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pandd
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12 Apr 2010, 11:07 pm

Newday wrote:
If Autism isn't an 'advancement' in evolution, then it is certainly a new culture.

Is it? so when precisely did it arise? The last 100 years, the last 1000 years, the last 10,000 years? What sort of date do you put this "new development" at and more importantly how the heck do you know how long Autism has been around?
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Autistics are better at specialization, which is a new concept in every culture. No longer are we able to learn everything there is to know, which was a possiblity a century ago.

No it was not possible to learn everything there was to know a century ago. Specialization has been around no less than 10,000 years. In fact it has probably been around a lot longer than that.
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As technology and knowledge have grown beyond the scope of the possibility of an individual knowing everything, we are increasingly becoming specialist parts of society, any and every society.
Think about it.
Autistics are specialists.
Autistics have there own methods of doing things. We have more similarities within the spectrum than with neurotypicals. We understand each other better than neurotyipicals understand us, and better than we understand neurotypicals.
We are an emerging culture.

I have no idea why on earth you would imagine that anyone could know everything there was to know 100 years ago.



voss749
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26 Apr 2010, 12:21 pm

If aspies all looked like Heather Kuzmich, 6 foot tall model gorgeous with 150 IQ then yeah evolution might be an arguement.
As for the rest of us...well ya know :)



fidelis
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02 May 2010, 9:20 pm

I was thinking about this old experiment where mice were put in a maze shaped like a "T." To the left, there was a big block of cheese, and to the left there was a small block a cheese. The majority went to the left, but a small number went to the right. The mice who went for the small cheese ended up getting more cheese per mouse. This stayed consistent as the design was altered. This could explain how aspies weren't made extinct a long time ago. We have some advantage. By not liking crowds, we isolate ourselves and get more resources. This coupled with specialization makes us slightly important in a community setting as well. Some people have some random skill that is too important to lose. Anything from food preservation to ironwork.


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03 May 2010, 1:56 am

I think these mice are right. The researchers need work.

In a circle maze where the big cheeze in in the center, and smaller bit around the edge, most will go to the center, as our election process shows. Taking that the cheeze renews it's self, those on the outside will get enough, perhaps more, as their focus and persistance overcome other obsticals, to the center it is other mice, but on the edge, most likely things.

So we have the most betting on the big thing, and the rest betting on smaller things.

Most mice work in the big coal mine, those on the edge make spoons. Everyone uses spoons, including the next village, and even far away places. Coal miners can only work in a mine.

Considering everyone works just as hard for their cheeze, those who seek diverse small markets have the highest chance of hitting on something that pays a lot more.

Out of 1,000, 950 bet on the mine, 50 diverse trades, and all have an equal chance of failure. If the mine fails it affects most, game over, but the other fifty can move.

This would explain how technology developed, spread it's market base, then when the mine failed, moved toward larger markets.

The skills that are only developed by focus, study, and persistance, grew.

Due to the limited nature of things, apes with sticks, rocks, fire, what was an outside job in a village, became a group of the same in a city, and some were better at sticks, others rocks and fire.

As the economics of their trades improved, unemployed coal miners were put to work in factories, the plain labor part of the work, and being employed, became consumers.

Our history of the last few hundred years has been growing the small cheeze, and holding on to the skills learned in isolation.

My own view is the neurology found around technology does have autistic traits. Mechanics, machine shops, computers, and many small skills, camera repair, keeping up the microscopes, have a small part, but one that no one else has.

Through the development of technology we have found that the children of coal miners were suited to working above ground and staying clean.

Several hundred years ago almost all worked the land, and one might feed three or four. Through mines and mills, cash wages, they could feed more, and created a cash economy. This cash economy made a thousand small trades possible, and lead to larger but cheaper production.

This all came from the mice who went for the small cheeze, for one reason or another. Most of the oldest stories, the Smith who forged the great weapons of the gods, was lame.



Niamh
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09 Dec 2010, 6:27 am

That's a load of rubbish. Evolution is about developments that improve a life form's adaptation to its surroundings. If it's an improvement, then why the sensory sensitivity, social impairments and difficulty in managing all the simple little day-to-day tasks? If he's only saying it because he's a savant or has a ridiculously high IQ, then I'm afraid he's not aware that only a few people with autism/Asperger's syndrome are blessed with those and the chances of it making life better for us is restricted to what our special interest turns out to be and whether it'll be of any use to us as a career, and also whether the joy of absorbing oneself in that special interest outweighs the suffering caused by jealous bullies.

In short, it's much the opposite of an improvement, and it makes us struggle with the world around us rather than adapt better, which is the opposite of what's meant to happen with evolution.



guineapigirl
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20 Dec 2010, 5:09 pm

People probably find it controversial because it suggests that Aspies are superior to NTs. If there was an NT supremacist/separatist movement (one could argue that there are several NT supremacist groups in power), I'm sure all of you would be offended. One group is not superior to the other. HFAs, LFAs, and NTs all have their own strengths and weaknesses. We all need to accept one another as equals.


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alicedress
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20 Dec 2010, 5:13 pm

Gee, I dunno, maybe because it suggests that one group of people is superior to another?