NT's Are NEANDERTHALS, Yes?

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That article seemed to indicate that autistic people were neanderthals.

Have you ever read Clan of the Cave Bears? It is about a Cro Magnon girl who is adopted and raised by a Neanderthal tribe.

To some extent, having AS is like being that Cro Magnon girl living in the Neanderthal tribe--having a pretty good idea of what is going on, but not being totally in on the "why." They are completely different species, and, for the neanderthals (at least the way it was presented in the story), there is a lot more of, I don't know quite how to phrase it, maybe collective memories that span back through the eons, and collective knowledge or consciousness (or unconcsiousness) that the Cro Magnon girl just wasn't a part of. So, she had to spend a lot of effort trying to figure out things that everyone else in the tribe instinctively knew and understood. Sometimes she would challenge the way things were supposed to be within the tribe, which is something that just wasn't done, and was very dangerous to do, although she had to.

It's easy to ridicule those who are different. It happens to us, and that's reason enough to avoid doing it to others.

Neurodiversity is just another thing to tolerate like religion and race. It's natural for it to be a low priority in the world view because of the relatively rare occurance of the diversity. Sure, NT's can be fun to joke about, but we can't let it degenerate to some kind of hatred or intolerance that just makes everyone less understanding of everyone else.

The solution is to appreciate your own kind without depreciating other kinds of people. I'm a socialist, Viking, Scandinavian Dane Buddhist with Asperger's syndrome. Yes, I prefer people who have things in common with me, and yes, I'm extremely proud of these facts, but no, I don't feel or see any need for me to consider anyone of less value if they live with any other culture, nationality, philosophical faction, or neurotypical status.

I don't need to get into WHAT makes me form my opinion of people, but karma and honour are important factors...

That's kind of what I have been thinking. Adaptation to the envoriment. Our enviroments mostly require logic on our part. I agree though, that in a web sight for diversity that some types of "Nts are this or that" stuff should be avoided. Some person might think it's ok to label NTs negatively and take it to another level. Seen that before on a number of occasions, but not here, mind you. I didn't think the link was all that bashing really.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not offended or anything as an "NT." My general opinion is just that people set up partitions and claim major differences where there are none. I'm sure everyone here is familiar with the symptoms of ASD's, which means we're also aware of how subjective it often is. Many NT's have autistic traits and many Aspergians have even more NT traits. Hell, I'm neurotypical as far as I know and many Aspergians on this website have done more NT and have more NT traits than I do (relationships, driving, etc). Who is to say someone isn't mildly autistic or just introverted with intense interests? Just the fact that (on the milder end of the spectrum) the differences are so blurry and subjective, it simply seems like it's taking it too far to claim Aspergians are anything more than somewhat different (and often more intelligent in many ways) humans.

My father is an NT.
A very nice man - i dont know wether i would call him a neanderthalll or not, but if you called him that to his face i would probably punch you.

If only there were a quirk line. I have met some very typical people, social, business success, what you would think fit the NT profile, turns out we have common obsessions. They obsess well.

Name an aspie trait, and it can be found in the general population. Lots of people with one, many with two, three or more you are an aspie, if they can catch you.

Many underground aspies, seemed ordinary to neighbors, co workers, but have a private life.

Then there are aspies who do not have any of the fun stuff, no collections, knowledge, talents, just hanging out in aspieland and taking up space. We need a remedial aspie boot camp.

there is lots of self hatred on this site. so i would say yes

Evidence: when the first neandertalls were discovered their DNA was tested against modern day humans, and they were found to not be the same species. The sample used was most likely that of an NT. Secondly, like a tiger can have a lion cub, how do you suggest that NT's can have an aspie child or an aspie have an NT. Bear in mind that two species, even those closely linked like horses and donkeys, can't have viable offspring. When two seperate species procreate problems arise, like how 90% of mules of sterile, or how the liger has to gene to make it stop growing.

... this sight is about promoting tolerance between NT's and aspies. How can you expect people to accept you if you're busy telling them that they're a less evolved species?

I'm not even going to go into the problems involved with considering the data from the Aspie-quiz to be representative of autistics as a whole. There were plenty of other problems on that page. "Shaky" is a good word to describe it. How about hypothesizing that autistics are afraid of motor-bikes because they sound like cave bears? That was a personal favorite. For a simpler explanation, maybe autistics don't like motor-bikes because they have hearing sensitivities, and motor-bikes are loud and obnoxious? Also, the bit on the language impairments indicated a real lack of understanding of the language deficits demonstrated by autistic individuals. I especially love the bit where it says: "low level 'impairments' are suggested by psychiatry". First of all, psychiatrists don't deal with language. That would be speech pathologists. Not even knowing that information gives me the idea that he probably knows next to nothing about language research. And the conclusions he drew about the presence of innate mechanisms of language were, quite frankly, ignorant. Sounds like he's read some Chomsky and not much else. I admire the amount of research he's done, but he makes some rather wild leaps from some rather shaky premises, and he seems to have a rather shallow understanding of some of the "facts" he posted on that page.

I've always identified with Neandethals, so I don't know.

Also Neanderthal and Homo Sapiens is an example of parallel evolution. Neither is more or less advanced or evoloved, it's just circumstances that have lead to one becoming extinct and one thriving. If the ice age continued for a few thousand years more, we could all be asking what happened to the primitive Homo Sapiens (though I'm sure we'd call them something different).

The Neandethals were just as intelligent as H.Sapiens, despite what Clan of the Cave Bear says (great book, by the way, but just a book). And some evidence suggests that on average, their brains were a bit bigger than ours.

I wouldn't take it as an insult to be compared to a Neanderthal, by someone who knew their stuff.

But... Calling NT's Neanderthals in a way that suggests they are lower on the evolutionary ladder? Well, that's like them calling us freaks in a way that's meant to alienate and belittle us.

If there are a minority of NT's who know who we are and have a problem with us, are you really going to make the same mistake and brandish every NT as being the same?

Oy! Leave Neandertals alone -- they're a very malaligned people.

Evidence is, they were much more like autistic people than NTs. Because they tended to stick with places they were more comfortable with, rather than spreading further than they had to go. And also they would keep to the same techniques, perfecting them over time (And becoming remarkably good at them) rather than trying new ones. Neandertal blades have been found that were one molecule thick. That is, five times sharper than a surgeon's scalpel.

I read that about three times. Good book. Shame about the sequels.

Ugh! Hear, hear! The first book turned our expectations about culture and language upside down and took a fascinating look at what might have been. The later books were full of porn and corny dialogue.

I still liked the whole series. The setting and characters are richly evocative. I just overlooked the "porn" I guess...eagerly waiting for Book 6!!

Eh. The only model I'm subscribing to these days is Itzhak Bentov's http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Itzhak_Bentov bell curve theory that states at any given time there will be 3 phases in mankind's development - those that lag and are underdeveloped, those that are ahead of the pack and those that lead in genius and spirituality and that this curve is constantly fluid, moving and evolving.

Nice. Yeah. I can get behind this.

Actually I just was looking at the word Neanderthal and noticed that the NT was already in there (NeanderThal). Then I started this thread without prejudice, just as an observation. Then after some thought started making correlations between the rat race, dog-eat-dog sheeple society and who lives in it, runs it and who threw in the towel and cut themselves off from it.