Possible Asperger Sensitivity to Infrasound

Infrasound is sound waves below the normal range of human hearing. Infrasound is common in nature, but additionally the environment is flooded with manmade low and high frequency sound. You know those industrial strength subwoofers that cause some of us severe pain, anger, irritation, and the urge to run away? Those effects are real.

 

Natural sources of infrasound - many animals can detect these low frequency sounds; a few, such as elephants, can also generate infrasound. Humans can't HEAR these long wavelengths, but they do have effects on the human nervous system and organs.

"Oobleck" is the now famous non-Newtonian fluid composed of cornstarch and water. Shown here is the Oobleck "dance" produced by infrasound from a subwoofer. I'm not claiming that infrasound has the same effect on any part of the human body. I'm using the photo to show that infrasound, even though humans can't "hear" it, has a physical existence and is part of our environment, from both natural and manmade sources. 

For a look at non-Newtonian liquids:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BN2D5y-AxIY

Are Asperger's Individuals the Canaries of Toxic Human Environments?

The sensitivity of Asperger children and adults to specific sound frequencies, noise levels, chemicals, pollution and chaotic human activity is labeled a symptom of a defective brain. Really? Do dogs and cats run away at the sound of drills, saws and vacuum cleaners because their brains are defective? Do pets sneeze and hide when household cleaners are sprayed in the air because their brains are defective? Are cigarettes banned in many public places because toxic smoke is good for people? Do fish die off when fertilizer concentrations in rivers and lakes cause algal blooms that deplete oxygen in the water because fish are developmentally retarded? Do sea birds that consume plastic trash that blocks their digestive system die because they are stupid? Do turtles get caught in fishing nets and die because their brains don't 'get' human indifference to the survival of other species? Do wild animals flee humans because they just don't understand that cruelty is empathy in disguise?

Are Asperger people averse to social environments because their brain-sensory system is broken, or is it because we have more acute sensory perception, and toxic environments make us sick? 

A Link to Basic Genetics and Environment

Both Environment and Genetic Makeup Influence Behavior

By: Michael D. Breed (Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, University of Colorado at Boulder) & Leticia Sanchez (Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, University of Colorado at Boulder) © 2010 Nature Education 

http://www.nature.com/scitable/knowledge/library/both-environment-and-genetic-makeup-influence-behavior-13907840

Good grief!Advice on dealing with sensory sensitivity? Have your Asperger child wear earmuffs to dampen noises that cause distress. Better stock up - you'll need these for a lifetime of environmentally induced pain!

A characteristic common to many Asperger individuals is sensory sensitivity. The link above goes to a clear and simple discussion on how genetic make up and the environment affect animal behavior. It's a good place to begin understanding our sensory differences.

Although these sensory sensitivities are noted in articles on Asperger symptoms, there is little apparent interest in research on the actual source and nature of these noteworthy physical experiences, which Asperger individuals frequently describe. Instead, these differences are commonly written off as defects in the Asberger brain, an astounding attribution that like too many assumptions about Asperger symptoms is accepted merely on repetition.

Wolf _ Dog.... Asperger_ Neurotypical?

All dogs are wolves; domestic dogs have been, and continue to be,  manipulated by humans for physical and behavioral traits we desire, tameness being the most fundamental. Evidence suggests that modern humans are also the result of selection for juvenile qualities. If so, Asperger individuals may be the developmental equivalent of wild dogs, which cannot be socialized.

 

Are Asperger people the equivalent of Wild Type Adult Dogs who are simply not fully domesticated?

 

If modern Homo sapiens is the product of domestication, might not this juvenalization apply to us, with the result that humans exhibit a range of developmental stages? Once humans were domesticated, the wild form (Asperger) of a species often becomes the object of unreasonable fear and attack. Example: the violent extermination of wolves in many parts of the world.

 

A chart showing stages of arrested development of domestic dog breeds compared to wild dogs, such as Coyotes and Jackals, which develop to full adulthood. Domestic dogs are the product of human selection, in which animals are intentionally retarded in a stage of juvenile development that is characterized by behavior that humans find useful. Not only is behavior arrested at various developmental stages, but the animal's physical appearance retains typical juvenile attributes. Thus domestic animals are the result of selective breeding that prevents the individual from becoming an adult. 

