#and I Am Humanities Person Cannot Do Science

[whentherewerebicycles]

i really and truly believe that there are only two genuine human superpowers, both of which can be actively cultivated:

the ability to find anything interesting, ie the ability to reframe and reflect on any situation or encounter, even/especially negative or boring ones, so as to make what is happening to you interesting, engaging, and personally meaningful to your human experience. this habit of mind is mostly curiosity but it's also woven through with psychological flexibility, especially the ability to regulate your own emotional reactions so that you can respond to challenging or tedious situations in more thoughtful and values-aligned ways that develop your sense of self instead of making you feel trapped or bored or fragmented

the ability to teach yourself new things. idk maybe as a teacher i am biased but i really believe that the single most transformative gift you can give any human being is a deep understanding of how people learn and improve at things. what is more hopeful, more inspiring, or more life-affirming than the realization that you can learn new things at any age, and that the new things you learn (plus the joyful process of learning itself!) can utterly transform the way you experience the world and understand yourself? what is more amazing or incredible than the realization that learning things is not a mysterious & passive process that happens to you but a reasonably consistent set of steps and tools that you can learn how to master and apply to virtually any skill or domain of human knowledge? the superpower of being able to learn/improve at anything you set your mind to… but also the superpower inherent in that quiet unwavering certainty that even if you feel stuck at various points in your life, you have within yourself the capacity to get unstuck through learning and changing and growing and experiencing new things. wowowowowowowow!!!!! what an extraordinary gift!!!!

[fisheito]

Super important question. Do you think Yakumo is ticklish?

wait hold on i have to look this up

[dansemacabre]

hi sorry i don’t go here anymore but i feel a lot of things about the tommyinnit video and i have a lot of bit ideas and i just. i need to make a numbered list

1. obsessed with how his go to story was always “kids in school bullied me for minecraft videos” (bad, awful, sorry this happened) and not “i specifically asked for my teachers to play my minecraft let’s plays in the middle of science”. this is soooo positive and kind and affectionate because this is both something i do now (lie abt personal stories on the internet) and something i repeatedly did as a kid (deliberately got myself into Embarrassing Situations trying to mix internet and irl. i have stories too thomas….)

2. his middle name is michael. LOSER. whos name is michael. only. losers

3. i was like “wow foolish and quackity are in here a lot” until i realized that he Cannot Show Anyone Else. 75% of dsmp clips contain at least One racist and/or convicted felon

4. this guy Cannot keep fading to black and sighing. every transition it’s another fucking fade to black. Please just cut to black please just cut please just cut please please please please

5. THE TOMMY NEG CAMEO……. suddenly it was 2021 and i was on twitter at 4am and my moot was asking me if i hated philza and cheated on my girlfriend bc a random swiftie faked messages with me to be in a joke group chat i was in that dr*am got added to but never actually joined. sorry this isn’t about me but hey that was Fucking wild

6. TOMMYINNIT HAS HAD TWO GIRLFRIENDS???? I AM 20 YEARS OLD GAY AND HOT AND HES HAD 200% MORE PLAY???????? sorry. Sorry.

7. i fuck w the djo! I am crying real human tears though

8. he found himself thru stand up comedy…….. be yourself because then you’ll get more views…………. he is so wise……. i must become the most famous man in nottingham…………..

that’s all. i don’t think half of these classify as bits. this is like a React video but on tumblr which is somehow worse than a react video. doesn’t matter. It’s all love

[pillarsalt]

hi! i was wondering your opinions on how hrt affects the body? i hold a lot of radfem beliefs but i am trans (taking testosterone). would being a woman to you have to be completely about chromosomes? for example, trans men years on T do not have the same genetic makeup as cis women. same with trans women on E, their genetic makeup would be very different to cis men, and would more correlate to cis women. does this factor in who you consider female/male or having experience as women?

Hi there, thanks for reaching out.

Firstly, I think you may be a bit confused. Taking exogenous hormones does not affect your genetic makeup. Your dna will stay the same unless you're exposed to something extreme like radiation - this is a good thing because dna mutation is bad for you and causes cancer! Your genetic sex is immutable, a person with XY chromosomes cannot have their dna altered to have XX chromosomes instead.

Hormones will affect the expression of your genes, for example turning on facial hair production in women who are taking testosterone. This is why those patterns of facial hair, even in women, differ from person to person. The genes for it were already there, but hormone replacement therapy uses the endocrine system to change what signals get sent to your genes to tell them what features to express.

Beyond chemically induced genetic expression, there are particular physical features in males that do not occur in males, and vice versa. This is a feature of the /ancient/ evolution of sexual reproduction. Despite the variety of metaphysical beliefs about identity and personhood, the truth is that humans evolved to reproduce between two sexes, and human beings cannot change sex. Every cell of your body has your sex encoded within it. This affects us physically in many ways. I and most feminists believe that this fact should be irrelevant to any person's ability to pursue their passion, be themselves, and love who they love. Even so, recognition of biological sex is something important. This is really critical in a medical context. For example: men who receive a blood transfusion from a pregnant or recently pregnant woman have an increased risk of death by transfusion-related lung injury. Another example: tracheostomy tubes differ in size depending on sex due to dimorphism in average tracheal diameter. A women who is reported as a male risks considerable injury by having a male sized tracheostomy tube forced into her windpipe. A considerable amount of medications differ in dose effectiveness and side effects based on biological sex. Something as straightforward as a heart attack has different symptoms depending on if the patient is female or male. Denial of biological sex is dangerous, and as it stands, medical science has not advanced enough to change the biological sex of an individual. If you are born male, you will stay male for your entire life. You say that a transwoman who has taken estrogen is more genetically similar to a woman, I'm sorry but that simply isn't true. A male person will always be more genetically similar to other males than to a female person.

Determination of sex is very simple, it's about the easiest genetic test to do. They have kits for high school classrooms to try out ffs. We need to leave the "meaningful sex change is possible through medical intervention" thing in the past, all we accomplish with that is giving people false hope and an unattainable goal to fixate on. Sex is real and immutable, I wish it didn't matter, but it does.

