Based Camp - Disability Maxxing： The Race to Retardation

00:00:00.000 I don't know, every time I hear someone talk about their disability,

00:00:02.320 I just think of that IT cred episode.

00:00:04.100 You don't use a disabled. 1.00

00:00:05.480 Oh, why not?

00:00:06.220 You're not disabled. You'll get in trouble. 1.00

00:00:08.940 It's illegal.

00:00:11.700 I don't think so.

00:00:26.480 Hello? Hello? You alright, man?

00:00:30.000 Um, do you need help?

00:00:33.660 I'm disabled.

00:00:34.720 I'm self-disoriented.

00:00:36.860 Move back! What are you doing?

00:00:39.020 Don't panic!

00:00:42.000 From the door!

00:00:43.240 What? No!

00:00:44.940 So, uh, what happened?

00:00:48.000 I'm disabled.

00:00:49.760 How?

00:00:51.360 How what?

00:00:53.080 How are you disabled?

00:00:56.000 Leg disabled.

00:00:56.960 What was it? I'm being...

00:00:59.380 Do you have a wheelchair?

00:01:01.420 Yes.

00:01:02.880 Yeah.

00:01:06.260 Stolen!

00:01:06.820 And the scene of him being lifted down from a bus very slowly in his wheelchair looking so humiliated and embarrassed and, like, feeble, attempting to look feeble.

00:01:21.300 It's the best.

00:01:22.240 That is...

00:01:22.740 That is what being disabled is. 1.00

00:01:25.440 Would you like to know more?

00:01:26.540 Hello, Malcolm.

00:01:28.120 It's so exciting to be speaking with you today because we are both disabled, but we're not disabled the way you would think.

00:01:36.200 That is to say we don't identify with it.

00:01:38.040 A lot of people have asked us to talk about this because they, too, have various diagnoses and they want to know how to... 0.71

00:01:45.040 Well, what you said is stop being retarded about being retarded. 0.94

00:01:47.900 That's the problem, yes. 0.90

00:01:49.300 People are being way too retarded about being disabled, and I think that we should talk about the right way to do disability. 0.98

00:01:55.620 Well, because they're engaging with... 0.93

00:01:57.860 And our society teaches them to engage with disability in a way that is really, really destructive. 0.99

00:02:05.220 And where this came up in one of our episodes is I was reading about Gavin Newsom, and Gavin Newsom had this sob story about how difficult it was to grow up with dyslexia.

00:02:14.980 And when I was reading it, I was like, I just, you know, his learning disability and everything like that.

00:02:20.940 It just sort of occurred to me, and it hasn't occurred to me in maybe half a decade that I have dyslexia.

00:02:27.040 And then that prompted people to say, okay, well, I have dyslexia and I struggle with it.

00:02:31.120 How did you overcome it?

00:02:32.120 And someone else wanted to know, well, what's... Because you called it a learning inconvenience, not a learning disability.

00:02:36.960 And they're like, well, what's the difference between a learning inconvenience and a learning disability?

00:02:41.020 Like, literally... Simone, and you can back this up.

00:02:43.980 When was the last time you think I have mentioned having dyslexia to you or anyone before that episode?

00:02:51.680 I mean, I think you've mentioned having it, like, once or twice.

00:02:55.140 Like, it was only one of those things of, like, it didn't matter to you, and it didn't affect your life.

00:03:00.300 And yet, you know, we have good friends who've gone to, like, disability camps for dyslexia only.

00:03:05.220 Literally, the only time... And Simone is diagnosed with autism, right?

00:03:09.000 So again, like, this is something... The only time I remember it mattering in my entire life

00:03:13.400 was trying to remember the difference between a B and a D, which I severely struggled with.

00:03:19.020 But other than that, it was completely irrelevant throughout the rest of my life.

00:03:23.680 I think that your mispronunciations are a result of your dyslexia.

00:03:26.600 Yeah, I was diagnosed by psychologists about this.

00:03:29.820 And one of the reasons why, when somebody's like, what's the difference between a learning

00:03:33.080 inconvenience and a learning disability?

00:03:34.820 I suppose, as somebody who has a plethora of both, it's how much it actually ended up

00:03:40.840 impacting my life.

00:03:42.240 The one that hit me the most growing up, by far the most, much more than, like, Simone's

00:03:48.820 autism, or I would think even, you know, like, having one arm or something like that,

00:03:52.740 is I have dysgraphia, which means I cannot handwrite.

00:03:56.560 So I cannot... And Simone made jokes about this when we were dating and stuff like that.

00:04:00.900 I'd come home and I'd give her a writing or something, and she'd go over and she'd be

00:04:04.820 like, Malcolm, like, did you... What was it? You thought that I had, like, tutored a...

00:04:08.580 Yeah, so Malcolm comes home and he leaves on the table this, like, drawing and a little

00:04:13.260 bit of writing. And it's like this, this, like, stick figure of a man and drawing that,

00:04:18.520 like, literally looks like a first grader did it. If I can find... I think I took a

00:04:22.760 photo of it. If I can find it, I've got to put it up. And I put it on the fridge and

00:04:26.700 I was like, oh, man, like, at the Stanford Business School, they must have done some

00:04:30.560 kind of big brother, little brother, like, thing, you know, where they brought in kids

00:04:34.840 and you talked with them about business. And you're like, oh, you put that on the fridge.

00:04:40.120 And I'm like, yeah, like, who are you working with? And you're like, I did that.

00:04:43.240 Yeah. And so I, um, going back to when you first learned to write in school, I had to

00:04:50.220 use something and only people who, like, have disabilities would know about this called

00:04:54.320 an alpha smart. So they don't want you to be able to use spell check or any computer

00:04:59.780 augmented things to help you write. But because you can't handwrite, they need to give you

00:05:04.300 something to write with. And so it's a simple computer that can only write strings of text

00:05:09.520 and then plug it in. It's like a typewriter. It's basically a typewriter, but digital.

00:05:14.140 It's like a digital typewriter. Yeah. Okay. And so that's what I would use for everything

00:05:17.840 in classes and everything like that. And I was also incredibly slow at writing as well,

00:05:23.260 which also really, and this is the other thing, like. That's so crazy because you've written

00:05:27.740 five books. There are things that didn't impact me as much as the reason I call dyslexia learning

00:05:34.340 inconvenience is there is just random genetic variation that impacted me dramatically more.

00:05:40.380 Like for example, I am terrible at languages. I took Spanish because I grew up in Texas, right? I lived in

00:05:46.180 Spanish speaking countries at times with a kid. And because I live in Texas, you take Spanish every

00:05:49.700 year from kindergarten. I didn't pass Spanish one. That is your first year of Spanish until my junior

00:05:57.200 to senior year in high school. That meant I failed Spanish every single year of my formal education.

00:06:06.140 No, you're like literally a language retard. Like literally. You are retarded. 1.00

00:06:10.760 Now who can tell me what famous person wrote the Declaration of Independence? Let's see. 1.00

00:06:16.320 Oh, I know. How about the new student, Timmy?

00:06:19.960 Timmy!

00:06:21.200 No, it wasn't you, Timmy. Try again.

