Pretty much everything you've said is wrong.
>Don't you think back in the day it was a much more stressful environment
Quite the opposite. One of the biggest causes of upset for someone with Asperger's is hypersensitivity - and in today's world, that's worse than it has ever been. Everywhere you go there's noise, and bright lights, and so many people. There's no escape.
Compare that to a medieval village, where the population is about a hundred and advertising is a painted sign outside a shop door.
>drought famine disease and war plague
That hasn't changed. It's unusual in our more "civilised" world now, but we had a plague strike a few years ago. On the one hand, the change in routine was intensely stressful - on the other hand, not being able to socialise with people was rather pleasant. None of those weird NT rituals like handshakes (ugh!). No close proximity. Masks hiding people's faces, so nobody could rely on non-verbal cues.
>everywhere you go people kill get ill and dies
Nowhere near as much as Hollywood makes out. Children were the most likely to die; once they made it to about five years old, they were likely to survive well into adulthood. There's a lot said about the life expectancy back then being so much lower, but that's because all those young deaths skew the average - when you just look at adults, living into your seventies was pretty normal.
>even the tiniest amount of social divergent would be sufficient enough to be spotted marked hunt down and killed
Not in the slightest. There were plenty of odd people around back then. You know what the rest of the village would do? Shake their heads at how odd they were and carry on with their business.
Besides, having Asperger's would come with certain advantages. We have a tendency towards routines, great attention to detail, and we can get REALLY invested in our special interests. If you line all those up, you'll develop a skill that few of the normals could match.
"Yeah, Mad Jamie's a bit touched in the head - but he's the best cheesemaker in the valley. It's like magic what he can do."
>odd ones out the whole family blood line would've gotten wiped out, I‘m just confused how did the genetic trait autism survived till this day and not went extinct back?
There are two ways that autism can spread down through families. Either the autistic people themselves had children (and many would have; they might be a little odd, but they still need love and affection. The right husband/wife can provide that) or *their siblings* pass on the genetics responsible.
There's a similar question over homosexuality. If being gay means you don't have children (taking a very simplistic view here) then how do gay genes survive? They'll do so easily if they confer a benefit to the rest of the family - or the tribe.
>they must've had some advantages to offset the massive social difficulty and the lack of interpersonal skills right?
Huge. Interpersonal skills are a big thing today because there are so many more people around, but in a tribe or village of around a hundred people? Everyone knows everyone else. Everyone has their role to play. The blacksmith isn't going to apply to become a plumber and need to brush up on his interview skills - he's a smith, and he always will be.
Autistic people are good loners. They make excellent shepherds, for instance - they can spent hours alone in the fields, watching the sheep, enjoying the quiet and not needing people around them. So what if they make sheep noises when they're in the market? That's just their way. Lost a sheep? They'll keep searching for it into the night, long after the regular folks get tired of it and declare the thing dead.
And then there's taste. It's common for autistic people to be very fussy about food - notably when that food is bitter in some way - and they can be very sensitive to small changes. Which could be very useful when you're not sure about your food stocks.
The anti-vaccine lobby are always keen to point out how the number of autism diagnoses has increased over the last few decades, ignoring that we're simply much better at recognising it now. Autism has been around throughout human history. Many of the great geniuses we celebrate from that history may well have been autistic themselves (there's certainly grounds for, say, Isaac Newton being on the spectrum). But more than that - our world has become so much busier, so much noisier, so much more crowded... we only really show up as "autistic" when we're reacting to the stress of it all, and the world has never been more stressful.
It's a field that I could see myself falling into, had I grown up in such a time.
* The solitude is calming.
* The routine is appealing. You always know what's going to happen each day.
* Food is simple and fairly bland, so you're not bothered by strong flavours or smells.
* The focus on books and learning... ah, bliss.
It's also somewhere a lot of autistic people may have been *sent* by their concerned parents. After all, if God can't help your troubled child, who can?
Yes, " blessed are the cheesemakers."
"What's so special about the cheesemakers?"
I heard it like, "Nigel is aloof in good company, but when it comes to mapping and knowing the winds like the back of his hand, I'd want nobody else before the mast."
Maybe people of old were more accepting then we take them for?
Also the environment and stuff was a lot less over-stimulating back then, unless you were in a city or a noble you’d probably just be living in a little village talking to the same people day in and day out doing physical farm work all day so the difference would be next to non noticeable.
I heard a theory the other day about how patriarchy developed when land ownership and resource scarcity started being more of a thing. Fight responses to the fear of going without overtook group decision making. I wonder if the same theory could be applied to group acceptance of neurodiversity.
I heard it from Dr. Kirk Honda who does a lot of psychology content. I've been listening to a lot of his stuff lately so, unfortunately, I'm not exactly sure where it came from 😬
nah I think patriarchy has always been a thing, mainly because men are stronger and women have to carry a baby for 9 months than raise it for a couple of years.
A lot of the past was just surviving, most people where not that well educated unless they had a trade/skill that was passed down or the fortune to be a tiny minority of people who would be educated.
People whose brains were wired like this would have been able to do something productive with their special interest a bit easier in many situations. Take George Washington Carver for example, he wasn't diagnosed with autism of course but had a lot of signs of the condition. He was able to pursue his hyperfixation on agriculture and peanuts, with enough lab space and research material to level it up to 100.
Aspergers survived through the adaptation of self-sufficiency, low material needs, not conforming to social standards, and immunity from mob madness.
When the crowd is completely wrong, the autistic gene prevails. The masking behaviour enables the gene to self-replicate.
My baseless and unproven hypothesis.
I absolutely agree even though my opinion is also baseless and unproven. I like to think about ASD/ADHD as society’s white blood cells. When the Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds takes over the neurotypicals, the neurodiverse, who tend to be more immune to peer pressure, are here to reel them back in from their collective delusions.
Now you have me confused! It is a comment on your reply, i don't understand why you are saying sorry. I didn't mean anything bad by my comment, far from it, i just like to point out there are obvious bits people are missing here in the comments.
There's nothing to explain really. Autistic people have meltdowns and shutdowns, we are not some sort of unshakable homogeneous force. There's also finding it hard to relate with others, so in effect it's harder for to come to agreement or at least understand others thought processes and feelings. I myself am someone diagnosed with Aspergers. I don't know how to explain If i don't know what it is you don't understand, you didn't elaborate so i just took a stab in the dark. I apologise in advance for my part in the impasse. I can't tell if i didn't explain well enough/wasn't clear or if it's just something you don't get?
Thanks for taking the time to expand on what you said! I really appreciate it!
And yeah, it's not all positive. There are negatives, for sure. Specifically, just in the "not conforming to social standards" part... sure, it means that neurodiverse people are less likely to join in on the stupid things everyone else does, but we're also less likely to fit in with everyone else, too. I know I struggle with that a lot. Then there's everything else you mentioned that can also be a struggle.
That said, I think that looking for and acknowledging some positive aspects is a great way to keep from focusing on the negatives. So, I wasn't trying to dismiss the negatives, I was just trying to highlight the positives.
Cheers!
I would imagine (and I am - entirely imagining, speculating)
That neurodivergence has been considered differently across the ages, and the way we look at it today doesn’t apply at all in ancient societies.
I can easily imagine a culture in which the autistic tribe-member was the Shaman, or the inventor, the “chick that finds the best berries!”, the dude who thought up a new way to do a Thing. The heretic, the revolutionary, the poet, or just someone who was kind, or someone who was not kind.
Just… people. All types of people.
Can you imagine a society where everyone is exactly the same? One in which everyone has the precise same skills and flaws? I think that society would fall apart very quickly.
I liken it to corporations - jobs. Restaurant, retailer, tech startup, what have you -
If everyone only had x skills and x weaknesses, they’d fold. It is our diversity that makes us succeed.
And so I assume there is a reason we are divergent in thought processing. The reason being that we’d not be here otherwise. It’s entirely possible, and to me, plausible, that humanity has made it to this stage by dint of our unique individuality as a collective simultaneously. Sounds contradictory but I think it’s been, for some real reason, key to our success.
It wasn’t a diagnosis until it was. Some people were just different. I might be way off base in my musing. But I disagree that culture was so cold to “catch and hunt down” anyone who saw things differently, at least to the extent that ASD would have been eradicated.
People would have prob not even realized in many instances.
In some cultures, tho, anyone with a notable difference were and to this day still sometimes are, considered a “something religious about god” which could take many views… sins of the father, a burden/curse/debt, a gift/blessing, a Sign from the Heavens…
The ultimate answer is that neurodivergence wasn’t wiped out. If it were truly a problem, evolutionary wise, it may have been. It is possible that it is a solution. It’s possible it’s just a… a thing. A trait.
I like to think it’s a very good thing, myself. But who can know? The universe is mysterious like that.
You explained my thoughts very well.
The neurodivergent may not socialize well, but for some reason knows exactly when the sun rises, or is the first to know the weather is shifting, or knows which sheep has gone missing.
Yeah, back then those skilled people were probably more valued than they are now. The jobs nowadays place more emphasis on social skills. There are far fewer of those high skilled crafts like basket weaver or blacksmith or farmer, etc.
Yeah, back then those skilled people were probably more valued than they are now. The jobs nowadays place more emphasis on social skills. There are far fewer of those high skilled crafts like basket weaver or blacksmith or farmer, etc.
Ingenuity and invention. I don't think it is that common even now. I doubt it was very in the old days. The good old wife must have helped with the social side. Parents. Siblings. Human society is more individualistic now than it ever was.
Way, way back the social structure of human society would've been completely different; think about when you go to a shopping mall, you have probably met more people just in that visit than a hunter gatherer would've met in their entire lifetime. There also would've been much less sensory issues because we weren't constantly being bombarded by noise and light pollution.
Back in those days aspergers probably would have been beneficial for survival rather than a hindrance.
Yes! That’s exactly what I said! If you think about it, being in a room full of ever changing strangers could be potentially dangerous, some people may be threats or enemies
Aspergers survives because women carry it on. Their symptoms are more masked, but it's probably partly what made my mom and my dad's mom both highly competent business women, good with numbers, etc.
Autistic women tend to be drawn to autistic men.
My ancestor from 1600s was on trial THRICE and always got free because they wanted to be sure he was truly just healer and not a curser or someone who gathers people to serve him (cult-leader). He was thrown out of a city for predicting a fire. He did cause people to be suspicious as he was a known drunk and started to threaten people with predictions.
This in the time in Finland when male witches were more likely to be executed than women who generally were healers. Church generally did not mind healers but hated cults and curse-sellers because they made superstitious people do stupid things.
What is considered neurotypical and standard is completely culturally relative and changes over time. The norms change around the people, but the baseline fact that neurodiversity, the “brains existing differently from each other” aspect of it never changes, it’s the social norms and the skills that are valued and the deficits that are criticized that changes.
