He's just eccentric

Knowledge of sports statistics is a socially acceptable autistic hyper fixation.
Ever talked to one of these people? You mention a baseball player and they can tell you what their batting average was for each year of their decade long career, or they can tell you where every NFL player went to college; meanwhile I have trouble remembering my own phone number.
- I have a friend who's sure I'm on the spectrum, and points at things I talk about as my current hyperfixation. Meanwhile I'm talking imprecisely forgetting detail.
  If I'm on the spectrum, I suck at fixating on stuff
  
  Keep in mind there's a strong correlation between ASD and ADHD. So that could just be the ADHD side of things.

My father had a workbench drawer marked "Pieces of Wire Too Short to Use."
Mind you, he was an electrician.
- Those are for special occasions, like when you're doing electrical work in someone's house who you don't like much and feel like splicing 10 short wires together instead of using a long one.
  
  He also had a drawer labeled "Plastic Shark" that contained one of my old toy sharks.
- Maybe he was an electrician, but he definitely didn't spend much time with circuit boards.

I had to clean out my uncle's house when he passed away suddenly. Among many other things, this man had a box full of gum wrappers perfectly folded into little triangles. But don't worry, I've been assured he wasn't autistic, he was just a little antisocial and odd.

My grandfather was different, he said "okay" for my diagnosis, read up on it, and when he read that Albert Einstein was suspected to have autism, he thought he had a bloodline of future scientists. Also he had a great trouble with saying "it's enough work for today", and was stubborn enough to work on something 18 hours if it meant it could be done under one day.
- The "enough work" problem is the story of my childhood... I have way too many memories of sitting in the garage, or on the driveway, either freezing to death or being eaten alive by mosquitoes, at 2:30 a.m. while trying to hold a light absolutely still in just the right position...
  
  “Puts some hair on your chest”
  Me chest hairless at 40. What a lie.
  
  To be fair, I often stay up too late trying to find some bugs in my OpenGL pipeline, so I likely inherited a lot from him.

- I have a cable tumbleweed
- Those aren't any of what you just said though. I have a drawer of wires everything you mentioned, outside of VGA because why? But I do not save or sort random electric wires.

Autism has always been here. But instead of labeling someone as autistic and trying to improve understanding and communication, people were like, "That's a weird dude."
- Or worse yet, they were interned on an institution all their lives or were killed by police during a misunderstanding.

Pretty sure the first dude to collect dead bugs and put them on corkboards with pins probably was on the spectrum. Also geologists. I can't think of any other reason a person would be super into rocks.
- Jesus Christ Marie, they're not rocks. They're minerals!!
  
  If you didn't have to mine them out of something and just picked them off the ground, they are pickerals (= rocks).
  
  Rocks are something a whore does for money.
- I was about to write two paragraphs about how awesome minerals are and then reflected on the thought that I may be on the spectrum.

After reading these comments, I have concluded that everyone's grandpa is autistic.
- As someone with two autistic boys people really be stretching on their undiagnosed definitions of autism.
  
  You know how neurodivergence is one category with a lot of different and diverse conditions and spectrums. Neurotypical is that as well. Not all neurotypical people are alike, there's diversity as well.
- I mean, I think the count of neurodiverse people on lemmy is likely very high (for various reasons). And since it's highly genetically correlated, likely also the grandparents.
  
  Also if we could diagnose the entire world we would find many people who would fall on the high-functioning side of the spectrum. Many people just go undiagnosed for their entire lives. I bet autism is way more common than the science tells us today.
  
  What are the reasons for all us neurodivergent people coming on here?

my grandpa has a collection of those glass caps they use on power towers

after searching for an image the correct term is "glass insulator for power lines" but I think "glass cap for power tower" sounds funner lol
I have a collection of those silica gel packets I find at clothing stores and supermarkets
- "Silica gel packets?"
  Ohhhh, you mean the DO NOT EAT bags!
  
  Oooh, like shoe flavor packets?
  