And why it matters is, maleness and femaleness have become inseparable from certain stereotypes and assigned qualities by societies in human history. Overwhelmingly, the male people subjugate the female people. Since men, male humans, discovered womens' ability to give birth could be taken advantage of, it was capitalized upon. And this is the foundation of patriarchal society. Religions were founded to justify this as the will of god. To deny that women have historically been persecuted due to their sex is, well, misogynistic. There is no "woman feeling" that makes us targets for child marriages, FGM, trafficking/prostitution, and other horrors from the minute we're born and even before. No, it's the sex we were born with that makes the world think it can decide our fate. In fact, the way that people treat male children differently from female children is so different so early, that we are genuinely unable to study human behaviour unaffected by gendered expectations. This is what feminists are talking about when they discuss "socialization". There is not a single man on the planet who knows exactly what it's like to see the world from a woman's eyes, no matter how feminine that man is. Womanhood isn't something you can achieve or acquire through effort: you were either born a woman or you weren't, just like you were either born with detached earlobes or not. It's so simple.

All that to get to my final point: Yes, I believe the definition of womanhood comes down to biology, because anything beyond that is a meaningless stereotype. Women can do anything, be anyone, look any way they want, go through any experience they do. The one thing they have in common is that they are female adult human beings. There is not way to fail at being a woman or do it wrong, you just are. Womanhood is the experience of having been a female person in this world, and nothing else. There are certain things only female human beings need, like abortion and female contraceptive rights, access to spaces where we can be safe from our subjugators (male human beings), and the ability to define ourselves and fight for our collective rights.

(At this point you may object and point out that male people who identify as trans women are also subject to violence and scorn from men: unfortunately that is often the case, but this does not make male people who identify as women, well, female. We need solutions for them that do not involve requiring women to sacrifice our comfort and safety for the sake of a particular subset of men, because of the inherent risks involved and the fact that women do not owe men anything even when those men have it bad.)

One last thing: my opinion is that prescribing exogenous cross-sex hormones is unethical (so are all elective cosmetic medical procedures but that's a post for a different day). I understand the distress that gender dysphoria inflicts on people, however the ill effects of hrt are too numerous to condone. The huge increase in risk of stroke with estrogen, heart disease and uterine atrophy with testosterone, and the way that trans medicine studies are notorious for losing followup with patients after a year or less... it's short sighted and frankly, financially motivated. The amount of trans patients who are prescribed hormones without access to an endocrinologist, it's honestly infuriating. People deserve the best care possible, not lab rat bullshit where they cut you loose when it's not working out. I won't judge anyone for what they do to themselves to cope with distress, but I want everyone, especially girls, to be aware of the lifetime effects medical decisions may have, and that you also can find happiness within yourself without hurting your body.

Thanks again for your question, be well ✌️

[jamethinks]

One type of fanfic i just cannot read is future Anya fics because they always get her wrong. And i get it this is just how future fics work but i feel it's important to remember that Anya is only the way she is currently because she is a child and to me on of the most important parts of the story is how much being adopted by Twilight changed her life and put her on the trajectory for growth that she otherwise would have been denied.

Anya is only stupid today. She is going to grow into a brilliant girl regardless of what happens. It always feels so regressive seeing her be portrayed as childish and clueless even after living with a spy and attending Eden for 10+ years.

To understand why Anya is going to become smart you have to understand why she is stupid first.

(note: i am not referring to academic intellect but rather social skills, logic, reasoning and general awareness. Whether or not Anya spends the rest of her life failing maths and writing like she's having a stroke is beyond me and completely irrelevant to my point)

One of the major issues with the computer science world is AI and Data Analytics because for decades people have been pouring time and money into developing these sophisticated computers that are able to accurately emulate the human mind and intelligence to be used in automation and data processing. They’re now left with 2 issues: Big data (so much unprocessed data that has been gathered and sat uninterpreted) and human-dependent AI (AI systems that are overly reliant on human interaction they become more of a hassle than an aid). In other words the computers are very smart but they just don’t know what to do with all the information and in the end just return garbage.

Anya has a similar dilemma. She is very capable. Her mind reading abilities enable her to gather information like no other the problem is she doesn’t actually know how to use that information in a meaningful way. Throughout the manga we see her attempting (and even succeeding) to use her powers for her own advantage. But because of her age and lack of education the ways she can use her powers are limited.

Anya shows great attention to detail and clearly has good hindsight. She’s somewhat reactive but it’s obvious she still considers what impact her actions may have in the long term, she’s always trying to make the best move she just doesn’t know that many moves and her imagination is juvenile. We regular see Anya trying to gain intel on Damian so that she can use it to get closer to him and progress on plan B.

One example is with the dogs, she thinks if Damian sees she has a dog that they will have something to talk about and hopefully he’ll want to spend more time with her. The problems comes with Anya’s thinking and it hinders her approach. Rather than view it as an opportunity to find commonality she sees at a chance to impress him, and in the end it fails because Damian sees her as just trying to brag and show off rather than trying to make a genuine connection. Anya acts this way because she’s 5 and doesn’t really know how to socialize or relate to people.

In this situation she had two important pieces of information: 1) Damian has a dog that he likes and 2) Damian struggles with making friends and thinks everyone is just trying to exploit him. It’s that second part she fumbles and ends up making Damian feel even more guarded around her. She doesn’t have the fully developed emotional intelligence to understand and relate with Damian in a way that’s actually beneficial. But the thing is she can learn.

And so when you write future fics of Anya and she’s still the same erratic braggadocios little girl you’re effectively overlooking on her best traits, her awareness. Anya isn’t stupid she just doesn’t know how to be smart and that’s what makes her act so stupid.

For me, when writing future Anya, I think of all the people in her life, their specific skills and strengths and how Anya can use those to become a better more well rounded person. Specifically, Twilight and Handler. The Handler thing is more of a hc but Twilight has shown interest in Anya beyond the mission.