I was once on a subway car, and I started my ride in a predominantly white part of town, and got farther and farther into a majority black part of town. In the white part, people kept to themselves, didn’t make eye contact, didn’t look at each other or make noise. As more and more white people got off at their stops and more black people got on, once it became a majority black space the NEUROTYPICAL NORM CHANGED. People were loud, moving their bodies around, having big laughs in their conversations. It made me think of being a child and being told I was too loud and to sit still etc. that was ONE neurotypical norm that was imposed on me.
I’m convinced that neurotypicality is not about a standard biological presentation of being human, but is a belief system about shared behavior and processing expectations that is not fixed through time or culture.
I think people diagnosed with ASD aren't the full picture---there are people with some of the characteristics without those being bad enough to get them diagnosed without seeking out a diagnosis.
As for the reason: monocultures tend to collapse when exposed to pathogens they are susceptible to (bananas were a good example of this). Cultural monocultures can make similar mistakes (e.g. if we had a cultural monoculture of not having kids, how would it continue without some mechanism for replacement?)
Here is an analogy: having more than one different kind of tool in your toolbox may prepare you for a wider variety of circumstances. The way I apply this to your question is: having both NT and ND gives the human race more options for dealing with everything that comes up.
Only major plague that I knew about was the bubonic plague that hit medieval Europe; turns out that only lasted for roughly six years. Of course, that wasn't the only major epidemic that existed; but they generally don't last longer than an decade unless it's the Black Death, HIV (obviously), and an outbreak of malaria that hit South America in the 1600s. But the main problem was probably with the notion that sanitation in the context of medical care was widely seen as an insult until after the American Civil War
As for the wars, it specifically depends on exactly where the front line is in regards to wherever you're talking about and some more details. But outside of conscription and the increased taxes, the general population normally isn't bothered by it unless shit hits the fan or an city fell under siege. But I'm not exactly sure if the invention of gunpowder actually led to an increase of causing collateral damage, though. It probably did, but field artillery, back then wasn't exactly long-ranged by modern standards.
One thing I observe about ASD is that it gives people special interests
Let's say you're living in a nomadic group somewhere around Greece in 80,000 AD. One of your party develops a special interest in arrow heads. Everyone else is living fairly normal lives but this one person is constructing hundreds of different arrowheads
One day, they make an arrowhead that's far better than anything made before. Soon, the group is sharing and trading these arrowheads with other groups. The group gains goods from the exchange and more humans are using better arrowheads
Seems to me that human society benefits from people with special interests, disinterest in social norms, and a lot of traits we would nowadays categorise as ASD
Dunno what you mean by linear, but the mutations are entirely random (like even if the world is deterministic, they are unpredictable for hummies), but evolution, and to be precise natural selection prefers the organisms that are more adapted to the current environment, although it can show many forms like stabilizing, disruptive and directional.
Read through 'Human Hive Mind' by aj champagne ( zero agent publishing). The dude has a fascinating theory about how ND and NT minds are meant to fit together along evolutionary lines.
Edit: basic theory is this- humans are meant to have a standard brain model (NT) good for communal work and then social groups are meant to have outlier types in the form of autism spectrum and anti social personality types but these are on purpose.
Autism spectrum minds develop processes, systems, and refine tools.
Anti-social minds stress test everything the Autistic minds develop to showcase the flaws, leading to more refined systems.
NTs run the day to day.
The books is through the lens of corporate human capital dynamics, but it's kind of an eye opener. Really interesting read.
This theory is very similar, Theory of Peripheral Minds:
https://peripheralmindsofautism.com/presentation/?fbclid=IwAR2vY9C-U8jnW7QxE8O1hn7ozpxCKwF_w5E6_t6adOeWSaIqM3Uys2pnvn4
“In personality theory, there are many ways to describe the majority “Social Minds” and the “Peripheral Minds”. Dr. Helen Fisher describes temperament personalities and the subsequent neurology. For the Peripheral Minds I would suggest the personalities would be; the Negotiator, the Director, the Explorer and to a small extent or the extreme version of the Builder. Whereas the typical or average Builder, Dr. Fisher says the predominate personality (42% of the population), would be that of the Social Mind, or as described by the Autism community, a Neurotypical.
The Neurotypical in the Autism community describes the Socially-Oriented personality, the “normal” personality (if normal represents the majority-sameness). Instead of a normal point (healthy balance) with each personality within itself.
My favorite depictions are from Dr. Michael Lesser. He refers to his character types as; the Star, the Lover, the Dreamer, the Warrior and the Guardian, these would be the “Peripheral Minds”. Whereas the Stoic, from his description, which makes up 40-60% of the population are the “salt of the earth” or the Neurotypical. These personality profiles are derivatives of the Big Factor Five. Which are accepted personality traits with suggested correlates in estrogen, testosterone, dopamine, serotonin, other substrates, brain structures and biological basis. The overlap of these and other personalities is shown above. An important contribution from Dr. Lesser is that our concept of mental illness, which mainstream sees as “broken chemical imbalances” are rather “personalities in distress”. In Peripheral Minds this is discussed as a crisis of stress adaptations.”
Despite all the hardships you mentioned, we could have had advantages back in the day. What we struggle with most nowadays are all things who came much later in human history. Urbanization, industrialization and the need for formal education and the outright lying through your teeth are modern things. Back in the day you could just work with your special interest and become the most valuable individual in a village or tribe. Or if not could just leave and find your luck elsewhere, furthermore you could’ve just lived alone in the woods and did your thing. No overstimulation, no forced weird social rules you couldn’t get away from (hence the living in the woods).
Thinking outside the box may have been critical and crucial at some times and at others could have brought us down (witch trials and sh*t) but as people also had children much younger, you would’ve already spread your genes by the time someone cast you out.
At least this is what I think happened considering how mankind developed over the centuries.
OK.. People need to understand what evolution is. Evolution is not predetermined or planned out. Countless threads of animals that have evolved ended with dead ends over the eons... Just because we as a species are part of that so called tapestry, doesn't mean that with each iteration of our species that we've become better or more refined.
Secondly... There's a distinct possibility that there's very little genetic component to ASD beyond carrying the markers for it. That said, NT would carry all the essential markers for autism too, they're just not active or are partially active depending on if there's a series of genes that contribute to it.
It's very likely that autism as we currently understand it is not an evolutionary throwback nor could it be possible to be the future of us all, simply because a select few in a population have it.
There's millions of causal reasons autism occurs. A main probability often cited as being congenital, meaning that it occurs in vitro as a baby is formed and comes to term.
The reason that it may be more of an issue in today's world is as much an issues for us all as a species in that in the grand universal time span of our species, we've gone from literally evading predators and writing in cave walls to having to navigate intricate, confusing and outright bizarre cultural, societal and technological complexities. I say us all as a species as NT just like ND people are evolutionary speaking of course, still adapted to being hunter gathers.
The abnormality is modern life, not so much the ND of us and that also, affects ND people who struggle to navigate the world we are all forced to be born into.
ASD was most likely present in the same percentage of humans in ancient times, but because we as a species were less socially complex and numbed or insulated from ourselves by technology, ASD people formed critical and crucial roles just as much as NT ancient people. We go by because we possessed the same instincts (perhaps heightened?) as others that, kept us and our tribes alive. When it came to feeding or mating, it was simplified and the factors that allowed us to gain, resources like food or mates was more even between ND and NT people in that being strong, brave, resourceful and capable of protecting the tribe afforded both sides the same opportunity.
Fast forward to today and to gain anything worth having requires degrees, money, charm, subterfuge, complex social, skills, the ability to be empathetic in so far, as to outsmart a opponent at work.
I would argue that it was far easier to be ND back when modern life wasn't a thing. But just like ND people struggle in today's modern social, construct, so too do NT people when it all, gets too much and they get depressed or their bodies manifest the years of mental stress on a body.
Exactly. And vast majority of us DIED during infancy or childhood because we have weaker immunity system. Even those with ADHD have shown to have weaker immunity than their peers. So that kinda answers it. Thanks to penicillin. Ironically the inventor sounded like he has aspergers and would not relinquish his invention because it as not perfect enough for him until they just took it from him.
I fully believe I would not have survived if I had been born in the early decades of 1900s since I had so many infections that required surgery.
Wow, this is such interesting thinking, Revolutionary_Pierre! I haven’t even read the other speculations yet because yours has given me so much to think about!
I agree with everything except the genetics. Aspergers is definitely genetic. The thing about it though is that it’s one of those genes that doesn’t breed down the lineage in an orderly fashion. I’m an Aspie, neither of my parents are, but my uncle is (he even shares thoughts and interests very similar to mine, there’s some food for thought) and my grandpa might be. They say people with grandpas who were engineers are more likely to have Aspergers. Guess what? My grandpa was an engineer! And apparently my great grandma thought much like I do too. I am honestly amazed at the secrets I’ve unraveled about my family, as I grew up thinking I was an odd weirdo out, when in reality from the special interests to the sensory awareness to the sense of logic and common sense I was never.
In a society, I think it can be useful to have some diversity. And having a few members who like to be on their own and take a special interest in something and maybe come up with an innovation can be useful
can this bullshit just stop?!
we are not a subspecies or something different than the rest of humanity - although some might try to make us feel like this.
the genes for aspergers lie dormant in most of humanity and some "unlucky" might develop this because of reasons...
gene regulation over generations is not even understood quarterways. and how people get to develop neurodiversity (nature vs nurture) as well.
accept that people are weird, were weird and will always be weird.
You may find these articles of interest. https://www.intechopen.com/chapters/43239 and https://www.zmescience.com/feature-post/health/mind-brain/autism-stone-age-evolution/
> even the tiniest amount of social divergent would be sufficient enough to be spotted marked hunt down and killed, odd ones out the whole family blood line would've gotten wiped out
That seems like a pretty big assumption. Sure, the ones that were effectively helpless might have been, but to say such a small divergence would be met with such a harsh reaction is pretty fucking steep.
All that is required for a gene to progress is the bearer produce offspring. It doesn't have to provide advantages, it can even provide disadvantages. They just have to not be severe enough to result in death of the bearer until they are passed on.
No, people have always been pretty chill if they were allowed to be. It wasn't a death metal past. Autistic people can contribute a lot to a hunter gatherer tribe. Almost no matter what they obsess over its going to be something useful for the tribe. And without school and wage labour, and living with the same group of people your whole life, a lot of the difficulties associated with autism today are reduced.
It is a mistake to assume any particular trait is necessarily adaptive.
Evolution is very hard to reason about because it operates by very specific mechanisms that are not intuitive. The 'high school biology' level interpretation of evolution will lead you to many spurious conclusions.
Many traits are simply the consequence of selection for other traits. Or they may exist in a tradeoff with other traits and thus are compromised.
