How Autism saved the world, according to science

 Hello again everybody. I'm sorry I haven't written in forever. I have been very busy. But I wanted to come on here and inform the public, and my family and friends especially, of some exciting new findings regarding autism.

While the official diagnosis of autism didn't arrive until 1938, autistic people have existed since time immemorial. For most of the medical community, autism has been seen as a defect of neurology. But some exciting new science from evolutionary anthropologists is challenging that dogma. There is a growing consensus that instead of being a disability, autism in its mild and moderate forms might actually have served as a critical evolutionary advantage for human societies  and might actually have helped the human species itself survive. As a person on the spectrum, I cannot  adequately express how excited  I am regarding these new  findings. Instead of trying to form my own dictation regarding  these  scientific results, I will instead copy and paste  some bullet  points regarding what  scientists are discovering  about my condition.

The Moral Social Audit

• Rejection of Social Hierarchy: Autistic individuals score lower on "binding foundations" like strict loyalty to authority. This makes them less susceptible to groupthink or blind obedience.
• Objective Rule Adherence: Rather than relying on shifting, politically motivated social cues, autistic minds tend to evaluate situations using explicit, logical rules of fairness and justice.
• The "Truth-Teller" Role: By prioritizing literal truth over social politeness, autistic ancestors served as an essential check against corruption, ensuring the tribe didn't make fatal errors based on comforting lies
• Protection Against Totalitarianism
  • Hypervigilance Against Oppression: Research into cognitive types shows a strong correlation between "systemizing" minds (highly common in autism) and a high alert system for liberty and anti-oppression.
  • Resistance to Social Conditioning: Because autistic individuals process the world from the bottom up (focusing on raw data over societal narratives), they are naturally resistant to propaganda, manipulation, and authoritarian control.
  • Decentralizing Power: Autistic individuals historically focus on direct, trusted relationships and tangible projects rather than climbing social hierarchies, which naturally disrupts centralized power structures.
  Environmental Watchdogs

  • Sensory Precision: Heightened perception in vision, hearing, and smell allowed autistic ancestors to notice micro-changes in the environment, such as the distant scent of rain, a predator's camouflage, or subtle tracking signs.
  • Ecological Specialization: An inherent, intense focus on natural systems meant certain individuals became experts in animal behavior, migration patterns, and plant life, which was vital for a tribe’s long-term survival.
  • Lone Foraging Buffers: If a tribe faced a resource shortage or disease, the ability of autistic individuals to be self-sufficient, lone foragers meant they could survive apart from the main group and preserve the human genome during crises. 

  
  

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•  Deep, Non-Traditional Empathy

  • Intact Affective Empathy: While autistic individuals may struggle with "cognitive empathy" (predicting what someone else is thinking), studies show their "affective empathy" (deeply feeling another person's pain or joy) is completely intact and often highly intense.
  • Systematized Care: Autistic empathy often translates directly into systemic action. Instead of offering performative sympathy, an autistic ancestor was evolutionarily driven to build a tool, refine a medicine, or fix a physical problem to alleviate someone's suffering.
  • Cooperative Morality: Early human success relied on a wide diversity of personalities. Autistic individuals offered a reliable, steady, and fair form of care that protected the vulnerable without bias.
  • From an evolutionary perspective, what looks like being "hard on objects" or "always breaking things" is actually a core driver of human innovation known as destructive exploration and deconstruction. In early human history, this trait directly fueled technological leaps. 
    When an autistic individual intensely manipulates, disassembles, or tests the physical limits of an object, they are acting as humanity's original engineers. Here is how this behavior helped humanity survive:
  •  Material Stress-Testing

    • Discovering Structural Limits: By pushing materials (like wood, stone, or bone) until they fractured, early hyper-focused individuals learned exactly how much force a tool, weapon, or shelter could take before failing.
    • Quality Control: In a survival setting, a tool that breaks during preparation is a nuisance; a tool that breaks during a mammoth hunt is fatal. Individuals who "broke things" during creation weeded out flawed materials before they could endanger the tribe. 

