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Raziel
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24 Jan 2013, 6:22 am

CockneyRebel wrote:
The 1960s, Man. If you felt rejected by mainstream society, you had the option of dropping out and becoming a hippie. :flower:


yeaaaah. :flower:
I allways knew, I'm born too late. :cry:


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LovingTheAlien
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24 Jan 2013, 8:00 am

CockneyRebel wrote:
The 1960s, Man. If you felt rejected by mainstream society, you had the option of dropping out and becoming a hippie. :flower:


Only, I believe the hippies had strict social codes too. On the other hand: If you behaved strangely they would just assume you were on acid and that would be OK :-)



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24 Jan 2013, 10:54 am

That era hasn't arrived yet :lol: But seriously, any era really IMO. I Love my traits. I have found that most of the "problems" (but not ALL) that I have are due to other people and it's like no matter what era you are in, there are always going to be those that just don't understand. I hope that changes in the future. I definitely wouldn't want to be in galileo's time though; the man was put on house arrest for believing what was not the norm. And he was right!



Arran
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24 Jan 2013, 1:38 pm

LovingTheAlien wrote:
Earlier you could be a skilled craftsman and be respected as such even though your social skills weren't quite up to date. Maybe you were the weird watchmaker, but everybody knew you were a damned good watchmaker too.
Today EVERYTHING requires people skills - even programming. My boyfriend who is a programmer says he can clearly see the change that has taken place the last decade. You have to be much more of a 'team'-person now than you used to.


That is a very good point you make. I am wondering whether changes in technology are rendering the AS mindset obsolete and an NT mindset as the key to economic success. There was a time when people with AS could succeed from being founts of knowledge but the internet seems to be eradicating this.



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24 Jan 2013, 1:52 pm

LovingTheAlien wrote:
Earlier you could be a skilled craftsman and be respected as such even though your social skills weren't quite up to date. Maybe you were the weird watchmaker, but everybody knew you were a damned good watchmaker too.
Today EVERYTHING requires people skills - even programming. My boyfriend who is a programmer says he can clearly see the change that has taken place the last decade. You have to be much more of a 'team'-person now than you used to.


I also think this is a really great point and something which makes life very difficult not just for aspies, but all the introverts of the world. I also don't think it's necessarily a move in the right direction. While teamwork is the best option to achieve some things, the emphasis is on SOME. All the great works of human creativity I can think of were created by someone who was shut in a quiet room by themselves with no interruptions. Beethoven's symphonies weren't written by committee.

I think most of the last 500 years would be just fine for any aspie - if s/he was independently wealthy and therefore able to hang out in a library all day. In fact, I suspect many if not most of the world's great scientific discoveries and great creative works came from the lucky aspie/introvert types who had that luxury. Anyone who was poor in the 19th century or earlier probably had a life full of hardship, autistic or not.



Tyri0n
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24 Jan 2013, 5:40 pm

TheValk wrote:
Most of the community probably shares the torment of today's infrastructure being made for others and not fitting us nearly as well. But do you ever imagine yourself living in older times without the conveniences that keep us distant from the rest yet still functioning? Do you think you'd be more encouraged to come out of your shell or, on the contrary, you'd function less effectively?

I think being autistic decades ago (at least) can't have been more convenient.


I think for us who are higher-functioning, medieval times would have been better. In past centuries, a lot of your position in life with respect to work was determined by your family, and marriages were arranged. While, before, many things were predetermined, now, everything is open and competitive, and NT's use their social skills to get ahead--in both love and work. Social skills weren't nearly as important back then for these things.

I'd much rather live in a highly formal society where I'm told what to do, and life has a simple, predictable, formal structure, like medieval society. I am very good at following rules and doing what I'm told. I suck at networking and dating, so put me in any totalitarian society, and I'd have a much happier life relative to my peers in similar circumstances. I'm high-functioning enough that I wouldn't have been sent to the madhouse, most likely, so I think my life would have been objectively better than it is today, especially since my family comes from nobility.

If I lived in medieval times, I could also have eliminated NT's who disliked me by becoming an expert at sword play (I become an expert at everything I put my mind to except social skills) and challenging them to duels. If I were actually from at least a little bit noble birth, I could also have used this trick to eliminate suitors to women I liked.



pokerface
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24 Jan 2013, 5:52 pm

The Stone Age??