00:06:24.740 Timmy, did you not do your homework?

00:06:26.380 Timmy!

00:06:27.940 Uh, Mr. Garrison, haven't you figured it out? Timmy's retarded. 0.99

00:06:30.860 Don't call people names, Stanley. 0.99

00:06:32.680 But he is.

00:06:33.300 Now, Timmy, you need to work on your study skills.

00:06:35.700 Duh.

00:06:36.460 Are you mocking me? Because if you are, I have no problem sending your butt to the principal's office. 0.99

00:06:41.020 Let me allow, let me allow, Timmy! 0.97

00:06:42.740 Now, that is not something I am diagnosed with. That impacted me dramatically more than dyslexia.

00:06:48.780 Another thing that-

00:06:49.220 No, but that's the thing. And like a big point here though, is that this, the definition of disability

00:06:53.840 disability has much more to do with what makes you non-compliant or non-functional in some way

00:07:00.200 within a typical environment. And because your typical environment doesn't involve you needing

00:07:04.880 to be bilingual, that in itself doesn't come up as a disability.

00:07:08.380 I actually disagree with this very strongly.

00:07:10.080 Really?

00:07:10.500 I was about to mention the second thing that has impacted me way more than dyslexia.

00:07:14.740 The second thing that's impacted me way more than dyslexia is that I am a very slow

00:07:18.960 writer and a sort of processor of information. Thinker more broadly. I just think very slowly.

00:07:24.660 And what this means is that in class, I couldn't take notes. So what I'd always do

00:07:31.020 is for every single class that I did in college, I recorded it on a recorder. Then I went back to

00:07:38.060 my room and I played it and slow speed and typed it out. And then I went over that and memorized

00:07:44.160 that. The amount of time, now this is not a, this is something everybody has to do and it wasn't due

00:07:49.240 to any recognized disability.

00:07:50.880 No, no, no. I disagree because in college, one of the ways that I made money, and this was the school

00:07:55.380 paid me to do this, was there were students who had exactly the same problem and I took notes for

00:07:59.760 them. I know the school offered that to me, but I, I didn't find. Then it's clearly a recognized

00:08:04.480 disability. And it is because we live in a fast paced world that this was not, I think it is not

00:08:10.460 a diagnosed disability. You know, so the point here is it's not a diagnosed disability. And the, the,

00:08:16.840 the point is also with your autism. It's not even just a disability because your autism is clearly

00:08:21.140 like a label disability, but it is pretty much only helped you in life outside of maybe not picking

00:08:26.220 up on social cues and almost getting graped or something because of that. But I think outside

00:08:31.000 of not knowing how to flirt, but knowing how to flirt with the type of guy. Anyway, I'll let you

00:08:37.040 continue from here, but I wanted to go on that sort of side tangent because that's what brought all this

00:08:40.960 up. I think that in our society, we have these, these words for like specific, like ADD or something

00:08:48.760 like that. ADD is not a learning disability. ADD is not an important part of who you are as a person.

00:08:55.500 It is going to impact your daily life less than random genetic variations in terms of how you

00:09:02.940 learn or your happiness set point or your, it's almost like people think because we have named

00:09:09.160 specific random genetic variations that really aren't that particularly impactful in an individual's

00:09:14.640 daily life that we now need to elevate them to like a part of your identity because we ripped out

00:09:20.740 everything else about people's identity. We say, oh, you can't identify with your birth culture. You 0.99

00:09:24.480 can't identify with your parents. You can't identify with your ethnicity. And so if you can't 0.85

00:09:28.440 identify with anything, any of your history. Along with being gay or whatever, it's still the last 0.98

00:09:34.960 form of white pride. And your disabilities are, that's all you are at this point. And this is really 0.96

00:09:39.760 psychologically harmful because then you, you lean into this stuff. Yeah. And I'm going to argue

00:09:45.400 that actually identifying with ADHD is incredibly damaging because I don't think you've watched a

00:09:51.980 lot of ADHD influencers and seeing the extent to which their identification with the disorder makes

00:09:58.000 them really non-functional. It is insane. I mean, I know how I'm handling ADD with my kids and I'll put

00:10:03.620 the South Park. Hello, I'm Dr. Richard Shea here to tell you about my exciting new drug-free treatment

00:10:09.940 for children with attention deficit disorder. This treatment is fast and effective and doesn't use

00:10:16.880 harmful drugs. Watch closely as I apply treatment to the first child. I want a horse. I want a big brown horse

00:10:21.920 with a fluffy black tail with a tiny child. Sit out and study. Sit out and study.

00:10:33.060 Stop crying until your schoolwork.

00:10:37.240 If you would like more information on my bold new treatments, please send away for this free brochure 0.92

00:10:41.680 entitled, you can either calm down or I can pop you in the mouth again. Thank you.

00:10:46.120 Yes, exactly that. But I'm first going to push back on your argument that disabilities aren't really

00:10:54.320 just a declaration of societal norms and what you need in order to be functional in mainstream society.

00:11:00.860 Because you have to consider what was considered a disability in even recent history, like same-sex

00:11:07.100 attraction, which was classified as a mental disorder in 1952 and only removed as such in 1973.

00:11:13.840 You know what else was considered a disability, which I have? Left-handedness. That was a

00:11:20.680 disability. Really? Yes, it was. Okay. Also, PMS, which was also known as hysteria or neurasthenia.

00:11:29.220 Oh, right. Masturbation. Everyone's favorite thing to do online. That was a disability. 1.00

00:11:34.720 What? Masturbation? It was a symptom of nervous diseases and insanity in 19th and early 20th century.

00:11:41.380 Yeah. So also, guess what? Shyness, introversion. That was formally described as neurasthenia as well.

00:11:49.280 So I guess they just groped it with PMS and social neurosis or inadequate personality disorder.

00:11:54.860 Inadequate personality. Inadequate personality disorder?

00:11:58.460 Shyness, Malcolm. Shyness. Because being shy in history made you non-compliant with the rest of

00:12:07.140 society. And now you can be functional and shy at the same time, given the way our economy and school

00:12:12.360 and everything else is set up. But yeah, it was absolutely seen as a disorder. Also, grief, although

00:12:18.840 I'm kind of with them on this, they called it pathological grief. It was once considered that

00:12:23.060 like any grief lasting longer than like a few weeks or months was a disorder. I'm with them on that.

00:12:30.900 Yeah. But like, yeah. They were like, dude, you're too sad. Something's wrong with you. Get over it.

00:12:38.120 Smile. I wish we could have grief as a disorder. Bring it back. Bring it back. Bring back grief. Yeah.

