Big what if

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BIG HUG
You're welcome

Well...

On the one hand I agree with you.

But on the other society is very tribal. Esp NT society.

So they don't actually want someone who's bad at fitting in with them. No matter how smart I am, no matter how many books I read, not even how much I can read in the 'dark' or detect certain flavours or colours etc.

So back to square one.

Except I don't hate myself like some seem to. No time for that nonsense.

I believe this.

And I believe most people within my society and friendship group are part of this 'normal'. It starts at the quiet edge of NT. It goes onto the slightly eccentric edge of HFA. Smart, intelligent people.

Society should be geared up to us. I think it once was geared up to us. But the general erosion of society has made it hard for us to cope, esp with artificial lighting as well which creates actual disabilities.

I know that I fit in when I was with nice gentle, intelligent people but I didn't fit in when I moved school to a school where there were real gangs. By real gangs I mean - people with weapons, people who'd fight each other over territory, stuff like that.

Then I fit in again at uni and sixth form. But not volunteering with the local village idiot voluntary 'librarian's assistants' who'd never read anything harder than a Dan Brown novel.

Libraries should be run by quiet, slightly eccentric types who love to read. They should be orderly quiet places with oak furniture and cosy corners. The 'coffee house', 'meet up with friends' vibe that they have become is not helpful to society. If people want that, they should go to a cafe.

There are too many great examples, but who first comes to mind for me is Gary McKinnon, the infamous hacker who as ONE MAN was able to get through who knows how many teams of coders to break into NASA, the Pentagon, the CIA and shut down the Navy's security system for 48 hours (could be wrong about the specific amount of hours, I believe it was more than 24 and I just don't feel like looking it up). And GET THIS, his defense as to why he has yet to get extradited from Scotland to stand trial in the US, that's right you guessed it, Autism. Not only this but the intelligence community in the US has advocated on his behalf not to stand trial rather they want him to teach them his ways.

Oh and his motive? Not money. Not fame. He was looking to expose classified files of evidence that extraterrestrial and/or extradimensional life have made contact with this planet. Unclear what he found, allegedly he found and it was somehow suppressed the mechanics of the rest of the story I don't quite follow but it has transcended to the realm of legend.

There is nothing wrong with me.

Now, lets talk about society...

I would offer the idea that maybe your self-concept and self-worth has nothing to do what the basic batch of humanity wants or doesn't want

Objectively I agree.

But I have social anxiety. Unlike some people, it doesn't seem to be something inherent to being autistic with me. Quite the opposite in fact! I think being autistic has in the past given me a confidence few people have. But as an adult I developed SA from being rejected for everything in terms of work and it's a hard thing to shift cos it's an illness.

I think I'm going to try to get stronger in the short term by not paying attention to how many 'likes' I get on twitter this week. Just using twitter as a tool to find information and put my own POV across. Just like on here.

I very much understand the feeling. It becomes a vicious cycle because you know that if you are coming across as, in my case, frankly afraid of interacting with them and bracing yourself for pain, people don't really have an interest in talking to you and thus >>> pain.

Actually I very much and completely understand the feeling because for me as well this is a result of the American workplace whose rules I only vaguely understand but it seems to replicate dominance and aggression hierarchies but we're all also not allowed to talk about it. Everyone's primary interest is making them look great often at the expense of others. My current work environment is legitimately the worst place for a person like me. Every interaction I have with it I am holding back tears. If I ever cried at work I would be teased behind my back. I'm pretty sure normal people are just a step and a half up from animals and their work environment is where their viciousness really shows.

Well, I have to go a different way on that one.

Given my work history, I do not condone unsolicited computer penetration testing. Though I am fine with the legal systems handling the perpetrators on a case-by-case basis and with understanding, which it appears is what happened with Mr. McKinnon.

What I double-retired from was the infamous military-industrial complex. I know their computer security could should be better, but that is a universal truth. All computers are vulnerable; depressingly, I think they will always be so. Even a determined child can find attack tools on the Internet that would allow them to make successful attacks; with enough determined web surfing even a young computer novice could build an arsenal. (And if you are reading this, do not attack computers that do not belong to you--it is not legal, it is not nice, it is not safe, and you might end up with large legal problems.)

We live in a world where there are computer security problems in: big business, small business, big computers, small computers, cell phones, airliners, cars, car doors, front doors, medical equipment, and even sex toys.

