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July 20

Thought experiment: compressibility of water

Thought experiment No. VIII. Imagine you have a magical, infinitely strong glass cylinder 300mm in diameter and as long as you like sticking up from the surface of the earth forever. (No hissy fits please. This is a thought experiment). Full of confidence that no idiot will scratch the glass, you relax on a sofa at the base and watch while somebody fills the tube with water and the pressure at the base goes up from thousands to millions to squillions of kilograms per square whazzername. We know that towards the end the material will collapse into a neutron soup and then, at the limit, into a black hole. Before this happens, what other stages would one observe? Captainbeefart (talk) 14:58, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

Um, I don't think that's going to work. I think you'd get nothing more than maybe some exotic ices though I doubt even that - I should recheck the phase diagram of water - because the water only accumulates in the cylinder below geostationary orbit, and with lower and lower gravity. (Well, OK, you can put it at the pole but the gravity still falls off fast, though not strictly to zero) I bet the total pressure would be less than inside a gas giant, but I'd have to do the math, and I'm feeling lazy. Wnt (talk) 15:56, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

There's pretty substantial pressure at the bottom of the world's oceans. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:58, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

Jupiter has an average density of 1.4 times water. Granted it doesn't reach water density till a bit in but the surface gravity is 240% Earth, it takes 11 Earth radii to drop off to zero and there's gas giants 13 times denser than Jupiter with the same size. Jupiter's maximum pressure is 91,000 times the ocean's and 13 times more stuff in the same size ball would make 13 times more gravity and 169 times the pressure if the density is simply 13 times higher everywhere. For 15,000,000 times maximum ocean pressure. This agrees with brown dwarf which says a pressure of 91,000,000 times the ocean for what is presumably a medium brown dwarf (they go from 13 to 65 Jupiter masses). Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 17:15, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

• While we are dreaming, we can as well assume away any gravitational pull from other bodies, and more importantly the Earth's rotation (because otherwise, after some height, centrifugal forces would push it away more than gravity pulls it down).

Let us go by the standard hydrostatic pressure relation ${\frac {dP}{dz}}=-\rho g$ for which I cannot seem to find any good source for that right now (here is a bad one but with some details about the math). Let us also assume that water is incompressible (...yes, dreaming, but none wants to search the equation of state for liquid water for a large range of pressures), i.e. constant density ($\rho$).

It would seem that as you integrate pressure on a higher and higher water column, it diverges, but that is not the case. $g$ is not constant with altitude; the gravitational pull of the Earth decreases as ${\frac {1}{z^{2}}}$.

So, defining $g(z)=g_{0}\left({\frac {z_{0}}{z}}\right)^{2}$ and we can integrate $P(z_{0})-P(\infty )=\rho g_{0}z_{0}^{2}\int _{z_{0}}^{+\infty }{\frac {dz}{z}}^{2}=\rho g_{0}z_{0}$. That is a finite value; with $g_{0}=9.8\ m.s^{-2}$ at $z_{0}=6.4\cdot 10^{6}\ m$ and $\rho =10^{3}\ kg.m^{-3}$, it comes to around $6.3\cdot 10^{10}Pa$. 600 kbar is not something trivial, of course, but if you fancy a bit of shopping, this will get you 120 tons of pressure (which is 120 kbar, over a square meter). So, you can probably spare the glass and the dangerous job of filling it, if you have a specific experiment in mind.

Of course, if you insist that incompressible water is not realistic (ahem), then the final pressure would get higher - as the bottom layers squeeze, more mass gets in the stronger gravitational field. On the other hand, you can leave the Sun, Moon etc. in place, because the integral converges relatively quickly, so a mere 6,400km high glass gets you half the maximum pressure. Tigraan^{Click here to contact me} 17:02, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

120 tons per square meter is only 12 bars. 10 kbar is I believe the pressure of the 1993 World Trade Center bomb. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 17:31, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

At pressures in excess of 0.5 Mbar a superionic phase of water is predicted to be as hard as iron and glowing yellow, where hydrogen ions float within an oxygen lattice. It may exist in the ice giant planets Uranus and Neptune. See also Properties of water#Compressibility. We do not "know that the material will collapse into a neutron soup and then into a black hole". AllBestFaith (talk) 18:32, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

