Satoshi Tajiri, Elon Musk, and Little Akara Crissel

[kurtosisblakeinfini]

@nish

@elshod

Gary, did Satoshi Tajiri give you express permission to use him as the face of a developmental disorder? This is the not the first time you have posted about him and his disability. It feels quite rude and disrespectful to him.

I’d like to add on to this point. I was reading the NFTs page, and it has this whole nice story about who Gary is why Gary is into Pokemon etc etc but then one paragraph goes off about Satoshi’s autism

to me, this is absolutely not ok unless you have extremely clear permission from Satoshi Tajiri himself. You’re stripping everything away from him as a creator and as a person and boiling it down to “autism made pokemon” and then using that to sell NFTs?

lol.

The amount of unironic and ironic autism happening in this thread iis perfectly balanced.

People mention widely known facts to promote stuff all the time.

[elshod]

Wow ^

[KingPokemon]

@elshod

Gary, did Satoshi Tajiri give you express permission to use him as the face of a developmental disorder? This is the not the first time you have posted about him and his disability. It feels quite rude and disrespectful to him.

You can call me and everyone else a “hater” as many times as you’d like. You can tell yourself we aren’t charitable and don’t often donate money or other goods. I chose not to participate in this event because, to me, it didn’t feel like charity.

This uneducated statement above is the main reason we work so hard for these kids. AUTISM IS NOT A DISABILITY. These kids simply have DIFFERENT abilities and should be extremely proud of that fact:)

[madden12ut]

I mean I’m not really in agreeance/disagreement with either statement but just a quick search and this is what I found

[hisoka107]

@KingPokemon

@elshod

Gary, did Satoshi Tajiri give you express permission to use him as the face of a developmental disorder? This is the not the first time you have posted about him and his disability. It feels quite rude and disrespectful to him.

You can call me and everyone else a “hater” as many times as you’d like. You can tell yourself we aren’t charitable and don’t often donate money or other goods. I chose not to participate in this event because, to me, it didn’t feel like charity.

This uneducated statement above is the main reason we work so hard for these kids. AUTISM IS NOT A DISABILITY. These kids simply have DIFFERENT abilities and should be extremely proud of that fact:)

I don’t think anyone believes you do not care about autism or brain health. I think many of the folks here, myself included, are skeptical or have issues with the NFT & NFT for fundraising, organizations, affiliations, distribution of funds etc.

I would really like something positive to come out of all these skepticism. Taking into account NFT sales so far & production cost, I imagine there would be better options for raising money. Ones that would not have not have such reactions & make folks less hesitant to join & contribute. I know you worked hard for this and hopefully the next event is more successful.

[KingPokemon]

@deltazero

@milhouse

Gary I applaud your overall mission to generate financial support for Autism based charities. I have 2 close family members with varying degrees of autism and it’s actually disgusting how little financial, societal, and governmental support that is on offer. Not just in USA, but Australia too.

I have reservations about motivations behind a charity that donates to other charities because I am a naturally pessimistic and cynical person who is generally looking for peoples ulterior motives when someone sticks out their hand wearing a white glove. However this is not what the post is about. I have made some off hand comments about this on the Discord but I suppose I will get serious for once in my life.

I have gone through the list of charities that Aoki Foundation partnered with in 2020. Generally for me it’s a pretty solid list. The charities that specifically seek to finance inclusion incentives and creating workspaces that facilitate the needs of the autistic person is all a fantastic cause in my books.

The 1 problem I have is the partnering with Autism Speaks. I have a lot of issues with this charity in the way it operates. I take offense at their mission to ‘End Autism’ rather than facilitate and improve public and professional acceptance of Autistic people, I recognize that there are people with severe cases of ASD who have a greatly diminished quality of life but the amount of people with ASD who have, against the odds, built successful and meaningful lives WITH their Autism is so great that the idea of ‘curing’ Autism robs us of so many brilliant people who only needed society to accept them and believe in them for them to live a ‘normal’ life. Any money spent towards trying to rid these beautiful people from existence is money wasted that could have gone towards building a better society FOR autistic people.

Outside of my own moral objection to Autism Speaks. Through my own research only 4% of Autism Speaks budget actually goes towards families seeking assistance from the charity. Meanwhile 22% of the budget goes towards production cost of fundraising efforts. Also I found out that not a single person on the Board of Directors for Autism Speaks actually has autism. To me that’s like a Women’s Rights Charity having a board entirely filled with male members.

I get serious Susan G Komen charity vibes from Autism Speaks. A charity that is much more concerned with it’s pink ribbon copyright initiatives than actually funding cancer research or scientific endeavors.

So in summary. I have no real issues with the Aoki Foundation or what you/they are trying to achieve and build towards. I admire your own individual effort along with your wife. However I do take issue with at least 1 of the major partners that Aoki Foundation is affiliated with. And for that reason I can not support it at this time.