    Reverse Engineering and Deconstruction

    • Understanding Mechanics: The urge to take things apart—often perceived as destructive—is the foundation of systemizing. Deconstructing an object allows the brain to map how components fit together, paving the way to replicate or improve the design.
    • Resource Salvage: When an object was damaged or no longer needed, an individual with a knack for tearing things down could effectively isolate and salvage raw components (like bindings, sharp flakes, or specific resins) to reinvent them into new tools. 
    • Accidental Innovation
      • Unlocking New Properties: Striking, smashing, or forcefully altering objects often led to accidental discoveries. Smashing certain stones together revealed hidden sharp edges (flint-knapping) or produced sparks that could start fires.
      • Overcoming Functional Fixedness: Neurotypical individuals tend to see an object only for its intended cultural use (a bowl is for holding water). A mind that ignores social norms is free to smash, bend, or alter that object to discover entirely new uses for it.
      • Weapon and Tool Optimization
        • Perfecting Leverages: Creating advanced tools like the atlatl (spear-thrower) or the bow and arrow required repeatedly bending, twisting, and often snapping wood to find the exact threshold of elasticity and tension.
        • Evolution of Craftsmanship: Without individuals who were willing to obsessively experiment with and alter physical objects beyond their standard use, human technology would have stagnated at basic stone hand-axes for hundreds of thousands of years. 
        I hope we can all agree that these findings are game changing if true. It just might be that society  has been treating autism wrong all this time. It is my hope that those of us on the spectrum can glean a measure of self worth from these results and find a sense of pride for who we are, possibly for the first time. Until next time friends. 

Biblical Literalism and my issues with it.

 Let me just start this blogpost by saying that it is in NO WAY  meant to attack anyone for their PERSONAL interpretation of the biblical text. I welcome any and all commentary and thoughts on this important book that has touched the lives of so many millions. I myself value the wisdom I find within it and I look forward to meeting my savior JESUS CHRIST someday who can clarify these questions I have since for now I can only " see through a glass darkly." 1 Corinthians 13:12

As anyone who knows me personally knows that I am a philosopher at heart. I am CONSTANTLY thinking about the big questions in life. Perhaps the BIGGEST question of all, is in the nature of GOD and, specifically for this blog, the GOD presented within the pages of the book we now call the Bible. Over the years I have come to hear differing views on many different passages and ways to interpret them. One viewpoint that I find intriguing is the viewpoint of biblical literalism. This viewpoint is one that purports that every single event in the bible is literally true and happened  exactly as it is described as having happened. This philosophy appears mainly within fundamentalist circles. While I do not have a firm viewpoint on this, I do acknowledge that this viewpoint creates some specific intellectual issues for me. I will be posting about some of  these in this blog.

    Let's start with the old testament story of the conquest of Canaan, specifically the Israelites interaction with the Amalekites. To give a little backstory, the story goes that the Israelites, after escaping slavery in Egypt, were entering the promised land of Canaan to inhabit. During this they encountered the indigenous peoples who lived there. One of these people groups were the Amalekites. This people group were recorded as having been especially brutal and were enemies of the people of GOD. To make a long story short, eventually the Israelites "defeated" them  and they were no more a threat, to put it mildly. The issue I have with taking this story COMPLETELY literal is the verse of Exodus 17:4. The verse is below.

EXODUS 17:14 Then the LORD said to Moses, "Write this on a scroll as something to be remembered and make sure that Joshua hears it, because I will completely blot out the name of Amalek from under heaven."

A first glance, this might not seem problematic. But think about it, just for a minute. According to this verse, GOD is promising that after he delivers the victory to the Isrealites over the Amalekites, that the very memory of the amalekites ever existing would be completely erased from any human record, The problem? This verse completely contradicts itself. If GOD erased the record of the Amalekites ever existing, than they would have never been recorded in the bible for us to know that they ever existed. The very fact that the story of the Amalekites is recorded in the bible for us to know that they existed is proof enough, to me at least, that this verse can't be accurate.

My next issue with the doctrine of biblical literalism is a verse found in Proverbs 22:6

Train up a child in the way he should go,
[a]And when he is old he will not depart from it.

I hope we can all agree that this is good wisdom for how we should parent our children. My issue with taking this verse completely literal is the fact that this verse doesn't always come true. There are numerous examples in history of children being brought up in very godly christian homes and STILL becoming horrible people who commit horrible acts. Some even become atheists. Sometimes, children DO depart from the training they received as children.

