i hope they find a cure soon

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Right on Kitsy! You can only be 'cured' if there's something wrong with you. A 'cure' implies that you're broken and don't work properly.
I AM NOT BROKEN AND I DO NOT NEED FIXING.

Couldn't've said it better... Laying in the gutter I'm standing taller than this jerk. I'm glad for troll; shows me just how far up the evolutionary tree i am. Am available for troll visiting duties - central uk. Make my day people, give me an address...

I'm not broken, either. I do not wish to be turned into a sheeple.

You guessed quite inaccurately then. I have never claimed that only normal people can ever amount to anything or that all people with mental illnesses are necessarily doomed to fail in life. And most of all, you should probably refrain from equating Aspergers with unorthodox or creative thinking; the two may overlap but I would hesitate to make any claims of a causal connection between them.



So in other words, the feelings and experiences of those who do suffer from Aspergers syndrome simply don't factor into it. Anyone who feels dissatisfied with the impact of the condition on their life has fallen prey to the forces of conformity. Exactly what does it take for something to qualify as a disease or illness in your opinion anyway?

"FIND"??

I thought they'd already found one, and I'd ducked out ! !!

I think that Aspie citizens are a benefit to society.
If you cure it, think of all the cancer researchers who will desert their labs and use their intelligence only to debate whether Brittany Spears should get custody.

Come now, you can't seriously believe that all people without autism lack dedication to intellectual pursuits or even that most scientists have Aspergers. Not to put too fine a point on it, but I can point to many people who would contribute more to society if they didn't have some form of autism, because in all honesty, the condition prevents them from developing the various social connections and skills that people without autism take for granted and rely on all the time.

Well, my post was somewhat tongue-in-cheek.
But I do think there are certain professions and situations in which being Aspie can be an advantage. Also, I think that the more different kinds of people there are in the world, the better off humanity will be. Imagine if the whole planet was inhabited by shoemakers and children who wanted to become shoemakers.

It has nothing to do with learning "skills". NTs don't learn social skills. They are instinctive behaviors. Social behavior is pre-programmed as a result of evolution.

The biggest reason I would not be interested in being "cured" is that it would fundamentally change who I am. It is something unimaginable. I find a lot of the social banter NTs participate in very dull and a waste of time. I can't imagine enjoying banter or small talk. On the other hand the social butterflies might find my interests boring. Oh well. I'm not saying any one is necessarily better. It's just that with most of us our "disability" is something ingrained in our personality. The way we are is often what drives us. My ability to focus intensely on something is what gives me joy in life. I see the majority of people do not focus on any one thing and derive their joy merely from interacting with people. I just can't imagine being like this.

Plot: Mad doctor develops cure for all forms of autism. Bad guys load up an aerosol delivery system, and unleash it on the NSA's headquarters, severely crippling US cryptographic capabilities.

And I am very serious. If any aspies out there obsess over math and want to work for the NSA, they will not only hire you, they may give you a scholarship. And you'll fit right in.

What I'm born with is what I live with. If I'm NT, I'm NT for life. Same goes with being an Aspie. It would be way too much of a change to just be cured all the sudden and be something completely different.

Fair enough, but the point still stands otherwise. Whether you believe Aspergers can open the path to greatness for some, plenty of Aspergians still fail to move out of their parents' house, let alone revolutionize science or excel in art. In fact, fixation on such narrow interests often proves quite a handicap since many areas of study require a broad knowledge to truly succeed in, and if such fixations change fairly often, they may never gain proficiency in any area of study.

Then how do you explain the differences in social behavior between cultures? What are considered good social skills in the US, will not be good social skills in Japan, in Myanmar, or Romania. Trust me on this. I had a number of international friends in college, and we used to clash over social norms occasionally. The *desire* to be social may be innate, but social skills most definitely need to be learned. The amount of eye contact, the type of greetings which are appropriate, the content of conversations, the candidness with which one speaks, the amount of reciprocity in relationships, etc. These are all things which Aspies usually struggle with. And they are all things which differ across cultures.

cure the world, not me

yes. not everyone is going to be a success story in life period. I've met normal guys and girls still living at home after the age 25.
Not everyone is born to become millionaires but the reason I got pissy with you is that I've noticed a trend of people taking swipes at anyone successful who may have been aspies or who are now.

It's the egotistical exclusive behavior people stick to in order to make people feel inferior. Ever noticed bosses that come into work wearing very sloppy clothing while everyone else has to wear those dreaded slacks and button up collared shirts? Why? He or she has immunity. Normal people or socially correct people have a form of immunity in comparison to someone who isn't socially correct. A person who is not socially correct is on thin ice and can't afford to make one mistake. The person who is socially correct can mess up and the boss will be all like, oh well I can't get rid of you, you're my drinking pal!

You are right. I should clarify. What I should have said was that social learning differs from conscious learning. Conscious learning is what we can be taught in school and is something that autistic people have no more difficulty with than non-autistic people. However, social learning is entirely different. NTs don't have to be directly aware of social cues to learn how to interpret or use them. They pick them up passively and they only have to be subconsciously aware of them to use them. In this sense it is instinctual.

The main reason I think most social behavior is instinctual is that if you ask a typical NT, they won't even be able to tell you what the social nuances are. They can react to them without being totally aware of them. Again, its like a subconscious part of the brain is doing it. With autistic people it is so much harder because we have to use the conscious part of our brain to process social information. I think it's possible for some high functioning autistic people to actually be more aware of social behaviors than thier NT counterparts, yet still be more lacking in actual social interaction. The actions are slower and less automatic in the autistic person because the information processing occurs in the conscious part of the brain rather than "behind the scenes".

I think there is probably some kind of evolved structural framework in the brain for storing social information. In non-autistic people this structure gets passively filled up with various types of social behaviors. The details may very from culture to culture, but the overall pattern is probably the same across cultures.

Sorry for rattling on here.