…and suicide. This isn’t just a problem for the IT industry — we see it in space as well. Of course, as some have theorized, it’s possible that more people are being born this way, since the Silicon Valley culture over the past decades has allowed more of them to socialize together and mate with each other, opportunities that were more rare in a less mobile era that didn’t concentrate geeks to the same degree. We need to help the Asbergers-afflicted more as a society (no, I don’t mean government programs). As the article points out, many believe (including me) that they have advanced us greatly in not just computer technology, but tech in general, but they often pay a price in being social pariahs.
42 thoughts on “Technology, Depression, Asbergers”
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Another worrisome factor for anybody with depression or other mental health problems in the defense side of the aerospace industry: if you hold / need to hold a security clearance, you may not be clearable if you have any history of psychiatric treatment. This is a perverse incentive: if you try to get help, your clearance could be revoked and your job may be in danger, which is clearly an inducement to not seek help. To me, not seeking help increases the chances that you could be a security risk…
There are plenty of engineers that don’t show signs of Asperger’s, but there are a significant number that do, in my experience. Depression is one of the common “shadow syndromes” associated with Asperger’s and other autism spectrum disorders.
BTW, it’s “Asperger’s”, not “Asbergers.” The syndrome (part of the so-called autism spectrum of disorders) was first described by Austrian pediatrician Hans Asperger in the ’40s; he called it autism, just as American psychiatrist Leo Kanner did to describe his patients, who largely lacked speech, while Asperger’s patients often were quite verbal. However, Kanner’s work became much better known, and the term Autism was used through the ’90s to refer almost exclusively to nearly nonverbal individuals. Asperger’s work was mostly forgotten until several researchers (primarily British) began to resurrect it and applied the term “Asperger’s Syndrome” to describe the condition. Nowadays, Kanner’s patients would be considered toward what is called the low-functioning end of the autism spectrum, while Asperger’s would be toward the high-functioning end. But autism in general is still poorly understood, and all forms of autism often appear with with other psychiatric problems such as depression, obsessive-compulsive disorders, and anxiety disorders.
(when you have kids on the spectrum, you tend to spend a lot of time doing your own research, as the science is extremely unsettled regarding autism…)
Well, it’s treatment more than causative science that is unsettled in Austistic Spectrum Disorders (ASDs) , including Aspergers Syndrome. The causes are known to be strongly genetic, with multiple genes playing mix and match down the generations. Various people have scammed parents of Auties since the 1950s, with everything from the “Refrigerator Mother” theory of causation, to causation by mercury in vaccines, and various environmental factors that lawyers use to hold out hope there will be deep pockets, somewhere, to help with lifelong support costs for Auties that are quite heavy.
Explaining the surge in ASDs in the late 20th century is not hard, when you realize that the mutations and doubling in genes was happening all along. The change took place when the industrial revolution provided enough economic niches for Aspies that something stopped. Neurotypicals stopped killing us before child-bearing age. Industrial society needs people who can concentrate on details, and focus nearly obsessively on them till problems are solved. Many more of us then lived through child-bearing years, and some married, combining genes with other Aspies when the Aspie population became dense enough. The combination of different Aspie genes from each parent, far more often than in the past, produced Autism, which was noticed and named in Germany by about 1935.
Neither Asperger’s nor Autism has a “cure”,…or even much amelioration beyond shielding young Aspies and Auties from abuse in family and school, to keep secondary symptoms like depression and suicide down. That is why there is the lack of settled treatment. Over 25 different genes, with interlocking effects, are now associated with ASD symptoms of one sort or another. Physical treatments will be customized, of necessity.
The socializing cycle that neurotypical brains use is at best attenuated in many with ASDs. In particular, the affective interconnections from the emotional processing portions of the brain to the decision-making/action cerebral cortex of the brain is attenuated, with far lower bandwidth. This has been shown in the last 10 years with tensor diffusion MRI work on people with ASDs.