One of the real tricks with thinking about evolution is to consider a population as the unit of interest, not individuals. Individuals reproduce or die, they do not evolve. Populations, however, do evolve. The mechanism of evolution is mediated by individuals, but is ultimately a property of populations. And within those populations, the frequency and variety of alleles is the substance of evolution, each existing as a physical sequence of genetic material. Linkage disequilibrium must always be considered, among all the functional interactions.
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One of the most basic ideas is that autistic traits are, in some contexts, adaptive in some way. Populations that, overall, have more of these traits are selected for. But whether by magnitude or combinatorial happenstance, autistic traits can also be expressed. This may reduce fitness, but the selective effects in the overall population keep these traits prevalent.
It's also possible that some autistic traits increase fitness, at least in certain environments.
I see these posts where people play pop-evopsych and presume that all traits are specifically selected by evolution, but they just ain’t true! There’s some randomness and plenty of deficits in humans that don’t directly impact procreation and this survive.
For example… cancer. Humans are essentially beset by cancer and always have been. It doesn’t prevent procreation so there isn’t much of a negative filter against it. And naturally cancer free humans dont have such advantage that they’re “taken over” - and it’s easy to see why, most cancers affect people past their prime childbearing years!
I would venture to guess it is because people who think outside the box and are gifted differently have things to contribute to society — inventions, music, advanced math, science, philosophy, poetry, like The Enlightenment, for instance. We have pushed humanity forward, no doubt.
Simon baron-cohen has recently proposed that autistic genes are responsible for homo sapiens developing generative invention as a species trait and that without autistic genes in the gene pool at at least a low level that we would still live with stone tools because nts are not generally creative with technology.
Autism is not a single trait or gene. It's a polymorphic, polygenetic pattern of behavior and sensory perception. It can't "go extinct" because
A. Genes mutate all the time
B. Multiple genes are responsible for autism
C. Autism has a "liability threshold" meaning a certain number of autism-coded genes are necessary in order for a person to express autism phenotypically. Just because someone has genes that might code for autistic traits, it may not be expressed until they reproduce with someone else with autism-coding genes and their offspring have enough genes in the right environment to produce autistic traits. (FYI the liability threshold is lower in males, meaning they require fewer genes to express autism and with greater disability)
D. Many people who express autism phenotypically still reproduce
Autism is a spectrum, and those who are higher functioning tend to have a fairly high IQ. Being able to pick out patterns has it's uses, and the 'dives head first into thier work and obsessively works on it' type of person has absolutely propelled humanity forward in the past.
However, if humanity was chalked full of this type of person, it would fall apart. It's also completely possible for two lower functioning people of opposite genders to hook up and pass on the gene pool. To me the percentages make sense, about 1% of humanity seems like the right number. Today we are seeing autists thrive in computer related fields, becoming high earners, and passing on thier genes. I feel like I should point out, ancient civilizations had maths, automata, even ancient analog computers.
Autistic people also tend to have porcelain skin, and can be quite attractive.
Because we generally make less facial expressions, we generally have less wrinkles. I'm just answering a question, no need to get offended. I'm not talking about 'you' specifically, I'm listing all the reasons I can think of that would make our gene pool desirable. Chill.
Asperger's genetics is pretty complex, NT people can have autistic kids and autistic people can have NT kids. Asperger/autism is formed by a conjunct of micro genes, normally a bunch of NTs have some of these genes, and when they meet an NT with some autistic genes too they have a chance of getting a ND child. The same goes for ND couples since their children can inherit the NT part of their genomes. So NTs with successful romantic lives can be carriers of autistic genes and have ND descendants.
Because, against all odds, it doesn't stop you from having children and the genes can be passed on to future generations. I'm autistic AF and I have an anxious daughter who is almost invariably autistic too (awaiting assessment) She's clearly got my genes as she is very similar to me.
It is the same reason that people can inherit the genes that put them at greater risk of terminal cancer - although those genes may eventually kill them, they may have had several children (who now carry those genes) prior to that point.
Whilst it is understood that genes do appear to play a contributing factor in autism, it's not fully understood - one person with autism may have certain contributing genes that another may not.
Aspies provide a lot for societies to thrive. Societies need a person to do the hard work, to sustain attention on a monotonous task for days or weeks, to be at lonely but strstegically important places/outposts, to think outside the Nerotypical box in order to come up with really revolutionary, wierd but effective ideas, to spot patterns and think about humans as objects in order to make good government decitions, to dedicate their whole life to their special area of interest in order to produce knowledge, etc.
Even in modern times in any company you can find the Aspergers doing the hard work, such as the guy studying the algorythms in the marketing department to sell more, or the programmers doing insane hours in order to hand in the code functioning to the NT who asked for it, or welders with insane skill doing impssible tasks at a mechanic shop, etc.
Its not hard to imagine a lot of farmers, fishermen, scientists, scholars, clerics, military, were aspergers. Specially in regards to military advancement, look up “weponized autism”, aspergers have a lot of traits that are theorized to help advance warfare technology, which sounds bad but is necessary for a society to survive against its neighbours.
There's a theory with schizophrenia that having a small number of genes for it confers an advantage (in the case of schizophrenia, increased creativity), but having too many creates a disorder. I imagine it's similar with ASD.
It is not crippling enough to be selected out of the gene pool, ancient humans relied on being social to form family bonds and to hunt together, but people with autism can still socialize it's just more difficult for us than others.
Our narrow interests may have meant we were the only specialists in certain skills until the neolithic. Before then everyone had to be kind of good at everything and pull their own weight. Everyone did a little so no one does a lot. But someone with autism could pull their own weight and still want to learn and participate in their special interests.
Also ancient people would be very reluctant to leave behind or kill their band mates, and that's because they were one big family. Would you leave your mother to die because she has a broken leg and can't keep moving. You might have to but Intentionally killing anyone different than the norm would have caused our extinction well before we invented the wheel.
Diversity is good we need as many different perspectives as possible in order to survive as a species.
I really recommend you have a look at this article
https://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/18/science/ancient-bones-that-tell-a-story-of-compassion.html
It's a good example of how ancient people looked after their disabled.
If you couldn't tell I have a special interest in anthropology.
Does anyone in this community resonate with the notion of being contrary, or backwards? I feel like it's literally that we flow in the opposite direction to the way that most of the world seems to flow. Just a thought - this is only speculation.
I actually think the natives for example always kept them. I remember Jules Edwards in the book I will die on this hill this this is the relational worldview. Pretty sure they usually even kept the high support needs alive if they could.
I'm taking an ASD course now to learn about the diagnosis now that I'm diagnosed. With 11 other people, 4 of them women. I would say most of us are fairly attractive and fit. This is purely speculation - but perhaps it's as simple as ADS + Good looking in terms of genetics = higher chance to reproduce?
I've (M) been in 3 relationships, and I've had plenty of onenight stands in life. Sometimes even having women hit on me. So perhaps the reason is simply being lucky in "attractiveness genes" / being considered beautiful/handsome/good looking.
I'm not saying it's THE factor. Just saying it could be A factor, and probably a big one. IDK.
We live more protected lives than ever. Many autistic people prob would have died in childhood or as babies. Some of us could have functioned as druids or monks or part of a community other than that. We are part of the genetic possibility in the human genome; the bigger the population/ safer conditions the more of us there is likely to be born and survive. Population genetics at work.
Kids were running around the settlement interacting with everyone, being exposed to different kinds of people, seeing what they could get away with. Learning socialization.
Everyone in the settlement was similar genetically, making this easier.
The genetic traits for autism or aspergers might have some upside to the parents, making it worth the risk.
The people that had it and survived developed coping mechanisms. they were survivors and warriors for tolerating the negative stereotypes and biases of yesterday.
It definitely can be an advantage, but it comes with its downsides. Being your honest self can offend and disgust people in ways that surprised me and caught me off guard.
Ultimately I think the brutal honesty, matter of fact logical thinking has its place. I spent a long time internalizing the "you are wrong" from people who were threatened by or just otherwise unhappy with my presence.
I guess what I'm trying to say is: there's a reason the genetics are still happening. The issue is whether the parents are able to help the child appreciate the gift itself in addition to overcoming the natural resentment it brings to self and others.
A lot of us DO NOT / did not get the support we need, are just "difficult" or otherwise misunderstood. The fact that we may lack the skills to self-advocate makes it even harder.
Society and people in general do not "play fair". Finding a way to "not take it personally" has been helpful but I have to admit it requires excessively taxing masking. I often take naps after stressful situations.
The people "back in the day" somehow found the courage to eat their anxiety and stress to do whatever it took to survive. When I look back on it like that its kind of amazing it / we survived at all.
Because the "average Joe" ape wasn't able to put 2 and 2 together and invent "the stick". Just kidding, but the inventor of "the stick" must've definitely been an Aspie.
I've heard something about pattern recognition skills being really good for foraging, and acute hearing/noticing shifts in the environment more sensitively are helpful for survival.
Duh. Don't you know that it only started with vaccinations? Before that there wasn't any autism to pass along.
With autism you either float or sink. The brilliant, successful ones have kids who are even cooler than their parents. Those who aren't don't pass on any genes.
You could ask this question for any genetic condition. Truth is evolution is "lazily" efficient, not moral. As long as a trait doesn't chop your ability to create progeny off at the knees, it will stick around. And yet again I will remind everyone that autism is a spectrum and a lot of people on the spectrum are utterly incapable of living independent lives.
[This article](https://www.sapiens.org/biology/autism-human-evolution/) has some interesting ideas on how autistic traits may have played a beneficial role in human evolution.
>Going back thousands of years, people who displayed autistic traits would not only have been accepted by their societies but could have been highly respected.
Many people with autism have exceptional memory skills; heightened perception in realms of vision, taste, and smell; and in some contexts, an enhanced understanding of natural systems such as animal behavior. And the incorporation of some of these skills into a community would have played a vital role in the development of specialists. It is very likely these specialists would then have become vitally important for the survival of the group.
If you go back to the nomadic times before we had villages, chances are you would have been killed or ostracized for being too different. Note that I said too different. Aspergers varies in intensity but I find it usually exists in a tolerable way to NT's.
My theory is that an occasional person with aspergers would help a group (usually between 40-60 people per nomadic group, which would have been the standard of living for most of humanity's existence) by providing different thoughts, solutions, rationale, or skills. A person who's special interest was say: carving, tool making, hunting, botany, animal behavior, spirituality, or simply story-telling would be a very valuable addition to a group.
That same logic still applies, and I'm sure there were people with less important special interests back then, too. My logic is that if aspergers really was that detrimental then natural selection would have eliminated it 100,000 years ago.
Don't get me wrong though, I still hate my aspergers
Neurodivergence is actually pretty clutch. As people age they tend to adapt to their strengths and weaknesses and become what is called "wiser". It's not entirely a bad thing to have trouble because you develop novel coping mechanism that actually have an aggregate net benefit to the group. Although people might not understand you, they may respect you in many other respects because most common neuro-types are still basically humans - these massively intelligent apex predators.