Konstans
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24 Jan 2013, 6:23 pm

Medieval times, definately medieval times!
I am very short sighted, so I know I would be either working as an artist, wood carver, leather worker, gold/silver smith or writing the bible at some monastery.
Back then, they would have appreciated my abilities way more than today.

This is probably why I am strongly drawn to everything that relates to medieval times.



pokerface
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24 Jan 2013, 6:47 pm

Konstans wrote:
Medieval times, definately medieval times!
I am very short sighted, so I know I would be either working as an artist, wood carver, leather worker, gold/silver smith or writing the bible at some monastery.
Back then, they would have appreciated my abilities way more than today.

This is probably why I am strongly drawn to everything that relates to medieval times.


Or you would be burning at a stake.

There was a lot of cruelty going on during Medieval times Konstans. The fate of people who where perceived as different could be quite grim.



Matt62
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24 Jan 2013, 8:42 pm

I do need any hypothetical arguments to know that people on the Spectrum are better off these last 10-20 years. My childhood & Teen-age years are often too painful to remember ( but I do not forget, so...). And I was lucky, if I am a person with HF Autism, most autistics in the 60s & 70s would get sent to institutions & warehoused for life.
I avoided that, but the bullying? Well, I got some punches in sometimes.
The loneliness wa also unbearable..

Sincerely,
Matthew



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24 Jan 2013, 8:44 pm

Best Eras to be Autistic IMOO:

1.} Present Day

Reason: Despite after the shootings in Colorado and Conneticut where the shooters were Aspies, I think people's attitudes towards people with ASDs is slowly changing, not as fast as people's attitudes towards gay people, but is.

2.} The 1960s

Reason: Same reason as "Loving the Alien."

3.} Pre-Civil War

Reason: I think hardly anyone would have cared if a person was autistic or not.


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Tyri0n
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24 Jan 2013, 8:57 pm

pokerface wrote:
Konstans wrote:
Medieval times, definately medieval times!
I am very short sighted, so I know I would be either working as an artist, wood carver, leather worker, gold/silver smith or writing the bible at some monastery.
Back then, they would have appreciated my abilities way more than today.

This is probably why I am strongly drawn to everything that relates to medieval times.


Or you would be burning at a stake.

There was a lot of cruelty going on during Medieval times Konstans. The fate of people who where perceived as different could be quite grim.


No, people usually got burned at the stake for NT s**t, like sex and cultism/heresy (very NT because it depends on group dynamics), not the little quirks aspies have. I agree that life would have been much better for higher-functioning autistics during the middle ages--or virtually any era, actually--than it is today.

For LFA's, of course, they are better today. But medical science hasn't even tried to find ways to treat HFA, so technological advances and medical advances are pretty irrelevant as far as we're concerned.



blue1skies
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24 Jan 2013, 9:00 pm

I think the social rules of other societies were much stricter than the ones we have today. So, yes, this era is the best to be autistic in for now, but I'm sure it will improve even more with time



ADoyle90815
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24 Jan 2013, 9:09 pm

pokerface wrote:
Konstans wrote:
Medieval times, definately medieval times!
I am very short sighted, so I know I would be either working as an artist, wood carver, leather worker, gold/silver smith or writing the bible at some monastery.
Back then, they would have appreciated my abilities way more than today.

This is probably why I am strongly drawn to everything that relates to medieval times.


Or you would be burning at a stake.

There was a lot of cruelty going on during Medieval times Konstans. The fate of people who where perceived as different could be quite grim.


That's true, especially for women as anyone different could be considered a witch, and burnt at the stake as a result. While I like the medieval period for things like clothing and the arts, I still prefer modern times as I don't have to worry about the witch hysteria showing up.



Tyri0n
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24 Jan 2013, 10:57 pm

blue1skies wrote:
I think the social rules of other societies were much stricter than the ones we have today. So, yes, this era is the best to be autistic in for now, but I'm sure it will improve even more with time


Thought "stricter" means "more explicit." That isn't a terrible thing...



chris5000
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24 Jan 2013, 11:27 pm

AnonymousAnonymous wrote:
Best Eras to be Autistic IMOO:

Reason: Despite after the shootings in Colorado and Conneticut where the shooters were Aspies, I think people's attitudes towards people with ASDs is slowly changing, not as fast as people's attitudes towards gay people, but is.


none of the shooters were aspies that was just media speculation