On August 6th "Alicia W." made the following comment on the Asperger Syndrome post:
Even though I have Asperger's, I did still find myself agreeing with a lot of this. I've noticed I tend to do some of this stuff over the years, either by analyzing my own behavior from when I was younger or by having it pointed out to me. My symptoms have seemingly improved, or become more manageable over the years, I think in large part because I had a pretty good level of support in school. Either way, it's actually rather embarrassing to look back on. None of it was really my fault, as I couldn't help it, but I definitely [get] why people found me a massive pain while I was growing up. I also definitely understand why people would still find me annoying. I've improved a lot over the years, but I [make] no effort to pretend I'm anything close to normal. I'm just slightly less insufferable.
Alicia W. actually doesn't sound insufferable at all. It's always the people -- with Asperger Syndrome or otherwise -- who have no clue that they're insufferable who are in fact that way. And we all have embarrassing behavior to look back on over the years.
Alicia brought up an interesting point, though, about the difference between people who've been officially diagnosed with ASD -- and therefore are at least somewhat self-aware -- and those who haven't. Undiagnosed Aspies are far less likely to be aware of their own idiosyncrasies, and hypocrisies.
And older people who grew up before Aspergers was generally recognized are far less likely to have been diagnosed.
The two Aspies I know best were never officially diagnosed, and therefore make no attempt to rein in their own behavior. Both frequently think they're right even when they're obviously not, and neither seems to feel the least embarrassment about the incredibly lame excuses they make when they're proven wrong.
I suspect that if they had been diagnosed when young, each would make some effort to be less Aspergery.
An initial diagnosis of Aspergers must come as a body blow to those who receive it. But going through life with a little self-awareness does make things easier on those around you.
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35 comments:
Diagnosis when young can have the opposite effect. I remember this stupid kid who was proud, he didn't even know aspergers (or now just ASD level 1) was autism, he thought it was something else. I must have been in middle school.
Had I been let known when young of my asd, I wonder if it would have been easier, more intervention, etc. but maybe I had to really know about it when I turned 18 after years of unawareness to just be able to look back with hindsight and see how much having it sucks. I still feel suicidal waking up because that damn thing won't go away and let me live a happier life.
If I knew too early on, I may have gotten sucked into the neurodiversity or pride movements, being much younger and susceptible. I am glad I didn't drink the kool-aid.
Even thinking about that little sh*t... (okay, he was a nice kid, very decent and all, but his beliefs were so stupid it would make me angry to hear them again) *sh*tty ideas that person would have makes me wonder what the hell is wrong with the world. As if it weren't bad enough, these stupid ideas exist and are actually treated with credibility (when all science flies in the face of it, ASD is not evolutionarily advantageous, there are enviromental provokers, it is associated with genes also found to be vulnerable to cancer and from mutations, and more).
Of course I brought this up with a little scholar on that damn forum, he then said evolutionary advantage doesn't matter as the "social view" means we should still celebrate it as it has a lot to contribute to a person's life and bring richness to the world...uhhhh no, evolutionary disadvantage is still evolutionary disadvantage. Their postmodernist crap!
They are not only not right, they are not even wrong.
-Ga
Ga --
Neurodiversity is a recent, silly movement that's an offshoot of the current political correctness. It doesn't have to necessarily go hand in hand with being aware of one's own idiosyncrasies.
Agree with Ga.
Neurodiversity,
is basically saying
you don't have to change your behavior
to fit in with
society at large,
which is dangerous,
and
something we all have to do
to some degree or another.
It's worse, it's anti-psychiatry and scientific denial. The ramifications are not merely ideological or social. It's saying an organic condition is not a disorder but healthy. Autistic people on the severe end can die of seizures, and many have!
It's not the autistic people who started it that I only resent, it's the masses attending Tedx Talks, reading books by Temple Grandin, newsweek articles, the people who stand by and accept it or do nothing! Why is it even accepted or given credibility? Borat's cousin Simon Baron Cohen has made tons selling his pro-neurodiversity books.
The non-autistic people who keep fueling this are even more culpable for causing such harm to society and human progress. They have fewer excuses! I have never met a single western professional who has given any sympathy or treated my condition as something to work on. They keep insisting I must be gifted somehow, no matter how much I pleaded for help, they never took it seriously.
