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this post was submitted on 11 Jun 2025
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It reminds me of the prevalence of left-handedness in the US. If you look at a chart, left-handedness absolutely exploded in the early 20th century, going from 3% of the population up to 10%. But it's stayed at 10% for about 8 decades now.
No one actually thinks more of the population suddenly became left-handed and then stabilized. It was a combination of underreporting and forcing left-handed children to write right-handed.
Same as with any difference that can be hidden. We don't have more autistic people now; we're just better at recognizing that the guy that spent his entire life photographing snowflakes might've just lived before we had diagnostic tools or a cultural understanding of special interests and the autism spectrum.