would go a long way to making it hard for deaf people to communicate with each other or form their own communities outside of hearing spaces. One of the first things you do if you want to integrate a community or break up a culture is you invalidate their language.

True.

> One of the first things you do if you want to integrate a community or break up a culture is you invalidate their language.

This is affirming the consequent once again. You assume the goal is to break up a culture, and claim this is a tactic for that purpose, but that doesn’t actually tell us this is the intention.

As a counterpoint, it is hard for autistic people to get accommodations in workplaces especially without strong legal support.

Is this because bosses ‘want to break up a culture’? I would say not. I would say it’s because management culture has a ludicrously simplistic idea of what humans are in general, and what I’d like to think are false beliefs about cost/benefit of making accommodations.

I'm not sure that changes much about the experience of the communities it's happening to though. Bell could have had perfectly innocent reasons for making it harder for people to learn sign language, but the end result still kind of ends up being the same, and it seems reasonable to me for people in those communities who do feel isolated to push back and to argue that they have a right to exist and that they aren't being given full voices[0].

----

[0]: no pun intended with the deaf community, except yes pun sort of intended because sign language itself can be described as a voice that allows deaf people to more easily communicate and advocate for themselves, and I think that labeling is kind of accurate. So pun partially intended.

I think it matters a lot whether communities have the wrong idea of why things are happening to them, and what other people’s intentions are. It seems profoundly disempowering to not have this understanding. I understand that you don’t.

What you're describing is a very privileged perspective that doesn't really map cleanly to many peoples' lived experience. It's not the case that I need to check whether the person stepping on my face really means to hurt me or not -- it may be the case that I need to object to the entire system that makes it easy for others to step on my face.

Of COURSE the face-steppers would rush to assure me that nobody means me any harm, it's just how the world works, etc.

Why on earth would that matter to me?

I really don’t know why you insist on portraying people as cartoon victims, whether we are talking about autistic people or deaf people. There is no justification for assuming that an autistic person or a deaf person is either incapable or uninterested in reasoning about people’s motivations. This is especially true when we are being harmed. Many autistic people have excellent systematizing skills, and as you have yourself taken pains to point out - no deficits when it comes to understanding other people.

Once again you seem to have anointed yourself speaker for large groups of people who you know little about. This time to claim that they cannot think for themselves because their faces are being stepped on.

We here now are just having a discussion. This is also something many deaf and many autistic people can do. Acting as if someone is stepping on your face during a discussion is not going to lead you to any good conclusions.

I mean, this just isn't true though, Bell was hurting people. I don't think these communities are making this stuff up; oppression is real.

I also don't think anyone is saying you personally are stepping on people's faces, what people like me are saying is that discrimination and anti-community policies/actions against disabled communities exist. I'm not sure why that statement is controversial.

Bell was advocating for eugenics. I actually don't think he got up in the morning and thought he was doing something bad, I think he probably thought he was trying to help deaf people. But he was doing something bad, he was contributing to deaf cultural suppression and advocating for eugenics. Separating people's actions from their intentions can be good, but only if we don't allow the intentions to completely override their actions.

And I've read enough accounts of people who have gone through BMT to know that there is actual harm that's happening around these communities, they're not making it up.

> to claim that they cannot think for themselves because their faces are being stepped on.

I think you might possibly be reading some intentions into the author that aren't there. No one is claiming this, it's your own leap of logic. People are pointing out there there are policies (intentional or not) that suppress communities and hurt people. GP isn't saying you're part of those policies, nor are they saying they speak for everyone about what that oppression looks like, the comment you're replying to never uses the words "we" or "us", only "I" and "me".

This seems relatively uncontroversial to me. We can agree that suppressing sign language or performing electroshock therapy on autistic kids is wrong -- regardless of what anyone's intentions are.

> I mean, this just isn't true though, Bell was hurting people. I don't think these communities are making this stuff up; oppression is real.

Who said anything about Bell not hurting anyone? I was the one who called him a Eugenicist upthread. Can you point to something I’ve said that suggest that I think Bell didn’t hurt anyone?

