what if the world woke up with ASD ... curious ?

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I got, well, suckered into Quora (just far too many interesting answers there) and found an interesting question instead.

"What would happen if everyone were to have Asperger's syndrome? Would society be much different?"

I kinda understand where and why it was asked, the NT perspective is that ASD has significant axiomatic advantages*, (i.e. "a curse of awesomeness") but it's also a curious question... and i was sort of compelled to write something. if only to get it out of my system.

I don't know if i'm too far off the ball, or if it's my sense of other people + people on the ASD spectrum, that would be inferring too much or just wrongly, i don't know many people who are like me, or with ASD, i can only make guesstimations on my experiences, and, i don't have any idea of how a social community of people with ASD would form or reform or develop without agents or people who had more of an interest in pushing people into tasks, behaviour, etc.

I can only think of schools, uni's and college groups as examples of social engineering and those are... impractical and depressing. if you try to make those groups work (from my experience), so i can't picture in my head how to make a global community of NT types "switch" into communities, groups and agencies that would be predicated on organising people with ASD and HFA, with thousands or millions of people across a much broader spectrum, well, without slipping into science fiction.

I'll put what i have into the second post, so i can edit in contributions, or let people comment as needed. if you want to run with this idea on your own,

You're definitely welcome to tell me i'm wrong and write up your own kind of response, either below, or quora, at http://www.quora.com/What-would-happen- ... -different

It might make a good scifi setting, like flashforward or the sleepless from kress's beggars in spain, etc. or x-men, etc. IDK.
at this point, it's just hypothetical ideas. the best kind.

Edit: Consider this as a draft i.e. i don't always get all of the concepts, spelling and meaning out in one regular flow of consciousness, i'll definitely edit this a few times or break it up into easier sections, just not sure what that looks like yet, or what headings/areas to focus on yet.


Inspiring ideas

one popular motif for this kind of postulate reality, would be a fictional or science fiction alliteration, because there's no way that this could become a significant mechanism or program.

There'd be parallels to societies such as the Sleepless from Kress's Beggars in Spain, but thankfully without the allegorical super-brights or the "sudden, inevitable betrayal", sicc that occurs to derail the progression of the sleepless in the 2nd and 3rd books as a society. for one, the idea of pushing or evolving people into a mould for which all current community and social bonding would be passive, rather than empathetic or reasonable, or logical, would have to have some value system to replace society's current intrinsic relationship with family and community, also notions and metrics of trust, mutual relationships and common identity would change.

i.e. every current metric by which the world's population examines itself as being different, would have to be evaluated, and reformed. you'd have to throw out the rulebook, for everything. there would be no sacred cows, in a literal sense, and a figurative one. community would have to form for the provision of resources, and leadership would have to evolve from competence, ritual, position in a heirarchy, dominance or the exclusion of other tasks.

scifi, may be the only vehicle of looking at this brave new ASD world. but it might need some practical reality in there too.

The Dilemma
let's have a look at this one on a few levels, because it's not cut and dry.

There's a considerable number of gaps in the idea of shifting from NeuroTypical behaviour into the spectrum of ASD behavioural and social systems, roughly 7 billion or so. give or take.

First, technically (which is sort of important), second, relationally, and thirdly, subsequence and repercussions.

First, the technicality.

Collapse
Society, would be terrifically different.

Whatever agency was employed ... killer mist, trees, inoculants airdropped from LEO, RNA retrovirals, spreading from city to city, anti-zombie plagues, etc. just take your pick from the scifi theme gift basket of terrible, terrible ideas.

let's poke at the flash-foward scenario then. perhaps far-fetched, but not significantly over-reaching in the event and affect stages.