One of my favourite scenes is when they’re looking out the window and he asks to try and guess which person so most likely to be a spy, she assumes it’s the person who looks the strangest but he explains that a good spy is able to blend it and stand out the least. This changes Anya’s understanding of human behavior, it teaches a good trick to going unnoticed and gives her a detail to look out for when trying to find a mole/spy. It’s a small moment but it provides a lot of information that she can use later on in her life. Although nothing like that really happens again we can assume he continues to give her little tidbits of advice and information on espionage work as well as her seeing him in action (not really in a mission but just the way he operates) will teach her how to interpret situations in a way that can actually help her.

So not only does Anya have access to a lot of information, she knows the value of the information and she’s learning how to use that information. And that’s why I’m always confused when people write her in the future and she still can’t figure out that Damian likes her. ITS NOT REALISTIC.

And I’m not saying she’s gonna become all cool and suave when she grows up. I don’t think her personality is going to change much. In fact I think she’s going to deliberately avoid changing her personality, or at least her public persona. Anya will use people’s perception of her as childish and stupid to make herself less suspicious and trustworthy. (Also I don’t think she’s gonna change that much anyways bc that’s not how people work) but when thinking for her perspective she’s gonna be more aware and observant.

This rant is gotta long and it’s kinda nonsensical so I’m gonna stop here but please stop writing Anya as a stupid adult. It’s annoying and so boring.

But in the end it’s your fanfic do what you want 🥰❤️

[avelera]

Thinking about blasphemy and Good Omens right now and I can't help but notice an interesting phenomenon around some discussions I've seen about the Second Coming and Jesus Christ being a character in S3.

Namely, I see much more underlying discomfort around the possibility of the show poking fun at the figure of Jesus Christ than I do with any other prediction discussion or discussion around religion in the show.

On the one hand, I completely understand how poking fun at the Antichrist dogma from Revelations doesn't feel particularly blasphemous, where poking fun at Jesus does. The Antichrist is a stock character of horror at this point. Many more disrespectful teams than Gaiman and Pratchett have played with that story. It's barely even considered poking fun at Christianity to have Adam, the son of Satan, be a good kid in Good Omens. But Jesus is a very important figure to Christians all over the world. There are devout Christians who truly love Jesus and no one wants to be a jerk by just outright disrespecting a figure that is dear to so many.

But on the other hand, expecting Good Omens to not make fun of Jesus is a bit absurd to me. Literally saying, "I don't think the satirical religion show is going to satirize religion because it might upset people." Gaiman hasn't shied away from messing with religion or religious bigots before. He gleefully shrugged off attacks over God being a woman, or Adam and Eve being portrayed by people of color.

The Book of Job is lampooned in Season 2. I know it doesn't feel like it to many people here, but the reinterpretation of the Book of Job in S2 definitely registers as blasphemy on some religious scales. It is satirizing a religious text after all.

Saying that angels and demons fall in love and worse, have that love be portrayed by actors of the same sex could be seen as blasphemy at the very least on the level of saying God is a woman. And by the way, it's not like these religious texts say "God is whatever you want the entity to be" or "God is a woman if that makes you happy". Hell no, the Bible is extremely damn clear on God being male. The official position of the Catholic Church is that God is male. Official Catholic dogma is incredibly anti-female in terms of inherent holiness, women cannot become priests, even nuns are dependent on a priest to deliver the Sacraments, it's a huge deal and they are not planning to change any time soon and it is totally unambiguous.

Making God explicitly female might not seem like a big deal since films like Dogma, another religious satire, did it in the 90s but to True Believes in the official doctrine, that is a form of blasphemy.

Good Omens is by definition a blasphemous work. How offensively blasphemous it is really depends on the devoutness of the viewer. And I find it interesting the extent to which there's something of a knee jerk, "Oh they won't do that!" in terms of further satirizing religion in the show about religious satire. As if Jesus hasn't been satirized in other mainstream movies before like the aforementioned Dogma or Life of Brian.

And here's the thing, my personal opinion is? Blasphemy is good! Blasphemy laws on the books mean it's ok to punish, hurt, or even kill a person for making fun of religion or just doing the religion wrong. Human progress has been frozen in place by blasphemy laws, sciences have progressed when blasphemy laws ease or often while deliberately concealing their efforts from authorities in places where blasphemy laws or laws that were otherwise based on the dominant religion exist.

If anything, I am actually a bit uncomfortable with the idea that Good Omens should hold back on lampooning a figure like Jesus Christ. If devout Christians will make laws that determine what other humans can do with their bodies based on their religion, then their religion should absolutely be open to outright mockery without punishment or ramification to anyone. Of course on an individual level I wouldn't wish to be offensive to someone sincerely religious but at the same time, I am also violently anti-censorship of any kind. And blasphemy and religious mockery are often right at the heart of censorship debates.

The world is a better place when we can openly mock religion.

I'm not going to caveat that as an opinion. Being able to openly and without fear discuss, criticize, and mock religion is an incredibly important part of any free society. The battles over this right have been vicious and bloody and are actively ongoing around the world. Just as an example, anti-blasphemy laws were on the books in Ireland until 2020, there was a huge campaign to have them removed because other countries were pointing to them as an example of why they should keep and exercise such laws.

My point is that I suppose this is something of hyperbole or alarmist or overly strident. I can understand people wanting to be decent about not openly mocking a figure of such importance to so many like Jesus. But quite honestly? I hope Good Omens does whatever it pleases with mocking Jesus. I hope they don't hold back. I hope people remember that being able to mock religion is really important, especially when representatives of that religion are actively trying to clamp down on the rights of others.

And honestly, if religious people are offended they should just not watch or they should develop a thicker skin if they expose themselves to such discourse. Religion and Christianity in particular is an active part of the public sphere. It is worthy of discussion. Public discourse often includes mockery, especially of the powerful and of powerful forces that steer the course of nations, like Christianity.

And I think it's important for Good Omens fans, who are a very progressive group, not to cherry pick and moralize over what satire or blasphemy is permitted. All satire should be permitted. All blasphemy should be permitted. The religious bigots don't care if you think God being a woman is ok but making fun of Jesus isn't. It's all the same, anything but glowing praise is criticism to some of these forces. Open discussion is far more important and yes, that includes mockery, and silly discussions in a silly show about an angel and a demon who avert the Apocalypse and fall in love.