  DO NOT EAT
  You're not my supervisor!
- I once dragged one of those ceramic powerline insulators across two international borders because I found it lying around and liked how it looked. It took up the majority of the space in my backpack, so I had to buy a second backpack and carry it on the front of my chest lol. Apparently the reason they have that odd shape is so that when it's raining, water can't make a continuous trickle between the wire and the pylon
  
  Apparently the reason they have that odd shape is so that when it’s raining, water can’t make a continuous trickle between the wire and the pylon
  That and also to increase the distance any charge has to travel across the surface of the insulator.
- I think collecting those was a bit of a thing in the 60s and 70s, I've run across multiple older folks who did. Pretty sure it eventually crossed with the "turn random shit into lamps" fad in the 70s because that seems to have become a fairly popular thing to do with them.
  
  that's interesting, had no idea there was a "turn shit into lamps" trend, that's so funny. Thanks for sharing!
- The dad of a friend of mine does collect those, and ceramic ones. As an employee of the city, he got permission to open a local museum of insulators in a bulding owned by the city.
- I love those things
- ...where does he keep them? Make sure you wash your hands after touching them!
  
  Wait are they lead? My grandparents have some on the window sill
- Those packets are real nice sprinkled on bread rolls btw, also great in most kinds of stir fry / pan fry.
  You should know if you have any of those real puffy pink ones, they're particularly good.

My grandpa was very smart but seemingly clueless about the world. A lot of people said that he was a 12 year old in an adult body
He couldn't of possibly been Autistic...
- One way I look at historic figures for who might and might not been a high functioning autistic individual is to look at how well they may have functioned socially vs. How technical they were.
  Take William Bligh for example. He was the captain of the Bounty when the famous mutiny happened. Contrary to popular belief, he wasn't some tyrannical captain who was so monstrous that his crew were pushed beyond human dignity. He actually was milder than most captains and had unusual methods of keeping his crew in shape. For example he ordered his crew to dance on a daily basis. Why? Because for prolonged periods of time there was actually minimal activity needed on the ship, so many sailors would be lazy and get out of shape. By having them dance he was trying to keep them in shape to do their jobs when needed.
  It worked and it was practical, but it made everyone hate him. He was a highly socially inept man and the mutiny on the bounty was NOT the only mutiny or rebellion he had to deal with.
  But... as a sailor he was brilliant. He really did manage to keep his men healthier than normal, and as a navigator he was probably one of the best to have ever lived. No joke. When the crew set him adrift on a raft with the few loyal members with him. He navigated across the open pacific without a map and nonexistent tools, working only by memory and the stars that he had memorized and managed to make a trek of thousands of kilometers to the nearest safe port.
  That kind of obsession on detail is not something that comes without being somewhat on the spectrum.
  
  It was a longboat, not a raft, and he had a sextant and almanac so he could look up rise and set times for stars. He lacked charts.
  It was a remarkable feat
  
  When I think of Autistic people from history I think of Buster Keaton. Buster Keaton was known for his stone cold appearance and there is a lot of evidence that he was Autistic. I also wonder if some of the "witches" in the witch trails were actually just Autistic women.
  There are also a plenty of other "might be Autistic" historical figures but it is rather hard to actually make any conclusions especially when you start going back centuries. Everyone from Ada Lovelace to Leonardo da Vinci to Alan Turning. I honesty think there could be a link between Autism and major breakthroughs.
  One person I have never really been sure about is Hildegard of Bingen. There isn't a lot to go one but she seemed very dedicated to a few things so maybe.
  
  high functioning autistic
  I don't want to seam pedantic. Levels in autism is profoundly discriminatory.
  Profound Concerns about “Profound Autism”: Dangers of Severity Scales and Functioning Labels for Support Needs
- *couldn't have
  
  *couldn't've

real conversation:
"back when I was a kid autism didn't exist like you guys!"
"Ma... you're autistic..."

Is it Autism or just well organized?
- One doesn't require the other, but let's be honest they often travel in the same car
- If you're well organized your autistic, if not, you are ADHD. If you fall in the middle, you are both.
  I know I'm old man shouting at clouds but it seems like social media is completely focused on classifying. It seems silly. It's like Meyers Briggs personality tests.
  
  The big problem with ADHD is that every human will experience the symptoms at some point in life.
  Every ADHD meme is relatable to pretty much everyone, but they don't understand what it is for those symptoms to basically be your whole existence.
  
  Can confirm. Everything on top of my desk has a specific spot and orientation but anything additional, like important papers placed onto it will disappear from the physical nature of reality and my memory in a very short yet unknown amount of time
  I am certified both. Also this is why the term neurodiversity is so much better. Overlap is quite common.
  
