pretty much any problem you can imagine.  Brene Brown found that shame literally fucks up everything from career to relationships to self worth.  The trauma CPR course from John Hopkins university clearly states that the biggest indicator of weather a person is going to get PTSD or not isn’t what happened, it’s how socially connected they feel.  Johann Hari found that what caused addiction was shame, not the substance itself.  

And finally what’s the most overstimulating thing for most autistic people?  Trying to fucking pass, is that an inherent part of Autism?  Fuck no.  Older cultures didn’t expect you to pass.  Even in medieval Europe people with Neurodifferences, even very sever and obvious ones, were largely left to their own devices. 

Furthermore, when you’re looking at weather something is a disability or not, you can’t just look at one aspect, or even group of aspects.  You have to look at the condition as a whole.  You also have to consider not only how it effects the individual, but also society as a whole.  As much as marketing agencies and you’re ego want to make you believe, we don’t exist as individuals, we exist as societies.  Think about it, if you were stripped of everything any other human had provided you what would be left?  Fuck all that’s what. 

When we take this perspective the idea of autism as simply a disability in the traditional sense falls apart very quickly.  After all, it wasn’t “talkie talkies” that first put a pointed rock on the end of a stick, as Temple Grandin Says.  Nor was it a talkie talkie that that made any major innovation in any field ever.  Now it wasn’t always autistic people of course, but it was almost certainly a neurodivergent person.  Being neurodivergent give a unique perspective that allows a person to see solutions that most people aren’t simply capable of seeing.  If a neurotypical person could have made the innovation, it wouldn’t be an innovation, as they all would have done it. 

It’s not just that grand strokes we’re important for either.  Autistic people are way over represented in many of the professions that everyone agrees makes life worth ling.  Teachers, counselor, artists of all stripes (particularly comedians and comedic actors, and the almighty tech industry.

Now the tech industry is the important one here.  While they are generally undiagnosed, because they’re older, autistic people are way way way way over represented in the tech industry.  There are some people who strong believe that their whole company is autistic.  There are even some companies that have gone as far as to only hire autistic people.

Now think about that, the tech industry, think about how important it is to modern society.  Try to think of one thing, just one, that doesn’t depend on the tech industry and it’s innovations in some way. 

There’s nothing.  Literally fucking nothing.  How the fuck can it be said that autism is nothing but a malfunction of the brain, if we’re such major contributors to literally the most important industry on the planet right now, the bedrock on which all of modern civilization stands. 

Now of course there are many of us that don’t work in the tech industry, myself included.  That doesn’t mean that we failed.  We can bring our unique set of skills and perspectives to where ever we end up working. 

One of the things I’ve never been able to tolerate is bullshit of any kind, weather it’s inefficiency or injustice, I always have to call it out.  Now this has certainly been a disadvantage to me at times, but I think we can agree that it’s better to have a few people in a society who do this. 

We’re often great listeners, or at least look like great listeners, which is really all a person needs when they need someone to talk to.

Or different perspective on things also allows us to come up with solutions to situations that other people simply wouldn’t see. Sometimes you need to be a little out there just to get shit done.  Look at Joan of Arc, don’t know if she was autistic, but she straight up heard voices, so certainly not NT.  She was instrumental in ending the 100 war.  Think about that.  100 years of war, and some women, that in today's society would likely be thrown in a fucking pysc ward, comes along and ends it.  THINK ABOUT THAT.  Literally a fucking century of war, generation after generation of war, and it took a “crazy person” to come along and end it.