Is today's world harder for aspies?

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I think this topic was discussed about a year ago, it's about how the world today is harder on us and how our forefathers had an easier life. For one thing, all old aspies I know got married before turning 24, while the young ones can't seem to get a girlfriend or boyfriend, including me, and i'm 25 and quite handsome, hehe

Yesterday an aspie had no choice but to lead a normal life, get a job, raise a family, while today there are hundreds of things we can get lost in, like our obsessions, web browsing, endless hours in front of the TV, puzzles, books, you name it, I know you've been there. I think because of these things it's easier to be happy alone, but it's also turning us into social outcasts, which on the other hand might not be a bad thing, maybe our fathers weren't as happy as we are, maybe their social lifes were a nightmare, my aspie father once disappeared for a week, no one ever knew where he was or what he did, but knowing everything I know now, I think he was tired of us and took a break alone. He was always mad around us and my grandfather was always mad too, he would beat his wife and kids on a daily basis.

Like I said in another thread if we keep having so much difficulties finding love we may be nearing our extintion, we may be one of the last generations of aspies, espeacially with the prenatal tests and CureAutismNow.

Anyone wanna share more thoughts?

Well, I personally think we are starting to take over the world.

I cant imagine wearing the 8 layers of cloths women use to have or the corsets...I would be swooning all the time...no air conditioning,ugh.I would have had a hell of a time fitting into the submissive role women had then,it was hard enough being a tomboy in the 70's.I probably would have enjoied living on a farm churning butter and talking to the cows,but slaughtering them would have been hard.Women were still expected to "chat" with other women at the sewing bees,but I probably would have enjoyed
collecting wild herbs.Maybe I would have been the "crazy old cat lady" living in a cabin in the woods...that would have been fun,right up until someone decided I was a witch and burned me.

Most likely though,I would have been someones house servant doing menial tasks...like I do now.The other option doesnt sound so great....ending up in the local sanitarium having an ice pick shoved into my frontal lobe.oh Joy....those were the days.I sure would miss the internet and my easy access to books.

One time I was cruising around the reservation with Marlon Strikes With A Gun, and we stopped by to visit his cousin Clayton who lived by himself down in the river valley. As we pulled up to his house, Marlon told me, "He's kinda ret*d, but not exactly."

Clayton was really friendly, although he didn't talk, it was obvious he understood what was going on. He communicated a lot with gestures. He handed me a thick file folder stuffed with newspaper clippings. He watched while I started looking through them, confused at first, the topics seemed totally random, then I noticed. "Every one of these has somebody named Clayton," I said. He smiled and nodded.

A little later Claton and I went outside. He showed me around the woods, pointing things out and explaining them in gestures. He pointed to a tree which had been cut down and sawed into three foot sections which were left laying in place. With his right hand, he made the motion of pulling up a rope around his neck while his face made the expression of choking. Suicide is common there. I nodded that I understood, grateful that I wasn't expected to come up with something to say.

I knew a little of the plains indian sign language, and Clayton understood my sign language better than my speech. Marlon came out and joined us. I asked Marlon what kind of bird had built a nest Clayton had showed me. He and Clayton had a conversation in sign language, then Marlon told me, "He thinks it was a magpie."

As we were driving off, I said to Marlon, "It must get kind of lonely for him, I imagine a lot of people don't want to take the time to figure out what he's saying."

"No," Marlon said, sounding almost offended that I would say something so stupid, "He's got a lot of friends"

I think the world is easier for us now. People might not be perfectly accepting of everything, but they're MORE accepting of people being "different" than they were in the past. In the 1950's if you weren't trying to get married right after high school, then there was clearly something wrong with you.

Nowadays, it's difficult getting support for anyone who isn't a child, but at least there is SOME support. As few as 15 years ago, there wasn't even a diagnosis for what was "wrong" with us, it was either assumed that it was your own fault and you could stop if you tried really hard, or it was due to some sort of psychological "scarring."

1950s would be fun.