What an interesting substance! Apparently something is known of advanced superionic conductors and fast ion conductors and proton conductors already; I simply wasn't paying attention. So the hydrogen ions move freely and transmit current - I'm still not clear on whether their liquid-like state is simply like an electrolyte or something stranger... Wnt (talk) 17:52, 22 July 2016 (UTC)

Autism Cure

Why do so many people think Autism needs to be cured? Mage Resu (talk) 21:37, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

Name one. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:05, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

Define: Many; cure; autism. Some children diagnosed with autism are incapable of functioning on their own, being unable to communicate with other human beings. Some also exhibit self-harming behavior and have motor control difficulties. Most people would classify these as bad things. It's clear they need help, though that help can take many forms. But of course many autistics can function just fine, they just need to be taught and raised in a different manner from neurotypical children. Something that may be pushing the "cure" mind-set is the hoard of anti-vaccine advocates who insist that autism is some kind of brain damage that has hidden or destroyed their "real" child. Someguy1221 (talk) 22:54, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

ITYM horde --Trovatore (talk) 23:17, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

And for a more entertaining homophone, there's "whored". StuRat (talk) 04:40, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

Less interesting in meaning, but let's make it a quadruple with "hoared". DMacks (talk) 03:10, 22 July 2016 (UTC)

It does indeed seem like their child's personality has been stolen, in that in many cases their formerly outgoing toddler starts to regress socially. StuRat (talk) 04:40, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

There's an interesting essay on the subject here. -- BenRG (talk) 22:56, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

Neurodiversity advocates promote support systems (such as inclusion-focused services, accommodations, communication and assistive technologies, occupational training, and independent living support) that allow those who are neurodivergent to live their lives as they are, rather than being coerced or forced to adopt uncritically accepted ideas of normality, or to conform to a clinical ideal.

Many "curebies" believe that the neurodiversity movement does not believe in supporting autistic individuals in any way. Then they strike down that idea saying that it unethical. Why do they do this? Mage Resu (talk) 23:29, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

You have to be much more specific. Which groups, which curebies? What have they said? Someguy1221 (talk) 00:41, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

Mostly parents. The anti-vaccine movement loves that argument! It's just something I hear a lot! The question is, why are they assuming that Neurodiversity is something it isn't, even when corrected? Mage Resu (talk) 01:07, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

I highly recommed reading the llink the BenRG provides above. A lot of this might be caused by people talking past each other while they have different images of autism in their head. I don't think many people are advocating a cure for a child's being quirky in a group and not liking synthetic fabrics. But many people are advocating a cure for the child who tries to literally rip off his own face if you loosen his straight jacket. That is not hyperbole, such children exist. The desire for a cure is a desire to ease suffering, not to abolish a group of people who think differently. Someguy1221 (talk) 02:04, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

That said, I'm not sure why you're so convinced that a cure would be unethical. Perhaps we are talking past each other and have different ideas of the word "cure". Maybe you could enlighten us as to how you imagine a cure would be administered. Are you thinking of a pill that is freely offered to adult autistics, who can choose not to take it? Or are you imagining thugs holding down autistics and forcing them to become "normal"? This is why I asked for definitions at the beginning. We can't have a real conversation if our terms are left undefined. Someguy1221 (talk) 02:07, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

While I've found myself agreeing with pretty much everything you've said above, Someguy, the fact of the matter is, we shouldn't be indulging the OP's desire to have an ideological "conversation" here at all, as this is WP:NOTAFORUM. The reference desk is for providing reference; if the OP has a more specific inquiry which we can help address by providing sources, that's all well and good, but what he is doing so far is creating straw men and then asking us to engage in speculation about how people supposedly feel on this topic, in a manner that particularly invites defense or critique of those beliefs. This, unsurprisingly, is leading increasingly to expression of opinions, rather than the kind of reference services we are meant to be supplying here. There is no shortage of forums where an open-ended exchange on this topic would be appropriate, but this really isn't one of them. Snow ^{let's rap} 11:33, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Autism Speaks, for one. From their Mission Statement (emphasis added):

"We are dedicated to funding global biomedical research into the causes, prevention, treatments and a possible cure for autism." ^[1] --2606:A000:4C0C:E200:60BC:894:7787:F31 (talk) 22:59, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

• See our Neurodiversity article for more information on the topic. --2606:A000:4C0C:E200:60BC:894:7787:F31 (talk) 23:14, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