Let's move on now to the new testament. Arguably the most famous figure in the New Testament, if not the entire Bible, is Jesus of Nazareth. If one were to ask the common lay person to name a characteristic of his, the idea that he spoke the very words of GOD would probably be one that comes to mind. Generally, I adhere to this belief as well. But for me personally, there is a Caveat to that belief. I think it is highly likely that there were times when JESUS did not in fact preach the very words of GOD but more than likely relied on his own personal wisdom. The reason for my belief can be found in Matthew 24:35

"Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away."

I, for one, am glad that is so. The problem for me when it comes to biblical literalism is that in numerous instances in the new testament, JESUS is recorded as going from town to town preaching. The problem? His sermons aren't always recorded. If every word JESUS spoke was direct revelation from GOD, then why aren't "GOD's words" recorded as Matthew 24:35 says they should be?

The last biblical story that I will give for this post is the story of JESUS's 40 days of temptation in the wilderness. The story goes that JESUS goes into the desert for 40 days to be "tempted" by Satan in various ways. At the end of his trial, JESUS is taken up onto a mountaintop by Satan. From this vantage point, he is able to see all of the kingdoms of the world. Satan then tells him that he will be given all of these kingdoms if he will just bow down and worship him. JESUS refuses and gives the timeless wisdom that we gain nothing if we gain the world, but lose our souls. I personally LOVE this story. It really hits home just how dangerous it is for us to seek power in this world at the sake of our own souls. What is my problem with taking this story literally? I don't see how it could be literally possible geographically speaking. We know that the tallest mountain above sea level is Mount Everest. People have climbed to the top. NO ONE has been able to see " all of the kingdoms of heaven" from the top of it. The only way such a view would even be possible is if the Earth was flat so that one could see out over the expanse. But since the Earth is round, the curvature of the Earth would prevent us from ever being able to see all of the land.

These are just some of the biblical verses that lead me to question the possibility of a literal interpretation of the bible to be possible. As always I will continue to seek the wisdom of GOD concerning this topic and the BIBLE in general. Ultimately, whether the bible is meant to be read literally, figuratively, or some other way, I think JESUS summed up the whole of the bible with these two verses that I will leave you with.

Matthew 22:36-40 NIV

 "Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the law?"

JESUS replied " Love the Lord your God with all of your heart and with all of your soul and with all of your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it. " Love your neighbor as yourself." All the law and the prophets hang on these two verses."

Why I believe Brett Kavanaugh is guilty of sexual assault.

                 So he did it. He was confirmed. I am of course talking about supreme court justice Brett Kavanaugh who has recently come under fire for being accused of sexual assault by numerous women. Over the past month, I have heard numerous defenses of the position that his accusers could in no way be telling the truth. I have found these defenses to largely be based on outdated beliefs and data regarding sexual violence and also concerning the charged topic of false rape accusations. I have my own personal reasons for believe Kavanaugh to be guilty of the crimes he is alleged to have committed. I will post my reasons below.

