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Notes -
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?
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?
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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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