Why is aspie separatism/supremacy controversial?

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Would it be controversial for painters to group together by connected talents?

Should something be done about their "Art Schools" Artist's Colonies?

What about Art Galleries?

We have stores that sell home furnishings, we have trained Interior Designers who should be telling artists what the market needs, and demanding that their work match the drapes and carpets.

Artists who know nothing of the market demand still paint as they see fit and market their works.

It takes years to select the future colors and textures of home furnishings, and artists will change the publics perception of Color, Texture, Form, on just a whim.

When anything diverges from established social norms, it should be stopped?

Highly trained Psycholigists know what the market demand for minds is, and spend their time keeping the mass of people within the confines of acceptable thought, religious worship, obeying governments, and providing their lives for the benefit of employers.

When they deem a group defective, that group should labor to seek approval. To become acceptable to Psycholigists.

In a town of a thousand coal miners, ten painters do nothing for the coal industry.

They should be intergrated into the culture, should at least produce work that shows the value of labor and the glory of industry.

It is not just the mines, it is also the mills, shipyards, and in towns that live by producing buggy whips and sealing wax. In every town there are a few who just do not fit the culture, who are always showing a differance of thought and perception.

Some are painters, others are lost in thought about new inventions, always seeking "Better" ways of doing things, which is nothing but making war on the present.

Different is subversive, a threat to our Sacred Flag, way of life, and are the enemy within.

Different has produced machines that have destroyed the value of labor, existing factories, and upset long established social structures. Villages that every man woman and child have labored for one family that owned the spinning mill have become unemployed by one new machine, all from a single differance in thought and perception.

It is not just the few. The different first took our best farm hands, who moved to villages for a life of industry, then the best of our villages who moved to cities for technology, and now the best vanish into post technology, Hidden on the Internet, bringing change in established means of marketing.

Less than 1% works to change the way of life for the other 99% without their permission, consent, and without the approval of the existing social structure.

So far the bulk of people have kept existing order in the face of change.

Disruptive types of thought have been labeled, isolated, and programs of treatment tried.

Just as Behavior Poice have been needed to maintain existing order, now Thought Police are also serving our honorable traditions.

Difference in thought and perception must be contained, isolated, for if they ever gathered together the rate of change would overwhelm our carefully planned and methodical path of social progress.

The choice is clear, it is between the world of everything you know, or a future where everything will be different.

Change must be controlled, it must be kept at a rate where people can adapt over generations.

The worst possible outcome would be the forces of change gathering outside of majority rule, and producing change at an unlimited pace.

No industry would know if it would exist tomorrow, no marketplace would be secure, and youth would not follow in the long trodden paths of their class.

Omicrom- I know the current lot are shall we say slightly "diverse thinkers", but in the long run
there's got to be some kind of increasing synthesis between human beings and technology.

In my own case I know in (hopefully as long as) next twenty years I will need new joints in hips and knees. A friend of my elder son's lost a leg in combat-I would like to think in his lifetime he will be able to walk properly again on a new generation of prosthetics. It is not inconceivable that organic dysfunction in the brain could be compensated for ( to some extent) by powerful computer chips that have neural interface.

Once you start moving towards this and hundreds of other examples and potentialities, than you have an increasing interrelationship between organics and new technologies. That is being driven by a fairly sane rationale, not to transcend what you are , but to maintain or compensate. There will come a point, and it's not that far off, when technology and organics become viably interchangeable, and this kind of accelerated science may form the basis of the next stage of human evolution.

Now, the OP was are we the next stage in evolution? I don't think we are in ourselves, but we might be the ones working in this kind of field, especially at a theoretical or engineering level.
And quite possibly when all the pieces are on the table, and no one else can spot the underlying pattern or implication that might be the start of the next big leap when we do.


Also sci-fi scenario example - very far-fetched, imagine if there is a limited nuclear exchange , something purpose designed to resist genetic and cellular damage from fallout might be the most apt to survive, and it is highly unlikely that exists currently in human form. The kind of sudden environmental change might be too radical and hostile for traditional evolutionary mechanisms to respond to. Hence it may well be a synthesis or organics and technologies. As one door closes, another opens.

Another thought is that I've read around a lot of the stuff on consciousness, I'm only dabbling, but some fairly serious scientific writers suggest you don't even need a structure like a cellular brain to generate awareness, to perceive, or even be self referential . A particular theory is that consciousness exploded into being, giving an evolutionary advantage to certain groups of primitive animals way back at the start of the Cambrian period. They used structures other than
recognizable brains to do this. So perhaps the field is broader than we thought, and whoever controls these new techno-economic trade routes, who can best utilize these technologies,
will become become the dominant social group on the planet. Through technology and self engineering, perhaps at a necessarily genetic level, they might become so far removed from their original ancestary they become speciated , because that is the way this stuff seems to have traditionally branched when species are put under environmental pressure.

It is arrogant to suggest we are a separate better species, but perhaps prudent to see where our future strengths might lie.

Finally, wouldn't it be amazing if it turned out our hard-wiring that gives us our analytical and logical curiosity was more compatible with neural interface than than NT . Not sure on that one though, might be wishful thinking.

Inventor it might interest you to know that some people think that new "guilds" are already emerging partly from potential of the internet . For example large galleries have their own web sites and high quality gift shops, and these are the antithesis of high volume imported good. They support usually one person craft workers and artists. This is highly elitist in many cases an much depends on whether you belong to Craft/Art Council etc, although not exclusively.