                   Many people have raised objections to the idea that we should trust Christine Blasey Ford's account of her assault because " so many women lie about rape." Being that I am active in the anti-sexual violence movement, and have been for many years, I have researched the topic of false rape reporting. What I have found regarding this topic compels me to believe she is telling the truth for numerous reasons. It is worth noting that there is a false reporting rate for EVERY crime, including murder. And studies consistently show that sexual assault is no more likely to be falsely reported than any other crime. There are also studies that seem to suggest car theft has a higher false reporting rate than rape. Yet it is highly unusual for people claiming to have their cars stolen to be automatically treated with suspicion the way sexual assault survivors are. In regards to false reporting, their prevalence, and what type of person makes them, the FBI and numerous other prestigious institutions have done research spanning decades of information gathered from police stations around the country. Using sound methodological means, the most accurate statistics we have for the prevalence of false reporting to law enforcement puts the percentage somewhere between 2 and 7%, no more than 10%. Ironically, many of the false accusations actually turn out to be true accounts, but the accusers recant due to public duress.  Of those false accusations, there is a typical M.O. regarding the details in them. The majority of false reports do not name a specific person, but instead say it was a stranger  ( to avoid getting a specific person in trouble.) The false reports tend to include exaggerated violence ( beating, weapons, etc.) which is not present in most assaults. The false reports tend to involve the accuser stating that they fought back with all their strength against their assailant, even though the most common response to a sexual assault is to freeze during the attack ( 70% in fact.) Of the false accusers themselves, they tend to fit specific personality traits and to have common motives for false reporting, Many are teenagers who are trying to avoid parental scolding. Many need an "alibi" for some event in their life, like an affair they are trying to conceal. Many are actively encouraged by OTHERS to false report, such as a secret lover. They tend to be people who have a history of sexual assault in their past. They tend to be people with SEVERE mental disorders, almost to the point of psychosis. They tend to be people who have a history of negative interactions with law enforcement and false reporting of other crimes. None of these traits apply to the character of Christine Blasey Ford. It should also be acknowledged that statistically speaking, an American male has a greater chance of being sexually assaulted HIMSELF than being falsely accused of it. In fact, her account fits the typical description of a FACTUAL sexual assault case. She and Kavanaugh were of the same race, socioeconomic station, and relatively close in age. She was younger than 30 years of age. ( 16-19 is the most common age range, which is close to what she was..) Her attacker was drunk ( 52% of sexual assaults involve alcohol.) They were acquaintances. There was not a gratuitous amount of violence( no beatings, weapon present, etc.) She didn't report it to law enforcement. ( 2 out of 3 assaults go unreported.) She didn't tell anyone at first. And she did not speak out about the attack until many years later. All of these aspects of her story lend credibility to her account according to research. It is also worth noting that her memory is somewhat hazy, as in she forgets specific details of the assault. That is ALSO the most common response to a sexual assault.  Another compelling reason as to why I believe her account is the fact that, from an outside perspective at least, she has nothing to gain and EVERYTHING to lose by coming forward. Since she appeared at the hearing, she has had to leave her home along with her husband and two children and go into hiding. At the present time, she has made statements to the press that she has in fact had to hire private body guards and has had to move 4 times. Her life has been completely disrupted. She has been called a liar, had at least 22% of the American population disbelieve her account, and was willing to go into humiliating detail in front of a national audience. She stated during her hearing that she would be willing to help them with the investigation in any way she could. She apologized for details she was unable to recall. She swore under oath with the penalty of perjury that she was telling the truth. She even acknowledged that an FBI investigation might turn up evidence against her. And she was ok with that.  I see no reason why she would do such a thing, unless she was compelled by her need to seek justice for a past wrong against her person. It is also noteworthy that after the alleged assault, a rumor went around the school that something akin to Ford's assault took place. Going back some years now, she has notes from a couples therapy session from 2012 stating that she had survived an attempted rape in high school. While not specifically naming Kavanaugh in the session, she stated that her assailant was now a federal judge. She told several people over the next few years, all the way up to 2016, that Brett Kavanaugh had assaulted her. This was before the 2016 election and before Kavanaugh was ever considered for the supreme court. She passed an FBI polygraph test. She attempted to contact the press BEFORE KAVANAUGH was picked in an attempt to keep him out. There were many possible picks she could have chosen from, but she chose him specifically. I can think of no logical reason other than he was her attacker. She was visibly upset during the hearing, almost to the point of tears, yet not overly emotional to the point that it didn't seem genuine. She had a basic idea of where the house could be, and even gave a vivid description of the layout of the house, including the bedroom where she says she was accosted. Even her defamers stated that her statement seemed credible. Susan Collins, the senator from Maine who ultimately voted to confirm Kavanaugh despite the accusations, even stated during her speech that she believes Dr Ford was assaulted by someone, just that it was not Kavanaugh.  

