If humanity can make it another 100k years I think the spectrum and NT people will diverge to the point of being separate species, and if anything about hominid history tells me, one branch will club the other to death at some point.

I was thinking what a functioning society of people all possessing Down's Syndrome would look like if human history had taken a strange turn at the bottleneck, or the same circumstance for conditions like Tourette's.

Personally I think that neurodivergent people may be evolutionary solutions to very specific survival hurdles, and that we have not been facing these hurdles long enough for natural selection to smooth out the side effects. It's all very confusing at the individual level in a species specialization event as none of us will live long enough to see even the glimmerings of whatever shift in human existence that our daily struggles will initiate.

[–] cole@lemdro.id 3 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I think nothing has ever been enough of a hindrance to be selected out evolutionarily which is why non-neurotypical people exist. Just my head theory though

[–] mods_are_assholes@lemmy.world 1 points 9 months ago

I feel that's one-sided and doesn't take into account evolutionary benefits from being non-nt. The thing is, the last 6k years of human history is such a tiny blip in our time as humans that it's largely a mistake to take survival evidence of such a short span and apply genetic drift to it.

And considering the survival benefits of technology are exponential, I would see having focus driven non-nt people in your populace would result in great and frequent survival benefits.