This means that the social dance, strongly mediated by the information got through emotional cueing, that neurotypicals use to get along in the productive networks of work, school and elsewhere in industrial society, is often out of phase for Aspies, and the social interactions expected of them by neurotypicals are often not there. This quickly leads to maltreatment in schools and/or families, especially when other students or siblings perceive that the staff or parents give them permission to try to “wise-up” Aspies, through social isolation and violence.
It is from this maltreatment, in schools and families, that depression appears co-morbid with ASDs. There are also symptoms that neurotypicals notice less, such as dyspraxia, in hands and elsewhere in the body, which causes distracting pain when extensive cursive writing is demanded. In some cases further down the spectrum, dyspraxia is bad enough that it simply causes continual pain in the hands, causing the “hand flapping” phenomenon often seen in autistics. As when scratching an itch, the flapping distracts the individual’s perception from the pain,…for a while.
Fortunately, there is progress in several possible genetic in utero treatments. Also, when work with stem cells progresses sufficiently, we may get some way to boost the bandwidth between different portions of the brain *after* birth and even after childhood, allowing those with ASDs to keep up in “the social dance”. Perhaps the higher IQs associated with ASDs will not then be bought at such a high price.
Tom,
Care to describe your background? Your post is not typical of the average geek.
OK, Chuck, …I was born in Portland in 1951, with Asperger Syndrome. The results were often things I’d gladly forget, but I survived, mostly because I did not dare forget. My perseveration about spaceflight made me more vulnerable. Many Aspies perseverate on some topic most of their lives. By 1961 I was using the rocket equation to calculate information I could not find about specific rockets in Aviation Week and other sources.
By 1962 I was driving family and classmates up the wall talking about Space. This intensified the usual reactions Aspies got from neurotypicals back then, and by 1969 I was in the sort of severe depression the above article spoke of. It took 10 years to climb out of that enough to begin active space advocacy.
In 1979 I was a co-founder of the Oregon L5 Society. I also got on staff at Oregon Museum of Science and Industry, and was an instructor in the first years of OMSI’s Pacific Rim Spaceflight Academy. I left OMSI in 1989 to work on a space education startup in Kobe, Japan.
Then, a week later, I was told the leader and spark plug of that project had had a heart attack, and the project was put back a year. In that year, the funding seeped away, as it does so often with delayed projects. Depression returned. By 1995 I was trying to start up a non-profit space group, called Institute for Teleoperated Space Development. It failed, mostly because I was so lousy at writing begging letters we never got a dime in funds after the initial seed money was donated. Good begging must be one of those social things Aspies are blind at, …yes?
The Research Team of ORL5 started in 1987, looking at siting alternatives for planetary and lunar bases, mostly in lava tube caves, such as are present in Oregon as good analogs. I am currently the Team Chair. We did active simulations, and also published papers from 1988 on to last October, when I presented at the First International Planetary Caves Workshop, in Carlsbad. Kindness and generous suggestions have always come our way at these gatherings, I think because we are rather persistent as a volunteer group. Our “MoonBat” planetary cave probe was received with serious attention and interest, even though NIAC did not fund our project proposal in August.
At the moment we are investigating whether we can advance autonomous guidance in the cave flying software for MoonBat by using a Parrot quadrocopter, and a hacked Kinect sensor as its LIDAR. The very rough surface of lava tubes makes for interesting accuracy compensation problems at the speed needed for a lunar MoonBat to get an appreciable distance down the lava tube before it runs out of rocket propellant.
Is that what you wanted, Chuck?
Tom, it is. Thank you for your brief, thoughtful biography.
I was born in 1945 to somewhat older parents — Mom turned 30 two days before I was born. My parents were warm, loving parents. Politically I would describe them as Eisenhower Republicans. Socially and culturally both were active Episcopalians. The Episcopal Church, you may be surprised to learn, was organized as a constitutional democracy back in the 18th Century. Episcopalians who helped write the U.S. Constitution hung around Philadelphia a while longer to write a similar constitution for our church. This meant that I grew up in an environment that was much more open and democratic than most.
