Some people may more susceptible to those stimuli, but I don't see it a disability, but as natural neurodiversity.
These are plainly predatory and unethical marketing practices, for everyone!
The thing is they don’t know who specifically is vulnerable ahead of time, so they cast a wide net.
That it also targets "everyone's nature" doesn't mean it's not a bigger issue for people with certain neurodiversities affecting impulse control more. Same way a badly maintained road might also inconvenience a perfectly abled walker, but it is far more burdensome to a disabled person.
There are lots of other issues, like losing supporting parents and family, lack of a support network of friends, lack of job opportunities and bad work careers, issues with pursuing healthcare and maintaining health and lack of access to healthcare, and so on.
Only in the sense that the system doesn't provide extra accomondations. Not in the sense of active purposeful systemic opression (unlike say with blacks or gays).
>That doesn't mean that being gay isn't a natural variation in sexual orientation just as being autistic is a natural variation in brain structure.
I wouldn't say it's "just as". Being gay doesn'r bring any special impairement in sensory processing, social understanding, proprioception, speech, and so on. It only affects individuals because of morality / prejudice.
Whereas being autistic, especially of high support needs, means major sensitivity issues, issues with communication, problems coping with changes to routine, sometimes even inability to speak at all, meltdowns, and other issues, which impact the person, and need to be catered and attended, and even when perfectly catered, still cause issues (a school or office can accomondate for sensory issues, but we can't remove noise and light and other sensations from the world).
Saying it's a "natural variation" begs the question.
Namely ones who are content to be sedentary and work on explicitly abstract or highly derived concepts (mathematics, accounting, computing etc).
That’s a novel context even in near history, saying nothing of how far away our nearly unchanged pre-modern biology is from being comfortable in such a context
If you're asd and want to work in math or programming or something similar, it's much smoother sailing than in you want to work in many other professions that aren't abstract/sedentary. Much worse if you'd like to work in a highly social profession like advertising or journalism (or even academia in today's climate where it's mostly about how good you're at self-promotion and networking).
My perception of the word neurodivergent is that firstly the vast majority of people who use the word use it with an often first-hand awareness of the disabling aspects of conditions like adhd or autism, but with a view towards self acceptance. The people using the word are often painfully aware of the downsides of their disability, but equally can see the upshots.
If we were in a world populated by 99% autistic people, neurotypical people would be called overly emotional, lower cognitive function, inability to think abstractly, inability to focus for long periods of time.
The point is you can acknowledge the need for accommodations while simultaneously acknowledging that it's not so much something inherently "wrong" with you, rather something wrong with you existing in a neurotypical world.
These are all systemic issues though
are they not? You could make all of
these same arguments about gay people
back in the 80s.
There's nothing inherent about being gay that prevents healthy mutual interpersonal relationships.
Many people on the autism spectrum have wonderful and fulfilling interpersonal relationships (I suspect I am one of these, in fact) but autism can negatively affect many of the building blocks (empathy, etc) of interpersonal relationships.
Without disagreeing that the space of neurodivergence includes some life affecting disabilities, this generalization would also prove that race is not just harmless “natural diversity” but that being of a non-dominant race is also a “life affecting disability”. There are other explanations for correlation with reduced life expectancy than individual disability.
https://spia.princeton.edu/news/life-expectancy-gap-between-...
One thing worth noticing is that a society tends to be designed for the convenience of the dominant ethnicity, people of a different culture are going to have a somewhat harder time.
If someone has reduced mobility in their arm due to some past injury that might not be considered a disability if its impact on their life is low. If that impairment is so severe that they have functionally lost use of that arm then it could easily be considered such.
I don’t consider my ADHD a disability, but it is an impairment with regards to impulse control. But someone else’s condition could be much more severe. Someone with bipolar disorder or manic depression can easily go through a bout of extreme suggestibility which can wreak absolute havoc on their life.
Categorising many mental disorders as harmless “neurodiversity” feels like a form of forced positivity imposed to alleviate the stigma of some disorders at the cost of dismissing the serious impairments inherent to others.
I prepare for these episodes months in advance.
I needed a new car, so I set myself up to be fixated on a new Prius when the episode got bad. Nothing less than new would do because I wouldn’t have the presence of mind to vet a used one.
This put a hard limit on the financial damage. The highest trim Prius with all of the options is cheaper that many other cars I could have bought.
The end result was a car $10,000 over my maximum budget. It has far too many buttons, but it didn’t ruin me and I love the car. All in all, a successfully managed episode.
This is one of hundreds of problems I deal with and plan for.
It’s a really bad idea. I’m perfectly willing and highly motivated to destroy relationships to get that money. Think heroin addict.
Instead, I save around 25% of every paycheck on top of retirement plans. This gives me a large buffer against episodes. It’s also split across multiple banks. I only use a single account and the others sit for months without a transaction. I don’t have checks or high limit cards for the others to delay access to their full amount. This is exactly the right amount of friction to keep them safe. It’s there, it’s mine, it can be available if I can wait a day. I can’t wait a day.
The results speak for themselves:
1. My credit score is over 800
2. My only loans are a house and car.
3. I’ve never failed to pay my credit card off in full each month.
As a side note, people see this and think I’m not that bad. They are wrong. Very wrong. I am simply extremely good at masking and compensating.
According to my psychiatrist, I’m a fairly severe case despite being easy to treat.
And, I'm sorry to repeat myself, but isn't it possible that you go to a third party professional (e.g. a lawyer) which you can melt down and it would be fine because it would be legally enforced. Or would the resentment build and you would just buy a second car (or house!) as soon as you are free of their strictures. Sure, you destroy the relationship, but there are more lawyers for the next time.
Once again, congrats on having a solution!
Each step of the process requires significant activation energy and unless I finish every step with no delays, it will not be restarted for months.
My brain is incredibly unreliable. There are very few things I can force myself to do. Unless a routine task is more important than work or my twice a month D&D game, it won’t be done on time, if it gets done at all.
That includes cooking, showering, housework, car maintenance, etc. Reminders for these things will be ignored. Todo lists will be ignored.
Yes, it shows up on brain scans.
Children in abusive households, be it physical, emotional, neglect, etc are in near total fight flight or flee mode constantly. This absolutely effects the amygdala.
I have spent the past couple months with my time off work working on this all day every day. It's made a massive improvement in my life, my habits, my routine, and working towards the things that are meaningful in my life.
Obviously I'm not faultless - I'm still here on a quick break.
It seems so easy to me personally to refrain from doing so many of these things, and that makes it that much more apparent to me how many systems in modern life are so heavily exploitative of and designed to destroy impulse control. A lot of people had their willpower eroded over time and never noticed, and because of that they see nothing is wrong. It's not a great thing to witness actual fully grown adults being just as impulsive as their five year old children.
But what about when it's your credit account that is sabotaging you by design? Can't cancel the account unless you call a phone number and talk to somebody. But if you want to increase your credit limit, you can just click a button on the website and validate how much you make a year and boom, you have a $7000 limit when you get $900 a month.
So if you have a phone phobia and an issue with impulse control and you maybe stress spend, you now have a system totally against you by design.
It's great to explore the world as someone with visible disabilities. Also do so with neurodivergence.