Guest guest Posted December 30, 2003 Report Share Posted December 30, 2003 > > Looking for ways to disprove my theory, that autism represents a deviation > away from primate lines of evolutionary psychology, it struck me that the > piece of evidence that would totally invalidate the theory is instances of > Stockholm Syndrome in autists. Stockholm Syndrome appears to be an extreme > form of the ape-hierarchy/social-domination mechanisms at work. > > Ethics prevents doing any testing, so we'll have to wait until something > happens. *************8 Ive heard of autistic women who have accepted that way of life, though only in partnership with NT men. Gareth. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted December 30, 2003 Report Share Posted December 30, 2003 Fascinating. I would never have thought it possible. Score two points for Silvia Plath. > Ive heard of autistic women who have accepted that way of life, > though only in partnership with NT men. > > Gareth. > > > > > > Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted December 30, 2003 Report Share Posted December 30, 2003 I have frequently used the concept of " Stockholm Syndrome " as a model for understanding my (rather uncomfortable) relationships with caregivers and teachers (in my early years), employers (especially), and college instructors. The dynamics involved can also easily be reframed as " codependency " , " attachment disorders " , or any number of others. For any of these models, including " SS " , I would imagine that autistics are no more or less vulnerable *on average*, but that the psychodynamics of autistics in such scenarios can be predictably expected to be considerably more diverse, even to the point of being totally unrecognizable according conventional observational models. But, having said that, it now strikes me as being too obvious to have bothered with. Hmmm... :-\ --DKM > > Looking for ways to disprove my theory, that autism represents a deviation > away from primate lines of evolutionary psychology, it struck me that the > piece of evidence that would totally invalidate the theory is instances of > Stockholm Syndrome in autists. Stockholm Syndrome appears to be an extreme > form of the ape-hierarchy/social-domination mechanisms at work. > > Ethics prevents doing any testing, so we'll have to wait until something > happens. > > ____________________ > " I'm easily confused. It's part of my boyish charm. " > -- Kaiden Fox Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted December 30, 2003 Report Share Posted December 30, 2003 This message from Kaiden Fox arched across the cosmos: >Gareth said: > > Ive heard of autistic women who have accepted that way of life, > > though only in partnership with NT men. > >Fascinating. I would never have thought it possible. Score two points for >Silvia Plath. I've had SS in the distant past, and I know of a male autistic that has had it both on a personal (for one person) and on a general (for a group) level. I think that a portion of what created " NT-Eyes " (judging one's autistic self by NT standards) as described by here: http://home.att.net/~ascaris1/Sad_aspies.html is SS as well, particularly because virtually all of the NT-Eyed autistics I have run across believe in the same kind of irrational things that SS victims do. Given NT-E probably comes about as the result of consistent torturing of the autistic by the NTs, often to the point that the young aut doesn't know if he/she will survive, and the end result is a kind of person whose only self-aware purpose is to please " normal people " I think that would fit the criteria for SS in terms of origin as well. DeGraf ~*~ http://sonic.net/mustang/moggy " My role is what I define for myself; society can take the role it has in mind for me and insert it into its own rectum. " -- Klein Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted December 30, 2003 Report Share Posted December 30, 2003 Well, I'm glad my theory was finally put into place. Would making a " monkey's uncle " reference actually be funny right now? Re: Re: Disproving my theory > This message from Kaiden Fox arched across the cosmos: > >Gareth said: > > > Ive heard of autistic women who have accepted that way of life, > > > though only in partnership with NT men. > > > >Fascinating. I would never have thought it possible. Score two points for > >Silvia Plath. > > > I've had SS in the distant past, and I know of a male autistic that has had > it both on a personal (for one person) and on a general (for a group) level. > > I think that a portion of what created " NT-Eyes " (judging one's autistic > self by NT standards) as described by here: > > http://home.att.net/~ascaris1/Sad_aspies.html > > is SS as well, particularly because virtually all of the NT-Eyed autistics > I have run across believe in the same kind of irrational things that SS > victims do. Given NT-E probably comes about as the result of consistent > torturing of the autistic by the NTs, often to the point that the young aut > doesn't know if he/she will survive, and the end result is a kind of person > whose only self-aware purpose is to please " normal people " I think that > would fit the criteria for SS in terms of origin as well. > > > DeGraf ~*~ http://sonic.net/mustang/moggy > " My role is what I define for myself; society can take the role > it has in mind for me and insert it into its own rectum. " > -- Klein > > > > > > Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted December 30, 2003 Report Share Posted December 30, 2003 > Looking for ways to disprove my theory, that autism represents a > deviation away from primate lines of evolutionary psychology, it > struck me that the piece of evidence that would totally invalidate > the theory is instances of Stockholm Syndrome in autists. Stockholm > Syndrome appears to be an extreme form of the > ape-hierarchy/social-domination mechanisms at work. > Ethics prevents doing any testing, so we'll have to wait until > something happens. Already happened. I have Stockholm syndrome (not as badly as I used to, but I was put in a heavy brainwashing situation in which I eventually both identified with and loved my captors). So do some autistics I've known (and admitting to it), and probably a lot do who don't know what it is. I strongly suspect Tito has it, and I suspect a lot of autistics who have been subjected to certain intensive 'therapies' or institutionalization have it, which ends up in them defending what happened even if it was horrific. