Aspies For Freedom

Actually, this idea converges with one I've been toying with for a while, though it involves more than autism friendliness. I have been considering what would be necessary to establish a self-sustaining community, and considered that the talents and focus of autists would be well suited to doing just such a thing.  The question I've been considering, and that I almost started a thread about, is which skills and resources would be necessary for a community to be self-sustaining? It would just really rock my world to live some place where I could say, with all honesty, "Your money's no good here."  And yet, it is a slippery slope.  There have been many utopian endeavors that came to unhappy ends.

We will see where it goes. I expect to be on a farm in the next couple of years at any rate.

I'm very much against the idea of separating special groups from the rest of society. Therefore, artificially engineering a high prevalence of aspies is something I view as counterproductive and just as bad an idea as second- and third-generation immigrants banding together in areas that separate themselves from the community their parents of grandparents moved to.

That said, I would be very, very careful to compare it to the Warsaw ghetto. That was imposed on the Jews by nazists, this is a proposition for a voluntary  ghetto-fication.

Snip wikipedia:

If you think the proposed is the same basic concept, you have no idea what you're talking about.

When being ironic, you're supposed to leave a clue you aren't serious

I don't know you, so I have no reason to know your opinions on these matters beforehand.

Anyway, I stand by what I said, I think artificially constructing high-prevalence areas will lead to mostly negative consequences. We're part of society, let's just accept it and move on already.

My impressionis that many of us are very troubled and scarred individuals.  Maybe we would be able to rise to the occasion but given that so many of us struggle even to manage our lives on a small scale, to enter into a social contract on a large scale (and even a small community would be "large scale" to a lot of us) might not be realistic.  It would be asking too much, socially, of people who struggle socially.  Honestly I cannot imagine being a 24/7 member of a closed or semi-closed community of any kind.  I think we would have a very high dropout rate.

I may be wrong, but I understand that ' silicon Valley ' has become an area with a high prevalence of Asperger's, albeit voluntary.

wired magazine article 2001

I have never cared for gated communities.  It is hard to tell whether they keep people in or out. They just seem altogether creepy to me.

I don't see the need for isolation, just a place that has different rules.  In order to sustain that, it is necessary to not be overly reliant on others -- because whoever controls access to the necessities of life can impose whatever rules they see fit.

Whatever Ian might have to say, when I first read this thread I was thinking that the concept would be less like Warsaw/East Germany and more like Brighton

It is also happening in a smaller way in Australia as all the sevices seem to be concentrated in the Federal capital, Canberra.

Don't let the perfect get in the way of the good.

Even if it can be done... establishing a specialized city or suburb, or even purchasing an island, some practice ahead of time would be in order.  It would take years to achieve such goals, so you might as well practice in the meantime.

Shortly after I joined AFF, I started a thread titled "Neighborhood Enclaves", in which I put forward the idea of simply picking a spot and everyone interested trying to get there.  For example, look for an apartment complex that is under construction, find out the earliest opportunity to sign a lease, and then a bunch of aspies all show up and rent a considerable chunk of that apartment complex.  If the idea doesn't work, then it would simply fade away in attrition, with most moving out for whatever reason over the next few years.  If the idea does work, then it would attract more to the neighborhood and eventually influence the local economy and policy.

I've imagined what it would be like if there was a private company made up of autistics.  People who work there would probably want to live nearby, thus turning the surrounding area into its "company town".  That would influence what types of stores and services set up shop nearby.  Something like that may already be happening.  You might keep an eye on Walgreen's.  A while back, they started hiring autistics to work in one of their distribution centers, and it attracted families to move there from hundreds of miles away so they can work there.

(I haven't watched this video, but it looks like it's about that place: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2akb4v2cUQ )

As for keeping certain people out, that can be done for buildings and private property that you control, but not for public roads and rights-of-way that are maintained by government.  Like anywhere, there will be occasional crime and trouble.  In that case, do like you'd do anywhere and call the cops.

As for curebies, how exactly do you plan to screen everyone who enters for curebieism?  You'd just have to tolerate them, as long as they respect you even if they don't agree with you.  Would you keep an autistic out just because his/her parents are curebies?  You'd have a better chance of influencing them away from curebie beliefs if there aren't ugly scenes of them being thrown out, and if they can see the successes of such a community firsthand.

It would probably be easiest to organize among aspie college students at a large university.  That's a situation where large numbers of people move in all at once, just before the start of an academic term.

Somebody or a few people would need to be facilitators for this kind of thing to ensure it runs smoothly.

President Shinra (プレジデント神羅, Purejidento Shinra?) is the first President of the Shinra Company. He built it from a simple weapons development company to a corporation that controlled the world in a single generation. He was a remarkably capable manager who excelled at the science of predicting human nature and guiding public opinion. It was his theory that one could control the world by grasping the masses' hearts with money. He found the opinions of his son, Rufus, dangerous and ensured that they were kept away from company affairs by assigning him duties in "far away" lands. The President dedicated a large amount of Shinra Inc's resources and money into research of the Cetra with the hope of finding "The Promised Land" and building a powerful Mako Reactor there. President Shinra listens to Joseph Haydn's Oratorio, The Creation as the Sector Seven Plate collapses


etc etc hehe! i'm such a nerd.

Never know if my business ever gets big maybe I can fund neuro city =p

Nice work, Reeve ;p