Nothing of Waste, in Our Place

New directions for neurodiversity and disability empowerment

Recently those involved with the autism community, and the disability community more broadly, seem anxious and wondering what they can do, in and for their communities, amid uncertainty. These are some suggestions.

As of this writing it is becoming plain that government aid, and indeed, central organization, is poorly adapted to providing help for individual people; nor can institutions necessarily be relied upon to provide aid even if they could. This suggests the desirability of localism and self-reliance; and the goal of self-reliance is self-sufficiency, for a sustainable life.

The notion that autistic education and activism should center on enabling autistic people to function in society, and especially that they should be integrated into the broader economy so as to have self-sufficiency, is bankrupt. This has now been empirically demonstrated, by C. Crompten et al., in their 2020 research publication “Autistic peer-to-peer information transfer is highly effective”. In addition to validating the so-called double empathy thesis, the paper essentially reveals, not only that autistic people can collaborate quite effectively with one another (notably, in person); but also that there is a basic inability of autistic and non-autistic people to collaborate.

That being so, it follows that it is impossible for autistic people ever to substantially be integrated into an economy populated mainly by non-autistic people; they will conflict, and will not collaborate effectively. Autistic people’s participation in the economy will always be suboptimal relative to an exclusively non-autistic (and non-disabled) economy – from a profit perspective, it will always be more economical to have an exclusively non-autistic workplace. Bare business logic requires exclusion of disabled people.

Even if, in the name of “inclusion,” we founded concerns (as is done, e.g. by the Danish Specialisterne company) which predominantly employ autistic people, they will not be able to effectively interface with the broader, non-autistic economy – not unless they employ a non-autistic managerial class to enact that interface (and this, too, is done at Specialisterne).

But this is contradictory: what “self-sufficiency” for autistic people in an enterprise in which they are managed – so their work and wages are dictated – by non-autistic people? Their managers could arrange for their wages to be cut, or their employment terminated, quite arbitrarily, or at least according to rules dictated by management and by their nature opaque to autistic employees who didn’t write, and may not have been taught, the rules (assuming the rules even are reasonable); this can never be autistic self-sufficiency, so all efforts hitherto for self-sufficiency are bankrupt – as has been asserted, now demonstrated.

Moreover, as will be shown in the contemporarily published appendix on this Substack, “Ectopic Economics”, the current economy, for autistic and non-autistic people alike, is not only suboptimal in providing for people’s needs, it is utterly irrational. How, in any good conscience, can we recommend economic integration as a solution for disabled people? E.g., even had we a vaccine for autism – and there is no reason to think such a thing ever even could exist – then the now-neurotypical people thus cured – would be hurled into a self-destructive wilderness, which breeds self-destruction. What would have been gained? What more would have been lost?

What is to be done, then?

We must have done with “social skills groups,” and “meet and greets,” and “getting to know yous” and suchlike Milquetoast efforts to integrate autistic people into what does not deserve to be integrated with – we must pursue genuine autistic and disabled autonomy and self-sufficiency, first in small ways, then in more. In that, we may hit upon an altogether more rational, humane economics and society – for everyone.

To Organize: “Autism In Person”

We propose, therefore, that for every substantial community around the world, say, every metropolitan area of at least 10,000 to 100,000 people or more, a website with anonymous registration using the email accounts of each user, should be established for that region, and advertised by online notices, local-level pamphleteering, newspaper advertisements, even notices posted on streetlights or walls. The website established for and by autistic people, or their family members and allies, and operated by them and on their behalf, to coordinate, and to organize meeting times and places for autistic people to gather together, to alert users of the time and place via email – Crompten’s 2020 study, again, notes that autistic people can collaborate, in person – and in meeting, to decide, and answer for themselves, as to the resources of life, and financial assets and capital requirements: “What do we have? And what do we need?”

We propose that all these websites and mutual aid societies and communities, should be, as it were, “franchisees” for “Autism in Person – X,” where “X” is the major population hub of its region. It is essential all websites and communities should be named with the “Autism in Person” marker so that, no matter where an autistic person, or their family member or ally, should encounter the movement, they will quickly know it is a member of that movement, that it shares the movements objectives, or else whether they must make a franchise website themselves.

Hence: seek out the website for Autism in Person – X, X being the largest population center in your area. If you find there is no such website, make it, or find or hire someone who can (feel free to advertise your Autism in Person project in the comments section of this essay). On the website, obtain consensus and consent on when and where to meet, alert users to the planned site, date, and time – and meet there to take action.

And we shall find, one suspects, that what we have is ample enough to secure what we need (statistically the listed population hubs will have 278 to 2,778 autistic people living in its vicinity, if not more). The information sources and technological solutions suggested below require little capital, but ample labor – and it is estimated that between seven in ten, to as many as nine in ten autistic people are un- or underemployed; we have just the abundance of labor we require to gain what we need.

