Aspies In The Wild

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I've been reading a bit about the social differences of Aspie v. NT. And most people fall back on outdated evolutionary reasoning. In reality, I think Aspies would do better in a prehistoric environment. These days, social skills are the most important of skills, but back then, anything would've been useful.

I'm gonna need your input on this. Discuss.

It fits with the neanthrathal/aspie theory, I'll give you that much. I'm not sure how well we would survive in the wild though as there isn't any humane way to test that.

What are you talking about? My cages are very Aspie-friendly.

I thought this was a camping thread. I had things to say about camping.

Frances

I have to admit, sometimes I do feel like a caveman living in today's time.

I get the urge to eat with my hands all the time. Screw using forks and knives when eating spaghetti. I'm just annoyed with all the social norm crap when going out in public. Sometimes I just want to frolic through stores.

I thought that too. I was thinking how wonderful it would sound (in warmer weather though) to hit the Appalachian trail and camp under the stars in my Eureka Timberline 2-person A-frame tent. But, I would also love to take a camping trip with my family in the camper.

As for going back to prehistoric times---ugh. I'm not sure I'd survive well. Now I'm thinking about when I was a child in the 1970s and loving the kids' show Land of the Lost. I thought that looked neat. Their cave was cozy.

Hmm, solitary aspie, salutary hunter. Makes sense.

I've expressed this theory multiple times on this board, not so much prehistoric times, but just going as far back to 100 or so years ago, it seems like Aspergers tendancies wouldn't be a huge concern. And if you could put yourself to use with your Aspergers special interests and do cool stuff, even better. But, the things we concern ourselves with on this board socially, things like dating, high school, etc, were nonexistent. Marriages were arranged back then, so any social difficulties you had with women were pretty irrelevant.

I can go on and on with my conjecturer, but I'd just like to speak of my personal experience. In my personal experience, when my power went out, I just LOVED it. I was really calm, rationally, and reasonably prepared for such an event. I loved it, because it was like having the tables turn on the world for once. During the week with no power, when I was cooking things on my grill and car exhaust manifold, taking showers at the gym, I simply loved it. To me, it was so easy to "figure" everything out, all I had to do was make sure food was prepared, that's it. No multitasking 800 things, I loved it. That week, I only had one cup of coffee in the morning everyday. Now, it's back to "as normal" and I need like 3 energy drinks a day to keep up with everyone else.

So my theory, the reason why Aspergers became a diagnosis was because as life went on, the "NT" became more advantageous due to the change from societal standing being more based upon your abilities in what you could "do" vs how you make people "feel." It's happened in USA with just jobs alone, at the turn of the century most low end jobs in America were factory jobs. Now, most low end jobs in America are customer service jobs. So to me, I simply think of Aspergers/HFA/etc as just being a person that's an anachronism in this Brave New World.

Dang, I thought it would be a camping thread too.

Who wants s'mores?

I think one advantage would be that "advertising skills" would matter less than actual productive skills. You would be either a good hunter or a bad one and the whole tribe would be able to judge first-hand. A person who is a good talker -- good at sounding like he's a good hunter when he isn't, would be shown to be a fraud pretty quickly.

I have spent months at a time out on my own without really talking to anyone, this is the hardest thing in the world for NTs to do but not so for me...give me a fishing line and some fields where I can find something to eat and I will be perfectly fine...

I get that, I've just eaten chilli con carne with my fingers. I always have a fork in one hand but use the fingers of my other hand. the messier the better.

I opted for sleeping rough in my younger days, I just couldn't understand the whole living under a roof business.

Ok, now I'm confused... WHAT Neanderthal Aspie theory?

As for prehistory... I disagree. Prehistoric humans depended so much on each other. You can be loner today if you want and still survive somehow. Not in prehistory. (I'm not making this up; I'm an archaeologist and I know how people lived in prehistory. You couldn't do anything without the cooperation with others). Now, maybe in those days people felt connected to everyone in the group, regardless of his social skills, so maybe your awkwardness wouldn't ostracize you the way it does today. But you depended on others more than you depend on them today.

NTs wouldn't have survived in prehistoric times without aspies. Who do you think sat in the cave for hours upon end rubbing sticks together to get their fires started?