I’m sorry, I’m reading back over that message and it came off at least twice as harsh as was intended. My fury should be directed towards others and it accidentally spilled onto you. I came at you a little sideways and I regret the tone.

There is, of course, value in hearing the lies from the horse’s mouth

access journalism? where you get some jerk in a chair and lob softballs to retain “access” to them? that thing? thats whats valuable? maintaining access to the people who you know for a fact are lying to you so that you can lob softballs is the valuable thing.

access journalism a bastard child: spawn of the unholy union of the media’s profit motive and the accessed’s desire to legitimize their message (you are invited to recall the message being legitimized in this case).

the government has means of sending its own messages. uncritical ‘stenographizing’ of those messages is indistinguishable from endorsement of them. if the media is being pressed into serving as propaganda outlets for the state, that should be the story, not “the white house said…” and clearly they still have some power to say these things remaining because here is tech dirt saying it.

telling someone the weather is dry when its actually wet because you want to deceive them into not carrying an umbrella has negative truth value.

a journalist doesnt prescribe, they describe. they describe the truth (which often includes reporting who is lying about what) as best they can. thats what makes them a journalist instead of an opinion-columnist. they document, record, critically analyze, and publicly journal their findings.

the only thing carrying disinformation-water for a tyrant serves as a “launching point” for is a career in propaganda.

I tried the local credit union, same shit different name.

This perspective handwaves the fact that “Neanderthal” is a commonly used pejorative term precisely for someone who is/acts “unevolved” or “primitive.” The article does a good job of not saying autists socialize like Neanderthals, and the commenter you’re replying to is wrong for suggesting the article did (I frankly wonder whether they actually read the article).

That said, the concern of linking autism to ‘Neanderthalic’ traits is, for the reason I just explained, a legitimate one, and the concern should not be simply dismissed as being unintentional. I mean, do what I suspect they did and just read the headline- It puts autism and the commonly pejorative term Neanderthal causally together in the same sentence. That’s what a majority of people are taking from this just judging from the ratio.

In other words, this association would be stigmatic for an already stigmatized group. Perhaps there’s some less stigmatizing language we could find to express this. OTOH, there’s the risk of the euphemism treadmill effect. OTOOH, there’s such a thing as reclaiming language from stigmatism, as I like to do very intentionally with the commonly pejorative term “autist.”

IDK, language is complicated.