Building Asperger's Society; Who We Are, Who Will We Become

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redphoenix_mj

I am so GLAD that you found a situation that worked for the two of you. I was really repulsed by the idea of specialized schooling based on my brothers experiences...I don't think I would have carried this depth of feeling from my experiences if I wasn't AS...(I think I would have let it go already, but I can't). You must of had some odd experiences, under the radar, growing up but it seems to have worked out for you.

But your son is doing well? I often wondered what a specialized school would be like for my son, wondered if I made the right choice...I would have let him go if I could have found a teacher that was AS too. Even within my household my husband doesn't realize how sensitive my son is...it took me years to get him to stop trying to make my son 'look me in the eyes when you are talking'! Took me forever to explain to husband that 'looking someone in the eyes' something my husband thought of as ordinary, or a show of respect, was so terribly intense (maybe not frightening but definitely profound or sublime in some way) to my son.

I am also glad to hear of someone my age too. I thought the vast majority of Aspie people were much younger than us. It is nice to talk to another woman too. I keep changing and saving the 'profile' online to reflect 'female' but twice I looked and it was back to the 'male' setting.

I don't understand your comment...usually when I don't feel like reading something, I don't read it...so what is your point?

Also, I explained before...I guess you REALLY didn't read it did you...that I was new to the community and to be patient with me...

Is there a preferred term for people with Asperger's? It is not like I was born with a 'manual of proper conduct for life when speaking to people with Asperger's'.

If you have something to say about proper terms, I suggest you say it, instead of being insulting.

However, if your only purpose is to be insulting or angry...I guess it is a free country, have at. I wish that you would at least engage and provide some argument for your position. I am not threatened by anything you would say, ideas are free, right, why not test things out?

I will await your response.

I skimmed it, and read the title. You say "build an asperger's society" yet I don't understand why you are using AS instead of autistic. AS excludes other autistics. Autistic includes them all.

I'm leaving my fate up to science.

It is my fault then...I will learn what other types of Autism there are. I am sorry if that was rude...I tend to hyper focus on what interests me or is personally relevant. I certainly wouldn't want to exclude anyone, like I said before.

harlequinsenor

You made me laugh.

But I have to tell you that I really don't think they know what they are doing. For example, I took a prescription drug a few years ago to cure one simple small thing and it ended up giving me a lifelong disease that causes real pain and suffering every day. My example is based on basic organic chemistry...not emergent genetic chemistry.

When the time comes they will be experimenting on human beings because it will be the only viable way to 'test' their hypothesis. Genetic cures will unfold over time so what appears to cure you one day may cause you real true suffering as time unfolds. All genetics are emergent, you know...human beings don't have the mental capacity to calculate what needs to be considered in order to understand the emergent process of gene technology...so be careful out there, and good luck to you.

Welcome Meatpoet.

And welcome to an ongoing differance between those who are seeking their own type, and those who would lump us with the entire funny farm.

AS, HFA, is a world apart. As genetics, to select some traits, others are shed, and the world is more intense for some. Leading thought is with the Markrams Intense World view of patterns of response. It is strictly in the world of hardwired Neurology.

It is as you described, a small group, which is not understood, and all effort is to make them change and fit in with the mass. It may not work, but it is the only plan the mass can come up with.

All of Economics is based on doing what you do best, and trading for what others do best. That seems to be a truth, but it never caught on as a view of intelligence.

The current system is taking the children of families who have produced great wealth, and insisting on training them for manual labor, because most are only good at manual labor.

Equality has lead to a brain flight, as Ibn Khaldun said in 1300, "Money and talent will move toward freedom."

The current economy is the result of recent programs, innovation has left, and the political social structure of the mass has run it into the ground. When everyone is equal, they starve.

The skills that make the world run are few. About one in a thousand people has a key skill. This happened before education, and education has failed to increase the percentage. Psychology has managed to identify the differance, but then seeks to cure it.

The result is Ayn Rand, innovaters leave, because their children are being destroyed.

