A Rant You've Heard Before

Over on Accelerating Future, Michael Anissimov (whose surname I once again "insist" is almost conspiratorially close to Asimov) gave us all the pleasure of pointing out the 'joys' of one Annalee Newitz's comments about Extropianism.

Now, let me start off by saying that she got her terminology wrong; extropians are a group as a whole focused on augmenting intelligence; on creating or finding greater intelligence either in humans or in machines. Her comments were with regards to Immortalists and transhumanists in general; but poorly aimed at extropians. Honestly, even a cursory examination of the title would reveal this: extropy is defined as the 'force' that causes organization within a group of things. This is inverse to entropy, which is the increasing disorder of things over time.

It's really an extremely subtle point, but one worth making. Now, as to the nuts and bolts of Annalee's comments; near the end of the article Michael references, she makes the following "end statement" by way of justifying her entire opinion:

And let there be no doubt about it: the extropian agenda is creepy. Who wants to live forever in a world where only the richest people in developed countries will become immortal? It's not as if there's going to be a special cryogenics fund for everybody in Kenya and Chile. In order for people to live forever in the transhumanist future, some people will still have to live like trash. Sounds sort of like entropy to me.

There it is: the continued, pervasive belief that only the richest people will enjoy these technologies, so they ought not be developed or possessed at all, by anyone, ever.

And frankly, this is a lot like saying, "Ebola will kill everyone in the city. We could develop a cure, but only the richest people in the city could afford it. So we're just going to let everyone die, because that would be unfair to the poor." Nevermind the fact that once the once the cure exists -- much like every other cure that has been developed -- if given long enough the cost could be brought down to the point where everyone could enjoy it. At the end of the day, that's a simple truth; over a long enough timeline, the cost for any new technology will be reduced to the point where a sufficiently great number of people can enjoy it. It may take five hundred years, or five thousand, but that is simply not an excuse to forbid it to anyone. Should I live to be a thousand, I will never understand the objection that "only the rich and powerful will enjoy this!"

It doesn't matter what you want to look at: Originally, good food and the luxury of a warm bed every night was something only the richest of the rich could be guaranteed. Today, it takes only a moderate income -- the American poverty level -- to ensure that. And as to Kenya and the rest of Africa? The problems there are less economic than they are political. You can hardly call something the failure of the capitalist system when the capitalist system has never been applied there. But I digress.

I'll use a more modern example to once again disprove the "fixed pie" myth: rapid prototyping technology, also referred to "home manufacturing" equipment, has always been exorbitantly expensive. But thanks to the folks at RepRap and Fab@Home, that will not remain true in the very near future. All that will remain exclusive is the knowledge to use them. An exclusivity which, much like the Linux operating systems for computers, or the Wikipedia 'free' encyclopedia, is fastly vanishing: both RepRap and Fab@Home are "open source" projects: their hardware & software designs are free to the public for any purpose, licensed under multi-national GNU. More and more colleges are offering free to the public college courses on a variety of topics -- online courses, of course. But if your goal is simple self-erudition, you can achieve it for between 5 and 40 bucks a month, depending on how much your internet connection costs. (Hell, go to a public library in the US and you don't even have to pay that.)

While Corporatist-style commercialism continues to run roughshod over the promotion of human decency and liberty, there is little to no question that advances in technology will very realistically play a major part in the solution to that problem. Youtube and the Peer-to-Peer networks have already cut a chink in the armor of the "Entertainment industry"; (the adult industry faces similar 'peril' from such glamourous sites as YouPorn, and XTube) and as to reaching these outer communities, the poorest portions of the world...

India and China have both presented to the world the Will to Industry. This despite the difficulty in achieving that state. With projects like RepRap and Fab@Home being developed by a very dedicated, if minor, community there is simply no question: while the disparity between haves and have nots may not close for decades or even centuries to come, any advancement in one area will have ancillary benefits that will affect everyone.

