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Comment by mbilokonsky | Hacker News Reader

Hi, I'm the author, I'd love to help clarify this.

When I say I'm speaking for "the community" I mean very specifically that I'm a member of the community and I'm speaking about us. I went to great lengths repeatedly throughout the piece to make sure I was very explicit that I was only one voice.

I made a minimum of claims about Autism and what it is. Mostly what I argued was about what it isn't. I use the phrase "If you have met one person with autism you have met one person with autism" literally in the essay, so the fact that you would trot it out as a sort of correction is a bit confusing to me.

I don't think you disagree with me, I think you're a bit upset to see nuances that you don't agree with put forward -- even when they insist that disagreement is also valid. Is that right?

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>I mean very specifically that I'm a member of the community and I'm speaking about us.

I still have problem with the word "us". What do you mean by "community"? If you mean a certain organization you should say so.

In the Asperger's forum in which I participate we agreed, that everyone should speak only for themselve, which means to use "I" and "me" instead of "us" and "we".

Great! That's a valid perspective and you should keep it!

In the autistic twitter community where I and a lot of other advocates spend our time we are inclusive and speak frequently about ourselves as a culture -- not as a monolith, mind you, but as a culture. We disagree frequently about everything from IFL/PFL to whether or not Autism should be considered a disability, but we recognize that we're all Autistic and we're all doing our best to make the world a safer place for all of us.

> twitter community

This is where the disconnect is coming from. Twitter 'communities' are a tiny minority of persons. They do not represent the everyday person. This is particularly so with autism, as autism frequently entails social difficulties that get people ostracized from the communities they attempt to join. Twitter, in particular, is quick to ostracize, and you should therefore consider that "Autism Twitter" contains only the subset of autistic persons who can socially pass as conversant, and who choose to be vocal on social networks.

I agree with that sentiment 100%, which is why I went to great lengths to encourage readers to make sure they check in with other Autistic people, that my voice is only one voice, that we are not a monolith, that I don't speak for everyone, etc.

Hell there's even a line near the end where I say that there are Autistic people who would disagree with every single line I have written, and that they are worth listening to as well.

So like... what's the problem?

I don’t get it either. You don’t even use “us” or “we” in the sense that’s being complained about, as far as I could find scanning the article.

How much more defensive can you be without not writing an article? And we do need _somebody_ to write about what is a fairly pressing problem in coverage of autism?

"Different things are obvious to me than are obvious to you."

I think this observation, while correct, is a bit too generic, since it's something which can be said about all people.

I have close relative who's on the autistic spectrum. I notice that what I find obvious, he may not find obvious. And what he finds obvious, I may not neccesarily find obvious.

I've spent many, many years pondering over it, and I've narrowed it down to the social communication. I've come to realize that a certain part of inter-human communication is of the "non spoken" kind. This includes facial expressions, body language, tone of voice, etc., but also tiny, tiny differences in how things are said or phrased.

I think "neurotypicals" will observe and accumulate these small, small signals, and they will use the accumulated values when they pass judgement on a social situation. At least that's how I perceive the differences between me and my relative. Whenever I judge a social situation differently from him, I find that the difference usually comes down to these fine-grained cues and signals. He passes judgement without taking them into account, because he simply does not observe them. And I pass judgement taking them into account.

From his side, his conclusion is correct, because of what he sees. And from my side, my own conclusion is also correct, based upon what I see.

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