Are aspies really "indigo children".

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Autism is not the next step in evolution. There are no steps anyway

evolution is always incremental, the evolution of the eye is a fascinating example.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... lution.svg



i wasn't talking about autism, i avoid in purpose in being specific, indigo children is a bit fluffy concept. I think, its pretty much certain, the next step of human evolution is in the DSM. Simply because its a relative advantage, not an absolute one. If an absolute advantage was possible, it would have alredy happened.

The Indigo children concept is based on the idea that you can see Auras, yeah? Do people actually believe that kind of thing? Last time I heard someone talk about auras it was a friend in junior high school who had convinced himself he was on the verge of developing his third eye. Until they can build a machine that scans auras, I'm not going to buy it, and I don't think anyone else should.

Yes, but there was never a plan to develop an eye step by step. Each step conferred an advantage and for that reason alone, it was succesful. The eye never would have evolved at all if even one step reduced fitness (defined by the ability to pass one's genes on through as many generations as possible). It doesn't matter that the end result would be well worth such a trade-off, because evolution doesn't happen like that, it has no ability to make a plan and it has no final destination in mind.

Actually, its not required that each step is absolutely beater then the previous one. If an intermediate stage is worse, it simply takes longer for a statistical fluke to jump it. Evolution is non linear. Sexual recombination of genes, try to increase the probability of such flukes. Evolution is still blind and stupid.

I don't think you understood, my comment. I was talking about relative advantages. The disadvantages remain, its the dead weight of some advantage.

For example, on face value, sleeping is a huge waste of time. None the less it gives some kind of relative advantage, this is why sleep wasn't selected out. What is this advantage? Its too complicated, the details are not important, we just know for sure that it surely gives us an advantage. The point is, that its quite obscure on the face of it, why we sleep, don't start quoting theories, its just an example.

With developmental disorders, its similarly complicated. We can see that they are mixtures of straight and disability. you can't guess in advance, which one is really a relative advantage or not. We'll really know in 100k years.

Successful, mutations, giving relative advantages are much more frequent then absolute advantages. There are some apparent disadvantages. So we are rather certain, the next step in evolution will be labeled a disorder at first.

For example: Humans in relation with the other animals. We are slow, week, eat too much, too fragile, can't breed under water, bread slowly etc. Because we sacrificed everything for a bigger brain. We have a relative advantage over all other animals. 50k years ago, it wasn't certain that we would even survive.

So interesting thing about 'mutations.' apparently when I was a kid they found I had some sort of genetic mutation, they still have not figured out what it means or how it effects me but that was their conclusion. So I really don't know what to make of it, just interesting I suppose.

Some kind of genetic mutation, hmnn ambiguous, isn't it?

Genetic change is actually quite frequent. Some kinds of it have a rate higher than 1%.

And mutation is not necessarily 'good' or 'bad' or even noticeable.

Hmm ... yes I suppose that fits ... its not a teleology, at least.



Depends how incremental it is. But I don't see the next step having anything to do with enhanced survival in a technological environment, because technology will fail from time to time. Solar flare, civil strife, whatever. It's through these bottlenecks that the next step must pass.

We are alredy dependent on some minimum of technology in order to survive. Can we live normally with out cooking anything? We are dependent to fire. Without cloths, we would be restricted to tropical climates etc. With out a minimum of technology, we are defenseless against all other animals. Without our technology, we are a completely useless animal.

Apparently, it was worth it, that we got weakened physically, in exchange for more cerebral power. In good times, we are unbeatable, in bad times, we simply die, the resultant is apparently worth it.

In the future, i don't think that its unreasonable to think that the trend will continue. If you live in a colony on the moon, there's no way going back to the stone age, and keep surviving on the moon.

Some people with epilepsy see "auras" before they have a seizure, I know that. Maybe that's where they're getting the aura concept from. I know quite a few people with autism who get seizures.

The kind of people you should never listen to.

Sure, I did not mean all technology. Only the sort of technology that is fragile to disruptions. Spears and campfires obviously cannot be disrupted by a solar flare, civil strife, etc.



Eventually, something would happen and the moon colony would fail. Those that did not manage to flee would die. In space - if any mass colonization of space were even feasible - it's possible that technological civilization could sustain disruptions because it might be in multiple locations, such that it could not all be affected by any particular disruption. But that is not true here and now, and disruptions are inevitable.

Yes, disruptions are inevitable. Accidents happen. We don't have zero resilience. Look all the s**t we have to put up with, simply because we are a minuscule minority. If we can survive in an NT world, i think we can survive the temporary civilization meltdowns, in a future with aspies only, meaning we'll only have to deal with the physical problems, not social problems, since we will be between us.

Reading that topic title, I thought to myself "aren't autistic children usually called crystal children and children/young adults with ADHD indigo children?" Now, seriously, weren't crystal children all about difficulties with "normal" types or communication, being overly sensitive and seemingly being otherworldly?

Well, at least its beater then saying that we have no soul .

I understand why some parents want to avoid the stigma of a diagnosis or socially unacceptable behaviour in their children, and glom onto something like this to fill that need. But at the risk of sounding harsh: I don't think anyone, especially autistics, are helped at all by woo and hogwash. There are a myriad of other ways to bring autism and other neurological states into acceptance. This isn't one of them. In fact, it's easily dismissable, and most people who do not know better will throw out the baby with the bathwater and feel that autism must be a made up piece of bullcrap, too.

Which could end up hurting our public perception more than helping it.