  My joke in my household is that no clean flat surfaces can exist.
  My medicated ADHD ass is still plenty messy, but my non-medicated wife will put any item down in any place when she’s done with it or it’s in her way. Then it disappears from existence for an hour or a month or so. Unless it’s outside or in a room we don’t use daily… then the possible range expands a lot.
  
  And yet, despite people saying what you say, I still struggle far more than neurotypical people and they can't understand why
  I am diagnosed with both, and do relate to social media posts regarding the combination of both
- Could be both.
- This is how you can spot a non-autistic. For autistics, it's not just about having stuffs organized. It has a purpose and has a sense.
  I can see organized things from the NT point of view. But, it's not organized for me at all. The details don't match what would be organized for me. Just as an example.
  With autism in general, it's rarely about what it is visible to the NTs. It's about the invisible. Ask the autistic why and validate it. The person will be happy to explain why.

In undergrad I once went back to my dorm room and eagerly showed my roommate the video of Grace Hopper illustrating how long lengths of time are (https://youtu.be/9eyFDBPk4Yw). A little while later, he was talking about this scene and how he likes the writing, because engineers are often much more excited by something seemingly mundane, such as the various lengths of wire needed for a project, than "this is my spaceship."
Anyway, I tell him, completely seriously and with no sense of irony, "yeah, but why would anyone care about lengths of wire?"
He yelled back, "You literally came in here to show me a video about lengths of wire."

I've always loved the "lengths of wire" line. As a kid I used to check out lots of outdated library books about building a home science lab, and they consistently called a short piece of wire a "length" of wire. I don't think I ever saw that term in any other context until Futurama, so it really brought back my nerdy roots.
- I think a length of wire is more about being a vague measurement and to distinguish it from a wire coil, which is a separately useful thing in electronics.
  Calling things a length isn't indicative of being short. Terms like a length of rope and length of wire are fairly normal ways to talk about things without a strict measurement.
  
  Yes I think it's just a substitute term for "piece" of wire. But distinctly I recall "length" being commonly used in those old science books from the 40s and 50s. To me Professor Farnsworth seems cut out of that mold, the classic black and white movie scientist character.
- I'm barely 40 and calling something a length of X seems totally normal to me. Making me feel old with that grandpa talk kid.
  
  LOL I'm 70, talking about books from the 40s and 50s that my small-town library had in the 60s.
  Come to think of it I have seen length of pipe or length of tubing in modern plumbing instructions.
  
  It is normal, they're just being weird about it because social media has rotted the brains of basically every living person.

I'm too lazy to keep things organized, does that get me out of autism?
- I think that upgrades your autism to audhd.
- Nah, it just means the ADHD that often accompanied Autism is fight full force.

I was eccentric when I was seven years old. They had meetings about me.
Was diagnosed with ASD around 50 years.

God damnit. Now I'm an autistic grandpa.

Amateur. Back in the 90s i collected odds and ends because I wanted to exactly be like a Sierra online adventure game protagonist.
Also I collected coins. But I guess that was not eccentric enough to be an autistic thing?
- I had a Velcro wallet full of supplies like uhh.. some bits of thread, some zip ties, twist ties, rubber bands, stuff like that. I never did anything with that crap. I was a strange one.
  
  You were a protagonist of a 90s adventure game! You carried all manner of weird things to solve moon logic puzzles!

My grandfather had similar collections. Of anything potentially useful.
I don’t believe in his case it was primarily due to neurodivergence but rather a depression-era childhood.
Could he afford a weed whacker? Yes, but he made one from an old vacuum, even in the 80s/90s. And so on.
Their lives started in poverty and they killed Nazis and we dishonour them horribly when they are barely cold. Especially America who is going to inflict both on everyone again.
- It can be both you know
  Autistic people tend to do well in tough times. We are pretty resourceful and can make it though.

My grandfather has a collection of construction engines models perfectly aligned on shelves in the veranda.