Answer to this question can only be speculative. We can't really answer 'why many people think' type of questions. Hofhof (talk) 23:59, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

I'm not expecting a perfect answer, I'm just asking for possible explanations behind this behavior. Mage Resu (talk) 01:13, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

Are you opposed to finding a cure for autism, assuming such a thing could be done? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:28, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

A cure would be unethical. Mage Resu (talk) 02:02, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

I'm confused, Autism is defined as a spectrum disorder, just because SOME people with autism have a manageable manifestation and don't "want" to be cured because they are happy with their life, does NOT mean that there aren't lots of autistic people and parents of autistic children who face severe challenges and WOULD want to be "cured" if that was an option. How is that unethical? Is giving a deaf person a hearing implant unethical? Just because there exists some happy deaf people who do not want to be "cured"? Vespine (talk) 02:12, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

By "cure", I mean an intervention which somehow turns an autistic person into a neurotypical person. This is different from treatment which allows autistic people to function, but does not eliminate autism itself. Mage Resu (talk) 17:16, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

By "intervention", do you mean toward children or toward adults? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:59, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

Doesn't matter! People are people! Mage Resu (talk) 22:02, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

It DOES matter. Parents are responsible for their children. If a cure for something turned up, and the parents failed to provide it to their children, they would be derelict in their duties as parents. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:57, 22 July 2016 (UTC)

Thin ice, Bugs. That statement needs LOTS of qualifications. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:58, 22 July 2016 (UTC)

So if they found a cure for Down's Syndrome, parents should just say, "Well, we should just let little Johnny be what God made him"? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:52, 22 July 2016 (UTC)

This seems to me to be ultimately a question of "who has authority to decide". Here's where the idea of Non compos mentis comes into play. Clearly, children and people "not in their right mind" have a limited ability to make decisions based on informed consent, that includes decisions about their own welfare. So in those cases the law usually permits people like parents and guardians to make those decisions, but sometimes even those people can be demonstrate to NOT be making the decision in the best interest of the subject. Such as when blood transfusions are refused on religious grounds, or other cases of neglect, the law sometimes steps in and takes those decisions away from those people. But WHO gets to decide if autism means "non compos mentis"? Or if that person SHOULD be cured, even against their own will, or the will of their guardians? As in the case of blood transfusions. Well in the majority of those cases, the law sides with the medical profession, why? Because that's what the medical profession does. By definition, the consensus of the people who are most highly educated in the fields of health, including mental health, are the ones who we should defer our own judgement in cases of uncertainly. There is NO guarantee that they can't be wrong or make the wrong decision, but the chances they will be right are FAR higher than any individual or ideological group who have no demonstrable subjective authority beyond some ideology, such as this "neurodiversity" group. Vespine (talk) 02:29, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

Actually, jurisdictions vary wildly in just how they treat non compos mentis and what is called the "right to consent", including who is empowered to make those decisions and what manner of expert testimony (medical or otherwise) will be allowed. I'd also caution against making too direct a correlation between a "strictly" physiological treatment like a blood transfusion and anything that would profoundly affect the mental state of the patient, especially in a permanent fashion; in both legal and medical contexts, these are treated as distinct procedures for the purposes of capacity and informed consent. In any event, the OP's question, aside from riling the passions, is moot; the fact of the matter is, we can do little to nothing to "cure" autism; some behaviours and attention/perceptual difficulties can be managed with medication or behavioural therapy, but our fundamental understanding of the neurophysiology of autistic spectrum disorders is still incredibly limited, so notions of a radical "corrective" therapy--drug, genetic, or otherwise--are pretty much science fiction. Snow ^{let's rap} 11:52, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

Are there any advantages to being autistic? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:51, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

The intense focus that can accompany asperger syndrome can make a mildly autistic person very good at a specific job. There is also the know phenomenon of autistic savants. Someguy1221 (talk) 03:06, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

And it can be a social handicap. The OP is saying that if someone doesn't want to be autistic, or let's so "not as" autistic, then they have no right to want to "cure" it. That's extremely offensive. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 10:52, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

I think the OP's point is more that if someone autistic wants to stay so, or at least opposes any kind of treatment, then no cure should be imposed on them. It does raise an interesting ethical question (paternalism is the go-to article, methinks), and I defer to experts in the domain to say whether or not for a particular case the autistic patient can be deemed to have taken an informed decision about their well-being.