00:12:43.700 But now the way that disabilities are diagnosed is also really weird and different. And what seems to

00:12:53.700 have been the catalyst for this change was the Americans with Disabilities Act in the United

00:12:58.860 States, at least in the 1990s. And then the ADA Amendments Act in 2008, which is just an expansion

00:13:05.280 of that, which basically expanded the definition to include invisible disabilities, like learning

00:13:10.460 disabilities, mental health disorders, chronic conditions. So like PTSD or bipolar disorder or

00:13:16.540 anxiety or depression. These things weren't really seen as disorders in the past that would get you

00:13:21.980 special privileges. And now often they are, but I still think that we need to diagnose menstruation 0.97

00:13:27.420 as a disability. Like, I mean, yeah. If you look even back like further and it's like, well,

00:13:33.220 let's remove you from, go, go to menstruation hut. They had those, by the way, that was like a common 1.00

00:13:39.880 thing. I mean, and some women even today, I think wish it were classified as a disability. I mean,

00:13:48.220 you see it like in school, there's the girls who were like, I'm on my period. And I think that means

00:13:51.860 they get to like do nothing. Girl. Okay. Okay. No, I agree that disabilities change over time, 0.76

00:13:59.500 right. Based on social norms. I'm wondering now, what, what, what sort of correlates with the

00:14:07.100 disabilities today? Because like, you wouldn't say like grief, but then people can be like, well,

00:14:11.680 depression, right? Like, you wouldn't say like, it's weird to me, actually, that ADD is considered

00:14:16.880 a disability today. Yeah. Because it seems like such a trivial thing. But it, I mean, it isn't

00:14:21.920 because typically where this shows up, you know, when people are in institutional environments is like

00:14:27.240 both in jobs and in school, you are supposed to sit down, sit still and do a job and not switch

00:14:36.300 around a billion times. Like you have to do the job and finish the job and then do the next job and

00:14:41.200 finish the next job. And people with, with ADD or ADHD struggled to do that. Therefore they're

00:14:47.360 non-compliant with today's society. I mean, here's, here's one way you can look at it. You had heard

00:14:51.960 someone identify or describe autism as like most people are just normal cars. They can just drive on

00:14:59.340 normal roads and autistic people are like NASCAR cars or like really like fine-tuned race cars. And like 1.00

00:15:07.460 on any normal environment, they're going to break down constantly. They do not work on normal roads. You

00:15:13.100 cannot drive them off road, but like on very specific types of tracks, they are amazing. And I, I really

00:15:19.080 feel like that's apt, not just with autism, but with any sort of mental disorder in general, it's really more

00:15:25.260 a description of the road. Um, and I think that in, in some environments, for example, like,

00:15:31.240 okay. So, you know, uh, introversion was seen as a disability for a while, but I think that in some

00:15:37.900 environments, introversion is like the most adaptive thing. Like if you're like on a spaceship traveling in

00:15:44.300 a highly isolated environment for years on end, introversion. That's true of autism in a modern

00:15:49.780 context. So 100% autism that Simone has is very similar to what we were talking about there. And she needs

00:15:55.580 very controlled environments to be productive. But when she is productive, she's much more productive than

00:16:00.800 other people. And she can work much longer hours than other people and work straight much longer hours. 1.00

00:16:06.100 By the way, one of the reasons when people are like Malcolm, you talk a lot of terrible stuff about ADD. I was

00:16:10.040 diagnosed with ADD. That's why I, that's why I, I, I'm like, this is all of the disabilities that I have

00:16:15.840 by far the most trivial, you know, growing up. So I don't, I don't take it seriously. I was,

00:16:21.380 God, I'm trying to think of other things. I was diagnosed with bipolar. That one, I don't believe

00:16:25.500 I ever had. I think that was made up. Yeah. But I was diagnosed with it at one point. I think that

00:16:30.020 that was because my mom was bipolar. So from a bipolar person's perspective, my mood was constantly

00:16:35.940 varying, but my actual mood wasn't constantly varying. It was hers. It was very, she reported her

00:16:42.860 subjective experience of my mood to psychotherapists. They thought, oh, it's him because you've lived

00:16:49.220 with me. Do I have fluctuating moods? No, no, you don't. No. Okay. No. I mean, I think that like

00:16:55.680 someone who has not encountered you before might guess that you are manic, but like you're, you're

00:17:04.160 only just all always by their definition. That's called hypomania, by the way, to be always a little

00:17:10.080 manic. There is a, hypomania is slightly below true mania, but there's a form of, I forgot where

00:17:16.540 you're just like only hypomanic. But who wouldn't want that? That's perfect. Yeah. Who wouldn't want 1.00

00:17:22.020 that? This is why people buy cocaine. All right. Like this is why people get addicted to meth. No,

00:17:26.720 but I think that this is why I was diagnosed with ADD, right? Like I'm very excitable. I'm very like,

00:17:32.040 try to work all the time. And no, but like ADD, you can't focus. And like, you do, you do concerted

00:17:40.500 focus work. I focus on things that I like, which is what most ADD people are like. That's true.

00:17:46.800 Yeah. Your ADD. Yeah. That's so true. And like, well, so Scott Alexander had talked about this

00:17:51.040 because, you know, he, you know, has, has, has, you know, diagnosed and treated a lot of people with

00:17:54.500 ADD and he helps them, you know, they get their, their ADD medications that they want. And he,

00:17:58.360 he pointed out and I can't find the original blog post, but just like, Hey, maybe sitting in front

00:18:03.620 of a computer in an office doing work that you personally find meaningless, like, isn't something

00:18:07.140 we were evolved to deal with in the first place. Like our definition of this as a disorder is again,

00:18:11.720 a reflection of our society.

00:18:13.240 Our ADD was useful to me only insofar as, and this is where I do think it is useful as a

00:18:18.640 categorization at all in getting riddled.

00:18:21.640 That's and that's, that is where we get to the not retarded part of dealing with disability is 1.00

00:18:26.400 okay. A disability is basically, okay. The way your, your car doesn't work on these roads. 0.99

00:18:33.000 And sometimes you need to know that your car doesn't work on these roads. Cause if you're

00:18:36.480 stuck on these roads, you're going to need modifications. You have to buy different tires.

00:18:40.560 You have to just, yeah. And so, yes, it is important to do that, but only so you can drive

00:18:45.880 on those roads long enough to get to a kind of road where you can drive well. Like that's the point

00:18:50.920 of this. This is how you do the non-retarded disability approach. And this is, this is the way to 1.00

00:18:56.380 do it, but first let's go into the ways to not do it. And I'm going to start with self-diagnosis.

00:19:01.060 So can you, cause everyone's doing this now, can you guess the accuracy of most like online

00:19:06.660 self-diagnoses? I'm going to guess 20, 20%. Pretty good. It's, it's 19 to 38%. There are some things

00:19:14.640 that it's, you can more accurately diagnose online than others, but it's 19 to 38%. You know what you

00:19:19.800 should pull up by the way that, and I'll, and I'll talk on this subject while you do. There's the graph

00:19:24.340 of the percentage of young people that identify primarily was a disability and they went through

00:19:31.140 different age ranges. Try to pull that one up. And I, and all the self-diagnosis thing,

00:19:36.180 one of the problems with self-diagnosis is when particular diagnoses get trendy, like everyone

00:19:42.780 just opts into them. And the reality is, is that you can, if you lean into it, present whatever you

00:19:49.060 want. For example, there was a period, and this is well studied in psychological literature where

00:19:53.960 people famous who had Tourette's. Oh, by the way, that's another one that I have.

00:19:59.860 Oh yes, you do have Tourette's. Oh, Taco Lantern.

