Is lower functioning austim inheritable?

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Zendell in America at least, autistics are marrying have having kids like freakin rabbits. THAT'S why the damned stats are rising so fast. California?? Have you EVER heard of Silicon Valley? A lot of the 'human interest' news stories about autism have originated from there because, and what a shock, programmers and techies seem to have a HIGHER incidence of autistic children than the average. And frankly, when BOTH parents are on the spectrum it's really almost a miracle when their kid ISN'T. That trend's been rising ever since right after World War 2 when the population here started moving around the country, following where the work was, and meeting and marrying a wider range of people. I'm on the spectrum, so is my wife, so are my kids. My best friend will be a father in less than a year (as he keeps REMINDING me... DAMN my visual aspie mind!! ! I need mental floss....) he is spectrum as is his lovely lady. I have NO doubt their children will be and I cheer them on. The cause is genetic and the incidence is RISING because we're HAVING CHILDREN. Hells bells, if I can find somebody and have kids, ANYBODY should take heart.

autistics do have less children on average ....but they are not having less children compared to thousands of years ago. The artificial monogamous system and the monogamous_implemented_mentality_by_religion_and_other_western_values in the most human civilizations is giving the opportunity to every autistic male to have a wife and so to pass his genes to the next generation, hence the autistics are having more chance to breed children more than before , that may explains why autism is increasing in the world .....and don't forget that the autism awareness is increasing too , and with the increase of autism awareness , autistic individuals can pick an autistic mates to breed with for ...compatibility,love,BS and yada yada reasons.

The Nuclear Assault Supporter Guy?

Would it have been preferable to firebomb those cities as was done to Dresden? You equate the discussion of historical facts with telling a parent (and here's a clue I AM ONE) that they shouldn't have had their children? I was trained as a historian, saw what I perceived to be a misconception and attempted to clarify. I stand by my analysis. I deliberately kept emotion out of it because that was a discussion of fact... I find those facts distasteful, in fact, horrific. As horrific as what happened to Dresden, or to many other cities, or in the Nazi camps, or the JAPANESE camps for that matter.

On a completely different note, I wish you the best with your brother. My father suffered terribly with ulcerative colitis for over 40 years before it caused the liver cancer that killed him. It is one of the more awful gut disorders spectrum people seem to be prone to.

I read this article early this year which indicates autism certainly is but enviromental factors may determine its degree.
http://www.abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=4056854&page=1

We did successfully fire bomb Japanese cities to create fire storms killing hundreds of thousands (including Tokyo several times) in the earlier part of 1945. That inexcusable line of civilian horror had already been crossed by the US before it dropped nuclear weapons. Of course, nuclear weapons added an even greater aftermath of suffering, I suppose.

There never has been nor will there ever be a justification for such acts as systematic bombing for the purpose of initiating fire storms on civilian populations. And it doesn't matter if by conventional or nuclear means to me. It crosses an inexcusable line.

1/3rd of all the Germans killed in WW II were killed in just two events, a successful fire bombing once in Hamburg and then in Dresden, and they were almost entirely non-combatant civilians and there were no known military targets of any significant nature there at the time, too.


Jon

War is war. It is always horrible. And I suspect we will always have it. World War 2 was one of the areas I specialized in, along with Victorian England. I had the privilege of having an instructor who fought in North Africa, Sicily and Europe, including the invasion of Germany. I got to hear from a primary source what war is like. I have no "illusions" about honor and glory. I detest the death and horror of it. But reality is what it is, and MacArthur was what he was. If he had invaded the Home Islands it would have been a horror beyond belief. I still feel there is sufficient evidence to support the theory that the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki gave Hirohito the ability to surrender with some token of honor, which was essential for an actual surrender to take place. Otherwise he ran the risk the military would take direct control and fight "to the finish". As AWFUL as it was, I think it is supportable that in the long run it saved lives. People need to remember in those days there were no "smart weapons" and wholesale artillery barrage and aerial bombing were the order of the day.

I'm with you beau, one day i want to adopt children with all types of disabilities, maybe have 2 of my own, and adopt 2 others. I know my chances are 50/50 with an autistic child, but you really dont know whats going to pop out. So you dont know whats going to happen, nobody has an idea of whats going to be born. So saying just because two aspies get married, they automatically have a LFA, not true at all, i know plenty of parents who both are on the spectrum who don't have LFA, who do have children on the spectrum, but defintely not low functioning. Yes chances are higher then per say a aspie and an NT or two NTs, but not definite!

