Why is aspie separatism/supremacy controversial?

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Speciating, doen't make us non-humans, neandertals weren't non-humans.

It makes absolutely no difference in what kind of team you are in. You can be of an other religion, an alien, or just of different football teams. The brain part dealing with teams, doesn't understand small print, teams are teams. Your chances to be genocided are the same, being seen as a special type of human, or a different species. The only thing important, its if you are threatening, you can be considered as threatening even as a type of human.

I didn't say we where a different species, i said we were currently speciating. From a technical point of view, its bound to happen, its the first time in geological history that there is a single species of humans. From a security point of view, its beater, for example a single nasty bug can kill a lot of people. See for example the pig plague(or whatever the English name is), it could have degenerated really badly, its just a matter of time before it actually happen. With two species, one is looking the other when its sick, you can sell that to people. In prehistoric times, really bad event happened to our ancestors, of all the species only one survived, if back then there was only one, today there would be none left.

To the average human, that is fine print....

Empathy makes a difference, and empathy is strongly correlated to identification and relatedness. By suggesting we are speciating you are making us less relatable and making it less likely that others will identify with us and our concerns. You are reducing empathetic response and dehumanizing us in the minds of others.

So what? At one time in geological history there were no humans at all. That there be any humans, or x number of species of humans is not necessary or inevitable.

Evolution is not looking out for our security. That X would be "better" does not necessitate that X will occur.

That a nasty bug can kill a lot of people does not necessitate speciation; it's actually irrelevant evoluntionarily until such an event actually occurs. Speciation is certainly not necessary as a solution anyway, in-species variation exists in part as a result of differential survival in response to "nasty bugs".


Humans have been plagued by plauges throughout human history. A huge proportion of the population was wiped out by an influenza strain less than a century ago. We do not seem to be experiencing any shortage of people though.

Honestly, that is such a purile suggestion you frankly astonish me. Many bugs infect and sicken on a cross-species basis. I see no indications whatsoever that people with ASDs happen to have any particular exceptional resistence to the kinds of bugs that normally effect humans. Or is representing this as plausible just another lie you are happy to tell for your PR exercise?
Variation in susceptibility to various "nasty bugs" is already present within the human species anyway.

Actually there is a great deal of uncertainty as to what happened to other species. There are a number of plausible theories. That some bug wiped out everyone but anatomically modern humans (or their direct ancestors) is not one of them (and no wonder given the geographic disparity of the groups concerned).

You did say that. But you've based it on nothing but wishful thinking. Pandd took apart the paragraph sentence by sentence so no need for me to do the same thing. (I couldn't do it as elegantly anyway.) If you do make this pronouncement in earshot of NTs they will neither step up any genocidal plans out of self-protection nor nod in agreement. They will roll their eyes and consign you to the same category of delusionals as those who think autistic children are "Indigo Children".

@ pandd

You are too absolute.

I'll just say, that as long you assume equality(majority in community?), a sympatric speciation is very plausible, everything considered.

@ Janissy

Indigo Children? Thank you for you intellectual contribution. A good idea of how to start the viral.

I'll bring up something that hasn't been brought up yet. If I'm off base, Pandd will be able to say exactly how, but it needs to be brought up anyway.

Race.

This whole "speciation" theory seems based on the observation that people carrying autism genes are reproducing with each other....assortative mating. You have this idea that if people stick within their own group (autistic people) then eventually speciation will occur. If that were true, different races would be different species. But that hasn't happened, has it? Geographically separate people had children with each other in mostly isolated groups over enough time for "race" to develop. Pandd will know the genetic specifics. Yet even in very isolated groups (such as deep in the Amazon rainforest aboriginal people in Australia) no separate species developed. The different neurology of autism may make you "feel" like a different species. But if sticking to reproducing within a certain group actually led to speciation, then such speciation would have happened on all the different continents. Instead, we only got different racial groups (which are just pile-ups of genetic characteristics) that only recently got frequent chances to reproduce with a diverse cross section of humans.

Ok I agree serious form of positive presentation is needed. Cut through camaraderie building humor.

Has anyone tried to talk to Gvt. Minister (US =) about social inclusion, infrastructural support, heath+education provision etc?