00:20:04.340 People, people don't even, because I'm, I'm fairly good at controlling it. So only if you were like

00:20:08.840 a family member of mine, would you know? Because again, I don't lean into it. Like,

00:20:12.620 why would you lean into something like this?

00:20:13.960 So the sweetest way that you do, like you used to say stuff with like Tourette's that would get

00:20:19.640 you in trouble, like, which is the common version of it, right? Like people saying stuff. Like I

00:20:23.720 recently saw someone who knows if they really had it post online of like them having Tourette's in an

00:20:29.860 airport TSA line saying, I have a gun, pew, I have a gun, pew. And like, just keep saying that in

00:20:35.600 the TSA line. Like that's classic Tourette's. And you had some things that you used to like say when

00:20:39.760 you were stressed that would have made people concerned. But guess what he says now, when he

00:20:44.500 has moments, he says, I love my wife. How do you do that? That is like, that is the most romantic,

00:20:52.740 wholesome disability Aikido I've ever seen. 0.92

00:20:55.160 Well, I tried really hard to redirect the neural pattern because it's a neural pattern that's like

00:20:59.600 all of a sudden I describe it as it's sort of like there are tire tracks in your head, you know,

00:21:04.900 like tire tracks in the mud that like the more times you drive through it, the car gets pulled into it.

00:21:09.100 And I think that's sort of what's happening with Tourette's is when you sort of are in certain

00:21:12.720 periods of anxiety or lose self-control, it's pulled down specific neural pathways. And if you

00:21:18.760 exercise control over them for long enough, I can sort of force it down a new pathway. It doesn't

00:21:24.980 work every time, but it works enough. And the, by the way, the thing that causes it for me,

00:21:30.880 for people who don't know, it's extended periods of social interaction.

00:21:33.660 One hundred percent.

00:21:34.160 And then it happens afterwards.

00:21:35.460 One hundred percent.

00:21:36.100 Because I over process what's happening in those moments. And I, and what's funny here is I even

00:21:40.620 have the, the rare, but cartoonish type of Tourette's where you say offensive things,

00:21:44.780 right? Like, but I don't know if it's, if it's regular Tourette's because it doesn't appear

00:21:49.160 like the, the, the phrases are slightly longer than they would be with normal Tourette's.

00:21:54.060 Sometimes. Yeah. Sometimes like there was, there was one sentence series.

00:21:58.220 My favorite, if you don't mind me saying was Taco Lanterns.

00:22:01.560 Taco Lanterns.

00:22:02.100 That's what I was trying to redirect to anything that wasn't offensive.

00:22:05.920 Yeah. That, that came on later. And I tried so hard on Etsy to find a lantern that was a taco 0.91

00:22:12.620 because I really wanted a taco lantern so bad.

00:22:15.820 But it was funny here is like, I am coming at this and like a lot of the people, watchers of

00:22:20.800 our show, they're like, wait, he has dyslexia, dysgraphia, ADD. He at one point was diagnosed with

00:22:27.580 bipolar. He has Tourette's. He didn't even think of that as like something to mention. Like the,

00:22:32.200 one of the reasons why I forgot abilities with such disdain is I will see people build their entire

00:22:39.380 persona around a disability that I consider trivial because I have so many.

00:22:46.080 You gotta catch them all.

00:22:47.760 Gotta catch them all. Did you find that chart, by the way?

00:22:49.840 I found a bunch of charts. I don't think they're exactly the ones that you want. I'll send them to

00:22:55.260 you real quick on WhatsApp. So you can tell me if I've found it. There's a lot that show rates of

00:23:00.740 both being LGBTQ and having these disabilities. So that's maybe what we're thinking about. I found

00:23:10.020 one that's a table that show that 45% of youth identify as having a disability, but I wanted to

00:23:17.840 touch on your Tourette's thing because that's, I think a really good example of sort of self-diagnosis,

00:23:24.580 having a negative effect. But I also first want to point out that, so first, okay, 19 to 38% of

00:23:30.100 self-diagnoses, like if someone's like, oh, I self-diagnosed with autism. They are, if you flip

00:23:37.020 a coin, I mean, like the odds are they're wrong. Okay. The odds are they are incorrect with their

00:23:42.140 diagnosis, but research nevertheless indicates that people who self-diagnose are more likely to report

00:23:48.360 high levels of psychological distress and impairment, similar to those with a formal diagnosis.

00:23:52.560 So even though they're more likely than not to not actually have the condition they think they

00:23:57.160 have, they are still just as likely as someone with the condition to experience the adverse effects

00:24:03.620 of that condition. So self-diagnosis can result in, in, in increased anxiety and a sense of, of

00:24:09.500 stuckness or self-fulfilling beliefs, even when the diagnosis is not later validated or supported

00:24:16.480 through chronic clinical care. So like, this is just so damaging. And it's really important that

00:24:26.080 people understand too, that like just perceiving something can be more damaging than actually

00:24:32.500 having it. And, and there's a sleep study example that I like to cite with this because it's so apt.

00:24:38.540 There's research that shows that people who perceive themselves as poor sleepers,

00:24:42.260 despite objective evidence from sleep labs, where they like can actually tell if you're asleep,

00:24:47.040 like better than your aura ring or your Fitbit or whatever, that their sleep is fairly normal.

00:24:51.520 If they believe they're poor sleepers, they can experience more adverse effects than those who 0.96

00:24:56.620 report good sleep, but who actually sleep poorly, like in the sleep labs are like, damn, like this guy's 0.58

00:25:02.280 not sleeping very well at all, but they feel fine because they don't see themselves as poor sleepers.

00:25:07.380 So like identifying as someone who has a condition can be really, really damaging. I mean, this specific

00:25:13.960 phenomenon is known as, as sleep state misperception or paradoxal insomnia, but it's such a thing.

00:25:20.380 It's such a thing. And I found that it totally exists. Like during the, the newborn days where like,

00:25:25.200 I don't sleep much at all. Right. If I act like it's normal and like, oh, well, you know what,

00:25:30.440 you know, human bodies have evolved to deal with this, like, because they have, you know,

00:25:34.000 like, we're fine. I don't really experience problems. Yeah. I don't know. Note here as a

00:25:40.600 side here where people could be like, how could somebody have so many comorbid disabilities?

00:25:46.200 This is actually, how can someone be so retarded? Right. Yeah. No, this is actually very common. 1.00

00:25:51.180 If you actually have mental disabilities to generally have a collection of them, because if one thing's

00:25:57.060 broken, it's usually there's a cascade and a lot of things are broken. Yeah. And anyone who got brain

00:26:02.040 wiggles, it's just that's at the way that I think through things, they can tell that it is very,

00:26:07.740 your brain is wiggly lateral or sort of orthogonal, orthogonal to the way that a normal human

00:26:14.400 sinks through things, which is one of the reasons why, like the core reason I think I perform so well

00:26:20.540 within the intellectual market is because I am both relatively intelligent, though, not super

00:26:26.900 intelligent. Like I've been in environments, you know, I got my MBA at Stanford. I've been around like

00:26:30.360 the actual smartest people on earth and they're much smarter than I am. But I mean, I still was

00:26:35.800 in like the top quarter of my class, but yeah, I don't know how many were smarter than you actually,

00:26:39.720 but there were some that were smarter than me that I could just, there are a lot who have a lot of

00:26:43.140 like raw intellectual, like they can crunch numbers and do math in their heads and stuff. And,

00:26:47.620 and you don't do that. But I mean, the point you're making though, is that the mere fact that you

00:26:52.380 have a wiggly brain that you think orthogonally and that like, of course, in the, in the real world,

00:26:57.220 in mainstream society, this makes you non-compliant with like normal test taking and normal school,

00:27:02.780 it still gives you a huge advantage. And people who identify with their mental disabilities are just 0.96

00:27:10.000 choosing to make it clear. But how do you, how do you utilize this to get ahead?