 

Not only the physical evidence for a juvenile status of modern humans is being studied, but the psychological effects also.

 

The Asperger Mind Makes Art

My education is in geology, but I do not work in the field, rather, my appreciation for 'how the world works' is expressed through photography. I am fascinated by manmade objects being broken down (or not) by the desert climate, and most significantly, by the effects of wind that scours the landscape and by patterns generated by the freeze-thaw cycle. The desert remains a wilderness despite generations of human occupation; old dumps, although covered, have been exposed by natural forces.
     The photographs begin as color photos, which I then manipulate in the computer. My desire to make art began very early, but I had no dexterity - what I saw in my mind was impossible to create on paper. I worked as an advertising designer for many years, but could not draw a damn thing! I got around the problem by creating collages. Photography allows me to show what I see without the physical need to manipulate materials.


Top photo: the coils of an old box springs.
Left: Children's hand prints in paint on the side of a house.

Brilliant!

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg

The absolutely most true and hysterical video of what it's like to be an Asperger forced to deal with Neurotypicals.

Childhood: A Female Asberger Mystery

My relationship to my own childhood is sketchy; I think it must be due to being Asperger, because most of the people I know remember almost everything that ever happened to them, and to friends and family. I remember pictures, as if I had stopped once in a while to take a snapshot of what happened, but then left the images behind. The image is the memory. Read more: Post 6/25   

  

Trying to Remember My Mother.

Months ago I assigned myself the task of remembering good things about my mother. Ours was an unhappy relationship, and my first attempt resulted in an image of glass bottles on a window sill. Some were filled with colored water; a few had marbles in them, but I may have added the marbles just now. My imagination inserts objects with similar physical qualities into my memories, a habit that has caused the family to accuse me of lying.

     Weeks later, the image of bottles filled with colored water remained the sole entry on the "Good things about my mother" list, so I tried again, but instead of a touching scene of her doing something motherly, a vivid yellow shoe intruded. The leather was shiny and smooth. Unless I’m lying again, these shoes refer to a Polaroid taken of me as I walked across a polished gym floor between rows of folding metal chairs during eighth grade graduation. The yellow pumps matched a sleeveless dress; a yellow band held back my hair, which had been done up at a beauty salon in a style that advanced my apparent age from thirteen to about twenty-seven. Pointy black eyeglasses exposed a nerdy streak. My recall of this event, and indeed of that year, begins and ends with this photograph, which may or may not exist.

     A second pair of shoes then popped into mind: sturdy leather loafers accented with brass buckles, easily identified as those that were purchased for my freshman year in high school. During winter I changed to snow boots for the trek to and from school and carried my shoes. One afternoon a single loafer vanished, and despite retracing the route back to school and home again, the shoe was lost, even though it had to be somewhere. I had chosen the loafers myself, but discovered that I didn’t like them much, so it’s possible that the shoe accidentally-on-purpose dropped out of my life, but that could be my mother talking.

     One spring day during junior year, my best friend and I decided to walk to Chicago, about fifteen miles distant from our town. I wore a beautiful pair of boots made from thin buttery leather, lined with elastic, which left no room for socks. Within the first mile multiple blisters swelled and popped, but had I stopped to inspect the damage, I wouldn’t have been able to get the boots on again. Regardless, my friend and I made the city without incident and recorded our excursion at a subway photo booth, which I know is true, since my friend has the pictures.

    We took a train home; neither of us could have walked the last two miles. Our faces were black from auto fumes and our raccoon eyes were a giveaway that we had been up to something. When my mother picked us up she only commented on how dirty we were. At home I locked myself in the bathroom and peeled away my beautiful glove-tight boots. One toenail came off and I swabbed the blisters with mercurochrome, but my blazing orange feet drew no notice. My parents ignored me; I thought it was because they trusted my judgment, but in truth, they didn’t want to know anything that might upset them. Of course, I could be lying.