Our objectives and ideals are as follows: in Marshall Sahlin’s book Stone Age Economics, he notes there are two basic ways to cultivate a bountiful life: we can engage in cutthroat competition in pursuit of economic growth – or we can want no more than we need, and contain our needs to what is in our power to obtain. We can waste not, and therefore: we will want for nothing.

This is the first step to any self-sufficiency: autistic people can reduce their housing costs by finding other autistic persons with whom to be roommates. Those who are unable to drive themselves or take public transit to appointments, can be driven or guided by those who can. Collectively, they can form a purchaser’s cooperative, to, among others, share the cost of a membership in a wholesaler’s operation, and collectively buy in bulk discount and distribute the proceeds, so reducing their costs. They might even establish a negotiated discount with small self-owned retailers for such guaranteed bulk purchases. All this is a beginning to enable autistic people to retain money enough to live.

Parents of autistic children can collaborate, as they raise their children to collaborate. They might form a self-run preschool managed by a trustworthy parent, or better, two or three parents. They can reduce their food costs via commissioning one of their number as a full-time “designated buyer” of products the parents require; they can all contribute money, and the designated buyer find the lowest possible price. They could even establish an independent education program derived from, e.g., the Montessori Method (as will be detailed later), or collectively purchase, say, a housing unit or apartment complex to manage as a housing co-operative, if their means can accommodate such, as a home for themselves and their adult children.

In rural environments, autistic co-housing arrangements can use their savings to start a “victory garden,” to help offset their food expenses. In urban areas we can have larger co-housing arrangements, and their participants can volunteer – or initiate – a community garden. Neighbors help provide the cash for space, soil, and seed, and in exchange autistic people tend the crop, and provide some of the harvest to their neighbors, feeding themselves with the rest.

But we can, and we should, go further. To save money, and then to spend it on what will make them money, or equivalently what will deliver them a good life, along the lines suggested by Schumacher’s classic book Small is Beautiful.

Autistic and other disabled people, and their allies, able bodied or otherwise, who are willing to work with them, can try to create entire communities by, for, and of themselves.

First, and most important, it is essential that all the participants in such an arrangement should consent, explicitly and, as it were, enthusiastically, on an on-going basis to this arrangement, and the decision-making mechanism it decides is best for it. Too much strife has been engendered by a “consent of the governed,” being taken “as read,” dispensed-with, until at last dissent is expressible only as bloodshed.

(What specific organizing- or decision-making principle and economic model ought to be adopted this author cannot say, following Debs: “I would not lead you into the promised land if I could, because if I led you in, someone else would lead you out. You must use your heads as well as your hands, and get yourself out of your present condition.” But that all must consent on an on-going, and more than implicit, basis: that is an absolute necessity).

In any case, it should be plain that each individual person knows what they can do, and what they need, better than anyone else. Equally, a smaller community will be familiar with its capabilities and needs more than a farther-flung group; together this recommends that many local movements will be better adapted to requirements than centralized “lobbying” models.

A variety of self-sufficiency methods might be adopted, some which may supplement the following suggestions, and many available free of charge on the internet; to this author, a handful especially recommend themselves.

Lewis Dartnell’s book The Knowledge describes all the technological and scientific knowledge, of materials, and agricultural and manufacturing processes, needed to maintain industrial civilization. Dartnell’s is a thought experiment to reestablish civilization beginning from nothing; it occurred to this author that we could leverage a pre-existing civilization to more easily establish small, self-sufficient, and potentially self-regenerating civilizations, as to specifically accommodate autistic and disabled people – and those wishing a sustainable life in general.

In Dartnell’s book, he often cites the usefulness of “appropriate technology,” essentially, technology from circa the beginning of the twentieth century, or technology less advanced, but which can be used to create the technology of the “Roaring Twenties,” or even to the early Information Age; and the prosperity of the twentieth century, shared by a community, should be adequate to ensure a quite comfortable life for all in it.

At Village Earth’s website (https://villageearth.org/home/appropriate-technology-library/), the Appropriate Technology Library can be found; over one thousand books detailing how to establish almost all the agricultural, electrical, medical, small-scale economic, and industrial technology needed to establish a small self-sufficient community. All these can be purchased as a single USB drive for a modest fee, less than one hundred US dollars.

Also available for purchase for less than one hundred such dollars, is Dave Gingery’s book series (https://gingerybookstore.com/MetalWorkingShopFromScrapSeries.html) demonstrating that using no more than charcoal powered kilns in recycled oil drums, and scrap aluminum, one can create a complete machinist’s metalworking shop. With that, all manner of industrial labor-saving devices, including industrial-scale machinery, such as biodiesel powered tractors and harvesters, could be constructed to enable considerable agricultural and energy production en route to an altogether more prosperous and comfortable life.

