damselflyvids

[damselflyvids]

the juxtaposition of the sentences “Die, Temu ad, die!” and “I fear day by day” is a perfect summary of what life feels like in 2025

Die temu ad die

[damselflyvids]

I think the fact that this is people’s primary example of eugenics reflects a major blind spot, and one that I shared until it was pointed out to me!

A few years ago I organized a talk by one of the foremost experts on eugenics in the US for an audience of biologists. At the end someone asked him what he saw as the primary form of modern-day eugenics, clearly expecting the answer to be something like what OP asked about here.

He started his answer by reminding us that selection and mutation are only two of the four forces of evolution, and in his view the primary form of eugenics today focuses on keeping populations “pure” by controlling a different source of genetic change: migration.

Limiting the immigration of specific groups is massively more common than other modern forms of eugenics, but is rarely recognized as part of the same project.

would you describe “screening for specific genetic diseases that you can currently screen for and preventing either 1) people who may have children with such diseases to reproduce or 2) people with said diseases from being born” as eugenics or would you prefer to have some other word for this specific phenomenon? because people keep bringing exactly this up sort of as their primary eugenics example (i mean, and similar screening for things i agree with you such screening is impossible for and probably will remain that way, such as autism). and, while i am aware that 1) and 2) are quite different things (as are, say, tay sachs and down’s), what do you think of these?

Eugenics, like many other kinds of discourse categories, doesn’t have a single universal definition, but AFAICT it tends to be concerned with like a population-level view of genetic health. I mean, it’s trying to use science to reify preexisting class and race biases, but that’s what it claims to be doing, and if we take it at its word, some genetic conditions are properly speaking totally irrelevant to eugenic concerns—for example, AIUI Down Syndrome arises as an occasional quirk of human cells dividing weirdly during meiosis, producing the rare non fatal example of one chromosome existing in three copies. There are no asymptomatic carriers of Down Syndrome, nor genetic risk factors (though there are other risk factors like parental age). AFAIK it’s not even heritable—parents with Down syndrome tend to have phenotypically normal children.

So from the perspective of population genetics and public health, Down Syndrome is just a thing that happens sometimes. It’s a random quirk of human reproduction.

In eugenics-as-historically-practiced there was however no clear distinction between real issues of public health from a genetic lens and “disabled people icky” and “minorities and poor people icky,” so eugenics advocates happily sterilized or even murdered people with non-genetic disabilities, people with genetic-but-not-heritable disabilities and health issues, and people whose only “disability” was being poor or a minority. Because whatever definition eugenics advocates might fall back on if pressed, the ideology they were really motivated by preexisted that definition and was not reliant on it. It was just a handy rhetorical tool they could use to prop it up.

Modern eugenicists and “human biodiversity” types are the same. Regardless of what they claim to believe about populations and genetics and just wanting to improve public health, what they really seem to be mad about is, e.g., black people occupying positions of respect and authority in society. So if you try to create a narrow definition of their ideology in the conservative terms they cast it when pressed, you will be continually confused when they get upset about things which their claims should be able to account for. So even though they will claim, for instance, that just because (they argue) black people have on average a lower IQ doesn’t mean there don’t exist individual highly intelligent black people, they will still get mad at any individual black person occupying a high status position on the basis that they are black and so couldn’t possibly have earned that position on their own merit.

That rhetorical concession exists only so you can’t point to any individual person as a counter example to their beliefs, but they will not actually accord such a person any respect when push comes to shove. What they really believe in is hierarchy, and maintaining that hierarchy. Everything else is conditional on that. Science is good science if it supports that hierarchy and their beliefs; it’s PC nonsense if it challenges that hierarchy and their beliefs.

[damselflyvids]

@captaincaptainfisher and many others asked if there’s anything they can do without money, and the answer is absolutely yes! real change never happens because of donations, although money is certainly helpful at times. there are so, so many more ways to keep each other alive and lay the foundations for a better world. which ones you choose will depend on what skills you have or want to build.for example, I’m good with data so I’m coordinating the massive data entry and behind-the-scenes spreadsheets for a ballot referendum that, if passed, would divest a major American city from Israel.

you’re calm and collected? you could be a great abortion clinic escort or a legal observer at protests (in my state at least, becoming an LO requires no legal background, you just take one training and then you’re ready to document police brutality).

you ride a bike? protests always need corkers to keep people safe from traffic!

you’d drive a car? out of state abortion seekers need rides.

you’re a good cook? Food Not Bombs and other mutual aid groups would love to bring you a big load of groceries every week so you can make hot meals and distribute them to the homeless! or maybe you work at a bakery and can get them leftover bread.

you were good in high school chemistry, or you’re going through menopause? you can make or get estrogen

you’re a trans woman who already has safe access to estrogen? cool, you can pretty easily lie to doctors to get prescribed testosterone for your trans brothers.

