I’m a new subscriber bc of this essay. :) I have a lot of thoughts on this topic but I don’t have time to write them all out right now so I’ll stick with: this really spoke to me as someone diagnosed as Autistic as a child who often feels alienated by the dominance of adult dx/self dx voices in the neurodiversity movement (this is not a statement against the accuracy of their diagnoses only about my own feelings)
At first, it sounded to me as if you were advertising against the use of "neurotypical" and "neurodivergent" in general, but then the second half sounded as if it was the conflation with the productivity fetish that you were going against?
Anyhow, in case that wasn't the case, here's why I disagree:
I do like the term as a catch-all label for people who aren't gear-shaped like the rest of society, and I think that it's important to have something to rally under, just because of how (mentally) damaging it can be to grow up with a brain that functions differently from everyone else's. This here comes to mind: https://twitter.com/danidonovan/status/1318651281448251393
(I know I only comment here on the related topics, but I promise that it's not part of my identity other than being a nifty shortcut to describe how my brain works.)
I'm not arguing that people on the far end of e.g. the autism spectrum are infinitely worse-off than I am (I'm high-functioning, as long as I have the right pills, without them, I'm still more or less functioning). But that's what "disability" is for - right?
Let's look at something physical, since it's more clear-cut.
17 years ago, I had an almost-complete hearing loss (92%) in my left ear. Given that there were 8% left, I wasn't disabled enough to get any slip of paper - however, the disadvantages are real. (Anyone who thinks it's no big deal: grab the good ear plugs, make sure that one of your ears doesn't receive sound, and now have fun going out, or eating in a busy restaurant, or trying to follow a conversation in a noisy environment, or participating in traffic. The loss of 3-dimensional hearing is a real problem - once, I was almost hit by an out-of-control car because I couldn't spot which direction the screeching tires and the honking was coming from. I also predict that you will tire a lot faster, simply because you can't filter out unimportant noises anymore.)
However, my other ear is in supreme condition and is actually compensating for the hearing loss. In addition, I have developed a sort of tremor/pressure sense that is pretty useful sometimes when it comes to spotting disturbances, but it also makes it impossible to ignore women in high heels walking past, even if it's on the other side of a closed door. Once, I've worked in a huge corporate office - I couldn't focus for more than five minutes, because inevitably, someone would walk past with heels that made noises/vibrations that people with "normal" hearing possibly just tune out.
All this puts me in a position that's worse than that of people with two working ears, and infinitely better than that of people with 92% (or even 100%) hearing loss in both ears. I can participate in phone calls, I can watch movies or play games without subtitles, if the house is on fire, I will hear the alarms - and I don't need assistant tech to do any of that. Compared to someone who can't hear (or the severely autistic individual from your example), I'm hardly disabled! Among the blind, the one-eyed person leads...
Now, how about bats (the neurodivergent people at the upper end of the scale)? I'd assume that they have problems as well when it comes to navigating noisy environments. Maybe they perceive sounds as painful that aren't a problem for people in the middle of the bell curve. But until it becomes a problem, they'd never talk about it - maybe they aren't even aware of the fact. High-functioning bats will be like "IDK, I just have very good hearing :))" and proceed as they were. The bats with sensory processing disorders will probably sit with the hearing-impaired crowd, because at least they understand how it is to have sound-related issues.
Imagine someone with an IQ in the top 5% who did terrible at school because their attention refused to stay at the given task, and everyone told them "you're so gifted! If you'd only put in a bit more of an effort..." When they looked at themselves, they saw that it was true; they saw how everyone else just... did the things? Classmates who couldn't count to 20 without taking their shoes off had better grades at maths!
That person (me, in case that was unclear) lived in a hell of their own making, driving themselves into burnout over their bachelor thesis because "if you'd only put in a bit more of an effort..."