> I also don't think anyone is saying you personally are stepping on people's faces,

Why would you even imagine such a thing?

> what people like me are saying is that discrimination and anti-community policies/actions against disabled communities exist.

What do you mean ‘people like you’? What group membership are you claiming? Given that I also agreed that such policies exist, are you saying I am someone like you?

> I'm not sure why that statement is controversial.

Where is the controversy?

> Bell was advocating for eugenics. I actually don't think he got up in the morning and thought he was doing something bad, I think he probably thought he was trying to help deaf people. But he was doing something bad, he was contributing to deaf cultural suppression and advocating for eugenics.

Agreed.

> Separating people's actions from their intentions can be good, but only if we don't allow the intentions to completely override their actions.

Disagreed. If you knowingly attribute intentions to people, that you don’t have evidence for, then you are simply lying for political gain.

You never have to ignore the impact of peoples actions. But whatever the impact is, there is no justification for lying or making false accusations.

As soon as you do this, you lose moral authority and are simply engaging in tribalism.

> And I've read enough accounts of people who have gone through BMT to know that there is actual harm that's happening around these communities, they're not making it up.

Did someone say they were?

> to claim that they cannot think for themselves because their faces are being stepped on.

> I think you might possibly be reading some intentions into the author that aren't there. No one is claiming this, it's your own leap of logic.

No. The author is claiming that people can’t think about other intentions because their faces are being stepped on. This is exactly what they are saying. You don’t seem to have understood their analogy.

It would be true if someone was literally stepping on their faces. That would be a good reason not to be able to reason about why it was happening. It’s also true for someone in the midst of a coercive therapy. Thus far we agree.

However it’s not true for you, or the author, or large numbers of marginalized people, most of the time. We are not literally having our faces stepped on or being confronted by police, so that isn’t a reason we can’t think clearly about people’s intentions.

> People are pointing out there there are policies (intentional or not) that suppress communities and hurt people.

You pointed out the part about suppressing communities. I have agreed that people are being hurt. I’m not sure why you are making this comment.

> GP isn't saying you're part of those policies,

Clearly. They don’t say it anywhere or even imply it. Why would you think this was ambiguous?

> nor are they saying they speak for everyone about what that oppression looks like, the comment you're replying to never uses the words "we" or "us", only "I" and "me". This seems relatively uncontroversial to me.

Yes, he uses the terms “I” and “me”, but the context is that he is placing himself in the metaphorical position of a community member who his having his face stepped on. He is asking us to imagine he is one such person. I.e. a representative.

If you are going to take “I” and “me” literally, then you must also think he was literally having his face stepped on as he was typing that comment. I don’t think so.

> We can agree that suppressing sign language or performing electroshock therapy on autistic kids is wrong -- regardless of what anyone's intentions are

Yes, I agree with that.

We can also agree that misrepresenting or distorting other people’s intentions is wrong regardless of who they are or what their impact is. Doing so creates additional harm including to ourselves and our communites.

Here’s an example that might help clarify why it’s wrong, and just as systematically violent as the things you are listing:

Alex: “We have a spare office that is unused. Would you mind if I used it while it’s available? I would be able to be much more productive if I didn’t have to deal with movement and noise in my field of vision and hearing.”

Jack: “You just want special treatment. Those offices are reserved for when we hire more managers.”

Notice that the oppressive move in this conversation is when Jack imputes a false intention to Alex.

If we want to live in a world where Autistic people’s motivations are not misconstrued or falsely imputed, we need to live in a world where people’s motivations are not misconstrued or falsely imputed.

I and the author and several other people who have talked to you on this page.

----

At a point where a conversation devolves this far I'm not sure how to respond to it. I am not sure what you are objecting to on a broad scale other than how very specific phrasing in these comments came across to you -- and I'm not going to waste time proving to you what I was trying to say; either you believe me when I try to clarify what my intentions are and try to clarify what the author meant, or you don't believe me. I'm not going to enter a discussion where we recursively debate what subject we're debating. I'm willing to argue about a lot of things, but I'm not willing to get that meta.