I agree completely with Freeman Dyson's comment (he was also in WW II and was part of bombing command for the British) and find "war is war" merely an excuse for anything at all and completely meaningless. There are no judgments made by it, no lines. It just says nothing matters in war. And frankly, I will NEVER ever go there. There are rights and wrongs, even in war. And in fact, most of the world agrees about this, well evidenced by the many years and efforts spent on limiting what otherwise becomes nothing but endless cycles of violence without end.

No, there is no meaning whatsoever in the phrase "war is war" except to somehow face horror one cannot seem to change with an acceptance of a personal lack of action. I won't ever go there. And I've been personally involved in helping to stop this kind of attitude, with money and time.

Jon

I think one way to improve this is to form intentional communities, together. Living isolated lives as single families is tougher and more expensive. Together, with cottage industries to diversify income sources, some professional services to others outside the community, as well as some small part coming from state/fed for support services they have to pay for anyway as a 10 or 20% part of the budget, it could work well enough for all.

Jon

jonk I wish the world was the way you see it. I agree with many of your concepts including the grouping of living arrangements for affected individuals and the development of cottage industries to sustain them.

My statement about war wasn't attempting to justify it. I was simply intended as a statement of the condition, as was the last part. I do suspect Man will always have war. Unfortunately, it is something we are very, very good at. Killing. No I don't like the idea of war, nor the reality. My beliefs and wishes make no impact on the reality. People fight each other. People kill each other. Sometimes they do it retail... sometimes they do it wholesale.

When I was growing up, I know that I and many my age didn't really think we were going to GROW up. We thought it likely there would be a devastating war, a nuclear exchange. It seemed a likely thing for quite awhile. In college I as in the Norfolk area in Virginia. We were well aware that if there was an attack, we would be gone in an instant. Norfolk is and was a primary target. After college I lived in the DC area. Again. No escape. We lived our lives anyway. Frankly I'm still kind of surprised we missed out on that. But then my brother worked down in the silos for part of the time he was in the Air Force. I heard about the times they locked the doors and prepped for launch because the radars showed incoming. I think the closest he said they got to a launch was about 3 minutes before they found out NORAD's radar was glitched. It happened more than once, and we know from accounts released since the fall of the Soviet Union that they came close too. More than once.

Still, war perpetrated by machete or by missile is still a horrible thing. That doesn't mean humans will ever give it up. And if we do, won't it be the cosmic joke on us if we make first contact and they turn out NOT to be so peaceful?? Regardless, all speculative. To a certain extent I think we're hardcoded for violence. Moving past that is a struggle for many. Too many I think. Humans are very attached to violence.

I hate socializing, so that wouldn't work for me.

Yes, but thankfully I have a father who promises to help me out in any way he can.

It actually _can_ be done. In fact, I'm currently working with others to hammer out the myriad details. Some of them are difficult, mostly because society has decided they are necessary yet society has only solved those problems for mainstream situations and left weird situations to flounder. Some examples:

• Insurance: Securing a loan for a property usually involves the requirement for certain forms of homeowner insurance, such as fire and/or flood. However, the easy paths are for purely normal residential use and for purely business use. A community form is not on their radar, quite simply, and they generally aren't interested in trying to figure these things out. I discovered this in proceeding towards the purchase of a 17,000 sq. ft. nursing home to be reused for something like what we are talking about. The nursing home had been closed some time ago and had lost their grand-fathered zoning, through stupidity about the laws, and the property had been rezoned backwards to "single family residential" like the rest of the nearby homes. To get past that worry, I decided I'd try and just buy it for me as a residence. But the insurance companies just took one look at the place, didn't care about the zoning or my statement about usage, and said "Huh? This is NOT a residence. And since you aren't placing a business here and since the county won't let you put one there even if you wanted to, there is no way you can get business insurance, either. Bye. Don't call us again. Thanks."
• Single family zoning: Most properties for community use are closer to what would be traditional small farm or forest. Those are set out as homesteads and the zoning usually is quite specific about "single family dwelling" if you are allowed to place a home there, at all. At least, in our state. There is no such thing as "commune dwelling" for example and they don't want to hear about it, either! What old timer planning commission employee told me was that I should instead declare that it is church property, as the RELIGIOUS LIBERTY PROTECTION ACT signed by Clinton in 2000 pretty much demolished any state control over zoning and churches can do as they please regardless of zoning. Might be a good approach, circumstances allowing, for some aspects. Probably not all, though. Anyway, zoning is an issue.
• Making a marketplace: What happens when someone needs to leave for some reason? People who commit themselves to such an organization live long lives and during a life many changes occur. Some of these may require extracting hard earned assets and going elsewhere for a variety of reasons. Or people get married and then divorced and cannot stand to be in the same place, together, anymore. Whatever. How to make a market for people to exchange their stock/investment for cash or to otherwise extract fair resources without necessarily causing too much trouble for others. Creating a market for this isn't trivial, but it is achievable. Need to think more about it.

