I laugh at myself

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This week, I read about the Adult Version of the Australian Scale for Asperger Syndrome ( http://www.aspires-relationships.com/ar ... for_as.htm ) which was written in 1995 by Michelle S. Garnett, Ph.D., and Tony Attwood, Ph.D. One of its items was about "failure to initiate […] social interactions" and asked "During unstructured time such as work breaks and informal social events, does he avoid social contact? For example, eats alone, reads or continues to work."

This reminded me me of the lunch break during last month's "Communicating Success on the Autism Spectrum" semiannual conference at the University of Utah. It was my second conference, and, while I had talked with the conference's chairman six months ago, this time, I ate lunch alone (like I do) and read the agenda while everyone else was socializing happily.

Now, how spot on is that? Made me laugh.

^ Haha. You're not alone [figuratively speaking, of course. (terrible, aren't I?)] That's me at every conference I've ever been to.

AU, I tried to answer your PM but got a blocked message, please check that you haven't somehow blocked me by mistake Best wishes for your upcoming appointment.

I like to take off somewhere on breaks. I need alone time to deal with my anxiety.

Why would I want to talk to anyone during unstructured time when I could be alone in peace?


It brings up for me the ongoing question I have about what we're actually talking about when we refer to something called Asperger's Syndrome. AspieUtah, I hope you don't mind me asking here, but I've been mulling over this for over a year now: Why am I considered the odd one for not chattering away in every free moment?

If most of the world were sitting quietly eating their lunch in peace, would we be pathologizing the looneys who were chattering away endlessly? I grew up in a family that chattered away endlessly, I asked them to stop, and they couldn't stop. Isn't that some kind of pathology? When do I get to write a book and enter a DSM category for uncontrollably chattering socializer hierarchy climbers?

Is Asperger's really a deviation from some original design, or is the baseline for normal just considered to be "normal" just because it is what is found in the majority of the population? How do we know that the majority of the population isn't displaying the divergence?

Excellent question.

Yes, it is an excellent question.

There are a multitude of "ifs" that can't be tested in any scientific way. Suppose the two groups start of equal in incidence (I don't think they did but just maybe here, for the purposes of speculation)...

For example: when homo sapiens was dependant on hunting large animals with spears, rocks etc in groups, possibly natural selection favoured those whose genes which maximised muscle tone and strength, fast running speed, visual acuity, personalities which were well suited to working in a co-ordinated way with a group, dexterity, and so on. Just suppose for a moment that this is what happened. These tend not to be ASD abilities to the extent that they are NT abilities. So ASD males are not as likely to reproduce (perhaps) though the ASD females are likely to be less affected because they are not the hunters.

So as prehistory moves on, you still have the effect of the numerical difference, perhaps static for a long time;
because now architectural, engineering, mathematical skills etc are needed more and more to build pyramids, bridges, cities and invent stuff that urbanised humans need. This perhaps favours the ASD minority, so they now go into increase and get rewarded well with food etc - they become the alpha reproducers; the NTs are making and hauling bricks... this is life-shortening work (dust etc in lungs) so the balance shifts again.

Then (moving right along to relatively modern times) "romance" enters the picture in terms of forming relationships and reproducing. This is far more recent than people seem to think, and mainly limited to Western culture; however, in the cultures that promote the romantic love basis for marriage, this selects for NTs of both sexes, rather than ASDs of both sexes. So what would happen (and actually does) is that the ASDs who want to marry either have to marry one another (the ASD women do this) or find an Nt to marry (the men tend to do this). So the incidence numbers (assuming that genetic transmission is real, which I am assuming for the purpose of this exercise) are proportionally affected at this stage of human history too.

Then, in the future, things get so dire - food runs out, climate destroys life as we know it, new killer bugs arise, and the vast survival need is again innovation and invention on a massive scale from inventors who can think right outside the square, since reliance on the old ways of received ideas are suddenly useless. Who might this favour? Well, as the old saying goes, every dog has its day...

We may yet take over !

Breaks used to be the most stressful times of my day, both at school and work. At least when there was a task to do, and socialising was generally frowned on, I was happy. What is a source of relaxation to most people was my definition of a nightmare. Here go off for half an hour with no agenda, talk to people! No thanks.

I can certainly take an evolutionary explanation as a starting point, because what I am envisioning has a developmental component, but I say only as a starting point to develop a more plausible working theory.

I believe that evolution is a Newtonian-age, mechanistic concept, and that there is a more fitting, more elegant, and more expansive explanation of origins that are more suited to our age where Quantum physics and Einsteinian-age concepts are more accurately explaining the landscape and processes that give rise to our existence here.

Until then, I can use evidence to demonstrate that the so-called better adapted NT mind and the social-comparative, rapacious, avaricious, self-serving behavior it produces is actually not beneficial to the human species on a long-term basis. The better suited is the autist mind, with its tendency toward cooperation, empathy, and dispassionate assessment of facts.

I originally wrote a much longer explanation, but didn't want to derail the conversation.

To sum up, yes B19, there is a possibility that the autists will one day "take over" but only because the blind ambition of the NT world will eventually cause them to exterminate themselves. We just have to figure out a way to not get washed away in the tsunami of environmental and economic disaster that they're happily creating for themselves (e.g.: https://youtu.be/DCeADT8Y8Pw). Animals don't degrade their environment to the point that it becomes totally toxic and uninhabitable, which is one reason that I find evolutionary descriptions for human behavior to be lacking.

Yes. Even evolutionists (well some of them) concede that it is not a total theory and cannot account for some anomalies. That doesn't wholly invalidate it though as a partial explanation (though creationists always claim this, of course). Roll on the "theory of everything" and if theoretical physics can deliver it, beyond mere theory, that will be the big wow moment.. I hope so.