Is Asperger's Evolution in Process?

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I wasn't necessarily referring to you. You have too quickly jumped to conclusions. I was simply seconding what I believe to be a common thing on this forum. My comments were, in fact, beside the point of the OP and we directed mainly at the comment quoted.

I apologize for not being clearer.

No harm was meant.

No worries, and jumping to conclusions is one of my problems. LOL

That has not been my experience. I don't 'click' with every AS person, but on average, I find them a lot easier to relate to.

Do you have any actual research, or just assumptions and anecdotes? Because my anecdotes are just as good as your anecdotes.

Are you aware of how absolutely offensive that is? Perhaps not; we are often not aware when we do things that are likely to offend; but the ideas behind these statements still represent a very troubling viewpoint. You are making some assumptions which are invalid, and this leaves you open to drawing conclusions which are quite hurtful.

1. You seem to assume that those newly diagnosed are not really Asperger's, that Asperger's is actually very rare because that was what you were told when you were diagnosed. But you have not taken into account the possibility that the increased diagnosis of autism results not from a "fad" but from increasing awareness of something that existed long before we were aware of it--that, in fact, autism is common and can be subtle, and often exists in people who score normally on IQ tests. Our picture of autism has been changing; that does not mean that the newer ideas must be false.

2. You don't address the question of why people might want to identify with Asperger's, either in the sense of disability pride or in the form of AS supremacism. In our culture, disability is generally thought to be scary and something you should distance yourself from, and people with AS have been taught this. Is it really so surprising that people with AS might either reject the idea that AS is a disability and "really" makes them superior (AS supremacism) or else reject the idea that having a disability makes them inferior (disability pride)? We have to deal with that stigma somehow, though some ways are healthier than others.

3. You don't give a cohesive argument as to why you think self-diagnosis of AS is invalid; you seem to be saying, "It's invalid because it's self-diagnosis," which is a bit of a circular argument. Some of us aren't given access to professional diagnosis; others are trying to avoid the stigma of disability. Other than for those with factitious disorder, there is no reason to self-diagnose with something unless you feel that something is really wrong; the obsessive nature of autistics often means that we have as comprehensive a knowledge of autism as most professional specialists. And self-diagnosis is not by definition invalid. Haven't you ever self-diagnosed a cold, and been correct? And this isn't limited to physical illnesses. Statistically, the most reliable test for depression is being asked, "Are you depressed?" The patient usually knows, and more reliably so than the doctor. When you can't get a doctor, you do the best you can with what you have. Some self-diagnosed people are wrong, but so are some professionals.

4. You have not taken into account that, like all people, you are biased by your own perspective.
We all know that we are interesting people, unique and special, and that's because it's true. A human being is such a complex system that every one of them represents something unique that the universe will never see again. However, we also live in a world where there are a lot of people, and a hierarchical structure, and many people try to declare themselves as more special than others. With this established structure, it is commonly believed that some people really are more important than others, and that if you do not want to be inferior, you must declare yourself superior. This is especially problematic for those of us with disabilities, because the world declares us inferior by default. The reaction that many disabled people have is to find some sort of specialness for themselves--such as your being an interesting person, a unique individual with AS, autistic but smart enough to talk about autism.

The trouble started when your situation was found out to be not so unique after all--AS is 10% of the autism spectrum; one in a thousand, rather than one in sixteen thousand, and in addition, many new cases of PDD-NOS and classic autism are in people who are both autistic and verbal enough to talk about it.

The uniqueness that you know exists in you seems to have gotten tangled up with your having a unique perspective on autism; when that unique perspective was threatened, you probably subconsciously went into a defensive mode, rejecting that idea because it implies that you are not special after all--something you know is false. The solution--to separate your uniqueness as a human being from the uniqueness of having a rare disorder--requires thinking out of the box.

