But what is lost when we prioritize reading literacy over human connection?
Literacy. We use the word to mean the ability to parse text, but it’s not that simple. Roughly 87% of the world’s population can read. Almost a third of those people read in a language that they don’t speak at home. In becoming literate, in the text-parsing sense, many people enter a world that does…
things i notice:
take care of each other
my friend's bank branch just went cashless
i literally only go to the bank to deal with cash
coming soon:
• breadless bakeries
• coffeeless cafés
• hardwareless hardware stores
• careless care providers
late-stage capitalism is really something to behold
I’ve read things literally my whole life. Hold up. Let me rephrase that. Actually, let me point out how that is a perfect opening statement for this piece I’m trying to write about life as a literalist. Everything is wrong with this sentence, if I pick it apart. Not literally everything, though the case could…
Who is Jane Doe, and how do we provide her with justice?
The reason an institution like Cornell chooses to handle a case like Jane Doe vs the Cornell 7 internally has nothing to do with fairness, or protecting boys’ reputations, or even protecting the reputation of the institution. The reason is that institutions like Cornell are specifically designed to manufacture injustice, while obscuring that motive from…
two or more autistic people, in collaboration with a clinician, in a non-hierarchical relationship. a good model — building meaning from the inside out — instead of being handed a pronouncement from above.
How do we talk about repair, and who’s capable, in 500 characters?
“All autistic people can learn to be accountable for their actions, and to say otherwise is infantalizing and ableist.” Many variations on this theme are making their way through the platforms currently. While on the surface it appears well-meaning and affirming, it’s worth stepping back and considering the claim at face value, and how it…
Population as Organism: Epigenetics, Neurodiversity, and the Problem of the Individual
The Western neuroscience community has recently taken to saying that autism is genetic — a corrective, and a welcome one, to public claims, made from positions of real institutional power, that environmental exposure is the primary driver of rising diagnosis rates. The rebuttal leans on heritability: family studies put the heritable component of autism around…
continue reading So Autism is Genetic: What Does That Settle?
Articulated as personal responsibility — what I hold myself to, not a standard imposed on others. The online public space serves overlapping, non-competing functions — information exchange, community formation, identity articulation, advocacy, and low-cost contact for people otherwise isolated by geography, access, or circumstance. No single function is the “real” one that the others distract…
continue reading A Neurodiversity-Affirming Code of Ethics for Online Participation