That's only a few that come off the top of my head. There are many more. But the benefits are also myriad. The high prices of land today in most places in the US, for example, make it almost impossible now for many to consider the old ideals of owning their own home. The old model of the grandparents raising the babies while the adult children who are at their peak of earning capacity go out to bring in the scarse cash has been pretty much eradicated, today. The current "model" is designed to maximize consumption by breaking everyone up into the smallest viable piece -- the single family -- partly through zoning, and partly through a variety of market control techniques -- with the result that we all wind up consuming a lot. Buying a backup car for emergencies, which turns 1 car into 2 cars, and requires the extra insurance, too. More cash out the door. Food is purchased in tiny packages. In fact, I remember joking with one of the store cashiers/check-out folks about something I was buying, some salad dressing. She asked, "How many ounces is that now?" I looked at the bottle and said, "11 ounces. But I remember that it used to be 12. And before that, 14. And before that, for some time, 16 ounces." She smiled conspiratorially and said, "Yeah. It gets smaller and smaller all the time, but slowly so we don't notice so well." I said, "At this rate, we'll just be buying the packaging and won't need to worry about any contents." Which is a truth in a way.

Anyway, all these things are about treating whole populations as "consumers." I mean, really, deeply. Not just as a business term. President Bush, upon 9/11, told us to just get back to consuming and let him worry about things. I mean, really! Just go forth and consume, he says!! Bastard!

We will be driven to this, sooner or later, anyway. Since our need is higher and some of our skills appropriate and some of our personal inclinations not inconsistent with the idea (common cause is powerful, that way), we may lead the way. Of course, that means solving unique problems. But not overwhelming ones.

By the way, in our state, any group of 105 people can form a city. Cities have special powers, such as police and planning powers. But they also get state liquor license tax sharing and cigarette tax sharing. In Oregon, all liquor is very highly taxed, too. I spoke with Mr. Johnson, the founder of a city called "Johnson City" near Portland, and he told me that the moment he converted his 200 home mobile home park (by vote) into a city (right along the borders of his land), he was forced to start contracting for fire and police protection, which cost him money. But he also received the tax sharing, which he told me was more than twice what he had to pay to contract for fire and police. The rest went into improvements the city management decided upon. Another possibility I haven't researched much, yet. But its in the back of my mind as another possible tool to pull out, if appropriate.

Much more to say, but suffice it that I've no choice in the matter and I will spend the rest of my life, daily, working to shape something up. No other option is acceptable.

Jon

The British and the US were unconscionably horrible in choosing, with malice aforethought, to pursue systematic bombing campaigns on civilian targets. Period. They went from a good cause, to a cause gone very, very bad, upon choosing that course. Simple. Clear. Inexcusable. It changed everything and took away any claim to a high road, leaving us no better than anyone else in the war, no matter the earlier justifications. And no, I will never accept such things as okay and I will take every possible action allowable under the law to prevent such things from occurring again. It is screamingly, mind bogglingly wrong!

We can drop it there, I suppose. I accept your statement that you were mouthing the words of others.

Jon

beau, I hate socializing, too but I lived in an urban commune when I was young and never felt overwhelmed by the kinds of people who lived there. They were all like me in that the commune was a shelter from the overwhelming world. We weren't pestering each other with chit chat or concerned that someone wasn't being friendly. I wish I had done more with my commune experience but I was young and very depressed because I didn't know how to cope with my extreme anxiety so I didn't think I belonged in a house full of hope and acceptance.

I understand so much more now.

Sorry.

I just don't like the thought of it.

When I think of "intentional community", I think of weed-smoking hippies.

Not my thing.

Understood. I hate it, too. But I don't have a choice. My daughter has no future, unless it happens. Eventually I must die. And when that happens, something MUST be in place for her. I don't have a choice in the matter. Each of us are in differing circumstances. Some of us can choose between options. Some have no options.

I'm sincerely and very glad your options are working out well for you, by the way. Didn't mean to suggest something worse.

My autistic son does, too. Me. And that works... until I die. Then it doesn't work the same, anymore.

Part of my helping my son, for example, is about setting up community that he is comfortable with, that knows who he is and where he knows them, as well. And where i have a chance to shape it to a sufficient degree that it meets his needs, so that when I am no longer able to "help out in any way I can" there is a safe place.

Jon