I can't possibly describe how liberating it was to get the first diagnosis and to be told "it isn't your personal failure, your brain is simply working differently from everyone else's". (I went to my professor and told him "I got an autism diagnosis, btw" and he was like "oh, you too?", restructured my working schedule, and I got a bachelor in computer sciences in as little time as bureaucracy would let me get away with.) I've repeatedly see people being completely mindblown when they meet others who have made the same experiences, who can tell them "It's not your lack of grit/self-control, it's not that you just have to pull yourself together, it's a real thing and others have it too".
If you shoot at the label, how should those people find each other? The system sure doesn't help them.
The problem is not the neurodivergence. The problem is that autistic individuals with well-established preferences are put into classes that they don't care for, being driven into buffer overflow instead of sitting in a corner, happily becoming the next von Neumann. The problem is that the ADHD kids are being told "if you'd only pull yourself together" instead of having a school system that actively captures their interest (have you seen an ADHD person who's interested in something? It's beautiful!)
TL;DR: The problem is the productivity economics, not the people with capitalism-incompatible brains.
I have to be honest with you, you missed the point of that video by so so much.
Here's what I feel like is the reason: You viewed it through a certain lens.
If you look at it as a corporate video to do work to make richer people more rich, then yeah, that is the right way to interpret it.
However it is about ADHD.
That video helps me with cleaning my room.
Or writing a story, learn how to play a complicated game.
The common ways to tackle something don't work if you have ADHD, and it affects all parts of life.
One thing I noticed in your post was that you are also heavily using negative words.
The video you are complaining about uses uplifting language, talking about how people with ADHD may fail at things, and that's ok.
And lastly, it's funny how you both end up with the same conclusion in different words.
Change the world and make it a better place.
You may fail at times, and that's something that happens, but persevere and continue.
And as a final thing, ADHD does cause suffering even if the world was a perfect place.
Strategies to mitigate that are something needed as it has a huge impact on motivation and other things.
TL;DR, because it seems like you don't know much about that condition, it's a reduced amount of various brain hormones, like Dopamin (happiness, motivation, creating memories), Serotonin (the chill hormone you need to relax), Melatonin (the stuff you need to get tired).
And if you don't have enough of the hormones, the things they do work less.
I’m a new subscriber bc of this essay. :) I have a lot of thoughts on this topic but I don’t have time to write them all out right now so I’ll stick with: this really spoke to me as someone diagnosed as Autistic as a child who often feels alienated by the dominance of adult dx/self dx voices in the neurodiversity movement (this is not a statement against the accuracy of their diagnoses only about my own feelings)
At first, it sounded to me as if you were advertising against the use of "neurotypical" and "neurodivergent" in general, but then the second half sounded as if it was the conflation with the productivity fetish that you were going against?
Anyhow, in case that wasn't the case, here's why I disagree:
I do like the term as a catch-all label for people who aren't gear-shaped like the rest of society, and I think that it's important to have something to rally under, just because of how (mentally) damaging it can be to grow up with a brain that functions differently from everyone else's. This here comes to mind: https://twitter.com/danidonovan/status/1318651281448251393
(I know I only comment here on the related topics, but I promise that it's not part of my identity other than being a nifty shortcut to describe how my brain works.)
I'm not arguing that people on the far end of e.g. the autism spectrum are infinitely worse-off than I am (I'm high-functioning, as long as I have the right pills, without them, I'm still more or less functioning). But that's what "disability" is for - right?
Let's look at something physical, since it's more clear-cut.
17 years ago, I had an almost-complete hearing loss (92%) in my left ear. Given that there were 8% left, I wasn't disabled enough to get any slip of paper - however, the disadvantages are real. (Anyone who thinks it's no big deal: grab the good ear plugs, make sure that one of your ears doesn't receive sound, and now have fun going out, or eating in a busy restaurant, or trying to follow a conversation in a noisy environment, or participating in traffic. The loss of 3-dimensional hearing is a real problem - once, I was almost hit by an out-of-control car because I couldn't spot which direction the screeching tires and the honking was coming from. I also predict that you will tire a lot faster, simply because you can't filter out unimportant noises anymore.)
