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A human-accelerated neuron type potentially underlying autism in humans
91–100 of 178 posts
Re: A human-accelerated neuron type potentially underlying autism in humans
#92Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is there now? High functioning autism exists, but autism in general doesn't seem to give any advantage to general intelligence. And the low end of functioning in autism is really, really low.
An observation I've made is that the most people ("the general population") will compromise on hard facts without pause to attain social goals. I.e.: They will follow instructions from a workplace superior with zero push-back even if the instructions are total nonsense or impossible to physically implement. It's a rare breed (1-2%) of the population that will actively push back, insist on facts, and stick to only the…
> will compromise on hard facts without pause to attain social goals
You can look no further than masking for Covid prevention. It makes sense, it works, it's relatively easy but social pressure is strong enough to force the majority to make a suicidal decision not to. We are so, so screwed.
Re: A human-accelerated neuron type potentially underlying autism in humans
#93Earlier quoted context omitted.
If anything, Newton was very well connected with other people and had extensive collaborations with them. He was very much social. The fact he may have died a virgin says nothing about his social capabilities.
Maybe he was gay in a time when being gay was a death sentence ? Which would be really sad.
You can read his life history in some books. One that I’ve read says that he grew up essentially in foster care because his widowed mother remarried and continued to live mere miles away from him in the same town. She completely avoided all contact with him. You could imagine what that kind of rejection would do without having to invent his sexual orientation.
Re: A human-accelerated neuron type potentially underlying autism in humans
#94Isn't this already quite popular theory?
Eg: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/Q8zqoBWBBHD2RjDuS/autism-and...
Re: A human-accelerated neuron type potentially underlying autism in humans
#95Earlier quoted context omitted.
It’s kind of rude to equate autism with “insanity”, but I understand you probably didn’t mean it that way.
He equated being insane with being a genius. Nowhere did he mention autism. I'm diagnosed as autistic and I am therefore more qualified than you to classify what is rude and what isn't rude to autistic people. I think misrepresenting what he actually said is what is rude, not what he in actuality said.
>Nowhere did he mention autism.
It's implied by being in a discussion about autism.
Re: A human-accelerated neuron type potentially underlying autism in humans
#96I'd thought that by living indoors and in otherwise controlled environments that there's not really much evolutionary pressure in any particular direction. Higher intelligence isn't a specific requirement to have (many) children live healthy lives.
You don't have to die to be selected out of the gene pool, you just need to fail to reproduce. If intelligence contributes to wealth and wealth contributes to reproductive success, then there will be evolutionary pressure favouring intelligence (and any other genes that "come along for the ride" with it).
It also weeds you out if you reproduce but your children choose not to (and/or don’t get chosen), which adds an interesting dimension.
Re: A human-accelerated neuron type potentially underlying autism in humans
#97I'd thought that by living indoors and in otherwise controlled environments that there's not really much evolutionary pressure in any particular direction. Higher intelligence isn't a specific requirement to have (many) children live healthy lives.
You don't have to die to be selected out of the gene pool, you just need to fail to reproduce. If intelligence contributes to wealth and wealth contributes to reproductive success, then there will be evolutionary pressure favouring intelligence (and any other genes that "come along for the ride" with it).
The reality is that wealth is inversely correlated with fertility. As are intelligence, education, secularity, and so on. IQ is a decent proxy for intelligence. What many people don't know is that it's not a raw score, but relative. The mean of a population is always set to 100 and a standard deviation is generally 15 points. So an IQ of 115 means you performed better than 84% of people, one positive standard deviation.
It was discovered some time back that the 'raw score' for IQs was increasing over time - meaning the mean kept going higher and higher. This is called the Flynn Effect. [1] People were getting smarter. The section I linked to is about the fact this trend reversed some time around 1990 in the developed world. Wiki uses weaker language 'possible end' but it's been tested and verified repeatedly at this point - we're getting dumber, and quite rapidly. This remains true even after controlling for obvious explanations like immigration.
This is yet another reason why fertility is, in my opinion, the issue of the century. The world is going to look so absurdly different, and not in a good way, in 50 years, owing to fertility rates alone. We're very likely living on the tail end of a societal golden age.
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect#Possible_end_of_p...
Re: A human-accelerated neuron type potentially underlying autism in humans
#98Re: A human-accelerated neuron type potentially underlying autism in humans
#99Earlier quoted context omitted.
It’s kind of rude to equate autism with “insanity”, but I understand you probably didn’t mean it that way.
He equated being insane with being a genius. Nowhere did he mention autism. I'm diagnosed as autistic and I am therefore more qualified than you to classify what is rude and what isn't rude to autistic people. I think misrepresenting what he actually said is what is rude, not what he in actuality said.
Disclaimer: I also read it as rude at first glance.
Question: Can you classify what is rude or not for autistic people in general or is it more likely that you might perceive something as not rude which other autistic people might perceive as rude?
Re: A human-accelerated neuron type potentially underlying autism in humans
#100Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thank you for the clarification. Can't read the paper. Who was it that was quoted often a decade ago that described the intellectual variance difference between the sexes? The research concluded that women are smarter (just kidding) that men have much greater variance while women are generally closer to the mean and one another in abilities. Since differences between the sexes exist, I would also expect differences a…
Boys are diagnosed with autism 4 times more than girls by age 8. There's a certain amount of supposition that this is due in part or largely down to "boys being boys" type handwaving, though my two nephews are on the spectrum and neurodivergent behavior in them presented as distinctly different from simply being energetic (one being almost nonverbal). Though it's possible, it seems unlikely to me that there isn't act…
My niece has autism and it’s much more subtle than I’ve seen in boys. It was difficult to even get her diagnosed until teen years when the masking became much harder for her because of more complex social dynamics.