The Universe does not revolve around the autistic community

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I don't think I've ever thought of myself as a 'special expert' in any area....I think there are some thins I know a lot more about than the average person due to being obsessive over intrests and looking into all the info I can about it. There are probably things other people know more about....or other people might know about more things just not in as much detail. I've never seen myself as any kind of expert though.

There may indeed be some things you know more about that the average person due to looking into all the info you can find about it, but are those things factoids? Aer those facts found in reputable sources? Blogs, brochures and magazines don't count. Original research and outside the box thinking are fine but must be tempered with a healthy dose of reality and verifiability.

I don't totally disagree with you. However quoting my father (which I believe was an aspie and my mother is convinced as well) "I'm too stupid to know any better" That was in reference to things we accomplished in life primarily associated to work.

Many years I played the part of a controls engineer and as a part of that did programming. I had a question about internally how certain programming instructions work and was in contact with Allen Bradley/Rockwell on this particular subject. They put me thru to a design engineer on the platform I had been working. To make a long story short he said just what the heck are you trying to do? I told him the issue and he said "Well it can't work that way". I responded I had been using that very same technique for nearly 5 years in multiple machines and it had worked well. I was just trying to expand upon the idea and wanted some details on the internals.

Well several days later I get a call and it was this same engineer. He sounded totally out of sorts but told me they researched what I had been doing and it did work! I'm like Really? I have that basic code all over this plant and it works well so either I am too dumb to know better or I think outside the box.

Getting back to the subject of the OP. We aren't brighter then NTs. However we are very passionate about our interests and often times our thinking outside of the box make strides others wouldn't. I know I am not NEARLY as smart as these designers. How do I know? I got to work with them as a contract test engineer for a year. My sole purpose was to "break" their stuff and then quantify exactly what broke it. In my time there I met and worked with the inventor of the PLC and many other equally brilliant people. I felt like a moron their midst. However I was quite functional and did well in my role there. So yes, NTs can be a whole lot smarter. Just don't count out us aspies that are "too dumb" to know better..

Last edited by KB8CWB on 28 Mar 2014, 8:56 pm, edited 1 time in total.

It's easy to push this point too hard. Yes, okay, having a special interest doesn't mean you know more than other people on the topic. However, it doesn't necessarily also mean you know less or primarily know trivial things.

Also, information found in blogs and magazines can and does count. The point is that it doesn't automatically count. For example, the Bad Astronomy blog is probably a reliable source of information about astronomy. Similarly, the blog You Are Not So Smart tends to have fairly interesting and well-cited posts.

Magazines typically simplify things and present inaccurate stories about research, which usually means you have to track down the actual paper they're talking about to see what it really said. However, again, magazine articles are not completely uninformative and useless, and such articles can count depending on topic and context.

That particular statement reminds me of people saying that wikipedia is untrustworthy in informal discussion, because it cannot be used as a primary research source. But what people who say this apparently fail to realize is that as an informal discussion no one is held to academic standards. Also, that while wikipedia is vulnerable to vandalism that it tends to get cleaned up very quickly (I've found a small handful of vandalized pages and they were all corrected within a few minutes). And finally, wiki frequently does cite primary sources (research papers, books, etc) so one can verify statements. Blogs are certainly less formal than wikipedia, but a blanket statement that they don't count lacks nuance.

So this isn't a black and white, all or nothing thing here. Autistic people are perfectly capable of knowing enough about a topic to qualify as an expert. Being autistic does not automatically render one's knowledge inferior to NTs' knowledge, nor is it necessarily less "worth knowing" than what NTs produce.

If you want to argue that autistic people can be wrong, that'd be pretty non-contentious, and more nearly accurate than what it seems like you're saying.

Whatever.

I can't say everything I have ever read on any topic is from reputable sources, but a large majority is....I do take care to actually look into real facts can't say I read any blogs or brocures....occasionally I might read a national geographic magazine or one pertaining to music I like or cannabis but obviously such sources are largely the opinions of people writing the articles and not 100% fact based. I also like documentaries but a lot of those one has to take with a grain of salt as well.