I got interested in space as a child back in the 1950s. My parents encouraged that interest, while making sure that I learned about much more than that. My three most significant Boy Scout merit badges were in astronomy, cooking and photography. Lots of people today love my photography.
My first independent political act came in October 1962. The Cuban missile crisis happened that month. I went from being a relatively standard Eisenhower Republican teenager to an Eisenhower Republican pacifist. That, plus an unethical draft board, shaped my life in interesting ways. I was forced into the Army. Friends advised me to accept my being drafted. I was far from your average draftee. See A Few Basic Training Stories for some of that.
After the Army I entered a phase of life of many changes. First I worked for two years for IBM. I was fired from that job. Then I did two years of grad work in physics. I got fed up and left. My next career adventure was grad work in social psychology. Along the way I became a fine photographer.
I eventually became a computer programmer. It was the only way I could earn money.
I got interested again in space by reading O’Neill’s book The High Frontier. I also became active in the L5 Society. For more about that part of my life, see Background of an L5 Society Activist.
In 1990 I started work at Goddard Space Flight Center in the supercomputer center. I was initially welcomed. Really bad management fired me in 1999. I worked for a few more years in IT.
These days I am working on reforms I think are needed in aerospace in particular and tech fields in general.
I do not know what life holds for me in the future.
Enough for now. I may add more later.
On a related note: I think many socially awkward geeks aren’t socially awkward just because of lack of interpersonal skills, though that is probably also an important factor. It is my impression that many geeks are fine at communicating amongst themselves, where they are not at all shy or socially isolated.
If you do not seek the imprimatur, there must be something wrong with you…
MPM, it is at least possible that a selection process may be “sorting” people with ASDs, if they have contact with enough who are also on the Spectrum. If a person’s social reactions are out of phase by, …say, …60 degrees in a social dance cycle of act and react, then they will have far less problem with others who are out of phase by,…let’s say,…45 to 75 degrees, than they would with neurotypicals, who may react badly when another is more than,…say 15 degrees out of phase with themselves. Not all with ASDs will be so well-matched, but *some* population you can talk to is a great relief, from my own experience.
This would explain the better interactions with other “geeks” that people with ASDs find at professional and technical conferences, or science fiction cons, or wherever else they gather.
Tom,
[[[MPM, it is at least possible that a selection process may be “sorting” people with ASDs, if they have contact with enough who are also on the Spectrum. ]]]
I expect that type of sorting may occur with space settlements as I suspect that neurotypicals will not self-select for migrating to them. Nor probably do very well if they make it there.
I am reminded of the great short story (Its Great to be Back!) in which a couple returns from Luna City to live in a rural community in New England and find they have nothing in common with the “normal” folks there who spend all their time discussing/complaining about family, weather, politics, etc. As a result they quickly find a way to return to the Moon tobe with the their own kind of folks, highly educated and focused on building a new world. Asimov’s classic story “The Martian Way” comes to mind as well.
It would be interesting to see how the average space advocate compares to the general public on these tests. I expect it might go a long way in explaining why the average American could care less about space policy no matter how much effort space advocates do to make them understand its importance. Perhaps we are witnessing the separation of humanity into two species, one of which will be limited to Earth and the other which will have the galaxy as their home.
I expect it might go a long way in explaining why the average American could care less about space policy no matter how much effort space advocates do to make them understand its importance. Perhaps we are witnessing the separation of humanity into two species, one of which will be limited to Earth and the other which will have the galaxy as their home.
I think the average American might take space advocates more seriously if they could suppress their adolescent revenge fantasies until the number of space settlers is above zero.
Seriously, Thomas, this is the kind of stuff that gets space advocates lumped with UFO enthusiasts and bigfoot hunters in the public’s perception.
Jim,
[[[I think the average American might take space advocates more seriously if they could suppress their adolescent revenge fantasies until the number of space settlers is above zero.]]]