These guys seem most approachable to me most of time when head not too full of usual many things to think about.

What is it we realistically want?

Bullet points please.

Will have >ten minute window.

You need far more time then what these populations had to split in species. If what you say was true the evolution is wrong, since new species can't appear. You are treating humans in some special way?

And for the speciation, the first step would be the formation of a separate race. Even that its at a very early stage.

*To educate people, put "autism communication quirks" in the curriculum of the general population. Bring intelligent(contrast to ret*d) autistics in classes, so that people can stair what we look like. Maybe also bring non verbals in classes?

*Maybe an official mark, like a pin, so that people can recognize us immediately, it will cut out all the nonsense. Abuse of the mark by other people would be punishable by law. To be put in identity cards?(its there business to know somehow, if we want they communicate with us on equall grounds)

*Autism denialism to be illegal, about its existence and about individuals with official recognition.

*Discrimination to be illegal, (for example we should be able to pass an adapted job inteview)

*Something specific for non-verbals?

(concise and simple, should be a good start, don't cost much. Don't overcrowd the list, other issues about other disabilities should be treated with other lobbies(wheelchairs, retardation....). )

As a divergent species, give it five million years.

Recent history has been Multi regional groups that first developed in isolation, then spread and crossed. With 22 Haplogroups out of Africa, I see it a single species with breeds.

Talking points, we should be ignored, for we do our best work that way.

While I do see pan autistic traits, they are as different as the rest of the population.

Even within this micro minority, there is not agreement as to how to relate, to each other, or the rest of the world.

While I do see an advantage in web based subject groups, those special interests are not the domain of Autistics. That mental focus is also found in NTs.

Recent history shows grouping by talent more than anything. Autistics are found around Universities, High Tech, Skilled trades, where their differances are not so vast to some NT who also lives for Entomology.

Our advantages are in developed special interest, which are needed, not in broad acceptance of our social skills, which would cave in the world.

As for the "Lego Pride" Movement, I was much better off before Rainman, when I was an unknown large strange person.

We do not live in a world where being different counts for much. The world judges by one standard, which was summed up by the modern Philosopher, Mick Jager, "Performance."

While we are well represented in some skills, to make it work someone else has to go connect at a personal level, cocktail parties, investors, where super socializing is the needed skill. They have to read body language, eyes, tone of voice, and play a duet there to make it all work, and that is not us.

While we do have something to develop, a group of painters can help develop each other, those who want to paint can find support, but without the art gallery, they would starve.

We are a group, but for every one that deals from disability, nine deal from somewhat talented with quirks. The larger group needs the world, and the world needs them.

I do think we need to self define, all minorities that do, do not get stepped on. We need to self educate, for I found the current system put me in a University with people who just took a natural dislike to something different about me. Being there was bad enough.

Economic advancement and the web has made life better.

All of my customers are NT.

I agree with the modified guilds.

It seems we are talking about a number of separate issues here.

1. Commercial demand for our skills and our skill response as organ-ization. This is a form of natural economic ( self) organization, ie selecting best structure.

2. Creating more favorable social-economic environment to market skills. For example in my own field it is possible to show the social and economic value of art and craft. There are many numerous schemes in place to help promote, sell, fastrack, good art .

This of course could be applied to computing science etc.

2a. Linking these to education and helping kids through to marketplace.

The last thing I want to see is a few million quid spent on government advertising/commercials like well meaning Autism Speaks awareness style campaign. Budget gets burnt up in media and message often distorted and looses point.

Money could be used for subtle , quiet dignified development of practical routes to overcoming social difficulties, starting in schools and ending in job market.

This would create a loose "guild" overseeing the development of the next generation.

Can see UK model of how to do this.

when i said education, i did mean schools, like some kind of course and an autistic visiting, not like anti smoking compains. I would cost too much, we don't have a lobby that powerful. Here come my little CHEAP viral proposal.

And 5M years is alredy too much probably.

We could ask to be recognized as a race? With many benefits follow automatically with current legislation.

Speciation over time can occur as a result of assortive mating, but you are quite right to state that this has not occurred in respect of genetically isolated anatomically modern humans.

