Designer babies is the start. Like I already believe if you're "selecting" something like your baby's gender, you're fuckin Hitler. But then, my roommate was all, "Well what if you could remove the trait for Huntington's that runs in the family?"
So there's clearly a spectrum of ways that genetic engineering could go.
The most interesting case to me is of He Jianku, who reportedly began studying and modifying human embryos. CIA fear disinfo, or Chinese scientists just marching ahead and setting the new standards of the 21st century?
I am very prone to sensory overload myself, I can empathize. It is absolutely true autism comes with some pretty rough challenges, I have been through many. For example, I’m at the age where I should be lookign for employment but the interview process just seems impossible, not to mention jobs are all about who you know so autistic people are disadvantaged there. I don’t think I could get hired at a job matching my skill/education level because I am completely unable to make eye contact and sometimes become non-verbal in stressful situations. I think if neurotypicals didn’t see this as a disqualifier I’d be able to prove that I could still be valuable at a job even if I might for example hear chewing one day that hurts my ears so bad I can’t work for hours.
The completely non-verbal thing, I do not have personal experience but non-verbal activists have written that they are frustrated thta they are underestimated constantly. One thing people who work with AAC technology notice is that very irritable and meltdown prone nonverbal people show remarkable improvement when they are given a device that helps them express themselves better. Embracing those differences and normalizing these things instead of insisting on sticking to popular interventions focused on speech could make a world of difference. Being autistic doesn’t have to be all bad, no matte what.
Autistic people are way more frequently abused as children than the general population. Combining that with a difference in communication style that prevents them from expressing how they are being affected, not being able to process the emotions, etc, leads to bad outcomes overall. This is avoidable if you meet us halfway. Studies have found that autistic children’s social skills improve in settings where the other kids are taught to try to see things from their perspective as well. It is tiring for an autistic person to constantly be the one trying to close the communication gap. Assume competence and just interact with us as people. Everyone is complex and needs different understanding, regardless of disability.