America was built on the freedom that attracted the likes of Tesla, and fell on the concept of uniform equality. For the last few decades the brightest and best have been leaving.

No longer are new products and methods funded, for they would destroy established markets. Capital is not for building the future, but is invested to raise the interest rate on the present. Automotive is a good example, half the cost of a new car is to pay interest.

At least half the cost of education is to support government workers. They turn out a low quality product that no one wants. American education ranks between Albania and Bulgaria.

The results are what the holders of GM Stocks and Bonds discovered, it is worthless. More is coming.

The past and the mass are always dying. "There is no use trying with the dying."

The future is still coming from kitchen tables, out of garages, and while it can be hindered, it will happen somewhere. More of the future is being designed with the machines to make it. Human labor is becoming obsolete.

What to do with humans in a world where automated factories produce everything?

A second problem is what to do with humans who are intelligent?

How about intelligent and a different Neurology?

They are of no use to the past, present, and are on their own for the future.

They do seem to have a wave length common to their Neurology. I understand more people on Wrong Planet than ever anywhere before.

It does have the traits of a sub species.

The Austistic Spectrum is a bell curve that bisects a larger bell curve that is the human race.

Somewhere at sometime in the past someone on the Austistic Spectrum worked out how to hit a rock in a particular way so that it produced a sharp edge.

Fortunately the NT's present saw this as useful rather than supernatural and allowed the maker to live.

While NTs may need us more than we need them, isolating ourselves in Asperger's communities will only heighten the NTs fear of that which they do not understand.

Well, I'm a federalist. It really is the best system, since it allows people to pick the system that suits them best.

I'm also a bigger proponent of choice than Morpheus, and that's saying something.

My understanding is that the diversity that exists in the autism community is simply due to who we are, and that attempts to split us by diagnoses would result in purely nominal categories.

A few years back, I read three or four papers from "Learning and Behavior Problems in Asperger Syndrome," an international effort to federate research on AS. If you can obtain a copy, read the paper titled "Relationship between Asperger Syndrome and High-Functioning Autism." It points out that AS is being diagnosed to denote that the patient possesses a higher IQ than those with HFA generally do, which is not sound with their differences in diagnostic criteria. One DSM-IV criterion to be diagnosed with AS is that no significant delay in speech is present, but I have friends for which that is not the case. One of them, diagnosed an aspie, was unable to speak until high school (but was very intelligent). The paper mentions a double-blind study of around 100 people where where a large number of them were found by the research psychologists to have symptoms pertaining to a different disorder than what they were diagnosed with, as well as a higher number that did not satisfy their respective disorders' diagnostic criteria. Then, the paper proposes to avoid future inconsistencies by merging AS and HFA into a single entity in DSM-V.

More recently, there has been a push in the psychological community to combine AS and PDD-NOS in the next edition of DSM (the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, which most psychologists take to be a definitive reference). If you're interested in some reading on the subject, I recommend this commentary, as well as the New York Times article on which it focuses. I could go on and on about this, but the point is that the lines that divide AS from other similar pervasive developmental disorders are too blurred to make claims about its exclusivity. I think that around here we should have the freedom to use terms like "Asperger Syndrome," "Pervasive Developmental Disorder - Not Otherwise Specified," "High-Functioning Autism," and "autistic", etc. with the assumption that what we are saying carries over to other autistic spectrum disorders, as well as PDD-NOS. The "entire funny farm," as you call it, is our reflection in the mirror.



I'd like to think that we don't need to make curt yes/no decisions at present. Whether or not readers are in favor of this idea, the discussion (which will hopefully yield the answer to this question) would benefit immensely from thought-out dialogue. As for the mailing list idea, why go in that direction if you have concerns about a cult forming and the possibility of corruption? In my opinion, we should keep everything that we have to say out in the open, to be surveyed by all. That is how we preclude such things.

Last edited by introspective on 02 Jan 2010, 4:42 am, edited 1 time in total.