Also many craft workers outside the elite system run a close parallel with William Morris's Medieval craft revival movement without relying on a high status gallery storefront , ( he went through Liberty's) The technologies that allow them to sell directly to the public , often the work is of the same standard as that in galleries but lacking the label of Craft Council. They also tend to sell work through exhibition and make social, economical and web based links, hence a kind of guild can be seen to be emerging composed of individual working from small workshops, making high quality goods.

You are making an artificial distinction between technology and biological stuff. Strictly speaking we are a machine, composed of many parts, you should factor that in your futurology.

Transplants are beater then a piece of plastic. Do you know many prosthetics that can take all it needs from the blood? Self repair up to a point. Your limbs are now your age, do you know many prosthetics that last that long? If you think about it, that our bodies last, more or less decently 75 years, its several times the life span of any prosthetics could ever achieve. And prosthetics are expensive( the good ones, not wooden pirate legs). Real limbs can be grown, prosthetics have to be assembled. All this ignoring all the pollutants in prosthetics.

Transplants ARE technology.



Sorry, to disappoint you, but there is no hard problem of consciousness. Its only soft problem solution proportional in complexity with available calculation power. Current supercomputers are still to weak, even for simple brains, let alone the human brain.

consciousness is just an illusion of a capable enough robot.



Like computers? Do you believe that on average aspies can use computers beater then average NTs?

Direct neural connection with computers is hyped. What advantages does it bring compared with a screen and a keyboard? Your visual field will remain the same, your intrinsic processing speed will remain the same etc.... You'll still need to think out commands, computers will not get any smarter just because theres a wire sticking in your head.



In a way, we are alredy more compatible for interfacing with computers. Whats up with the fetish about neural interfacing. You still need to give appropriate commands. In your head, as we speak, there are autonomous circuits, that can read your mind. This circuits however are completely stupid and do some horrible mistakes. I'm not going to detail, but these circuits prouve that direct neural interface is not a guarantee for results.

Drastic changes to an environment do not necessitate drastic changes to life-forms within the environment.


"NT genes are potentially the future norm" and "evolution is finished with us" do not have the same meaning. It is quite possible for evolutionary processes to be on-going and for NT genes to be the future norm.

Actually, drastic changes in the environment cause huge accelerations in evolution. The drastic change means that a large portion of individuals who would normally get around just fine, now have trouble just surviving. I am not sure how well it generalizes to the current situation, but it's a general rule that usually holds.



Agreed.

Two things. A "general rule that usually holds..." is a rule that does not necessarily apply. Secondly, not every drastic change will result in organisms being less able to survive. A drastic change could also be one that is neutral to survival of a particular class of organisms, or increases the rate of survival of a particular class of organisms. In the latter case, if all varieties within a class of organisms all equally have their survival enhanced, it is not necessarily certain that any evolutionary change will be triggered by the environmental change, and this is obviously the case in the instance where the change is neutral to the survivability of a class of organisms.

As to how it applies to the current situation, well the drastic changes referred to are not of the kind that reduce the survival rate of human beings, but rather of a kind that increases the rate at which humans survive.

I agree with you except for one thing. Even if the changes have increased survival, it doesn't mean that they would be proportionate to the original survival distributions. One section of genetic society will get an upper hand. Who that is, I don't know and couldn't care less. I am just putting it out there that at least one section of people, who previously had less of chance than their peer, would have a greater chance than their peer after these changes have occurred, and because they occurred recently, we haven't seen these effects yet.

Which might be relevant if I had ever claimed the contrary.

Do you have any evidence to back up this assertion that every drastic change that increases the survival rate of a species will necessarily do so disproportionately?

Surly you don't think I meant every single one of them No no, no. I am saying that the chances of the majority of humans going through a change the same way is profound. If their is going to be a big change, doesn't it seem logical that it would affect different people differently on average? That in the long run, there would be a noticeable difference?


I tried searching the subethernet for statistics regarding this, and like usual came up empty. The thing that's bugging me about this though, is I am sure you have some evidence regarding this, and even if you didn't it wouldn't be a leap of logic. I have no solid evidence but I have a few examples.

A new medicine comes out to treat the next flue epidemic. Some people respond more to it than others. These people will be less likely to die from the flue than those who have only moderate response to the new drug.

A new economic modal comes to light, and it can only be used effectively by emotional people. Everyone is somewhat emotional, so it benefits everyone, but those who are more emotional find more use out of it.

Brain implants, that work best on nonlinear thinkers, but do increase the computational abilities of everyone. Everyone benefits, but those right brain thinkers get the most out of it.

These are all hypothetical, but are at least somewhat realistic, and completely relevant.

What else am I supposed to think? I refered to the possibility that there could be a drastic change that increases the rate of survival for a species without necessarily changing the proportionality of survival and you stated you do not agree with this.

I am discussing evolution, my comments refer to evolution, which process has impacts and implications for organisms other than humans.

It is my view that it is logically possible that there could be a change in the environment of a species or breeding population, that results in greater survival rates without effecting proportionate survival rates, however unlikely it may be, and the only way you can alter that view is to front up with facts that substantiate the contrary.

No, there is no evidence that it is impossible for there to be a drastic change in the environment that increases survival rates of a species without introducing changes in the proportionality of survivability correlated to particular polymorphisms.


No amount of examples of changes that do introduce changes in the proportionality of rate of survival prove that there are no possible changes that would increase rate of survival among a species without unbalancing the current proportionality of survival rates, anymore than my giving examples of the millions of people who are not pilots proves that there are no pilots.


About as relevant as citing myself to prove that there are no pilots.

Not to mention that at least two of the changes you cite will not necessarily entail any particular change in reproductive fitness.

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

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?

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.

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

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

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.

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.