However, my other ear is in supreme condition and is actually compensating for the hearing loss. In addition, I have developed a sort of tremor/pressure sense that is pretty useful sometimes when it comes to spotting disturbances, but it also makes it impossible to ignore women in high heels walking past, even if it's on the other side of a closed door. Once, I've worked in a huge corporate office - I couldn't focus for more than five minutes, because inevitably, someone would walk past with heels that made noises/vibrations that people with "normal" hearing possibly just tune out.
All this puts me in a position that's worse than that of people with two working ears, and infinitely better than that of people with 92% (or even 100%) hearing loss in both ears. I can participate in phone calls, I can watch movies or play games without subtitles, if the house is on fire, I will hear the alarms - and I don't need assistant tech to do any of that. Compared to someone who can't hear (or the severely autistic individual from your example), I'm hardly disabled! Among the blind, the one-eyed person leads...
Now, how about bats (the neurodivergent people at the upper end of the scale)? I'd assume that they have problems as well when it comes to navigating noisy environments. Maybe they perceive sounds as painful that aren't a problem for people in the middle of the bell curve. But until it becomes a problem, they'd never talk about it - maybe they aren't even aware of the fact. High-functioning bats will be like "IDK, I just have very good hearing :))" and proceed as they were. The bats with sensory processing disorders will probably sit with the hearing-impaired crowd, because at least they understand how it is to have sound-related issues.
Imagine someone with an IQ in the top 5% who did terrible at school because their attention refused to stay at the given task, and everyone told them "you're so gifted! If you'd only put in a bit more of an effort..." When they looked at themselves, they saw that it was true; they saw how everyone else just... did the things? Classmates who couldn't count to 20 without taking their shoes off had better grades at maths!
That person (me, in case that was unclear) lived in a hell of their own making, driving themselves into burnout over their bachelor thesis because "if you'd only put in a bit more of an effort..."
I can't possibly describe how liberating it was to get the first diagnosis and to be told "it isn't your personal failure, your brain is simply working differently from everyone else's". (I went to my professor and told him "I got an autism diagnosis, btw" and he was like "oh, you too?", restructured my working schedule, and I got a bachelor in computer sciences in as little time as bureaucracy would let me get away with.) I've repeatedly see people being completely mindblown when they meet others who have made the same experiences, who can tell them "It's not your lack of grit/self-control, it's not that you just have to pull yourself together, it's a real thing and others have it too".
If you shoot at the label, how should those people find each other? The system sure doesn't help them.
The problem is not the neurodivergence. The problem is that autistic individuals with well-established preferences are put into classes that they don't care for, being driven into buffer overflow instead of sitting in a corner, happily becoming the next von Neumann. The problem is that the ADHD kids are being told "if you'd only pull yourself together" instead of having a school system that actively captures their interest (have you seen an ADHD person who's interested in something? It's beautiful!)
TL;DR: The problem is the productivity economics, not the people with capitalism-incompatible brains.
I have to be honest with you, you missed the point of that video by so so much.
Here's what I feel like is the reason: You viewed it through a certain lens.
If you look at it as a corporate video to do work to make richer people more rich, then yeah, that is the right way to interpret it.
However it is about ADHD.
That video helps me with cleaning my room.
Or writing a story, learn how to play a complicated game.
The common ways to tackle something don't work if you have ADHD, and it affects all parts of life.
One thing I noticed in your post was that you are also heavily using negative words.
The video you are complaining about uses uplifting language, talking about how people with ADHD may fail at things, and that's ok.
And lastly, it's funny how you both end up with the same conclusion in different words.
Change the world and make it a better place.
You may fail at times, and that's something that happens, but persevere and continue.
And as a final thing, ADHD does cause suffering even if the world was a perfect place.
Strategies to mitigate that are something needed as it has a huge impact on motivation and other things.
TL;DR, because it seems like you don't know much about that condition, it's a reduced amount of various brain hormones, like Dopamin (happiness, motivation, creating memories), Serotonin (the chill hormone you need to relax), Melatonin (the stuff you need to get tired).
And if you don't have enough of the hormones, the things they do work less.