This past week, as part of his evisceration of the Department of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. turned his attention to a lifelong goal — establishing the imagined link between vaccines and autism that took hold after the publication of the since-debunked work of Andrew Wakefield. Kennedy has announced a task force, suggested a national registry to track people on the autism spectrum, and hired a crank to conduct “research” to “solve” the supposed problem of neurodivergence. People with autism and their advocates are aghast and see the move as a threat to their identities and even their existence
Last month, we had a riveting conversation with one of the world’s leading scholars of and advocates for people with autism, Simon Baron-Cohen. We talked about the debate around how people on the spectrum shaped Silicon Valley in general, and the role that autism might play in influencing the highly influential actors — like Elon Musk — who are now shaping all of our lives. The conversation was fascinating, because Baron-Cohen made clear the dual challenge: autism remains for most regular citizens a difficult fact to navigate in a world not yet hospitable to neurodifference. At the same time, a small number of highly capable and powerful actors on the spectrum are bringing their systematizing nature to bear on the world, and there may be, he argued, a need for more balance around them and more empathy in the development of tools like social media algorithms and AI.
With so many half-truths out there, it’s a conversation that’s worth revisiting right now.
A programming note: Live conversations this week!
We’re back Live again this week, with three special guests. Join us this afternoon, Tuesday, April 22, at 12:30 p.m. Eastern, when we’ll talk to the economist Dani Rodrik. And tomorrow, Wednesday, April 23, at 1:00 p.m. Eastern, we’ll be speaking with the writer, lawyer, and former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich. Then on Thursday, April 24, at 12:30 p.m. Eastern, we’ll be joined by labor leader Sara Nelson, president of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, AFL–CIO. You won’t want to miss any of these!
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This post was originally published on The.Ink.