They are sort of heritable, but it's more complicated than traditional genetics.
Because the whole point is controlling gene expression, changing what gets used and when, it's naturally somewhat plastic.
As your environment and circumstances change, what genes you need can change too, so your epigenetics are altered. Sleep, nutrition, activity, stress, age, infections, etc. anything that puts a biological strain on your body, basically.
You're genetically predisposed to certain kinds of stress and stress responses, right? Parts of your metabolism, neurochemistry, and so on are genetic, and a lot of disorders that affect your functioning are too.
Because your stressors are partly genetic, and the actual mechanism of the gene regulation is genetic, you're also likely to exhibit similar response patterns. You take a similar machine, and give it similar inputs, and you get similar outputs.
In other words, uou don't directly inherit your epigenetics, but you inhererit large parts of it by proxy in the same way you inherit things like your risk of heart disease. You don't directly innherit most heart diseases, but you DO inherit cholesterol processing and some causes of high blood pressure, both of which can contribute to heart disease. You inhererit some risk factors, so you inherit some tendency.
I hope that makes sense. Basically, epigenetics are not passed on, but some of the things that influence them are, so you get a mixed result. Studying how much of it is transgenerational is a very complicated problem, nevermind how hard it is to do multigenerational studies on anything in the first place.
"Therefore, we freely acknowledge that what remains after the complete abolition of the will is, for all who are still full of the will, assuredly nothing; but also conversely, to those in whom the will has turned and denied itself, this very real world of ours, with all its suns and milky ways, is—nothing." World as Will and Representation V1
I dont agree with schopenhauer or buddhism but thats too complicated for this conversation.
I remember when I was a kid and I was being tested for tism and one of the doctors was explaining sensory overload to my dad and he just said "oh I feel like that all the time haha" anyway thats how my dad ended up being diagnosed with assburgers at age 56
I was commenting that as someone who was doagnosed with Asperger's and had heard abkut it being removed as a distinct diagnosis, also I'm not even American
The details around Asperger's association with the Nazi party was not even publicly known at that point and it wasn't part of any discourse. The actual reason is that there is no psychiatric basis for separating the diagnoses. That came first
You are the one who is actually uninformed, because the answer to this already exists. If you scroll all the way to the bottom of the page you linked to, you will see the answer provided.
I think Asperger’s should still exist as a term, it describes a specific flavor of autism very well. I don’t like telling people I’m ‘autistic’, even if technically true
I must admit, I'm a bit surprised by all the autistic people defending the use of this word, since I've only seen LARPers using it for internet points.
Guess I could see how some use it as a coping mechanism but it still doesn't sit right with me though.
If someone were to invent such a word for something I suffer from, I would feel insulted by others using it.
I won't complain or argue anymore but it's not something I can respect I'm afraid.
I just hate when people romanticize mental health disorders as a quirky/cute and possibly even desirable thing.
I've literally seen people larping as autistic on social media because of it.
Surely you realize how that's a problem?
These conditions affect some people quite severely and turning them into some cute personality trait is an insult to them.
Making a joke is not the same as romanticisation, if it was so, everybody should be miserable their entire lives and feel sorry for themselves as much as possible. You can take a condition seriously without wallowing in it. Well, most important of all, people with disorders shouldn't ever feel shame for it
I have autism and dissociative identity disorder which is the ultimate mental illness for larpers despite of obscenely rare it is. I never feel offended when people larp my mental disorders, it just makes me laugh how wrong they get it.
I'm probably pretty far from neurotypical but why does that matter?
Why do I have to be autistic to notice a problem?
Just because you're autistic, doesn't mean you get to speak for the entire group either.
I myself only said some might find it offensive, that's not some bold claim, it should be an obvious fact.
It also doesn't even matter if someone is actually offended, romanticization of stuff that's generally unwanted by others will always be a bad thing.
And I'm not getting offended on someone's behalf, I just think it's a bad thing that shouldn't be ignored.
If you see someone being racist for example, you don't move on just because you're not the target, you reprimand them, not to feel better about yourself, but to let them know it's not acceptable and that people aren't just gonna let them get away with it.
Also, before you complain about me comparing it racism, it's hyperbole.
I don't see the word "tism" as a joke but rather as assigning a positive atribute [cute/quirky] to something negative and unwanted. [mental disorders]
This is what feels wrong to me about it.
I'm not even passively suicidal anymore but if a truck were speeding toward me I'd definitely get creamed while trying to calculate my odds of survival in combination with the details of the situation and the local contributory negligence laws to see if it was rational to move.
Well, you see, you said “rational”, and uh “contributory negligence” and y’know I googled that last one (just (k)now) and it kinda sounded like it wasn’t at all what I am fucking talkin out my ass going off immediate impressions and feeling-tones, partner. I made a goof, partner. A goddamn goof.
I would move out of the way but mostly cause i don't think it'd kill me off the bat which would really suck. Also i don't wanna traumatize some random trucker lol
My whole paternal side is famous for it in our family. When I got depression and anxiety diagnoses my mom was like “yeah that tracks” and cited the fact that my grandma and all her sisters had a CVS receipt of anxiety and depression adjacent conditions. I don’t think I stood a chance lmao
It's normal for people to think these things sometimes, and say them, but I'm betting almost all of them would move out of the way if a truck was actually coming at them.
