Uncivilized

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My AS-dismissive vigorously NT Paleontologisxt brother maintains that in a Hunting / Gathering society Asperger hominids would be seriously disadvantaged.

I suspect that in a society with room to disappear into, with niches for herbalists and trackers and craftsmen [flintknappers, potters] and shamans and loremasters Aspies might bee needed, accepted, and comfortable.

I maintain that it is this heavily interactive MacDonalds everywhere universal Integrative Education brainwahing media heavy no possible escape regimented society that we are disadvantaged.

Did he give any rationale for his statement?

In a hunter/gatherer society (colonial America comes to mind for me) it's pretty simple; you either do or you die. You learn new things as you go and act on them accordingly. Of course there were people with AS back then, it didn't just come to be when old man Asperger discovered it and put a name on it in 1944.
Since there had to be people with AS back then I doubt they all perished.
I've often thought I'd like to go back in time and live then. It would be a hard but simple life and that in itself has some value.

Of course there were people with AS back then and they were likly the ones who invented things to make life easier like the wheel. I think the people with AS were the sucessful gathers and inventers in the native tribes

in some native american cultures your autism is your ticket to becomming a shamon!

I think that everyone back then was needed and appreciated as a part of a bigger community. The point was to make things move forward in a positive direction for the community. There would have been several places that a person with AS could fit into and be a part of a community. Also, it has been documented that people, even back in the paleolithic times, took care of the elderly and disabled.

Besides, what does your brother, a Paleontologist, know about human relations? Ask me, I studied Anthropology and Religious Studies in college.

I've lived in the woods doing everything short of hunting because I had access to easier food, though I am capable of hunting if need be, I am also leery of getting too many modern pollutants filtered through small game.

I'm half native american roughly, incidentally, and something of a natural shaman type, definitely.

I'm certain that I could lead people on a salvia journey that would be amazing.

Salvia is a type of hallucinogenic herb smoked/chewed by various shamanistic cultures, it isn't just a "trip" though, as it appears to be tapping into the part of the brain that registers where you are in the Universe... if it can tell where you are, then it must include information about everywhere and when that you are not, the types of experiences reported by complete laymen are FAR too accurate regarding the nature of 4 Dimensional spacetime, and existence within the Universe. They have more aspects of reality than not, I am certain.

I could guide someone on a trip around the Universe while they were under the influence of that drug, help them see that they are truly a part of everything, and what everything is.

Though I would not try some of the things with another that I would do myself, such as trying to find the edge of the Universe and go past it, or go inwards through myself, those could get scary fast for someone unprepared.


I do have experience with this actually, I led my girlfriend on a lucid dream a week or two ago, I noticed she had dozed off while we were talking, so I began painting a setting for her, told her she had beautiful rainbow wings, led her on a flight through a cloud to a rainbow, had her take a handful of it which she described as "crystals!" and wanted to put on her childhood house windowsill, we got interrupted by an alarm clock I think, but I look forward to trying it again.

" Colonial America" was not what scientist call " a hunter-gather society".

Stone age cavemen were hunter/gatherers. The lifestyle survives to the present day with the Australian Aborigonines, Eskimos, bushmen, some Indian tribes and other groups.

It means pre-agricultural people who live off the land by killing wild animals and gathering wild plants. Were talking about the original state of the human race before either the Industrial or agriculural revolutions took place like 11 thousand years ago.

There were frontier individuals who lived off the land but even they traded furs for manufactured goods like guns and supplies in colonial times.

Sometimes I fear that giving AS a name actually makes it seem more of a disadvantage than it really is. Of course people with AS/HFA existed in all types of previous cultures and survived just fine, because they had to. Just like today, everyone has to find a niche they can fit themselves into and make do from there. Just because things are harder doesn't mean you get to lie down and quit.

If a group of hunters decided their Aspie brother wasn't the best at stalking game, they'd have had him stay back at the camp and make arrows. And chances are, they'd come home to find a bunch of new ones that flew faster and straighter.

They can't have been too disadvantaged if the genes survived and there are this many autistics.

um, we evolved. LOL. In the meantime aspies invented stuff like calendars and the wheel and stuff.

WhiskeryBeast > "Besides, what does your brother, a Paleontologist, know about human relations? Ask me, I studied Anthropology and Religious Studies in college."

In a word, he knows about human relations enough to be worse at them than I am. I could back that up with data but it would be unethical.

He also contends I could not be Aspie because he has had two students of that ilk, and I am just "excusing my behavior"

Alana's point is of course good - a pretty fair proportion of our non hunting / gathering society is based on innovations coming from us disadvantaged.

I can't imagine anyone who wasn't aspie being a shaman and getting away with it.