@thefloralmenace and others will have many, many more ideas, these are just some of the things I see happening in my own communities.

here’s the key: to get started, you’re going to have to show up and talk to someone. I know that’s hard for some of us. I get it, I have social anxiety! but once you show up, you’ll realize it actually feels really good to be doing something. and the more you show up, the more you will grow your network and your skills, until one day things that were unthinkable feel easy.

I’ll end with a story to show how this can work. I used to work out in the woods, so I have more first aid training than the average bear. at the first protest after Dobbs, when I knew maybe two people in my big scary new city, I went up to a medic and asked how I could do what she was doing. two years later I’ve medicked more actions than I can count and built even more connections with people I respect and love (including an unbelievably hot and sweet girlfriend, lesbians take note). I am currently organizing a training to get new folks equipped with the same skills. and after one of the latest string of natural disasters, that medic collective decided to expand into going into the areas FEMA won’t (the hollers, the poor Black communities) with community mutual aid and medical supplies. so next month I’ll be learning how to use a chainsaw to clear downed trees to prepare for another support run to Western NC, where I’ll meet and learn from even more people.

that’s how much you can change your life, just by showing up once asking how to help. no donations required.

if you're feeling powerless right now—and god knows I am—here's a reminder you can donate to the National Network of Abortion Funds, the Trans Law Center, Gaza Soup Kitchen, the Palestine Children's Relief Fund, and hundreds of other charities that will work to mitigate the damage that has been and will continue to be inflicted

life continues. we still have the capacity to do good, important work. that matters

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I don’t use this blog for personal stuff, but yesterday the gayest and most romantic thing happened to me and I just need to yell about it.

for context, I’m a butch on T dating a butch on E. we moved in the same mutual aid circles for a year or so before getting together. early on in us first hanging out alone, she shared that even a decade post-transition she’s often misgendered by strangers (to which I, playing it very cool, blurted out “that’s insane, you’re so obviously the most beautiful woman in this city! who the fuck are these idiots who can’t recognize a butch?”).

I also knew she had been wondering for a while if she should change her name to something gender-neutral, but in the last few months has been feeling more confident in being a woman so her chosen name still fits. what I didn’t know until yesterday is that that change was partially because of me!

apparently the first time we met (at a wilderness skills class I was teaching—I told you all of this was very gay) I used she/her for her without asking, and the way she felt in that moment kicked off this shift back to feeling like a woman. and now a year later we’re together 😭😭😭

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Thanks to this person for finding the study I was originally referencing, “Reports of Rape Perpetration by Newly Enlisted Male Navy Personnel” by Stephanie K. McWhorter, et al., published in Violence and Victims, Vol, 24, No. 2, 2009.

13% of participants admitted to actions which constitute rape. People can yell at me if they want for remembering a study that only looked at men and misapproximating the finding as 1 in 6 instead of 7 or 8. But the more recent studies of both men and women and sexual violence not limited to rape find much higher rates, so I think the point stands.

Anyone can perpetrate sexual violence or be a victim of it. This does not mean that you need to be afraid of strangers on the street, they are still very unlikely to harm you and your fears are going to be shaped by racism, ableism, and other biases in dangerous ways.

Americans really really need to be less paranoid and more capable of tolerating minor discomfort in public. Not everyone is a pervert/rapist/strangler/fiend. In fact, very few people are. Treating every violation of normal order as though it is a threat is why people are getting shot for turning around in a stranger's driveway. This happens within the frameworks of basically every ideology present in American culture. It is an American illness. If your vision of the world doesn't have room for saying "I'm sure it's nothing" then you really gotta work some shit out.

