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Comment by trillic | Hacker News Reader

There was a young woman in my high school and University class, she was a bit strange. Extremely bright beyond her years, sociable, and got along well with both the teachers and most of the students. There was always something a bit off with her though. From early high-school, as soon as “career” talk got more serious, she had only one job that she claimed she wanted to do, “Pediactric Oncology”. Some of the teachers were also taken aback by her fervor and intensity, but also her consistency. Last I checked she’s in Med school somewhere prestigious, I’m sure she’ll be a great doctor, and that a lot of children will get the attention they deserve, but something worries me about the whole situation.

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Oh no, was a person "a bit strange"? Were they "a bit off"? Think of the children!!!

It seems especially ugly to see that here on HN. I grew up as the "a bit strange" person in a small midwestern town. It sucked. it wasn't until I got the fuck out and got into tech that I got to be around other nerdy, non-neurotypical people like myself that I finally felt like I could breathe.

If you have a complaint about somebody, fine, make it in clear and precise terms. But this scary-scary vagueness looks to me like standard-issue neurotypical bigotry.

Hear hear! It’s really easy to paint someone as “a bit off” and imply without implying.

It’s important when noticing instances of this to request further clarification.

well sure, but on the other hand you don't know anything about the person under discussion. They are essentially a small very vague figure from fiction given the level of specificity you have for her. They are not having their reputation besmirched or anything, because nobody knows who they are, and thus probably don't require a rousing defense.

I would like to push against the notion that expressing ableist beliefs, as long as they don't affect the actual person who is a target of the ableism, doesn't deserve calling out. These sorts of expressions of opinions interact broadly with the community as a signal of acceptable and unacceptable ways to view people. Expressing this sort of callous willingness to imply someone one doesn't know all that well is dangerous simply because they have behaved some way differently also has the secondary effect of exampling that members of the community here are willing to describe strangers as dangerous if they don't conform to expected behaviors. This signals to nondangerous, different people that they are in danger of being labeled as dangerous, which is stressful for folks who just want to talk popcorn intellectual subject matters on an orange site.

It's similar to eg. why lgbtqia+ people have distinct memories about feeling unsafe in communities where "smear the queer" is a recess schoolyard game.

Nope. I know that I was that person on the other end of hopelessly vague casting of suspicion. And I know that a lot of people nod and get suspicious themselves.

I'm not concerned about the woman in question. I'm concerned about everybody else who gets treated poorly because they're "a bit strange". And because of that, I'm concerned every time I hear that sort of "different equals scary" talk, as it normalized poor treatment of perfectly good people.

This is an ableist viewpoint. For example, if she had a close childhood friend, cousin, family member, or she herself had experience with cancer, that would both cause trauma-based behaviors (such as being "a bit off") as well as explain her hyperfocus into going into pediatric oncology from a young age.

It sounds like you didn't know her very well and still judge her as dangerous.

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