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Comment by theFco | Hacker News Reader

I feel the statement "autistic people will never write a poem" may be trivially true, because (I suspect) many people will never write a poem. The implication that this is invalid or wrong is perverse. And the fact that now we have to argue for the dignity of autistic people by saying that there are autistic poets is also non-sensical.

These are all cruel suggestions about people, we should challenge why RFK makes statements like this. Not take them at face value, as if they merit being answered.

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The quote is:

"And these are kids who will never pay taxes, they’ll never hold a job, they’ll never play baseball, they’ll never write a poem, they’ll never go out on a date. Many of them will never use a toilet unassisted." ... "Most cases now are severe. Twenty-five percent of the kids who are diagnosed with autism are nonverbal, non-toilet-trained, and have other stereotypical features."

Then pbs fact-checking is questioning the "twenty-five percent".

But he was talking about severe autism, and yet this seems to be morphing somehow into "RFK Jr says George Bernard Shaw didn't exist".

> Most cases now are severe.

Wasn’t this always the case?

I don't even know what it means, 25% isn't "most".

I'm pretty sure it's the opposite, and the rise in autism diagnoses is almost entirely people who overall function well in society and wouldn't have been diagnosed in the past.

So to me it would be very surprising if the ratio wasn't shifting away from serious cases of autism.

If that wasn't the case, and cases of actally disabling autism were on the rise, I'd think actual scientists would be trying to find the cause, yet all we ever hear from is conspiracy idiots trying to blame anything from vaccines to "the Jews" for autism.

That’s what I meant - the early autism diagnosis were exclusively “severe”

Only as more symptoms were discovered did the milder forms get recognized

Thank you. Read the whole quote. He's just listing everyday things most people take for granted. Pointing out that these people won't be able to do them. Stupid to zero in on "write a poem". BTW, George Bernard Shaw did not have level 3 autism.

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