On the Prevalence of Asperger's

A comment on my last post reminded me of something, the frequency of autism and Asperger's syndrome being diagnosed has increased greatly over the past century. This might lead some people to believe that these disorders are fairly recent additions to the human genome and are becoming more commonplace. Well, they're not.

Asperger's and autism, or at least the traits associated with those mental states, have been present in the hominid family for millions of years, if anything neurotypicalness is a recent abnormality and autism is the original mental state of humanity. In my opinion the only reason why autism-spectrum disorders are being diagnosed more and more frequently is because psychologists are widening the criteria and getting better at identifying them. Also our population has increased by several orders of magnitude in the last 10 millenia so there are more people in general. In short there have been auties and Aspies since before "neurotypical" humans evolved and it's only recently that Psychology has noticed that some people think differently than others. In addition there are people with "shadow syndromes" that have carried the genes for autism-spectrum disorders during times when people with the full disorders might have been easily noticed and persecuted (like the Middle Ages).

The Lessons You Can Learn From "Idiocracy"

Last night the movie Idiocracy premiered on Comedy Central. In it the Army's most average man is cryogenically frozen in an experiment, and is thawed out 500 years later in a world where he is the smartest man on Earth. Due to natural selection favoring people who don't use birth control and rampant consumerism the average IQ has dropped immensely. Most people seem barely able to read, they water crops with Gatorade (in fact water is just used in toilets), the landscape is a giant dust bowl covered with mountains of trash, and they spend their days watching pornos and "Oh, My Balls!" (a show consisting solely of a guy suffering groin injuries). Also Joe was ridiculed for being reasonable and "talking like a girl", up until they realized he was right about water being needed for plants and elected him president.

The scary thing is that this could actually happen, I know this sounds classist but people who have higher IQs and are better off tend not to reproduce as much as people who have lower IQs and are worse off. I'm sure you've noticed that lower class people tend to have more kids than upper and middle class people, largely due to the use of birth control. And I know how offensive it sounds but higher class people tend to be smarter than lower class people, unless they just inherited their wealth of course. Unfortunately there is no politically correct solution to this problem, eugenics has been just out of the question since the Holocaust and encouraging people with higher than average IQs to have more kids won't be enough. We could require mandatory genetic manipulation of all human embryos but that isn't technologically feasible yet and some will inevitably slip through the cracks (plus fundamentalists are unlikely to let it happen). Frankly the best thing we can do is encourage people with high IQs to donate sperm or eggs and use them exclusively for fertility treatments. Oh, wait, it's mostly upper and middle class people who can afford fertility treatments, we're screwed.

Transhumanism and the Third Frontier

For my Anthropology 101 class I was required to read an excerpt from Richard Louv's Last Child in the Woods about American culture's changing relationship with nature. This particular chapter was about what he called the third frontier.

Basically, he stated that America has gone through two frontiers and each one changed how we interacted with nature, from direct utilitarianism during the first, to romantic attachment during the second, and now intellectual detachment during the third. He attributed the third frontier mainly to the rise of urbanism and suburbia, but that wasn't what intrigued me, it was the role of technology in this new frontier. As people become less personally attached to nature but know more about it, biotechnology is blurring the lines between humans and animals, and life-forms and machines. At least that is what he said.

Personally, I don't see why he's so concerned. So what if people have less of a connection to nature, it's because we are able to create our own environments and are reducing our need for nature every year. In a few decades it's likely that people will start living in arcologies, artificial ecologies/self-contained cities that will be even more isolated from nature than modern cities, and in a couple centuries we'll have colonies in outer space. As for the supposed lines dividing humanity from animals and machines, what lines? Humanity is nothing special really, we're just really smart social animals capable of using tools, if, for example wolves had hands and more complex brains they might have done what we have. Also organisms are really just complex chemical machines, why not improve them with silicon and metal, or vice-versa.

Some Options

After making two posts about my version of an Ideal Society, I suppose that the few people who actually read this deserve to know about a few of the alternatives.

The Collective ("We are the Borg"): A society consisting of a single entity that possesses multiple bodies, anywhere from a couple to several billion. This would probably be accomplished through the use of brain implants networked wirelessly so that they function as one. Alternatively the participants could be uploaded into cyberspace (see August 17th entry) and merge into one super-entity, with individuals serving as subroutines within the entity. The individuals within the collective may have varying degrees of individuality, from none to people that communicate telepathically. Does not particularly appeal to me.

Cyber-democracy: Back to the original democracy, aided by the Internet. Instead of electing representatives people who want to participate in government simply log in to a vast online forum and post their opinions. But seriously, who would have the time to read a thread millions of posts long, you'd need to have someone to manage the forum, or more likely a different person for each region, which would kind of reduce the forum to a massive electronic voting machine.

AIcracy: Artificial Intelligences will be superior to humans in every way, so why not let them rule over us and guide us to a Utopia. But why would they want to keep us alive, they could replace us with robots who could fill our functions in every way without complaining. Not to mention that even a self-evolving AI would be no better than its programmers or teachers. Regardless, this is the government typically used in Transhumanist sci-fi such as Iain Banks' Culture series and the Orion's Arm online worldbuilding project (even the Libertarian NoCoZo is subtly guided by The Invisible Hand of the Market).

Megacorp: The traditional government is weak or non-existent, instead immense, monopolistic, corporations control everything. These Megacorps might not be immensely corrupt and overall inhumane, but that works out so well now doesn't it. One should note that this sort of society is the setting for pretty much THE ENTIRE CYBERPUNK GENRE.