5. You assume that AS cannot legitimately include positive characteristics, or be legitimately viewed in a positive light. I say here "legitimately" because you talk a lot about people seeing AS as being cool, or associated with special talents, and you reject this viewpoint. But why does AS--a disability, yes, and a disorder--have to be viewed negatively? Why can't it be "cool"? Why can't people with AS have talents that neurotypicals don't have? Why can't there be an upside to having a disability--perhaps even so much so that you would prefer to be disabled rather than not? If you were a teenager being told that you were disabled and thus a tragedy, wouldn't it make sense that perhaps you might embrace these talents and, unaware of the possibility of universal specialness, decide that having AS made you not inferior but superior? We have to fight it somehow, and we--especially the youngest and most newly diagnosed--are not yet experts at sociology and civil rights.


For the record: I believe AS supremacism is wrong. I believe that seeing yourself as better than others because you have AS or autism is morally repugnant. But I also understand where these people are coming from. Having come to the conclusion that they have a disability--either because they were diagnosed or because their own research led them to it--they have to deal with the quandary of both knowing they are special, and being told that a disability makes them inferior. The lateral thinking required to understand that equality (not just superiority and inferiority) is possible does not occur to all of us. It did not occur to me at first. I have had to go back and edit my early blog posts, because I solved that problem by declaring AS not to be a disability, even though it so obviously is. If you respond to the knowledge that you have AS by saying "AS is not really a disability" or "AS makes you better than others", you're trying to deal with the fact that disability is seen as a bad thing. Only once we challenge that disability/inferiority idea which we've taken for granted can we entertain the concept of equality, of everyone being worth listening to.

I think its more the other way around from what B9 is saying: folks who really have AS or autism wanting to believe that what they have is cool- not NT's "thinking that its cool" to be on the spectrum and then diagnosing themselves to 'join the club'.

Very few nt's even know about aspergers. Most do know about autism, but very few want to be mistaken for someone who has autism.

lol...evolution does not favor autism...

We have a less then average chance of successfully passing our genes on...due to social difficulties, isolation, ect...

Please quietly step away from the Asperger's superiority complex you may be developing.

There is, in fact, a group of young people in America that want so desperately to be different and unique in an attempt to separate themselves from the "norm" that they try to be socially awkward and weird. In the age of the internet, with information available in the blink of an eye from literally anywhere in the world, one of these people could very easily search out a legitimate reason for their weirdness and draw a line in the sand with a self-diagnosis like Aspergers. The reality is that, most often than not, these kids are just like everyone else and in reality practice a very social type of social awkwardness. It is cool to be a geek, or a nerd, or whatever. We live in a world where stores like Hot Topic sell fake horn rimmed glasses so people can pretend to be nerdy or smart or whatever horn rimmed glasses are supposed to mean. People really do latch on to these things to be different.

Me. I never wanted to be different... I just was. I never really wanted to wear glasses... but I do. At 30 years old, do you think I really wanted to be diagnosed with Aspergers? No. But there is no escaping it. The fact that there are people pretending to have a disability because they think some of the traits it encompasses is cool, crawls under my skin. It delegitimizes it for some people and it's offensive. It would be like someone pretending to have Downs or something. Wouldn't that piss a lot of people off? It's especially offensive because they can turn it off if they need to (to get a job or something like that). It's not fair to those who can't.

The bottom line is that people -- some NTs included -- do pretend or fake these things, maybe not for attention, but to try and prove they are different from the norm. This is not about a superiority or anything like that because I actually see myself with many disadvantages due to AS and have suffered greatly throughout my life because of it. I don't think it's cool, but I embrace what I am and cannot change.

Anyways...

That's all beside the point, I guess.

^ I have witnessed the "I'm introverted and shy, I must be AS!" phenomenon myself. I've also seen the superiority complex (as well as NT-bashing) a lot around WP. It's pretty discouraging. I mean, I've been diagnosed and even I'm skeptical that I have it. Being autistic is not a blessing (though it need not be a curse either).