In the end, it seems utterly selfish to complain that only the "rich" or the "powerful" will acquire access to technologies providing extended life or increased genius; for all such complaints detract from how soon they will come around at all. And if any historical analysis of technological advancement is to be our guide at all, there is one simple truth:

Once something is invented, sooner or later anybody who wants it can have it.

Hulabaloo: Have Biofuels Really Failed?

There has been news all over the press about how the biofuels "solution" to the 'global warming crisis' just hasn't worked out. You can find it in a number of more conservative news journals, of course, such as New Zealand's Stuff -- which is of course owned by Fox-With-A-British-Accent. But if it's also hit Wired Magazine, then you know there's something to it.

Quoth said Wired article:

Several studies have intimated it, but two blockbusters published in the lofty journal "Science" yesterday confirm that biofuels cause more emissions than fossil fuels when everything is taken into account.

Both studies take a detailed look at the effects of converting large tracts of land worldwide into cropland used to raise fuel. While it is true that biofuel crops such as sugarcane, corn, switchgrass and the like absorb greenhouse gases as they grow, they absorb far less than rain forests and even scrubland. Also, turning plants into fuel creates its own emissions, especially when transportation is figured into the equation.

The "Science" article, "Use of U.S. Croplands for Biofuels Increases Greenhouse Gases Through Emissions from Land Use Change," (subscription), maintains that the clearance of grassland for fuel releases 93 times the amount of greenhouse gas that would be saved the fuel made annually on that same land. Of course, not everybody agrees with the study.The Renewable Fuels Association, a coalition of ethanol producers, called the researchers' view of land-use changes "simplistic" and said the study "fails to put the issue in context."

[...]

This is of course a major issue. But the question is, how much of one is it, really? There are of course a number of angles -- a wide number of them -- that one could take to approach the problem that, apparently, biofuels produce more CO₂ than they pull out of the air. So what, then, are we to do? Is the world doomed to turn into a charred cinder thanks to the human contribution?

Obviously, such hyperbole answers itself: No. For one, no person who was serious about biofuels looked to corn ethanol or palm oil as even a viable solution to the fuel problem. Certainly, this author saw through that deception quite some time ago (at least, "quite some time ago" in political terms -- who remembers anything more than two years ago in that arena?):

To compare, the most effective gallon-per-acre biofuel crop right now is palm oil, which hovers around 680 gallons-per-acre. So this is more than triple the amount -- and it's good ol' fashioned gasoline to boot! Here comes the number crunching. In 2004, the US used approximately 318 billion gallons of oil. At 2,000 gallons per acre, that comes out to roughly 159 million acres of arable land -- and this is assuming that the cellulosic starch problem can be overcome -- for which there are no hypothetical solutions yet available. According to the CIA's "World Factbook", the US has 9,161,923 square kilometers of land, 18.01% of which are arable. That's 1,650,62 square kilometers. 1 acre = 0.00404685642 square kilometers, so the US has 407,739,281 acres of arable land. To maintain the energy usage levels of 2004 purely from biofuels derived from this process would require ~40% of all arable land in the nation.

For the record, the cellulosic ethanol problem has been pretty much licked -- or so the press reports would tell us, thanks to many different approaches, one of which piques this author's amusement simply because it calls on the same bacteria you'd find in the gut of a termite: moorella thermoacetica (depicted in abstract crystalline form below). The process is simple enough, yet of course that's only true if you're a science geek. From Biopact.com:

ZeaChem replaces yeast with a type of bacteria called Moorella thermoacetica, which can be found in a number of places in nature, including termite guts and the ruminant of cows, where it helps break down grass. Instead of making ethanol and carbon dioxide, the bacteria convert sugars into a component of vinegar called acetic acid, a process that releases no carbon dioxide.

To convert acetic acid into ethanol, ZeaChem turns to chemistry.

(The entire process is explained over at BioPact. H/T for this to Al Fin).