I could even imagine a stronger point that if a cure is somehow invented, it would plausibly work the same on those who want it, those who refuse it and those who are too crazy to consent either way. Searching for such a cure could be deemed unethical, because there is a risk that the cure is imposed by physicians/parents on some who do not want it. I disagree with that argument, which I see as an avatar of the neo-luddism argument that any technology with a risk of abuse (no matter how small or uncertain) should be opposed, regardless of the possible improvements it may bring. Tigraan^{Click here to contact me} 11:15, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

It's worse than neo-Luddism. If autism could be cured, then some people would be unemployed. It's in those people's vested interest to not find a cure. As for imposing on someone - would those who call it "unethical" likewise argue that a polio vaccine is unethical, and that if someone develops polio it is "God's will"? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 11:29, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

WP:NOTAFORUM. You're probably preaching to the choir for the majority of the science desk, Bugs, but this is really going way past the line into a protracted discussion of personal perspectives concerning what is ethical and appropriate, which is beyond our remit on the reference desks. Let's please confine discussion to referenceable facts, and leave ideological judgments and posturing to other forums where they are more appropriate. Snow ^{let's rap} 12:04, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

If you're going to play the "not a forum" card, lay it on the OP, who clearly came here with a personal agenda. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:02, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

Bugs, try replacing "autism" with "homosexuality" in this thread to see where the OP is coming from. Tevildo (talk) 20:46, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

Try replacing "autism" with "polio" to see where I'm coming from. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:57, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

Bad comparison. Mage Resu (talk) 22:00, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

Why? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:57, 22 July 2016 (UTC)

I wouldn't go with polio, but the homosexuality comparison is worse. The immediate "problems" with homosexuality all relate to interactions with other human beings, so we can blame other humans for the problems. (Some asshole will claim that not being able to reproduce is a problem, but that's only a problem in some existential sense that not everyone cares about, and ignores the fact that even a gay person could reproduce if they really really wanted to.) Polio is a bad analogy because polio doesn't have any obvious benefit to the people who get it (iron lung manufacturers benefit, but again, other people, screw their issues). Autism however, does have some benefits. There are professionals who have attributed their creativity or skills to their autistic condition, while at the same time very many people suffer as a result of autism (and unlike homosexuality, much of this suffering is entirely internal in nature). Many children with mild autism and their parents like the way they are. So we have a condition that is largely bad, but with some good, and now we're left with some big medical-ethical question about when/why/how/who is permitted to decide that it should be "cured", a question that can't be meaningfully discussed because there is no cure. Though none of this is really of interest to Mage Resu, our OP, who doesn't seem interested in actual discussion. He's probably just waiting for people to tell him that "cure" proponents are jerks who hate autistics or something. Oh, but this is a reference desk, so I should probably give references or something. Mage, if you are really interested in learning about this topic, go peruse a website of one of the major groups promoting a cure for autism, like here. Take a look around that site, see what they are researching and why. But of course no one can tell you why the specific people you have encountered want there to be a cure, because we are not mind readers. Someguy1221 (talk) 09:42, 22 July 2016 (UTC)

To address your implied question about whether, and when, an autistic person can be judged competent to consent to medical treatment, the answer is (and I'm sure this will not surprise), it depends. Needless to say, nations the world over vary immensely in how the view mental "defect" and how it affects capacity and other aspects of mental state. Even amongst nations from the western common law traditions, the standards, even the basic conceptions and assumptions they make about the mind for the purposes of the law, vary immensely. The U.S. in particular has a multiplicity of standards and perspectives in both statutory and common law, as varied as the states. The situation is made even more exponentially confused still by the fact that there is almost always a separate set of standards for mental states for each of a number of areas of law--criminal law, tort law, and medical intervention are just three of numerous areas where one might reasonably be asking whether a person can consent to treatment. So in reality you end up with many hundreds of distinct legal doctrines which may be of either mandatory or persuasive authority in a given jurisdiction. That being said, anyone with a form of autism severe enough that they cannot substantially communicate their desires will, of course, have most of their medical decisions made for them, whether that be a family member, a legal guardian, a court-appointed advocate or institution, or the court itself. Snow ^{let's rap} 12:31, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