Yes. I have seen A LOT of NT bashing on this site. My wife is NT and has been a blessing to me. In fact, she was the one who convinced me to seek out the help that led to my diagnosis. NTs are not devils.

I have no research.

Without meaning to sound as arrogant as people who say this always sound, you are the one making the extraordinary claim (Aspies can socialise fine with other Aspies, even though they can't socialise generally), so the burden of proof is on you here.

I would say that I get on better with other Aspies than most NTs do (probably because I don't care about their shortcomings as much as an NT would), but I find it easier (less tiring) to socialise with NTs because an NT will sustain the conversation better than an Aspie.

Whilst I've always kinda presumed that a lot of the diagnoses on here would be people who have self diagnosed because they are shy, I don't think I've encountered many.

The NT bashing is ridiculous, particularly in threads such as this one. We are not superior to NTs, though equally I find the assumption that NTs are superior to us to be insulting.

well although it is not necessarily a plus in terms of getting mates.

Men who are doing more tech jobs are suddenly more desirable mates as they can get
jobs and earn fairly good money. So that tips things closer to an Aspie. Also there
are Aspies who are hypersexual and should they obtain a mate that might increase their chances
of having babies especially if a female has AS and is hypersexual that could really tip
things in favor of having more babies. In addition AS is mostly diagnosed in men and women have traditionally
done the childcare and raising of babies which would eliminate the trouble of how to get
said babies raised to adulthood.

The planet can't really support a huge population and if more people have it then in all likelihood
the reproduction rate might go down and pollution might eventually go down. Especially if people
with Autism are more chemically sensitive.

I have seen people on wp try to change the definition of autism to match themselves, e.g. saying that you can have autism without having autistic traits in childhood.

Hey Sack, I just realized that my post about angering someone was really for B9...the long rant... LOL. Think I'd know how to read LOL

Yeah, I'd say that a mistaken self-diagnosis is most likely to occur for an introvert with social anxiety disorder. Western culture seems to prefer extroverts and introversion is often seen as, if not quite pathological, at least undesirable. In other cultures, introversion is seen as preferable.

I don't think a stable introvert is likely to self-diagnose with AS, though. Such a person is not socially anxious and not in distress, and usually has a small number of satisfying close relationships. If they need to, they can socialize proficiently (though it will tire them) and they do not have communication or language problems. However, give that same person social anxiety disorder, and it can be hard to tell apart that and autism.

An introvert with social anxiety disorder still has a disorder, and it can be a severe disorder. If such a person cannot find a psychologist and cannot get treatment, and mistakenly self-diagnoses AS instead of social anxiety disorder, it isn't really the end of the world. These folks do often have problems with socializing, and have a lot in common with autistic people, sometimes even including poor social skills through simple lack of practice. Sure, we should caution self-diagnosed people (and people diagnosed by professionals who weren't particularly well-informed) that they need to be sure that it's autism and not social anxiety disorder--but is it really so bad if some of the people calling themselves autistic aren't actually autistic, if they share so many traits and so many life experiences with us? After all, many autistic people also have social anxiety disorder, and treating that makes things much easier. If you happen to have just social anxiety disorder, but think you have autism as well, it would still be logical to deal with the anxiety disorder.

I'd rather make sure that everybody can get a proper evaluation, than try to figure out whether those who can't are right or wrong about their self-analysis.

Give an infinite number of chimps loaded guns and one will write Hamlet. (I know it's a mash, but my point stands)
Don't give me that BS about time. You're looking at it like our progression has been linear when it's been exponential. Mendelian inheritance-1860s, DNA-1940s, Start of genetic engineering-1970s, Human Genome Project completion-2003, Synthetic DNA-2012. I bet we'll be rewriting ourselves before 2100.
Yeah, people don't always handle technology well, but we can't wait for regular evolution to catch up. Just look at the Cold War; nuclear energy was theorized as a source of power, but instead they built enough weapons to destroy the planet multiple times.
Yes we will try and sometimes fail, but that's the one constant in history; try and try until something works, then improve on that. The alternative is to wait around and wait for somebody to blow us all up. What I hope is that people will have different dreams for changing genetics. Diversity means that some will survive. Right now, humanity is too similar.

