> I also imagine this will be a great way for a lot more people than the 0.15 to 0.17% of the population that actually has Delayed Sleep Phase Disorder to rationalize their lack of willpower.
Yep. Unless you've been professionally diagnosed, just pointing to a Wikipedia page and saying "I have that!" as an excuse for your behaviour is not the right thing to do. The same thing happened with Asperger Syndrome; it became the excuse du jour for dickish behaviour. "Oh, I'm not anti-social, I have Aspergers." No, actually, you're just a dick.
Using "I have this-or-that disorder" as an excuse (unless you have been professionally diagnosed) is just that: an excuse. It also belittles those who actually do have the disorder, which could be an even worse side effect.
Autistic people aren't always particularly annoying.
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Anyway, one's based on a deficit of ability and the other's based on a deficit of will.
Oh, I'll grant that strictly speaking the dick can't really be anything else - free will doesn't exactly show up as a major correlate.
But when you change the social pressure's in the dick's case you get different behaviours out at the other end - whereas when you change the social pressures in the autistic person's case they don't stop being autistic for all you can train some of them to fake it somewhat when they get older.
Yep. Unless you've been professionally diagnosed, just pointing to a Wikipedia page and saying "I have that!" as an excuse for your behaviour is not the right thing to do. The same thing happened with Asperger Syndrome; it became the excuse du jour for dickish behaviour. "Oh, I'm not anti-social, I have Aspergers." No, actually, you're just a dick.
Using "I have this-or-that disorder" as an excuse (unless you have been professionally diagnosed) is just that: an excuse. It also belittles those who actually do have the disorder, which could be an even worse side effect.