00:27:14.600 Is you just, and, and, and because maybe I grew up with it and I was always in like the most

00:27:21.220 disabled of the disabled group. I always really, and I never identified that way. I never saw it

00:27:27.220 as particularly important to who I was. I was like, it may give me access to Ritalin, which is what

00:27:32.360 amphetamines for tests. Who doesn't want that?

00:27:34.340 I know, right?

00:27:35.040 It may give me access to being able to do everything on a computer, but I just saw that as cool. And it's so

00:27:40.780 weird that like, as a disability, it's completely disappeared. Like dysgraphia has not been relevant

00:27:45.540 to me as an adult since my first job. I bet Octavian has it. I'm pretty sure Octavian has it.

00:27:53.460 I mean, our kids might not even ever learn that they have it if they don't have to handwrite.

00:27:57.940 I mean, they might have to for like AI tests. So I guess we'll see how that goes.

00:28:01.420 It's, it's, it's showing up in, in his work at school. I look at his work every day. So that's,

00:28:06.580 and I also have like those learn how to write books with him. And like, even though there are grooves in

00:28:10.380 the paper, he's like, but I mean, the point I'm making is just take inventory of, be aware of,

00:28:18.300 you know, if you are different in some way that can be diagnosed, there are many advantages to that.

00:28:22.680 100%. For example,

00:28:23.600 Do you want me to go over some of them? I think there's, there's actually more than you,

00:28:26.120 you probably know.

00:28:27.220 Yeah.

00:28:27.400 So yeah, one early diagnosis, actually, I just want to say like, is really important in formal

00:28:33.500 diagnosis. And that's what Malcolm got. And it made a big difference that we're doing that with our

00:28:37.280 kids because studies at like a lot of really consistent research research has shown that

00:28:42.220 children, for example, diagnosed with, with autism spectrum disorder or other developmental

00:28:46.120 disabilities at a younger age tend to experience less impairment in cognitive, social, and adaptive

00:28:52.120 functioning than those diagnosed later in life. So the sooner, the better. One study found that

00:28:57.760 toddlers diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder between 25 and 41 months were more severely impaired

00:29:03.660 across multiple domains than those diagnosed earlier. So like, we're even talking really

00:29:09.040 young. 25 months is pretty young. So like the earlier, the better. And then early intervention

00:29:15.440 and support during critical neurodevelopmental windows is linked to better outcomes. So one,

00:29:21.360 like it actually does make a difference with some things. And in terms of the benefits you get,

00:29:27.520 we're going to talk about the U S because it would be too complicated for us to go country

00:29:31.460 by country for the benefits you get. And also so many countries have like, you know, state medic

00:29:36.840 medicine, but this doesn't matter the same way, but in the USA where healthcare is insanely expensive,

00:29:42.460 children with physical intellectual or developmental disabilities, including serious mental health

00:29:47.700 disorders can, can qualify for Medicaid, which is basically state healthcare, like nationalized

00:29:54.680 healthcare. Um, even if their family income would otherwise exceed typical thresholds, because typically

00:30:00.080 Medicaid is only for people at or below the poverty level. So for example, two of our sons are diagnosed

00:30:07.720 with autism and are, when we were told that we were told like, well, this, this means that, you know,

00:30:15.300 if you are formally diagnosed with your kids, they will be given supplementary insurance from the state

00:30:20.460 that will pay for ABA therapy that, that would not be covered by your insurance, which is huge because

00:30:27.680 we can't afford that. I just learned that people are total retards about ABA therapy and they get 1.00

00:30:35.040 all defensive about it. And it's like, it's teaching you to mask. Like, yeah, unfortunately, Simone's

00:30:40.640 autistic, right? Like you would say, you need to know how to mask. You don't get to make the world live.

00:30:45.320 And this is the other thing. I don't go out in the world and say, you need to live by my rules.

00:30:51.220 Right. I'm going to find a way to change myself so that I can work within your systems. Yeah. Right.

00:30:58.040 You know, you have to acknowledge that like, unless you have the privilege of living a totally isolated

00:31:02.260 life, you are going to need to know how to like go to the DMV and get something or possibly navigate

00:31:09.540 a university or, or an office. I mean, this is becoming increasingly irrelevant, which is why

00:31:14.580 we're less and less worried about autism as a trait. And we actually think it's advantageous

00:31:19.400 because we kind of, you know, techno feudal world, people aren't going to need to all work

00:31:24.600 at a big office and like mask so much, but ABA is necessary.

00:31:29.300 Push back on here. They're going to be talking about onto them. Well, some people with autism 0.93

00:31:33.680 are like severely disabled. And we're like, we're not talking about them. Right. Like, 1.00

00:31:37.320 but like people who are actually mentally disabled, first of all, a few things here. I don't think 0.80

00:31:43.000 it's particularly worse to be disabled because of some named disability outside of just being 1.00

00:31:49.380 incredibly stupid, which does count you as a disability if you're of a below a certain IQ 1.00

00:31:54.580 level. But really that can just be random genetic variation, right? Yeah. If you lack 1.00

00:32:00.460 the intelligence to compete within the system that exists, you lack the intelligence to compete

00:32:04.900 within the system that exists. Yeah. And very, there's very little the system can do to get

00:32:10.080 around that. Yeah. Really sucks. Yeah. There's, yeah, there's not a whole lot that can be done in

00:32:15.500 that case. I mean, it's, it's more about communities and governments finding a place

00:32:19.280 or a way to help those people still live productive and happy and fulfilling lives.

00:32:23.280 But back to this, this state supplemented healthcare, I learned recently, cause I thought

00:32:29.060 this only applied to ABA therapy. Yeah. No, we can just use that as supplementary insurance

00:32:35.180 and have it pay for anything. Our, our employer-based insurance doesn't cover,

00:32:41.520 which is basically nothing because we have a family level deductible. This is the amount that

00:32:45.240 you pay out of pocket before your insurance kicks in of $16,000, which we can't afford.

00:32:51.120 So there've been many times where like, we haven't taken our kids to the emergency room because we're

00:32:56.100 like, well, we can't afford it. Like we will never financially recover from this. And now we can at

00:33:01.820 least take our boys to the emergency room because insurance will cover it. And it's because they're

00:33:07.000 autistic, even though it hasn't like, you know, them falling and bleeding profusely has nothing

00:33:11.620 to do with them being on. I mean, maybe, I mean, maybe, but that's incredible. So like, I think

00:33:18.820 there, I know actually of many parents who know that their children are autistic, but they haven't

00:33:24.480 gotten diagnosed because they're like, well, I don't want my son. No, they're like, I can't afford it.