What are you talking about? What revenge? Humans moving into new environments always form new cultures adapted to the needs of the environment. And if the environment requires new physical characteristics then you will see a genetic mix change, the more different the environment and the stronger the barrier to DNA exchange the faster the process is for a species. Why do you think humans be any different? Yes it will probably take thousands of years, but its a natural process when a species is separated into two radically different populations. And the differences in social behavior being discussed here, and how that may impact the success of individuals migrating into space, may be the very first step.
And why should anyone involved in space settlement care if the public takes space advocates seriously? Neither public support nor funding will have a role in space settlement, another failing of the O’Neil model with its focus on NASA funding as the enabler. Space settlement, as with other migrations will be driven by individuals and funded by investors seeking to make money. That is the only way it will be sustainable.
Jim, the word “revenge” is interesting. I assume it rises from the same tropes as “The Revenge of the Nerds” fantasies did. However, with regards spaceflight, I don’t believe revenge is an interesting goal for advocates.
However, it *is* a perception encountered in the public. I first saw it in 1965, when I was already advocating spaceflight and describing its social changes among my classmates. At least 20-30 percent of them would come up with reasons why spaceflight beyond government stunts cannot work. Then I would describe a workaround to their objection, and they would quickly find another, also avoidable. Eventually, it became clear that their objections were getting more and more hysterical with each iteration of this. It became clear they were not afraid it could not work, wasting money, …but that it *would* work, condemning them to live in a world in which they could not count on having even their present status, much less improve on that conferred by their parents.
I actually did get some asking why I hated them so, to hope for a world they could not understand enough to control. “What have we done to you?!”, was the phrase heard over and over. I could have handed them a list 8 years long by that time, but foreswent that satisfaction, hoping for a positive outcome, yet. It was not to be. The very sort of world that some people, who can adroitly observe and change the physical world to what they desire, is simply too often a world of terror for those who are far better at their ability to observe and shape their social environment.
The very social changes many advocates still describe are what drives substantial portions of opposition to Space Settlement. Well, after 50 years of advocates describing such change, the cat is out of the bag. Those who would defend their present status, whether high or low, in society, are often going to be against spaceflight that really does change the human environment, introducing new variables to the social dance they use.
As to Aspie participation in Space Settlement defining a new speciation break, I doubt the split will be anywhere near as clear and simple as Tom Matula described. This is especially so since the coming genetic enhancement of humans will outdo *any* present differences. Of course, that is yet another thing, for those who socialize well now, to stress out over.
I would argue that a lot of serious geeks have a different set of social rules for interacting than “neurotypical”.
First, let me point people to an online test for Asperger’s/Autism. Wired ran the test awhile back. You can find it at http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/9.12/aqtest.html.
Asperger’s and autism are real problems in tech fields. What could be making it worse is the tendency for more open people to eventually leave said fields for ones where normal human behaviors (e.g., getting married) are more accepted and understood.
Engineers and scientists are becoming more and more narrow and rigid. It seems to be worse that it was when I was young. Those of us who are more open are sometimes driven from these fields by very closed minded, controlling management.
I write about psychological and social topics, especially as they relate to tech fields, on my blog. My pieces there, though, are much longer than normal blog postings.
Why, yes, I have studied social psychology at the graduate school level — Columbia University back in the 1970s to be specific. I also have a physics degree and have worked in tech for most of my adult life.
Finally, let me plug Peopleware by DeMarco and Lister. Too many people in tech fields don’t seem to realize they need rest in order to do good work.
More perhaps later.
I got 20. But, I think there were times in my life when I would have scored higher, especially in late teens early twenties.
26 – I’m an engineer.
Shorter quiz: “are you INTJ?”
Actually, I tried a Myers-Briggs online just a couple of weeks ago and, yes, that is what it pegged me as. What does it mean?
Thanks for the link. I got 33. But I was more or less consciously tipping in the direction of more Asperger’s when it was close.
I agree with the correlation with Meyers-Briggs. I usually get tagged with INTJ when tested for MB. As I recall, INTJ is sometimes translated as “Mastermind”, which seems appropriate. I tend to be the kind of person who thinks it’s more important to be correct than to be well-liked, just as it’s more important to be virtuous than to be happy (though I often fall short in both categories.)