If you think it's a passing fad, take a good damn look at how psychiatrists and psychologists approach autistic people in the west. They are enablers for pridesters and offer no help or validation to autistic people who hate having the condition. Calling them lazy. I have never been given a single ounce of pity even when most suicidal, or they give me indirect pity by saying "oh society won't accept your amazing gift of autism like Einstein blah blah, i feel for you" uh...no! I felt and still feel quite suicidal because each day is hell.
-Ga
Ga --
The parallel with transgenderism is striking. That has always been classified as a mental illness by the DSM, but recently, in tune with the spirit of our politically correct times, it has become something to be celebrated. I know there's a certain fraction of people who basically feel that they were born into the wrong bodies, and they deserve sympathy. And if they want to change their gender as best they can, I say let them. But it's not something to be celebrated.
I've heard from someone who's in the business that clinical psychology is now a field which is suffused with political correctness, and any psychologist who tries to buck the current trends does so at the risk of losing his job.
This is largely true of anyone with any kind of personality disorder, especially Cluster B disorders. Many therapists, for instance, will only allow one borderline patient on their lists at a time, because they're notoriously difficult to treat. But at least they're trying. Undiagnosed BPDs are the apex of insufferability (mainly because "nothing's wrong with them").
With Aspies, I think I said once before, it isn't so much the presence or absence of formal diagnosis that makes the difference, it's whether or not they are the "introverted", high-anxiety kind (who we teachers can tolerate better), or the "extroverted", outward-acting kind who comes across as hopelessly narcissistic. That second type creates all kinds of classroom drama with his peers, especially if his peers don't yet have the maturity to be able to brush off his behavior.
It certainly doesn't help matters that teachers are forbidden to even suggest to the parent that her little darling might need to be evaluated. I've had to bite my tongue on many occasions when a well-meaning parent is asking me for my professional opinion ("What do you think might be the cause of Billy's behavior?"), and I have to flat-out lie and say I don't know, when in fact ALL of Billy's teachers know.
Fled the Undertow --
That's interesting about students. That teachers aren't allowed to make any suggestions along those lines to parents seems to be very much a function of the power lawyers have these days. Any suggestion which might be disputed could be grounds for a lawsuit, and a school board's first job these days -- like a doctor's -- seems to be to avoid lawsuits.
Must be tough to have to bite your tongue.
As far as the Cluster B disorders, I can imagine a borderline seeking help -- if only for their moodiness -- but sociopaths and narcissists are notoriously averse to seeking help, as they don't think they need any. In their minds, they're always right, so why should they try to change? And sociopaths simply see themselves as strong individuals and the rest of the world as weak. ("There are two kinds of people in this world, my friend....") And they see morality as a silly construct the rest of the world handicaps itself with. I suppose histrionics, the fourth type of Cluster B, might seek help, if only because their need for attention has gotten them into trouble.
I can see why therapists limit themselves to only one borderline at a time, as they are exhausting. I know two guys who married a borderline; with one, the marriage lasted less than two years, and with the other he's spent his life since acting as if he has Stockholm Syndrome.
and with the other he's spent his life since acting as if he has Stockholm Syndrome.
Oh, so you've met my stepdad? Lol.
My uBPD mother sought help from a therapist hoping she could get ME to behave (I'm the only one in the family who won't put up with her nonsense). Of course, that lasted exactly two sessions, when my mother realized the therapist was only interested in talking about HER. So she quit.
My stepdad has given up everything and everyone who was ever important to him, including his only child, to appease her. I think at this point, acknowledging that my mom has BPD (and concluding that all his personal losses were wasteful and unnecessary) would shatter the man.
As for biting my tongue...dude, you have no idea. It's an issue I struggle with daily. As a parent, i so want to be honest with fellow parents who are searching for answers. But i also wanted to keep my job. I once sent a book about Aspie kids to one such parent anonymously in the mail.
Fled the Undertow --
Ha, do you have any idea how that family reacted to that book? Did you ever hear anything?
Yes, "appease" is the perfect word to describe what you have to do with someone who has borderline personality disorder. I see the guy I know bending over backward trying to mollify her all the time, he's constantly walking on eggshells. And the pity is, he's a wonderful guy overall, but I guess part of his wonderfulness in a way is that he's able to put up with an awful lot.