On the other hand, Kavanaugh was caught in numerous lies during his hearing. He lied about the definition of certain terms from his yearbook, including Devil's Triangle, boofing, and also a note regarding a female classmate of his.  During his hearing, he used in his defense a calendar from 1982 that was supposed to show that he had no dates marked during that summer to show that he was at a party like the one Ford described. It turns out that there WAS a party marked in July showing that he had a house party he was to attend. In the note, he also named specific people who were to be at the party, including people Ford said were there that night. He was defensive during the hearing, and evaded questions regarding whether he welcomed an FBI investigation. He was dishonest in his responses concerning his intake of alcohol during his youth. Several of his Yale classmates have come forward to say so. He stated during the hearing that one of Ford's high school friends was on the record stating that he was never at the party mentioned, even though her friend simply stated that she did not witness anything specifically at a party, but that she believes Dr. Ford is telling the truth. In his defense during a Fox News segment, he stated that her could not have assaulted Ford because he was a virgin throughout his youth. A college friend of his has also come out stating that Kavanaugh confided in him that he had indeed engaged in sexual intercourse. Besides that, it is a lame excuse for the simple reason that Kavanaugh was not accused by anyone of rape, but ATTEMPTED rape. A police report from 1985 shows that during a drunken fit, Kavanaugh assaulted someone by throwing a glass of ice during an argument in a bar brawl. He was noted for becoming violent while drunk. Many people have stated that since Christine Blasey-Ford has no definitive "proof" of what, if anything, happened, we cannot trust her account. The thing is, if you take her account seriously, there NEVER WAS any physical proof. Even with rape, there is oftentimes not enough evidence to convict, and Christine's account states that it was an attempted rape. But since this was not a criminal trial but a job interview for Kavanaugh, it should still be considered. 

His second accuser, a woman by the name of Debora Ramirez, was a fellow college student at Yale who claims that during a party, Kavanaugh, in a drunken stupor, exposed his penis to her and pushed it into her face. She says that she has witnesses who were at the party who can verify her story. A male classmate has come out stating that he remembers egging Kavanaugh on to do it. 1200 Yale Alumnae have signed a letter stating their support for Ramirez. This assault was alleged to have happened in 1984, the same year that a note from Kavanaugh states that he and his frat brothers were drunks. This account of hers follows the M.O of Brett Kavanaugh assaulting women while intoxicated at parties. It is also important to note that Deborah Ramirez AND the other two accusers all came out after it was made public that Christine Blasey Ford was receiving death threats and harassment daily. Why would they do that, if they were just wanting attention? What non-pathological reason would they have to putting themselves in such a situation? 

The fourth woman who accused Kavanaugh chose to remain anonymous. She sent a private letter  detailing an incident in college where Kavanaugh pushed her up against a wall and groped her while he was intoxicated. This accuser stated that she had two eye witnesses who witnessed the incident. Since this woman chose to remain anonymous, I can only reasonably assume that she came forward not in a desire to seek any sort of fame, but to speak out against the confirmation of Kavanaugh. 

As for the FBI investigation itself, it was pretty much a sham. The FBI did not speak to Blasey-Ford  OR Kavanaugh. Many people who wanted to testify, mostly as supporters to corroborate for Blasey-Ford, were never called forward. They were given ONLY a week to investigate these claims. 

Ultimately, none of us will ever know the full stories behind these investigations, but it is very telling of how far our culture still has to go regarding these offenses that a person credibly accused of committing them can become a supreme court judge. All I can do is hope that there will come a day when victims will be heard and, more importantly, finally believed.

MY CHALLENGE TO DONALD TRUMP: An Open letter from a resistance fighter.

Hello Donald.

We haven't personally met, so let me introduce myself. My name is Leia. I am a 31 year old high -functioning autistic from the midwest who has been paying close attention to what is going on in my country. I recently came upon your speech saying that you wish to possibly try to " revoke" the licenses from media stations who you deem to be fake so that they cannot continue to speak out against you. To the best of my knowledge, you have not threatened to pursue any actions beyond that. I am writing this blog post for two reasons. One is to confront you and the other is a request to other writers here and abroad.

My message to you is rather simple and can be summed up in one sentence, You are free to come and get me if you so desire. I do not feel intimidated by your threats against free speech and I am not afraid to stand up and speak out against  you or any other injustices I witness, no matter the consequences to my person. I value freedom enough to publicly take this stand and say that anything you plan to do to those whom you perceive as defying your leadership is worth the price in order to keep democracy alive. I am not the first person in history to have to make a proclamation such as this and sadly I will not be the last. But I consider it an honor to be in a situation where I can do so. 

My second message is to all other writers here and around the world. I urge you to join me in making a blogpost such as this stating that you too are willing to sacrifice anything in order to ensure that freedom abounds wherever you are. Join me in sending a clear message that attacks on our civil liberties will not be tolerated as long as we are around. I look forward to seeing responses to this and to reading the blogs from others. Until then, in the words of my namesake, General Leia Organa Solo ,MAY THE FORCE BE WITH YOU.