[iamanerd1]

I have a new Spy x Family theory for you

Damian was born to be a project Apple kid, and Melinda knows.

It's been a pretty popular theory in this fandom that Donovan Desmond is somehow involved in Project Apple and the human experimentation because it would make sense from a story point of having the "main bad guy" be tied to Anya in some way. Upon further thinking about this I had the thought of why he would want to be involved in such a project. The answer came to me:

He is a power hungry warmonger. He wants a weapon he can control.

So, my theory is that Damian was born to be able to make him super-powered weapon and this theory makes sense considering Melinda's thoughts towards her son.

If we consider that Melinda is in on it, yet resents her husband and feels guilty about it, all of her spiraling thoughts can be understood.

Let's breakdown what Melinda says here considering this theory:

"If anything had happened to you I don't know how I'd..." React to it, would it be despair or relief?

"If only he died in the hijacking..." Then I would be free of this guilt that is plaguing me.

"How glad I am that he's safe." Because his death would jeopardize the plan.

"If only I weren't burdened with this child." If only this had never happened to me.

"So sweet how he puts on this brave front." How pitiful that he's still trying to maintain an image for me.

"My treasure." My sweet son.

"My curse." The guilt of what I have done and will do eats away at me.

"But in exchange you absolutely cannot let that man know I came here." You cannot let your father know that I actually care about you.

Assuming that this theory is true it makes sense why Melinda and Donovan seem to be so detached from Damian, yet still enrolled him into Eden and care about his safety. They need to maintain the image that they are a "normal family" for their status and can show that by putting Damian in a prestigious school. Additionally, they get the benefit of not having to take care of him directly by putting him in the dorms.

Why hasn't Damian already been experimented on? It seems they are waiting for the experiments to be completed or at least a little more fool proof. It's no coincidence that Anya is the only person we've seen so far with actual abilities as it's implied that the rest of the test subjects could not handle the procedure and died as a result.

This happening would also be a good juxtaposition to the Forger family. The Forgers are a family that is "fake" yet Loid and Yor would never take advantage or hurt Anya versus the "real" Desmond family that would let their son become a science experiment if it meant that Donovan could have more power.

Of course, there are missing details to this theory. We still haven't yet met Demetrius and don't know for sure that Donovan is involved in Project Apple, but I'd say this theory is a pretty safe bet.

I imagine that closer to the finale of the series we are going to have a mission where we have to go and save Damian which will involve the whole cast and lead to the conclusion of the series.

[foropinionssake]

i have a question for you, and i’m genuinely curious.

do you think womanhood should be defined by the ability to reproduce/have children rather than by living within the social role of womanhood, such as wanting to be called “she?” and for women who can’t reproduce, or who have had a hysterectomy, etc. are they still women? what about people who, in every way, have happily inhabited the role of being a man and even you would call them “he” if you didn’t know they were trans, but they could still technically give birth. is someone living fully as a man actually a woman because of one thing that their body could potentially do? is someone living fully and happily as a woman not a woman because of one thing their body cannot do?

i think these questions are good to think about, because it is just a fact that many trans women get called “woman” and “she” by strangers without a second thought, and they respond to that term and feel happy and comforted by it. throughout the whole interaction, there is no claim made about what genitals, dna, or birth-capabilities they have. you have probably had countless conversations like this too, where you were called “she” without having claimed anything about your body or anyone needing to verify. this is because the word “she” is not being used to refer to genitals etc, it is just being used to indicate that you look and act in ways that make you read to others as a woman. that is, most often, the truth being recognized.

with that in mind, it’s easier to see that, when a trans woman asks to be called she, the truth being told is “i like to be called she and seen as a woman,” not “i was born female and have the capacity to give birth and have xx chromosomes.” i have many close and dear trans friends, and none of them actually deny or disbelieve their own biology. in fact, they are painfully aware of their biology. they acknowledge the truth that certain hormones and surgeries can change some things about their body and not others, thus making it easier for them to integrate into the social role that feels natural for them. i have never heard a trans woman claim that hormones or surgery can let them give birth. all of my trans friends, are fully cognizant of the reality of their biology and the limited capacity of science.

what i see is you falling into a strawman argument, assuming that trans people believe false things about their bodies, like trans women claiming they can give birth or have xx chromosomes

it made me realize that maybe you hear the word woman and you think “birth giver, child bearer” rather than “full human person who’s body is none of my business and who chooses to inhabit the social role of womanhood.” i don’t blame you, because our patriarchal society has taught us that the former is all women are for. but as women, there are so many sexist messages we are taught that we have to unlearn. i mean, think of your own experience. wouldn’t you rather have other people see you as a whole person who has connection to womanhood, rather than just a source for babies? isn’t it more affirming to have people see your womanhood as the complex way you purposely and naturally step into the world and show up each day, rather than just a medical category that was thrust upon you at birth by a patriarchal medical system that wanted to determine who you would be? because i know what i prefer. and, in my experience, that is all trans women are asking.

anyway, i am just sending this out of curiosity, so lmk your thoughts. maybe we can have a conversation, but i won’t engage with hostility. i hope you’re having a nice day :)

Women are adult females. Men are adult males. The ability to have children has nothing to do with making someone male or female besides the fact that males biologically cannot get pregnant and birth babies. I am a woman and I’m choosing not to have children, that doesn’t make me less of a woman. The entire issue here is people are mistaking gender roles with gender. You can change your gender roles. You cannot change your gender itself. You are born with it.

[tanadrin]

AI and copyright comment:

Look, I absolutely get the argument that there might not be a strict delineation we can make between the human brain experiencing a work of art and using that as inspiration, and a machine intelligence doing linear algebra on a piece of art and experiencing it as inspiration. I am very much of the opinion that what the human brain is doing is linear algebra (albeit with a number of algorithms we have not cracked yet) and that should we be able to replicate that on a machine, it would not be less possessed of creative thought than we are.

But my response to that is simple.