This development of course means that starchy or "woody" materials -- such as, oh say, wood) can be harvested for ethanol production. But there are easier, cheaper solutions than ethanol production: algal biodiesel is something that seems cannot be harped enough: Rather than a mere 2,000 gallons per acre, the current expected yields of the startups building factories or putting their factories into production now is 30,000 gallons per acre. This would reduce the needed landmass for energy production to .0036% of the available landmass (arable and non-arable combined).

Is it even necessary to worry at all? Well, current weather patterns would seem to indicate otherwise -- but don't expect to hear that from the mainstream media.

Dystopian: Pretend to Be a Time Traveler

The following is, apparently, a video that is meant to be an ad for Dennis Kucinich -- though you don't discover that until the end. I find it quite entertaining, however, whom the only politician actually mentioned was. You industrial fans out there -- be prepared to be amused.

Video: South Korea Clones "Glow In The Dark" Cats

I am struck by the recollection that only recently the news was made that you just can't clone a calico cat. That being said, it would seem that once again our poor benighted felines are doing their part in the advancement of cloning science. Check this video for more:

The reasoning behind this act was that it was meant as a proof-of-concept for the breeding of cats, which are supposedly genetically quite similar to humans, with specific genetic disorders unique to human beings. This would qualify, then, as quite the genetic-science breakthrough.

Yes, it's unfortunate that animals need to be used for such research, but there reaches a point where you can only study genetic functions in a functioning genetic machine -- that is, an animal. Here's to hoping that the Green-Peaces and Animal Liberation Fronts of the world don't stop this vital and fundamentally important work.

How Many "Breakthroughs" Away Are We From The Sex 'Droids?

Perhaps there are more tasteful ways to put that point. But when you combine the American invention -- the "RealDoll" -- with this latest development from (where else) Japan, of a robot that performs facial massages, yet another advent of science-fiction seems ever more the likely.

What development is that, you ask? Why, this one:

It's a minor step -- but the idea of objects (inanimate or otherwise) performing and being used for human luxuries seems to be more and more... common nowadays. One can only imagine that it won't be too long now until some entrepeneurial spirit figures out he can rig up a -- by then -- simple machine to something like the RealDoll, and then rent 'her' (or 'his') time to johnny-on-the-street.

What makes this interesting is: will the moral crusaders see fit to try and ban such an activity, should it develop? And -- if they don't -- what, then, is the justification for telling a real flesh-and-bone woman that she can't do the same with her own body?

A Hazard of Blind Technophilia

Many transhumanists are activists for what is called "mind uploading"; the idea that we can have our 'meat-brains' uploaded into computers, to live out our lives in electronic wonderlands a la today's videogames. And to be fair, with things like "Heavenly Sword" for the PS3, that's no surprise -- imagine where things will be in twenty years. It's pretty hard to imagine that, given the choice between an 'eternal' virtual playground where even the laws of physics are up for grabs, and this grubby ol' world of ours, that even the majority of people would choose the physical.

But there's just one tiny problem with this sort of thinking: electronics are vastly inferior, in terms of survivability, to biological neurons. No computer yet built has operated at full load for a year continuously; yet our bodies do this for decades. By way of example of what I mean, please consider the following video:

To be fair, this is really nothing more than a technological problem -- and technological problems tend to get solved over sufficient time -- but a bit of realism would go a long way towards assuaging the fears and doubts of those who question the realities we transhumanists propose.

Video: Death "Raises Questions" About Gene Therapy

Not too long ago, a woman died tragically and unexpectedly. Her name was Jolee Mohr. A detailed report can also be found here. In short, she died of a fungal infection that became developed, acutely, the day after she received her second injection of a gene-therapy trial viral vector for rheumatoid arthritis. This death is tragic. But given that it was a trial, and that the company involved is doing everything in its power to act responsibly, do we really need to "question" Gene Therapy, or is this just luddist activism encompassing one family's tragic loss? Watch this video, and form your own opinions.

10 Reasons I Am A Transhumanist

Yes, apparently the icy fingers of Digg reach far and wide; even to the face of this blog. It's like they always say; stare into the void long enough, and the void stares into you. That being said, let's begin; and please try to keep in mind that this list is of ten semi-random reasons, and isn't in any particular order.

