This cluster of psychological adaptations is too strong to become atrophied. It might be that you mainly apply it in atypical ways, but not that you lack or never use it. It sounds like saying that you are largely indifferent to pain or sound.
Even deeper. You can sever a few nerves and you get rid of pain and sound sensitivity and still function. Status sensitivity is built into the brain right through to the primitive level.
It would say that it’s possible for a human brain to function successfully/efficiently/rationally without any level of status sensitivity, which undermines arguments for its universality and importance.
Also, downvoted for comparing autistic people to coma patients. I don’t believe you had bad intentions, but casually inconsiderate comments are not a positive for the community.
It would say that it’s possible for a human brain to function successfully/efficiently/rationally without any level of status sensitivity, which undermines arguments for its universality and importance.
It would? I sure as heck wouldn’t say autistic folks ‘function successfully/efficiently/rationally’ in general, and much of the therapy and education I hear about strikes me as being in part teaching about status sensitivity. (My mildly autistic cousin spent a great deal of time on working on his acting out and misbehaviour and acting ‘appropriately’ - a codeword for status sensitivity if I’ve ever seen one.)
Also, downvoted for comparing autistic people to coma patients. I don’t believe you had bad intentions, but casually inconsiderate comments are not a positive for the community.
I stand by it. Being in a coma is a bad thing. As is autism. I’ve seen arguments by the ‘neurodiversity’ folks that autism is not a bad thing; I vehemently disagree and regard most of their arguments as rubbish.
(In an analogous situation, I am contemptuous of those of us in the hard-of-hearing and deaf communities who declaim that our disabilities are not disabilities and are actually good, and the people who do things like select their embryos for carrying deafness genes are not committing a great evil. This strikes me as deeply perverse.)
I stand by it. Being in a coma is a bad thing. As is autism. I’ve seen arguments by the ‘neurodiversity’ folks that autism is not a bad thing; I vehemently disagree and regard most of their arguments as rubbish.
I saw this had been voted up to +1 and went to correct it. Then I noticed that it was me who had voted it up, I don’t know why. Don’t you hate it when that happens? Anyway, that comparison is idiotic. Why are you comparing autism to a coma? Why not compare it to, say, Triffids taking over the world. That is a bad thing too and only slightly less relevant. Your dismissal of the arguments is also unjustifiably absolute. There is a clear margin at the top of the ‘functional’ spectrum at which AS is personality trait that is far more adaptive in many ways than various other traits that we consider ‘normal’ despite being suboptimal adaptions to the current environment.
(In an analogous situation, I am contemptuous of those of us in the hard-of-hearing and deaf communities who declaim that our disabilities are not disabilities and are actually good, and the people who do things like select their embryos for carrying deafness genes are not committing a great evil. This strikes me as deeply perverse.)
Deafness gives no benefit. AS does, even if they are outweighed by the disadvantages.
My apologies and downvote retracted; I made the unwarranted assumption that this conversation specifically included Asperger’s Syndrome under the Autism umbrella. I may have mixed it up with another thread.
In any case, you’re right. Classical autism is not a good thing.
np. There’s potentially an interesting discussion in Aspies and status sensitivity; are these people high functioning in the ways full-blown/classical autism is not except for social things like status sensitivity?
The biggest difference between Asperger’s Syndrome/High-Functioning Autism and full-blown Autism is IQ, ultimately.
Compared to neurotypical people, Aspies tend to have various social deficits, difficulty regulating emotion, a tendency to become preoccupied with narrow subjects and, less often, motor or sensory abnormalities. Along with lower IQ, full-blown autistics tend to have all of these symptoms (except possibly narrow-subject-preoccupation), and usually to a greater degree.
Agree and add that some of the serious undeniable deficits also vary by degree. An extremely high IQ aspie can also have crippling sensory integration problems while a lower IQ aspie may also have more mild problems to compensate for, leaving him ‘higher functioning’. Even those ‘various social deficits’ can differ in degree from ‘sufficiently below norm’ to irredeemably absent.