     It was beginning to look as if good memories of my mother either didn’t exist, or were weirdly inaccessible, so I switched to searching for instances when my mother was happy, but I’m not sure she ever was. Everything she said sounded like, “I’m broken. Fix me.” 
 

My mother's ideal woman, Zsa Zsa Gabor. For an Asperger girl, this female model was terrifying and soul killing.

My mother was always on the hunt for shoes, and our arrival in any shoe department was a dark day for the clerk. Stacks and stacks of boxes holding pumps or sling backs were brought forth, but none fit. My mother was a Cinderella for whom no shoe was good enough and she delighted in the fiction that her feet were impossibly unique, even though stores always had a selection in her size. No matter which pair of shoes she purchased, by the time we got home they hurt her feet; her closet floor was a mosaic of wasted cow hides. Perversely (from her point of view), my feet found satisfaction everywhere. Any style of boot or shoe would do, which reminds me of a pair of blue boots I once owned. All I can say is that I wish I still had those boots.

     My mother saw this democratic aspect of my anatomy as an indictment of commonness, which she reinforced with cutting questions such as, “Why is it that only the wrong type of men look at you?” The truth was that I was young and pretty and men looked at me, but it could be that I was a she-devil and didn't know it.

     One twenty-something birthday my mother sent a pair of Jesus sandals as a gift. These articles of 1st Century torture were clearly marked two sizes smaller than the size I had worn since I was twelve. Mom was one of those gift-givers who require that unwanted items be returned to her, so I phoned to say that the sandals were in the mail.  She became furious, and then pathetically hurt, which is what one expects of a tyrant. She insisted that the sandals weren’t too small, my feet were too big. She had gotten them at a clearance sale and could not return them. Couldn't I squeeze my feet into them if I really tried? Refusing to try  meant that I didn't love her. Besides, I had to be lying about my shoe size, since I lied about everything.

Lifestyles that may have appealed to Aspies...

...and which also provided protection from the 'Wrong Planet' social predicament.

In the Middle Ages some children were 'packed off' to a monastery at an early age; a few may have been Asperger 'problems' who fit in well with simple rules and routines, and who were oriented to intellectual pursuits and isolation. Many early and important scientists were indeed monks. Female Aspergers may have found refuge as nuns, but others were likely burned as witches or otherwise disposed of. 

"I don't want to live that way." - Krishnamurti

 

Nature requires that we support ourselves and our children, but nowhere can it be shown that the social version of 'being human' is correct or wise or healthy for any individual or family. The 'socially normal' have no scientific basis by which to dictate how we express our humanity. In fact, the social hierarchy creates misery by denying food, clean water and shelter for millions of people; by polluting the environment, stealing resources, and bringing plants and wildlife to extinction. The Pharaohs of today care nothing for humanity, the planet or its future. This exploitation and careless destruction of all that is worthwhile on this planet, goes against the Asperger core: life matters.  

Will the Real Asperger Please Stand Up?

 

American theater and film have deeply abused many minorities, from Al Jolson's Blackface routines in Burlesque/Yiddish theater to Hollywood's absurd choices for non-Native American actors to fill demeaning and stereotypical

Native American roles.

 

Social media means a social update to entertainment racism - Internet junkies have come up with a fun new game: bully the "Assburger" in which anyone can insult "Geeks" "Dorks" "Jerks" and "Retards."

Be nice, please?

If social people were nicer to us, maybe we’d be more social.

What constitutes nice behavior? Nice is different for Asperger individuals than it is for social people. Nice requires sincerity, that is, curiosity about people and not about what they own or what they can do for you. It's equality of status: We're all human - take off the boxing gloves, friendship isn't a competition, it's a collaboration. Open up your mind to the idea that not all humans must be exactly like you. And yes, stop rambling on and on about nothing. Be nice. Have something to say that comes from your own mind and not some drivel you heard on TV.

 

Dr. Matthew Israel Tortures Autistic Children

Dr. Israel / Judge Rotenberg Center receive taxpayer funding and government permission to torture disabled children.