10. Who wants to live forever? Me -- and I'll take it with or without the scottish accent.

Researchers such as Aubrey deGrey are working on human longevity increase. Now, this could be 'radical life extension' -- i.e., living for 10,000 years -- or it could just be an extra 20 years of good health. But either way, if we don't do something to increase human lifespans, our falling reproductive rates (much of the first world is now in negative population replacement rates), will result in a major economic collapse. The added benefit of avoiding arthritis and Alzheimers' are just plain bonuses where I'm concerned. This is especially true considering that many studies indicate that today's seniors do not wish to retire like they did in the past. If medical science can make that feasible, then why not? Besides; if life is the greatest game of all, why not give in to the impulse to play "just one more turn"?

9. Because I'm enough of an anime fan that the idea of living 'catgirls' makes me giggle inside.

Body modification is a very real, and thriving, activity today. As the technology develops for somatic genetic engineering (that is, genetic engineering that only affects the person it's used on, and isn't inheritable), advanced surgical modification, and yes -- even biomechanical devices, this range is likely to increase. And while most of this will be applied to standard modification of the self; remember -- plastic surgery is meant to make us more attractive -- that is in no way an argument against achieving it. There are naysayers whom would have us believe that if everyone was beautiful, nobody would care. Most of these people aren't aware of evolutionary psychology's implications for the "baby's beauty-response studies" which did just that -- judged what newborn babies found more attractive (by studying eye-motion with comparative faces). Since there is a well-known link between satisfaction in life and physical attractiveness, it seems patently unfair to prevent people from choosing to take the chance on a new look.

8. I, for one, welcome our new robotic overlords. Especially the servile ones that will likely eradicate human toil and sweat.

Everyone today is familiar with the old story of the worker whose job was replaced by a machine. The associated economic displacement has in many ways given the 'robot' a dirty name. But the simple fact of the matter is that as these machines do their 'dirty work', the products they make become more affordable -- and thus more easily used by the poor, directly enhancing the lower-income range's quality-of-life and standards of living -- as well as expanding the economy, which historically speaking has always created more jobs than it has destroyed. Now, at some point in the future that might very well change; when our robots can start doing all of the thinking we are capable of, they might 'automate' the services industry completely, for example. There have been estimates that by the year 2030 or so, fully 50% of the economy will be completely automated -- that is, 0% human input. What such studies ignore is that the economy will also expand by more than 2x what it is today. And who knows what effect that kind of wealth will have on society-at-large, eh? Perhaps we might even reach a point where simple charitable giving will be sufficient to make a perfectly comfortable life for the permenantly unemployed. Failing that, there's always the socialized answer -- one this libertarian despises -- but with a "robotic" twist; establish laws that require portions of profits derived from automation to be 'redistributed' to those whom are left on their backs. But hopefully society can work those kinks out on its own.

7. We've come too far technologically to turn our backs on it and have anything other than the catastrophic failure of human civilization as a result.

When was the last time you, my reader, hunted and killed an animal for you and your family's consumption over a fire that you yourself had lit without the benefit of any kind of non-hand-manufactured devices? Either for the hunting or for the fire? There's an adage that 'the progress of technology is inevitable' or something like that. Some people -- the neo-Luddites -- see this as the most horrific possible scenario; an answer I've always found quite odd considering the impact of technological progress on the human condition. It's been my experience that most people who talk about "the simple life" have never seen an animal skinned; nor have they seen someone's arm mangled in a loom (many wouldn't even know what a loom is). While that's no excuse to run full-throttle into the future, all bright-eyes and bushy tails, it's also no excuse to turn our backs on something that could radically and fundamentally improve our existence.