I’m also the kind of person who prefers to figure things out himself instead of asking for things to be explained. Sometimes this works fine, sometimes not.
And, of course, I think these behaviors are perfectly rational 😉
My score on the Asperger’s/Autism test was 6. Average was 16.4 How on Earth did I manage to work in IT? It helps that I have an IQ up in the 150s. That gets me into both Mensa and the Triple Nine Society — a group for people whose IQs is in the top 1/1000.
It’s been awhile since I took a Myers-Briggs test. I don’t remember what personality type I got.
On a more general note, people who have read the Columbia Accident Investigation Board report think poor communications within NASA (a haven for people with Asperger’s) contributed significantly to the disaster, and for that matter, other failures.
Sometimes I have made the observation that engineers and scientists need adult supervision — from bright, caring generalists like myself.
ESTP?
Here I am, brain the size of a planet, and they ask me to take you to the bridge. Call that job satisfaction. ’cause I don’t.
He has people skills! Don’t hate!
Whoo. 34. I’m definitely not a “people person”, but I already knew that. Unfortunately, my IQ isn’t breaking any records, either.
I think the correct term in my case is “misanthrope”.
Or INTP…
I know that Myers-Briggs has no real scientific basis, but in my experience it tends to be pretty accurate anyway…
That article is terrible. It takes a sample size of 1 person in a very stressful position and extrapolates to an entire sector of the economy. The evidence: message boards, unnamed “therapists,” and a completely tangential section about bootstrapping that would apply just as well to anyone starting a corner bakery or paying their way through college.
If anything, the research I’ve seen (like this study ) shows engineers (and business owners, for that matter) routinely place near the top of life satisfaction/happiness surveys. This is clearly a case of someone forming a story around an agenda.
As a mentor of mine once remarked, “Isn’t this the coolest shit? Could you imagine being an accountant?”
I’ll remember that moment forever.
Roga,
I’ve started reading that article. The first thing that struck me was the population was in India. Those people are just getting into tech work. Here in the United States there is real difficulty getting a second generation to take up tech work. Our problem might be showing up elsewhere as well.
Mass sociogenic illness.As with bipolar,PTSS,ADHD,chronic fatigue,and so on,no real objective diagnosis.Learned behavior, discipline and responsibility are abhorrent so any hint of a genetic or disease is treasured.Any mention of genetics and behavior shows ignorance since epigenetic factors are often dominant.
Well,..Un,…ASDs are hardly a “mass sociogenic illness”, having only about 1 percent of “the masses”.
Epigenetics can play a strong role, true, but there are major MRI studies showing specific SNP differences and doubled genes associated with precisely the brain function patterns that are in turn associated with one or another ASD behaviors. While official diagnostic criteria have yet to climb out of the subjective surface level behaviors, as MRI work gets cheaper (if the FDA does not keep it from getting cheaper by restricting market entry), we will be getting far more objective criteria used from tech like MRI, probably within the decade. Studies in Britain have shown positive identifications with MRI work above 95 percent, and false positives below 1 percent. It just takes time for the instrumentation to drop in price.
I hate to be a wet blanket, but the term “neurotypical” carries with it such a condescending connotation, to me, that I have a hard time taking people who use it seriously. If someone wants to talk down their nose at me, okay, but it’s not going to help their cause.
Am I the odd man out on this one?
Not completely, Matt. Do remember, however, it is far more a defensive term than something to sneer at others with.
Using the term “neurotypical” allows those on the Spectrum to drop the term, “normal” to describe those who want them to be like the majority. A popular saying in the Aspie community is “Normal is a clothes dryer setting!” That change removes the conversation just that bit more from people debating whether there should be a return to killing those who cannot communicate as others expect them to do, because they are not “normal”. For those whose existence is inconvenient to the majority, not being defined as something to be eliminated is important.