Barbaric electrical shock aversion "therapy" is used by doctors and staff at the Judge Rotenberg Center, founded by Dr. Matthew Israel. This "therapy" can be court-ordered. The State of Massachusetts provided legal exemption to the center so that it could continue the use of this torture regime to punish children. This type of electric shock device is ILLEGAL around the world for use on prisoners and terrorists, and yet the state of Massachusetts has for nearly 30 years (and still does) permitted its use on disabled children. Israel was allowed to resign rather than be held responsible for his sadistic activities.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ko-ip3MImik

Dr. Matthew Israel, allowed to torture children for 40 years; not prosecuted. Continues life as usual, on "probation."

From a report published online by MOTHER JONES May 27, 2011, by Jen Quraishi. Edited for length.

JRC (Judge Rotenberg Center) has weathered attacks for 40 years, but there are signs that the wind may be changing: Earlier this month, school founder and executive director Matthew Israel announced he is stepping down as of June 1. Israel will reportedly be moving to California to join his wife, Judy Weber, who runs a special needs school called Tobinworld. In his official statement, Israel made no mentions of the recent charges plaguing the school, but it's been discovered that his resignation is part of a plea bargain to spare himself jail time.

As the Boston Herald reports, Israel agreed to resign and to undergo "five years of pre-trial probation to settle charges accusing him of interfering with an investigation..." The investigation in question is a 2007 incident in which someone pretending to be a JRC supervisor prank-called the school and ordered administrators to shock two special needs teens. The administrators gave one teen 29 shocks, and the other 77. And though the school will tell you the shocks feel like a bee sting, Gonnerman says it feels more like a swarm of wasps attacking.

There is 24/7 video surveillance of all students and staff, so these actions should have been easily preserved as evidence. However, Massachusetts attorney general Martha Coakley indicted Israel on charges that he ordered staff to destroy video footage of the incident. "Dr. Israel then attempted to destroy evidence of the events and mislead investigators, and that conduct led to his indictments today," she told the Guardian. "Today's action removes Dr. Israel from the school and should ensure better protection for students in the future."

By agreeing to leave the school, Israel was able to avoid incarceration, but his departure doesn't necessarily mean that things at the school will change immediately. As part of the deal, there will be additional checks in place to make sure incidents similar to the 2007 event don't recur, but the shock devices will still be allowed. JRC is currently looking for a replacement for Israel. Until then, his longtime, trusted, second-in-command Glenda Crookes will run the school. Hope she's up to the task: even though Israel's gone, the Department of Justice still has an open investigation of the school for violations of the Americans With Disabilities Act.

Photo: Child at JRC tied to a 4-point restraint board and wired to a shock device.

From The Boston Phoenix, November 26, 1985.

Matthew Israel, this self-styled savior, is a radical Skinnerian behavior-modification psychologist. He is vehemently opposed to drug therapy. He has emerged as the country's most outspoken proponent of aversive therapy, saying positive reinforcement alone can't eradicate the most bizarre behaviors. Over the past 14 years he has devised and revised a complex system of rewards and punishments and pain that he claims can eliminate inappropriate and life-threatening behaviors in the most hard-core autistic, mentally retarded, emotionally disturbed, and just plain too-troubled children and adults. Currently, Israel is also trying to modify the behavior of the state of Massachusetts, which he claims is acting too aggressively. On September 26, after a seven-month review of the program that intensified a 22-year-old autistic BRI following the death of a 22 year old BRI student, the state's Office for Children (OFC) issued an emergency measure to shut the program down. OFC charged that Israel's operation — the school and its group homes — was jeopardizing the health, safety, and welfare of its students through food deprivation, excessive punishment, and disregard for regulatory requirements. OFC suspended the licenses of the seven group homes in Massachusetts where BRI houses its 64 residents, ages 13 to 28. A magistrate upheld the OFC emergency suspension, though she ruled against the state on her findings of fact. A full hearing on whether BRI's group-home licenses will be revoked is not expected to take place until January. In the meantime, the Providence school has been allowed to remain open but under severe OFC restrictions (OFC has influence over whether the school remains open or closed even though it's in Providence, because Massachusetts children are in the program). Now the staff of BRI can no longer use physical punishments, also known as aversives; (then why are torture devices still in use almost 30 years later?) they cannot withhold meals as a punishment; they cannot take in new students or implement any new aversives or restraints.