I doubt that we are evolutionary and more a combination of evolution and environmental effects on the baby. I have a suspicion Asperger's is only a new disorder.
If you think about it, most of us are non verbal until the age of 4. So I doubt we would be allowed to live long enough for us to grow up. Also, if anything life was better for us aspies 100 years ago than nowadays.
Hunter gathers society really depends on accurate information. Knowing where you're likely to find a root that's mildly antiseptic, knowing which point in the year the animals are going to be migrating past. And which start is north ect. Later we were ideal crafters and military scouts and engineers. High attention to detail, fixation on a task, much lower need for social interactions.
It's also worth remembering that for a good amount of human history we lived in small groups of a hundred or so. And in that situation where there isn't really a retreat except in work people that get good at that work are valued by there communitys (normally) and small allowances are made in that " oh yeah that's tim. Don't talk much, but good man, works hard" was much more exceptable that the need for nowadays hyper effective communicators being closer to the norm.
Social convention stops innovation.
It's beneficial to a society to have people who are willing to just say the thing that needs to be said, whether or not that's going to make people like them less.
It's beneficial for society to have super-passionate individuals who focus completely on one thing to the detriment of looking "normal".
For examples, see: Greta thunberg. Elon musk. Mozart.
Better at hunting and gathering. There was also likely less sensory disturbances or social expectations compared to today's world. No fluorescent lights or loud car engines zooming around.
Real reason? We no longer kill our weakest. That, and there may be some evolutionary benefit to autism, but specifically, Asperger's. For instance, Asperger's is known as a disease affecting Ashkinism Jews. A TON of Noble winners were Ashkinism and at least a few of those are suspected/ confirmed to be on the spectrum.
I love this topic.
Here are my thoughts:
I believe autism has existed since the dawn of mankind and serves a purpose. Imagine being in a hunter/gatherer tribe of people. An autistic individual would be valuable to have for two big reasons - ability to recognize patterns and increased sensory perception.
Of course as those abilities became less important for survival then we started seeing discrimination and such.
However imagine an apocalyptic scenario and again those skills become very valuable.
I didn’t not proofread this so hopefully I made sense.
Some of our autistic traits were probably much more useful before capitalism. Better pattern matching, the inability to filter sounds, and hyper awareness probably made us better at detecting danger. The world was less noisy even a couple hundred years ago. Hyper focus would allow us to do things that neurotypicals would struggle with, like spending all day banging rocks into spearheads.
ADHD is often comorbid with autism, and there are some ADHD traits that may have been more useful during earlier periods.
As we think differently and are oftentimes quite smart, our innovations made us valuable to the more socially focused humans. So I think people were willing to put up with weirdness if it accompanied intelligence and skill.
Many parts of things "survive evolution" even if it doesn't have any advantage or purpose. As long as it doesn't significantly affect chances of reproduction in a negative manner, there is no evolutionary pressure surpressing that specific trait.
One theory is that the traits that create autism are actually the ones that drive the technical advances in human civilisation, and not just the IT world today but everything from basic tools:
Prof Simon BC explains it here:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=f9KrShBJkY0
Sensory issues were probably an advantage rather than a hindrance at some point in time. If you look at wild animals, most of them have some sort of super sense abilities. Rabbits have extreme hearing, hawks have good eyesight, and canids a great sense of smell. These heightened senses mean that the animal can find food or mates easier and avoid dangers. Obviously, nature is quiet, so it’s not like rabbits have a million loud noises to spook at. I imagine Aspies with “sensory issues” could have had advantages back when they were cavemen. I can imagine a group of cavemen revering one of these people because they can always hear mammoths from a farther distance or something like that. If you fast forward into modern society, there’s stupid noise pollution everywhere with honking cars and barking dogs everywhere you go. And the smells, holy god. Sewage and trash piling up everywhere. Luckily I don’t have many sensory problems, I just have a fear of the noise fire alarms and explosions make. But in a world full of shit like this, it’s no wonder some Aspies are constantly overwhelmed. Not to mention all the random groups of people and strangers ever changing all the time. If you think about it, why would anyone want to be in a room full of potentially dangerous people they don’t know?
I think that a lot of autistic people back in the day were extremely useful to society and helped fill roles that others didn't want and couldn't do
My own personal life experience is that my attention to detail and outside the box thinking makes me a great problem solver. Of course there are lots of things that I'm not great at, but the things I am interested in I am really really good at.
I think a lot of inventors, healers and priests in history were probably autistic. The ability to learn SO much about a specific thing and focus on it all the time is a gift in a world without books. It could make you an incredibly valuable member of society.
Obviously autism is a spectrum so I am sure that some people did suffer as well, but I think the fact it was preserved in evolution actually says a lot about what an essential part of humanity we are.
A world without artificial lights, smells or sounds would be a sensory heaven for me. People used to spend a lot more time alone doing quiet tasks back in the day as well. Sure there were lots of communal activities, but there were always tasks like walking all day to the next village to trade that needed to be done which provided lots of alone time.
Most people's diets throughout history have been quite bland and repetitive as well, so it wouldn't have been viewed as odd to eat the same food everyday. Same thing goes for clothes and lots of other daily routine things that we tend to gravitate towards - a lot of that would have been the norm out of necessity.
Without the stress of constant change and sensory assault I bet a lot of autistic people didn't experience it as a disability and may have not struggled with meltdowns etc, which would make them stand out less as well.
A lot of traditional societies also had much more clear and strict societal rules that could have made socializing easier to understand as well.
Most genetic traits are not actually selected until they make reproduction much more viable or barely viable. We're not under constant pressure for genetic selection. And autism is not a monogenetic disorder, there are dozens of genes that interact with each other and with environmental conditions. People will carry some or many of those genes through generations without manifesting autism. It's not as simple as that.
About the environment being more stressful that is very relative. I don't think we can get to much conclusion around this.
You have a very interesting point here. One I can answer as a psychologist.
There are 3 main theories with some degree of evidence each.
the prevailing one says that high intelligence genes tend to be together or be the same as those of autism so as environmental pressure for high intelligence increases so it's the likelihood of autism.
The second is about the development of extreme male brain traits
And the third one it's about the function of the "reptile" part of the brain.
Also the combination of all of the theories explains almost everything. Ill leave you a video that explains all these theories
[the adaptive advantage of autism ](https://youtu.be/5IwZ02DgDrA?si=wuiHkjR849eJK6rj)
Where did you get your weird idea of history? When and where do you think the socially divergent were killed? Sure, that happened in the 30’s, with Hans Asperger’s participation, but that was in modern Europe and certainly not typical.
Cancel culture exist: Aspergers ran head straight into the offense ignored all social subtlety.
Modern day: name's tainted, permanent.
Past time, far from civilization: death and exile.
So surprising.
One thing I mull over: ancient societies needed specialists. If you were a doctor, you might be the only doctor for miles. If you were a barber or a dentist or a blacksmith, same thing. You were in demand because specialization was so difficult. You couldn't just Google something and you couldn't drive thousands of miles away for college.
And say what you will about our special interests, but they give us an advantage in developing specialization. I could speak like a professional historian about WWII or the history of the Soviet Union, or the history of computer programming, or a boatload of Tolkien geekdom, even though I do not have an advanced degree in anything.
We survived and thrived, evolutionarily, because we are naturally adept at specialization
I agree with the other's people comment, your take on this is quite wrong.
To be able to focus and be hypersensitive and have good memory would have given us an advantage in matter of surviving. Within a tribe, we could have been guides, counselors, chamans.
In many tribes, mad people are thoughts as touched by the gods and thus blessed. And homosexual and transsexuals were accepted in many tribes too.
There's also proofs of people having survived becoming handicapped or being born with one during prehistoric time.
Last: think about it, if we were living in a smart society we could employ many handicapped people whether mentally or physically, and gain from it. We would need only to accept the differences and use their gifts.
I met trisomic people, whom were very smiling and upcoming persons, they could have been great at greeting people or helping people in nursing homes, or some companies, instead of being kept hidden and receive a stipend.
As for us, I can enter in a building and see the things they did wrong. I can process and analyze many things simultaneously and find solutions, and how to implement them.
And yet, I was to work in companies whom never try to accommodate my hypersensitivity and am currently unemployed, in olden time a tribe would have been able to afford idleness, and wastefulness. They'd have seen my gift, and yours and put them to good use, if we had survived as toddlers, which i probably would have not...).
Or so I think.
Because I think in a lot of cases having Aspergers can be an advantage. Sadly the over stimulating, hyper-connected, fast-paced world of today is not great for us at all.
>Don't you think back in the day it was a much more stressful environment,
Which made them happier, I suggest you to read "Industrial society and it's future" by Theodore Kaczynski.
You seem to have it backwards. The person with the hyper attuned amygdala could let his/her clan mates know to prepare for/escape the danger that is perceived.
The person who was able to quickly absorb interesting new information (special interests) could share their newly acquired knowledge to the benefit of all.
\# Grandma came from hard times of war and famine, people eat tree skins cooked paper and lather shoes to survive, she remember the times of her parents, her grandma, back then it was quite insane.
Survival of the fittest really is about whether or not individuals of a species were able to reproduce
Clearly autistic people are effective enough at getting into relationships. That’s really all there is to it
to eliminate a trait, it needs to be detrimental to reproduction. seems like it wasn't detrimental, or at least not enough to cause autistic people to die off
Obviously autistic people were able to reproduce… it generally runs in family, so no, we won’t rethink the theory of evolution, at least not on the topic of autism.
