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something that should be taken with a grain of salt are the statistics talking about the high rates of mental illness + neurodivergence among trans people (ocd, bpd, adhd, autism, etc)

I see both sides of the political spectrum taking these studies at face value - conservatives say we're broken, and trans people try to come up with reasons why for example autism + gender dysphoria makes sense and why one of them feeds into another

at the end of the day you have to remember that we're the one category of people on this planet who are legally required to go see a psychiatrist in order to receive non-psychiatric medication and surgeries.

more trans people are in therapy by law than any other demographic of people, and as a result, this captures more comorbidities.

if I had to look at my own family & rates of mental illness?

mom, dad, 2 maternal aunts, maternal grandmother, paternal grandmother, sister, sibling, and me all have OCD.

7/9 of them are cishet, never been to therapy, never diagnosed. 2/9 are trans, required therapy for hormone treatment, and were diagnosed.

you don't have to do any math to just see that the resulting statistics end up intensely skewed.

and we can think back to how autism was virtually never diagnosed more than 50 years ago - ruling out any grandparents being included in statistics - and even my parents' generation (they're in their 60s now) wouldn't have been included either.

I don't think it's to anyone's benefit to accept these studies uncritically. a lot of these things are hereditary and far more prevalent in the overall population than people realize

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my favorite video of all time ever

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Posting this essay I wrote separately on here so that it's not just tagged onto an already popular post. I'm responding to this specific comic and post. It's about common sense.

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to be honest with you most of the people reblogging this (the comic in question) will have an invisible dividing line between what they think is unacceptable normality and what is the "true" acceptable normality for queer people, where "the statement of the 4th panel is absolutely untrue *except* for these exceptions to the rule" and a large percentage of those people will still apply the christian moral metric of goodness and of sin to those behaviors rather than a materialist perspective where behaviors are understood within an individuals wider context (how these behaviors have been shaped by family, friends, society, how these things have shaped mental health, how mental health shapes behaviors, how the individual reinforces their own behaviors through their own interpretation of their own condition, how all of these things shape how the individual interprets concepts like family, friends, society, mental health, etc.).

there always seems to be a disconnect between the concepts "bad behaviors are always wrong" and "pathologizing people is wrong" to the material conditions of the material world, where these are merely philosophical interpretations of material conditions (though their consequences can be very real for individuals or groups of people), more often than not themselves having been born from deeply religious societies and interpreted from institutions that were developed from already racist, sexist, ableist societies (psychiatry as a practice). not to suggest an inherent power of the concept over the individual, as this itself is just an interpretation of material conditions, but a critique of the ability of the individual as some kind of ubermensch meant to inherently make the "right choices" and rise above all of these material conditions, and that any person failing to do so is a "bad" person.

I think what makes the "Christian Moral Fascism" what it is is less due to the pressure it exudes towards individuals in the hopes of conditioning their behavior to match that of larger society, but that it supposes the individual is meant to rise above their material conditions completely in order to guarantee their place in heaven. Any given grouping of individuals with a particular philosophical framework that has not developed a state that is in complete service to that philosophy, where the state creates and either constructively and/or violently maintains a social system designed to conform individuals to its standard of morality, will place the onus of conformity onto the individual.

In the US, Project 2025 obsesses over the sanctity of the family because the intent is for the family to "return" to its position as a department of conformity, a microcosm of reality where women and children live in service to patriarchy. The US state's historical racist christian moral background suggests that the US collectively has been trying to evolve out of this framework of conformity, though due to differing interpretations of various moral and natural philosophers of the era in which the founding documents of the US were written, in addition to the US as an emerging dominant force of capitalism and it's population of slaves and immigrants, as well as its development alongside several industrial revolutions that allowed for ever faster transfers of an increasing pool of information, have made it difficult for the state to act as this apparatus for strict conformity, thus allowing for many differing moral interpretations of the world to develop, albeit most of them adopting some level of moral conformity to that which the state apparatus (education, etc), the "popular" image of the family, and pop culture help defined for them. These things, of course, shape and maintain each other.

A state is only as strong as its material conditions allow it to be, and it can easily be argued that no state on earth, now or in the future, can successfully enforce a complete moral conformity of all its citizens. Project 2025 intends to attempt this by, again, recentering the family as the mode in which social conformity will be administered, but it is doomed to fail in its aims, as reactionary social theory tends to get caught up in its own contradictions and delusions of grandeur. 1984 is easily the most famous example of the phenomenon of the fear of a state apparatus that has complete moral control over its population, and anarchist thought seems to be built heavily around this fear. The concept of the preturnaturally powerful state has, itself, been subsumed into popular culture at various levels and at verious points in history, and has been disseminated and reinterpreted countless times, formulating into new philosophies (US Libertarianism, for one).