I suggest a proposal, a set of rules or some goal.
Otherwise this would unfortunately simply be a rant, and only a matter of time until mentions of autism/aspergers being "the next step in human evolution" come in.

Also welcome to this place

Where is Zyborg, anyway? Or TheBookkeeper?

Having an Aspie island, however... might not be such a good thing. If you do decide to do it, make sure everyone has their own space where they can ignore everyone else. That's something everyone in the world should have.

Hi Meatpoet Welcome to WP. I'm not with the idea of a separate society for aspergers, it could bring even more intolerance from both parts. I don't know about any school for the aspergers. But if your son is intelligent enough it could go to Davidson Academy in Nevada. http://www.davidsonacademy.unr.edu/ It's more for the "highly gifted" that for the aspergers, but they do have individual education plans and your son could be more comfortable with highly curious thinkers that with "average" peoples. ( Even though most of them not being aspergers..., but even with aspergers kids it's then your son intelligence that will set him apart, there is not "perfect" alternbative, I guess...)

Hi Meatpoet Welcome to WP. I'm not with the idea of a separate society for aspergers, it could bring even more intolerance from both parts. I don't know about any school for the aspergers. But if your son is intelligent enough it could go to Davidson Academy in Nevada. http://www.davidsonacademy.unr.edu/ It's more for the "highly gifted" that for the aspergers, but they do have individual education plans and your son could be more comfortable with highly curious thinkers that with "average" peoples. ( Even though most of them not being aspergers..., but even with aspergers kids it's then your son intelligence that will set him apart, there is not "perfect" alternbative, I guess...)

Hello Meatpoet. This seems to be that place to find what you need.

Quick notes on a couple possible outcomes to self inflicted segregation.

ASD people end up with lives Something like the "Prawns" in the movie District 9

We could also end up something like the Jedi in Starwars. defending the right way, with our amazing powers.

It seems that this site is the closest I have come to a familiar and safe crowd Edit: (although if I spend enough time around NT individuals outside, their ways become clear, and we often earn a comfortable understanding of each other. I have understandings rather than conventional relationships I think.

Edit: (Its tough for me to feel at ease in any social environment though. an example of this is all the editing.)

I would rather live as a recluse in the North with my family (If that is what they wanted, and they don't.) than to join a Edit: (I was talking too much here, the first time) sect, and involve my family.

sample of guard dog action; Edit: (No need for dramatics here so; I sit watch at break away from the crowd, and it is accepted. Of course nothing bad is going to happen, but like a Shepherd I like to sit guard. I can't really say why, Its where I fit in, in the crowd. As it is. Its funny, my youngest son likes to mimic our little dash-terrier.).

Edit: (Redundant comment was here)

Oh and I went to Waldorf school, and public school.

Edit: (I think) The Waldorf system is almost ideal for ASD. As close to our way of learning as has existed in history.

Normal school Edit: (was difficult) for me and I reacted by getting tough and tougher. Which has limited my life.

Waldorf learning progresses like this; Heart, Hands, Mind. from kindergarten to college.

Awesome Posts here thanks Meatpoet.

Edit: (and I an sorry for the editing, I got lost in my memories and thoughts the first time I wrote this. But now I feel ok about it)

Last edited by bigblock on 03 Jan 2010, 2:36 am, edited 3 times in total.

Some self correction, all of Autism is Neurological, I do not base it on IQ tests, or verbal, there is intelligence that cannot be tested, it still exists.

The Funny Farm is to be included in the full range of Mental Illness, but the DSM says, mental illness rules out Autism. So a Dx of Autism rules out mental illness.

A differance in Neurology which leads to a differance of thought and perception. That stands alone.

Hmmm... maybe we need somewhere that is mised, with a much higher than usual proportion of Aspies/Auties to Enties, so that the Enties can learn and understand the Aspies/Auties much better. And vice-versa.

You'kll probably end up with most Enties fleeing because of being asked questions like 'but why should I do that?'