I wonder if using the word ‘and’ in the grandparent rather than the word ‘but’ would have better conveyed ‘elaboration’ rather than ‘correction’. I think so. Edited.
Even deeper. You can sever a few nerves and you get rid of pain and sound sensitivity and still function. Status sensitivity is built into the brain right through to the primitive level.
Details?
How sure are you that this is true of autistic brains?
Even if autistic folks were completely insensitive to status, that wouldn’t necessarily say much about status sensitivity not being basic/primitive.
People in a coma don’t think or even always breathe, yet I would say that thinking and breathing are built into the brain down to the primitive core.
It would say that it’s possible for a human brain to function successfully/efficiently/rationally without any level of status sensitivity, which undermines arguments for its universality and importance.
Also, downvoted for comparing autistic people to coma patients. I don’t believe you had bad intentions, but casually inconsiderate comments are not a positive for the community.
It would? I sure as heck wouldn’t say autistic folks ‘function successfully/efficiently/rationally’ in general, and much of the therapy and education I hear about strikes me as being in part teaching about status sensitivity. (My mildly autistic cousin spent a great deal of time on working on his acting out and misbehaviour and acting ‘appropriately’ - a codeword for status sensitivity if I’ve ever seen one.)
I stand by it. Being in a coma is a bad thing. As is autism. I’ve seen arguments by the ‘neurodiversity’ folks that autism is not a bad thing; I vehemently disagree and regard most of their arguments as rubbish.
(In an analogous situation, I am contemptuous of those of us in the hard-of-hearing and deaf communities who declaim that our disabilities are not disabilities and are actually good, and the people who do things like select their embryos for carrying deafness genes are not committing a great evil. This strikes me as deeply perverse.)
I saw this had been voted up to +1 and went to correct it. Then I noticed that it was me who had voted it up, I don’t know why. Don’t you hate it when that happens? Anyway, that comparison is idiotic. Why are you comparing autism to a coma? Why not compare it to, say, Triffids taking over the world. That is a bad thing too and only slightly less relevant. Your dismissal of the arguments is also unjustifiably absolute. There is a clear margin at the top of the ‘functional’ spectrum at which AS is personality trait that is far more adaptive in many ways than various other traits that we consider ‘normal’ despite being suboptimal adaptions to the current environment.
Deafness gives no benefit. AS does, even if they are outweighed by the disadvantages.
My apologies and downvote retracted; I made the unwarranted assumption that this conversation specifically included Asperger’s Syndrome under the Autism umbrella. I may have mixed it up with another thread.
In any case, you’re right. Classical autism is not a good thing.
np. There’s potentially an interesting discussion in Aspies and status sensitivity; are these people high functioning in the ways full-blown/classical autism is not except for social things like status sensitivity?
The biggest difference between Asperger’s Syndrome/High-Functioning Autism and full-blown Autism is IQ, ultimately.
Compared to neurotypical people, Aspies tend to have various social deficits, difficulty regulating emotion, a tendency to become preoccupied with narrow subjects and, less often, motor or sensory abnormalities. Along with lower IQ, full-blown autistics tend to have all of these symptoms (except possibly narrow-subject-preoccupation), and usually to a greater degree.
Agree and add that some of the serious undeniable deficits also vary by degree. An extremely high IQ aspie can also have crippling sensory integration problems while a lower IQ aspie may also have more mild problems to compensate for, leaving him ‘higher functioning’. Even those ‘various social deficits’ can differ in degree from ‘sufficiently below norm’ to irredeemably absent.
Agreed. It was not my intent to imply otherwise.
I wonder if using the word ‘and’ in the grandparent rather than the word ‘but’ would have better conveyed ‘elaboration’ rather than ‘correction’. I think so. Edited.
There is always some difficulty with executive function and attention control too.