     In 1983 OFC approved a hierarchy of aversives that Matt Israel was already using in the school and group homes to treat the bizarre behaviors of many of his students. The hit list ranged from ignoring the behavior and the benign "no" response to ammonia sprayed near the nose, harsh tastes applied to the tongue, spankings, muscle squeezes, pinches, and brief cool showers. The agency now claims that Israel not only went too far with the approved punishments but also instituted new aversives without its okay. OFC's own ambiguous regulations and restrictions, however, make it hard to decipher where the aversives were supposed to end and where the abuse may have started.

     In his dealings with other states as well, Israel has often translated his understanding of leeway into "my way." His current conflict with the commonwealth has brought attention to the fact that he has never published the results of his findings at BRI. Critics in his field wonder why a man who claims he's on the cutting edge has not submitted his work to the scrutiny of scientific, blind review. (more at The Boston Phoenix)

Related Blogs on Social History and on Modern Human Juvenalization

I became interested in "how society works" years before being diagnosed as an Asperger. http://ginarex-angerbydesign.blogspot.com 
is a critique on male leadership since the development of agriculture.

The inequality between pharaoh and citizen expressed in Egyptian art persists in society today. Note that the relationship is one of parent to child.

 

http://lovehomoerectus.blogspot.com ventures into the question of modern humans as a domesticated version of Homo erectus or "wild humans."

Popular depictions of space aliens are projections of the future of human evolution as a juvenalized species. Adults are arrested in the physical form of the human fetus, but have gained 'godlike' power. 

Newborn human skull.

Asperger Thinking as a Legacy of Pre-Agricultural Humans

Excerpts from: Ascent of Humanity by Charles Eisenstein, Evolver Editions Feb. 2013

Chapter II: The Origins of Separation / Cultivation and Culture For full text go to www.ascentofhumanity.com 

"With agriculture (about 10,000 BCE), the separate human realm expanded into radically new territory to include the various animals, plants, and other parts of nature that we made ours. No longer was domesticity limited to the campfire circle. With agriculture, we began to domesticate the whole world."

"Hunter-gatherers had the means to regulate their population levels and in many places did so successfully for thousands of years; population grew dramatically as a result of agriculture more than as a cause."

"Inevitable or not, agriculture was not a sudden invention but the cumulative consequence of a series of incremental developments that marked a gradual shift in human attitudes toward nature."

"Eventually, (domesticated) plants came also to depend on the assistance of the planters, whether through deliberate breeding or unconscious coevolution. In any event, the domestic corn plant cannot reproduce without human assistance; nor does a domestic chicken (nor a domestic human) stand much chance of survival in the wild."

"Once domestication began, the much larger population density it permitted meant there was no going back. Agriculture, the archetype of human control over nature, induces dependency and the need for ever-increasing control—over land, people, plants and animals—as the population continues to grow."

"Along with the gradual shift to agriculture came a transformation in human attitudes toward nature. Hunting accords with a view of other animals as equals. After all, nature works that way—some eat and some are eaten—and the human hunter is doing nothing different from animal hunters. Domestication imposes a hierarchy onto the interspecies relationship, as man becomes lord and master of the animals. Understandably, this relationship is then projected onto the whole of nature, which becomes in its entirety the object of domestication and control."

"The farmer's new relationship with nature engendered a new conception of the divine. As agriculture and other technology removed humans from nature, so also did the gods become supernatural rather than natural beings. The process was a gradual one, starting with ancient pantheons closely identified with natural forces. Gradually, identity evolved into rulership as the gods were abstracted out of nature, eventually resulting in the Newtonian watchmaker God completely separate from the earthly (the natural) realm. At the same time, as we lost touch with nature's harmonies and cycles, the gods took on the capricious character exemplified by the Greek pantheon and the Old Testament. Accordingly, the gods must be propitiated, kept happy through the offering of sacrifices, a practice found in most ancient farming and herding cultures but not among hunters."