Beautifully said and I deeply appreciate you bringing up the issues with supporting/affiliating with Autism Speaks. I am an adult who is on the autism spectrum and has a parent who is also on the autism spectrum and I was deeply disturbed to see that the Aoki Foundation is connected to Autism Speaks. From the way the charities that Gary listed talk about autism is as if they don’t want people like me to exist instead of creating resources and support systems for people with autism. They do not work to create a world in which differences are accepted and focus on making us act like everyone else. People with autism generally suffer and have a lower quality of life due to discrimination more so than anything else. It is largely another way of existing in the world. Organizations like Autism Speaks are considered by most people with autism as eugenicist-and I mean this in all seriousness. I do not know what Gary’s or Steve Aoki’s particular views are, but I cannot and will not support their cause. If you would like to help people with autism then please ask us what we need instead of assuming what we need and deciding what our lives should look like.

[KingPokemon]

@KingPokemon

@deltazero

Beautifully said and I deeply appreciate you bringing up the issues with supporting/affiliating with Autism Speaks. I am an adult who is on the autism spectrum and has a parent who is also on the autism spectrum and I was deeply disturbed to see that the Aoki Foundation is connected to Autism Speaks. From the way the charities that Gary listed talk about autism is as if they don’t want people like me to exist instead of creating resources and support systems for people with autism. They do not work to create a world in which differences are accepted and focus on making us act like everyone else. People with autism generally suffer and have a lower quality of life due to discrimination more so than anything else. It is largely another way of existing in the world. Organizations like Autism Speaks are considered by most people with autism as eugenicist-and I mean this in all seriousness. I do not know what Gary’s or Steve Aoki’s particular views are, but I cannot and will not support their cause. If you would like to help people with autism then please ask us what we need instead of assuming what we need and deciding what our lives should look like.

The AokiFoundation is not a supporter of any of our charities and AS was removed from our list last year which you can see by the previous post. We are into providing therapy sessions to those who can’t afford them.

[deltazero]

@KingPokemon

@elshod

Gary, did Satoshi Tajiri give you express permission to use him as the face of a developmental disorder? This is the not the first time you have posted about him and his disability. It feels quite rude and disrespectful to him.

You can call me and everyone else a “hater” as many times as you’d like. You can tell yourself we aren’t charitable and don’t often donate money or other goods. I chose not to participate in this event because, to me, it didn’t feel like charity.

This uneducated statement above is the main reason we work so hard for these kids. AUTISM IS NOT A DISABILITY. These kids simply have DIFFERENT abilities and should be extremely proud of that fact:)

I really appreciate what you said here, Gary. Thank you. I also want to acknowledge that you are trying to help, but I do not feel like Autism Speaks and their affiliates feel the same way about autism that you and I do.

@elshod, I was wondering about this too and I agree with your point.

[deltazero]

@KingPokemon

@KingPokemon

The AokiFoundation is not a supporter of any of our charities and AS was removed from our list last year which you can see by the previous post. We are into providing therapy sessions to those who can’t afford them.

I just saw this. I am very relieved and grateful that you removed AS from your list. Thank you for the clarification.

[folid]

Sorry if I’m totally wrong here, but I thought it was just a widespread myth that Tajiri has autism.

Source: (watch at 15:00 for about 2 minutes)

Who Made Pokemon?

Is it actually confirmed somewhere that I’m not aware of? Also, just saying that he hasn’t refuted it doesn’t prove anything.

[slippingjimmy]

@KingPokemon

@KingPokemon

The AokiFoundation is not a supporter of any of our charities and AS was removed from our list last year which you can see by the previous post. We are into providing therapy sessions to those who can’t afford them.

Did you support universal healthcare in the past?

Tbh I’m feeling sick reading this. This is some late stage capitalism shit.

[KingPokemon]

It also took Elon Musk till this week to publicly announce his autism. Many of “our” kids look up to and need positive role models. Sadly, one of the major autism traits is social awkwardness so it’s a little more difficult to be “out there”.
Let our kids look up to them and let’s step in and help where we can.

[folid]

@KingPokemon

It also took Elon Musk till this week to publicly announce his autism. Many of “our” kids look up to and need positive role models. Sadly, one of the major autism traits is social awkwardness so it’s a little more difficult to be “out there”.
Let our kids look up to them and let’s step in and help where we can.

I’m not questioning your character or anything, so I hope you don’t take offense. But I just can’t jump on the “Tajiri has autism” train unless there is a reputable source. It’s quite possible that he does have autism. Even so, I think we should let the rumor die (1) out of respect for his privacy and (2) because it is far from being a proven fact. We all love Pokemon and we all love Tajiri.

[smpratte]

Yeah this is way off the rails.

If you want to support what Gary is doing or have questions, feel free to message him directly. If you don’t want to support it, don’t. Super simple stuff.