The Autism Separatism Discussion Thread

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I think maybe for some high functioning translates into mega functioning. Maybe because they're a math whiz or whatever.

What high functioning really means is, functioning pretty well despite having a serious neurological disorder.

Yes, I agree Ezra -- I think some of the mega-functioning occasionally seen gives rise to some of this, and of course those cases are just exceptions.

Math was my worst subject, lol.

you'll have more luck with the KKK

In Utopia, we will have systems engineering as a guiding principle, quickly exposing conflicts of interest, injustice, and inefficiency. As part of that, the talents of Aspies will be matched with those of others who can help keep us focussed and useful. We tend to not be good at teamwork, and our value is overlooked for lack of salesmanship. Would that be close enough to your goal?
"The essence of modern management is to make individual strengths productive, and individual weaknesses irrelevant."
- Peter Drucker

I may have misjudged the ratio of high functioning to low functioning autistic people. I was under the impression that 70% of those on the spectrum live normal lives with some moderate difficulties, and just don't fit in with neurotypicals/socially outcast. What percentage of people are like EzraS? people who need a babysitter and can't live own their own.

There is a fruit machine of fate effect with autism of the HF type. If you happen to be a numbers person with the ability to program and not be too socially obnoxious, you have famously been able to make money. More especially money for SOMEONE ELSE. Because of this, any foibles like bad hygiene, decayed social relations, nerdiness, snot hanging from your nose, recreational farting or constantly radiating sexual frustration are forgiven, because you make MONEY FOR SOMEONE ELSE.

What small percentage of auties make good money?

If your special interest is, for instance, Romantic poetry and you have HF autism, you're probably half way to being a tramp already.

I subscribe to the very hard view of Asperger's that Paul Coojimans takes, so yes, we are consistently persecuted because our thinking style is superior.

What that translates to in my experience is the sh***y end of the stick in factory work, low paid toilet cleaning, being sent down the shop for sandwiches, being relentlessly mocked on a daily basis and being the first one to be got rid of, in other words, psychological torment in a sweat shop. This is hardly the Darwinian supremacy I would prefer.

Trying to think yourself better does not strike me as an answer.

What difficulties are you referring to?

Caveat to my above post - I'm 60 years old, and society takes notice of Autism these days. In my childhood days it was punishable.

My personal experience with Autism is this.

I don't make facial expressions. At all. I work part time at a retail customer service desk just to get out of the house and practice interacting with people. I get asked repeatedly throughout the day by customers "Why don't you smile?" "Why are you always making that same face?" "You should smile". I don't make the proper amount of eye contact, don't make the right movements/use body language when interacting with people, which leads to co workers not wanting to interact with me. Everyone at my store is close friends and hang out after work sometimes. But people barely talk to me and only when they have to as part of the job. I experience complete social isolation. I'm able to do NT work tasks and am able to survive in an NT environment but I do not do well socially at all. If I try to put in effort to get to know people and go out of my way to be friendly, it is not reciprocated. it's like there is no connection between me and other people.

When I got sick earlier this year and was out of work for a week, no one cared. No one asked me how I was feeling when I got back or expressed happiness that I was back. It was some virus that spread to a few other people in the store, and when others got sick my co workers talked about them "Person X is sick, oh no" "Is person X better?" "Have you spoke to person x? I might stop by their house this afternoon and see how they are doing". When the sick co workers came back to work, people expressed happiness. They walked in the door and people were like "Person X!! !! your back! with a smile" and ran up to them and gave them a hug "Glad to have you back" the manager told them. That is the difference between being an NT and having Autism when it comes to social relations. The social effects of autism I experience in depth and have studied extensively.

What saves me from a much worse life is that my real source of income comes in a way where I do not have to interact with people, or rely on good social relations. I did that by design, realizing my disadvantages at a young age. If it did, I would be totally screwed, perhaps unable to survive on my own. I daytrade stocks for a living and make good money doing it. I sit in my home office on my computer and place stock trades, no face to face interaction with anyone, no dependence on other people liking me or wanting me around. I make six figures a year doing that and work a part time retail job at night/weekends just to have normal job where I interact with people.

As far as sensory issues, no amount of bright lights, sounds, objects moving affects me. I don't "stim" or anything like that. But I make weird movements. People will say things like "Why are you sitting like that" "You walk like an alien" "the way you picked up that cup was so weird" "why are you standing so stiff like that". Customers will comment that that I look mean, look mad, act too serious. Besides that my senses are all normal. I just feel different from NT's, do not like NT's and the way they behave, don't fit in with them, talk about different kinds of things, and am generally outcast from other people.

Does that qualify me as high functioning?

If you have a job and can keep a job, you're pretty "high-functioning."

I can do day to day tasks fine. Wash my clothes, take my car for an oil change, go to the grocery store and buy food to cook. I can live on my own without help just fine. I'm just really bad at interacting with people, and all my interactions with people are extremely awkward. I'm used to it though, and know that in any given situation around NT's I will get strange reactions from people. I just accept it. I will have moments of doing something weird and people will look at me with a face like "what the ****". I generally don't let it get to me. But I do feel sad sometimes, and wish I could have some friends who want to be around me. I've never had a girlfriend. I never hang out with anyone, ever. But regardless I can still survive in an NT world. I thought that's how it was for most autistic people, which is why I don't consider autism a disorder, just considered us a different type of human living in a NT dominated world, and if we simply branch off and do our own thing, we will eventually become our own race. Is my experience the exception?

Evolution is based mutations that result in an increased ability to survive which leads to a greater chance at procreation and continuation of that gene set. I would say Autism makes it harder to procreate because of the impact on social interactions, no?

I couldn't believe this wasn't one of the first posts in response and ended up making a very similar post ... Aspies being super logical and all. This is what I get for not reading every post before replying. I thought about deleting mine but I'll leave it for emphasis (and post count ... lol).

Given that we now understand autism incidence as mostly if not entirely genetic, despite your presentation your ideas are not simply arrogant nonsense. It is obvious that in the present society, being autistic does not mean either survival advantage or even an ordinary chance of reproduction, so if you want to find out what it means as a different form of human life, the first thing to do is to try to help other autistics. I think it is a non-negligible possibility that there will be many fewer of us in the future (if any), so what other kind of society we might have built instead will hardly be relevant. Calling it "better" doesn't help at all. Organizing politically, as difficult as it sounds, is the only way that leads forward. It's not possible anymore, as it might once have been, to hide.

You cant even keep track of what you yourself are talking about.

In the OP you were not being the autistic equivalent of Martin Luther King. Quite the opposite. You were being the autistic equivalent of Hitler. You were claiming that autistics are "the next stage in evolution" (ie that autistics are the master race).

And you're not the first person on WP to suggest that. The old "autism/aspergers is the next step in evolution" meme crops up every few months here.

There has been documented cases of people in history with many autistic traits. If they were autistic and we have always been here and I do believe that is true it makes harder to claim Autistic is a positive evolution of human.

Un and underemployment of autistics have been estimated between 80% and 90%. So the "pity parties" while often whining are also often honest descriptions of the real world lives of most autistic people.

I wholeheartedly agree with what the OP said about the problem of disagreement about defining autism. It is the biggest or one of the problems we have.

Superior race or not this is last thing I worry about these days. Attempts to eliminate us through the new eugentics or early behavioral therapies designed to intercept or the deflect infant's brains natural wiring itself to be autistic.