Forget smartphones or vaccines, a new study reveals that neurodivergence is something that evolved millions of years ago. And we likely wouldn't be human without it.
My take on it is that, during all of the time when our evolution was taking place, we lived in little tribes of about a hundred people. Each tribe would have at least one autistic person who would serve as a counterbalance to the chief. We were a second loci of power built around respect for our ability to see differently, and that was tied in with a lot of gender nonconformity in a great many tribal peoples before the Christians exterminated them. The result was that the chief led the way most of the time, but the medicine woman would recognize when the chief was leading the tribe off a cliff, and step in to intervene. Producing greater long term survival for the tribe as a whole.
Tangential thought: It seems like the rise of the internet played a big part in our (autistic) modern visibility. Before, only those of us with debilitating enough symptoms and/or comorbidities + access to health care were documented.
My answer to “what’s with the rise in autism?” is generally “sex” or “sex plus the internet”. 😂
The studies are quite clear that they both cause autism. So disregarding ('forgetting') these factors is the only way to save the drug industry and avoid the horror of knowing you harmed your own children.
This is why there is a kind of informal conspiracy between Big Pharma/ Big Tech and parents to avoid thinking about these factors, and to pretend the massive increase in autism over the past 30 years (coinciding with wireless tech and the vaccine schedule) is not a cause for concern and perhaps even a cause for celebration. It lets them all off the hook.
The invention of the 'autism spectrum' also allows introverts and artistic types to be put in the same category as people who are non verbal, non functioning and trapped in a living hell along with those who have to care for them 24/7 for the duration of their lives.
This broad classification - so broad it is meaningless - allows autism (vaccine injury) to be confused with mild and natural neurodiversity and kooky personality traits. We've always had introverted carpenters or composers or inventors. But we only had an autism epidemic after the vaccine schedule expanded in the 1980's.
When 'Rain Man' came out (1988) autism was still unheard of in mainstream culture. Even in the movie nobody knew what the word even meant. This accurately reflected society at the time. Nobody back then knew an autistic person.
This movie came out at the same time that the vaccine schedule began to be expanded - with rates of autism also exploding as more vaccines were added to the schedule. Many speculate that the movie was put out there to normalise the condition and predictively program the masses to accept this coming epidemic.
The Amish community do not vaccinate their kids and they still have no autism.
It is not an evolutionary advantage for a child to be born who requires constant personal care 24 /7 for their whole lives and who will never be productive, or able to speak or able to take care of themselves.
Our 29 year old lives with the difficult symptoms of hEDS and PoTS, in other words is hypermobile (lacking average levels of collagen throughout their body). They are also neurodivergent with dyslexia and dyscalculia. The charity SEDSConnective recently reported on a global study which had 5,653 hypermobile participants. In the light of your interesting piece here, I thought you might be interested in the summary of the results. https://www.sedsconnective.org/post/research-largest-global-study-heds-hsd-hypermobility
In addition, in April the charity published another article: The Curious Connection between hypermobility and neurodivergence.
I have to be careful with articles like this as it feeds my own confirmation bias. It is what I was already thinking without any empirical evidence to back it up.
You inspired an article of my own, thank you. This was a fabulous rabbit hole to explore!https://open.substack.com/pub/helenatbranchcounselling/p/modern-life-micro-stresses-and-neurodivergent?r=3hzwxf&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true
My take on it is that, during all of the time when our evolution was taking place, we lived in little tribes of about a hundred people. Each tribe would have at least one autistic person who would serve as a counterbalance to the chief. We were a second loci of power built around respect for our ability to see differently, and that was tied in with a lot of gender nonconformity in a great many tribal peoples before the Christians exterminated them. The result was that the chief led the way most of the time, but the medicine woman would recognize when the chief was leading the tribe off a cliff, and step in to intervene. Producing greater long term survival for the tribe as a whole.
Tangential thought: It seems like the rise of the internet played a big part in our (autistic) modern visibility. Before, only those of us with debilitating enough symptoms and/or comorbidities + access to health care were documented.
My answer to “what’s with the rise in autism?” is generally “sex” or “sex plus the internet”. 😂
"Forget smartphones or vaccines"
The studies are quite clear that they both cause autism. So disregarding ('forgetting') these factors is the only way to save the drug industry and avoid the horror of knowing you harmed your own children.
This is why there is a kind of informal conspiracy between Big Pharma/ Big Tech and parents to avoid thinking about these factors, and to pretend the massive increase in autism over the past 30 years (coinciding with wireless tech and the vaccine schedule) is not a cause for concern and perhaps even a cause for celebration. It lets them all off the hook.
The invention of the 'autism spectrum' also allows introverts and artistic types to be put in the same category as people who are non verbal, non functioning and trapped in a living hell along with those who have to care for them 24/7 for the duration of their lives.
This broad classification - so broad it is meaningless - allows autism (vaccine injury) to be confused with mild and natural neurodiversity and kooky personality traits. We've always had introverted carpenters or composers or inventors. But we only had an autism epidemic after the vaccine schedule expanded in the 1980's.
When 'Rain Man' came out (1988) autism was still unheard of in mainstream culture. Even in the movie nobody knew what the word even meant. This accurately reflected society at the time. Nobody back then knew an autistic person.
This movie came out at the same time that the vaccine schedule began to be expanded - with rates of autism also exploding as more vaccines were added to the schedule. Many speculate that the movie was put out there to normalise the condition and predictively program the masses to accept this coming epidemic.
The Amish community do not vaccinate their kids and they still have no autism.
It is not an evolutionary advantage for a child to be born who requires constant personal care 24 /7 for their whole lives and who will never be productive, or able to speak or able to take care of themselves.
Our 29 year old lives with the difficult symptoms of hEDS and PoTS, in other words is hypermobile (lacking average levels of collagen throughout their body). They are also neurodivergent with dyslexia and dyscalculia. The charity SEDSConnective recently reported on a global study which had 5,653 hypermobile participants. In the light of your interesting piece here, I thought you might be interested in the summary of the results. https://www.sedsconnective.org/post/research-largest-global-study-heds-hsd-hypermobility
In addition, in April the charity published another article: The Curious Connection between hypermobility and neurodivergence.
https://www.sedsconnective.org/post/the-curious-connection-between-hypermobility-and-neurodivergence
I have to be careful with articles like this as it feeds my own confirmation bias. It is what I was already thinking without any empirical evidence to back it up.