The problem that those on the Spectrum have is that they are so often defined by those around them by their “illness”, for which they are often viewed as having the prime responsibility to change. This is as possible, short of genetic and epigenetic changes, as someone 4′ 8″ at age 18 successfully playing Center in the NBA the next year. That point is seldom interesting to those who wish to do everything possible to not have to commit resources to change outcomes they *still* cannot control after the Aspie or Autie gets to 18 years old.
Many neurotypicals simply do not really believe that people with ASDs cannot change themselves beyond a certain point of adatation. Others, have been open in saying that if it is so, then the Aspie/Autie in question should just crawl off and die-presumably out of sight. Remember that the old agrarian culture attitudes are not yet gone completely by any means. Between 1957 and 1967 I experienced 5 separate planned attempts to end my life, and 1 “opportunistic” attempt.
Between 1957 and 1967 I experienced 5 separate planned attempts to end my life, and 1 “opportunistic” attempt.
Did the police capture the perpetrators? What were their motives? It’s amazing that you survived 6 attempts on your life in 10 years. Did you have to have police protection the whole 10 years after the first attempt? Why did the attacks suddenly stop?
No, Jim,…*Nothing* at all was done. Remember that through the early 1960s SW Washington was still an area where agrarian culture massively predominated. The first irritating symptoms of Asperger Syndrome were already in evidence a year before the first attempt, by a sociopathic older brother. The AS symptoms had substantially isolated me already, in a family desperate to be “normal”. The police *never* got a report, other than about “accidents”, while my descriptions to parents were deemed lies from the start.
One of my most furious moments was when I was 10, and my mother told a curious instructor that “Tom has this little problem with lying”, …by then I had no problem at all with lying, …I would lie at the drop of a hat to keep from being placed with my older brother outside the supervision of adults. That, of course, made it easier to dismiss future reports from me inside the school system, where my father was a much beloved team sports coach and science teacher.
This was SW Washington in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Far more than today, police were reluctant to get involved in “family matters”. I had an older cousin I never remembered meeting, who I’m told just disappeared one day in his late teens, in the mid-1950s. He had been “trouble” for his father, as his father’s second wife described it. ASDs are genetically inherited, so maybe he was on the Spectrum, but I’ll never know for sure.
After the third attempt, my older brother recruited help, from schoolmates who he told his younger brother was “queer”, as an explanation for my obvious social lacks. He then made it clear to me privately that any girl I became associated with would be raped, which I well knew he was capable of. Being an Aspie, I had already scrounged for social rules, and my rules made it morally impossible to endanger an innocent, especially after “reminders”, when I showed too much interest in someone. In SW Washington, in the early 1960s, this situation for me, as it would be for anyone, was distinctly unhealthy.
I became a person who *always* looked behind doors before I went through them,…who *never* took the same route from one class to the next on consecutive days, …who became ever less socially acceptable, as my brothers friends made it clear my forced participation on sports teams did nothing to convince them I was acceptable. The 4th and 5th attempts, in 1967, were both from schoolmates, who’d been fed the lies. Even when I delivered a bayonet from one attacker to the Principal’s office, he would not come out to accept it, and there was nothing done.
By then, I expected that. Since 1963, the usual phrase in response to my complaints about assaults had been …”You’ve just got to learn how to get along!”. This was not an atypical attitude, even then, for how Aspies could be treated in agrarian culture areas.
On a positive note about that school system,…In 1999, they became leaders in getting assaults on people with ASDs stopped. It took a 3 years long campaign. It was not among the students or parents, but among the staff. As my assailants had continually reminded me, they had been given reason to perceive they had permission to do what they did, by the staff’s obvious attitude towards me. Even in 1999, changing those attitudes took 3 years, including people “retired” who would not change. By 2008, they had not had a reported incident against people with ASDs for 5 years, however.
Indeed, in my experience, huge amounts of vile behavior towards others in humans often starts with this “perception of permission” by perpetrators, whether it is warranted or not by actual attitudes in others.
The attacks ended for 2 reasons:
My older brother had an accident in the summer of 1967 with power machinery he was operating, putting him out of school for a while.