If the nature of input and output of a genuine artificial intelligence is indistinguishable from what the human brain is doing, then it should in fact be indistinguishable from what the human brain is doing under the law. That is, the artificial intelligence should be the person who has legal rights to the for profit use of their work.

If it is intelligent enough and possessed of enough agency to make its own decisions as a sovereign entity, it *and not the people who taught it* has the right to treat what it creates as a function of inspiration comma and not as a transformative action not permitted by intellectual property holders (and not meeting the for profit fair use exemption criterias).

Given that we are definitely not even a little bit close to that, I think we can treat this flavor of linear algebra as more similar to the existing body of linear algebra artistic transformations out there which are very much not protected for-profit fair use transformation under law. And that there is no circumstance under which the creators of a genuinely intelligent creative process should be given rights to the fruit of its intellectual labor rather than the genuinely intelligent creative entity itself.

Right now you are proposing that it should not even be legal for a human being to do by computer something I am pretty sure one would be permitted to do by hand; see my artwork example, in another post.

We don't even have a philosophically coherent definition of a sovereign entity; trying to enshrine such a distinction in law--nevermind one that didn't instantly create full human rights for everything with a nervous system--would be an incredible undertaking.

From where I'm sitting you are making wild demands of law that even the most arcane and ambitious fields of philosophy and cognitive science cannot meet, and somehow envisioning a consistent and fairly administered system will result. I think that's insane. I think the underlying philosophical framework you're operating on is incoherent and bad, but as a matter of actual policy what you want to do is impossible. As I said in another post, I'd be curious to see a proposed statute that would ban scraping the public internet to train MMLs and not create substantial adverse effects in terms of restrictive copyright laws in other domains, because I've never seen such a proposal. If you want to make even a token argument that what you're proposing is possible, point me at an example.

[bubblegum-bros-sys]

I ended up blocking this person (and turning off reblogs on the original post cause it was annoying me and I don’t like the idea of having our face everywhere) cause while they seem to be pro-endo, they act like the DSM is the Bible and think CDDs are purely traumagenic, which isn’t true. You can be diagnosed with a CDD/be disordered and not be traumagenic. Trauma is not a requirement for CDDs, and CDDs are not trauma disorders. Claiming that is not misinformation. There are multiple professionals who have said this. CDDs don’t require trauma and plurality doesn’t require CDDs. Whether or not you have a CDD is based on how your system functions, not your origin.

Anyways they reblogged a TikTok where I basically said that in simplified terms (because systok is stupid) and they felt the need to tell me I’m wrong. Here’s what they said and my response

Now I’m not saying I can’t be wrong about this, because again, like I said, my whole main point is that the ToSD is just that, a THEORY, it cannot be solidly proven in an ethical or concrete way, therefore it’s just as possible CDDs DO only stem from trauma.

But at the end of the day, GENUINELY, how is it harmful to say that they don’t?

Because in that case, all that would mean is that most CDD systems would ALSO have C-PTSD, which they can still get treatment for, and they can still acknowledge influences their plurality the same way any other co-existing disorders and neurodivergences would. Then it ALSO doesn’t invalidate non-traumagenic systems who have CDDs.

Trying to say that I’m going against science or spreading misinformation or am “part of the problem” when LITERALLY my whole stance is “yes, CDDs are formed by trauma, no one is denying that, I’m just saying we cannot prove they are ONLY formed by trauma, and even if they are, other forms of plurality exist regardless.” Is stupid and is just adding MORE discourse and fighting where it is unnecessary.

Also, our system is a part of the pluralpunk movement. We aren’t huge fans of the medical system in general anyways. We don’t see the DSM or any kind of diagnosis for that matter as an authority over the human experience. Many professionals are still extremely misinformed and undereducated about many things, especially plurality. Which isn’t entirely on professionals, many things are under researched in general, but regardless. How many disorders get classified, diagnosed, and treated is kind of shit. None of these labels matter in the grand scheme of things anyways. But while these sorts of things are in place, disordered endogenic systems exist and are valid, and CDDs are NOT inherently trauma disorders.

[adolfusraptor1985]

The Effects of DPDR (Depersonalization Derealization) On My Alterhumanity

[Warning: 1,000+ word essay below the break]

The connection between psychological abnormalities and alterhumanity has always been a significant and undeniable experience. I believe that more studies should be conducted to explore the relationship between mental health and alterhumanity. My own alterhuman experiences are closely tied to psychological challenges, and I strongly suspect that while alterhumanity cannot be fully explained by science, there may be substantial links to certain psychological conditions that contribute to it. This short essay will focus on the impacts of and connections between my identity and experiences with dissociation.

To begin, what exactly is DPDR? DPDR stands for Depersonalization-Derealization Disorder, a dissociative disorder that lies at the lower end of the spectrum of related conditions. Dissociative amnesia is in the middle, and at the most severe end is Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID). Depersonalization involves "experiences of unreality, detachment, or being an outside observer with respect to one’s thoughts, feelings, sensations, body, or actions." Derealization is characterized by "experiences of unreality or detachment with respect to surroundings." Together, these symptoms can leave individuals feeling numb, robotic, or as though their perception of reality is distorted. They may perceive the world around them as blurry, dreamlike, lifeless, or fake.

I have not been medically diagnosed with DPDR, although I have never seen a therapist or psychiatrist. I am considering seeking a diagnosis to ease my mind and potentially receive help. My research suggests that my experiences align perfectly with the symptoms of DPDR, and the condition has only worsened over time. I’ve spent the last few years feeling increasingly detached from myself, my surroundings, and my life in general. Everything feels unreal to me, like a dream or a TV show. Nothing seems truly to exist—myself, my actions, the people around me, and their actions all seem either scripted or entirely imagined.

So, what does this have to do with my alterhumanity? How does DPDR make me identify as nonhuman? It’s actually not the disorder itself, but rather the impact of the symptoms that influences me. My primary focus here is on the depersonalization aspect of the disorder, as it directly affects my sense of self. For me, depersonalization creates a profound sense of detachment and emptiness. I don't feel connected to my body or as though it truly belongs to me. While I don't dislike my appearance—I generally think it looks nice—I can't genuinely feel it as being "me." Most of the time, my mind feels empty, particularly when reflecting on myself. I struggle with "about me" projects because I can’t identify personal interests, hobbies, or personality traits. The few things I do know about myself have emerged only after the onset of DPDR. To cope, I immerse myself in work or creative projects. I often daydream about being fictional characters I’ve created, allowing me to embody someone with a defined personality, backstory, and identity.