Someguy, I know it's an innocent mistake, but that is a profoundly insulting comment, to conflate Asperger's and autism like that (and yes, I'm aware that the DSM-V has gone the same way). It also belies a significant lack of knowledge around savant syndrome, and just how far that is from Asperger's. Savants are incredibly rare (rarer than Nobel prizewinners) and are associated with generally low mental functioning in other aspects: those who are not are so rare that their existence is still seriously in doubt. The stereotypical "super-smart geek with Asperger's", perhaps in the Dirac mould, is a very long way from savant syndrome.Andy Dingley (talk) 11:39, 22 July 2016 (UTC)

And I thought I made it perfectly clear I was listing Aspergers and savant syndrome as utterly separate things, but maybe I did not. Sorry about the confusion of AS and autistic. I generally follow DSM for my definitions, and did not consider that "autistic" refers specifically to people diagnosed with autism, rather than any ASD syndrome. Someguy1221 (talk) 02:57, 23 July 2016 (UTC)

Perhaps a useful shift in perspective would be to take a step back and look at what can be done to help neurotypicals. Several years ago I remember reading about research to develop new drugs that would relieve humans of the burden of needing to sleep - unfortunately, I am drawing a blank on the name just now - and obviously this has wide applications in making more vigilant soldiers and better iPhone assemblers. Assuming that the laws of capitalism work as they have, the workers ought to be able to go twenty or more hours each day for the same pay they draw now for twelve, thus vastly improving worker productivity and market returns. Those who do not take the drugs would not be self-sufficient and would need to be cared for in some way ... perhaps by administering them the drugs. Or if you don't like cutting-edge technology, we could review the use of methamphetamine by the pilots and James Bonds and long-haul truck drivers of the world. Now I'm not sure where to go with this just yet; we're hampered by the problem that this is a Science discussion and scientists don't know jack about ethics; they just know more than ethicists that are generally in somebody's pocket. Wnt (talk) 13:04, 22 July 2016 (UTC)

@Wnt: You might be thinking of Modafinil? It had a lot of hype ~10 years ago. Cool stuff, very few side effects compared to traditional uppers. Not sure how much/in what context it is most used today, but our article has plenty of info. It is somewhat oddly classified as schedule IV in the USA, and by prescription only elsewhere. Of course there's then a black market [2] for students and presumably there's also trucking industry and military usage. SemanticMantis (talk) 15:00, 22 July 2016 (UTC)

I think I must have read an overly optimistic early assessment of CRL40940 or CRL40941, but I'm not sure now; certainly what I see about them now does not match the initial breathless hype about reducing overall need for sleep long term. For which we can all breathe a sigh of relief before we go back to bed. Wnt (talk) 15:17, 22 July 2016 (UTC)

Anyway, the way I'd look at this personally would be to start from my particular notion of what a genetic disease is. To me, it seems like a gene that has been present in human populations for hundreds of thousands of years is part of the natural human variation and has withstood the test of selection, and therefore is not a disease to be cured. The problem is, that means that sickle cell trait is not a disease - yet, to be sure, the anemia is a disease when a patient complains of it and wants to be treated, but it would be a harmful deprivation of human diversity to remove the underlying trait from the gene pool, at least so long as a return of malaria is conceivable. Now autism of course is not entirely genetic, nor is it the result of harmful 'autism genes' of recent origin, so there's nothing to remove from the gene pool there either. But we can still ask - were there circumstances in the primitive environment where these people would survive and do well? Because if humanity's history holds a place where they were able to thrive, then our present potentially could offer the same, and it would be wrong to blunt their variation solely to make them fit a modern mold. But if the past outcome was always death and misery, then there is no idyllic state of nature to be returned to, and we can look at it as a disease state. This is not something readily measured, more of a simulation, but we'd do the same recreation if malaria were known to be absolutely and irrevocably extinct; we'd say sickle cell trait never would have been preserved by selection and the situation is so changed from nature that we should evaluate it in the context of a hypothetical history where the disease had never existed. Even so, we would have to be extraordinarily certain that there was no other benefit that is being lost! (I apologize for alternating between genotype and phenotype arguments, as they are similar but not the same and it is probably really confusing, but this is just how I'm thinking this through) The bottom line is that humanity has a long, established history that has defined it as a substance, and when we find ways to correct that substance in accordance with its history that is less shocking an intervention than when we shape it according to some new design. Yet the wishes of the individual largely override this - even so, we have to be careful that they are indeed the wishes of the individual and not a form of coercion, and when the condition makes it impossible to know those wishes, we should revert to a consideration of history. And I would guess, but do not know, that persons with severe or even moderate autism might have suffered terribly and died in ancient times. Wnt (talk) 13:27, 22 July 2016 (UTC)