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted December 30, 2003 Report Share Posted December 30, 2003 Evolutionary psychology, while useful in some respects, has ben hijacked by extreme genetic determinists or DNA-determinists such as E O and Pinker. They believe that many behavioural traits such as sexual orientation, aggression, analytical intelligence etc. can be put down solely to DNA. DNA-based evolution is painfully slow, indeed it enjoys long periods of stasis. If a complex organism's DNA is well adapted to its surroundings it will not suddenly mutate, unless its environment changes and, even then by the laws of natural selection, ill-adapted specimens will simply die out. Homo sapiens sapiens has been around for 30,000 to 80,000 years. The last three generations, some 75-80 years are just another day of our species' existence on this planet, except this time we are the main architects of our environment. I think aspies are at a distinct disadvantage in most social and work situations. More to the point, body language and hidden meanings seem to be acquiring greater, and not less, importance. While rhetoric becomes more pc, actual behaviour is becoming more prejudicial against those who fail to fit in. Imagine a society nobody could tolerate the presence of others, nobody sought friendship and everyone were completely immersed in their own world. It would be utterly dysfuntional. Maybe that's the plot behind much media-inspired social conditioning.Indeed as long as a sizable minority can opt out of brazen cultural decadence,it may even empower the ruling elite, by making it easier for them to control the masses with all their mental problems. So I very much doubt that AS could result from adaptive natural selection, but rather the emerging science of epigenetics, studying how methylation can silence specific genes, may help unravel the autistic mystery. Neil Disproving my theory > > Looking for ways to disprove my theory, that autism represents a deviation > away from primate lines of evolutionary psychology, it struck me that the > piece of evidence that would totally invalidate the theory is instances of > Stockholm Syndrome in autists. Stockholm Syndrome appears to be an extreme > form of the ape-hierarchy/social-domination mechanisms at work. > > Ethics prevents doing any testing, so we'll have to wait until something > happens. > > ____________________ > " I'm easily confused. It's part of my boyish charm. " > -- Kaiden Fox > > > > > > Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted December 30, 2003 Report Share Posted December 30, 2003 > I think that a portion of what created " NT-Eyes " (judging one's > autistic self by NT standards) as described by here: > http://home.att.net/~ascaris1/Sad_aspies.html > is SS as well, particularly because virtually all of the NT-Eyed > autistics I have run across believe in the same kind of irrational > things that SS victims do. Given NT-E probably comes about as the > result of consistent torturing of the autistic by the NTs, often to > the point that the young aut doesn't know if he/she will survive, > and the end result is a kind of person whose only self-aware > purpose is to please " normal people " I think that would fit the > criteria for SS in terms of origin as well. I agree with all of this. I have also seen autistics whose *primary goal in life* is to fulfill the requirements of their behavior program. That is very depressing to watch. As for my case, I know the origin fits quite well -- torture me, almost kill me one day, do it again the next, " save " me the next, then subject me to all kinds of torture that is seen as " better " than the previous torture, it's actually the *exact* formula for how to create that kind of thing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted December 30, 2003 Report Share Posted December 30, 2003 My PTSD manifests as an inability to remember first and last names, rather than anything Stockholm Syndrome like. If I ever did, I would probably track down and kill a significant number of my middle-school classmates. It wouldn't just be " bang, you're dead. " It would be extracting a confession of WHY they did what they did, NKVD style. I just don't get it, even today. h Fromm only goes so far, you know? Sometimes, I'm amazed that I'm not a mass-murderer. I guess it says something about the triumph of the human spirit over adversity. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted December 30, 2003 Report Share Posted December 30, 2003 Yeah. It's strange. A lot of people mis-read me as being angry. But I'm never able to show overt anger in person, and my (now infrequent) rages can only occur in complete privacy. Nevertheless, it seems that wherever I go, I always end up having to stand toe-to-toe with the biggest bully on the block. Stranger still is the fact that while I've never backed down (the thought/impulse just doesn't occur), I've never actually had to defend myself. To this day, I don't even know if I *could* defend myself, were it to become " necessary " . The only explanation I can come up with is my total outward affective shutdown---my face goes completely blank, and I can't stop myself from staring down their throat. Dunno. I guess they creep out, wondering if I'm totally psychotic, and are afraid of what I might do if pushed too far. Little do they know, or I for that matter---I'd probably go floor-catatonic and fetalize them to death! I guess momentary affective dissociation has it's charms, after all! :-\ Dave March > I'm too big for people to bother with me; everybody seems to think that I > could stomp them into nothingness without even thinking about it. I suppose > a lot of it has to do with my expression when I'm concentrating; I have a > high, flat forehead but my eyes are very deep-set and I look like I'm > glaring most of the time. I think I'm a wuss, too. > > On the other hand, I do have some intense rages, and if someone were to mess > with me when I am raging, I probably would stomp them into nothingness. My > husband has a knack for knowing when I am about to have a fit of rage, and > he sends the kids to their rooms. One of his favorite saying is, " I don't > need to bungee jump to get a danger thrill, I mess with my wife when she has > PMS! There's nothing more dangerous than that! " > > Louis > In my house, " normal " is only a setting on the dryer. > > From: K. March [mailto:dkmnow@y...] > > That's what I used to think, ceremoniously patting myself on the back > for my lofty priciples. > > Then one day I realized I was just a big wuss, and always had been. > > Just a little " thing " I have for looking myself in the eye. > > Once in a while, at least. > > :-\ > > --DKM Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted December 31, 2003 Report Share Posted December 31, 2003 Re: Disproving my theory > > Perhaps, but less of a disadvantage now than in the time for which > nonverbal abilities were well-adapted-- preverbal times, including those > before H. sapiens existed as such. Things are not easy for our kind, > but we live in a time when the richest person in the world and " Man of > the century " are/were probably both of our kind. Nonverbal communication has coexisted with the spoken word since homo sapiens sapiens first evolved. We live in an increasingly duplicitous society or let's say in this phase of human history people are becoming more conformist, and today that means conforming to a hiphop mass-consumerist culture and living with the myth of individualism. Kids are increasingly (at least in this part of the globe) confined to their homes plugged into one electronic gadget or another and amazingly the further down the social ladder you go the more this is the case. To escape the cultural decadance that is blasted through available mass media you need to buy a house in the wilds and send your kids to a remote village school with 2-3 pupils (there is actually a school on the island of