I'm all for ragging on the boomers for the shitstorm of cruelty, greed, and ignorance they've made.
But this is just another era's assorted cables drawer. You might need to rig something 🤷
- Nothing is ever a generation's fault. There are and were good and bad among every generation. Some had luck buying into housing or business at just the right moment that value went up
  Boomers, X, and older Millennials all had more luck than younger Millennials; at least the Millennials and later had recognition of autism and ADHD.
  My autistic friends weren't diagnosed until their 40s, some had to work it out out on their own after the internet became popular
  -- a xennial
- You don't have an assorted cables drawer? I mean mine is a bucket in a cabinet but same thing really.

Having not seen the subtitle, I thought at first that this was a drawer full of rods and belts and whatever else they used to beat the autism out of kids, back in the day.

Does buckets of old nails count? Which are also next to my buckets of old screws.
I do a lot of renovating and construction, some on contract but mostly for myself, and I save so much stuff from my work ... screws, nails, nuts, bolts, washers, wire, scrap wood, scarp plywood, glass, metal, roof tile, rubber products, plastic products, unique rocks, concrete block
I'm indigenous Canadian and I grew up poor in the 80s and I was raised by parents who were born in the wilderness in the 1940s. For a while I saw my grandparents who saw everything new as wondrous and special .... my grandmother saved every plastic bag that was still good and had only been used once. My grandfather collected scrap wood of anything and cobbled them together to build boxes, utensils or just build a hunting shack. I got my habits from my dad who worked every single day and just collected stuff on his way saving everything in case he needed it .... 50% of the it made sense and he did indeed use stuff he had kept around, the other 50% meant he just kept a forever pile of stuff that rusted and deteriorated in the yard.

Which is ironic considering everyone in my extended family knows damned well grandad was autistic af and he's where half the bloody family got it from.

As the years go on, I'm more affirmed of the position that the term 'autism' is used to explain every day behaviours, but by below average IQ people. They're both cognitive spectrums, after all. But even experts of the former struggle to define it, just like the shortcomings of IQ and it's...whatever it is.
It's why more and more we hear, "Well I guess everyone's a little on the spectrum." So if it's normal, not being so is not normal.
I think, "The average person isn't below average" is synonymously more true—obviously—in context of cognitive application.
At this rate the modern, "Haha! NERD!!!" aka. "autistic" will be someone that folds washing or can't socially explain the Dunning-Kruger effect to a person that thinks it's European Ben & Jerry's, entirely missing the critique on their education in politics being from X.
My drunken point is, who the fuck doesn't like sorting wires? You ever dealt with those messy things?! Only an idiot wouldn't.
- This is so wrong it almost wrapped around and became right again.
  
  Maybe it's right but poorly articulated?
  
  I know, right?! Glad you agree.
- There are quite a few misconceptions in this comment. For example, "Well I guess everyone's a little on the spectrum." is a comment that frustrates many autistic people because it misunderstands what the "spectrum" in ASD means, and is usually said in a way that diminishes the lived reality of autistic people. I realise that you weren't making that statement, merely pointing to the existence of people who make this argument. Nonetheless, I want to emphasise that this sentiment is not representative of autism.
  I do think that with the increasing awareness of autism in the popular consciousness, there is a risk that our understanding of autism may be hampered by stereotypes. I have seen diagnosed autistic people feeling like their struggles were invalid because they didn't nearly fit into the popular conception of what an autistic person looks like. I believe that autism is probably still a useful category, in terms of helping people find the support they need to live fulfilling lives, but that we need to be mindful of how category labels can cause harm if misunderstood or misapplied.
  
  "affirmed of the position that the term is used"
  Yrp, you're underscoring one of my tangent points. I couldn't be bothered making more text in the one comment, but also figured if the comment was too long, it'd get a bunch of people jumping on me before they could manage to finish it. Alas, never avoidable. So, thanks 😁
  Oh, but also just keep in mind, those misconceptions are in quotes for a reason.
  And I see it kind of the same way as we saw OCD being diluted, just the 2020s version of that. Only the ignorant claimed to be or claimed to say one is OCD for normal behaviours to average people leaning more towward a perceived unusual particularity, such as ironing and folding clothes, for example
  But again, I'm drunk.
  
  I think classifying yourself can limit your growth potential. Just because you are autistic today doesn't mean you have to stay that way. You can change yourself, if you want. If not, that's fine too.
- ?
  I don't like sorting wires. I just give them to someone who does like them. Then I also know who to go to if I need wires.