The idea of a conformist culture as inherently fascist leads itself to a particular understanding of the state, or if I can be a little opinionated in my long ass tumblr essay, a liberal-developed anarchist understanding of the state: education has often historically been taught, as exampled by the University of Jena and its adoption of Kantian Thought, as something that follows a preexisting philosophical framework. "If we teach things in this order, from these perspectives, within this schedule, X will develop in the students." Schools themselves have predominantly been used as modes of moral conformity, through shaming, physical punishment, and isolation. Lenin interpreted the writing of Marx and Engels to mean that the ideal socialist state would exist as a method of oppression against the bourgeoisie class, in order to suppress the old heirarchy of power and philosophy in order to develop the new, communist society of the future.

Fascism is an evolving concept, developing alongside Marxist thought but always in a disorganized manner, not dissimilar to Anarchist theory. It can be interpreted as the extreme application of the more regressive, conformist aspects of an existing culture, compiled into one large, violent attempt to stop the march of human progress in regards to social, economic, and moral development. It has been used to describe the application of colonialist imperialism by the state onto its own citizens, though I think this still limits the scope of what that would mean, as what is defined as a "citizen" under a state changes shape when that state shifts over to fascism, and what is defined as a "citizen" often changes shape both de jure and de facto all the time under states that are not popularly defined as fascist.  Fascism can also be used to describe microcosmic manifestions (physical discipline in schools, the banning of books of evolution, certain individuals being passed for promotion because of the color of their skin or the presentation of their gender, etc.). To me Fascism is less of an easily identifiable phenomenon (at least if I stick to trying to write about all of this within the confines of a tumblr essay) and more of a thing that is intertwined in nearly all culture, and is present in nearly all states. This is not to suggest that all states are evil because they are fascist, or that to eliminate the state altogether would somehow eliminate fascism (sorry to my followers with anarcho- in their user handles), but that the philosophy of the state must be aware and critical of its own fascist tendencies in order to successfully administer itself as something legitimately separate from fascism. In Marxist theory, good Marxist theory anyway, the state is intended to wither away, dissolve essentially, upon the complete distruction of class difference (thus bringing about a communist society). I do not believe the state will successfully do this unless it can be aware and critical of its own fascist tendencies. But I digress. (I've always wanted to say "but I digress.!!!)

What makes the above comic work (this is, in spite of its length and in spite of me sort of actively figuring out what I want out of this essay as I write it, not a total condemnation of the comic) is that, ultimately, there is no common sense. Common sense is a manufactured entity,  not necessarily intentionally, but it is an individuals interpretation of the unspoken or alluded to "rules" of a wider culture, which is itself a collective interpretation by many individuals attempting to interpret either intentionally or unintentionally (or the near infinite processes of human behavior that exist within those two extremes) a set of rules for life (a philosophy). Because western hegomonic power is the current, dominant hegemonic power (though this is, hopefully, waning, evidenced by the Trump administration gaining power a second time(one last big hurrah for western fascism!)), and because western hegemony has to define itself as something quantifiable, and because that manifests itself as the direct descendant of "Greek thought compounded by Roman application (the father), helmed by ancient Israelite moral philosophy "perfected" into Christian mythology (the mother)" - common sense, within a western hegemonic context, becomes a strange bastardization of Christian morality.

Hell, even marxist theory falls victim to this line of thinking. Stalin's description of the development of history presupposes that each new stage of humanity is a direct evolution of a past stage (a development from the simple to the complex) - which draws from the same base that was used to determine that Christianity is the "perfected" evolution of Judaism, and Judeo-Christian thought is the "evolution" of religion in general and thus the "most correct" development in human culture, with the effects of this racist ideology being seen today with the latest genocide against the Palestinian people. The search for "the first religion" and western fixations on the concept of animism as a primitive cultural form (and thus non-complex, simple) arise from this basis.

This has been the historical justification for western hegemony as a whole, even beyond a religious perspective. The concept of Moscow as "the third Rome" following Rome and the Holy Roman Empire, is an idea that materializes in Russian pop culture from time to time, even appearing in Sergei Eisenstein's unfinished epic, Ivan The Terrible (1945).

