The Story of Autism: How We Got Here, How We Heal by Tao Lin (long + interesting)
(www.marsreview.org)
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Anyone else remember back when autism was the big thing and a source of social clout the way troonery is now? In fact the autism thing died right when troonery took off, and I doubt that's coincidental. It makes me wonder what the next big thing will be.
I remember when it passed the 1 in 2000 threshold. Nobody seemed concerned and wanted their own kids to fit the description.
It was especially annoying because there was a mad push in the gifted programs to say we were autistic. I had to prove several times I wasn't and still get called it to this day.
There's two ways to end up bucking social trends. Be socially inept enough to miss the social cues from your peers. Or be analytically competent enough to realize when the rationale for some trends is bullshit and harmful so you ignore the social cues.
Since they never actually got to a measurable cause for autism, they just go off observable symptoms, which means analytically gifted children constantly trip the warning bells, and have to prove their social skills to excuse them calling out societal bullshit. And sometimes they make the proof circular where ignoring groupthink is considered de facto proof of being unable to understand the social pressures propping them up.