Yell, Shetland, with one pupil), home-school or send your kids to a private school, which is what the upper middle classes have been doing for years. Anyway as people are trained not to say what they think, they seek other means and nonverbal signals, actively encouraged by children's TV, are the best means. Indeed I doubt if the whole notion of coolness is older than 30 to 40 years. As I child this use of the word cool always seemed an Americanism and i think you shoudl understand the psychological importance of something conveyed via movies and TV from the land of plenty. Cool was acting like the Fonz in Happy Days. The more you stress coolness, the more nerds are sidelined. Now whether Bill Gates and Albert Einstein were on the spectrum is open to debate,but they certainly did not suffer the same psychological trauma that many of us have. They enjoyed optiminal conditions. I really don't see how Microsoft behaves differently from other multinationals and certainly don't approve of many of its business practices. Indeed I doubt if Bill is really in control or entirely aware of the effects that his merchandise is having the world. Does Bill really want to force war propaganda on the masses?I doubt it, but that's what is bundled with X-Boxes over here (Desert Storm II). The Microsoft monolith has been sucked into a global system alongside Monsanto, GM, Ford, Chrysler-Benz, Texaco, Exxon, Enron etc.. AS is an issue because some otherwise intelligent individuals are at a distinct disadvantage. My point is we would fare better in a lower impact world with less emphasis on presentation and more on content. > > How so? I don't see that. I see a trend, from the beginning of the > species (or even the genus) until now, where nonverbal language went > from the only means of communication to one that isn't necessary. We > don't need it anymore... we have verbal rules and concepts that are much > more clear and precise than the " fuzzy, " emotionally-based nonverbal > cues ever were. Except advanced language has been with us for thousands of years long before the industrial revolution and the recent consumer boom (since the 1940s in North America and since the 1960s in Western Europe). I'd say we reached a happy medium around the late 60s. Since the Mid 70s the rich /poor gap has widened, and emotionally charged media have begun to play a much bigger role in our lives. Your theory might be right in the long term in the post mass-consumerist society, but for the time being advertisers and propagandists would have a very hard job without appealing to emotions rather than reason. > I don't know that this is the case... but even if it is, it can hardly > be taken as a long-term trend. It would be but a blip on the radar... > it is clear that, for all of human history, verbal or written language > has been gaining in importance, while nonverbal language has been > diminishing. A single person's perception of greater conformism does > not make it so... but even if it is accurate, it could be regional, or > it could be a short-lived phenomenon. If you look at recent human > history, there have been alternating times of conformism and > non-conformism... I can see non-conformism in the pre-depression > " roaring 20s, " then society was interrupted by the depression and > WWII... then there was a period of heavy conformism in the 1950s, > followed by a period of nonconformism in the 60s and 70s, and then > another period of conformism in the 80s. It ebbs and flows, but > overall, I think we are making incremental gains. Oh I yearn for a return of the mythical peace movement of the 1960s, free love, free speech etc..except most sold out very soon to commercialism. I was heartened to witness so many demonstrators against the oil-grab invasion of Iraq, but saddened that the media employed devious means to win over wishful thinking leftists by adopting leftwing rhetoric about overthrowing dictatorships, ridding the world of WMDs or establishing democracy (a wonderful idea, but a sad joke in the real world). But they got away with it..but as the US economy (only 6 trillion in debt) falters and cheap oil runs out (a matter of time), tomorrow's hippies will need to build a real alternative... > Now, we live in a time where computers are ubiquitous, and computer > nerds are not disliked as they were in the 1980s, when I was one, when I > was in school. Our numbers appear to be growing, if there is anything > to the reports that say so, and people are living a lifestyle that is > more suited to people that live in groups of one than for people who > desire to live in familial tribal groups. There have always been nerdish types who excel at painstaking tasks but are not as adept at socialising. IT just happens to be what nerds choose today. In times past I could see myself as a scribe in some remote monastery. A balanced society values different kinds of contributions and also evolves to channel human instincts to socially useful roles. However, our socially competitive world isolates oddballs who cannot dance to the same beat. > > Imagine a society nobody could tolerate the presence of others, > > nobody sought friendship and everyone were completely immersed in > > their own world. It would be utterly dysfuntional. > > It sounds nice to me. Everything you consumeis the product of an advanced industrial society that would never seen the light of day without massive social organisation. A human being devoid of intellectual input from other members of the same species can achieve very little. We're a social animal, but we on the spectrum may not socialise in the same way. > We could better tolerate others if they weren't so.... well, NT. Part > of the reason I dislike others is because they place so much expectation > upon me... they think that I am there for them to talk to or interact > with, and that I should do so and be happy about it. A lot of the > stress of being around them is caused by my not knowing when they are > going to begin interacting with me and loading my speech modules, which > I do not always like to do in public. Aspies dislike others precisely because they fail to act in the expected cool way. > I don't see what the problem would be if nobody sought friendship. Humanity would be doomed... Of > course, that is a strawman argument, because we already know that many > of our kind do want friendships, although I can't personally understand > why (unless they need someone to help move the furniture or something). > But even if we take that as a given-- why would that be a problem? What would you do without any salary or social security benefit? You'd need to get yourself a plot of land and start a new life based on subsistenance. > Which many of us don't believe exists outside of the heads of conspiracy > theorists I good way to dismiss an idea is to call it a conspiracy theory. Yes, I do think big business and big government collude to condition the masses. Always have done and always will, except in recent years they've done so with increasing intensity. > I don't see what you mean by that. I still have the right to vote, and > to speak my mind and try to influence others. You mean the right to choose between tweedle-dee and tweedle-dum? I mean how