Comment by adrianratnapala | Hacker News Reader

Comment by adrianratnapala | Hacker News Reader

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adrianratnapala

You are right about the importance of understanding problems.

But in your story, a lot of the problems came from people giving you (wrong) diagnoses. dkarl is saying what works for him is just working directly on the constellation of traits he has without looking for a diagnosis. True, things got much better for you when you got the right diagnosis of autism. But as i14ng points out below, autism is "just" a name for a for a constellation of traits similar to dkarl's.

It sounds like your case is a lot worse than dkarl's so I believe you that naming the syndrome was a good thing. But overall, would you have been better or worse off if society just made fewer psych diagnoses and you never had the right or the wrong ones, but people just helped you work directly on your traits?

> But overall, would you have been better or worse off if society just made fewer psych diagnoses and you never had the right or the wrong ones, but people just helped you work directly on your traits?

I don't think it's worth speculating on the past, on whether one approach would have been generally better than the other. Hindsight is 20/20, right?

I do believe in one aspect of the argument, and that is one of empathy. If you see someone struggling with something, or they are exhibiting a "trait" that you think isn't normal, then finding a way to help them is a worthy goal.

I think the problem here is trying to understand and define what is "normal" and what "traits" are worth looking out for. This is where things start to devolve in philosophical disagreements. As other commenters have said in the thread, there is a difference between being socially shy, having extreme social anxiety, and being autistic. Even in the realm of the autism spectrum you have different issues and presentations to address. When is something actually a problem? How do you identify the problem, and then how do you address that problem?

I don't think it's as black and white as we want to believe. I think labels and diagnosis can help, and they can hurt. The most important thing is to be aware, and to have empathy and compassion for others.

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