And yes, it sounds very much like someone with BPD to try to get YOU to see a therapist to change YOUR behavior, but then to quit as soon as she realized she was the focus. That must have been a smart therapist, to see through her so quickly. Too bad the sessions didn't continue.
Neurodiversity isn't merely just a fad born from political correctness. It's current form it manifests as, maybe, but the root of it all is darker. If you dig into it's history, it has roots in the anti-psychiatry movement and thoughts from the 1960s stretching further back into fascist organizations who were also anti-psychiatry in the 1930s. Groups like Mad Pride, anti-semitic groups like neo nazis who regarded psychiatry as a Jewish invention contributed. Not to forget Scientologists who also regard psychiatry as an invention or myth. Hillary Clinton has also voiced support before for neurodiverse leaders and associated with them if that is not evidence enough. Their reverence for Hans Asperger despite his numerous errors, sloppy research, and terribly inefficient methods (he was also a nazi supporter) and disdain for and lies about Leo Kanner who wrote of it earlier and was far more successful with even more severe patients (He was also Jewish, and saved Jewish lives) is also telling.
-Ga
my wife's nephew was diagnosed with Asperger's which surprised me a little at first, because the times I had met him when he was 5 to 10 years-old he seemed social. Always greeted me and looked me in the eyes when talking with me. But the next time I spent time with him he was 18 and if I did not know otherwise I would assume he was retarded. Not sure how he graduated from high school. He is dumber than Forest Gump. While he may have Asperger's , his main problem is due to his low IQ. I suppose if his IQ was normal his asperger's would not be a big deal. I suspect many parents would rather describe their children as Autistic because calling them retarded sounds worse. From the media one would think most with Asperger's are of normal intelligence, but most are well below average in intelligence. My nephew clearly has symptoms of aspergers , but even if his apserger's was cured he would be lucky to have a job pumping gas.
Anon --
I think Aspies come in a full range of IQ's. Some are dumb, like your nephew, and some are quite smart, like Ga, the commenter above, who has talked about his Aspergers on this site. It's always been my impression that the smarter ones are better at disguising their Aspergers, though if you get to know them well enough it's always evident, if you know what to look for.
(Coincidentally, even though sociopaths are in some ways the opposite of Aspies, the same dynamic works with them, too: they, too, come in a full range of IQ's, and the smarter ones are better at hiding their sociopathy, though it will eventually always become apparent if you now what to look for.)
I don't quite buy all the lists that have been compiled by Aspergers advocates that claim all sorts of geniuses (Einstein, Mark Twain, Isaac Newton, etc.) as Aspies. But some of those people may well have been. One thing Aspergers does is focus your brain intently on one thing, which is always a prerequisite for greatness in a particular field.
Yes, what John said, if even normal people can come in a range of different intelligences (hence it's possible to be retarded and not autistic, have a genetic disorder like Forrest Gump is) then obviously your nephew just happens to be unintelligent/retarded and on the spectrum.
In my experience, severity of autism is not always correlated to intelligence, there are people quite far along the spectrum who are much smarter, have more common sense, and are full of insight (I corresponded with one on a forum, he or she I forget is almost non-verbal, only able to speak fragmented garbled words, but communicates well with a keyboard) while many people on the mild end who are absolute dolts (who I wasted time debating on the same forum).
I also tend to use to term "autism" over "aspergers" out of habit since the Chinese term (ji bai zing) makes no distinction. I also don't like Hans Aspergers. But y'all can use any term you want, I wont mind.
-Ga
The statistics on Autisms demonstrate that 80% have an IQ below 80....and among Asperger's the average IQ is about 90.
In the 1990’s the diagnosis of autism was changed to autism spectrum disorder (ASD) – the new name reflecting the changing concept of autism to include a broader spectrum of symptoms, including much more subtle manifestations.
it is not a coincidence that as more people are diagnosed as autistic the number of people being counted as Mentally disabled (retarded) has dropped. Since 1999 the numbers of children diagnosed as retarded as fallen over 10% as the number counted as autistic has risen about 12%. Maybe autism is a better diagnosis, but the typical child diagnosed as autistic has an IQ below 80. Thus parents who have a child with an IQ of 70 are now more likely to label them with asperger's than as mentally disabled.
Java --
That's interesting, I hadn't heard that 90 number before. Most of the people I know with Aspergers (an admittedly limited sample) are good at whatever they do, even as they're lacking socially.