00:33:28.540 It's like, bro, if it gets you free Medicare, that is one factor. Yeah. Getting, getting diagnosed can

00:33:34.120 take a really long time because wait lists in the U S are very long for diagnosis and it is expensive.

00:33:37.960 It can cost like 500. I mean, do you remember what I had to do to get them diagnosed? I booked

00:33:45.180 at like a place in like a really rural area, like two and a half hours away. Yeah. It took us a long

00:33:50.180 time to drive there. I constantly was looking for new practices. It was a new practice in the middle

00:33:54.360 of nowhere. Yeah. And it costs a lot of money. So it is difficult, but the bigger reason I hear from

00:33:59.700 parents who've like signaled that they didn't do this was they didn't want their children to

00:34:04.060 grow up with the stigma. Like they didn't want, you know, it's so funny that you know this when

00:34:09.060 it's the exact antithesis of the way that I was raised. I know exactly. My parents always let me

00:34:14.620 know about all the diagnoses I had. So they, they clearly let me know about all of these. What they

00:34:20.540 did not do is I was, I was not allowed when I took a state IQ test or state, you know, the tests that

00:34:29.160 would like rank you and stuff like that. Yeah. Uh, my parents had a strict policy of never letting

00:34:34.100 me see my score. So you were never allowed to see how like successful you were only how

00:34:38.840 only where I was failing. Yeah. Because they didn't want me to like, to go to your head.

00:34:44.560 One of those people who like grows up thinking that I guess, I mean, it wasn't a secret to me.

00:34:49.620 I was put in the gifted program and everything. I was scoring. I wasn't like they, they should have 0.77

00:34:57.240 thought, okay, if he's scoring near the top, he knows the reason we're hiding this is because

00:35:01.500 your mom was onto something there though, because research has shown that telling kids that they're

00:35:05.460 very smart can lead them to take fewer challenges on because they identify as being smart and any,

00:35:11.300 any chance where maybe they, they don't come out on top or get the answer. Right. Is, is a risk

00:35:17.520 to their identity. And that is too scary and threatening for them. So instead parents are

00:35:21.940 encouraged to say things like you tried so hard, you worked so hard. My parents did back then.

00:35:26.600 Yeah. So they'd have me do like testing, right? Like, like standardized testing. And obviously I do

00:35:31.540 the testing that the other kids would do, but I'd also do college level testing. I'd go into like

00:35:39.580 college level testing things and I'd be the one little kid in this giant room of like high schoolers.

00:35:45.420 Uh, and I, I only remember, I, I mean, I didn't do spectacularly on those back then. I remember I'd

00:35:51.320 come in because those, I was allowed to see. I'd come in like 80%. Amazing. But I mean, still,

00:35:56.200 I said, you know, when you're in middle school, that's pretty good. That's very impressive. Yeah.

00:36:00.960 100%. But anyway, so like, don't, don't be retarded about your kids and not get them diagnosed 0.98

00:36:06.480 because of stigma, because depending on how you contextualize it, there won't be any, it can be

00:36:11.240 an advantage to them. And you can get, and cause it's hard to get good healthcare in the United

00:36:16.320 States. Like that is an amazing benefit. And as long as that exists and you know, check it varies

00:36:20.960 by state, but still another thing you can get is if your child qualifies for that kind of subsidized

00:36:26.000 healthcare, they also qualify for what's called able accounts, which are their tax advantaged accounts.

00:36:31.040 So if you just in a normal account in the United States, invest money, like for your kids,

00:36:36.340 you're going to be taxed on the income that that money makes like the dividends, able accounts don't

00:36:41.720 tax the dividends. So your kid basically gets more money when you save it for them. Those accounts

00:36:46.220 are supposed to be a statistic that came from a piece called more workers consider themselves

00:36:51.140 neurodivergent. So 53% of Gen Z employees identify as neurodivergent.

00:36:56.340 Only 11% had received an official diagnosis. 86% of a hundred hiring managers told them that they

00:37:07.440 viewed neurodivergent disclosures as having either a positive or neutral impact on an application.

00:37:14.260 They are more, I mean, they're basically signaling that they're in the urban monoculture.

00:37:18.300 Yeah. Yeah. I'm educated and therefore, and like self-aware and therefore I'm a better hire.

00:37:23.940 What's interesting is the person who invented this concept of neurodivergence was only referring

00:37:29.380 basically to Asperger's. And she hates the fact that it has now just been used as this like broad

00:37:35.680 umbrella term. Like she does not consent. She hates it. Yes. But then also when we've touched

00:37:42.360 on these other benefits that there are, that you can get extra time and extra accommodations on exams as

00:37:47.120 you had the typing thing and you had the extra time. So 100%, like you can get in, you, you even got to

00:37:52.960 go to different exam rooms. Like to know. Oh yeah. I got to do private exam rooms because

00:37:57.660 I need an extra time. Cause like for me, that was a big stressor. It's like, like Jimmy over here is

00:38:04.100 mouth breathing and the clock. I'm here in a private room on amphetamines with additional time.

00:38:10.360 With a keyboard. Cause I also remember my hands cramping, the pencil going dull, like, I mean,

00:38:17.500 come on. It's like, why wouldn't you want to give your kid that benefit? There are even things like

00:38:21.800 special, special needs trusts for, for kids with qualifying disabilities, their educational plans.

00:38:27.500 Like our, our, our son who's in kindergarten has all these additional teachers who come give him

00:38:33.500 special attention. You know? So like we're, we're in these like large public school classrooms, but,

00:38:37.780 but then he has like his, his minder who gives him extra attention and like, he gets to go off here.

00:38:42.360 And, and funny that you remember this. I just remembered as well. So another disability I had

00:38:48.120 growing up. I had to go to separate classes for speech therapy. Oh, speech therapy. Yeah. I had a,

00:38:56.160 I had a lisp. So I had to go to speech therapy. I would go to the, I also, for a period was in the

00:39:02.440 disabled class. You were not. My mom was so mad. Cause I was there with the actual retards. 1.00

00:39:07.500 And she, she got so mad at me for getting put in that class. And I was like, I don't know,

00:39:14.660 like this is where I am. So then I go from there to the gifted program.

