The Weekly Infodump, 2024/09/16
Welcome to the Weekly Infodump, which might finally start living up to its name now that I have joined the 85 percent* of un(&der)employed autists! You are allowed to share this newsletter with others and I hope you will.
(links) This ProPublica piece on how fucking easy it is for basically any random grifter to use public money to incarcerate and abuse disabled kids does not exactly qualify as breaking news, but does add some fascinating threads to the rich tapestry that is "therapeutic interventions."
Also, my jaw dropped when I read
Tuition for residential students is $316,400 this school year. Many students require a dedicated aide for 16 hours a day, bringing the total to $573,200.
Y'all, WHAT?
I knew we were a lucrative market but daaaamn! More importantly: how we do acquire this bag, gentlefolx?
(links) Speaking of grifters, the hipster eugenicists are back. I'm not going to engage with their mess, which includes slapping their toddlers and then claiming that any criticism of their parenting is "reverse racism." But I do try to keep a tab open on this nonsense because while it's very easy to focus on the fascists at the gate, we also need to acknowledge the calls that are coming from inside the h0use.
Also, I admit, cults are one of my dark special interests. Will these people at some point level up to Actual Cult? Time will tell and I am already seated.
(podcasts) This episode of the Neurodiverging podcast, tackles the rise of "neurospicy," a term I have very mixed feelings about.
It's a good episode that concisely explains the problems with the term, though I do think it omits some important context. (Though, to be fair, historical context is not the job of this podcast, which is essentially a content marketing funnel for ND-focused coaching services.)
My understanding of "neurospicy" is that it began as a joke in community, as a response to neurotypicals' use of functioning labels – specifically "mild" autism to refer to (and frankly, dismiss) those of us with lower support needs.
"Nuh uh," replied some folks, "I've got the SPICY autism," while others maintained they were "cool ranch autistic" or "flaming hot autistic" and it sort of went from there.
And like so many ND things, from jigsaw puzzles to the internet, it was all fun and games until the NTs ruined it.
(links) I'm not sure how I feel about the "just asking questions" tone of this New Yorker piece (archived here for all you paywall-slamming Wile E. Coyotes of online news consumption) on the DSM-5, which comes awfully close to concluding that, because our diagnostic tools are a bit hit-or-miss (and they are!), all of our diagnoses are therefore suspect.
It's giving r/fakedisordercringe. It's giving "everyone's a little autistic."
(celebrity autism) Food for thought in this Guardian piece on autistic comedians, which notes that "autism seems to be significantly overrepresented among professional standups." Makes perfect sense to me! We spend our entire lives being laughed at and/or heckled, so why not make a miniscule amount of money while we're at it?
However, I suspect a more significant factor is the extent to which so many ND people are effectively excluded from the workforce. Incidentally, we're also significantly overrepresented in cults and the carceral system, but people seem less perturbed about that?
*Which reminds me, that 85 percent I alluded to at the beginning? This fucking statistic, which appears on seemingly every Disability in the Workplace PowerPoint ever made, is my Roman Empire – and I'm not the only one!
(Meanwhile, the folks behind this site heard someone say "statistics" and went all the way down the rabbit hole until they found Frith himself. You love to see it.)
If you're curious, the tl;dr version is basically "a voluntary online survey," a research methodology with some notable limitations, including but not limited to:
sampling bias: basically, who are these people? (anybody!) Where did you find them? (lol online) Are they representative of the population? (you cannot possibly know)
response bias: To quote Dr. House, everyone lies! Mostly because nobody wants to be the weirdo who says the "wrong" thing. As every autistic person knows, there is ALWAYS a wrong answer, even if and especially when someone tells you there's no wrong answer.
measurement errors: the data collected is inaccurate, whether because of ambiguous wording, insufficient response options, or leading questions. Questions are hard to answer, especially when the only two correct answers to any question ever are, "I need more information" and "Well, it depends..."
Terminology aside, the problem with this type of research – in plain English – is that anyone who can access the survey can answer the survey. This means that some unknown (and unknowable) number of people will not be members of the group you're studying, and/or could be entirely misinformed on the subject, and/or might even be Agents of Chaos! After all, the online survey is basically how we got Boaty McBoatface, which is a fun result, but not something you'd type up and publish in a peer-reviewed journal.
You MIGHT, however, use an eye-popping percentage if you were, say, a caregiver-led charitable organization with a vested interest in exploiting the public's fear of autism in order to extract money from well-meaning donors for the purpose of meeting your annual fundraising goals.
(television) I can't afford television anymore, but I hear that, in a rare double win for Autists everywhere, both Young Sheldon and The Good Doctor have ended their interminable broadcast runs. Our long international nightmare is over.
You can stop reading now.