Will AS disappear in the future?

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I think in the past mating was a communal responsibility. Often people were joined by arranged marriages and children were expected of every couple. However, as we move forward, mating becomes an individual activity, one at which people with AS are generally bad (due to deficiencies in courting and understanding behaviour). There are much fewer arranged marriages, and aspies aren’t good at finding mates. So it seems to me that gradually the AS genes will be removed from the gene pool and fewer and fewer occurrences will be encountered. I think the fact that mating was a communal responsibility accounts for why we made it thus far. In the future I expect our numbers to dwindle. Do you think this hypothesis is correct?

If it is correct it makes me very happy. I don’t want others to struggle as I have. I think my father has AS (worse than me actually) and if he had refrained from procreating I would not have had these problems. That does not mean I don’t want to live, but I think procreating when one has hereditary defects is immoral and irresponsible. I would never procreate as I do not want to spread defective genes into the gene pool. It is completely irresponsible. Dwindling numbers of AS sufferers makes me happy. Do you agree?

Are there stats that say cases of autism are becoming fewer and fewer? I'd thought the oppposite was true.

As for people on the spectrum not being as likely to reproduce, even if that's true, they have relatives who do, and those relatives can carry the genetics. After all, many autistics come from parents without autism symptoms, not even discernable leanings.

I didn't know disabilities and such could just disappear.

I know there is an increase in the cases of AS but I thought that was the result of poor diagnostic tools/knowledge until fairly recently.

I think it is true that people on the spectrum are less likely to reproduce once finding a mate becomes entirely up to the individual. As for relatives, it is true that they can carry the genetics but they are less likely to have children with AS than the person who actually has AS (as I understand genetics). And relatives of people with AS have a higher score on the spectrum (on average) than the general average, meaning they have some symptoms. That in itself would presumably make them less likely to procreate. Even if you only removed the people with AS, isn't that fewer afflicted genes than there were before? I am arguing for a gradual decrease not an immediate disappearance.

Many WP'ers suggest the opposite: that aspies are "the next stage in human evolution".

Between that notion and this notion I think that this would be the far more likely: that autism would disappear because of the inability of aspies to find mates without the help of matchmakers like they had for Tevya's daughters in the traditional village culture in "The Fiddler on the Roof"

But its hard to say.

And the stats for more cases are due to improved diagnostics. Not because there are more aspies than there used to be.

Like you, I find it highly unlikely that aspies are the next stage in human evolution. In fact I think that is total nonsense. Aspies are seriously disadvantaged compared to NTs. They cannot get along well with NTs nor can they get along well with each other (compared to NTs). IMO this is total nonsense, we are less fortunate not more

I don't think Asperger's will die out in the future, as it has been shown that genetics aren't the only cause of the syndrome. Even if it was genetics causing all cases of Asperger's, it has also been shown that you can be more predisposed to the condition depending on the traits of your parents, who may be BAP, or something else entirely. I don't have any citations unfortunately.

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There are more then enough BAP folks out there to get together and make more aspies and if the Asperger population increases as its suggested it is that would make it easier for aspie folks to find a mate. Perhaps Asperger's syndrome is not a step in human evolution however that won't stop the Asperger's genetics from evolving into something better and therefore potentially helping people with it mate in the future. I think the other side of this and perhaps the more interesting one is what direction classic LFA is going, is it trending downwards?, that I think is a key to answering the question and I doubt an answer exists. If an external source is helping the Asperger's genetics to dominate in the creation of new life then that will play a currently unknown yet large role in the potential population size. Interesting to think about however I think we and our genetics are here to stay for awhile.

Now as a diagnostic label what we know as AS could certainly disappear should our numbers grow enough to be the majority or perhaps a very large minority like say 20-30%, we would end up being the new neurotypicals!

No. Autism isn't purely genetic, so even if all people with autism never have kids, there doesn't mean that whatever environmental factors influence the occurrence of autism will go away.

I did not think that the rise in autism was purely from an increase in diagnoses.

I think that one day we'll probably figure out a cure or the cause of autism and then be able to reduce it's occurrence greatly, but that's me thinking it would be an environmental impact that would decide it, not a genetic one.

I think we'll hold steady at around the same one in one hundred to one in two hundred that we are now.

Why?
Having autistics in a population is beneficial, because it adds another way of thinking that may solve some problems when the typical way of thinking does not, or which can spark other ideas in people who would not normally have thought about them. Autism, as a part of a neurodiverse society, increases the scope of ideas available to a community. Autistic people are also a necessary by-product of having a society where some of the NTs have autistic traits. Those borderline people are non-disabled but may have unique ways of thinking that can benefit a community; but they carry autistic traits, and when they marry, they are more likely to have autistic children.

However, autistics do not reproduce at a rate as high as NTs. Additionally, since autism is a disability, some autistics will require more resources than the average person to survive. So in order to maintain a population, autistics can't make up too high a proportion of it.

So we need some autistics, but not too many, to have the ideal number. That seems to be somewhere around one in a hundred, perhaps somewhat less. I think less than one percent is probably the ideal. Many autistics would not have survived without modern medicine, meaning that there were fewer surviving adult autistics in the past than there are now. In the future, the population of autistics should adjust itself to re-balance for the improved survivability that medical technology gives us. On the other hand, it could be more than one percent if the particular traits that autistic people have turn out to be more useful in the modern world than they used to be in the past. Whichever it is, if left alone, the population of autistic people should stabilize at a relatively low, but non-zero, fraction of the population.

I think in the future humans will manipulate the genetic code before conception in order to improve it. I think that wold take care of autism and many other conditions, so it cannot be done soon enough. But even if we did not improve our genetics artificially I think the change in culture will have an impact on the gene pool.

Getting pregnant is easy (even if marriage and partnership are almost impossible for those with an ASD).

That's why there'll always be ASDs.

Oh great, I love it when people totally agree with me Hah :p
Even before I found out I had Aspergers, about a year and a half ago, I did not want kids. Now it is certain. To my surprise, people tend to think me not having kids is a loss to humanity, but they don't know my struggles.

I agree that it is better for gifted NTs to take over. There are plenty of them. In physics we had plenty of socially awkward introverts. I am not sure the social awkwardness and introversion have any effect on good science and arts. It could be but I am not sure. As for arts, we just need insane people After reading a bit about libertinism, decadence and romanticism, normal (sane) people seem so horribly boring and closed minded.

I am not sure that autism adds anything special to human thought. But even if that was the case, being beneficial alone does not propagate genes reproduction is necessary. If the most brilliant people have no desire/ability to reproduce they will not propagate their genes despite the fact they are beneficial to society.