So I've been hearing some talk lately about how we might some day be able to have a cure for autism, and honestly, I'm not entirely sure how I feel about that. I mean, autistic people are not exactly easy to deal with, but they're also some of the most influential people in our entire society. There have been many, many great scientists and mathematicians who have been autistic, and I don't really think you can argue that these people would have been as brilliant or successful if they HADN'T. Do we really want to get rid of that altogether? I'm not really sure if that's okay.
Furthermore, I don't think it's fair to suppress someone's intellect and ways of thinking just because their actions and thought processes don't align with what we consider to be "normal". Sure, autistic people think differently than we do, but can we really call it wrong or bad? Something that needs to be eradicated? I know plenty of high-functioning autistic people who lead relatively normal lives, and come off as regular people with some odd personality quirks. Oh, and they're also ASTONISHINGLY smart. Even those who are not particularly good with social interaction are often still incredibly brilliant.
Let me put it this way. There is an autistic kid that's been in the news a lot lately who is apparently attempting to rewrite quantum physics. Do we really want to lose that?
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