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Comment by sophyphreak | Hacker News Reader

I'm going to say this as kindly as I can, though truthfully, I'm seething. I understand you're trying to be kind and empathetic. I feel for this dude too. But the way you're expressing your thoughts is hurtful, and I ask you to try to learn why. Here's a pretty good article from a mainstream website that talks about ableism and how expressing feelings of pity can be an expression of ableism. https://www.healthline.com/health/what-is-ableism There is no such thing as "untreated autism" because Autism is not a disease. We do need assistance, but much more of what we need--according to modern science--is acceptance and inclusion. Please try to educate yourself on the dangers of ableism, and how it can and does harm us.

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I half agree with you. However, your argument that this is ableism is ridiculous. And you almost proved that yourself by stating that autism is not a disease. I would go a step further and say that it is not a disability, just a something that makes you think differently from the "normal" (which I would argue requires all free thought to be hammered out of you at a young age).

I think it's pretty hasty to say it's ridiculous. It's pretty common to use the word "ableism" in Autistic self-advocacy circles and to say that Autism is a disability without being a disease. (This is all standard "social model of disability" stuff that way predates the Autism self-advocacy movement.)

I don't really want to go out of my way to flesh this out further because just googling around and reading Wikipedia articles will be way better than whatever else I say in a few sentences, but suffice it to say, if people can discriminate against Autistic people for being who they are, what should we call that? I'm partial to "neurotypicalism" but that's not the common term. Ableism is much more common.

Anyway, please Google the social model of disability.

The article doesn't seem to match anything in my comment; however, you say,

> expressing feelings of pity can be an expression of ableism

Empathy and compassion, which I think I expressed, are not pity. How do you draw the lines between them?

> We do need assistance, but much more of what we need--according to modern science--is acceptance and inclusion.

Absolutely, but how did I not accept or exclude Arion?

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