6. The average person today is stupid, damnit!

All impact of the Flynn Effect aside, we live in a condition today where nearly one in three people will say that the sun goes 'round the earth. One area of progress that we have seemingly specifically avoided is the improvement of our own minds; however, if we don't do something to change this, it is very likely that the impact of Rational Ignorance will continue to degrade our democratic society as it continues to feel the heavy burden of the inefficiencies derived from the governance of an ever-expanding number of people.
In other words; if we don't do something with science/technology to make people smarter, we can look forward to entire generations of Presidents whom are worse and worse than George Bush. Consider; the "term-average" approval rating for each Congress and President has been on a continual downward spiral for decades. Over 50% of the American population doesn't bother to vote -- ever. Democracies (and republics) can only retain their freedom if the public is well-informed and active in politics. As it stands right now, that burden is simply beyond the capacity of the average person. Does anyone else smell that "Failure of the Nation" pie cooking in the oven?

5. I want to know Kung-Fu.

Currently, one of the funded goals of DARPA is to acheive what is referred to as an "in-out brain-computer interface". (In 'popular culture' this has also been referred to as a "Data-Jack".) The potential benefits to such devices are enormous. Think; you'd never forget the phone-number of the girl/guy you met in the bar last night, or where your keys were, ever again. But that's only the vulgar. Imagine the cost-reduction to education if multi-variable calculus was something that you could learn by paying $100.00 USD and installing a software patch? They also say that those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it. So much for that little problem, eh? Now, there are some significant hurdles to achieving such technology -- but they are well worth overcoming, and effort is being made specifically to do so.

4. It would be nice to have a backup of myself in case of accident.

One of the many topics being discussed within transhumanism is the idea of "mind uploading". We discuss the idea of mapping the brain and storing that in digital format. Now, there is still, apparently, some debate as to whether such a 'stored format' could operate; that is, could a human mind exist as pure data? But regardless of this, if we can map the mind, we can also rebuild that mind. While this wouldn't actually be the same person as you -- the laws of quantum mechanics and physics in general demand otherwise -- it would be who you were up until that point. And it's a pretty comforting thought to think that you could, technically speaking, 'live forever.' Even if you couldn't remember your own death.

3. I want some say in who will inherit the earth.

Think about it. As they say, "Nothing lasts forever". Some day, the 'reign' of humankind will come to an end.. Now, we could just idly evolve into the next species, or we could just wipe ourselves out through some variant of the game called "Global Thermonuclear Warfare" (Remember, kids; if the computer asks if you'd rather play chess, Say YES). But it simply makes more sense to do what we can to ensure that what inherits the planet (or cosmos, if you like), will be Friendly.

2. I believe it's part of every person's duty as a human being to improve themselves.

Let's face it, we indulge those funny-looking guys in white coats and thick glasses with so damned much money because they improve life for everybody else. So in a real way, science is about improving ourselves. Why not cut out the middleman, as it were, of improving our environment so our lives are better and simply improve ourselves with science? Now, don't get me wrong; this is not an implication that humans are somehow 'intrinsically flawed' or 'inferior'. Compared to the species that preceeded us, homo sapiens is practically god-like. But why stop there? Are we to be so incredibly arrogant as to believe that the human being is the perfected pinnacle of creation, never to change and with no room for improvement? Nature used only four of the twelve known viable base-pairs for DNA. An estimated 5-10% of our DNA is directly from bacteria. Nobody know what effect introns have on the genetic code. But as some in transhumanist society love to point out, the silicon transister's baud rate (speed by which it transfers information) is some several orders of magnitude greater than the neuron's.

1. Since everything in life is connected, if you improve one thing you improve the rest.

Will transhuman alterations improve society for the greater? Who knows. Certainly it will improve life for those whom are so modified, Francis Fukuyama be damned. But, hell -- if it's good enough for the Mormons, then it's good enough for everybody. Moving aside from the infernal/religious imagery, at the end of the day, whenever you ask any explorer why he did what he did, the answer is generally one of two:

• Because I could.
• To see what was there.

For transhumanism, it's good to add just one more:

• I want to be better.

