a silly little guy

In middle school biology, we did an experiment. We were given yams, which we would sprout in cups of water. We then had to make hypotheses about how the yams would grow, based on descriptions of yam plants in our books, and make notes of our observations as they grew.

Here’s what was supposed to happen: we were supposed to see that the actual growth of the plant did not resemble our hypotheses. We were then supposed to figure out that these were, in fact, sweet potatoes.

What actually happened was that every single student in every single class lied in their notes so that their observations perfectly matched their hypotheses. See, everyone assumed the mismatch meant they had done something wrong in the process of growing the plant or that they had misunderstood the dichotomous key or the plant identification terminology. And, thanks to the wonders of a public school education, everyone assumed the wrong results would get us a failing grade. We were trying to pass. We didn’t want to get bitched out by the teacher. Curiosity, learning, science - that had nothing to do with why we were sitting in that classroom. So we all lied.

The teacher was furious. She tried to fail every student, but the administration stepped in and told her she wasn’t allowed to because a 100% fail rate is recognized as a failure of the teacher, not the class. It wasn’t even her fault, really, though her being a notorious hard-ass didn’t help. It was a failure of the entire educational system.

Lied and said he was non-verbal

Lied and said he was incapable of communication

Lied and said he had not gotten the surgery of his own accord

Lied and said his "guardians decided [he] was trans"

Got MGT to call a procedure done on a consenting adult "criminal" just because he had cerebral palsy

Mass reported his video and his account, which he ran, until facebook terminated his account for "child exploitation" despite it being his account, him being an adult, and him not being exploited

Ableism and transphobia are inseperable. Just like ableism was used to prop up bigotry throughout history, now it is being used to deny transgender people bodily autonomy the same way it is used to deny disabled people bodily autonomy. It's not a coincidence that so much of the rights transphobic rhetoric is focused on labelling us as "mentally ill". They don't think any disabled people, let alone mentally ill people should have independence or liberation.

Other materials at the time, namely clay, would absorb flavors and germs meaning that if you ate beef off a clay plate your next meal with that plate could have beef flavor and microbes common on cow meat on it.  That would leak out seemingly at random no less.  Heck imagine a sick person coughing into their soup bowl and then months later their germs hiding in the clay would pop out to infect whole new people.

Also the earliest human use of glass we know of is for its sharpness.  Pre-historic people would use volcanic glass as sharp knives for food preparation.  Also beads.  Pretty much any new substance humans get their hands on for most of our history we immediately try to make into beads.

Isopod

x x x x x x x x x Stimboard for the color blue For 💬 anon~ Hope you like the choices :)

so much cheap generic medication. reverse engineering compounds would be even more financially profitable.

fewer people dead of vaccine preventable illnesses in the global south bc the greatest barrier to distributing some vaccines like hpv is their ip

plant seeds and grafts that come from the plants instead of licensing them. don't invest so much in preventing cross contamination. more localised experimental breeding.

library of the world: every book and journal article in the world could be digitised and be searchable for every person in the world to read regardless of where they live. cheap reprint runs and local translations everywhere.

an online interface where every citation could actually lead to the text in question

freedom from the hell that is DRM software

everytime someone reverse engineered your shitty proprietary software we would all be freed from it instead of them getting DMCA'd

so much hardware would be opened up & therefore made so much cooler.

so many more songs that riff off and sample and interpolate shit from this decade instead of like 70 years ago and more analysis of music that didn't keep getting nuked off the internet

preserving movies and tv shows and games as long as someone, somewhere has the desire to host them

just go publish your fanfic/art/vid as is instead of all us pretending it isn't fanwork or begging the corporation for mercy / licensing

Just wanted to bring to your attention that the term whump was actually coined by the Stargate fandom specifically to describe making this guy suffer. He is the original Mr. Whump (no that's not his actual name). That's how torturable this guy is.

Everyone say mean things about him.

Here is a non exhaustive list of what he goes through in canon btw:

His parents get crushed to death right in front of him when he is a kid

He is forced to relive the memory of his parents death countless times

He dies and gets resurrected

His wife gets possessed

He fails to save her and she dies in his arms

He dies and gets resurrected again

He gets infected by a virus that makes him act crazy and gets put in an insane asylum

He dies and gets resurrected again

His ex gets possessed

He is exposed to a lethal dose of radiation

He dies and ascends to a higher plane, then gets kicked out of the higher plane and his memory is wiped

He gets kidnapped by a princess

He gets kidnapped by a fish alien

He gets kidnapped and tortured by some terrorists

He gets kidnapped and tortured by another alien

He is driven to insanity by an alien device

He dies and gets resurrected again

i find so much therapy talk aimed at humans has too much flowery abstract prose about mindfulness or whatever but for myself I really prefer an approach focused on hard science and what biochemical processes are responsible for me feeling this way, especially anxiety. Also why i prefer listening to lectures given by psychologists or counselors made for other fellow psychs and counselors.

But yeah I feel like there’s lessons anxious humans can take home from anxious dogs

reactiveness is usually the product of fear and unconfidence

when something becomes too overwhelming slow down, add more distance

every time you practice an avoidant behaviour it gets more ingrained and will take more effort to beak the habit once it has been well established.

try refocusing on something else when you feel yourself starting to get worked up over something

progress is slow and if you think you can fix things overnight you are setting yourself up for disappointment

don’t only correct mistakes, actively give praise as well