00:39:19.680 Well, and that's so like, if she were, if she were a parent of you today, she would call you 2E,

00:39:25.780 AKA twice exceptional. I know it's, it's so cringe. It's so, yeah, that's okay. We're going to put that

00:39:31.080 in the retarded category of disability, twice exceptional, but I want to go back actually, 0.98

00:39:36.360 just to just the, the, the, the damage you can do by contextualizing your disability as a bad thing,

00:39:44.460 because context is important. So we're like, yes, get your kid diagnosed. Yes. Get yourself

00:39:48.180 diagnosed. Yes. Get accommodations. Yes. Absolutely play the system, but don't view it as an actual

00:39:54.580 thing that cripples you. Cause I can't emphasize enough like people and people don't talk about 0.99

00:39:59.640 this enough, the nocebo effect, just how powerful it is. So there's, there's a lot of evidence that

00:40:05.500 suggests the nocebo effect, which is basically like, so the placebo effect is where someone tells

00:40:10.300 you something's going to help and it, it helps you. Um, even if it doesn't, it's like, whatever,

00:40:15.360 like the pill they give you is totally inert. The nocebo effect is the opposite. If they're like,

00:40:19.000 oh, this, this cream is going to make your skin burn. And it does, even though it's just like

00:40:23.980 water or lotion. Right. So experimental research demonstrates that nocebo effects,

00:40:31.340 the impact of negative expectations are consistently stronger and more persistent than

00:40:36.100 placebo effects. So healthy volunteers induced with negative expectations. In one example,

00:40:42.260 rated their pain much higher over multiple sessions with this amplification lasting at least a week,

00:40:47.840 almost double the impact seen with placebo suggestions. The nocebo effect is that it's

00:40:52.760 actually strong enough to cause real and serious medical conditions and side effects to require

00:40:58.340 hospital care or even contribute to fatalities. So people have literally died from the nocebo effect.

00:41:05.680 Um, explain this, uh, people, because they believe they have these problems, they start to experience

00:41:13.300 real symptoms. We talk about this a lot in our spoonies episode. Um, spoonies being people who

00:41:18.740 self-diagnose with very difficult to diagnose and largely invisible illnesses. And the argument that

00:41:26.060 your body will react to that. Yeah. Yeah. Because a lot of people are like, oh, spoonies,

00:41:29.880 they don't actually feel anything. No, they feel something they're suffering. They have very,

00:41:34.360 very serious problems. Like they are, they are in pain. They cannot move. They cannot get up. Like

00:41:39.160 everything that they say they're experiencing because of the nocebo effect they're actually

00:41:44.100 experiencing. And here's the problem is, okay. So let's say, you know, you, you self-diagnose

00:41:49.600 with some kind of disability, you probably don't have it like 19 to 38% of the self-diagnoses are

00:41:56.020 correct. The rest are not, but you are still going to experience all the problems. And the problem is

00:42:02.700 that a lot of people just now have chosen to identify with their disabilities in a lot of

00:42:10.280 different ways. And you pointed out the Tourette's incident. This is for those who are not familiar

00:42:14.200 with it. In, in 2020 to 2021, clinicians and medical researchers noticed a surge in teenagers,

00:42:19.560 like, and especially adolescent girls, huh? What's going on there? Started presented like

00:42:24.940 presenting these, these onsets of tick like behaviors after extensive viewing of TikTok and

00:42:30.280 YouTube influencers who either claim to have Tourette syndrome or display similar symptoms. And all

00:42:35.380 these studies started documenting that many teens develop not only comparable tips, ticks. So like,

00:42:41.580 you know, like most people with Tourette's have their own thing, but these people all have the

00:42:46.040 same thing and very specific vocalizations and movements that directly mimicked those of social

00:42:51.520 pop, like popular social media influencers, like basically Tourette's influencers. So very,

00:42:57.300 very rare things. And many that weren't even really symptomatic of Tourette's, like it,

00:43:01.820 so it was someone faking Tourette's on social media, causing other people to fake the same kind of

00:43:07.520 fake Tourette's. But then I'm, you know, surely also experiencing true adverse effects for the

00:43:13.200 nocebo effect. So they, they, they describe this phenomenon as mass sociogenic illness being spread

00:43:19.600 with, it used to just be physical proximity, right? Like those villages who dance themselves to death,

00:43:23.800 right? But now it, it spreads on social media. So it's a much bigger issue and, and similar patterns

00:43:29.360 have been noticed with other conditions. A lot of people are identifying with ADHD, with autism,

00:43:34.960 with disassociative identity disorder. And that's really bad. It's really bad. And there are even

00:43:41.140 like renegade versions of people who are very clearly actually disabled, but, and who are trying

00:43:48.480 to like push back against, I guess you could say disability pedestalization who are still getting 0.90

00:43:53.920 it wrong. So I had brought up to you Cripple Punk and it's much older. It's not a 2020s thing. It started 0.92

00:44:00.280 by, it was started actually by a specific Tumblrina called Tyler Treywella. Basically that it started

00:44:06.300 with just one post. Treywella posted a selfie with a cane and a lit cigarette and labeled it Cripple

00:44:12.020 Punk. Um, and, and just added, I'm starting a movement and a movement was started and it's all

00:44:17.760 about direct, like Cripple Punk is about direct, directly abandoning, like the hang in there kitten

00:44:24.240 inspirational poster version of Cripple People where like, you know, people post videos of adults

00:44:30.780 with Down syndrome and are like, what inspiration, what a blessing. And it's like, I am not your

00:44:35.720 mascot. I am not your inspiration. And it's, it's this idea that disabled people exist for themselves. 1.00

00:44:43.160 You know, it's about being proud of who they are. But like, the problem is that I think as much as

00:44:47.660 Cripple Punk, like kind of moves in a good direction of like, I'm taking ownership. I'm not 1.00

00:44:53.360 embarrassed about what I am. They don't take it a step further and say, and here's my advantage of

00:45:00.080 being a cripple. You know, it was a lot of this stuff. It's, it's, it's the way you should actually 1.00

00:45:06.440 be there. Like, how should you actually be related to it? Then just don't relate to it. It doesn't

00:45:11.140 matter. Yeah. It's, it's, it's, if you don't see it as a superpower, don't relate to it at all.

00:45:16.380 Whatever disability you have, right. It is irrelevant. Usually when contrasted with 0.76

00:45:23.020 other genetic traits that you can't identify it with. So for example, right. Um, you know,

00:45:29.740 suppose you can't use your legs or something like this. Would you trade five points, 10 points of

00:45:36.040 IQ for your legs back? Like nobody would, nobody would at the end of the day, just intelligence,

00:45:42.160 except for maybe somebody who's already very stupid. But at the end of the day, 1.00

00:45:46.080 it's all just intelligence, right? Like no matter how much you have sort of standing in your way

00:45:51.120 at the end of the day, it's all intelligence combined with agenticness, combined with work

00:45:55.840 ethic, combined with an ability to think outside the box. Yeah. Like resourcefulness. I mean,

00:45:59.420 really like having a disability is about being aware of where you deviate from societal norms

00:46:04.660 or like the mainstream way people handle things and learning how to adapt to those environments,

00:46:09.060 like through, you know, special testing or medication or whatever it may be. And then also learning

00:46:14.620 how to create and benefit from friendly environments, like environments in which

00:46:18.280 your unique configuration of car thrives. And that's it. Like, don't, don't, don't identify

00:46:24.540 with it. Otherwise don't get a fake internet diagnosis, get a formal diagnosis. If you really

00:46:29.480 need one to get the medications, to get the special accommodations you need and only, only use your

00:46:36.000 differences to achieve more, not less like this idea of, of allowing a disability to give you an external

00:46:40.840 locus of control where you blame everything on your disability is, is the worst. If you approach it

00:46:47.280 only with an internal locus of control, like, okay, how am I going to use this to my advantage? Fine.