[damselflyvids]

For the record:

1) I’m neither a TERF or a radfem! I’m trans and so are my girlfriends, and I’m a socialist (meaning that I think the primary axes of oppression in the world are class and imperialism, not sexism).

2) I strongly agree that we need to trust strangers more, and interrogate the internalized racism and other biases that make some people feel scarier than others. I do a ton of mutual aid work, including going into homeless encampments and inviting folks into my own home.

3) I think unlearning that paranoia goes hand in hand with understanding that the real risks we face are from loved ones, and that many of our friends, family, and partners have already committed or will commit sexual violence because it is so normalized.

I have no idea why hearing a statistic putting a number on that last point suddenly made me the enemy, but it’s interesting.

Americans really really need to be less paranoid and more capable of tolerating minor discomfort in public. Not everyone is a pervert/rapist/strangler/fiend. In fact, very few people are. Treating every violation of normal order as though it is a threat is why people are getting shot for turning around in a stranger's driveway. This happens within the frameworks of basically every ideology present in American culture. It is an American illness. If your vision of the world doesn't have room for saying "I'm sure it's nothing" then you really gotta work some shit out.

[damselflyvids]

Ironically you're assuming a lot of bad intentions of a stranger here!Throughout that comment thread, which you have decided not to engage with, I and others have said repeatedly said that how strangers pose very little risk to one another, that violence overwhelmingly happens in familial and interpartner relationships, and that we should all be more trusting and prosocial. And I'm still genuinely confused about how exactly you think I'm misrepresenting the data (aside from initially referring to an older study that found a lower, before finding this newer one with a larger sample size and including women). Can you explain what you mean when you say that "of over 5000 surveyed Australian men and women between the ages of 18 and 45, 26.4% of these men admit to acts which meet our definitions of sexual violence" is "very, very different" from saying that 26.4% of people admit to committing sexual violence? Are you saying that the sample isn't representative, that their definition of sexual violence is too broad, that these rates vary significantly by region so this finding has no bearing on realities in America, or what? Another commenter shared this study as well: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS2214-109X(13)70074-3/fulltext. Do you have the same concerns there? What about the studies you found?

Do you think it's possible to talk about the rates of people who commit sexual violence without promoting paranoia about strangers? Or should we just "cut it out" entirely and shut up?

Americans really really need to be less paranoid and more capable of tolerating minor discomfort in public. Not everyone is a pervert/rapist/strangler/fiend. In fact, very few people are. Treating every violation of normal order as though it is a threat is why people are getting shot for turning around in a stranger's driveway. This happens within the frameworks of basically every ideology present in American culture. It is an American illness. If your vision of the world doesn't have room for saying "I'm sure it's nothing" then you really gotta work some shit out.

[damselflyvids]

god this is so gorgeous, I started sobbing at the end just the way I do with the movie

A Pride (2014) fanvid set to My Love by Florence + The Machine.

This premiered at VidUKon 2024. You can also find it on AO3.

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high-effort shitposting for andorversary week of @andorshitdaily

i truly don't know what this is please don't ask me any questions because i cannot answer them

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Hal Yorke - Death Wish

I kill everything I've ever loved / I will be the one to mess it up

Song: "Death Wish" by LØLØ

A Being Human UK crack vid for @platoapproved, who introduced me to the show and who thinks the later seasons don't get enough love. She summarized this vid as "he's a fucking TRAINWRECK <3"

Content warnings: Canon-typical levels of blood and death, including an on-screen suicide and the death of an infant

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From ao3: "There were so many moments in the show that were RIGHT out of documentaries I've seen, but translated in ways that felt appropriately alien. Any particular parallels for the exploding clone traps??" Oh this is the toughest one, because the clone traps are probably the most out there of any organism on the show! There are Earth creatures which camouflage themselves as members of other species to hunt them, like spiders which have evolved to physically and chemically mimic like the ants they hunt. I wouldn't be surprised if the creators were inspired by those, given how grounded everything else is in real evolutionary strategies.

But I don't think we know of anything anything that can actually *change its development* to mimic a target. The only even loose parallel I can think of is the vine Boquila trifoliolata, whose leaves grow to match those of neighboring plants.

xenobiology of Vesta

I was overcome with the need to collect some of my favorite critters.

The creators of Scavengers Reign put so much effort into creating rich and varied ecosystems. To me it shines through that they were inspired by a deep knowledge and appreciation of the diversity of life on Earth. So here's a game: you pick any creature in this video, and I will tell you at least one Earth species I think it's based on!

