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PaperclipPerfector  2mo ago (text post)   1776 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for September 22, 2024

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

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Why do people find mental retardation repulsive? It's been my experience that generally, conditions like Down's Syndrome, autism, etc produce an instinctive "ick" reaction in other people. To the credit of most people, they do their best to cover it up and treat the afflicted individuals kindly - but it doesn't come naturally to them to do so.

Given that this seems (in my experience) to be fairly widespread, it seems to be a reaction that is pretty ingrained in human nature. So what might be the cause of this tendency?

First, I agree that people generally act with too much revulsion. I've spent more time with the mentally disabled than some and it's not that bad.

People have touched on general aversion to illness and the physical components of things like Down's Syndrome.

I'll add a few more things:

  • People who are retarded generally have very poor work ethics, which influences hygiene. Without sufficient pressure from caretakers and knowledge, the default will be dirty clothes and a dirty living space.
  • Lack of rationality can lead to some negative moral outputs. Retarded people have their own hierarchy where they victimize the dumbest or meekest among themselves. They can be as selfish and mean-spirited as children, which is distasteful to see in an adult.
  • Many people rightfully dread carrying along a conversation with someone who has a mental disability. It's a constant push and pull of trying to figure out what they're saying, deciding to agree or disagree with them, and constantly calibrating a totally alien quantity of IQ and EQ. It's exhausting until you know somebody really well, and even then it's still not easy.

While I think the retardation you're talking about is genetic, a lot of other things that feel similar to retardation can be caused environmentally. Disease, severe head trauma, severe malnutrition, environmental poisoning. All bad things that if they happened to them, might happen to you if you get too close to them.

Human nature isn't a fine grained thing, it tends to over rather than under index its fears. Humans recoiling from the ill is something of an inchoate sense of germ theory of disease, or of a social order in which strong allies are valuable while weak allies are liabilities.

This is why so many heroic legends relate to carrying the ability to discern the secret abilities and importance of those who we reflexively recoil from.

Why do people find mental retardation repulsive?

Because it is subset of illnesses in general. People generally speaking dislike ill people.

Many types of mental retardation also come with physical defects that make the person ugly. When that's not true, I don't think it's an instinctive "ick" so much as their condition makes them not very good conversationalists. So you talk to them for fifteen minutes and decide you don't really want to talk to them any longer.

From a biological perspective, humans are wired to survive and reproduce. Having allies and mates who are socially well-adapted to the local culture helps achieve these goals. This is because social support from people with power gives you access to useful resources that you could not acquire on your own. People implicitly/unconsciously know that people with mental conditions do not make the best allies/mates when they have the option to be allies/mates with mentally healthier people.

People are selecting for unconscious predictors to the question of if the person makes a good ally/mate. That is why Elon Musk (who has Aspersers) can overcome the "ick" treatment by demonstrating qualities that make him a good ally/mate.

People cover up their instinctual repulsions because they are following the current cultural norms of polite society.

People with disabilities often try to distance themselves from other people that have a lower-functioning version of the same disability. This is because it is a strategy that enhances their own image as a potential ally/mate.

Unpredictability. Subconsciously, we’re thinking, “Something is off about this person. Is he about to have an inappropriate (and perhaps even violent) reaction to something I say or do?” It’s why the revulsion to mentally retarded children isn’t nearly as extreme. The fact that most mentally retarded people are unusually ugly is probably another, albeit minor, factor, as most people are naturally drawn to beauty and repulsed by ugliness.

I think this is it. Also you can’t trust a retard to pick up on social cues, or to be able to use any. If all your tools for navigating a social interaction are useless, what are you left with?

Also why the revulsion to mentally ill women isn't nearly as extreme. "This person could literally beat me to death" combined with "This person plausibly might decide to try to beat me to death" is scary.

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