00:46:52.040 But yeah, I, I think that that basically sums it up. I mean, you and I have adapted to our

00:46:58.840 disabilities by just creating weird schedules, mostly online lives, social isolation. Like we work from

00:47:06.380 home. We don't go out much and we live life according to our unique needs and our kids' unique

00:47:14.440 needs. So like, we don't all sit down together around a table to eat dinner. Everyone eats in

00:47:20.060 the way that like, we'll maximize the amount of nutrition they need to get, which means that

00:47:24.740 our kids are running wild or like in another room or whatever, like, and they all get their own thing.

00:47:31.240 It's like different food for everyone, but that's what it takes. And just, that's not the societal

00:47:35.780 norm. It's super not okay by most people's standards, but like it works for us. So yeah,

00:47:40.320 just build the environment that works for you and get the tools you need to navigate the hostile

00:47:45.080 environments, get your space suit. Yeah. Well, I just, I mean, we used to understand this. There,

00:47:50.440 there is a difference between the, you know, disabled person. And it's so interesting that this has

00:47:55.720 been sort of taken out of media, the disabled person who was like exceptional in spite of

00:48:01.220 their disability, which was definitely a thing in like 80s media and stuff like that.

00:48:05.100 What, like Stephen Hawking or something?

00:48:06.960 Well, you know, we're thinking like X-Men or whatever, whatever.

00:48:11.300 Oh, yeah. Yeah.

00:48:12.840 But then there was the disabled person who was just like, just figured it out. It was like everyone

00:48:18.900 else. I was thinking like, we were actually watching, cause I didn't even remember that they

00:48:22.600 had a guy in a wheelchair on this, the Incredible Ghostbusters cartoon. I was like, oh my God,

00:48:26.500 that's so mid nineties. Whatever happened to people in wheelchairs and shows?

00:48:29.960 And I also just don't see people in wheelchairs anymore, but like, I remember, yeah, growing

00:48:33.940 up as a kid in the nineties, like every show as their diversity thing had someone in a

00:48:37.980 wheelchair. Who was that?

00:48:42.020 And they always played basketball. Whatever reason, people in wheelchairs love playing

00:48:47.600 basketball. I know very little about being in a wheelchair, but I know it makes you great

00:48:51.080 at basketball.

00:48:51.820 Yeah. No, what is that? Oh my God. It's such a thing.

00:48:54.900 I don't know. One person saw it. And then like all the TV execs are like, where's the

00:48:59.840 basketball scene? He's in a wheelchair, right? You've got to show him that he's like, cool.

00:49:04.460 But the point being is if you were blind back then or whatever, you just figured it the F

00:49:09.780 out, right? And you didn't make it into this big effing thing, but now people with these

00:49:14.980 trivial disabilities are making it into this giant thing.

00:49:17.820 Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So anyway, you guys have, you have the dirt on us now. You got

00:49:24.320 dirt, maybe some practical advice for those of you dyslexics who watch the show. Hope you

00:49:30.160 found this useful.

00:49:31.340 Yeah. I love you to that, Simone. I hope that people stop freaking, I suppose every time

00:49:37.120 you go out there and you talk about your disability or your hard childhood, know that there's a

00:49:42.600 decent chance that the person you're talking to has that plus like 10 others. And it's

00:49:48.340 secretly thinking, oh my God, this person is such a buffoon. If that was, if that's what 0.99

00:49:53.620 they tripped on, you know, rock one of 30 rocks, it flew at my face. I'm like, what a f***ing 0.96

00:50:00.340 fool. 1.00

00:50:01.060 I'm disabled. I love you, Malcolm. 0.99

00:50:03.500 Love you too.

00:50:07.260 Two recording sessions next week.

00:50:09.660 Okay.

00:50:09.940 Okay.

00:50:12.600 By the way, it looks amazing. And people really enjoyed the episode today. They also

00:50:21.040 loved the sliders reference.

00:50:23.820 The sliders reference. They were like, oh, I just remember sliders.

00:50:27.600 Well, today's episode was one of, I think my favorites. I think it's up there in terms

00:50:30.720 of our theories with the one civilization hypothesis.

00:50:33.600 At least one other commentator said this was their favorite episode.

00:50:37.840 So one person said that.

00:50:39.780 Yeah. And a lot of other people said they loved it. I'm just sending you.

00:50:43.320 Screenshots of comments that I took.

00:50:45.520 Oh, you know how to lighten my heart. People say nice things about us.

00:50:49.660 There's one random accidental screenshot of Binance not letting businesses connect.

00:50:54.400 Would you like the picture of RFAB before?

00:50:56.660 It looks great. Oh my gosh. I'm so excited about it. Like you wouldn't even know I'm so

00:51:01.720 excited about it. It looks good. Did you generate the images too?

00:51:05.840 Yeah. I generated the images. I got them in the backend asset folder. I connected them. I did

00:51:10.620 all the coding.

00:51:11.940 Look at you.

00:51:12.680 Vibe coding is awesome. And we're going to add that to our Patreon paid stuff for anybody who

00:51:16.260 wants to learn about how to do like vibe coding and other things like that. Because

00:51:20.040 I find it's, it's weird how, you know, inaccessible a lot of this information is when it's so important

00:51:25.320 to surviving in the modern world, but like, I don't know how to code and I just picked it

00:51:30.060 up and I can do it now. I can code.

00:51:31.560 Yeah. That's so cool.

00:51:32.460 That's insane.

00:51:33.420 Well, and it's not just, see, I thought it would just sort of do it all for you without

00:51:38.000 you knowing really what's going on in the background. But what you're actually doing

00:51:40.800 is it's helping you learn the actual underpinnings of it, which is so cool that you're doing more

00:51:45.760 stuff manually now than I expected at all. It's, it's really awesome. Yeah. Just so FYI,

00:51:51.760 for those listening, we have paid only Patreon, VIP, Substack. Also, if you're paid on Substack,

00:51:59.080 you get these episodes, two on the weekends. We're trying to keep that up, which may be tough

00:52:03.260 given our schedules going forward, but we're going to, so far we've, we've kept an unbroken

00:52:07.620 streak. We're going to try to keep going. So if you want more, you can get more. I just have to

00:52:13.560 pay for it. Okay. Here I go. Okay.

00:52:26.960 So instead of showing you guys a picture of our kids today, I'm going to show you a picture of one

00:52:31.300 of my old honeymoans with Simone because they showed up in Google Photos memories, but it also

00:52:35.220 shows just how weird living with somebody who has like autism like her can be, which you'll notice 1.00

00:52:40.700 that she's doing in this is she is observing the exact category of food she's about to eat.

00:52:48.120 Then she is looking up that food in her apps. Then she is putting that food on a portable scale

00:52:55.980 she brought with her so that she can calculate all of her numbers.

00:52:59.900 It's a pavlova. It's a pavlova. All right. How to do this. I think I'm just going to grab it.

00:53:10.400 Oh my God. This is going to be more to fill than I thought.

Based Camp - September 09, 2025

Disability Maxxing： The Race to Retardation

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