This detachment from myself leads me to feel nonhuman. Typically, humans have a strong sense of identity, but I don’t. Humans are generally aware of who they are and how they fit into society; I’m not. Humans retain memories that shape who they are, but I don't. How could I possibly feel human if I don’t even feel real? Because of this lack of self-awareness, my mind attempts to fill the gaps with things that feel "right" to it—a fluffy tail I should wag when I'm happy, a collar I should be wearing, a walk I should be enjoying with my owner.

One of the few things I've been able to genuinely connect with is animals. Society and human interactions can be overwhelming for my dissociated mind. Growing up with a dog, I find my identity leaning heavily toward canines, though I still lack a solid self-image. I’m comfortable identifying as a dog, as that feels natural, but I’m not comfortable identifying as human (aside from biologically). This is where derealization plays a role. Concepts involving reality—whether something is physical, psychological, conceptual, or spiritual—are difficult for me to comprehend. Since some days nothing feels real, who’s to say that I’m not actually a dog? Why should having a human body matter if it doesn’t feel like me?

In short, my dissociation detaches me from my own humanity. Does this make my entire identity a disorder? Am I not truly a dog because this is all a construct of my mind? Could this even border on clinical kynanthropy? My personal answer is no, but honestly, the answer might be "possibly." The challenge with endelic and similarly caused alterhuman identities is that it’s nearly impossible to draw the line between what’s "real" or not, and asking someone with DPDR to define these things is like asking a four-year-old to solve an algebra problem. I barely understand what reality is—but when you think deeply about it, does anyone? My belief is somewhat divided. On one hand, I recognize that much of my alterhumanity is related to a potential disorder and therefore isn’t "real." But on the other hand, it’s a deeply personal and integral part of my own reality. At the end of the day, no science or logic can disprove the concept of nonhuman identity unrelated to biology, meaning this is, at the very least, not delusion based.

[blahaj-blastin]

I am going to try and put this in as few words as possible, because my roommate and I spent an hour talking about this today; but there is truly nothing more incredible to me than human creativity.

Like, you’re telling me someone made this? You’re telling me this art came from someone’s own hand? You’re telling me this story came from someone’s mind? You’re telling me that someone as flawed and mortal and lost as me made this?

There is a beauty in math and in science, I am not here to argue that. But mathematics existed long before us. Science will exist long after us. And while the knowledge we have is a wonder, it is not ours. We did not make one and one equal two, we only learned and accepted that it did.

But our art is not universal. Our music was born through us. Our writing will die with us. And there is so much more beauty in knowing that we have made something. People have language and culture and poetry not because it was fact, but by our own whim and design.

This is something AI can never fulfill. An algorithm cannot create, it can only compile. A computer generated image has no link to us, to human emotion. To human flaw and struggle and passion.

Art is beautiful, and creation is the most powerful thing a person can do. Your stories, your art, hell, your fanfic and original characters, they exist not because of universal laws of math and physics, but because of your mind and skill; and if that isn’t the most amazing thing in the world, then what is?

[genderkoolaid]

(different person than last anon) can you give us like actual scientific papers that "nonhumans" are real and not just ppl that need a lot of psychological help? bc like while gender + sex can be very diverse and change w the individual, species is extremely specific and thats why shit like making crossbreeds is so insanely hard and they usually end up infertile bc the genes arent meant to be combined. n also the only example i can think of of any other species having "i am not the species i was born as" thoughts is that one female monkey that was raised so close w people she thought she was a person and she would refuse to breed w any of her primate species bc of it. you would call that mental illness in that monkey because she cannot be a person in a monkey body, just like someone can't be a dog or angel or horse in a human body, so why do you not consider being "nonhuman" also a mental illness?

can you please explain about alterhumanity? I don’t mean to be negative, I don’t understand… “there are only two sexes” is wrong because biology knowledge we have today actually doesn’t support that. did modern taxonomy find out something similar about humans? that’s very interesting, I don’t know a lot about it! but if you do I’d love to read that research!

So I think "there are only two sexes" isn't the best example; the comparison is more like "people can't change their gender because gender is whats in your pants"

Yes, we can look at chromosomes and hormones and sexual organs, and that stuff is related to gender. But to say "gender/sex is a construct" does not mean "chromosomes/hormones/sex organs don't exist." Its pointing out that our relationship to those things is culturally dependent (I wouldn't say "unnatural" because humans making social constructs is natural).

Similarly, we do divide up species based on reproduction and common ancestors. But "humanity" is also a construct. What it means to be human & who is defined as human can and does change depending on our culture. Not only can some people be excluded from humanity (for example, people of color and neurodivergents), but some people believe they are spiritually nonhuman (whatever that means for them). Some people who have been rejected from humanity identify as alterhuman as a way of saying "you don't want me, then I don't want you" (voidpunk is related to this although not inherently alterhuman). Some people are delusional and identify with alterhumanity as a way of coping with their delusions (and also, yes, you can be self-aware about your delusions). Some people believe in reincarnation or alternate universes or have some other spiritual belief related to being nonhuman. Some people just feel like dogs and enjoy being a dog and it doesn't matter why because they just like it.

Honestly, the monkey does sound like a monkey-version of alterhuman, because (if I can get a little anthropomorphize-y on y'all), it sounds like she did not feel apart of "monkey culture." Obviously we can't know if monkeys have a concept of monkey-hood like we do with humanity, but if they did it would not be hard to imagine how a monkey raised with humans would feel more human than monkey. But regardless... we don't need other species to have alter-species-hood for the same reason we don't need snails to crossdress for trans people to exist. Other animals probably don't have the same complex. abstract social constructs we do.