I personally think sooner or later people with aspergers will get their say. Sure, they may be trying to find a "cure" but what do you think a majority of Aspies (from what I can see) will say? From what I can tell just about all of us here are happy with who we are and wouldn't want to change. Of course I can't speak for all of us, and only what I assume, but this is what I assume. I mean, in truth, you can not force us to go through a operation we do not want to take. There needs to be concent to things like brain operations, and I for one will not give my consent. I mean, sure. Mabey some of the people with classical autism would do it, I don't know. I don't really know that many people with classical autism. Besides, we have the internet to help us meet someone. It may seem a bit desperate to alot of people, but I for one have seen barely any girls in my area who'd go out with me and I wanted to also. (Lol, yes. Sorry for whining at the end)

Alrighty, then. Lead the way!! !

I think that when technology was less advanced and centralized, there were a lot more things people had to figure out, and aspie obsessions would have made a person more valuable than they are today.

I don't know how my car's air conditioning works. If it quits working, I have to take it in to a service center, where a trained technician has been taught all about how they work, what goes wrong with them, and what to do about it.

I spent a year writing maintenence manuals for jet aircraft pneumatic valves. It sounds technical, but actually it required very little real thinking. They were all variations on two basic designs, and when you only think about pneumatic valves, you understand them well enough that you don't spend much time figuring things out, everything that comes up is pretty obvious.

Nobody really invented radio. Somebody discovered that electrical signals could be transmitted through the air and received. Some people found it really interesting and experimented around with it, trying different things, and over decades it got better and better.

Carpenters centuries ago had to figure out a lot more things than carpenters building mass produced houses today. It's hard to think of a modern job that parallels the skill of the people who built swords in the middle ages. They had to be fascinated by the properties of metal, and how they could alter these properties to get the right combination of strength, hardness, and flexibility. It was nothing like a modern factory job.

I think of the clovis spear points, crafted of flint and strong and sharp enough to penetrate mammoth hide and go in deep enough to produce a lethal wound. It took a lot of practice for me to learn to make crude arrow points out of glass and obsidian. I never got good enough to work flint, which is much harder. The clovis points are deadly works of art, with long grooves down the center for the blood to run through. People obviously spent years developing this level of skill and craftsmanship, hour and hours of practice and total frustration when you were almost done and the thing broke in half. Not many modern jobs require this kind of specialized obsession.

As our technology advances, the need for people who are seriously devoted to learning about it diminishes, and the important jobs are in sales and management. People skills jobs.

I always wanted to be a crazy cat lady! :O That's something I really look forward to when I'm old!
It's enjoyable to be at school when there is a lot of "discipline" and the kids are not running wild. This seemed to be the case more so in the past (esp. in Europe). Now schools are becoming "Americanized" and more focus is on "team work" and "fun" and "practical work" - all of which = horror.
A long while ago, I would've been burned as a "witch". Or became some sort of a "high priestress" or "healer" or something.
A few decades ago, I think I would've been either a physicist, movie-star or a mental-patient... probably all of those.
These days... IT or business looks good for AS and Internet, books, etc. keep occupied.

I think that this is the best time to be an aspie. The simple reason being that we have access to all of the new technology, we have the internet so that we can communicate our feelings and learn about what we love and such. The internet gives aspies greater freedom than they ever knew before.

I tend to disagree with the idea posted by Canyonwind that technological thinkers have become less valuable because I believe that is untrue. Some of the better paying careers today are in the sciences. The average starting salary for most engineers and computer scientists in the US is $50,000 for new graduates, which is higher than for most other majors and significantly above the national average. This means that our technologically minded can find their way into financial success if they can only sell their capabilities, and at the same time they can still express their interests in robotics, or signals, or chemical processes, etc. Not only that but the modern society can be best described as a technological age, and technological growth is something that we stress highly today in many fields.

Aspies have even gotten recognition today in fields such as programming(Bram Cohen), music(Gary Numan), and economics(Vernon Smith) and more people know about AS than ever before. In short, I think that the modern age is likely better