It would have to alter the behaviour of ~7 billion people, i don't think "much" is a broad enough misnomer, it would be inherently and vastly different to have the primary production and transportation needs of 2-3 billion people who are concurrently awake at that time, shift in tandem, there'd be enough resources in reserve to handle a switch, but it would be something worse than say, a mad cow disease scare in the beef and cattle industry, it would be endemic and polemic and disastrous.

if it was an overnight change, 72 hours, etc. things might not switch so much at first, it would then collapse inwards, globalise, prosetylise, information would be assessed, etc. the first week would be pretty terrible, but not disastrous.

if it were a systemic change, viral or disassociative, i.e. localised and structured, a thousand people a day, globaly, etc. perhaps biological, it would be easier to socially adapt to a change, even if it were seen as a chaotic plague, people would actually cope better with an unknown event with a causal relationship, rather than the absurdist. plus, resource allocation and government reactions, while ill equipped, would be able to address concerns with some level of aptitude and conviction/concern, if not a positive or negative repercussion later on, it would solve later economic destabilisation and mania.

the upside to so many disaster movies in popular western culture, i guess.

why would it be so bad ? mostly for the following reasons:

people would switch their personalities and interests; they would still have their defects and uniqueness, their mania, addictions, injuries, relationships, both good and bad, malice, memory, prejudices and religion. While their memories would largely be intact, they would no longer be as impressionable or suggestible to information, cognition would be delayed or stimuli would be overpowering for some, and likely due to the cornucopia of concurrent people experiencing a catastropic event, it would have fundamentally different cognition, experiences and and understanding of events in each society.

as people grew into understanding their new situation, they would make different decisions on small things, larger things, and act, talk, say, do things differently, ignore some things and panic over others.

reaction would be harsh, and confused, also confusing. people would likely be voraciously looking for new sources, news sources would be arguing with themselves for articles they broadcast to look for signs and portents, television would likely become filled with evangelists who would be ill equipped with platitudes, tower of babel would come up, a lot,

like a matchstick, science might come under attack in various countries, it might cripple countries. medicine/pharma might be considered as a suspect, naturally, it will likely be every bit as invested in drug-assistance as before the change as afterwards.

it would probably effect and affect people who have control issues most prevalently, in a fundamental way. wether that be addiction, rage, sociopathy, delusion, narcissism, etc. i can't tell which way the pendulum will swing in those cases, or if it continues to swing at all, if psychosis leaves or stays or alienation leaves them in states of fear and mood disorders, etc.

the greater proportion of people who survived that collapse, would be in a downward spiral emotionally, Managers, leaders, executives and people with power would find things "problematic", the inherent conflicts of power and social bonds would warp, the sociopaths would inevitably pick up the slack, realise the slack wasn't going to be covered anymore, and then quit. a lot of corporate organisations would collapse as the people whom they made money from, would very likely try to cancel contracts for tasks they no longer felt obligated or capable of performing. a lot of underwriting would take place, and a lot of insurance procedures would change, within months or years.

in a modern sense, global finance would avoid the DSGE, anyone capable of understanding can tell you equilibirum is unrealistic and fantastic in large systems. people, drive the levers of an economy, and if you change people, you change the nature of spending and reserves of cash. especially if unemployment kicks up several notches globally as people find themselves unable to work in their previous tasks due to severe anxiety or emotional cathexis, issues that were once kept in check, will present in new and interesting ways.

the problem is that a human system, relies on human input and fear/desires and motivations, those correlative mechanics that may no longer apply, because the driving forces behind global social mechanics, that derive and change the exothermic balance of the economy, would be shifted. people would spend in different ways, entertainment would shift, communications, transportation, fashion, desires, interests, causes, celebrities, actors and actions would shift in response to targets and fluctuating attention spans.

strategic or tactical use of fear, social engineering, and bargaining would be problematic, since any significance or differences would no longer cause or drive people to irrational divisiveness, people in positions of power would be initially crippled by doubts that they would now have, perhaps previously used or sensed previously, would now leverage their anxiety poorly in personal decisions and find themselves in akward, and honest situations perhaps for the first time.

in an attempt to stabilise the post-crash economy, those people who have been running the market via stabilisation systems, would likely be extant rulers of a global finance system that was capable of being understood and shared by a greater number of people. or, the whole thing would empty into a chaotic vortex of trickle down rationalism, and other irrational things, perhaps austerity and import restrictions, etc.