Yeah, I suspect I might not have made my point clearly enough.

I am quite aware that our technological progress has been exponential and not linear. I recall reading a book in 1994 which described the curve, claiming that we would essentially know everything, due to the apparent limit of the curve, in around 2012. That was a bit of an 'end of the world' thing which is where I first came across the Mayan calender prediction. Of course, it depends on how you define technological advances, how you can count and plot them.

Not to say that that book was to be taken seriously, or that the world is ending or that we will ever know everything.
I mentioned it because since I read that, I have been observing technological progress, conscious of the rate, and wondering if we ever would become 'godlike' in our level of knowledge.

But I have also been noticing an increase of general stupidity in our species. That is my oversimplified interpretation of it.
The incredible accomplishments that boggle my mind, such as the internet, and smart phones, and so many medical miracles, seem to support the almost godlike progress described in that book.
But then, people have not improved one iota. If anything we are getting worse.
Infectious diseases were supposed to be on the way out - instead we are making superbugs, and struggling to come up with new antibiotics. No doubt, you are already familiar with many of the ways in which the environment is changing, as well as the debate and lack of consensus about cause and courses of action.
Chronic illnesses are increasing dramatically. I read that Universities in the US, and the Army, report that the average intelligence level of candidates seems to be declining for the past few decades. Food is getting more inferior in quality. The general structure of society is unstable - more violence, rudeness, stress, dissent, crime, and less structured social interaction, standards for behaviour, family coherence and religion. (I am not religious, but I do think it gave people a set of principles and behaviours to follow which made society more viable).

I did not mean to say that we do not have the capability of manipulating genes, and in actively making improvements in peoples' genetic destiny. I agree that that is physically possible, and that humans have the raw intelligence to do that. I do NOT agree that our species as a group is anywhere near ready to take on such a radical power. Some individuals would be capable of exercising the care required, but they are not likely to be the people to make those decisions in reality.

Like a chimp with a gun. I am sure they are smart enough to learn to point it, and pull the trigger, and maybe even decide to knowingly kill someone using the gun. But the ethical understanding of the consequences of taking another life - the concept of the victims rights, the impact on their family, the obligation of everyone in a society to contribute to the overall safety of the society, and the supporting of laws to that end, - I don't think this stuff will be on a chimp's mind.

Likewise, if people start manipulating genes, that brings on the issues of who pays for the technology? Who owns it? Who gets to use it? What does it cost? Who misses out? Do rich people then get to engineer perfect children that then own the world, leaving the rest of us to live in their shadow, unable to climb out? How would a poor mother feel if her child had a genetically determined illness but it could be fixed, but she can't afford it and no one else wants to pay?

What about deliberately using the technology to manipulate the population? Should we create a class of strong, disease resistant, intellectually disinterested workers? Is it then OK to try to alter the genes of criminals to make them conformable to society's requirements? So what are their rights anyway? How bad does their crime have to be?
What happens to people who don't want to change what God gave them? Are they then uncompetitive in the new world? What about the possibility of consequences to our environment? How long should people live? What about the trickle down effect of changing the blood which mosquitoes take from us, and the microbes which live in us, and the viruses which multiply in our cells? What if the superbugs get more super?

This is the tip of the iceberg of concerns I have about that kind of power being in the hands of the kind of people who rule our world and if you think it will not be in their hands alone, then you are very naive.
I don't know how old you are, but you remind me of myself a couple of decades ago, before I developed an understanding of how things REALLY are, as opposed to the idealistic way I saw them from my years at Uni.

Last edited by BlackSabre7 on 24 Feb 2013, 9:11 am, edited 1 time in total.