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Neurodiversity

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31–40 of 77 posts

Re: Neurodiversity

#31
post #30

I think we will start to limit our capability for diversity soon. Population control, anti-aging and direct genetic control will limit the opportunities for change. A case of our short term culture conflicting with our long term biology. It's a pity because we will be less likely to ever become something we can't already imagine.

>>It's a pity because we will be less likely to ever become something we can't already imagine.

The desire of mankind to control everything is its greatest strength and its greatest weakness.

Re: Neurodiversity

#32
post #6

The actual question is- what is or was neuro-diversity useful for? Its a uncomfortable question, because the answers may insult conservative and progressive comfort zones. The publicly condemned sadistic murderer, might be a perfectly adapted model-citizen for a society that wents savage every second generation. The schizoid paranoid might be have been a model citizen in society ravaged by disease and bubonic plague,…

As I see it, neurodiversity is more useful if the environment suddenly changes. In a stable environmental niche most forms of neurodiversity are probably a drawback.

For instance (reflecting on your examples) it should be obvious to us that the word 'crime' meant something much narrower several thousand (or hundred) years ago.

Re: Neurodiversity

#33

Like it or not Autistic people will be weeded out of society through fetal genetic testing or other interventions. It will be a net loss for humanity, but I don't think there's anyway to stop it. It's a paradox in that it's nearly impossible to appreciate the value of neurodiversity until you build a close relationship with such a person. My cousin Tony with Downs's would have most likely been aborted decades ago if…

On the other hand I have heard more than once people who do sometimes very secretly confess they wish their cousin/brother/etc with Down's had been aborted. They always talk about all the love and joy and positive things too. But at the end of the day, they say, they think they would have preferred it the other way. But this is not pretty, and it's not something people like to talk about. So if you just take what people say in public, you maybe don't get accurate representation.

Maybe the people I know are not good representation of the population, though!

Re: Neurodiversity

#34
post #29

TL;DR CRISPR will lead to fewer people on autism/spectrum? A friend mentioned his son is a bit "Aspy" - he said it with a bit of pride in his voice. Both father and son are brilliant coders. Meanwhile, there's Modafinil. Originally intended as a treatment for narcolepsy, others use it to improve concentration. I wonder if neuro-configurability will lead to less or more diversity?

Less, because the choices you would be offered would be limited compared to the messy free-for-all that is natural evolution.

Re: Neurodiversity

#35

Like it or not Autistic people will be weeded out of society through fetal genetic testing or other interventions. It will be a net loss for humanity, but I don't think there's anyway to stop it. It's a paradox in that it's nearly impossible to appreciate the value of neurodiversity until you build a close relationship with such a person. My cousin Tony with Downs's would have most likely been aborted decades ago if…

On the other hand I have heard more than once people who do sometimes very secretly confess they wish their cousin/brother/etc with Down's had been aborted. They always talk about all the love and joy and positive things too. But at the end of the day, they say, they think they would have preferred it the other way. But this is not pretty, and it's not something people like to talk about. So if you just take what peo…

In the case of extremely severe disabilities i think we can all completely understand that attitude. Those who don't understand or think it's weird have probably never had to care for someone with such a severe disability (i try my best to help out relatives who have a disabled child but i struggle to do it for more than a few hours at a time).

Re: Neurodiversity

#36
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why are people uncomfortable with this? Some aspects of cultural, ethnic and religious identity are associated with and expressed by genetic factors like skin color. For African Americans, just to give an example, the premise of "editing" children to be "whiter" might appear to enable racial genocide. It doesn't apply only to skin color - some deaf people would consider genetically engineering away deafness an atta…

Normally "genocide" is considered bad because it results in living people being killed. I think we can all agree that killing a living person against their will is bad. But with what you describe as "genocide," not a single person is harmed. To me, an African American person has the same intrinsic value as a white person or anyone else. Therefore, I can't see any particular reason why I should care if we have more or…

Bear in mind that many people consider abortion to be murder even when the people it "kills" only exist in the theoretical future.

It's not a rational way of thinking, but it is common.

Re: Neurodiversity

#37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your body evolved skin to suit an environment other than a Thai beach. I would not consider that genetic inferiority.

Pale skin is thought to have evolved as a rapid (last ~5k years) and crude adaptation to avoid vitamin D deficiency shortly after farming was developed and allowed non-animal-based diets at the very high latitudes of northern Europe. http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2015/04/how-europeans-evolved... It is reasonable to think that there the significant drawbacks associated with that hacked-together solution are no longer…

So you're saying pale skin is a "hacked together" solution but modern vitamin supplements are not?

Re: Neurodiversity

#38
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pale skin is thought to have evolved as a rapid (last ~5k years) and crude adaptation to avoid vitamin D deficiency shortly after farming was developed and allowed non-animal-based diets at the very high latitudes of northern Europe. http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2015/04/how-europeans-evolved... It is reasonable to think that there the significant drawbacks associated with that hacked-together solution are no longer…

So you're saying pale skin is a "hacked together" solution but modern vitamin supplements are not?

No, that's not what I'm saying.

Re: Neurodiversity

#39
Even though my intuition tells me that I should support neurodiversity my reasoning keeps failing to justify it without introducing "diversity is unconditionally good" as an axiom. I find it difficult to add it to the list of axioms I support because it seems like hypocrasy to endorse diversity considering the history of humans.

Almost every human has the ability to learn and speak language, which is unique to mankind. (What media often reports as an animal language is not a language in that it doesn't have recursion -- the ability to handle it is, Chomsky and his supporters believe, unique to humans)

But shortly after language was born, in the very first stage of evolution of language, there must have been significant percentage of people who could not learn language. Where did they go? The answer is: they went extinct, failing to reproduce. And that's why we all can learn and speak language. The ancestors of us are those who could speak it. By making it difficult to reproduce for those who couldn't speak language, through the process of natural selection, we managed to build society where almost all of the members can speak it. Having autism in this era is analogous to being non-verbal in the early stage of humans.

With that said, endorsing diversity seems to be denial of evolution to me, denial of how we have come this far. It is by putting selection pressure on those who cannot adapt to society. And the sad reality is, you cannot stop it from happening. Autistic people will go extinct, even without the gene-editing technology, just like non-verbal people went extinct.

Re: Neurodiversity

#40

Even though my intuition tells me that I should support neurodiversity my reasoning keeps failing to justify it without introducing "diversity is unconditionally good" as an axiom. I find it difficult to add it to the list of axioms I support because it seems like hypocrasy to endorse diversity considering the history of humans. Almost every human has the ability to learn and speak language, which is unique to mankin…

Why would an is of evolution be considered to imply that ought?

The association of evolution with "unalloyed good" seems like a mistake to me, and this mistake seems potentially connected to Hegelianism.

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