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Comment by morpheuskafka | Hacker News Reader

That's always puzzled me. It's certainly an individual's right to decline treatment for any medical condition, and to some extent I can understand why someone with autism might choose to do so, but that doesn't make it any less of a medical condition.

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I think it's different because, at least in some forms, it comes with advantages as well as disadvantages.

For some people it's debilitating, but for others it's not.

What possible advantage is there to having any form of autism?

Isn't there a correlation between Asperger's and high IQ?

Does that translate at all to general life satisfaction?

Isn't having a satisfying life subjective?

Yes, but that doesn’t mean we can’t measure subjective enjoyment, and associate higher subjective enjoyment with certain life circumstances.

AFAIK that's just because an Aspergers diagnosis requires an IQ>70.

Greater general logical reasoning ability. Also, many people with ASD resent 'NTs' ((N)euro(T)ypical people), and view their existence with—not animosity, but as something they would not like for themselves.

Sounds like sour grapes more than anything, honestly

Speaking only for myself:

Logical thinking is really easy for me. Also abstracting, pattern matching, "out-of-the-box" thinking.. Loyalty, honesty and helpfulness are also positive traits common among autistic people.

Having a unique worldview certainly is helpful in some situations. However it also makes other situations, especially pertaining to social interactions with strangers, rather challenging at times..

It's still their medical condition and as long as it doesn't manifest itself in ways affecting other people it should be up to each individual how to deal with their medical conditions and not have treatment forced on them.

Because forced treatments rarely work for anything as patient compliance is a massive factor for actual treatment success.

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