Electric fields, not individual neurons, may hold information in memory: study

I imagine there's a thousand reasons for a state like depression to emerge — some, but not all of them external. I think the Venn diagram of people with depression and people whose "lives suck for whatever reason" is not a single circle.

You know, I think I actually agree with you on that point, despite the rest of your post. I won't address the rest of what you said, because it'd just get nasty.

The problem, in my opinion, can be described by Maslow's hierarchy of needs. In the US (probably elsewhere too, just speaking for myself), the layer below physiological needs, like clean air, shelter, clothing, etc, is: "Get a job." Without that, you're dead.

And let me tell you, it's a WHOLE lot more bleak than that. The US medical system does not provide adequate services for ANYONE other than perhaps children (in some cases).

As soon as someone with a special need becomes an adult, nearly all public provided support is torn away. If you aren't 65, then when your child hits 26, they have no guarantee of being able to stay on your insurance. You might be able to make a deal with your employer and health insurance provider but that is by no means a given.

Now think of what that means in terms of estate planning.

It's possible for your child with special needs to qualify for social security and medicaid but their household income needs to be below poverty levels (with pretty crazy strict means testing). There's a reason so many people with mental disabilities often end up homeless.

The fact is, some individuals will need 24/7 care for the rest of their lives. However, because taxes and government are bad and "they should just pull themselves up by their bootstraps" or whatever, the US and many state government are setup to instead worry about keeping them off the benches when they end up homeless.

Yes, I have a child with autism, and yes one thing that keeps me up at night is worrying what will happen to them after I'm gone.

But if everyone were autistic (as we define it today), and then someone was born that we would consider "neurotypical" (in this world, of course, they would be neurodivergent!), then that "non-autistic" person would probably be at a huge disadvantage (socially) in that society, so it'd be reasonable to call that person "disabled", even though we'd consider that person typical.

So yes, "disabled" is just a term we use to describe people in the minority, who have some sort of condition (physical or mental) that could confer a disadvantage upon them in our current society.

So to your statement:

> I too, thought the idea that “autistic people are disabled because neurotypical people considers autism is a disability” was not very convincing.

I've never really thought about it that way. My understanding would be more like "autistic people are disabled because their condition puts them at a disadvantage when interacting with the neurotypical world". And I think that jives with how we should think about disability: it's something that makes it harder for someone to interact (physically, socially, etc.) with the world as it is. We may try to make the world easier on disabled people -- ramps for those who cannot walk, audible signals for those who cannot see, attempts to change how we communicate with those who are neurodivergent -- but at the end of the day those people still have a disability, as there will always be parts of the world that they'll be unable to navigate the way a "non-disabled" person could.

It seems a fair number of experts have well justified doubts based on studies of already deployed lower energy radiation.

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/we-have-no...

> Citing this large body of research, more than 240 scientists who have published peer-reviewed research on the biologic and health effects of nonionizing electromagnetic fields (EMF) signed the International EMF Scientist Appeal, which calls for stronger exposure limits. The appeal makes the following assertions:

“Numerous recent scientific publications have shown that EMF affects living organisms at levels well below most international and national guidelines. Effects include increased cancer risk, cellular stress, increase in harmful free radicals, genetic damages, structural and functional changes of the reproductive system, learning and memory deficits, neurological disorders, and negative impacts on general well-being in humans. Damage goes well beyond the human race, as there is growing evidence of harmful effects to both plant and animal life.”

The scientists who signed this appeal arguably constitute the majority of experts on the effects of nonionizing radiation. They have published more than 2,000 papers and letters on EMF in professional journals.

> The World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) classified RFR as "possibly carcinogenic to humans" in 2011. Last year, a $30 million study conducted by the U.S. National Toxicology Program (NTP) found “clear evidence” that two years of exposure to cell phone RFR increased cancer in male rats and damaged DNA in rats and mice of both sexes. The Ramazzini Institute in Italy replicated the key finding of the NTP using a different carrier frequency and much weaker exposure to cell phone radiation over the life of the rats.

> Since 5G is a new technology, there is no research on health effects, so we are “flying blind” to quote a U.S. senator. However, we have considerable evidence about the harmful effects of 2G and 3G. Little is known the effects of exposure to 4G, a 10-year-old technology, because governments have been remiss in funding this research. Meanwhile, we are seeing increases in certain types of head and neck tumors in tumor registries, which may be at least partially attributable to the proliferation of cell phone radiation. These increases are consistent with results from case-control studies of tumor risk in heavy cell phone users.

I reversed a life-long case of Prosopagnosia after doing some n-of-1 experiments with replenishing my gut bacteria, so it seems plausible to me that losing intestines could impact this.

I also have a friend had her intestines removed due to Crohn's disease. She had an infection from the surgery that put her in a coma she woke up unable to picture things in her head. Hard to say what caused it.