I wonder if the low IQ numbers might not have something to do with test-taking ability, or perhaps nerves when it comes to testing, as opposed to actual intelligence. The Aspies I've known would be more likely to "freeze up" in that situation.
IQ in autism is a chicken or egg question. Does the autism lower the IQ or is it inherent? It could be either depending on the individual, the condition is very heterogenous.
I probably had a lower one when younger, but worked on exercising my brain once I became aware to make up for my shortcomings and my psych suspects I'd score better if I did one now.
If a person is severely autistic, does the severity of the condition feralize the person? Preventing them from access to the outside world (hence the "auto" part of autism), preventing them from developing intelligence? If you threw a regular child to a pack a dogs to be raised, it would grow up retarded for a similar reason.
Parent's refusing to get their child diagnosed is one of the worst things to do. Or ignoring it thinking it doesn't matter after diagnosis. Early intervention, and I mean very proffesional intervention, not a special ed class, but hard core behavioural therapy up to 30 hours week when the brain is still plastic and moldable is vital for a chance of a good outcome. Gene expression is most fluid when young. It pisses me off parents don't use the window they have. There is TOO a window I tell you all.
Hence the stories of severely autistic children gaining verbal abilities after intensive therapy, and a small and very rare few lose mental retardation if they are super lucky.
(like John Hall).
-Ga
Ga --
"Fertilized," I like that word.
The thing about intelligence and Aspergers, like intelligence and sociopathy, is that whatever the IQ of the person involved, there are certain inbuilt characteristics that render the person less intelligent (not IQ-wise, but common sense-wise) on a couple issues. With Aspergers, the deficit is social, in the sense that they don't read situations well, and are also somewhat unaware of the impression they're making. This could be summarized as being "tone-deaf," as I heard one Aspie described just yesterday. (I witnessed the incident that led to that description as well.) With sociopaths, the deficit is in misjudging situations because of overconfidence. Sociopaths often seem to think they're fooling people when they're not, they often think they're capable of things they're not, and they see themselves as victims when they're in fact the perpetrator in a lot of situations. All of these things effectively render the sociopaths less intelligent, from a practical viewpoint, on certain issues. (Of course, sociopaths are also MORE socially effective in a lot of other situations -- they're better at seduction, manipulation, etc.)
I wanna ask John, what is your opinion on psychiatrists and/vs psychologists?
A lot of neurodiverse idiots love psychologists and detest psychiatry. I have had a good psychologists, one good psychiatrist, but I still have a distaste for psychologists, or some of them.
One Polish psychologist prescribed bottle feeding and confinement for an 11 year old boy and then lost his license. I've read stuff, articles even, on the internet on popular sites by psychologists, and I wonder how the hell do they still have a license? If that guy were an American, not a Pole, he would be able to take it to court and defend his work. Like modern art, psychology has a lot of bad taste that gets defended.
I also have a distaste for the ones who keep writing bad books, getting rich off them, while some are good, many are cliched common sense at best and absolute bottle feeding rubbish at worst, simplifying serious issues, selling them like candy to the masses.
Psychologists used to suggest homosexuality was due to not being able to progress past certain developmental stages involving genitals. (Was it Freud?) Yet recently I read an article about how birds exposed to lead in their drinking water engaged in more homosexual behavior (of course it added at the end "this does not necessarily apply to humans" just to be safe!). Using psychological theories to explain everything is a postmodernist's wet dream. Have you ever heard of a SJW psychiatrist? I'm sure you can easily find a sjw supporting psychologist on the other hand.
There is a real anti-psychiatry slant in society, people gravitate more to psychologists who are "subjective" and don't "judge" by giving an organic explanation for some of your problems. A psychologist can make money appealing to your sense of ego and can say almost anything. There has to be rules in place else they lose their license, but at least in the USA, what they say to their patients or write about may as well be protected and considered "free speech". Even if it is crap like bottle feeding.
They have suggested borderline being a sexist construct of PTSD among the oppressed womyn and narcissism being genetically related or a step before ASD. And yes one suggested that, now, I don't dispute the resemblances of narcissism to asd, but the scientific part is unsupported, that's like saying bipolar is related to borderline or carob and chocolate are in the same genus.
It's not even supposed to be a dichotomy. They have different jobs and a person may see both. But it's been turned into one. BLARGH!