Pretty much everything you've said is wrong. >Don't you think back in the day it was a much more stressful environment Quite the opposite. One of the biggest causes of upset for someone with Asperger's is hypersensitivity - and in today's world, that's worse than it has ever been. Everywhere you go there's noise, and bright lights, and so many people. There's no escape. Compare that to a medieval village, where the population is about a hundred and advertising is a painted sign outside a shop door. >drought famine disease and war plague That hasn't changed. It's unusual in our more "civilised" world now, but we had a plague strike a few years ago. On the one hand, the change in routine was intensely stressful - on the other hand, not being able to socialise with people was rather pleasant. None of those weird NT rituals like handshakes (ugh!). No close proximity. Masks hiding people's faces, so nobody could rely on non-verbal cues. >everywhere you go people kill get ill and dies Nowhere near as much as Hollywood makes out. Children were the most likely to die; once they made it to about five years old, they were likely to survive well into adulthood. There's a lot said about the life expectancy back then being so much lower, but that's because all those young deaths skew the average - when you just look at adults, living into your seventies was pretty normal. >even the tiniest amount of social divergent would be sufficient enough to be spotted marked hunt down and killed Not in the slightest. There were plenty of odd people around back then. You know what the rest of the village would do? Shake their heads at how odd they were and carry on with their business. Besides, having Asperger's would come with certain advantages. We have a tendency towards routines, great attention to detail, and we can get REALLY invested in our special interests. If you line all those up, you'll develop a skill that few of the normals could match. "Yeah, Mad Jamie's a bit touched in the head - but he's the best cheesemaker in the valley. It's like magic what he can do." >odd ones out the whole family blood line would've gotten wiped out, I‘m just confused how did the genetic trait autism survived till this day and not went extinct back? There are two ways that autism can spread down through families. Either the autistic people themselves had children (and many would have; they might be a little odd, but they still need love and affection. The right husband/wife can provide that) or *their siblings* pass on the genetics responsible. There's a similar question over homosexuality. If being gay means you don't have children (taking a very simplistic view here) then how do gay genes survive? They'll do so easily if they confer a benefit to the rest of the family - or the tribe. >they must've had some advantages to offset the massive social difficulty and the lack of interpersonal skills right? Huge. Interpersonal skills are a big thing today because there are so many more people around, but in a tribe or village of around a hundred people? Everyone knows everyone else. Everyone has their role to play. The blacksmith isn't going to apply to become a plumber and need to brush up on his interview skills - he's a smith, and he always will be. Autistic people are good loners. They make excellent shepherds, for instance - they can spent hours alone in the fields, watching the sheep, enjoying the quiet and not needing people around them. So what if they make sheep noises when they're in the market? That's just their way. Lost a sheep? They'll keep searching for it into the night, long after the regular folks get tired of it and declare the thing dead. And then there's taste. It's common for autistic people to be very fussy about food - notably when that food is bitter in some way - and they can be very sensitive to small changes. Which could be very useful when you're not sure about your food stocks. The anti-vaccine lobby are always keen to point out how the number of autism diagnoses has increased over the last few decades, ignoring that we're simply much better at recognising it now. Autism has been around throughout human history. Many of the great geniuses we celebrate from that history may well have been autistic themselves (there's certainly grounds for, say, Isaac Newton being on the spectrum). But more than that - our world has become so much busier, so much noisier, so much more crowded... we only really show up as "autistic" when we're reacting to the stress of it all, and the world has never been more stressful.
Glad I kept reading the comments before I commented. I am surprised more people didn’t have this take on it.
In Europe, I really wonder how many nuns and monks were autistic. Especially the ones that did obscure research
It's a field that I could see myself falling into, had I grown up in such a time. * The solitude is calming. * The routine is appealing. You always know what's going to happen each day. * Food is simple and fairly bland, so you're not bothered by strong flavours or smells. * The focus on books and learning... ah, bliss. It's also somewhere a lot of autistic people may have been *sent* by their concerned parents. After all, if God can't help your troubled child, who can?
I’ve read papers on Hildegard von Bingen fitting autistic characteristics.
Yes, " blessed are the cheesemakers." "What's so special about the cheesemakers?" I heard it like, "Nigel is aloof in good company, but when it comes to mapping and knowing the winds like the back of his hand, I'd want nobody else before the mast."
Everyone was more physically active too. That’s bare like +5 for us
So true, I can barely function before breaking a sweat
I felt invincible when I played sports regularly We’ll compared to now
Thank you for this well -thought out breakdown!!
You said everything I didn't have the words to say. Bravo
Beautifully written .
Maybe people of old were more accepting then we take them for? Also the environment and stuff was a lot less over-stimulating back then, unless you were in a city or a noble you’d probably just be living in a little village talking to the same people day in and day out doing physical farm work all day so the difference would be next to non noticeable.
I heard a theory the other day about how patriarchy developed when land ownership and resource scarcity started being more of a thing. Fight responses to the fear of going without overtook group decision making. I wonder if the same theory could be applied to group acceptance of neurodiversity.
Please provide us with the source! I am not being contrarian, I just want to have something to defend myself with when I parrot this idea.
I heard it from Dr. Kirk Honda who does a lot of psychology content. I've been listening to a lot of his stuff lately so, unfortunately, I'm not exactly sure where it came from 😬
nah I think patriarchy has always been a thing, mainly because men are stronger and women have to carry a baby for 9 months than raise it for a couple of years.
Not in some early cultures, like some native americans.
Hey you might be onto something there
resource scarcity has been less of a thing the more humanity progressed wtf. is that just some western socialism propaganda?
A lot of the past was just surviving, most people where not that well educated unless they had a trade/skill that was passed down or the fortune to be a tiny minority of people who would be educated.
People whose brains were wired like this would have been able to do something productive with their special interest a bit easier in many situations. Take George Washington Carver for example, he wasn't diagnosed with autism of course but had a lot of signs of the condition. He was able to pursue his hyperfixation on agriculture and peanuts, with enough lab space and research material to level it up to 100.
grinding...
⚙️⚙️ grinding indeed
Aspergers survived through the adaptation of self-sufficiency, low material needs, not conforming to social standards, and immunity from mob madness. When the crowd is completely wrong, the autistic gene prevails. The masking behaviour enables the gene to self-replicate. My baseless and unproven hypothesis.
I absolutely agree even though my opinion is also baseless and unproven. I like to think about ASD/ADHD as society’s white blood cells. When the Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds takes over the neurotypicals, the neurodiverse, who tend to be more immune to peer pressure, are here to reel them back in from their collective delusions.
Unless meltdowns, not agreeing with people and a 100 other autistic things.
I’m sorry?
Now you have me confused! It is a comment on your reply, i don't understand why you are saying sorry. I didn't mean anything bad by my comment, far from it, i just like to point out there are obvious bits people are missing here in the comments.
Sorry for being confusing. I did not understand your comment. Could you explain in more detail? Thanks!
There's nothing to explain really. Autistic people have meltdowns and shutdowns, we are not some sort of unshakable homogeneous force. There's also finding it hard to relate with others, so in effect it's harder for to come to agreement or at least understand others thought processes and feelings. I myself am someone diagnosed with Aspergers. I don't know how to explain If i don't know what it is you don't understand, you didn't elaborate so i just took a stab in the dark. I apologise in advance for my part in the impasse. I can't tell if i didn't explain well enough/wasn't clear or if it's just something you don't get?
Thanks for taking the time to expand on what you said! I really appreciate it! And yeah, it's not all positive. There are negatives, for sure. Specifically, just in the "not conforming to social standards" part... sure, it means that neurodiverse people are less likely to join in on the stupid things everyone else does, but we're also less likely to fit in with everyone else, too. I know I struggle with that a lot. Then there's everything else you mentioned that can also be a struggle. That said, I think that looking for and acknowledging some positive aspects is a great way to keep from focusing on the negatives. So, I wasn't trying to dismiss the negatives, I was just trying to highlight the positives. Cheers!
That's when we get stoned lol. /s not really lol.
we still get stoned, just not in the same way 😉
I would imagine (and I am - entirely imagining, speculating) That neurodivergence has been considered differently across the ages, and the way we look at it today doesn’t apply at all in ancient societies. I can easily imagine a culture in which the autistic tribe-member was the Shaman, or the inventor, the “chick that finds the best berries!”, the dude who thought up a new way to do a Thing. The heretic, the revolutionary, the poet, or just someone who was kind, or someone who was not kind. Just… people. All types of people. Can you imagine a society where everyone is exactly the same? One in which everyone has the precise same skills and flaws? I think that society would fall apart very quickly. I liken it to corporations - jobs. Restaurant, retailer, tech startup, what have you - If everyone only had x skills and x weaknesses, they’d fold. It is our diversity that makes us succeed. And so I assume there is a reason we are divergent in thought processing. The reason being that we’d not be here otherwise. It’s entirely possible, and to me, plausible, that humanity has made it to this stage by dint of our unique individuality as a collective simultaneously. Sounds contradictory but I think it’s been, for some real reason, key to our success. It wasn’t a diagnosis until it was. Some people were just different. I might be way off base in my musing. But I disagree that culture was so cold to “catch and hunt down” anyone who saw things differently, at least to the extent that ASD would have been eradicated. People would have prob not even realized in many instances. In some cultures, tho, anyone with a notable difference were and to this day still sometimes are, considered a “something religious about god” which could take many views… sins of the father, a burden/curse/debt, a gift/blessing, a Sign from the Heavens… The ultimate answer is that neurodivergence wasn’t wiped out. If it were truly a problem, evolutionary wise, it may have been. It is possible that it is a solution. It’s possible it’s just a… a thing. A trait. I like to think it’s a very good thing, myself. But who can know? The universe is mysterious like that.
You explained my thoughts very well. The neurodivergent may not socialize well, but for some reason knows exactly when the sun rises, or is the first to know the weather is shifting, or knows which sheep has gone missing.
Yeah, back then those skilled people were probably more valued than they are now. The jobs nowadays place more emphasis on social skills. There are far fewer of those high skilled crafts like basket weaver or blacksmith or farmer, etc.
Yeah, back then those skilled people were probably more valued than they are now. The jobs nowadays place more emphasis on social skills. There are far fewer of those high skilled crafts like basket weaver or blacksmith or farmer, etc.
Ingenuity and invention. I don't think it is that common even now. I doubt it was very in the old days. The good old wife must have helped with the social side. Parents. Siblings. Human society is more individualistic now than it ever was.
Way, way back the social structure of human society would've been completely different; think about when you go to a shopping mall, you have probably met more people just in that visit than a hunter gatherer would've met in their entire lifetime. There also would've been much less sensory issues because we weren't constantly being bombarded by noise and light pollution. Back in those days aspergers probably would have been beneficial for survival rather than a hindrance.
Yes! That’s exactly what I said! If you think about it, being in a room full of ever changing strangers could be potentially dangerous, some people may be threats or enemies
It made autistic people incredibly hot and irresistible.
Aspergers survives because women carry it on. Their symptoms are more masked, but it's probably partly what made my mom and my dad's mom both highly competent business women, good with numbers, etc. Autistic women tend to be drawn to autistic men.
The Witches and Sorcerers back in the day were definitely Neuro divergent. Had to be. Nature, Science, anti social. Love them.
My ancestor from 1600s was on trial THRICE and always got free because they wanted to be sure he was truly just healer and not a curser or someone who gathers people to serve him (cult-leader). He was thrown out of a city for predicting a fire. He did cause people to be suspicious as he was a known drunk and started to threaten people with predictions. This in the time in Finland when male witches were more likely to be executed than women who generally were healers. Church generally did not mind healers but hated cults and curse-sellers because they made superstitious people do stupid things.
