SaraTonin

I used to go out with someone who lived in a commune, which operated how you describe here - everybody gets a say in every decision. It was very equitable, but nothing *ever * got done. Part of the roof was falling down and the exposure to the elements was damaging the building at that point. The longer it was exposed the more damage was being done. The wall was starting to crumble. If it fell down it could damage as-yet undamaged parts of the building. A couple of families had already had to move to a different part of the building At that point it had been 10 years and no decisions had been made. No decisions were close to being made. Their home was literally being destroyed and potentially endangering people -they were and had been no issues more pressing - and nothing has been done for a decade That was ~15 families living together. And you think it’s feasible to scale that up to millions of people by increasing the group size and number of steps?

A few years ago James Acaster did a bit in his stand-up about Gervaise: youtu.be/UHqma3rx-xI If you want just the Gervaise bit without the lead-up, go to around 2:30

The magic word is Calibre

Given the image,i wouldn’t be at all surprised if the article were just AI

They don’t want biometric data. If you already use Face/Fingerprint ID, then they already have it (encrypted, on your phone, inaccessible to Apple). If you don’t, then you can use your password like you otherwise would Most people have been automatically verified through having a credit card in wallet, or having an account that’s 18 years old or older

Tell me again how AGI is just around the corner, Sam

Modern Russia may not fulfill all 5 of Lenin’s criteria for imperialism, but it’s moved closer to imperialism under his leadership, with the state actively working to create/consolidate capitalist monopolies and the expansionist military actions being the most blatant signifiers When i say Russian state media is talking nonsense when they talk about “liberating” Ukraine, it’s not because I’m pro-imperialism, is because it’s absolute bullshit You can hate the US and similar nations without mindlessly repeating the rhetoric of a ruthless expansionist capitalist dictator just because he’s opposed to the US

Nah, i fully believe they just don’t have a clue. I mean, what’s the hypothesis here, that they’re deliberately trying to fight the Antichrist alongside Thiel? A podcast i listen to had, a few months ago, a story where a minister who was waxing lyrical about the benefits of AI and was asked something basic like about hallucinations or something and they literally never heard of them. Had no clue what the questioner was talking about I think that’s the level that basically all politicians understand technology at

The fact that we’re talking about this seemed to suggest to me that you felt at least some pressure to conform to what everybody else is saying.

No, not at all. There is no pressure I’ve encountered to use the term “autist”, and if I did feel pressure to conform on this subject I wouldn’t have continued to discuss it after my initial post was downvoted

The wheelchair folks are still disabled, they need the help of physically capable beings or things to exist in and maintain society

…what? You think it’s literally impossible for wheelchair users to function to the point that a society created by and for wheelchair users would collapse without non-wheelchair users to look after them?

As for the rest of it, while I certainly believe that self-diagnosis is valid (and, indeed, there is a phrase “all diagnosis is self-diagnosis”), it’s also the case that even people with diagnoses often suffer from imposter syndrome. So what I will say is that if you keep encountering people who find your views on disability and terminology to be wrong-headed, as it seems you do, then it may be to your benefit to approach such conversations with a little more openness and a little more listening to what the rest of us have to say

Allow me to provide a thought-experiment illustration of what I mean by disability being a product of society.

There are three workspaces.

The first is on the 14th floor. There are no ramps and no lifts. All doors are operated via keycard above head height. All areas, work and rest, have rows of desks and chairs, all as one unit like in a fast food place or a picnic table.

The second is on the ground floor. All doors are operated by keycard at waist height. All areas, work and rest, have large adjustable desks, movable chairs, and plenty of space.

The third is a multi-storey office. All stories are connected only by ramps which are designed to allow fast descent of wheeled appliances and have an in-built braking mechanism at the bottom. The up ramps have a “stair-lift”-type mechanism designed for the smooth movement of wheeled appliances. All ceilings are at shoulder-height. There are no chairs at all.

I think it’s trivial to see how wheelchair uses would be at a disadvantage in the first environment, wheelchair users and non-wheelchair users would be equal in the second, and non-wheelchair users would be at a disadvantage in the third

In each scenario, wheelchair users and non-wheelchair users have different abilities and needs, but which one of them would be “disabled” is a product of that environment

I would consider a person with dyslexia to have a mental disability, because there are basically only detrimental effects to one’s ability to perform a common mental task.

The irony here is that dyslexia advocates use the exact same “superpower” language as you. In fact, there is an emerging school of thought in psychiatry and psychology that autism, dyslexia, ADHD, and OCD may all be differing presentations of the same underlying condition, in the same way that autism and Asperger’s used to be considered different conditions

But let’s look at a different disability, for the sake of clarity. You yourself have spoken about deaf pride. Ask yourself this - would the kind of deaf person who would shun someone for getting a cochlear implant take kindly to you characterising deafness as only having a downside?