Video: Human-Animal Embryos Approved In England

The religious right considers human-animal embryos "morally repugnant and totally unnecessary". As an avid supporter of the propagation of human understanding, I cannot agree: despite all the hype, such embryos seem the most likely to produce embryonic stem-cells with the least probability of rejection by the intended recipient of stem-cell therapies. While I can understand the logic of such religion-induced bio-luddism, I cannot stand idly by and allow it rule. The following video, then, gives me at least a tiny bit of hope on the issue:

How Much Would It Cost To Become Transhuman?

Most Transhumanists look to the future as the time of enhanced human experience. It's symptomatic of the transhumanist condition; we're all futurists. To our minds, who wouldn't want the shiny new metal arm with the strength of a hundred men, or to be able to quote Neo and utter the infamous line, "I know Kung-Fu!" thanks to a brain-computer interface implant. And this is, of course, the primary criticism of our 'cause.' So, from time to time, it behooves us to recall that improvements to the human condition are already within today's technological reach. And more-over -- they're within the reach of Joe Everyman.

This piece is in many ways a follow-up to a previous article, "The Organic Transhumanist":

As it turns out, it is possible to induce savantism using transcranial magnetic stimulation:

The Medtronic was originally developed as a tool for brain surgery: by stimulating or slowing down specific regions of the brain, it allowed doctors to monitor the effects of surgery in real time. But it also produced, they noted, strange and unexpected effects on patients' mental functions: one minute they would lose the ability to speak, another minute they would speak easily but would make odd linguistic errors and so on. A number of researchers started to look into the possibilities, but one in particular intrigued Snyder: that people undergoing transcranial magnetic stimulation, or TMS, could suddenly exhibit savant intelligence -- those isolated pockets of geniuslike mental ability that most often appear in autistic people.

(More on this here).

There's much more on piece, covering nootropics and transcranial magnetic stimulation in general, but what was distinctly absent was, of course, resources which purported to show the availability of these mechanisms.

Today, I will correct this error.

Another blog, "MindHacks", was in many ways instrumental to accomplishing this goal: it turns out that there are two, closely related, movements to produce my favorite of favorites: open-source (Author's Note: Open Source is Made of Win.) 'hacks' ... of our minds. I know, I know -- who would have ever guessed that a blog entitled "MindHacks" would discuss how to hack our minds? The very idea is just out of left field, yes? Okay... </sarcasm>. Those two 'movements' are the Open EEG group and the Open rTMS group. The Open rTMS has a link to a site that offers TMS devices, depending on the desired level of complexity, for between 65 to 220 dollars, with 5.00 shipping. Unfortunately, in the realm of neurofeedback, the resources are... somewhat less available. As discussed in their FAQ: The current estimate is around 200 USD for the electronics. Parts like a box, electrodes, cables and batteries will raise the cost, but by how much depends largely on what you assemble yourself (e.g cables) or buy.. It's worth noting that a medical-grade EEG device would cost roughly 8,000.00 USD. So a 400.00 expenditure with a few man-hours is no big feat, comparatively speaking.

But still, let's say we're splurging, and not sharing, here: 500 for the Neurofeedback device. 250 (for nice round numbers) for the TMS device. Both of which can produce nootropic effects. So, ask yourself: is 750 dollars worth the ability to periodically sleep for only 2 hours for the day, increase your IQ by up to 30 points, and be effectively 'stress-free'?

If all of this is too much commitment for you, however -- or just not enough -- there's another route one can take: the pharmacological. The nootropic drug touted in The Organic Transhuman was "Modafinil", or "ProVigil". Well, it turns out that Modafinil is a restricted drug in the US; it requires a prescription to obtain. And that can put a cramp in the admittedly quite ill-advised home-brewed self-nootropic-medicator's style. But all is not lost: it turns out that there is a drug, which when digested becomes modafinil, which is not so restricted. In fact, it isn't regulated in the United States at all -- despite the fact that it is manufactured by the same agency. It is called Adrafinil. From Adrafinil's Wikipedia entry:

Adrafinil is a prodrug; it is primarily metabolized in vivo to modafinil (Provigil®), resulting in nearly identical pharmacological effects. Unlike modafinil, however, it takes time for the metabolite to accumulate to active levels in the bloodstream. Effects usually are apparent within 45-60 minutes when taken orally on an empty stomach. [...] Adrafinil does not currently have FDA approval in the United States, although it is used in France and elsewhere in Europe. The drug is marketed by the American pharmaceutical company Cephalon, which acquired Group Lafon in 2001, under the brand name Olmifon.