did voting in Terminator III help Californians? They got rid of one corrupt career politcian and voted in an actor. The only real alternative in the last US presidential elections was Ralph Nader, but then again he had to water down his program just to get 3%.If he had spoken his mind, the corporate media would have run an almighty smear campaign. > Natural selection works when an accidental mutation causes a change in a > species... a change that happens to cause the organisms of the species > to be better adapted to their environment. I think that people without > the tribal mentality are better adapted to our environment, Which isonly two or three generations old and could soon revert to a pre-industrial ecomomy. whatever the > cause of the loss of that mentality may be. If you look at the > " alarming " increase in the rate of autistic births, it looks like it is > happening rapidly indeed, and it has been hypothesized that the > increase, especially in San and the so-called Silicon Valley of > California, may be the concentration of nerds (BAPs usually, aspies > sometimes) and their genes. As the numbers increase, social > acceptability is likely to follow. I think things don't look bad in the > future. Wish you were right on that score, but my hope lies that sooner or later a sizable minority will challenge the logic behind social competition and an environmentally unsustainable economy. However, I seriously doubt that social ineptness has any evolutionary advantage and if it did what would be the driving force.As said natural selection is painfully slow and relies on random variations in DNA code. In normal circumstance only the best adapted survive, but otday almost everyone survives in wealthy countries. Indeed for your theory to be right their must be another vector of evolution. Anway more later, as we've some cousins coming (New Year's ritual) and I'd like to read a book on epigenetics (The Fluid Genome by Mae-Wan Ho). Neil > > > > > > > Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted December 31, 2003 Report Share Posted December 31, 2003 In my mind, much of evolution is illogical. If something exists, it is for a reason. Someone's reason. I think that people give far too much credibility to *chance*. If I see a house, I know that someone put it there, it didn't appear by chance. If I see a cave, I would guess that this has evolved due to natural laws not directly dependant on intelligence. But as soon as I see complex equipment inside it, then I know that this is not simply evolution. The different pieces of `equipment' around the world today cannot be explained by ignorant evolution, especially when they work in harmony in a single environment. The probability of life *evolving* on this planet is so amazing that it defies science, it is impossible. For the sun to be the correct distance away from the earth, for the CO2 consumers to be in equilibrium with the O2 consumers, for the earth's magnetism… for the gravitational force… etc, etc defies laws of probability especially since they all have to work in harmony. Look at the inspirational failures when trying to build *simple* self contained bubble eco systems, how much brain power and outside help is necessary to constantly restore O2 levels etc. I personally can only comprehend evolution in the terms of `controlled evolution'. Eg. Mr Ford creates a car model, the Escort Mk I. He then creates another better or alternative model the Mk II. To me this is the only possible way evolution can work. I do not believe that `mother nature' is more intelligent than man. In fact I don't believe that she even has intelligence. If man cannot even recreate a blade of grass from scratch, then how can *mother nature* create me. I don't see how Kaiden's theory is disproved by Stockholm syndrome. If autism was simple and SS was also, then maybe but there are too many factors. We are not simply autistic, we are complex humans. In my mind, all dysfunctions and illness disprove evolution. Man is so weak, how could he have survived so long in a world where a simple peanut or an invisible airborne organism can kill him? > Neil Gardner wrote: > Homo sapiens sapiens has been around for 30,000 to 80,000 years. The > last three generations, some 75-80 years are just another day of our > species' existence on this planet, except this time we are the main > architects of our environment. I think aspies are at a distinct > disadvantage in most social and work situations. IMO if this unproven theory of evolution was a fact, then surely autistics would have previously conquered in the `survival of the fittest' race, or at least some of us. For short term tactics, emotion and empathy etc is not an advantage. To me this theory is incompatible with long term processes as *time means money (resources)* so also is the luxuries of 2 eyes instead of the 1 and 10 fingers instead of the 6. >> Maybe that's the plot behind much >> media-inspired social conditioning. > Which many of us don't believe exists outside > of the heads of conspiracy theorists One would only have too learn a little about consumer marketing strategies to understand the need for such `social conditioning' > I still have the right to vote, and > to speak my mind and try to influence others. In Britain we have only 3 political parties in a nation of diverse views. History has repeatedly shown that it is impossible to do anything unless you submit to any of these three agendas (which are basically all the same anyway). The much bigger USA is even more bizarre, only 2 parties with the only other *feasible* recent contender being Mr Ross Perot, a man who happens to be a millionaire who also supports the system. Can anyone really believe that the *powers that be* who created such great countries would allow for the dangerous possibility of the ignorant masses to destroy everything. Democracy can only work when it is controlled by a greater power. If not it will cause a civil war. Ultimately, I believe, democracy is an illusion. Anas " All humans are dead except those who have knowledge ... and all those who have knowledge are asleep, except those who do good deeds ... and those who do good deeds are deceived, except those who are sincere ... and those who are sincere are always in a state of worry. " - Imam Shafi' Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted December 31, 2003 Report Share Posted December 31, 2003 Neil wrote: >...I do >think big business and big government collude to condition the masses. >Always have done and always will, except in recent years they've done so >with increasing intensity. I'm reading an intersting book that pertains to this point. It's about the need to reform capitalism, and it describes how the natural tendencies of capitalism, when allowed to run unchecked, naturally result in certain anti-social (harmful to society, and to individuals in society) outcomes. Inludes some interesting ideas for reform, also, and examples of things people are doing already. The author beieves the changes we need cannot be obtained through the federal government (for reasons explained in the book) but must be constructed locally first. The book is " The Soul of Capitalism " by Greider (Simon & Schuster, 2003, ISBN 