-Ga
Ga --
I have limited personal experience with either psychologists or psychiatrists but I've heard a fair amount about clinical psychologists from a woman who was at one point in the field, and who used to comment here. She says the field has become incredibly politically correct and you're only allowed to make suggestions that are in line with the latest pc sensibilities when it comes to sexuality and so on. And she says that if you veer from the party line, you risk losing your license.
As far as psychiatry, it's my general impression that traditional psychiatry -- listening to patients talk their problems out -- doesn't really do much good. When I was young people still believed in Freudian psychology and Adler and Jung and all that stuff. How labeling like that would help anyone is beyond me: how does knowing that you have an id and an ego and a superego help you deal with the real world in any way?
I suppose psychiatrists can do some good just because they can prescribe drugs, which do seem to help in some cases. But it's my overall impression that there aren't that many psychologists and psychiatrists who give good, practical, commonsensical, utile advice.
I suppose the article on lead and homosexual behavior in birds isn't included in even in the realm of neurology for similar reasons.
Yeah, having to toe the party line makes sense, it explains the crap given to me by therapists in the USA. One even berated me because I wasn't some astrophysicist and I was so depressed at the time, but like I am not rain man.
-Ga
I went to my psych, she confirmed from history and observation I did have a later onset, I was normally developing till 3ish then was disrupted.
I think maybe having a previous frame of reference of what being on the other side, even if implicit, not from recall, affects how I view, and maybe my hostility to the pride movement.
She also said it explains my more depressive outlook, having been on the other side before then suddenly falling into a disorder. I mean, I could remember making eye contact and playing games with other kids, but then it stopped. One of the worst parts is the feeling of a loss of strong self. I was "in my body" I could remember when younger, but lost that sensation. It's like I'm in my head only. (common to many disorders, and much more severe in cases like schizophrenia or dysphoria, but still a very autistic symptom).
I also feel a lot of disgust with my symptoms, something requiring a point of reference of what an outsider would feel disgust with if they did not have the symptoms before, and felt as is it were abnormal. (There is very late onset autism, like teenagehood, very rare, from brain inflammation/encephalitis, I wonder how they could even deal with it without wanting to kill themselves).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nriB6uDOAOY
This video I found shows an extreme example, talking up till 2-3 then fullblown severe autism. You can easily understand why the guy is super bitter and angry, maybe that's the only thing keeping him from wanting to die, anger? I am a little skeptical of assisted communication though. I think there could be some rare cases, and the guy is looking at his keyboard, and what he writes seems consistent personality wise from person to person assissting him. I read some of his articles, they are consistent. But the point remains, if true it must be depressing or anger inducing, angry at God (guy in vid is Jewish, so he says he is angry at God) to remember being able to talk and play then suddenly regress. Still agnostic though over whether it was staged or not.
I can understand why some other pride autists don't know any better now, they were like that from birth, but if there are ones who weren't yet still are part of the pride movement, I think maybe it's just vanity or a tempting escape valve for them, a case of sour grapes too? The implicit memory would still be there even if there is no recall. Nothing not telling them there used to be something better?
-Ga
Ga --
That's interesting, I hadn't realized there was late onset autism, I had just thought it was something people had from birth. Sociopaths were always sociopaths (at least incipient ones), gays were always gay, and transgenders always felt wrong in their own bodies, as far as I know.
One way to look at it, even if you're cursed with a sense of what might have been, is that you have much greater self-awareness than the average person with Aspergers.
Autistic regression, especially into the severe fullblown kind, is one of the reasons there are so many anti vaccination people.
If your kid is chatting away and playing with toys like any normal kid but suddenly become mentally retarded, stacks legos, can't speak, stops looking at your face, what will people look for as the cause? Probably vaccinations which are given around that age. Correlation does not equal causation though.
I can understand and have sympathy for them to some degree. One twitter account for a well known anti vaxxer figure posted his son's last words"I love you daddy, let's play" before he regressed. However, cases like these were documented by John Langdon Down (the guy who documented Down syndrome) way back centuries ago (though much much more rarely, I still suspect many disorders like autism and more are rising, my grandma never saw a person with autism or alzheimers in all her work as a nurse!)
It's still a bunch of pseudoscience. Mercury has not been in vaccine for ages, and the mercury that was used was not the same kind of mercury we know as mercury. It's like saying battery acid and wine vinegar are the same because they are "acids".