the more akward thing would be that taxation systems may become irrational themselves in a post-collapse economy, where taxation and voucher/incentive programs would form part of a re-hire policy, along with super/health benefits, etc. people with stockpiles and investments may decide to become productive or dump large amounts into VC and industry to rebuild services at the ground level to take advantage, refounding the economy on a new axis by spending more on education, media, transport and communication, health and tangentially, warfare and welfare.

people formerly with autism and high-functional autism may behave differently as well, or, have far more company due to complications in the transition. professionals and identified persons would find themselves questioned and harassed, but, since the reaction would be understood, after a fashion, it would not be a violent backlash or a causal retroactive destruction of the autistic society, it would be a more casual dismissal, which in some ways would be more cruel, people would look after themselves and their families first, then work on what they saw as a future direction.

it may be that with so many people facing interliased dilemmas, that the usage of self-help literature and dogma would skyrocket, cults would spring up, and those suffering identity crisis and anxiety/mood disorder, the level of casual drug use would outstrip resources too.

those people in human services and contact services, children's daycare and nursing, hospitals and carers would probably quit, leading to a very unpleasant and deadly affect as people would become largely less capable of dealing with stress, and more honest about their emotional states. it would not be pleasant to be injured or to have a medical condition during this period, as resources would become stressed or shattered in some areas, doctors and nurses may become better, or less available, depending on how they coped with the changes in their attention, focus and drive, as well as reaction to crisis. it may be the more positive group of people that do cope well, but also the most prone to snap under stress too.

You'd find the sciences also being taxed as people would now demand "impolite" answers to questions about possible solutions, and then seeking to understand the answers, rhetoric would not restore faith, brutal honesty would change political machinations, the utility of intelligence and domestic information gathering would alter, but not break, leadership would change hands as leaders would work together and then apart, and do other things, that their constituents would find out about. maybe.

it's hard to say if torturers or blackmailers would become honest or decidedly more ruthless, probably a little of both. the moral horizon would be missing in a lot of people, and replaced with something new and foundationally different, without the same aggression or drive, crime would change in nature. theft would rise, and personal crimes, like assault, rape, burglary and murder, would wax and wane as people adjusted to their own codified morality.

it may not be safe for a long while to walk around, as sociopathy would become quite a lot more brutal, home invasions might become more prevalent as gangs form up for social advantages and resources, it would largely depend on how that pendulum of social anxiety swung across the new spectrum of aspergian traits. unfortunately, pop culture would emerge as people looked for roles to associate with, clockwork orange and punk culture would likely emerge again, and again, indian punk would be interesting, yakuza punk would not. changing people would not change their circumstances or debts, affluence or addictions.

Politically, it would not be utopic, it would be chaotic, until tasks and ideas were shared broadly, consensus would be harder to achieve, as more people would want to be involved, democracy might become unwieldy as millions would want to be involved rather than hundreds.

the only formal coping mechanism would likely be the internet, and a conventional governance organisation would reconfigure resource allocation after a severe economic collapse as primary and secondary industry would implode, overnight. food, energy, coal and plastics, wheat, rice, livestock, etc. would become vastly more important, but also redirected and redistributed. poverty would be problematic as routes and resources were allocated in absurd ways, as people argued for needs, etc.

extreme preferences would provocatively collapse various industrial processes, and nutritional based health concerns may provoke governmental restrictions as people explored their interests rather than work, eat certain foods, produce foods for unsustainable reasons, etc.

intellectual work would skyrocket, it would have to. process work, would likely move around the world, as people tried to find a certain place, or a new balance in a new location. global transportation would become cheaper, but also more frequent, people would probably catch trains and maglevs instead of drive to work, coach networks would do really well as would minibus systems on electrical charging stations to extend rapid public transportation in cities and urban areas.