Why can't someone be a horse in a human body? For the same reason someone can't be a man in a woman's body- because "science says"? Both trans-denial and alterhuman-denial emphasizes biology over sociological investigation, which leads people to just keep shouting "but science!!!!!!!!!!" at people who are more invested in questions of culture and constructs and what it means to be [man/woman/human] in society.

(Also, I'm kind of uncomfortable with how the first ask talks about mental illness. Specifically "person believes harmless weird thing, so they must need Psychological Help for their Wrong Thoughts")

[hadesoftheladies]

"you are killing a baby"

i am killing a fetus, not an infant. an egg is not a chicken. potential is not actuality.

"you are murdering an innocent."

it doesn't matter who is innocent. a hungry lion may be innocent in wanting to eat me only because it is hungry and may not have the cognitive capacities to exercise something like restraint or conscience. that does not mean i should not defend myself from harm. it is still self-defense. all animals are expected to protect themselves first and foremost. you are just so used to the idea that women (especially mothers) are supposed to sacrifice their lives for their children in order to be good people--like they aren't human beings with self-preservation instincts.

harm equals anything that threatens the life or health of a person and pregnancy does both.

"your body was meant/designed to do this"

miscarriages are as natural as pregnancies. why do you think the placenta exists? pregnancy sickness? the female body can grow a person, yet also has resistance mechanisms for a pregnancy.

also, just because i have genes that make me a good runner doesn't mean i have to become a marathoner. like think for a second.

"what will the father think?"

women don't owe men or society themselves. i know that's very hard for you to grasp but there's no time like the present to start. there is no ethical way to make a woman a commodity or government assigned asset for reproduction or sex.

"the baby is conscious"

so is the lion in the hypothetical. also, that's debatable. also, what are your thoughts on veganism? since you care so much about the suffering of conscious beings (that is beings with selves)

"but animals aren't humans. they don't deserve the same rights as humans because of their lower cognitive capacities"

great. now apply this ethic to babies and mentally disabled people and then try to explain to me why that has to be different without mentioning how you feel or your religion. :)

"a baby has more potential than an animal."

okay, and why does that potential automatically mean better or more valuable? higher cognitive capacities haven't stopped wars and mass murders have they? (and i would argue that bringing a child into a violent world increases their chance of becoming unhealthy or complicit persons, so you can almost know what the character of your child will be like for certain based on where you're raising them).

"a baby has a soul"

there are two kinds of dualisms within christianity: thomistic and cartesian. cartesian dualism has gone out of fashion even amongst christian theologians and philosophers.

Substance dualism, or Cartesian dualism, most famously defended by René Descartes, argues that there are two kinds of foundation: mental and physical. Descartes states that the mental can exist outside of the body, and the body cannot think.

'Thomistic substance dualism' (TSD) centers around two beliefs: 1) the rational soul is an immaterial substance, and 2) this immaterial substance is the human person.

aside from the fact that both of these philosophies are rife with problems, I think thomistic dualism is the stronger of the two. the rational soul is, in a way, a word for the self.

regardless, both of these describe a self as a soul. so i'm just going to define a self.

The psychology of self is the study of either the cognitive and affective representation of one's identity or the subject of experience. The earliest formulation of the self in modern psychology forms the distinction between two elements I and me. The self as I, is the subjective knower. While, the self as Me, is the subject that is known.

a self is a centralized consciousness with their own memories, introspection and reflections. we know through neuroscience, psychology, behavioural science and sociology that a person or self is formed via experiences (where memories and impressions are gathered, how people learn), language and socialization (economy, history, family, culture) and possibly some genetic expressions (although i think this is more about capacity than actualization).

this is why things like dementia or alzheimer's are so scary and difficult. when a person loses memories, they lose aspects of themselves. when a person changes their environment, they also become different people (even while maintaining some similarities with their past selves).

this is mirrored in popular media, characters that lose their memories lose versions of themselves. this is also why, when you look at stories that feature a multiverse, the same character becomes a different person in different lives. in short, you are not born a person. you become one, and although your self remains singular and centralized (even with age), that self still changes. both the self and the people around the self create the self.

this is also why socially isolated individuals devolve and become mindless or sick (and even have reduced lifespan). certain higher human capacities like "conscience" or "empathy" can be socialized out of a human being, as well. i'd even go so far as to say that children begin conceptualizing themselves as individuals only when they begin to sense the presence of other human beings. they cannot conceptualize their own identity without the presence of other people. they probably don't know they are a self until they recognize other people and then realize they themselves are also people, and people are individuals.

legally a person is:

. . . an entity that the law recognises as having its own distinct personality. This usually means one that is able to act in its own right, and capable of possessing legal rights and liabilities, including individuals (or "natural persons") and corporate organisations.

my point is, how can a fetus with virtually no experiences (which born animals have), no language or skill (learned) to introspect or reflect (or abstract), possibly have a self? when they are not exposed to the outside world? certainly they have the capacity to develop a self, but as established earlier on, potential is not actuality. so legally and psychologically, a fetus is very likely not a person.

but we do not need this to be true to justify abortion regardless, because an innocent person is still causing harm, whether directly or indirectly. so the woman/girl has every right to resist.

[destinysbounty]

Ok how do u explain Lloyds hair color. Bc I'm pretty sure blonde hair isn't a dominant gene, and both of Lloyds parents have brown hair. Did he bleach it??? How??? Where would he get those resources he's like 8 in S1 and also homeless. Actually on that note what color do u think the FSM's hair was. Because ONE of the siblings has a different one than him. I've always thought the FSM's hair was blonde, bc when it greys out it's so pale, and also because angst in the way of Garmadon being different from his family from the start, but like. How would Garm have gotten the brown hair. Do they have a mom or did the FSM perform mitosis???? AND ALSO Garmadon's hair whites out and doesn't grey out despite him being a brunette (and later having black hair but that's bc of the Venom Influence) so. What's up with that. Also why does Wu's hair go white so early we know he was born with blonde hair. And why doesn't it apply to Lloyd too. What's happening. Where am I.