It's neurodevelopmental, and there is mounting evidence schizophrenia and also bipolar start in the womb too, the fetus, but don't kick in till later, adolescence.
If it is vaccines according to alex jones, then it is not mercury or vaccination, but deliberate chemicals put in to depopulate the human race. The anti-vaxxers keep moving the goalpost when disproven over and over.
But deliberate poisoning is the only plausible case wherein anything could happen, and I just don't know. I mean, the world's governments have done stuff before like the British exposing thousands of sailors to dangerous radiation on purpose, or the US infecting towns with bacteria, the USSR giving prisoners syphilis to test them....
-Ga
Ga --
You're right, I had forgotten about schizophrenia; it, too, comes on later in life, in its case, usually between the ages of 17 and 21. I wonder if they, too, are bitter because of their memories of having been without it once. And it does seem to run in families, i.e., have a genetic basis. I know a girl who had worried about getting it because it ran in her family. (She appears to be safe now.)
I'm as willing to believe in a conspiracy as the next guy, if the evidence is there. But Alex Jones sees conspiracies everywhere, and I wouldn't put much trust in anything he says.
Suicide is very high in ASD, its a bit higher in Schizophrenia. I am not surprised bitterness is a reason, especially in the latter since you've already lived some of your life normal. Although scientists have watched videos of people with schizophrenia before they developed the condition. They notice abnormal movements, irritability, and difficulties with cognitive tasks and speech differences, nothing serious but looking for the signs is vital to someday finding a way to prevent a person who is predisposed.
They are also doing similar research on birth screening for subtle signs of autism disorder, as early as possible when intervention can take place.
My mom was in denial, I think when I was four, she took me to a hearing doctor because I wasn't responding when called like I used to several months ago. I bet she kept on insisting it must be something else. She missed a window where they could have given me earlier intervention which would could have improved my prognosis. Part of it is asian culture. A lot of people in Hong Kong refuse to see doctors for that reason, they are told to suck it up. If job insurance plans and pensions in the USA are already crappy, then they are absolute junk here. You work unpaid hours till you are 75 and spend retirement stacking cardboard boxes. Such is life.
-Ga
Ga --
That does seem to be more in keeping with the Asian character, to (a) be in denial about a disorder like autism, and (b) just be expected to suck it up and go on. Asians are more like army ants that way: industrious, hard-working, and less inclined to tolerate snowflakiness (if that's a word). I see some of that in myself.
The Great Wall of China is the best metaphor for Asian character: it was an incredible monument, which took an incredible amount of organization and coordination and manpower and hard work to build, and, in the end, it was ineffective in terms of protecting China from the Eurasian hordes (Genghis et al).
Asian character is one extreme, the other extremes leads to different problems (like SJWs or identity movements). I just wonder if there is any country which sits in a common sense middle.
One of the biggest ways that wall was bypassed was by just bribing the guards. I think that's how many mongols got past.
I visited the great wall a few years ago, climbed to the top and pissed off the side just because I could.
-Ga
Ga --
I'd say that up until fairly recently, the West occupied a common sense middle, on average. White people can be very inventive, at different ways of being crazy as well as at seminal scientific breakthroughs, but on average, the West occupied that middle ground until recently, which is why it was where most of progress occurred.
Ha, never been to China, so have never have that opportunity myself. Not that I would have thought to do that.
Taiwan seems to be a bit better than Hong Kong, it has a bit more rugged individualism and combines past traditions with modern lifestyle without diving too deep into the same commercialism and has a more robust economy, not a luxury service based one. I just wonder what they are planning now. They can't retake China, are they hoping to outlast them? What now? Sit and wait?
I wonder if Chiang Kai Shek, sitting in his fortress in Taiwan, the stupid bastard, cried when he finally realized just how big he screwed up losing half an entire continent to a bunch of communist peasants, Mao Zedong, a nobody born in a rural village,he lost to a freaking peasant!
The communists were worse, but he was still a mass murderer, over a million people died because of him. And He was incredibly stupid. An example, losing operation Ichi-Go in 1944 (a Japanese offensive to destroy several US airbases in China, the Chinese were tasked with holding them off, but failed as expected) helped prolong the war for the USA.
It just makes me so angry that it all happened that way.
