New Scientist article: Aloof parents: autistic children

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My Dad definitely has some Aspie traits...if evaluated formally, he probably would not meet the diagnostic criteria, but I can see in him the seeds of my Asperger's. It's like those traits, which are relatively mild in him, were concentrated in me. I think that's one reason why we understand each other so well...we relate to the world in much the same way.

Certainly interesting; but let's not get carried away. Objectivity, people.
On the surface it seems these people have an objective mindset, but I'll reserve that judgment for later...

A non believer here. If it was genetic, it would not be increasing.

Mercury has been disproven, and where people get long term mercury, there was a famous and well studied village in Japan, the result is not autism.

Socialization is a class thing, poor people have nothing else to offer.

Calibrated with education and employment, higher levels are less social, and goal directed in their social life.

Intelligence is a factor, autism around Universities, and technology clusters.

While IQ tests should be doubted, they are class and education biased, one trend has been shown, and unexpected. Over the hundred years the tests have been given, there is an IQ upward creep, across the board.

It is one point per decade.

I know it sounds absurd, but people are getting smarter.

There is a whole documented class at the trailing end of the Bell Curve that no longer exists, a bulge at the top end that never before existed, and there is more autism.

The early days, changing methods, perhaps could be wrong, but since WWII, it has been a solid standard, and it shows 1 point per decade creep.

Higher intelligence, positions rather than jobs, a lot less blue collar social in the bar on Friday night, more staying with your class, inbreeding of the 25% who finish the University, and Autism.

In the old days, when most lived on the farm, only a hundred years ago, you were most likely to marry someone born within ten miles. With the technological era, you are most likely to marry someone in the same field.

The creep factor could not have been forever, or the Vikings had an IQ of 0.

It is a modern form of selective breeding, the educated to the educated.

The result is people who were over educated before they were born.

We are the first of a new class that is not social, is educated, and consider what we are doing to be the most important thing, Autism.

This selective breeding will not stop, the Minks of Microsoft will flood the world with our kind.

Now we are 1%, soon we will be 10%. We are linking on the Internet while they are discussing football at the bar.

We are a new mental species. We own the future.

True, not a research paper, just a view, mine.

People have been marrying by class for a long time, but class was defined by money.

The new classes are defined by merit.

One can get into a monied class by birth.

For research I would look at the class of the next Microsoft generation, Dell is equally isolated.

There seems to be little research, but some evidence that autism is way over normal in tech clusters.

Tech is too new to judge, life since the 90's.

Autism was "discovered" in the 90's.

I started in IT in the punchcard era, A University Degree was a ticket to the top.

Then it took a Masters, then a Doctorate, then tech hit big, and here we are.

The forces that drove the highly educated together, and the tech expansion, no one cared what you looked like, how you dressed, just that you could make the machines run.

Traits autistics are know for being high scoring on, the block test, spatial relationships, are the machine fixing skill. You cannot learn that in college.

More than 90% of the population has an IQ of 90-110, events pulled together those with an IQ above 110.

Growing up autistic is a different path, we share a lot of traits, so a normal path.

Some of us get through, some get stuck along the way, some develop later.

We are dealing with a lack of knowledge in all directions.

We are not one in 10,000, but 1 in 100 and growing in the recent era. Something is causing it.

1% is 3,000,000 in the US.

It should be studied.

Actually, Autism was discovered in the twenties... or maybe before, but if so, I've never heard about it...

But; there is a reason more Autistics are found in technological situations - Autistics are attracted to technology. As a result, many people - even those not realising they are, in fact, Autistic - ones with Aspergers so "mild" they are only slightly eccentric by appearence - are attracted to technology, and find themselves suited to that sort of environment.

Think of technology and assosciated industries and professions, science, etc. as Autistic magnets.
The specific behavoural types of Autism congregate in these professions and, inevitably, breed with one another. Hence, producing more Autistics in the science/technology environments.

Well, I don't know how I got Asperger's Syndrome. My mom has schizophrenia and I believe that my dad is normal. Dawn

Ideas in science go in and out of fashion, and a lot of what's accepted truth today will be "How could people have been dumb enough to believe that?" a few centuries from now.

New facts and new interpretations come up all the time too, so it's good to respect the limits of certainty. This includes ideas about evolution.

Still, if you're looking at trends, past and future, we sure appear to have an extremely low reproductive output, especially among males, way below any average.

There's no way of knowing, because most of us don't know there's others of us, but I'd bet we also have a very high suicide rate.

That's got something to do with trends.

I don't know the future, but I've got doubts about our part in it.

I can't figure out how we managed to be around at all. We seem to be breaking the standard idea of the rules just by existing.