"Eschew flamebait. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

RMS lacks the self censorship and political intuition to not say what many think but know not to say. I disagree with him that " having a child with Down’s syndrome to having a pet." but that's because I've had experience with a neighbor with down syndrome. However, I know many people think that, they just are politically savvy enough not to say it.

It's unfortunate that in today's society, people condemn people like RMS who are not neurotypical for not behaving neurotypically and try to cancel him while at the same time, those same people claim to celebrate diversity.

Has anyone but RMS diagnosed RMS as having an autism spectrum disorder?

> Has anyone but RMS diagnosed RMS as having an autism spectrum disorder?

IIRC, he actually claims he doesn't have ASD, but his reasoning suggests that he doesn't know what he's talking about: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26537802

Regardless of which classifications he fits or does not fit into, it's pretty obvious he's not neurotypical.

No, that's bullshit. Don't play armchair neurologist and diagnose people's conditions from a distance as a way of explaining their behavior.

I clearly stated I'm not diagnosing any conditions, so the accusation is uncalled for.

Neurotypical is hardly a scientific word, but to the extent it applies to anyone, you'd have a hard time convincing me it applies to RMS.

The term neurotypical doesn't have to be scientific to have meaning. The term is very strongly associated with autism and ASD, and that's the context in which the term was used here. Using an existing, loaded term in reference to a person's behavior, prefixed with a "I'm not diagnosing any conditions," fig leaf is disingenuous.

Personally I am inclined to avoid the term "neurotypical". Although the term is popular, it is unclear what exactly it means, and the scientific basis behind the term is questionable.

That said, RMS clearly displays traits consistent with the broad autism phenotype (BAP). That's not a diagnosis because BAP is by definition not a diagnosis – it is defined as a subclinical condition, and by definition you don't diagnose subclinical conditions.

You are the only one using the words autism and ASD in this thread. There was no such prior context.

He's a child free antinatalist. I don't think we should hold his ideas on this topic in very high regard.

In Spain you can abort a child with Down's Syndrome because it's ethically better. In the end, they parents and relatives will die and lots of these people can't manage themselves alone, making a huge risk for them.

It's amazing how lots of things, such as research on anything that remotely touches Human Intelligence is considered "Eugenics", bad, fascist.

But killing the unborn is a-ok because they would "suffer", and the worst of all, they would be a burden on the parents who would not be able to continue their hedonistic lifestyles, they should be consuming stuff all the time, for the good of society! Now that is good and desirable.

Sick world

Your account has been using HN primarily (even exclusively) for ideological battle. That's not allowed here because it destroys the curious conversation that HN is supposed to exist for. We therefore ban such accounts, regardless of which ideology they're battling for or against, and I've banned this one.

If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email [email protected] and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. They're here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.