Your solution to the problem introduces a new problem, one of paternalism and the ethics associated with it. If a cure existed that would revert the sickle cell allele, who has the right to decide that it cannot be used? (Of course keeping mind mind, this decision could be made for everyone, or left to individuals.) Unfortunately Wikipedia doesn't have much discussion of the philosophical/ethical aspects of this sort of question, but other places do [3]. Someguy1221 (talk) 03:03, 23 July 2016 (UTC)

@Someguy1221: This is a valid concern. As I said, when the individual has a strong preference we largely defer to it, though as with other procedures like tongue splitting and genital bisection or indulging an amputee fetish, there is only so far that most of us want to ride that bus before we get off, and there is a point at which the lack of people willing to participate in a body modification becomes a significant limitation on its feasibility. But where paternalism matters most is when the person at issue is not what we regard as truly adult. In that situation, we reject that they can truly consent to so much as a tattoo when we view it as unnatural, yet we would routinely consent them to major surgery if we view it as repairing a trauma or defect. Paternalism is rightly reviled anywhere in the world outside of its proper role, which is to say, when exercised by someone acting as a parent. Wnt (talk) 03:37, 23 July 2016 (UTC)

• The user's question is a valid one. Those who are "functioning autistics" (to use my own term) are little different from "well-adjusted bi/homo-sexuals" (like myself, who discovered I was queer at 12, and started coming out at 14) or the deaf among the deaf as described brilliantly by Oliver Sacks. (I cannot recommend this book highly enough.)

Our nature is our nature, and we don't want to be "cured" of it, if we are able to be happy as we are. (There is a letter to the editor of this effect in the June 2016 Scientific American) Let me ask everyone reading this a question. If you were happy, would you be unhappy?' μηδείς (talk) 21:47, 22 July 2016 (UTC)

I'm closing this portion of the discussion before it balloons well beyond what is appropriate discussion at the reference desks (as, if I am to be frank, much of the above has). Per WP:NOTAFORUM and the explicit purposes of the reference desks, we are here to provide references (be they to relevant sources or our own content) and some additional contextualization for that information, in order to help address factual questions. What we do not do here is engage in long-winded discussions about what is right or wrong in the world, why we have these personal perspectives and how to convince others to see things the same way. The relevant questions here are interesting, multifaceted and important and there are many, many places where discussion on them can proceed ad nauseum and may give the OP what he is looking for. This Wikipedia page is not such a forum, though, and the fact that the OP has started to express moral judgement towards those who disagree with their ideological perspective goes to show just one of many, many reasons why.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Thanks for letting me know who does and doesn't support eugenics! The real question is, how do I convince the anti vaccine people to not resort to chelation therapy? Mage Resu (talk) 00:44, 23 July 2016 (UTC) First off, if you could not bring polemics into this space by accusing others of being eugenicists simply because they disagree with you, that would be greatly appreciated. Second, this new question of yours, like the first, calls for speculation of the broadest and most idiosyncratic variety, and that is very explicitly an activity that this space (like the rest of Wikipedia) is not meant to be used for. Please, please read WP:NOTAFORUM before asking further questions here. If you have a specific question which we can address with references, rather than one which requests open-ended opinions on ideology and ethics, you are welcome to present those more narrow requests. But this space is not here as an open forum to address the world's ills as we see them, and questions along the lines of "How do I convince people of X" are really not appropriate. There are lots and lots of forums out there where completely open discussion concerning autistic spectrum issues (and the related issues of ethics and social norms) would be welcomed and appropriate, and I suggest you open your dialogue at one of the larger of the many hundreds (if not thousands) of options. But we just cannot continue to have an open debate here about how people should feel about this topic and how to convince them to think as we do. Nothwithstanding the fact that some of our editors have forgotten this fact and decided to indulge themselves above much farther than is really appropriate to a Wikipedia space. Thank you for your understanding. Snow let's rap 02:23, 23 July 2016 (UTC)