Who I had in mind as famous folk that some people think might have been autistic were:

Bartók, Bruckner, Mahler, Beethoven, Mozart
Warhol, van Gogh, Michelangelo
Austen, Thoreau, Joyce, Kafka, Lovecraft, Asimov, Twain
Kubrick, Hitchcock, Chaplin
Franklin, Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln
Edison, Tesla
Darwin, Newton, Einstein

You probably recognize most of them even though I did not give their full names. Even if only a third of them actually were autistic, that is still incredible. It is an honor to share a "disorder" with them. And, yes, I gather it was a "disorder" even for some of them...the same "symptoms" affecting us also affected them.

And it is humbling. Maybe some of you younger folk will be inspired to use the strengths of autism to join their ranks?


P.S. Some links:

https://allthatsinteresting.com/famous-people-with-autism
https://awetismhalloffame.wordpress.com/
https://blog.ongig.com/diversity-and-inclusion/famous-people-with-aspergers-syndrome/
https://blog.ongig.com/diversity-and-inclusion/famous-people-with-autism/
https://sites.google.com/site/notableaspiesinartandscience/
https://www.autism-all-stars.org/autisms-famous-faces/
https://www.menshealth.com.au/famous-people-with-autism
https://www.myaspergerschild.com/2010/10/potential-genius-of-aspergers.html
https://www.ranker.com/list/famous-people-with-autism/celebrity-lists

Well, This is just straight up wrong.

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10 ... 00300/full

https://hms.harvard.edu/news/autism-evolution

https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet ... -evolution

https://youtu.be/25ppkyKUDEw

These are not my unique thoughts or opinions

I've seen assertions in several places that autism is the next stage in evolution.

I don't buy it. For that to be true we'd have to be better at reproducing...or, more to the point, finding someone to reproduce with. My understanding is that many of us are challenged in the romance department; certainly that describes my life.

Maybe autism would propagate better in a society with arranged marriages?

P.S. I am happily married. But finding my bride was an incredibly unlikely fluke and we didn't meet 'til I we were both in our 40s. We have no children but I'm OK with that, my biological clock was past it. I am a guy and I assert guys have a biological clock, too, with respect to having children--I don't think guys should have children after they are 40 because no 60 year old man should have to live with a teenager!

The idea is the fact that is still persists despite it typically not being an indicator for increasing one's odds of reproducing is discussed in some of the material provided above.

Equally interesting is the startling increase in incidences that are often times not heredity linked, one argues that there will come a time when this will not be considered a small minority "disability," but a sizable subset of the population.

It sounds plausible that it might be a recurring spontaneous variation. I would still wonder if biological inheritance occurred in societies that typically had arranged marriages.

Even if autistics remains a minority population, it could be a useful minority:

Temple Grandin wrote:

What would happen if the autism gene was eliminated from the gene pool? You would have a bunch of people standing around in a cave, chatting and socializing and not getting anything done.

Forcing autistics to mimic NTs doesn't sound like a good idea.

Paul Collins wrote:

Autists are the ultimate square pegs, and the problem with pounding a square peg into a round hole is not that the hammering is hard work. It's that you're destroying the peg.

Sooo...trying to get back to your "Big what if"...could I interpret your original post to mean square pegs (other WP inhabitants) risk ambush if they spend all their time wishing they were round pegs?

1. I am unsure where you read into anyone suggesting that people with autism should mimic NT people

2. The ambush with acceptance is an allusion to a fairly popular meme that is mostly self-effacing towards myself...

3. One of the sources posted suggested that autism will rise in levels of variance where it may become a sizable percentage of the population and may conceivably become the new majority over the span of a few generations.

1. I think I've heard elsewhere--maybe not in this thread--that there are pressures for autistics to act like NTs. It seems to me I have experienced that kind of peer pressure when growing up. I interpret the Paul Collins quote above to be about getting square pegs (autistics) to act like round pegs (NTs)...and that it isn't a good thing. I suspect a lot of us agree with that sentiment even if this thread hasn't dwelt on it.

2. I would say I've lost touch with popular culture but it would be a lie. I was never in touch with it. I did not get the allusion. Sorry. I am confused. And, after reflection, my confusion is deeper than I realized...um...should I want you to ambush me with "acceptance"? I had been reading it as a threat but now I'm thinking it is an offer. I am confused. (It's OK, though. I'm confused a lot. I'm used to it.)

3. I think a proliferation of WP folk would be wonderful for society but I doubt it will happen. Some of those NTs are really good at breeding more NTs. And surely it would take more than a few generations. But we can dream...