0-684-86219-0). Jane Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted December 31, 2003 Report Share Posted December 31, 2003 Anas wrote: >The probability of life *evolving* on this planet is so amazing that >it defies science, it is impossible. For the sun to be the correct >distance away from the earth, for the CO2 consumers to be in >equilibrium with the O2 consumers, for the earth's magnetism… for the >gravitational force… etc, etc defies laws of probability especially >since they all have to work in harmony. If any of those factors had been slightly different, something else would have evolved, that's all. And things work in harmony precisely *because* they evolved together in (and affecting) the same environment. >I do not believe that `mother nature' is more intelligent than man. In >fact I don't believe that she even has intelligence. That's because " she " doesn't exist. These non-corporeal intelligences (one of them, Mother Nature, traditionally represented as female, another one traditionally referred to as male) are nothing more than short-hand symbolic reifications of mindless processes that have been beyond our understanding throughout the millennia. Jane Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted December 31, 2003 Report Share Posted December 31, 2003 This message from Anas arched across the cosmos: >I personally can only comprehend evolution in the terms of `controlled >evolution'. Eg. Mr Ford creates a car model, the Escort Mk I. He then >creates another better or alternative model the Mk II. To me this is >the only possible way evolution can work. Evolution would simply be a case of somebody with congenitally mutated organs, such as myself, successfully living to adulthood and reproducing. There's no " controlled evolution " in spontaneous rare congenital abnormalities -- they have no purpose or benefit 99.9% of the time, no " Mark II Human " usage in something being born without an esophagus, only one kidney, no thumbs, and so forth. It just happens, and science now lets us survive to adulthood (and sometimes reproduce) instead of having us die in early childhood as used to be the case. >In my >mind, all dysfunctions and illness disprove evolution. Man is so weak, >how could he have survived so long in a world where a simple peanut or >an invisible airborne organism can kill him? Actually it works the other way around far better. Man wasn't a weak and easily-killed creature when he lived in accordance with the fundamental laws of nature -- humans with deadly allergies or physical weakness simply didn't survive to reproductive age. It's living in a man-protected civlization that (to my benefit, happily) saves the lives of those with weaker immune systems or weaker bodies so we can survive to make more of ourselves that has created a " weaker " version of man. I think a far more logical question given the facts is why, if there were a central intelligence intentionally creating every individual in a species, would it randomly produce offspring with anomalies that would cause a short painful existence and then death? Logically, if the purpose of individuals such as myself were primarily to teach something to others of the same species, then it would have made more sense for the central intelligence to simply give them whatever it is that they need to know to begin with. DeGraf ~*~ http://www.sonic.net/mustang/moggy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted December 31, 2003 Report Share Posted December 31, 2003 This message from AndyTiedye arched across the cosmos: >Even with the All-Arnie-All-The-Time the media was giving us as a dry >run for 2004, >I am suspicious of the election results and think we may have been >Diebolded (also a >beta test for 2004). I don't know ONE person who voted for the Gropenator. Not surprising. According to the Secretary of State, the entire Bay Area (nine counties, plus Humboldt & Monterey) voted against the recall -- and beyond that, the most-favored replacement candidate in the Bay was Bustamente. Unfortunately, we were outnumbered by the more densely-populated (and conservative) Central & Southern counties. :-p Having worked all day running a precinct in the Nov 2002 election, I can say we don't need a DieBold to screw things up. It wouldn't take much to totally skew the results, a lot of the people " volunteering " I ran into were only there for the money (i.e. not the most scrupulous individuals), and there were near-zero safeguards to make sure we *didn't* cheat. Being accurate was in itself a huge challenge (and I'm not sure we managed it) -- I'm sure others have succumbed to the temptation to " fix " errors in the hourly (or end-of-day) tally by voting " for " a few people that hadn't shown up! People these days worry that computerized voting systems can be compromised; what they should be worrying about are the number of corrupted *humans* already doing this every election. DeGraf ~*~ http://www.sonic.net/mustang/moggy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted December 31, 2003 Report Share Posted December 31, 2003 Anas wrote: > In my mind, much of evolution is illogical. That is because there are presuppositions there that you accept as fact, regardless of evidence. Evolution is completely logical if you take a scientific view. > If something exists, it > is for a reason. Someone's reason. Presupposition number one. > The > different pieces of `equipment' around the world today cannot be > explained by ignorant evolution, especially when they work in harmony > in a single environment. Sure they can. You just don't understand it, and like people that believe in creation by some superbeing, you don't want to. I've read > The probability of life *evolving* on this planet is so amazing that > it defies science, it is impossible. No, it isn't. It doesn't defy science-- it IS science. > For the sun to be the correct > distance away from the earth, Presupposition #2-- that you start with a being and then suit the environment to the being. That's false. There are billions of stars with billions of planets... some planets happen to be in a place that might support life. It didn't " just happen " to be the correct distance (and the Sun is not the correct distance from the Earth-- the Earth is the correct distance from the Sun... which indicates presupposition #3, that the Earth somehow is " the " planet where this was all going to happen, and it happened to be in the right place). There is nothing inherently special about Earth. It's a blob of rock orbiting a thoroughly ordinary yellow star. There are probably millions like it throughout the universe. This particular blob happened to be a certain distance from the star. That's why life evolved here. Now that we ARE here and some of us have some egocentric ideas about Earth being special, some will think that it is too much of a coincidence that this special planet happened to be in the right orbital distance, but that's backwards. > for the CO2 consumers to be in > equilibrium with the O2 consumers, for the earth's magnetism… for the > gravitational force… etc, etc defies laws of probability It's not probability at all-- we evolved on this planet, so we evolved to be in balance with this