Also, he was finally beginning to wear down under the strain of being unsuccessful in dominating me, and was, by late 1967, acting strangely enough that his friends actually started mentioning it to me late that year!
At any rate, by late 1968, since my father’s death lowered opposition to it from the family, I had become the first case for the first school psychologist in that school district. She was fresh out of grad school. I’m rather afraid it was a bit of a shock for her. She was the first person to listen to my history up to that date. She tried the few options she had, including raising enough hell to get money for the first case of the district paying for a psychiatrist for a student, for which I had to come to Portland. Unfortunately, he was a Freudian, who would prescribe Valium as his strongest medication. It was not too helpful, in spite of efforts through graduation. At least someone was listening, though still telling me it was “Not autism!”, …doctrine uber alles! I was not formally diagnosed till 2002, though I had read a clinician’s report about ,…”a whiff of autism”, with my exact symptoms described, by 1961.
After I left HS, I faced a ten years slog to get competent again. But this has to end somewhere, so it might as well be here. This was what it could be like for an Aspie, before Asperger Syndrome was accepted in 1994.
Would you rather be called ‘ungifted’?
I don’t like the phrase ‘neurotypical’ either, but it doesn’t carry the same connotation as ‘normal’. I’m certainly not abnormal, but I am definitely atypical.
Tom’s comment is pretty spot on. I know that bigotry far too well.
What are you talking about? What revenge?
Oh, come now, Thomas, you’ve outlined a classic theme common to virtually all new movements. The believers are rewarded (“…will have the galaxy as their home…”); the skeptics are punished(“…will be limited to Earth…”).
And why should anyone involved in space settlement care if the public takes space advocates seriously?
Can you even entertain the possibility that your emotional commitment to the notion of space settlement might be blinding you to possible difficulties?
All I’m saying is that when you find yourself starting down the road that begins “Why can’t others see what I can clearly see? Wait! I know! I must be a member of an emerging master race! And they’re not, the fools!” it’s time to take a step back and reevaluate.
Jim,
Staying on the good green Earth is punishment? Gee, do you hate the planet that much? I am sure those who stay on Earth will feel sorry for those poor folks who choose to settle space and wonder what personal problems drove those “losers” from Earth.
As the old pioneer sayings goes, “those of faint heart never started and the weak died along the way”. Migrations have always been filtered events as Dr. Geert Hofstede’s studies of the cultural dimensions national cultures shows demonstrating the differences between the U.S. and Europe. But I don’t see how anyone could stay that those who choose not to emigrate to America were losers or punished. They just preferred to follow a different path, one their descendants are happy with. As those who stayed behind would say about the pioneers, they choose to run away rather then face their problems.
[[[Can you even entertain the possibility that your emotional commitment to the notion of space settlement might be blinding you to possible difficulties]]]
No, I just prefer to see them as challenges to be over come. But I am not asking for your help in doing so, either directly or indirectly in terms of tax payer dollars, so I see no reason to care about gaining your support for my ideas, anymore than Howard Roark cared what others thought about his buildings.
Staying on the good green Earth is punishment?
In the context you imagined, certainly. If one imagines civilization spread throughout the galaxy being confined to one planet would certainly be punishment.
Even in more realistic contexts, such as the UN ratifying a treaty forbidding manned space flight, I can hardly imagine space advocates in general, or you in particular, would be happy about it. Would someone sneering “Gee, do you hate the planet that much?” make you like it any better?
But I don’t see how anyone could stay that those who choose not to emigrate to America were losers or punished.
I don’t think the entire galaxy bears quite the same relationship to the planet earth as America does to Europe. I certainly don’t recall anyone suggesting that Americans are a separate species from Europeans.
…anymore than Howard Roark cared what others thought about his buildings.
Is there anyone from the real world you would like to compare yourself to?
Jim,
[[[In the context you imagined, certainly. If one imagines civilization spread throughout the galaxy being confined to one planet would certainly be punishment. ]]]
You seem to have a problem understanding free will. Again, there is nothing stopping them from emigrating to space if they wish. Its their choice. Do you think a sibling that decides of their own free to stay on the family farm and work it instead of moving to the big city as being punished?