Marx himself failed to fully contradict this theory of Christianity being a higher evolution of western culture compared to Judaism when composing his (pretty good until the final stretch where it gets embarassing imo) essay, On The Jewish Question, by giving the target of his critique, Bruno Bauer, credit by shifting the focus away from the religious Judaism to the "practical, worldly" Judaism, suggesting that Jewish practical thought (the application of moral philosophy towards affecting the material world as opposed to the application of moral philosophy for the sake of gaining a seat in heaven) has corrupted Christian society via its "hucksterism" and is thus the element of western society that needs to be abolished in order for human progress to develop further. Bauer suggests that Christianity can be defined as "the development" towards perfecting Judaism, that in order to achieve full emancipation from religion, Jewish people must not only break with Judaism but with the more developed Christianity, whereas Christians, having supposedly achieved the higher state of cultural development between the two, only have to break with Christianity in order to enter "the next phase" of human history. Again, Marx doesn't question the fundamental framework of this argument but shifts it towards a "materialist" perspective concerning Judaism as a material practice and the material conditions created by the application of its philosophy. He acknowledges the potential for Judaism to have evolved over time, but only in the practical sense. He argues that Judaism is limited in its scope because its morality is tied directly to material desire, and since material desire is easily fulfilled, it cannot develop on a theoretical basis (this he reserves for Christianity) but only on a practical basis. Marx fails to understand that he is limited by his own understanding of Judaism and his own biases concerning the development of human culture. This doesn't mean that his other theories should be discounted, a lot of marxists are already aware of the fact that he too, is a product of the context within which he existed. On The Jewish Question is useful because of its application of his materialist theory, as a means of identifying the development of ideas within society, how they shape society, how they are developed out of material conditions and subsequently shaped by conditions, and how the liberal secular state presupposes religion and abstracts individuals from it without abolishing religion, but it is much less useful in terms of where the problems of an abstraction from religion manifest from (Jewish culture being the root cause of capitalism, "Money is the jealous god of Israel..."). Thus, dialectical and historical materialism show their biggest weakness, in the fact that the applicators of materialist theories are themselves subject to the contexts in which they exist. The solution is in the problem though, and is why self critique is necessary and thus, a state can only achieve this "withering away" status towards communism by being aware and critical of its own limitations and its own fascism. Anyway...

What makes the comic fail, like how anything that's 4 panels long struggles to capture nuance, is that does not make the effort to dismiss or disprove the idea that "Christian Moral Fascism" is a separate phenomenon from "common sense" as opposed to "common sense" within a western hegemonic context (and I feel comfortable assuming this since I'm responding to an edit of a winnie the pooh parody comic on Tumblr) descending predominantly from a "Christian Moral" context.

Something I legit believe is an occuring phenomenon is that a lot of queer people regard themselves as being separate (queerness as a preternatural occurance) from the socioeconomical conditions they exist in, whether that be ultra-religious parents, Fascist government, or "common sense." I think a lot of people in general, beyond the umbrella grouping of queer think this; it seems like a pretty common thing to blame the preconcieved notions of wider culture on its more marginalized subsections (trans women getting shit for their "orientalism" towards Japan, is one I've seen in the past), but I still think it's worth recognizing since the comic I'm responding to itself suggests that queer people should themselves know better when they end up drawing from "Christian Moral Fascism," so fuck it I'll do it too. More people actually should take necessary steps towards knowing better, though again, we are, all of us, productions of the conditions we exist in, and a lot of people will have to work to achieve a deeper understanding of the world around them in spite of their conditions. A lot of them will fail, either intentionally or unintentionally or in one of the near infinite combinations that exist between those two extremes. Anyway, common sense is bullshit, a large chunk of the people reblogging this comic are actively re-enacting the comic in all levels of their own lives, and, in spite of its supposed flaws, historical materialism (and marxist theory as a whole) is the best philosophical framework we have for understanding the world.

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experiencing a sort of "uncanny valley" effect where outright pornographic fanart looks normal but fanart that's just cheesecaked up a bit makes me confused and vaguely uncomfortable

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playing science telephone

Hi folks. Let's play a fun game today called "unravelling bad science communication back to its source."

Journey with me.

Saw a comment going around on a tumblr thread that "sometimes the life expectancy of autism is cited in the 30s"

That number seemed..... strange. The commenter DID go on to say that that was "situational on people being awful and not… anything autism actually does", but you know what? Still a strange number. I feel compelled to fact check.