There is already an international movement for such intentional communities as we propose to create, which can be appealed to for guidance ( https://www.ic.org/ ), but ultimately we must create ourselves. It does not seem unreasonable that an autistic community and its supporters might acquire these information resources, divide themselves according to ability and inclination into teams, which decide among themselves that each member should study some of the books which instructs a given subgoal, a technique of self-sufficiency, then practice those skills, for – here, the machinist’s group, here, agricultural workers, here the carpenters, and there the plumbers and electricians, afar, the chemical engineers, and then the steelworkers, and clothiers, etc. – and collectively form all the working groups needed to establish and maintain a self-sufficient community.

With these three resources alone, this author estimates that, provided that an Autism In Person’s members have or can save money enough to purchase a plot of land, and most important, that they have the planning power and the willingness to try, that with luck, they can establish a productive agricultural plot, suitable housing, and sustainable life. Since the methods detailed require little capital, and recycle resources extensively, they can then save their money still more, to expand their operation, or maintain it indefinitely, with little or no outside aid required. Though, of course, our principally autistic actual community may provide agriculture or manufactured products for their neighbors or neighboring businesses for profit; these, and constructing surplus renewable energy to sell electricity to the electrical grid, could suffice to raise funds to pay for land taxes; bills would be few indeed, and for that self-sufficiency should always be a priority.

And when one has affixed their own oxygen mask, they are at liberty to help others: autistic people with low support needs, giving themselves a sustaining life, can help to sustain the lives of who need more support; on this model, that can more readily be done.

(It seems hardly necessary to add that almost everyone in modern society seems to find occasion to wish, “Wouldn’t it be nice to live a quiet life on a little farm…?” And for good reason: humans evolved to live in small cohesive social groups. We are not designed for alienating post-industrial magnitudes – which rather explains why we are so bad at, and broadly miserable in, living this way. Whereas this plan would enable a rustic life).

We can have farther-reaching goals. This author is unfamiliar with any studies of the efficacy of progressive or Montessori education as applied to autistic people, whether as a distinct group, or with an admixture of neurotypical peers; this seems a grave oversight of research, and perhaps indictive of misplaced priorities.

Montessori’s education is assessed by its most negative surveys, as being at least as good as conventional methods; unlike those methods all the materials needed to establish a Montessori education program, viz., Madame Montessori’s bibliography, are available free of charge online (e.g., a love a reading is readily taught: a childhood of many books, few toys or games, so one plays with the power of imagination – and stories feed imagination. And reading gives stories, enjoyably; and when we enjoy, we excel).

Her methods, supplemented by the mathematical pedagogy of Barbara Oakley’s A Mind For Numbers (lamentably not open source), and MIT’s redoubtable OpenCourseWare ( https://ocw.mit.edu/ ): there seems no earthly reason an individual of average intelligence shouldn’t master “high-school” algebra by their fourteenth birthday, trigonometry and calculus by their eighteenth, and enough mathematics to be a doctor or engineer – differential equations and linear algebra – by their twenty-second. Such things are in truth not so difficult – a society of engineers-in-training, however, is well-poised to optimize its technology and planning for its lifestyle.

Some will have neither interest nor ability in engineering – but an engineer’s dreams are vacant without a machinist to create them, and all work which does not destroy, has dignity; farm work and manufacturing are wonderfully routine-bound, and well suited for autistic people.

The body can be trained and left sound with low cost by Georges Hebert’s visionary Natural Method (https://ia801604.us.archive.org/21/items/guidepractiqued00hbgoog/guidepractiqued00hbgoog.pdf); it and Montessori’s methods emphasize group co-operation; should we be surprised that young people raised with these practices are altogether happier and more effective as a team than preceding generations?

Finally, the international auxiliary language Esperanto is easy – and free – to learn (

https://lernu.net/

). Learning a second language has many cognitive benefits; and, Esperanto would enable seamless international collaboration – between Autism In Person groups abroad, for instance – while burdening no one with any more difficult language, nor to have any language degenerate as its literary qualities are abandoned in favor of mass legibility. Simply put, it’s a good idea, and always has been – and it’s never too early to adopt a good idea, though it can be too late.

This, then, represents a totalizing plan for creating a world fit for autistic people. And, if it succeeds, it could provide a model for how all humanity ought to live, requiring nothing that one does not have, so coveting and quarreling over nothing unworthy; over nothing at all, God willing.

That is all the information required; we have only now to distribute this information en masse, to every significant community of, or venue for, autistic people and those adjacent to them, families, allies, other disabled communities. Information in hand, they have only to act, and make it so.

And if they do not, there is no-one they can blame.