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Peter Petrosino's avatar

I find it interesting that, as public attention has been drawn to the rapidly increasing scourge of autism in our population, we are now asked to re-envision autism as a gift. I interacted with vast numbers of autistic kids throughout my 31 year career in education and had an autistic uncle a few years older than me and I find it difficult to see the blessings in the condition. As the mainstream media jumps on board with this messaging, broadcasting the myth that our technological saviors Elon Musk, Peter Thiell, and their cronies have amassed their wealth and status because of their "functional autism", I must contrast this pop culture initiative with the profound struggles among the autistic folks that I have known. And is it a coincidence that, as the general public are becoming receptive to the theory that excessive childhood vaccination may be linked to autism, we now have a widespread marketing push to normalize or even glamorize autism? Perhaps in the near future parents will request the maximum possible number of vaccines for their children so the child can benefit from the many wondrous talents that autism will convey upon them. And let us not forget that the new, more palatable "autistic savant" term is meant to replace the long standing prior reference - "idiot savant." Did clinicians in the past simply fail to recognize the awesomeness of autism?

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Ellen from Endwell's avatar

You probably already know this or have written about it, but there's research going on and a lot of accounts about children remembering past lives, with the memories typically fading around the age of reason (age 5-6). Add to that accounts from therapeutic past life regressions and people who are brought back from death as possible evidence of other realities or 'The Hill.' Plus all the telekinetic and distance viewing research suggesting that our normal ways of experiencing the world are dramatically limited through socialization, as you mention, that we are taught to abandon our intuition, extra-sensory perception, and empathic capabilities.

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