Right off the bat, lets dispel a common genetics misconception. Yes, its true that when a dominant and recessive gene get paired up, the dominant gene will be presented. You're also correct that blonde is recessive and brown is dominant. However! Like all things in biology, its a bit more complicated than that.

To simplify a surprisingly complicated science to the best of my ability, think of it like this. Although you will typically present based on whatever is the most dominant genes you inherited, you are still a carrier of sorts for the recessive genes. So Garmadon has brown hair, but his father and brother are both blonde, which means he has the potential to be a carrier for the blonde gene.

Then there's Misako, who is also a brunette. We don't know what her parents looked like, but lets say one of them was blonde. Even if she presents as brunette, she could still carry the recessive blonde gene.

When both parents are carriers for the same recessive gene, there's generally gonna be a 1 in 4 chance of their child presenting recessive rather than dominant. So, if we assume one of Misako's ancestors was blonde, then Lloyd being blonde is entirely likely.

This is a depressingly oversimplified summary of the situation, but I'm too lazy to get into the nitty grittys. Feel free to look up 'punnett squares' if you wanna learn more!

You do present a fascinating question, though: where did Garmadon get his brown hair?

Scientifically, the only explanation I can think of would be if Wu and Garm had a birth-mother of some kind. But i personally don't like that explanation because it just makes canon way more complicated than it needs to be. Tangentially, I'm also an "FSM Asexually Reproduced" truther all the way. I refuse to consider the possibility of the FSM having procreated with another person. That man either laid an egg or did some kinda mitosis shenanigan and you absolutely cannot convince me otherwise.

Luckily, we have the luxury of considering nonscientific alternatives.

To understand a more magic- and lore-based approach to the question of the hair colors present int his family, let's first take a look at the family tree:

FSM - blonde (as far as we can guess, at least). Half-dragon, half-oni. Also has godly powers of Creation and Destruction.

Garmadon - brunette. Has inherited the powers of Destruction.

Wu - blonde. Has inherited powers of Creation.

Lloyd - blonde. Has inherited a power very similar to the FSM, in that it's Creation-adjacent (listen, if you have a better way to describe Green fucking Energy, then by all means correct me).

Do you see where I'm going with this? Within the context of the FSM and his bloodline, it would not be entirely unreasonable to assume that blonde hair is in some way affiliated with the draconic half of their bloodline, whereas brown hair is more so affiliated with the oni half of their bloodline. So an individual's hair color may not necessarily be determined solely by standard genetics like a normal human would, but rather by which part of their bloodline they take after more strongly.

In this interpretation, Lloyd being blonde can be seen as a visual shorthand to represent how he has taken more so after his uncle/grandfather in terms of powerset and moral alignment.

Personally, I think both of these explanations are equally valid. That being said, it should be noted that a lot of this discussion operates on the assumption that Ninjagian genetics work in any way similar to ours. For all we know, blonde could be the in-universe dominant trait and brown could be recessive. The possibilities are endless.

I mean, c'mon. It's a fantasy story where the world was created by spinning around really fast. Lloyd canonically has shapeshifting powers, for crying out loud. I feel like him being blonde is completely within the realm of possibility, even without the scientific explanation. I feel like holding this series to any standard of scientific fidelity is just downright silly.

Anyway, thanks for the ask! Hope those answers were to your liking <3

[moon-mage]

heaves a heavy sigh because fucking crap I am in LOVE Okay so. This was not meant to even go this far but here I am. Absolutely far gone. My INITIAL plan was to try to come up with a big bad villain to write a TWST fanfic about because I love taking all my favorite characters...throwing them in hell...and then orchestrating the drama and chaos while going: "why would anyone do this to these poor innocent peoples?" and "hahaha this is SO fun their suffering fuels me!".

One of my all-time favorite movies growing up was Anastasia. The 1997 animated Don Bluth film. So, I was like "oh boy what if I did a twist on that version of Rasputin?" Which holds promise considering he is a powerful lich sorcerer coded in death, ghosts, limbo...all my favorite tropes that I cannot get enough of. But Rasputin aint shit without his sassy bat familiar, Bartok. Their dynamic is interesting considering Bartok spends the entire movie telling Rasputin to get a life and stop trying to kill Anastasia. So, I thought on twisted Bartok more and....it just...it hasn't stopped. It hasn't stopped.

Now we got Sashmir Magnifico. The twisted version of Bartok AND Anastasia. Originally, he was just going to be twisted Bartok, but I ended up adding in elements of Anastasia to him as well and I liked it.

Sashmir is a bat beastman and a lot of people assume he is an albino bat, but his lack of pigmentation is a side effect of his Unique Magic; "Together In Spirit". He doesn't go further into details about it other than 'the adults around him growing up were not knowledgeable of magic and forced him to use his magic for the benefit of others without thought of the consequences on him'. Only a few people know his UM and its capabilities, and he wants to keep it that way. The incantation for his UM is: "I am the key...that unlocks your potential...I promise we shall stay...TOGETHER IN SPIRIT." Sashmir is a 2nd year student at Night Raven College in Ignihyde dorm. He is interested in biology and the combined use of magic and science for enhancing and healing the human(oid) body and mind. He also has a passion for music, having learned how to play most instruments to a passable degree and he taught himself how to write sheet music. He does so with popular songs and makes them available to the public while recording himself playing them online. He loves teaching...and tutors for free on Monday and Wednesdays at 12AM in the Ignihyde dorm lounge. He had hoped to one day become a music teacher but decides the more practical route would be to continue magical medical sciences. He doesn't like shoes and has lost his shoes when taking them off and leaving them places. One of the first time of magics he had learned was levitating as it felt natural for him to not be on the ground all the time. Personality wise, he is rather chill and easy going. He speaks in a Romanian accent and isn't afraid to clap back with the sass or defend himself if challenged. Sadly, Sashmir is under the thumb of a powerful and dangerous sorcerer...and the days are numbered until his master makes his grand appearance and destroys the "peace" of NRC. All according to plan and...all that evil jazz. I have a LOT MORE THINGS TO SAY but I will make a post specifically for his info dump I guess. I'm sorry I love this boy... Also you see the candy and coffin...if you know...you know.