My special interest is better than your special interest.

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Thanks, that led me to read up on Daphne Oram, too! BBC's Radiophonic Workshop of the 1950s and 60s seems like one of those rare crucibles of staggering talent, creativity and cross-pollination that exist for a brief while until upper management decides too much freedom (and $$) cannot possibly be a good thing no matter what is produced or created. Places like Xerox PARC, Bell Labs, Lockheed Skunk Works, Italian Renaissance etc...THOSE sort of well funded but loosely managed historical events/places are actually another special interest of mine.

I know what you mean people look at you as though you have two heads if you say you hate sport.

my special interest [another one] is avoiding organized sports

I've also been a big fan of the Summer Olympics since 1984 and the Winter Olympics since 1988.

I feel like growing up I made certain aspects of NT behavior my special interests. For example, when I was a kid just learnign how to interact... I would memorize commercials and then act them out exactly the same with the same lines and everything on others, and when it failed (in whatever way) I would sit and think to myself for hours, hmmm I wonder if it was this part or this thing. If I asked why it wasn't okay (note this was everytime) If it were my mom she would get angry and yell & scream haha.
She thought I was being a brat.
I combined this with books (those were a huge help) then sometimes I would ask more self aware people. Those were my best sources of info as a kid- self-aware NTs. They knew the game well and bothered to explain because I was a kid, but after a cetain age they were like "you're stupid figure it out on your own!/Geez what's wrong with you why don't you get it yet??"
And when I didn't make enough eye contact, I would have staring contests or stare at myself in the mirror or whatever else I thought of.
Why I was told I get too close to people I would... literally tell people to stand still and then like step by step be like "how about this distance. How about now? And now? How about this way?" Until they got tired of me.
Essentially my own home-grown ABA that switched persons when they got annoyed and fed up at my being "Too stupid to understand".

Analyzing books and movies have been immensely helpful.

It's not really as much of a special interest now as it was before.
I don't care as much now-a-days.
I do find myself very disturbed by the more "adult" social games of politics/and intense long-term manipulation of coworkers etc. etc. That ...gets me a bit scared because it's so advanced and dark/selfish sometimes!!

Oh, yes indeed. It saddens me a little that people make so much use of modern technology without questioning where it came from. As soon as you even scratch the surface, it challenges the modern notion that research has to be guided towards short-term financial profitability. When people start talking about what a "waste of resources" is it to research theoretical physics, I feel like I want to exile them to a little island where none of the technology that uses quantum mechanics, relativity etc. is available! Some things never change, I guess - the likes of Maxwell and Faraday had to put up the with same rubbish in their time too. Electricity, bah-humbug!, that'll never be any use for anything!

I find the 50's and 60's particularly fascinating, as so many of the important advances in my "special interests" of computing and electronic music were made by women. Reading about those times is such a contrast with the stereotype that males are inherently more talented in those areas, and the 100% male engineering and programming teams that I've experienced at the places that I've worked.

I wont argue that my interests are better than anyone else, I would say somebody that has made a career and actual money from their interest is tangibly better I guess. Most of what I am interested in is just wasting my time, it's pointless and trivial, who cares if it has no applicable use?

IMHO the conservative mindset is not prone to inventively stepping out of the box, so to speak.

Meaning what? I wouldn't say I have a "conservative" mindset to begin with but what is inventively stepping out of the box suppose to mean? How you folks doing differently?

If you can't start a career, make any money, or even share your interest with someone else then I can say a "special interest" that does is tangibly better than the other but I suspect most are the same as mine or worse. It's just something to break up the time, there is no point.

people are posting too soon for my posts to make any sense, I was responding to Trugluddite's post about the naysayers, and I was not responding to your most recent post. my point was that conservatism is deadly to the spirit of invention, if a majority doesn't want to explore the boundaries but instead prefers things staying just as they are forever, that leaves the inventive types behind the 8 ball. we aspies tend to be the inventive types.

My special interest developed in the mid 1980s, well before I knew I was AS. I was really, really into ambient music. Heavy duty stuff that would work better than a sleeping pill. When I had my first surgery and first shot of morphine, I was 17, and my interest was soon enhanced wonderfully by that sensation, which i could thusly mentally reproduce--the coldness of the drug as the needle pierced my vein, the hypnotic trance of the music that would lead me into a blissful state. It wasn't until I was much older that I came to understand that this was me trying to self-medicate some deep pains and anxieties of the world.

As to the point about Wendy Carlos? Horrible person whose music is overrated and whose ego is overinflated. (Personal experience: she has no sense of humor, and will sue for any perceived slight...or at least she did at one time.)

it has been my experience that almost all great [highly talented] people are very hard to be around, and self-segregate among their own kind, looking down their noses at the great unwashed [the rest of us untalented children of a lesser god].

it's not that...a friend of mine, Nick Currie, wrote a song as a tribute to her, entitled "Walter Carlos," to which she responded...with a multimillion dollar defamation lawsuit. It got thrown out but not without severe financial ramifications to Nick. But as a result, Nick practically invented internet crowdfunding with his album, Stars Forever.

good luck trying to find the song directly online. if you post it to Youtube or to a blog, she will pop you with a takedown notice or legal threats so fast, it'll make your head swim!

In a more general sense, I find that quite an interesting point. My fascination for my special interests is very "intellectual", and I find it strange when people conflate my "interest" with "approval" or "liking". (PS - I'm not trying to say that this is what you are doing, just that your comment indirectly led my train of thought this way!).

Can "bad" people make good art or music? I think they can and do.
Can "bad" art or music (whatever that might me), still be technically innovative and influential? I believe it can.
Can I be fascinated by Wendy Carlos' studio technology without liking her personality or even her music? Indeed I can.

oh, i definitely agree with you!

if you have no direct dealings with an artist or with people who are directly connected or dealing with an artist, it's easier to be more objective and to overlook those things. Nick was and is a kind-hearted soul who wanted to pay tribute to someone he found fascinating on both a professional and personal level--a pioneer in both music and gender identity worlds. he certainly wasn't expecting a 22-million dollar lawsuit against him! it devastated him, bankrupted him, and sent him into a state of despair and depression...all for an innocent little tribute song.

but i see your point. sometimes we can look away from someone's bad points and enjoy their art. sometimes we can't. in Wendy Carlos' case, I can't get past that-nor can i stand to listen to her music.

I find it a continuing frustration that there seem to be so relatively few nice talented people. all the ones I've seen were somewhat mercenary and self-impressed. for once i'd like to be able to chat with one about their art.