Quick Google "autism life expectancy" pulls up quite a few websites bandying around the number 39. Which is ~technically~ within the 30s, but already higher than the tumblr factoid would suggest. But, guess what. This number still sounds strange to me.

Most of the websites presenting this factoid present themselves as official autism resources and organizations (for parents, etc), and most of them vaguely wave towards "studies."

Ex: "Above And Beyond Therapy" has a whole article on "Does Autism Affect Life Expectancy" and states:

The link implies that it will take you to the "research studies" being referenced, but it in fact takes you to another random autism resource group called.... Songbird Care?

And on that website we find the factoid again:

Ooh, look. Now they've added the word "some". The average lifespan for SOME autistic people. Which the next group erased from the fact. The message shifts further.

And we have slightly more information about the study! (Which has also shifted from "studies" to a singular "study"). And we have another link!

Wonderfully, this link actually takes us to the actual peer-reviewed 2020 study being discussed. [x]

And here, just by reading the abstract, we find the most important information of all.

This study followed a cohort of adolescent and adult autistic people across a 20 year time period. Within that time period, 6.4% of the cohort died. Within that 6.4%, the average age of death was 39 years.

So this number is VERY MUCH not the average age of death for autistic people, or even the average age of death for the cohort of autistic people in that study. It is the average age of death IF you died young and within the 20 year period of the study (n=26), and also we don't even know the average starting age of participants without digging into earlier papers, except that it was 10 or older. (If you're curious, the researchers in the study suggested reduced self-sufficiency to be among the biggest risk factors for the early mortality group.)

But the number in the study has been removed from it's context, gradually modified and spread around the web, and modified some more, until it is pretty much a nonsense number that everyone is citing from everyone else.

There ARE two other numbers that pop up semi-frequently:

One cites the life expectancy at 58. I will leave finding the context for that number as an exercise for the audience, since none of the places I saw it gave a direct citation for where they were getting it.

And then, probably the best and most relevant number floating around out there (and the least frequently cited) draws from a 2023 study of over 17,000 UK people with an autism diagnosis, across 30 years. [x] This study estimated life expectancies between 70 and 77 years, varying with sex and presence/absence of a learning disability. (As compared to the UK 80-83 average for the population as a whole.)

This is a set of numbers that makes way more sense and is backed by way better data, but isn't quite as snappy a soundbite to pass around the internet. I'm gonna pass it around anyway, because I feel bad about how many scared internet people I stumbled across while doing this search.

People on quora like "I'm autistic, can I live past 38"-- honey, YES. omg.

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tl;dr, when someone gives you a number out of context, consider that the context is probably important

also, make an amateur fact checker's life easier and CITE YOUR SOURCES

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its actually very offensive to refer to it as northern ireland, when you're visiting please be sure to refer to it only as "ireland" or, the more common variant, the democratic peoples republic of ireland

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I hope the "What if Disco Elysium was about a witch finding her cat in the mountains" post never leaves the gaming discourse vernacular. It will never not be funny to me bc it's got all the Gamer Entitlement™ levels of CoD bros throwing hissy fits about "woke" shit but instead of being couched in far right reactionism it's the exact kind of "Kingdom of Conscience" style liberal outrage at anything with conviction and beliefs that DE waxed on about. Like even chuds who get mad that the game calls you out for being racist interact with the themes of DE better and understand them more than Cat Lady did.

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everybody who's posting about "showing solidarity with trans people" in light of the US election or whatever need to start getting REALLY cool about DIY HRT or else I don't believe you

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i love when you can feel the disdain dripping off of a wikipedia article

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Item: in the 1950s research was starting to suggest smoking cigarettes might be bad for you, so one company beefed up their filter with asbestos

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“I went to school for game design! I am highly qualified to talk about any game out there!”

I bet you don’t even know how big an 8 year old’s hands are.

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The onion buying Infowars is the best possible scenario. They actually understand how to report on alex, and they'll know what to do with his assets.

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here ill write the only useful self-help post here in tumblr

the secret to being cool is learning to make others feel cool, especially including teens and 20-somethings, babyfurs, furries, crossdressers, age regressors, and other weirdos. if you feed validation to anyone who is under validated, theyll invariably think youre cool even if youre the cringiest bitch out there.

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the saturnian moon system is my favorite place in space i think.