Though its been quite a while since I've had a special interest I was really passionate about...so haven't done much research lately. So yeah I'd think someone who spends more time digging around for information about their topic of intrest is likely to know more about that topic than someone who doesn't....Of course focusing too much on one thing can make you less perceptive to the rest of the world so to speak such is the downfall of this trait of having special interests.

Last edited by Sweetleaf on 28 Mar 2014, 9:32 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Okay, I'm not counting on all aspies as "too dumb" to know better, but many are too obsessed to understand the practical/financial side of their own special interests.



The point is that many who have special interests believe they do know more/better than other people on the topic, even if it may be the other way round.



Please see wikipedia's guideline on citing sources, I know it's a wikipedia page, but I'm still using it as a reference as to which sources are reputable. A wikipedia contributor who says on her userpage that she has AS had a histort of inserting into articles on her own special interests (particularly Code Lyoko) what others said were her own opinions. Bu she insisted they were facts and was eventually blocked indefinitely by a conservative admin (talk|contribs|logs) who also was involved in this discussion before has was a wiki-admin.



Of course it's not that simple, Temple Grandin is indeed a special expert on animal behaviour and sees things in animals that others don't, however she is a very practical thinker and does not appear to go on about utter fantasies and is certainly not an armchair expert.

Yeah, I kind of thought I was wasting my time. Good luck with your mission.

That's a great story! I've had things like that happen to me too.

Hey have you met auntblabby yet? Your dog could play with his Santa.

Yes have had some interaction already with auntblabby.

Welcome back

So if you were to ramble, you would be doing it as an ego trip?

When I lecture, it's not an ego trip; I'm doing it because I'm just so excited about what I've learned that I want to share it with someone and I forget that not everyone will be as enamoured of my pet subject as I am.

And I'm pretty sure I do understand my special interest better than most people; I have a Master's degree in it.

To female users who have posted in this thread, female aspies, or at least ones with female oriented interests, are much less likely to suffer from things like megalomania, and like other women, are more likely than even non-autistic men to set their egos aside.

Are you one of the more feminine aspies?
Is your special interest female oriented?

If you have a masters degree in an area, then you almost certainly understand it better than most people, but one does not need to have a special interest to get such a degree. As far as I know, most on the spectrum, particulary the ones that didn't go through school normally, as those ones are less likely to end up in university. Forgetting that not everyone will be as enamoured of my pet subject as you are sound like acting as if your ego is on the line.

No, it's called "Getting caught up in enthusiasm". I'm not sure how you got "acting like my ego is on the line" out of that; are you sure you're not just upset because people are arguing against your lovely new theory?

Isn't talking about your own interests related to thinking about yourself? No I'm not upset because people are arguing against a new theory of mine.

OP, at the moment this theory seems to be functioning as a special interest for you, and that is fine, but I think the use of the word ego is throwing things off.

Speaking in general, from an object relations perspective autistic special interest is probably more a theory of mind thing because a person has not completely individuated so cannot stand the discomfort of someone else not being oneself. I suspect the special interest compensates for this and 'feeding' the special to someone else is an attempt to devour the implied threat of the other person being separate, and if they accept the special interest by listening, this acknowledges the validity of ones own individuality. A child who has not been given the tools to completely individuate can get kind of stuck in the middle of this process. And it can be interesting:-)

This is not to deny that ones own special interests can be very interesting to some others and even potentially world saving. To engage another person into ones own special interest would be something else entirely, or to accept the food of another person's special interest even though one is not really interested in that particular topic would be an act of generosity that acknowledges the other person as an individual.

The thing is, life does not start with the special interest. It starts with the person. That is an important distinction that is very difficult for me and I think many people to make. To individuate oneself from ones own special interest would be an act of will that could transform the mind. One could still have the interest, but it would not be devouring of (the object of) oneself.

And of course a special interest increases focus, so could be a survival mechanism. It is very interesting to see how the brain works in regard to variety and repetition and how these both can be combined together to create a kind of stability while still in the act of discovering. Imagine this special interesting expanding into life itself. Then the mind is very alive, not just enlivened, and a person can be really happy because there is learning how to actualize inherent potential in a variety of situations, which is always interesting, so the creativity of being oneself.