Music is Heartfelt Recess, by I Am Waiting for You Last Summer.

[damselflyvids]

#really neat! what do you think inspired the fuzzy brown creature that was sort of rappelling around the stalk structures by its antennae? You picked my FAVORITE! The body is clearly based on chitons, which are wonderful beasts (their nicknames include "suck-rocks" and "the wandering meatloaf"). Maybe the coolest thing about them is that they have evolved a unique kind of eye with an crystal lens, which are dotted all over their shells. Here the eyes have been replaced with some sort of fun chromatophores or photophores. The rappelling behavior is a delightful twist—if anything in nature moves that way, I can't think of it, and it sure isn't a wandering meatloaf.

I'm gonna go ahead and compile my answers to other requests I've gotten all in one place!

From over on ao3: "What do you think of the puffball creatures?" and "What do you think could have inspired the flying cones gathering rainwater?"

We don’t see anything like swarming together and forming a differentiated body like those puffballs are doing among large animals on land, but it does happen both at a small scale and in the ocean! Unicellular slime molds swarm together and form collective multi-cellular structures (nice footage here) as part of their reproduction, and in the ocean siphonophores come together into huge colonies which can work together to take on large prey like fish. Those weird little cone guys immediately made me think of desert animals and epiphytic plants whose shapes and materials have evolved to collect moisture (“passive water collection”). In terms of the shape, bromeliads are probably closest; there are also some cup-shaped fungi, but they use the force of falling raindrops to scatter packets of spores instead of catching the water. But having them fly, and catch something other than water—I think that's the creative twist! kaznata: "I like your game idea! What do you think inspired the translucent creature drinking water and filling its head, then its body with water?" and "Another one! What do you think inspired the ghost like floating/hovering white creatures?" Great picks! Weirdly out of everything in this show, I think the drinking bird is the least inspired by Earth biology. Parasites mind-controlling other animals and forcing them to harvest food for them? We have plenty of examples of that! A little bobbing drinking bird? I think it’s a joke on the old-fashioned office toy.

The ghostly white things feel very based on pelagic and sea floor invertebrates; some octopus influence, but also something gauzier, like Pelagothuria, maybe? Anybody who knows more about marine bio have ideas?

xenobiology of Vesta

I was overcome with the need to collect some of my favorite critters.

The creators of Scavengers Reign put so much effort into creating rich and varied ecosystems. To me it shines through that they were inspired by a deep knowledge and appreciation of the diversity of life on Earth. So here's a game: you pick any creature in this video, and I will tell you at least one Earth species I think it's based on!

Music is Heartfelt Recess, by I Am Waiting for You Last Summer.

[damselflyvids]

xenobiology of Vesta

I was overcome with the need to collect some of my favorite critters.

The creators of Scavengers Reign put so much effort into creating rich and varied ecosystems. To me it shines through that they were inspired by a deep knowledge and appreciation of the diversity of life on Earth. So here's a game: you pick any creature in this video, and I will tell you at least one Earth species I think it's based on!

Music is Heartfelt Recess, by I Am Waiting for You Last Summer.

[damselflyvids]

feels like the immediate followup to my Andor one!

the only way out of fascist rule is armed revolution.

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[VID] come down now, by damselfly

Sense8 begins with a suicide. Throughout the show, both the forces that want to stamp out human variation and nominal allies attempt to convince characters that their only option is to kill themselves. Many do so. But the main characters never accept this. They choose struggle, survival, and love. This is dedicated to everyone who made it through they weren't sure they could. I'm glad you're here. Fandom: Sense8 Song: "Achilles Come Down" by Gang of Youths (heavily edited for length; check out the gorgeous full version)

Warnings for graphic suicidal ideation and attempts, having to talk down someone threatening to harm themselves, and death by suicide on screen. These make up the first two thirds of the vid. There are also shorter flashes of needles, drug abuse, graphic gun violence, and bombings.

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[VID] Which side are you on? by damselfly

Fandom: Andor

Characters: Cassian Andor, residents of Ferrix

Song: "Which side are you on?” written in 1931 by labor activist Florence Reese, recorded in 1941 by The Almanac Singers

Content warnings: police brutality