Another person on my shitlist is Ferdinand Marcos, he is the reason the Philippines is a third world shithole. Before him, they were ahead of Japan and Korea in production and growth, but he sent the country back to the dark ages. Korea was a shithole third world country after ww2 but look at them now! The Philippines had the same chance but he screwed the country over.
It just didn't have to be this way. Hong Kong is better off than China, but we have a ton of pollution and many people get sick because of it. The societal cost is high. 70% of the pollution is blown in from China, the mainland tourists come in and wreck our economy. They buy up many food supplies and goods and more increasing demand and the prices as well.
They also flood into our universities, many of their parents being wealthy able to bribe the places for admission meaning fewer slots are available to locals to study. There is a legal quota for mainland students (like affirmative action) in order to maintain "good ties" between Hong Kong and China...
ARGH! Our population is incredibly high, the birth rates of us locals are quite low, but many Chinese mainlanders come in and have anchor babies, then have large families. The HK government isn't helping. We have very low tax rates, most of the revenue is by deliberately keeping land off limits to increase demand so rent is high. They then auction off or lease land at outrageous prices in very small increments for 50 year leases to Chinese companies who then charge disgustingly high rent.
I hate the People's Republic of China!
-Ga
Ga --
What you say the Chinese are doing to Hong Kong, they are doing to a lesser extent in the US. Anchor babies, cheating their way into our colleges, buying up properties. Obviously they have less effect here, but that's what they're doing.
I agree with everything else you say, but have a hard time believing the Philippines had a higher growth and production rate than Korea and Japan. The average IQ in Singapore, Korea, Hong Kong, Japan, and northern China is all about the same; in the Philippines, significantly lower. Usually -- unless they're held back by communism, or a repressive dictator, a country's per capita GDP is very much in line with its average IQ.
Well they were better fighters than the Japanese. Many Filipino scouts often could easily kill and defeat huge amounts of Japanese troops. Maybe an increase in intelligence occurred from natural selection during the 21st century (I mean, if you go back to 10000BC, white people were living in stone age huts and hunting animals with spears, there was a turning point eventually, probably intelligence being bred) which was then maybe defeated, and the intellectual health of the nation was then reverted. Intelligence doesn't require too many generations to breed, the upper part of the bell curve just need to defeat the lower, rinse and repeat. That's how the Jewish people, originally semitic (though with european admixture) managed to gain higher than average IQs, from a combination of natural selection (they were barred from most jobs during the middle ages, so they had to go into banking, moneylending, and administration), plus the pogroms and persecution against them meant Jewish people who could hide and evade would go on to successfully reproduce.
Korea, including the South, had been very poor, it had a lower GDP before and after WW2 than many modern African countries. Of course Japanese colonization and oppression may have had something to do with it, and civil war.
I do think it is possible for a country with an average lower IQ to implement policies to boost intelligence. Some African countries that are better off do have higher average IQs, I suspect they were raised somehow. Creating schools and universities to seek out the most intelligent who can then go on to live and not die in their village from being mauled by a wild animal.
The problem though, if this happens too rapidly, is the risk of inbreeding. The Jewish people do have very high average IQs but a host of health problems, the Japanese and Finns also have higher rates of recessive diseases from their lower genetic diversity.
But now you've made me a little skeptical about the Filipinos. Most filipino I meet are very intelligent, but unsurprisingly, I assume the most skilled workers would immigrate. Brain drain is a real problem in the Philipinnes, since the ones with the highest IQs keep leaving, the remainders are losing said genetic material. But I still believe they have more potential than other Southeast Asian countries like Cambodia or Indonesia if given the chance. They were screwed over after all by Ferdinand Marcos.
-Ga
Eh I was fudging there, let's say I do disagree with you on stuff, no worries about it.
I have trouble having my own opinions and letting others have them. Usually instead of being defiant I usually worry about what I though and try to see if I can adjust my beliefs too quickly without thinking. I am even more wary now of having any opinions! How can I have an opinion on anything without knowing exactly everything about something? But I do have a lot of beliefs I do stand firmly by (such as my almost irrationally hostile feelings towards the autism pride movement).