planet. If we evolved on another planet, we would have different needs. > especially > since they all have to work in harmony. Look at the inspirational > failures when trying to build *simple* self contained bubble eco > systems, how much brain power and outside help is necessary to > constantly restore O2 levels etc. It takes a lot of technology and effort to manufacture artificial diamonds. Diamonds occur in nature, and they're made with no intelligence or intervention. Just because humans find it hard to do does not mean that a confluence of natural forces couldn't do it. > I personally can only comprehend evolution in the terms of > `controlled evolution'. Eg. Mr Ford creates a car model, the Escort > Mk I. He then creates another better or alternative model the Mk II. > To me this is the only possible way evolution can work. I do not > believe that `mother nature' is more intelligent than man. Presupposition #4-- that evolution requires some kind of intelligence. This ties into the other presuppositions. The underlying theme in these presuppositions is that you start with Earth, including its inhabitants, and declare it to be good... declare it to be a perfect finished product, like a television set but a thousand times more complicated. Then you try to show that it would be impossible for a television set to randomly occur in nature. That shows a profound misunderstanding of how evolution works... it is the bias of the creation theory, in which Earth is held to be some kind of marvel. The reason that species are in tune with the planet, and that the oxygen cycle works, and all of that, is because that is how things have evolved in response to the particular environment on this planet. On many other planets, life may have started but died out before complex multicellular beings evolved. Those are the planets that are not full of intelligent beings that ponder their own existence and imagine that some superbeing must have created this world just for them. > In fact I > don't believe that she even has intelligence. Well, she (mother nature) does not exist, so no, there is no intelligence there. > If man cannot even > recreate a blade of grass from scratch, then how can *mother nature* > create me. This is a repeat of presuppositon #4. The inability of a human to recreate something does not mean that that item was created by intelligence. > > Neil Gardner wrote: Homo sapiens sapiens has been around for 30,000 > > to 80,000 years. The last three generations, some 75-80 years are > > just another day of our species' existence on this planet, except > > this time we are the main architects of our environment. I think > > aspies are at a distinct disadvantage in most social and work > > situations. > > IMO if this unproven theory of evolution was a fact, It is a fact... it's only unproven to people that have something else they would prefer to believe. > then surely > autistics would have previously conquered in the `survival of the > fittest' race, or at least some of us. I think we will, in the long term. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted December 31, 2003 Report Share Posted December 31, 2003 gareth wrote: > OK, *again* this wasnt me. , could you please moderate this > person? I'll do one better. The imposter is no longer on the group. My apologies for not detecting that earlier. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted December 31, 2003 Report Share Posted December 31, 2003 Jane Meyerding wrote: > > I do not believe that `mother nature' is more intelligent than man. > > In fact I don't believe that she even has intelligence. > > That's because " she " doesn't exist. These non-corporeal intelligences > (one of them, Mother Nature, traditionally represented as female, > another one traditionally referred to as male) are nothing more than > short-hand symbolic reifications of mindless processes that have been > beyond our understanding throughout the millennia. The female representation makes more sense, given that female is the primary gender (male is a mutated version of female), and that " female " is more associated with birth and creation than male. The Wiccan Goddess, the creative power, countered by Pan, the opposite of the Goddess, the male, who is horned and represented by the inverted pentagram, is the representation of destruction. But he's not evil; he's the yang to the Goddess' yin. There can be no birth without death; there can be no growth without decay. The Goddess cannot create and give birth without Pan. Wicca is definitely a gynocentric belief system, and that makes more sense than a paternalistic deity. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted December 31, 2003 Report Share Posted December 31, 2003 I have to disagree with you on the allergenic thing, . Allergies tend to come in threshold levels. So, a Paleolithic person without a high degree of foreign substances in his diet would have a higher allergy tolerance simply due to the fact that he's living in a world were milk, grains, refined sugar, legumes and potatoes aren't considered food. Just me two-cent coupon on the matter. Being college educated, I see evolution as a matter of fact, and don't get into arguments with creationists on the subject. I simply accept that many people believe all sorts of weird things, and that I ought to choose battles big enough to matter, but small enough to win. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted December 31, 2003 Report Share Posted December 31, 2003 <Pedantic Mode> Technically, an action cannot defy science. It only disproves a theory. The wonderful thing about the scientific method is that it is constructed in such a way to allow correction. Of course, the whole " perfect universe " thing is quite a quandary. Change just one of the physical laws of the universe, such as the number of macro-dimensions or the constant of gravity, and you've got yourself a universe with no life in it at all. Because of that astounding fact, I tend to be slightly theological in my views, although by no means a supporter of any sort of creationism. My views on the " purpose " of life is that life is a entropic engine, designed to accelerate the speed of entropy. Some scientist with a similar outlook wrote a paper on it. Personally, I tend to take the approach of, " OK, I'm here, now what " rather than " why am I here " when it comes to the Mystery of Existence. Keeps me sane. Re: Re: Disproving my theory > Anas wrote: > > > In my mind, much of evolution is illogical. > > That is because there are presuppositions there that you accept as fact, > regardless of evidence. Evolution is completely logical if you take a > scientific view. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted December 31, 2003 Report Share Posted December 31, 2003 DeGraf wrote: > Not surprising. According to the Secretary of State, the entire Bay > Area (nine counties, plus Humboldt & Monterey) voted against the > recall -- and beyond that, the most-favored replacement candidate in > the Bay was Bustamente. Unfortunately, we were outnumbered by the > more densely-populated (and conservative) Central & Southern > counties. :-p You ought to thank them for saving you northerners from yourselves. was probably close to the worst of all of the candidates (pretending here that he was on the same level as all of the candidates to replace him), probably right below that porn-star woman Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted December 31, 2003 Report Share Posted December 31, 2003 Neil Gardner wrote: > Nonverbal communication has coexisted with the spoken word since homo > sapiens sapiens first evolved. Spoken language has not always existed within the Homo genus. I am not sure on the specifics on when spoken language evolved, and whether that was before or after the sapiens species appeared, but one thing is clear: Nonverbal language predated humans, and primates for that matter. It was necessary then. It isn't now; we have something better. Nonverbal language is like the appendix now, or the vestigial feet in boa constrictors. > Indeed I doubt if the whole notion of coolness is older > than 30 to 40 years. Maybe not by that name, but by other names, certainly it has been around longer than our species. > Now whether Bill Gates and Albert Einstein were on the spectrum is > open to debate,but they certainly did not suffer the same > psychological trauma that many of us have. I don't know that this is true. Do you have data to support that, or are you guessing this to be the case? They enjoyed optiminal > conditions. I really don't see how Microsoft behaves differently from > other multinationals and certainly don't approve of many of its > business practices. Indeed I doubt if Bill is really in control or > entirely aware of the effects that his merchandise is having the > world. Does Bill really want to force war propaganda on the masses?I > doubt it, but that's what is bundled with X-Boxes over here (Desert > Storm II). The Microsoft monolith has been sucked into a global > system alongside Monsanto, GM, Ford, Chrysler-Benz, Texaco, Exxon, > Enron etc.. Microsoft is about making money. Microsoft is making money. That's as succinct as it gets. If there was money to be made in selling anti-war themed games, they would do that. > AS is an issue because some otherwise intelligent individuals are at > a distinct disadvantage. My point is we would fare better in a lower > impact world with less emphasis on presentation and more on content. Certainly. > Except advanced language has been with us for thousands of years long > before the industrial revolution and the recent consumer boom (since > the 1940s in North America and since the 1960s in Western Europe). Yes, but the Industrial Revolution has brought an end to the tribalist leanings of pre-industrial, verbal communities. While nonverbal language was obsolete by the time the Industrial Revolution began, I don't know that the NT configuration was actually detrimental to human society before that. Now, I am quite sure that it is. > I'd say we reached a happy medium around the late 60s. Since the Mid > 70s the rich /poor gap has widened, and emotionally charged media > have begun to play a much bigger role in our lives. Your theory might > be right in the long term in the post mass-consumerist society, but > for the time being advertisers and propagandists would have a very > hard job without appealing to emotions rather than reason. I am talking long-term independent of consumption patterns. And you certainly know my opinions about emotion-- given that emotion and nonverbal communication are closely linked in NT minds, appealing to emotion is part of the whole nonverbal language problem. I have said before that emotion is a vestige of our non-sentient and preverbal legacy. > Oh I yearn for a return of the mythical peace movement of the 1960s, > free love, free speech etc..except most sold out very soon to > commercialism. I was heartened to witness so many demonstrators > against the oil-grab invasion of Iraq, but saddened that the media > employed devious means to win over wishful thinking leftists by > adopting leftwing rhetoric about overthrowing dictatorships, ridding > the world of WMDs or establishing democracy (a wonderful idea, but a > sad joke in the real world). It's a good thing that the Americans didn't hold that opinion when Germany was about to defeat the UK in WWII... > But they got away with it..but as the US > economy (only 6 trillion in debt) falters and cheap oil runs out (a > matter of time), tomorrow's hippies will need to build a real > alternative... The hippies haven't built anything. They're the ones trying to slow the progress. If oil runs out, it will be the same people that sold the oil that will devise new solutions, because they will have to do so to continue to make money. > >> Imagine a society nobody could tolerate the presence of others, > >> nobody sought friendship and everyone were completely immersed in > >> their own world. It would be utterly dysfuntional. > > > > It sounds nice to me. > > Everything you consumeis the product of an advanced industrial > society that would never seen the light of day without massive social > organisation. A human being devoid of intellectual input from other > members of the same species can achieve very little. We're a social > animal, but we on the spectrum may not socialise in the same way. And you seem to assume that a world of people like us couldn't achieve that. We can deal with others, especially of our own kind. I am dealing with you right now. If communication was about practical matters, about exchanging information and getting things done, the stress would be minimal compared to now, when every exchange of data must be wrapped in NT social handshaking to get any communication done. If we could just say what needs to be said, without the social stuff, the office politics, the stepping on one another to take credit for things that someone else did, the blaming of others for things you did, the " team player " mentality... if all of that could be cast aside in favor of logic and thought and innovation, then tolerating others would not be so bad. > Aspies dislike others precisely because they fail to act in the > expected cool way. I don't even know what that means. Aspies dislike others for a myriad of reasons; there is no one reason that any spectrumite cannot tolerate others. > > I don't see what the problem would be if nobody sought friendship. > > Humanity would be doomed... Perhaps it would, and it would be good riddance to bad rubbish. Now, keep in mind that " humanity " to me means " NT society. " Humanity would be doomed, and something much better would appear in its place. > Of > > course, that is a strawman argument, because we already know that > > many of our kind do want friendships, although I can't personally > > understand why (unless they need someone to help move the furniture > > or something). But even if we take that as a given-- why would that > > be a problem? > > What would you do without any salary or social security benefit? > You'd need to get yourself a plot of land and start a new life based > on subsistenance. Umm... how did you get from " there is no problem without friendship " to " what would you do without salary or social security? " You seem to be making an assumption that without friendship, salaries or social benefits cannot exist. That is not true. Work has nothing