In the first instance one could suggest this is a matter of not enough time in isolation; for the purposes of this discussion, if 10,000s of years of genetic isolation has not produced speciation, then the time frame over which any alleged assortive mating of people with ASDs might have occured is probably not long enough to begin to even think of speciation at this point.

In the second instance, time frames for speciation are not pre-determined but are correlated to the intersection of biological traits and potentiality, and environment. Humans have spread across the globe and live in disparate environments, and yet are stable and unspeciating for tens of thousands of years on end despite genetic isolation of various groups and even though the environmental circumstances of various groups significantly differ. Although biological responses to various environmental circumstances have arisen among various human groups, speciation has not. This suggests that a kind of robust stability to the human body plan and biology may be providing some resistence to speciation.

Which is to say, you are quite right and your point is well made.

Last edited by pandd on 14 Mar 2010, 12:04 pm, edited 1 time in total.

If your nation's laws do not protect you without having to construe yourself as some distinct race, then perhaps you should concentrate on reforming those laws rather than trying to spread counter-productive non-truths about a large group of people, who do not necessarily want lies that they are speciating being spread about them.

I have the same protection under law in my country as I would have if people characterized by ASDs were a distinct discrete racial/ethnic group. Where I live, discrimination on the grounds of ethnicity is unlawful by virtue of exactly the same legislative mechanism that renders discrimination on the grounds of disability unlawful. The same legislation covers discrimination on the grounds of sex, sexuality, religious/political affliation, age and familial status. It offers no protection against discrimination on the grounds of species though.

Things that spring to mind here.

Even if we were speciating would it be a good idea to go out and pronounce this to the world? I think the same thing goes for becoming defined as a racial group. Things are fairly OK now but history , and indeed recent tells us that inter-racial conflicts still happen, between former good neighbors, and they have very negative results. What is more hatred seems to be able to generate itself out of thin air, unless you examine all the tiny often every day bits of behavior that went into that generation, usually from both sides of the conflict. Very negative of course is an understatement.

If we were wouldn't be better off simply living amongst them, knowing we could form a quick accurate theory of mind with others like ourselves and generally work towards a set of mutual goals . We still resemble them physically , few of them even know why we think differently and indeed how we think. Most of the time there is no problem.

Once we become another race, and the Ashkanasic Jews spring to mind ,you create your own culture, you own identity , you need an economic and political base framework to exist in to maintain autonomy. It is very difficult to achieve and maintain this.

Also I don't personally think the loud campaigns for disability labeling are the right way to go. I'm not disabled , and I don't think many people here are or would want to regard themselves as disabled . We are different ,but our differences ,if given the correct social opportunities, nurturing and development would far outweigh our current social difficulties. It's finding that route
to turning the negative into a positive. To go down that route we need some contact with government , and to prevent all the normal government agencies and media units from going on autopilot, burning up the budget and making a load of Aspergers the problem type advertising and documentaries.

They need to be told clearly what we need and how to go about things more quietly and positively. They will also not realize how much resentment negatively labeling otherwise able individuals will create. ( They don't think about stuff like this )


Political opponents to positive Aspie development will do the old trick of picking up discontents for their own purposes, then you will have Aspie factions. (It's the old divide and rule.) I have seen one political party very callously exploit other interest groups like this, simply to try to win a marginal seats on a single issue.

So a quiet route to social improvement in which we make favorable conditions for ourselves and our children?

If you aren't visible, so that you protect your rights, no one will do it for you. Yes they are dangers of becoming visible, but don't foul your self you'll not be herd if you are hiding under a rock.

It's true that when a new evolutionary innovation becomes dominant worldwide, it usually results in radiation into many different species. I think speciation along geographic boundaries is more likely than sympatric speciation, though. In fact, there's evidence that there has been geographical genetic differentiation even in the evolutionarily limited amount of time since humans became global:

http://www.plosgenetics.org/article/inf ... en.1000500

Of course industrial age global mobility may result in remixing of the geographic gene pools. Still, I think sympatric speciation of aspies and neurotypicals is less likely than one form or the other becoming universal, or both existing in an evolutionarily stable mixed strategy.