Were the facts and statistics about the filipino growth false? Was Ferdinand Marcos a great guy and everyone is secretly in on making him to look bad and everything about the Philipinnes is just do to low IQ? Of course you aren't saying that either. The Philipinnes is worse off than what IQ can just explain, since the IQ is still higher than many African countries which are less shitty looking. But okay, you are correct, IQ plays a role.
What do I (may*) disagree with you on? Well, I believe IQ can be influenced by enviroment to a much greater degree. Not as in the one you are born in, but societal events which can select for intelligence. A disaster can possibly send IQ down by changing how people select their partners, and mutagens can permanently alter dna horizontally.
I respect your right to your beliefs, and hell, the fact you are consistent, and have thought them out well with your own experience and reasoning with them even if i disagree with some means I even respect your beliefs themselves. I hate it when people just choose to believes things because they want to, or worse, if they want to seem "edgy" like the difference between the IQ of black people in one person because of a knowledge of human evolution, and some idiot on stormfront who just is prejudiced and isn't even aware of how a bell curve works, who doesn't understand natural selection and thinks God literally just created things a certain way and it was meant to be that way.
There! I got that off my chest.
-Ga
Ga --
You are welcome to say whatever you want win your comments, that's what this blog is for. (Well, I started it to give myself an outlet to vent.) My rule is to post every comment that's relevant to the blog, hence all those comments on the original Aspergers post which are so insulting to me.
Interesting what you say about the Jews. Yes, they raised their average IQ as a group through (un)natural selection, and yes, they have health problems. And yes about the smarter Filipinos whom you've met having been a self-selecting group which chose to emigrate.
And yes, Marcos was incredibly corrupt. I always found Imelda fascinating, she has such a narcissistic view of the world, in the layman's as well as DSM sense of the term. When she ran for President after her husband was deposed, she thought the Filipino people would vote for her because "they believe in beauty."
Okay I don't know where to post this, but I why do you think Asian people in the USA speak with normal american accents? But not black or hispanic people? Although I knew a few who did, the black one was a fullblown nerb and probably had a high IQ, the hispanic one was ironically the daughter of an illegal immigrant yet had a plain General american accent.
Black, Asian, whatever people in the UK speak with british accents.
It seems even middle eastern immigrants to countries even pick up local accents better. I knew several muslims back in my High School, a Somali girl with a Hijab was chattering away normal american. I watched a video of a German guy whose parents are both Persian jews, speaks with no accent.
Why is there this "black voice" in the USA that is so prominent? I saw a video of Katt Williams impersonanity a white person's voice as part of one of his skits.
Heck, I even saw a video of the opposite, white people who've lived in Africa for centuries who speak the local languages and have thick african accents.
It seems this "hispanic" or "black" accent is deliberate. I think it may be.
Over here in Hong Kong, accents from other Chinese people were still strong. My mother was embarassed when my grandmother went out because of her very strong Hakka accent when speaking Cantonese. Nowadays though, mainland chinese people who move no longer learn Cantonese or even English, we are expected to speak Mandarin to them! English used to be a second language, now it's becoming a third! Cantonese has been flooded with Mandarin loanwords!
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=6654
This is sorta what I mean, Cantonese is legally just a dialect of Chinese even though it's as distant as German is to English. ARGHGHGHGHGHGGHHG, oh crap ASD/ADHD moment!
Back on topic.
Any insights on the black US voice?
-Ga
Ga --
A couple of reasons. First, even among whites, there are a number of differing accents. Midwesterners and people on the West Coast generally speak "without" accents. In the South, people often speak with Southern accents (although I understand those are slowly disappearing), and even southern accents vary; Texans (those who have accents,anyway) sound different from people in, say, South Carolina. Then there are the Northeast accents, the Boston accent, and the various New York accents, all of which sound bad to me, and all of which are also slowly disappearing.
The black accent is somewhat similar to the Southern drawl, and it started out because originally a lot of blacks came from the South and emigrated to the North. But by this point it's partly a matter of wanting a different identity, of taking pride in being "authentically" black. And there's undoubtedly a certain feeling that blacks who speak "white" are trying to be like a white, which is never a popular thing in that community. There are blacks, like Coliln Kaepernick and Barack Obama, who grow up in white families, in white areas, who later adopt quasi-black accents in an attempt to see more "authentic."
With Hispanics, I think it's mostly a matter of Spanish being their first language. And also that if you grow up among people who have that accent because English is their second language, you'll just naturally pick up that accent.
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