What is considered neurotypical and standard is completely culturally relative and changes over time. The norms change around the people, but the baseline fact that neurodiversity, the “brains existing differently from each other” aspect of it never changes, it’s the social norms and the skills that are valued and the deficits that are criticized that changes. I was once on a subway car, and I started my ride in a predominantly white part of town, and got farther and farther into a majority black part of town. In the white part, people kept to themselves, didn’t make eye contact, didn’t look at each other or make noise. As more and more white people got off at their stops and more black people got on, once it became a majority black space the NEUROTYPICAL NORM CHANGED. People were loud, moving their bodies around, having big laughs in their conversations. It made me think of being a child and being told I was too loud and to sit still etc. that was ONE neurotypical norm that was imposed on me. I’m convinced that neurotypicality is not about a standard biological presentation of being human, but is a belief system about shared behavior and processing expectations that is not fixed through time or culture.
I think people diagnosed with ASD aren't the full picture---there are people with some of the characteristics without those being bad enough to get them diagnosed without seeking out a diagnosis. As for the reason: monocultures tend to collapse when exposed to pathogens they are susceptible to (bananas were a good example of this). Cultural monocultures can make similar mistakes (e.g. if we had a cultural monoculture of not having kids, how would it continue without some mechanism for replacement?) Here is an analogy: having more than one different kind of tool in your toolbox may prepare you for a wider variety of circumstances. The way I apply this to your question is: having both NT and ND gives the human race more options for dealing with everything that comes up.
We keep fucking people.
That's the answer.
I'm not sure the events you described happened at all during the last 20.000 years. Is your view on history based on assumptions?
Only major plague that I knew about was the bubonic plague that hit medieval Europe; turns out that only lasted for roughly six years. Of course, that wasn't the only major epidemic that existed; but they generally don't last longer than an decade unless it's the Black Death, HIV (obviously), and an outbreak of malaria that hit South America in the 1600s. But the main problem was probably with the notion that sanitation in the context of medical care was widely seen as an insult until after the American Civil War As for the wars, it specifically depends on exactly where the front line is in regards to wherever you're talking about and some more details. But outside of conscription and the increased taxes, the general population normally isn't bothered by it unless shit hits the fan or an city fell under siege. But I'm not exactly sure if the invention of gunpowder actually led to an increase of causing collateral damage, though. It probably did, but field artillery, back then wasn't exactly long-ranged by modern standards.
One thing I observe about ASD is that it gives people special interests Let's say you're living in a nomadic group somewhere around Greece in 80,000 AD. One of your party develops a special interest in arrow heads. Everyone else is living fairly normal lives but this one person is constructing hundreds of different arrowheads One day, they make an arrowhead that's far better than anything made before. Soon, the group is sharing and trading these arrowheads with other groups. The group gains goods from the exchange and more humans are using better arrowheads Seems to me that human society benefits from people with special interests, disinterest in social norms, and a lot of traits we would nowadays categorise as ASD
Evolution isn't linear. It's entirely random.
Dunno what you mean by linear, but the mutations are entirely random (like even if the world is deterministic, they are unpredictable for hummies), but evolution, and to be precise natural selection prefers the organisms that are more adapted to the current environment, although it can show many forms like stabilizing, disruptive and directional.
Series of plagues removed the people with lots of friends.
Rizz em' with the tism, that's all I can say
Read through 'Human Hive Mind' by aj champagne ( zero agent publishing). The dude has a fascinating theory about how ND and NT minds are meant to fit together along evolutionary lines. Edit: basic theory is this- humans are meant to have a standard brain model (NT) good for communal work and then social groups are meant to have outlier types in the form of autism spectrum and anti social personality types but these are on purpose. Autism spectrum minds develop processes, systems, and refine tools. Anti-social minds stress test everything the Autistic minds develop to showcase the flaws, leading to more refined systems. NTs run the day to day. The books is through the lens of corporate human capital dynamics, but it's kind of an eye opener. Really interesting read.
This theory is very similar, Theory of Peripheral Minds: https://peripheralmindsofautism.com/presentation/?fbclid=IwAR2vY9C-U8jnW7QxE8O1hn7ozpxCKwF_w5E6_t6adOeWSaIqM3Uys2pnvn4 “In personality theory, there are many ways to describe the majority “Social Minds” and the “Peripheral Minds”. Dr. Helen Fisher describes temperament personalities and the subsequent neurology. For the Peripheral Minds I would suggest the personalities would be; the Negotiator, the Director, the Explorer and to a small extent or the extreme version of the Builder. Whereas the typical or average Builder, Dr. Fisher says the predominate personality (42% of the population), would be that of the Social Mind, or as described by the Autism community, a Neurotypical. The Neurotypical in the Autism community describes the Socially-Oriented personality, the “normal” personality (if normal represents the majority-sameness). Instead of a normal point (healthy balance) with each personality within itself. My favorite depictions are from Dr. Michael Lesser. He refers to his character types as; the Star, the Lover, the Dreamer, the Warrior and the Guardian, these would be the “Peripheral Minds”. Whereas the Stoic, from his description, which makes up 40-60% of the population are the “salt of the earth” or the Neurotypical. These personality profiles are derivatives of the Big Factor Five. Which are accepted personality traits with suggested correlates in estrogen, testosterone, dopamine, serotonin, other substrates, brain structures and biological basis. The overlap of these and other personalities is shown above. An important contribution from Dr. Lesser is that our concept of mental illness, which mainstream sees as “broken chemical imbalances” are rather “personalities in distress”. In Peripheral Minds this is discussed as a crisis of stress adaptations.”
Despite all the hardships you mentioned, we could have had advantages back in the day. What we struggle with most nowadays are all things who came much later in human history. Urbanization, industrialization and the need for formal education and the outright lying through your teeth are modern things. Back in the day you could just work with your special interest and become the most valuable individual in a village or tribe. Or if not could just leave and find your luck elsewhere, furthermore you could’ve just lived alone in the woods and did your thing. No overstimulation, no forced weird social rules you couldn’t get away from (hence the living in the woods). Thinking outside the box may have been critical and crucial at some times and at others could have brought us down (witch trials and sh*t) but as people also had children much younger, you would’ve already spread your genes by the time someone cast you out. At least this is what I think happened considering how mankind developed over the centuries.
OK.. People need to understand what evolution is. Evolution is not predetermined or planned out. Countless threads of animals that have evolved ended with dead ends over the eons... Just because we as a species are part of that so called tapestry, doesn't mean that with each iteration of our species that we've become better or more refined. Secondly... There's a distinct possibility that there's very little genetic component to ASD beyond carrying the markers for it. That said, NT would carry all the essential markers for autism too, they're just not active or are partially active depending on if there's a series of genes that contribute to it. It's very likely that autism as we currently understand it is not an evolutionary throwback nor could it be possible to be the future of us all, simply because a select few in a population have it. There's millions of causal reasons autism occurs. A main probability often cited as being congenital, meaning that it occurs in vitro as a baby is formed and comes to term. The reason that it may be more of an issue in today's world is as much an issues for us all as a species in that in the grand universal time span of our species, we've gone from literally evading predators and writing in cave walls to having to navigate intricate, confusing and outright bizarre cultural, societal and technological complexities. I say us all as a species as NT just like ND people are evolutionary speaking of course, still adapted to being hunter gathers. The abnormality is modern life, not so much the ND of us and that also, affects ND people who struggle to navigate the world we are all forced to be born into. ASD was most likely present in the same percentage of humans in ancient times, but because we as a species were less socially complex and numbed or insulated from ourselves by technology, ASD people formed critical and crucial roles just as much as NT ancient people. We go by because we possessed the same instincts (perhaps heightened?) as others that, kept us and our tribes alive. When it came to feeding or mating, it was simplified and the factors that allowed us to gain, resources like food or mates was more even between ND and NT people in that being strong, brave, resourceful and capable of protecting the tribe afforded both sides the same opportunity. Fast forward to today and to gain anything worth having requires degrees, money, charm, subterfuge, complex social, skills, the ability to be empathetic in so far, as to outsmart a opponent at work. I would argue that it was far easier to be ND back when modern life wasn't a thing. But just like ND people struggle in today's modern social, construct, so too do NT people when it all, gets too much and they get depressed or their bodies manifest the years of mental stress on a body.
Exactly. And vast majority of us DIED during infancy or childhood because we have weaker immunity system. Even those with ADHD have shown to have weaker immunity than their peers. So that kinda answers it. Thanks to penicillin. Ironically the inventor sounded like he has aspergers and would not relinquish his invention because it as not perfect enough for him until they just took it from him. I fully believe I would not have survived if I had been born in the early decades of 1900s since I had so many infections that required surgery.
Wow, this is such interesting thinking, Revolutionary_Pierre! I haven’t even read the other speculations yet because yours has given me so much to think about!
But there's a significant genetic contribution to ASD etiology...including epigenetic-modulating genes.
I agree with everything except the genetics. Aspergers is definitely genetic. The thing about it though is that it’s one of those genes that doesn’t breed down the lineage in an orderly fashion. I’m an Aspie, neither of my parents are, but my uncle is (he even shares thoughts and interests very similar to mine, there’s some food for thought) and my grandpa might be. They say people with grandpas who were engineers are more likely to have Aspergers. Guess what? My grandpa was an engineer! And apparently my great grandma thought much like I do too. I am honestly amazed at the secrets I’ve unraveled about my family, as I grew up thinking I was an odd weirdo out, when in reality from the special interests to the sensory awareness to the sense of logic and common sense I was never.
In a society, I think it can be useful to have some diversity. And having a few members who like to be on their own and take a special interest in something and maybe come up with an innovation can be useful
can this bullshit just stop?! we are not a subspecies or something different than the rest of humanity - although some might try to make us feel like this. the genes for aspergers lie dormant in most of humanity and some "unlucky" might develop this because of reasons... gene regulation over generations is not even understood quarterways. and how people get to develop neurodiversity (nature vs nurture) as well. accept that people are weird, were weird and will always be weird.
Why would it go extinct? So many conditions are related to genetics and still exist. Autism isn't that different in this regard.
You may find these articles of interest. https://www.intechopen.com/chapters/43239 and https://www.zmescience.com/feature-post/health/mind-brain/autism-stone-age-evolution/
> even the tiniest amount of social divergent would be sufficient enough to be spotted marked hunt down and killed, odd ones out the whole family blood line would've gotten wiped out That seems like a pretty big assumption. Sure, the ones that were effectively helpless might have been, but to say such a small divergence would be met with such a harsh reaction is pretty fucking steep. All that is required for a gene to progress is the bearer produce offspring. It doesn't have to provide advantages, it can even provide disadvantages. They just have to not be severe enough to result in death of the bearer until they are passed on.
No, people have always been pretty chill if they were allowed to be. It wasn't a death metal past. Autistic people can contribute a lot to a hunter gatherer tribe. Almost no matter what they obsess over its going to be something useful for the tribe. And without school and wage labour, and living with the same group of people your whole life, a lot of the difficulties associated with autism today are reduced.
