Notices by myrmepropagandist (futurebird@sauropods.win), page 22

Maybe we need to make some space to have conversations about the way that rigid gender expectations can hurt people. I'm not talking about trans people, exclusively (in fact the trans people I know are among the most sophisticated when it comes to processing these kinds of events and emotions)

No, where I see a lot of unprocessed trauma flailing around putting everyone in a bad way is from cis people who have unexamined psychological harm due to their failure to conform to some gender norm. 1/

I'm speaking from some experience. Failing to be feminine correctly used to freak me out.

Just as an example: like most humans I have hairs on my chin, discovering these hairs as a teen filled me with fear and revulsion that had little to do with anything rational. That was because I'd experienced the way that kids could isolate and jeer at someone who didn't do gender correctly.

And I had no idea what might trigger that kind of bullying and ostracization. 2/

I fully expected one of the more extroverted and popular girls to notice these tiny little hairs on my chin, and whip up her followers into a chorus of jeering that would never end.

I assumed that such an event would have no recourse from adults. No, it'd be deserved.

So, I spent hours with tweezers fighting the hairs.

It's almost funny... but really it's not something that should have happened, it was a sign of greater things that are broken.

3/

For one thing: bullying isn't a "normal healthy part of growing up" It's not normal to get bullied, it's not normal to be a bully. It's not something that ought to be common, it's preventable, avoidable nearly always.

And there is no value, nothing learned in kids bullying each other. It's just a failure to teach and support mutual respect.

But when many people feel like they could be ostracized, rejected from the tribe, unpersoned over any random little thing that failure is massive. 4/

And there are a lot of adults with a kind of buried terror of having their gender questioned.

Obviously such fearful people are also vulnerable to being made into bullies themselves.

Without reflection we assume our secret fears are universal. No one cares about the little hairs on your chin. And even if they did? It doesn't really matter. 5/5

Have you ever gotten a crush on someone just by reading about something they did?

Everything is not fake. Some things are real.

Everything is not a lie. Some things are true.

"They" don't always lie, some of them lie some of the time, others lie most of the time, and a few lie infrequently and are sincerely distressed when in error.

Refrains of "it's all lies" & "everything is fake" on facebook were one of the most disturbing things about the place. It's not like people don't know something is broken. They see it, but some seem to think it's everything.

@ryanhoulihan

OK me too.

There is a really crazy paper where they did the "mirror dot" test for self recognition on ants. BUT. It's in the "Journal of Science" which isn't "Science" ... and it's odd to have an insect paper not in an insect journal.

And this is their webpage:

https://www.journalofscience.net

Listen I just want this paper to be real, but it's kind of out there and the journal IDK.

Here is the paper. It was widely discussed ... on reddit for a long time I didn't think it was real.

Ants are painted with dots that match their exoskeletons, some are painted with blue dots. The ants are observed interacting with a mirror.

I've seen this experiment mentioned as a reason why calling the mirror dot test a "test for self awareness" is flawed: a lot of people really don't like this result.

Still, the journal gives me pause. What do you think?

https://www.journalofscience.net/showpdf/MjY4a2FsYWkxNDc4NTIzNjk=

The other reason I'm skeptical is ants have very poor vision with a few notable exceptions. I don't know if ant would react to a mirror at all. I will try this with "the girls" later today and see what happens. Will post about this again.

Are Humans Self-Aware?

Ants have often tested humans for self awareness. They placed objects in our homes and were shocked we didn't cover them in sand.

"Although humans build interesting nests & show signs of cooperation, can they really have rich inner lives like ants? Unlikely."

They laid pheromone trails & we ignored them.

"Even a newly eclosed callow or a termite could have followed these trails! Human intelligence is perhaps similar to that of a lichen... or perhaps an aphid at best."

@meena @VirginiaHolloway @AustinB @EverydayMoggie

Farming nuts requires a lot of water. Especially almonds. Total environmental disaster. Not as bad as beef, but worse than chickens, or most other plants.

But since almonds can kill me I'm kind of biased against them so finding out they are causing water shortages too ... yeah. Not impressed.

@AustinB @meena @VirginiaHolloway @EverydayMoggie

Raising chicken for eggs and meat can be an integrated part of a farm ecosystem. Factory farms are cruel and use mass produced grain... but even then the grain isn't being grown in a desert using scarce water...

Almonds are kind of a mess as they are produced en mass in CA... and this is down to poor choices in water regulation. Why is scarce water being used to manufacture what is effectively a luxury good? "farming" is a loophole here IMO

@teddy @AustinB @meena @VirginiaHolloway @EverydayMoggie

When I first learned how the Colorado River was totally used up by the time it reached its former delta I was horrified. This guy I know said "but all that fresh water just ends up in the ocean wasted" I was floored by this statement. Horrified all over again.

We have done things to nature out there whose violence goes unrecognized because too many people don't think deserts are "nature"... or they see rivers water tanks.

This "Allergy Guide" trend needs to DIE. Or it's going to make *me* die. Increasingly restaurants will NOT show an ingredients list, but instead a simplified chart made for babies that only list the "big five" allergens.

As someone with an anaphylactic reaction to sunflower oil and flax which are NOT big five this is useless to me. So I just can't know if your food will kill me or not. So I don't buy it.

The number of places where I can eat keeps shrinking.

(sesame isn't even on their guide)

There is a bad bad bad baby hurricane in the Atlantic and the water is very warm. No word on where this kid is going. They've named him "Beryl" which sounds too much like "Barrel" and I think that is a bad omen. Bad name.

Anyways. Maybe keep an eye on the weather and if you live on an island or a coast think about what you might need to do. Eg. order your meds and stuff.

Not a coincidence public archives are disappearing at the same time unpolluted training data for LLMs & other content generation systems have become valuable. (even as we are told they have no value, so no one should get paid)

This is very ugly and we need to have a real conversation about preserving human history, expanding and archiving the body of human knowledge, attribution, and royalties.

Our leadership is too craven and not educated enough in these matters to do it.

How do the rest of you with cats keep them off of the internet?

@tenzochris

I love it... (and, of course, I'm thinking about the ant-themed version.)

Here is a good ant pose:

(Cataglyphis hispanica)