[[[Even in more realistic contexts, such as the UN ratifying a treaty forbidding manned space flight, I can hardly imagine space advocates in general, or you in particular, would be happy about it. ]]]
That’s realistic? What are you drinking? BTW UN treaties only apply to the nations that sign them, as the 1969 Convention on Treaties states so you only need to find one non-signatory to continue flying.
[[[I certainly don’t recall anyone suggesting that Americans are a separate species from Europeans.]]]
Of course not, there are no barriers to DNA exchange to allow the drift necessary for speciation to occur. But many folks, going back to Benjamin Franklin, have noted the differences in attitudes in world view between Americans and Europeans. And Dr. Hofstede’s studies have provided statistical evidence of these cultural differences.
[[[Is there anyone from the real world you would like to compare yourself to?]]]
Definitely not you 🙂 But I figured my analogy would go over your head.
But as for real world analogies, just consider anyone who continued on toward their goal despite what the other thought of them. As Davy Crockett (I wonder where he would place on the spectrum?) once stated “”First make sure you’re right, then go ahead.”
Eventually, it became clear that their objections were getting more and more hysterical with each iteration of this. It became clear they were not afraid it could not work, wasting money, …but that it *would* work, condemning them to live in a world in which they could not count on having even their present status, much less improve on that conferred by their parents.
Tom, this quite takes my breath away. It reminds me of something Billy Graham once said to the effect that there are no real agnostics or atheists, everyone knows that the Christian worldview is the correct one, they just don’t want to admit it because they need an excuse to keep on sinning.
Surely you’re not suggesting that all skepticism about, say, the economic or technical feasibility of solar power satellites or O’Neil colonies or nuclear pulse Orion spaceships or whatever is irrational?
I’ve had UFO believers suggest my skepticism on the subject is due to my fear of the implications of alien visitors, that my world view would be shattered, that I’m denying obvious evidence, because of my fears. I found such suggestions more than a little condescending and arrogant. Perhaps you’ve had similar experiences?
In my experience space advocates can be every bit as irrational as non space advocates. There is a definite strong emotional attachment to the idea of space settlement and the imagined implications of its realization can warp rational judgement every bit as easily as fear of the same implications might in others. I think many space advocates fervently want space settlement to be feasible because of strong dissatisfaction with conditions on earth. All motives, even our own, are suspect. Let’s argue facts, not motives.
I think it is important to treat people with differing opinions with respect, not contempt.
“Surely you’re not suggesting that all skepticism about, say, the economic or technical feasibility of solar power satellites or O’Neil colonies or nuclear pulse Orion spaceships or whatever is irrational?”
Correct,…I am not. As I said, this is only 20-30 percent of the populations of the 1960s. I am saying that I found an appallingly high percentage who were like that, and *will* not be moved by logic. On top of that, no few were outright willing to state what adults would have been too shy to say. They did not want it because they thought it would be a worse world *for*them*. It was *me* who took too much time to finally let that sink in. In the case of those perceiving a disadvantage for themselves, and rejecting it outright because of that, they were not being at all illogical given their premises.
That behavior is described in the first of the reasons people will not “be good” here :
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/1011/prager100411.php3?printer_friendly
“1. Most people don’t particularly want to be good.
The biggest obstacle to people becoming better is that you have to really want to be a good person in order to be a better person, and most people would rather be other things. People devote far more effort to being happy (not knowing that goodness leads to increased happiness), successful, smart, attractive and healthy, to cite the most prominent examples.”
It did not matter if you could show the rest of the world would benefit. To many of them, it was quite logical to be in opposition anyway.
Then, there are those who do adduce technical reasons outside fields I am familiar with, and *might* have a good argument.
Of course, some *were* in opposition without logical reasoning, but that will happen in some portion of almost any sample of the large obstreperously violent primate species known as Homo Sapiens Sapiens. It is not be looked down on, just avoided with situational awareness just as the logical ones should be.