Society under a New Social Order?

since ASD people are not perfect or always canonical or logical; forcing a larger society of people in the entire Autistic spectrum would lead to a certain kind of synaesthetic community, or commune of like minded people who shared traits and interests, a meritocratic society to offset the more anti-social aspects of the condition.

this would perhaps be the biggest conformational act to create community, and the largest hurdle to overcome in an instant switch, the domain and agency of local tasks, like farming and cities

essentially it would be easier to claim empathetic reasoning is deviant behaviour, and work out what society would be like in that situation, mostly because it's really tough to work out what 1000 people with ASD would do, trapped on an island, since it's not a straight cut scenario.

they'd probably "bug out" pretty much the same way as NT people, it would take a bit longer to organise, because nobody would immediately try to compete or form psychosexual, dominance or intra-personal bonds, and few would take up leadership roles unless imminent danger, or people admitted having teachable survival skills to a group. it would pretty much fall in the same way towards independence and group skills, and eventually, people would set into chores and tasks reasonably quickly.

plus, smaller groups are easier to monitor from within and without, and a community system provides a smaller integral system that has the luxury of falling apart of coming together over unified tasks.

an entire civilisation, based on behavioural similarity would collapse, hence the rapid climb of sociopaths and people who work beyond the systematic natures of "the urbane", those people who would think illogically, act for themselves or smaller groups, or become cruel for the sake of personal emotional capital.

Social Systems and morality

ASD people can be cruel, most choose not to be. there's no innate "good fairy" or moral center or belief system that we are universally attached to. there's reason for there not to be a religion that deified certain actions and beliefs. and it's possible that creating a culture within the ASD community would reinvigorate religion, it just would be a lot more practical, personable, able to conform to cultural demands, i.e. 1000 years later, we would probably not be sacrificing the sons or daughters of village chieftans, enemies, or virgins to appease a sea monster god due to a clerical mistype or loophole in dogma. i'd say the greeks probably didn't intend it, they just inherited it.

The first thing that comes to mind is that they would have invented a whole new way of communicating if they all started as a primitive society.

I can not see the concept of an NT 'becoming' an ASD. The veery principle of this makes my head want to explode, because they wouldn't be 'them', they'd be an aspie who I haven't met, and everyone would have completely different personalities.

It's like trying to imagine being an NT, I can't visualise it at all. However, if there was a universe where everyone had ASD, and had always had ASD in the large part of society, I think the world would be interesting.

Another concept would be that in this world, autism occurs in a very small percentage of the worlds population. If, in the ASD world, there was a similar number of NT people, except the ASD would be 'normal' and they would be the 'weird ones'. That would be very interesting, if you asked me.

Mass psychoses (the normal mind coming to terms with effectively having its social and emotional antennae cut off).

Yeah, that was the thought that kind of tripped me up. ASD, being part of all places and all people, identity, society, etc.

It definitely throws a monkey wrench into the cogs, there's so much of Modern Society and rituals, government, education and well being that relies on deceit and fitting in with societal norms, without the fear or the peer pressure, people would ultimately not be what we'd think of as groups of people. Or a society.

I don't know if it would prevent some of the inevitable alienating psychosis, I think there'd have to be rejection, deceit, treachery and evil, a catastrophic switch like that can't really make everyone "nice" or balanced out, even if that's what the first few converts would believe (theory of mind!), people couldn't cope with the change.

Plus, I find it troubling when NT people don't/can't believe what they say, especially after you ask them questions, if they couldn't believe what they think as well, it might make them do some strange things to find acceptable ideas again, perhaps being far more than dangerous to others, pathologically so. Homicidally so.

I think that film, The Invention of Lying, with Ricky Gervais, as the first liar, then narcissist/sociopath, is a strange inversion, would the world become like that ? Both awesome, and broken.

A world where you weren't judged on weird social standards and metrics that were outdated before your grandparents were born, etc. But on merit or how you worked with others, ranked or treated as fundamental equal, then judged only if you are applicable for the task, etc

The sociopath dilemma would probably still be a real problem, NTs would be around, hyper aggressive and domineering, argumentative, irrational, they'd probably require constant meds to fit in, perhaps SSRIs, etc.