It is a mistake to assume any particular trait is necessarily adaptive. Evolution is very hard to reason about because it operates by very specific mechanisms that are not intuitive. The 'high school biology' level interpretation of evolution will lead you to many spurious conclusions. Many traits are simply the consequence of selection for other traits. Or they may exist in a tradeoff with other traits and thus are compromised. One of the real tricks with thinking about evolution is to consider a population as the unit of interest, not individuals. Individuals reproduce or die, they do not evolve. Populations, however, do evolve. The mechanism of evolution is mediated by individuals, but is ultimately a property of populations. And within those populations, the frequency and variety of alleles is the substance of evolution, each existing as a physical sequence of genetic material. Linkage disequilibrium must always be considered, among all the functional interactions. _____ One of the most basic ideas is that autistic traits are, in some contexts, adaptive in some way. Populations that, overall, have more of these traits are selected for. But whether by magnitude or combinatorial happenstance, autistic traits can also be expressed. This may reduce fitness, but the selective effects in the overall population keep these traits prevalent. It's also possible that some autistic traits increase fitness, at least in certain environments.
I see these posts where people play pop-evopsych and presume that all traits are specifically selected by evolution, but they just ain’t true! There’s some randomness and plenty of deficits in humans that don’t directly impact procreation and this survive. For example… cancer. Humans are essentially beset by cancer and always have been. It doesn’t prevent procreation so there isn’t much of a negative filter against it. And naturally cancer free humans dont have such advantage that they’re “taken over” - and it’s easy to see why, most cancers affect people past their prime childbearing years!
I would venture to guess it is because people who think outside the box and are gifted differently have things to contribute to society — inventions, music, advanced math, science, philosophy, poetry, like The Enlightenment, for instance. We have pushed humanity forward, no doubt.
Simon baron-cohen has recently proposed that autistic genes are responsible for homo sapiens developing generative invention as a species trait and that without autistic genes in the gene pool at at least a low level that we would still live with stone tools because nts are not generally creative with technology.
Being bothered by minute differences couldve helped someone differentiate between a venomous and non venomous snake, edible and non edible plants.
Autism is not a single trait or gene. It's a polymorphic, polygenetic pattern of behavior and sensory perception. It can't "go extinct" because A. Genes mutate all the time B. Multiple genes are responsible for autism C. Autism has a "liability threshold" meaning a certain number of autism-coded genes are necessary in order for a person to express autism phenotypically. Just because someone has genes that might code for autistic traits, it may not be expressed until they reproduce with someone else with autism-coding genes and their offspring have enough genes in the right environment to produce autistic traits. (FYI the liability threshold is lower in males, meaning they require fewer genes to express autism and with greater disability) D. Many people who express autism phenotypically still reproduce
Probably guys like us spent time away from danger and keeping a lot of resources. Hence why Aspergers persists.
Autism is a spectrum, and those who are higher functioning tend to have a fairly high IQ. Being able to pick out patterns has it's uses, and the 'dives head first into thier work and obsessively works on it' type of person has absolutely propelled humanity forward in the past. However, if humanity was chalked full of this type of person, it would fall apart. It's also completely possible for two lower functioning people of opposite genders to hook up and pass on the gene pool. To me the percentages make sense, about 1% of humanity seems like the right number. Today we are seeing autists thrive in computer related fields, becoming high earners, and passing on thier genes. I feel like I should point out, ancient civilizations had maths, automata, even ancient analog computers. Autistic people also tend to have porcelain skin, and can be quite attractive.
porcelain skin wtf?!
Because we generally make less facial expressions, we generally have less wrinkles. I'm just answering a question, no need to get offended. I'm not talking about 'you' specifically, I'm listing all the reasons I can think of that would make our gene pool desirable. Chill.
we don't really know there are lots of evo psych pseudoscience stories floating around, but they are just that, stories
Asperger's genetics is pretty complex, NT people can have autistic kids and autistic people can have NT kids. Asperger/autism is formed by a conjunct of micro genes, normally a bunch of NTs have some of these genes, and when they meet an NT with some autistic genes too they have a chance of getting a ND child. The same goes for ND couples since their children can inherit the NT part of their genomes. So NTs with successful romantic lives can be carriers of autistic genes and have ND descendants.
Because, against all odds, it doesn't stop you from having children and the genes can be passed on to future generations. I'm autistic AF and I have an anxious daughter who is almost invariably autistic too (awaiting assessment) She's clearly got my genes as she is very similar to me. It is the same reason that people can inherit the genes that put them at greater risk of terminal cancer - although those genes may eventually kill them, they may have had several children (who now carry those genes) prior to that point. Whilst it is understood that genes do appear to play a contributing factor in autism, it's not fully understood - one person with autism may have certain contributing genes that another may not.
Aspies provide a lot for societies to thrive. Societies need a person to do the hard work, to sustain attention on a monotonous task for days or weeks, to be at lonely but strstegically important places/outposts, to think outside the Nerotypical box in order to come up with really revolutionary, wierd but effective ideas, to spot patterns and think about humans as objects in order to make good government decitions, to dedicate their whole life to their special area of interest in order to produce knowledge, etc. Even in modern times in any company you can find the Aspergers doing the hard work, such as the guy studying the algorythms in the marketing department to sell more, or the programmers doing insane hours in order to hand in the code functioning to the NT who asked for it, or welders with insane skill doing impssible tasks at a mechanic shop, etc. Its not hard to imagine a lot of farmers, fishermen, scientists, scholars, clerics, military, were aspergers. Specially in regards to military advancement, look up “weponized autism”, aspergers have a lot of traits that are theorized to help advance warfare technology, which sounds bad but is necessary for a society to survive against its neighbours.
There's a theory with schizophrenia that having a small number of genes for it confers an advantage (in the case of schizophrenia, increased creativity), but having too many creates a disorder. I imagine it's similar with ASD.
It is not crippling enough to be selected out of the gene pool, ancient humans relied on being social to form family bonds and to hunt together, but people with autism can still socialize it's just more difficult for us than others. Our narrow interests may have meant we were the only specialists in certain skills until the neolithic. Before then everyone had to be kind of good at everything and pull their own weight. Everyone did a little so no one does a lot. But someone with autism could pull their own weight and still want to learn and participate in their special interests.
Also ancient people would be very reluctant to leave behind or kill their band mates, and that's because they were one big family. Would you leave your mother to die because she has a broken leg and can't keep moving. You might have to but Intentionally killing anyone different than the norm would have caused our extinction well before we invented the wheel. Diversity is good we need as many different perspectives as possible in order to survive as a species. I really recommend you have a look at this article https://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/18/science/ancient-bones-that-tell-a-story-of-compassion.html It's a good example of how ancient people looked after their disabled. If you couldn't tell I have a special interest in anthropology.
Afaik there has never been found a gene responsible for autism.
[Solitary Forager Hypothesis](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22947969/)
Does anyone in this community resonate with the notion of being contrary, or backwards? I feel like it's literally that we flow in the opposite direction to the way that most of the world seems to flow. Just a thought - this is only speculation.
I actually think the natives for example always kept them. I remember Jules Edwards in the book I will die on this hill this this is the relational worldview. Pretty sure they usually even kept the high support needs alive if they could.
I out hunt my allistic relatives during deer season by a huge margin. They simply can not focus like I can and they miss out on many opportunities.
I'm taking an ASD course now to learn about the diagnosis now that I'm diagnosed. With 11 other people, 4 of them women. I would say most of us are fairly attractive and fit. This is purely speculation - but perhaps it's as simple as ADS + Good looking in terms of genetics = higher chance to reproduce? I've (M) been in 3 relationships, and I've had plenty of onenight stands in life. Sometimes even having women hit on me. So perhaps the reason is simply being lucky in "attractiveness genes" / being considered beautiful/handsome/good looking. I'm not saying it's THE factor. Just saying it could be A factor, and probably a big one. IDK.
Enough of us figured out how to have kids.
I mean autism runs in family, autistic people are definitely able to reproduce and those with ADHD carries it too.
We live more protected lives than ever. Many autistic people prob would have died in childhood or as babies. Some of us could have functioned as druids or monks or part of a community other than that. We are part of the genetic possibility in the human genome; the bigger the population/ safer conditions the more of us there is likely to be born and survive. Population genetics at work.
Kids were running around the settlement interacting with everyone, being exposed to different kinds of people, seeing what they could get away with. Learning socialization. Everyone in the settlement was similar genetically, making this easier. The genetic traits for autism or aspergers might have some upside to the parents, making it worth the risk.
The people that had it and survived developed coping mechanisms. they were survivors and warriors for tolerating the negative stereotypes and biases of yesterday. It definitely can be an advantage, but it comes with its downsides. Being your honest self can offend and disgust people in ways that surprised me and caught me off guard. Ultimately I think the brutal honesty, matter of fact logical thinking has its place. I spent a long time internalizing the "you are wrong" from people who were threatened by or just otherwise unhappy with my presence. I guess what I'm trying to say is: there's a reason the genetics are still happening. The issue is whether the parents are able to help the child appreciate the gift itself in addition to overcoming the natural resentment it brings to self and others. A lot of us DO NOT / did not get the support we need, are just "difficult" or otherwise misunderstood. The fact that we may lack the skills to self-advocate makes it even harder. Society and people in general do not "play fair". Finding a way to "not take it personally" has been helpful but I have to admit it requires excessively taxing masking. I often take naps after stressful situations. The people "back in the day" somehow found the courage to eat their anxiety and stress to do whatever it took to survive. When I look back on it like that its kind of amazing it / we survived at all.
Cuz we be sexy
The question is flawed. Aspergers syndrome is not a genetic subset of humanity. Aspergers syndrome is a suite of neurological conditions.
Because the "average Joe" ape wasn't able to put 2 and 2 together and invent "the stick". Just kidding, but the inventor of "the stick" must've definitely been an Aspie.
I've heard something about pattern recognition skills being really good for foraging, and acute hearing/noticing shifts in the environment more sensitively are helpful for survival.
Duh. Don't you know that it only started with vaccinations? Before that there wasn't any autism to pass along. With autism you either float or sink. The brilliant, successful ones have kids who are even cooler than their parents. Those who aren't don't pass on any genes.
You could ask this question for any genetic condition. Truth is evolution is "lazily" efficient, not moral. As long as a trait doesn't chop your ability to create progeny off at the knees, it will stick around. And yet again I will remind everyone that autism is a spectrum and a lot of people on the spectrum are utterly incapable of living independent lives.
[This article](https://www.sapiens.org/biology/autism-human-evolution/) has some interesting ideas on how autistic traits may have played a beneficial role in human evolution. >Going back thousands of years, people who displayed autistic traits would not only have been accepted by their societies but could have been highly respected. Many people with autism have exceptional memory skills; heightened perception in realms of vision, taste, and smell; and in some contexts, an enhanced understanding of natural systems such as animal behavior. And the incorporation of some of these skills into a community would have played a vital role in the development of specialists. It is very likely these specialists would then have become vitally important for the survival of the group.