I'm also definitely not willing to have an argument about how communities should philosophically respond to harm based on whether or not the people hurting them meant to. Honestly, I don't understand how that conversation is at all relevant to the original objections people raised about the article. If you think the author is lying about their intentions writing this piece, then just say that and move on. If you think the author is lying and they haven't ever experienced discrimination or oppressive systems, then fine, just say that and move on. But if anyone wants to do a deep dive where we annotate every sentence of their comments, then they're just going to have to do that annotation on their own, I'm not really interested.

I don't completely understand how it's possible for someone to be so offended about the danger of reading too much into people's intentions while they simultaneously break apart someone else's comment line-by-line and say that they are "metaphorically" speaking for an entire community and that we should judge that as if they are intending to be that community's representative. Do you really not see the irony in this?

> We can also agree that misrepresenting or distorting other people’s intentions is wrong

On this one point it seems that most of us on this thread have signaled we are in agreement, including the author, and maybe that's a good point for me to step back and go do something else. I do wish everyone on this thread the best, and I hope that people with differing experiences about neurodivergence continue to have more avenues to share their experiences with the world.

> I and the author and several other people who have talked to you on this page.

Ok, so you are a member of a group of individuals. Do you know each other outside of HN? What defines membership?

> At a point where a conversation devolves this far I'm not sure how to respond to it. I am not sure what you are objecting to on a broad scale other than how very specific phrasing in these comments came across to you

Earlier you seemed to understand that I was objecting to the idea that it was ok to misrepresent peoples intentions.

Claiming that you don’t understand this now seem questionable.

-- and I'm not going to waste time proving to you what I was trying to say; either you believe me when I try to clarify what my intentions are and try to clarify what the author meant, or you don't believe me. I'm not going to enter a discussion where we recursively debate what subject we're debating. I'm willing to argue about a lot of things, but I'm not willing to get that meta. I'm also definitely not willing to have an argument about how communities should philosophically respond to harm based on whether or not the people hurting them meant to.

Ok, so you are an absolutist on this point. That is consistent with your past statements. It is exactly what I thought, and I think you are wrong.

It’s ok for you not to want to have a discussion about it, but my belief is that if you misconstrue people’s intentions and then act on that, you will cause more harm to them and the communities you claim to support.

> If you think the author is lying about their intentions writing this piece, then just say that and move on.

Weird. Where did I imply thst?

> If you think the author is lying and they haven't ever experienced discrimination or oppressive systems, then fine, just say that and move on.

Weird. Where did I imply that?

> But if anyone wants to do a deep dive where we annotate every sentence of their comments, then they're just going to have to do that annotation on their own, I'm not really interested.

I only did that with you because almost none of your comments mapped to anything I had actually said.

> I don't completely understand how it's possible for someone to be so offended about the danger of reading too much into people's intentions

I’m not offended by it. I think it’s harmful. What I am inquiring into is why you so vigorously seem to defend it.

> while they simultaneously break apart someone else's comment line-by-line and say that they are "metaphorically" speaking for an entire community and that we should judge that as if they are intending to be that community's representative.

I didn’t say we should judge them. I said that is what they were doing. You put ‘metaphorically’ in quotes, but I think that you do understand that they were speaking metaphorically. I was responding to your denial with a clarification.

> Do you really not see the irony in this?

There is no irony in it.

> We can also agree that misrepresenting or distorting other people’s intentions is wrong

> On this one point it seems that most of us on this thread have signaled we are in agreement, including the author,

That’s simply false. The author’s metaphor of having his face stepped on was intended to defend the idea that it doesn’t matter what people’s intentions are under those circumstances. You have yourself also defended this position even in the very comment I have replied to, and in several before.

You could have just agreed to this way back in the thread, and this discussion would have stopped there, but given that both of you have argued to the contrary, there is no clarity that you actually agree.

The only reason it has continued is that both you and the author have been arguing that it is ok for the oppressed not to have an accurate understanding of the motivations of people who are hurting them.

If you are saying you have changed your mind as a result of our dialog, then I commend you.