"The angry God that arose in early civilizations is also linked to the concept of good and evil and the concept of sin. The corn is good, the weeds are bad. The bees are good, the locusts bad. The sheep are good, the wolves bad. Technology overcomes nature by promoting the good and controlling the bad. As for nature, so also for human nature. The self is divided into two parts, a good part and a bad part, the latter of which we overcome with the controlling technologies of culture."

"Whereas hunter-gatherers could easily adapt to all the vicissitudes of the local climate, farmers were at the mercy of drought, hail, locusts, and other threats to a successful harvest. While the resources of hunter-gatherers were virtually unlimited and their population fairly stable, agricultural civilizations experienced famines, epidemics, and wars that decimated whole populations and defied any attempt at prevention. Here was a source of constant, inescapable anxiety woven into the fabric of life itself—no matter how successful this year's harvest, what of next year?—as well as a motivation for the increased understanding and control represented, respectively, in science and technology. Scarcity and the threat of scarcity is implicit in the attempted mastery of nature. Jockeying for position in the face of scarcity, we endure an endlessly intensifying competitiveness that is built into our system of money, our understanding of biology, and our assumptions about human nature."

The primary changes related to domestication, that is, the subordination of the individual to a social hierarchy that is intent on maintaining inequality and injustice, and which is cruelly enforced by a supernatural and psychopathic God, is utterly alien to my way of perceiving and relating to the earth and all life.

 

Wrong Answers Cause Wrong Behavior in Neurotypicals

Social conflict makes me ill. Literally.

Asperger people often find themselves in the awkward position shown by this graphic. Two groups of socially typical people fight over control of The Answer and neither group has a clue that The Answer they are fighting over is no answer at all; each group merely wants control.

The unfortunate Aspie (2) may or may not have the correct answer, but he or she knows that The Answer being fought over is simply not correct: the fight isn't about facts, but about which group is Right.

Asperger individuals are obsessed with problem-solving and want to get everyone on track toward finding a solution. The result is that both groups will turn on the Asperger and attack, often viciously, the one person who might be able to help.

Asperger people need to learn that Neurotypicals aren't looking for solutions at all! They love to fight, and are addicted to negative emotions, aggression and above all Winning, and they will argue unsuccessfully over the same topics again and again.  

How to be Socially Normal

It takes years of training and supreme effort on the part of parents and teachers for human infants to be turned into acceptable members of society. The unfinished baby brain requires years of grooming and repetitive instruction to achieve anything like adult behavior. Here is how it's done in schools across America, where life is a one big happy cartoon.  




And here is the result:

 

From "What Do We Mean by 'Normal'?" by Eric Maisel, Ph.D.

"Whole industries grossing billions of dollars are built on the words "normal" and "abnormal" and on the ideas of "well" and "disordered." It is therefore inconceivable that the right thing can be done and that the situation can change. Even right-minded and high-minded mental health professionals can't really conceive of doing away with the current idea of "mental disorder." If they did away with it, what would they have and where would they be? Given that even the best and the brightest in the field are attached to an illegitimate naming game, there is probably no hope for change."

Full article can be read at psychologytoday.com Blog, Nov. 15, 2011

How much talent is wasted because society doesn’t like the package it comes in?

Mental illness and behavioral or cognitive deficiencies are defined, described, and catalogued by self-proclaimed “normal” people and show considerable bias and prejudice against individuals who have an asocial brain. This post begins to explore the hypothesis that the modern social brain developed fairly recently due to the concentration of human populations in village and urban environments. The environmental pressure for humans to "get along" in large groups was new and extreme and drastic behavioral changes were required to accomplish urban culture. A hierarchical social order evolved which was alien to "wild" natural humans who wandered freely in small groups, following water, game and collecting resources along the way.   