Techno-feudalism: Instead of advanced technology becoming available to everyone, only an elite class has access to it, either the scientists and engineers rule, or they serve the aristocracy as advisers or valued servants. In extreme cases the common folk might live in a pre-industrial state and be controlled through a state-sponsored religion that claims that technology is magic or divine. Alternatively the underclasses may be robots or genetically engineered to be of lower intelligence, while the elite are genetically enhanced or "pure" humans with no enhancements. Vaguely similar to the Galactic Empires featured in Isaac Asimov's Foundation, Frank Herbert's Dune, and the miniatures war game Warhammer 40,000, but of a much smaller size as FTL travel is physically impossible of course.

The Role of Technology in my Ideal Society

Some people may have read my other posts and been confused about the lack of advanced technologies described in my last one. So allow me to explain the roles that technology would play in my idea of an ideal society. First off there would of course, be the internet or something similar, likely incorporating virtual reality and Second Life-esque virtual environments. There might even be some people who end up spending almost their entire life in Virch, either having their physical bodies hooked up to feeding tubes or eventually uploading their consciousnesses into their computers. For those who prefer to spend much of their time in rl, they could use wearable computers with VR goggles or cybernetic implants to check their e-mail anywhere.

In relation to the real world, technology would be used to improve the quality of life of most of the population. Thanks to genetic engineering, hydroponics, and vat-grown meat, food would be cheap and plentiful. Robotics and nanotechnology would cheapen manufacturing, but might put a large portion of the working class out of a job, though that would probably be less of a problem after a few generations. Of course, with advances in medical biotechnology people might be living considerably longer and hopefully working longer before retiring (if they ever retire).

Finally, enhancements, what I have been focusing on for most of my blog since I started. I stated that in my Ideal Society status would be determined solely by merit, how they acquired the skills or talents that allowed them to reach their status doesn't matter. However, due to the expenses of acquiring enhancements, they would be most common among the higher ranking members of society. Also keep in mind the risks involved with modifying any biological organism, especially the brain. For example, there could be complications with a neurological implantation and someone who could have become a superbright cyborg could instead end up in a coma or with limited mental faculties. Or a gene therapy regimen could result in a potentially fatal immune response or cancer. Even germ-line genetic engineering has risks, mostly for the embryo being modified. Basically most people who would undergo enhancements would be taking a serious risk and deserve whatever new abilities they acquired as a result. If you think that this system is unfair, it could be worse, for example genetic engineering could be used to create a hereditary caste system based on what genetic modifications one's ancestors received.

My Ideal society

With the election coming up I thought it might be appropriate to talk about what I think would make a better society. Keep in mind that my idea is not perfect by any means, perfection seems to violate the laws of nature as everyone has a different idea of what is perfect.

First the government, democracy sounds good, but humanity's social tendencies mean that it easy for large groups to be swayed into making decisions that prove detrimental to them. Not to mention that statistically speaking, at least half of a population has a lower than average IQ. Seriously, do you really think that the majority is always right? In my ideal society, leaders would be selected by small groups of highly educated people based solely on their merits. There is some possibility for corruption in a Meritocracy like this, but having multiple people reduces the chances of cronyism or nepotism influencing decisions. The only problem is the possibility of some crazy low-ranking administrator secretly using unethical tactics to achieve his goals and advance in rank to the top. But that could be easily solved by keeping all administrators/bureacrats/politicians below a certain rank under close observation, in an extreme case implants could be used for this purpose.

Secondly, economy, lassez-faire capitalism, the government would only interfere in times of crisis such as a recession or potential depression. In exchange for the limited involvement from the government, the corporations would not be allowed to influence politics at all. Taxes would primarily be on a personal level based on a set percentage of one's income. The internal structure of most companies would be based on the same model as the government, but it would be harder to regulate and inevitably there would be some highly corrupt megacorps similarly to how there is now, maybe worse.

Thirdly, culture, I would prefer a completely secular society with no religion or superstition, but I doubt that will happen. Instead all faiths and beliefs would be respected, as long as they don't try to force their beliefs on others. Viral memes that are potentially dangerous (for example, a religious sect that encourages members to kill themselves) would be suppressed if deemed necessary, but generally people's personal lives would not be any of the government's business. In other words, it doesn't really matter what people do as long as they don't harm anyone (themselves or others).

Natural Selection and Humanity

Yes, you two people who read my blog, I'm back after a month of not posting. Here I'll talk about how what made us into the dominant species on Earth cannot help us anymore and could actually make things worse.

It's thanks to natural selection that we have the most complex brains of any species on the planet, but thanks to civilization survival of the fittest has little meaning and people who would normally be "weeded out" become vital to society and the species. Natural selection tends to favor the physically strongest, most aggressive, or most promiscuous members of the species and their genes. Do those traits sound familiar, you're right, jocks tend to be the ones whose genes are most likely to be propagated. However, in a highly organized society the physical strength of an individual matters less, and those who are intelligent become more important. Unfortunately there are always societies that value strength rather than intelligence, such as Sparta as opposed to Athens. A more modern example would be the "jock culture" of the 20th and 21st century America that denigrades smart people as "nerds" and publicly accuses them of being "elitist".

As for how this relates to natural selection specifically, people who benefit society the most don't necessarily reproduce the most, in fact many smart people consciously choose not to have many kids or (19th century or earlier) live ascetic lives and avoid the opposite sex (Greek philosophers, monks, some other intellectuals). While less intelligent or simply ignorant people will be less likely to use birth control and have several children with their less desireable genes. I know this sounds like eugenics, but I don't support mass sterilization or genocide, but rather I'm advocating the use of birth control and genetic engineering which would be much more humane.