I think a lot of disability advocates would take issue with your characterisation of disability

It’s regressive, stigmatising, and potentially harmful given that it can discourage those who need help from asking for help, and often the only way to get help is through disability services - and legislation. The reason why it’s illegal for employers in the UK not to provide accommodations for autistic people is because of its classification as a disability under the Equalities Act of 2010

Besides, you seem to be doing something that’s depressingly common amongst autistic people - of treating autism as if it’s just level 1 autism, while dismissing and ignoring those who have greater needs. Some people need 24/7 care because of the way their autism manifests. These people count. They are just as much “one of us” as you or me

Also, BTW, tetrachromats exist

Anyway, as to the linguistics of ending a word with -ist seeming awkward to you…

All the words you cited describe what people do or believe. Not what people are

Autism is not a disability, to me

I think it clearly is

There’s a saying “everybody has different abilities and needs, but ‘disability’ is a product of society”. You yourself list some of the struggles that we face. And these struggles more often than not have consequences beyond what you list - lack of employment, isolation, barriers to healthcare. Hell, our lifespans are shorter on average than allistic people. 5-10 years without any mental health comorbidities, and up to 20+ in people with comorbidities

All from existing in a society which is built around other people’s needs and which doesn’t account for ours

I don’t see how it can even be a question. And I say that as someone who firmly believes that if the stats were reversed and we made up 98-99% of the population and allistic people made up 1-2% of the population they would be the ones considered disabled because society would actually be built around us

And let’s not start shrugging off the term “disability” as if that itself is something to be shunned or ashamed of. There’s enough stigma around disability - particularly mental disability - without having it also come from inside the house

Yes, that’s the irony. It’s allistic people calling themselves “autists” because they have a strong interest in something and act in stupid ways To illustrate how it’s used there, you only need to look at the terms that it’s interchangable with: “idiots”, “smooth-brained”, and the r-word. This is not an example of positive representation

The “American” one would suggest “an autistic”, rather than “an autist”, no? He is American, he is an American.

You don’t need to accept a term you don’t like for yourself but others may not mind

I’ve said repeatedly that this isn’t a settled debate within the autism community, and at no point have I suggested that other people aren’t free to use whatever terms they want

Btw, autistic brains exist outside the UK and the US

I understand that. I’m specifically talking about the English word “autist”. Ich rede nicht über Deutsch.

Also, your “blindist” and “deafist” don’t exist in English which is why they sound weird

I suppose that asks the question why is “autistic” one of (if not the) only example with a dedicated noun?

Say it was Black instead. Can you not see how describing someone as “a black” could be dehumanising? I am autistic. I am an autist. I am schizophrenic. I am a schizoid. I have Down’s Syndrome. I am a Down’s. Or just disability in general. I am blind. I am a blindist. I am deaf. I am a deafist. Or even just other self-describing words. I am old. I am an oldist. I am tall. I am a tallist. I have zero insecurities about being autistic. I also dislike coy phrases like “on the spectrum”, which have the implication that there’s something wrong with saying that someone is autistic. Like it’s something to be ashamed of. It’s fine. I am autistic. You can say I’m autistic. That’s cool. But that doesn’t mean that I should accept a term just because that’s what 4chan, WallStreetBets, and Gab popularised by using to put us down either by using it ironically or just by straight-up using it as an insult. You can make an argument for reclamation, perhaps, but I don’t think we’re there. And, and perhaps this is just me, but isn’t it a horrible word? Phonetically? As I’ve said, there seems to be no consensus in the autism community and one dividing line appears to be America vs. the UK

As an autistic person with several autistic family members, friends, and associates, I’ve never met someone who used it or liked it Perhaps it’s a US vs UK thing? I’ve only seen US and Canadian people use it, in the same way that I’ve only seen US people use the term “blacks“ when referring to black people It has that connotation to me. And the fact that it’s the term of choice to use as an insult in places like 4chan and other edgelord spaces doesn’t help Seems like it’s one of those things like “autistic person be ”person with autism“ where there’s no consensus within the community

I’m not sure that what this article is claiming follows. Your device providing a token which confirms you’re an adult doesn’t imply that your real name will be provided to anybody, any more than, say, my banking app using my phone’s FaceID implies that that app has access to my biometric data To me, age verification on-device make the most sense precisely because it allows for it to be secure and maintaining of privacy The alternative is providing every site with your biometric data, photos of your documents like driving license, or both. Or that there’s some random third party which you give that data to and who then stores it on some server somewhere the security of which we can only guess at I know sind will be tempted to say that it shouldn’t be happening at all and that it’s not about protecting kids and so on. But no matter how much we say that it _ is_ happening. This is what the new reality will be. The only question is where you want the scan of your face to be stored. Personally, I’d rather it be encrypted on my device

Is It just be that loathes the word “autist”? Gives me real “Oriental” or “the blacks” vibes

The thing is, Let’s say that there’s a foolproof system in place which makes you press an “ok” button every time is going to take an action on your behalf…how many people are actually going to check everything that it’s going to do every single time it asks? And for those that do, is it actually going to save them any time? Just look at cookie pop ups. I have Consent-O-Matic and when that fails i manually reject and on those sites where you have to individually untick 100 boxes I just find another site, but i can’t tell you the number of people I’ve seen just accept everything because it’s quicker. That’s exactly how most people would treat a “do you want me to do this?” prompt from an agentic AI without checking what it’s actually asking to do.

They’re obviously going about it the wrong way, but this is inching towards the right way to go - keep age verification like biometric verification, encrypted and on-device. That’s a million times better than getting random pron sites to ask for your biometric data. If they’d started with this thought and then kept thinking from there, they could have ended up with something decent and effective, rather than the current shitshow.

I once watched a German YouTuber talk about learning English and how quickly she improved when she started working in an English office because she _ had_ to. In the video she says one of the things she’s always had difficulty with but is now much better at and almost never slips up on now is vs and ws. Then, immediately afterwards in the next sentence she goes “now in this wideo…”

Or, even better, let’s start developing for separate platforms again, and optimise software for the platform that’s going to be running it. Rather than just developing everything for Chrome.

Not even retail. I can’t count the number of professional emails I’ve had, including from managers with huge salaries with basic grammar and spelling mistakes.

That would be hilarious. Please let him accomplish that and nothing else.