The classic pyramid of social power that we are familiar with, and still live by, exemplified by Ancient Egyptian culture, was dominated by the Gods, Pharaoh, and the Priesthood. Selection for individuals (especially females) who became fertile as young as possible, who were childlike and obedient, easily intimidated, dependent, and in a juvenile stage of mental development (magical thinking) produced a population that was easily controlled by coercion and supernatural belief. Magical Thinking remains the default type of brain processing in modern social people; the inability to differentiate between the supernatural fantasy and physical reality is a serious consequence of this arrested juvenile state.  

"Wild" or natural humans, who could not adapt to compressed social environments were driven off, isolated, and systematically exterminated. Very few so-called hunter-gatherer tribes remain, and these are being removed by destruction of habitat, exposure to modern toxic environments and by ‘soul death’ or the destruction of culture that is vital to their psychic and physical well-being. The wild brain type is rare today and continues to be actively stigmatized and aggressively defined as developmentally defective. 

It is possible that the Asberger sensory system, visual memory-information processing is a legacy of early humans, who lived in radically different environments that modern social humans. Although disparaged by social humans, our literal, reality-based, asocial type of human has been allowed to persist in very small numbers because of the extraordinary abilities in science and technology of some Asperger individuals. Literal, real world brain processing has built our technological civilization. Many Asperger types find refuge and socially approved work in academic and research institutions, where their social deficits are outweighed by talents useful to governments and corporations – ever more creative and effective weapons are one sad result. That is a relationship that has dire consequence for our species.  

I am interested in those ‘other’ Asperger people, who are not seen by society to have useful talents and are effectively discarded in childhood like damaged toys, that at best can sit on a shelf and provide some appearance of being normal, but which will never be included in a wider world. These children have talents and potential which are thrown away for the sake of behavioral conformity, for the sake of obedience, for the sake of the adult need to control children. There is a mean-spirited theme in all this blaming and labeling; other minorities have been subjected to the same social excuses for marginalization, but there does not seem to be an awareness of how badly Asperger and "different" children are treated.   

Are children being sorted and graded as if they are agricultural products?

From Understanding Color Image Processing by Machine Vision for Biological Materials By Ayman H. Amer Eissa and Ayman A. Abdel Khalik. 

"Machine vision and image processing techniques have been found increasingly useful in the fruit industry, especially for applications in quality inspection and defect sorting applications."

 

The purpose of agricultural sorting and grading is primarily for rejection of blemished fruit and vegetables and not for quality of nutrition. Western society increasingly demands superficially "perfect" specimens to feed consumer markets. Uniformity is a prime driver of a market economy that also sorts and grades human beings.  

 

According to 2013 statistics from the United Nations, 1.3 billion tons of food is thrown away globally every year, which is equal to one-third of the world's food. How many children are thrown away?

 

Man at the top of a garbage heap, but closer to God.

When I watch popular programs on brain science or read academic papers, I often become irritated. It is of course interesting and useful to understand our most important organ, the generator of all things we subjectively experience. But this fascinating excursion has taken on the dull drama of dismantling a Swiss watch. The need to perfect what is a natural organic object becomes a desire to tinker with and improve upon an organ that is not broken. Some human brains need repair, or medical support, or special understanding, but in the extreme focus on imperfect brains, all brains have become defective; the human brain is viewed as a malfunctioning electrical device and not the core of a unique living being. The result is an explosion of pathologic diagnosis and partitions of humans into normal, abnormal, treatable, sort of treatable and intolerable - a pile of rejects created in the search for a perfect supernatural Man.

Researchers have become Lords of the Brain, the prescribers and manipulators of human destiny. Who are these individuals who have taken it upon themselves to decide which human beings are normal and which ought to be “tweeked, changed or fixed,” whether with drugs or biomedical engineering? Some scientists have abandoned life in order to create perfect obedient robots to replace an imperfect creature of evolution. 

What a dangerous idea. Humans have been ‘perfecting’ the environment for thousands of years; perfecting domestic animals and plants, overriding natural processes and polluting the earth. Know-it-alls have brought us to the brink of self destruction and created a mess of social disharmony and physical suffering justified by an archaic idea: God gave the earth to man to disrupt, loot and rape. Man at the top of a garbage heap, but closer to God.