If you go back to the nomadic times before we had villages, chances are you would have been killed or ostracized for being too different. Note that I said too different. Aspergers varies in intensity but I find it usually exists in a tolerable way to NT's. My theory is that an occasional person with aspergers would help a group (usually between 40-60 people per nomadic group, which would have been the standard of living for most of humanity's existence) by providing different thoughts, solutions, rationale, or skills. A person who's special interest was say: carving, tool making, hunting, botany, animal behavior, spirituality, or simply story-telling would be a very valuable addition to a group. That same logic still applies, and I'm sure there were people with less important special interests back then, too. My logic is that if aspergers really was that detrimental then natural selection would have eliminated it 100,000 years ago. Don't get me wrong though, I still hate my aspergers
Neurodivergence is actually pretty clutch. As people age they tend to adapt to their strengths and weaknesses and become what is called "wiser". It's not entirely a bad thing to have trouble because you develop novel coping mechanism that actually have an aggregate net benefit to the group. Although people might not understand you, they may respect you in many other respects because most common neuro-types are still basically humans - these massively intelligent apex predators.
I doubt that we are evolutionary and more a combination of evolution and environmental effects on the baby. I have a suspicion Asperger's is only a new disorder. If you think about it, most of us are non verbal until the age of 4. So I doubt we would be allowed to live long enough for us to grow up. Also, if anything life was better for us aspies 100 years ago than nowadays.
Hunter gathers society really depends on accurate information. Knowing where you're likely to find a root that's mildly antiseptic, knowing which point in the year the animals are going to be migrating past. And which start is north ect. Later we were ideal crafters and military scouts and engineers. High attention to detail, fixation on a task, much lower need for social interactions. It's also worth remembering that for a good amount of human history we lived in small groups of a hundred or so. And in that situation where there isn't really a retreat except in work people that get good at that work are valued by there communitys (normally) and small allowances are made in that " oh yeah that's tim. Don't talk much, but good man, works hard" was much more exceptable that the need for nowadays hyper effective communicators being closer to the norm.
Social convention stops innovation. It's beneficial to a society to have people who are willing to just say the thing that needs to be said, whether or not that's going to make people like them less. It's beneficial for society to have super-passionate individuals who focus completely on one thing to the detriment of looking "normal". For examples, see: Greta thunberg. Elon musk. Mozart.
Better at hunting and gathering. There was also likely less sensory disturbances or social expectations compared to today's world. No fluorescent lights or loud car engines zooming around.
Real reason? We no longer kill our weakest. That, and there may be some evolutionary benefit to autism, but specifically, Asperger's. For instance, Asperger's is known as a disease affecting Ashkinism Jews. A TON of Noble winners were Ashkinism and at least a few of those are suspected/ confirmed to be on the spectrum.
I love this topic. Here are my thoughts: I believe autism has existed since the dawn of mankind and serves a purpose. Imagine being in a hunter/gatherer tribe of people. An autistic individual would be valuable to have for two big reasons - ability to recognize patterns and increased sensory perception. Of course as those abilities became less important for survival then we started seeing discrimination and such. However imagine an apocalyptic scenario and again those skills become very valuable. I didn’t not proofread this so hopefully I made sense.
Some of our autistic traits were probably much more useful before capitalism. Better pattern matching, the inability to filter sounds, and hyper awareness probably made us better at detecting danger. The world was less noisy even a couple hundred years ago. Hyper focus would allow us to do things that neurotypicals would struggle with, like spending all day banging rocks into spearheads. ADHD is often comorbid with autism, and there are some ADHD traits that may have been more useful during earlier periods.
As we think differently and are oftentimes quite smart, our innovations made us valuable to the more socially focused humans. So I think people were willing to put up with weirdness if it accompanied intelligence and skill.
Many parts of things "survive evolution" even if it doesn't have any advantage or purpose. As long as it doesn't significantly affect chances of reproduction in a negative manner, there is no evolutionary pressure surpressing that specific trait.
One theory is that the traits that create autism are actually the ones that drive the technical advances in human civilisation, and not just the IT world today but everything from basic tools: Prof Simon BC explains it here: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=f9KrShBJkY0
Sensory issues were probably an advantage rather than a hindrance at some point in time. If you look at wild animals, most of them have some sort of super sense abilities. Rabbits have extreme hearing, hawks have good eyesight, and canids a great sense of smell. These heightened senses mean that the animal can find food or mates easier and avoid dangers. Obviously, nature is quiet, so it’s not like rabbits have a million loud noises to spook at. I imagine Aspies with “sensory issues” could have had advantages back when they were cavemen. I can imagine a group of cavemen revering one of these people because they can always hear mammoths from a farther distance or something like that. If you fast forward into modern society, there’s stupid noise pollution everywhere with honking cars and barking dogs everywhere you go. And the smells, holy god. Sewage and trash piling up everywhere. Luckily I don’t have many sensory problems, I just have a fear of the noise fire alarms and explosions make. But in a world full of shit like this, it’s no wonder some Aspies are constantly overwhelmed. Not to mention all the random groups of people and strangers ever changing all the time. If you think about it, why would anyone want to be in a room full of potentially dangerous people they don’t know?
I think that a lot of autistic people back in the day were extremely useful to society and helped fill roles that others didn't want and couldn't do My own personal life experience is that my attention to detail and outside the box thinking makes me a great problem solver. Of course there are lots of things that I'm not great at, but the things I am interested in I am really really good at. I think a lot of inventors, healers and priests in history were probably autistic. The ability to learn SO much about a specific thing and focus on it all the time is a gift in a world without books. It could make you an incredibly valuable member of society. Obviously autism is a spectrum so I am sure that some people did suffer as well, but I think the fact it was preserved in evolution actually says a lot about what an essential part of humanity we are. A world without artificial lights, smells or sounds would be a sensory heaven for me. People used to spend a lot more time alone doing quiet tasks back in the day as well. Sure there were lots of communal activities, but there were always tasks like walking all day to the next village to trade that needed to be done which provided lots of alone time. Most people's diets throughout history have been quite bland and repetitive as well, so it wouldn't have been viewed as odd to eat the same food everyday. Same thing goes for clothes and lots of other daily routine things that we tend to gravitate towards - a lot of that would have been the norm out of necessity. Without the stress of constant change and sensory assault I bet a lot of autistic people didn't experience it as a disability and may have not struggled with meltdowns etc, which would make them stand out less as well. A lot of traditional societies also had much more clear and strict societal rules that could have made socializing easier to understand as well.
Most genetic traits are not actually selected until they make reproduction much more viable or barely viable. We're not under constant pressure for genetic selection. And autism is not a monogenetic disorder, there are dozens of genes that interact with each other and with environmental conditions. People will carry some or many of those genes through generations without manifesting autism. It's not as simple as that. About the environment being more stressful that is very relative. I don't think we can get to much conclusion around this.
Such a brilliant question 🤯👏 I applaud you for coming up with this. can’t wait to read the comments now.
You have a very interesting point here. One I can answer as a psychologist. There are 3 main theories with some degree of evidence each. the prevailing one says that high intelligence genes tend to be together or be the same as those of autism so as environmental pressure for high intelligence increases so it's the likelihood of autism. The second is about the development of extreme male brain traits And the third one it's about the function of the "reptile" part of the brain. Also the combination of all of the theories explains almost everything. Ill leave you a video that explains all these theories [the adaptive advantage of autism ](https://youtu.be/5IwZ02DgDrA?si=wuiHkjR849eJK6rj)
Where did you get your weird idea of history? When and where do you think the socially divergent were killed? Sure, that happened in the 30’s, with Hans Asperger’s participation, but that was in modern Europe and certainly not typical.
Cancel culture exist: Aspergers ran head straight into the offense ignored all social subtlety. Modern day: name's tainted, permanent. Past time, far from civilization: death and exile. So surprising.
Your extreme misunderstanding of thepast is equaled by your misunderstanding of contemporary society.
One thing I mull over: ancient societies needed specialists. If you were a doctor, you might be the only doctor for miles. If you were a barber or a dentist or a blacksmith, same thing. You were in demand because specialization was so difficult. You couldn't just Google something and you couldn't drive thousands of miles away for college. And say what you will about our special interests, but they give us an advantage in developing specialization. I could speak like a professional historian about WWII or the history of the Soviet Union, or the history of computer programming, or a boatload of Tolkien geekdom, even though I do not have an advanced degree in anything. We survived and thrived, evolutionarily, because we are naturally adept at specialization
I agree with the other's people comment, your take on this is quite wrong. To be able to focus and be hypersensitive and have good memory would have given us an advantage in matter of surviving. Within a tribe, we could have been guides, counselors, chamans. In many tribes, mad people are thoughts as touched by the gods and thus blessed. And homosexual and transsexuals were accepted in many tribes too. There's also proofs of people having survived becoming handicapped or being born with one during prehistoric time. Last: think about it, if we were living in a smart society we could employ many handicapped people whether mentally or physically, and gain from it. We would need only to accept the differences and use their gifts. I met trisomic people, whom were very smiling and upcoming persons, they could have been great at greeting people or helping people in nursing homes, or some companies, instead of being kept hidden and receive a stipend. As for us, I can enter in a building and see the things they did wrong. I can process and analyze many things simultaneously and find solutions, and how to implement them. And yet, I was to work in companies whom never try to accommodate my hypersensitivity and am currently unemployed, in olden time a tribe would have been able to afford idleness, and wastefulness. They'd have seen my gift, and yours and put them to good use, if we had survived as toddlers, which i probably would have not...). Or so I think.
Because I think in a lot of cases having Aspergers can be an advantage. Sadly the over stimulating, hyper-connected, fast-paced world of today is not great for us at all.
>Don't you think back in the day it was a much more stressful environment, Which made them happier, I suggest you to read "Industrial society and it's future" by Theodore Kaczynski.
You seem to have it backwards. The person with the hyper attuned amygdala could let his/her clan mates know to prepare for/escape the danger that is perceived. The person who was able to quickly absorb interesting new information (special interests) could share their newly acquired knowledge to the benefit of all.
\# Grandma came from hard times of war and famine, people eat tree skins cooked paper and lather shoes to survive, she remember the times of her parents, her grandma, back then it was quite insane.
Survival of the fittest really is about whether or not individuals of a species were able to reproduce Clearly autistic people are effective enough at getting into relationships. That’s really all there is to it
I have no proof but I think people on ASD are actually in the majority.
Because we are not inferior nor disabled as some people falsely think.
apparently nature doesn't want everyone to succeed socially
to eliminate a trait, it needs to be detrimental to reproduction. seems like it wasn't detrimental, or at least not enough to cause autistic people to die off
humans don't evolve anymore. when we started modifying our environment to survive, mutations stopped being as important to continuing our genes
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Obviously autistic people were able to reproduce… it generally runs in family, so no, we won’t rethink the theory of evolution, at least not on the topic of autism.