to do with friendship-- it has to do with task specialization and the creation of an economy. Friendship is not necessary to have an economy. > > I don't see what you mean by that. I still have the right to vote, > > and to speak my mind and try to influence others. > > You mean the right to choose between tweedle-dee and tweedle-dum? I > mean how did voting in Terminator III help Californians? So far, it has stopped the issuance of driver's licenses to criminals that do not belong in the country, and it has repealed an unpopular tax on cars. It has gotten the state out of the control of one of the most corrupt and dirty politicians the state has ever known. > They got rid > of one corrupt career politcian and voted in an actor. Exactly. That's a huge improvement. Like I said, the best thing about Schwarzenegger (in terms of California politics) is that he is not Gray or Cruz Bustamante. If any of the other crackpots that got on the ballot would have been in a position to challenge , they would have had my support. If I could appoint one to be governor, I would have to look through the candidates and see whom the Libertarian candidate was. That would probably be my choice. > The only real > alternative in the last US presidential elections was Ralph Nader, > but then again he had to water down his program just to get 3%.If he > had spoken his mind, the corporate media would have run an almighty > smear campaign. If the smear campaign was contingent upon him speaking his mind, then I would have to conclude that the smearing would consist of letting people know what he said (and casting it negatively, of course). There is nothing wrong with that-- that's political speech, and it is political speech that is perhaps the most important kind of speech to protect. > > Natural selection works when an accidental mutation causes a change > > in a species... a change that happens to cause the organisms of the > > species to be better adapted to their environment. I think that > > people without the tribal mentality are better adapted to our > > environment, > > Which isonly two or three generations old and could soon revert to a > pre-industrial ecomomy. Not terribly likely. And until it does, my statement that our neurology is better adapted to our way of life will remain true. >> ...I think things > > don't look bad in the future. > > Wish you were right on that score, but my hope lies that sooner or > later a sizable minority will challenge the logic behind social > competition and an environmentally unsustainable economy. I did not understand that statement. > However, I seriously doubt that social ineptness has any evolutionary > advantage and if it did what would be the driving force. Social ineptness is not synonymous with autism. I would argue that social ineptness is an NT-centric view of what we are, and it is hardly the essence of what we are. It is certainly not what I was talking about when I wrote about how we're better suited to our environment than are NTs. > As said > natural selection is painfully slow and relies on random variations > in DNA code. In normal circumstance only the best adapted survive, > but otday almost everyone survives in wealthy countries. Indeed for > your theory to be right their must be another vector of evolution. It's not about survival, per se, so much as passing on and concentrating the genetic code for the trait in question. There is a mounting body of evidence that NT-ism is on the wane... although we have a long way to go. If our numbers continue to increase, that's a good thing as I see it, and whatever the cause (this is far from established; the congregation of nerds and the concentration of the genotype corresponding with BAP (there is no acronym " BAG " ) is but one theory. A plausible one, though, and if it is the explanation, or one of the explanations, then what we would be seeing would be a rapid change that may in fact be evolutionary. Sometimes there are big spurts like that; it's not all gradual. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted December 31, 2003 Report Share Posted December 31, 2003 > You ought to thank them for saving you northerners from yourselves. > was probably close to the worst of all of the candidates > (pretending here that he was on the same level as all of the > candidates to replace him), probably right below that porn-star woman > , while not someone I'd want in office, was not AFAIK attempting to undermine the Lanterman act, and didn't, as Schwarzenegger did, essentially confess to a " brainfart " when it was pointed out to him that this was a horrible idea. I honestly don't know which of the two is worse, I didn't vote for either one of them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted December 31, 2003 Report Share Posted December 31, 2003 Re: Disproving my theory > Neil Gardner wrote: > > > Nonverbal communication has coexisted with the spoken word since homo > > sapiens sapiens first evolved. > > Spoken language has not always existed within the Homo genus. I am not > sure on the specifics on when spoken language evolved, and whether that > was before or after the sapiens species appeared, but one thing is > clear: Nonverbal language predated humans, and primates for that > matter. It was necessary then. It isn't now; we have something > better. Nonverbal language is like the appendix now, or the vestigial > feet in boa constrictors. Two years ago I would have been inclined to agree with you, , but having thought things through I beg to differ. First I said since the advent of homo sapiens sapiens (note the repetition), which refers specifically to the most highly evolved state of our species and sets us apart from other hominids. Complex spoken and nonverbal language is a halmark of all known human communities, even the remotest Brazilian tribes, who I might add still belong to the same species and share virtually all of our DNA. However, nonverbal communication is something that varies culturally. People adapt it to suit their needs. Eye contact is nowhere near as important in many Asian societies. Here it's in all HR training manuals (did the candidate establish eye contact with confidence?). I should know as eariler this year I was on an interview panel for a learning disability support worker! No-one considered the issue might be prejudicial to people who naturally find eye contact difficult. Come to think of it I rarely recall my father looking into my eyes or winking. I'd say he is pretty emotionless, but yet he had a successful career in the Royal Engineers (part of the British Army testing surface-to-air missiles) and became a project manager at BAe (now BA Systems - yep when they were selling missile technology to Iran and Iraq simultaneously). So quite obviously nerdish aspie-types have succeeded long before the IT revolution. Just now we are more obvious, because society has rediscovered nonverbal signals as a means of mass deceipt, enabling to accept a spoken or written truth, but understand a hiddenor unsayable truth at a lower level of consciousness. BTW Happy New Year ! (GMT = 01:31) Neil Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You are posting as a guest. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.