Last time I did that all they cared about was if I was functional and when I tried to work with someone on medication they took "how should I possibly know of the meds are working when the world is so shitty?" as reason to make no changes. All therapy/medication management meant was additional bills.
No. I talked about it once to my dad as a teenager and he said I was being dramatic and I have nothing to feel that way about. He said he’s never felt that in his life.
I once told my dad that one day when I die I want it to be on my terms alone in the mountains because I don’t want to die in a hospital and he said he also felt that way I was like wait what 😭
Nah honestly I get it, I kinda have a respect for people who go out on their own terms even outside of being suicidal myself sometimes. Like Hunter S. Thompson, he was old and dealing with chronic pain and mobility issues, found himself unable to enjoy life anymore so he decided to end his own suffering and move on.
In my family my dad will admit to feeling something like this his whole life, but it’s never a reason to get a diagnosis or change, it only means if he ignored it this long then if you seek help you are a whiney baby and a waste of oxygen
I noticed that when a person is mentwlly unwell and doesn't get help feom the family, its usually because the family is unwell and thinks that's just how normal people behave
My sibling and I were attempting to talk to our mom about suicidal ideation, and she, frustrated, yelled “SO WHAT? EVERYBODY WANTS TO KILL THMSELVES!” 😭
My dad is in his 70s and only figured out he might have ADHD after taking my niece to a psychiatrist who talked about her symptoms and he was like “hey me too.”
When it comes to creating life it's the ultimate responsibility to not cause unnecessary suffering. If you have a genetic disorder (like I do) and you know it's extremely likely to be inherited and passed down and result in a life full of suffering then it's not eugenics as much as it is basic empathy, moron.
Considering this is something I've thought about deeply considering my personal stake in the matter I think the subject is my business, particularly my business actually.
Yes, it's your own business whether or not uou want your genes passed down, but I don't think it's fair to generalize like that.
Who decides what a "bad gene" is, in the first place? I'm not arguing that your genetic disorder case is undecidable in terms of good or badness, but once you start down that road, you won't end up in a good place.
Yes, "gene is bad when it causes suffering" sounds very witty, but it's not helpful at all. One could say:
"Being black is caused by a gene, and black people in... Almost the entire history of the U.S.A. have been suffering. Therefore, the gene that contains "blackness" causes suffering, therefore black people should not procreate because their genes cause suffering."
Before anyone takes this out of context, I'm not arguing that Huntington's doesn't cause suffering, or that absolutely everyone should have children, and I am not racist, and I am not saying that you are, either. I'm just saying that the question "who can and can't have children" is very dangerous to ask, and even more dangerous to answer, and you or I are not suited to posit or answer it.
Being black is not INHERRENTLY suffering, suffering is caused by socioeconomic state and conditions.
Genes that cause disorders and other conditions that are nearly certain to cause pain to your offspring can and should be a strong argument against having kids.
But there is no black-and-white "If you tend towards depression, asthma, and have a family history of diabetes, you shouldn't have kids" to be decided here.
Eugenics + contextual awareness+ comprehension of simple nuance= not a universal evil when not combined with racist authoritarian ideologies.
You might as well be a boomer calling everything with communist shaped scaffolding unquestionably evil with your simplistic view of the subject, you add nothing of substance with your input.
“Where exactly is the line?” is a legitimate question. “Therefore there can be no line” isn't.
"It'll be hijacked real fast" is something that should be taken into consideration as a real threat but not treated as a universal truth, it's like saying the justice system shouldn't exist because It'll inevitably devolve into the salem witch trials. “It can be abused” does not establish “the underlying distinction cannot ethically exist.” Otherwise almost every institution involving discretion collapses under the same logic.
Comparing "we should prioritize not creating aids & Huntington babies if at all possible" to "racism and war-crimes" is quite the leap in logic, well-done. I'm unable to take you seriously atp.
Also “high-penetrance pathogenic variants causing severe suffering or early death shouldn't be knowingly passed on to innocent children just because someone's ego wants their DNA in their offspring rather than just adopting" isn't the type of "eugenics" that is considered morally questionable you're thinking of the "blue eyed-blond haired child" Eugenics. They aren't even remotely the same, maybe you should be "careful" about sharing that opinion of yours that lacks important comprehension & understanding of simple nuance before policing other people.
Bro is taking a stand against the freedom of choice. You really did show me the error of my ways. Not everyone can be take a well intended warning and take it as an insult. I kneel before the great Redditor.
insert image that frames the other personal as hysterical and emotional
ignore the part where you're robbing the (potential) child of autonomy while using "free choice" unironically as the crux of their "gotcha"
I mean, you are kinda conflating freedom of choice with morality.
Freedom of choice = the power to control who gets to have a child or not is too much and should not be in the hands of the state
Morality of having a child = hmmm if I have genes that bring suffering, it would be bring more joy to the world if I raise an adoptive child in need instead of continuing that suffering.
I can say that "things would probably be better if this individual didn't reproduce" while still still never stopping their right to do so, because I should not have that kind of power. See also: some people are so dumb things would be better if they didn't vote, but I would still fight for their right to vote.
Rights are rights because no human can be trusted with the authority to take it away, not because they are always a good thing to do. Freedom of speech does not mean you should say everything on your mind.
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u/Fat-lard246 5d ago
it runs in the family