Also from the Wikipedia entry:

In United States, adrafinil is currently unregulated.

Various resources, uncovered during my research, indicated that the 'best' site to acquire adrafinil within the US is a site called Biogenesis.com. There, one can acquire a 1-month supply for $33.25. Thus, a one-year supply would be in the order of 350 dollars.

Added up, that's ~$1,100.00 USD. Now, ask yourself; is "mild" transhumanity at that price too much to ask?

Now, for the record: This is all stuff that is at the 'leading edge' of medical science. That means, people, that What the drawbacks and side-effects of using TMS, neurofeedback, and pharmacologic nootropics, are -- is unknown.. Do this stuff AT YOUR OWN RISK. This is, of course, all legal -- and thus as a libertarian I can't tell "you" not to do this -- but it is worth noting that, even as a transhumanist, the person writing this entry has not partaken of these items.

Autism, Technology, And Choice: Another Slippery Slope

Recent television ads, sponsored by Autism Speaks, have been making the proclamation that "a child's chance of being diagnosed with autism is one in 136." There is great good in what they're doing, but there is also deception: It implies that of those 1 in 136 kids, all have 'something wrong' with them.

And that's just not necessarily so. Hidden in these statistics is the idea that all forms of autism are 'disorders'. It's a common belief -- a very common belief -- and, like many common beliefs, when investigated with a strongly discerning eye, tends to fall apart. Now, do not get the wrong message here: there are autists who are developmentally disabled. That's not what this is driving at. The driving idea here is an attempt to uncover the hidden belief that "normal" is a good in and of itself.

Once upon a time, the diagnostic rate of autism was something like 1 in 2,000 children. Now, the numbers for this diagnosis are increasing -- obviously, greatly so if a claim like Autism Speaks.org's can be made legitimately -- and there have been a number of attributions to this, one of the most common being "better diagnosis." And that's accurate. So where is this driving at? Amongst the spectra of autism disorders being diagnosed for now, are two which if there were more awareness of them -- and their criteria -- which would be somewhat troubling to the common public: High-Functioning Autism, and Asperger's Syndrome.

Studies have been done on these 'disabilities' -- such as are cited by this article. Included within it is a good synopsis of the dichotomy here -- and again a motive which is unacceptable to the libertarian in me.

The good:

This article considers whether Asperger Syndrome (AS) or high-functioning autism (HFA) necessarily lead to disability or whether AS/HFA simply lead to 'difference'. It concludes that the term 'difference' in relation to AS/HFA is a more neutral, value-free, and fairer description than terms such as 'impairment', 'deficiency' or 'disability'; that the term 'disability' only applies to the lower functioning cases of autism

The bad and ugly:

but that the term 'disability' may need to be retained for AS/HFA as long as the legal framework only provides financial and other support for individuals with a disability.

Your eyes are not deceiving you. This article just stated that 'HFA' and 'AS' "are not disabilities" -- and yet refuses to require that label change... because it might hurt the ability of those diagnosed with them to receive "financial and other support" -- wha? "Nope, you're fine -- you're a lil' different is all. But play dumb so we can get you free money"!? This is ethical -- how, exactly? ... Moving on.

There are those in the world whom view this as a clinch-pin issue for how we progress as a people. A few are autistic themselves. What is the issue, exactly? Cognitive Liberty But one needn't be an autist themselves to see that honesty on this issue is essential. There's actually a very appropriately named institute that is dedicated to this very topic: The Center for Cognitive Liberty. In their own words:

Our
guiding principles are privacy, autonomy and choice:

• Privacy: What and how