#cognitive autonomy

[starfall-isle]

I’m just a ten cent copy

Of people far more advanced than me

[mantisgodsdomain]

Any opinions on human domestication guide? I feel like some of the pieces for it might appeal to you with the whole yes kink no sex aspect of them

That's the, uhh, plant people domesticating humans setting, right? We aren't 100% familiar with it but we've seen enough to know that the narrative treatment is solidly... really, really not for us. Dan is more familiar with it than us, but from what we've seen, we're very inclined to just opt out of it - the narrative treatment of the actual domestication process treats it way too much like a good thing for us to be capable of being comfortable with it, and it has a sort of, like, lack of awareness of itself that throws it from "could be cool" solidly into squick territory.

Listen, we love a good bit of domestication and loss of autonomy, but the way that a lot of the narrative we've seen treats it is... awful, honestly, leaves us feeling like we need to get a good drink to get the taste of it out of our mouth, and it's not even something that we can fully verbalize because it's something in the higher framework and the treatment and execution of tropes that is really goddamn hard to explain without a five thousand word essay, and we don't want. To read enough of it to do that.

It feels bad to read. It is the unfortunate combination of "kink that's close enough to what we generally enjoy that it feels like something we should like but makes us want to cringe out of our skin in practice" that has gotten it and derivative works recommended to us and we just get immediately turned off by the narrative treatment. It's not... great. We are going to turn to Dan's opinion for this since we can't get past a few chapters on even derivative works and he has far more tolerance for this stuff.

It would be different if it had more of, the, like, self awareness of other works - the knowing of the author that what is being done is awful, even if the work itself takes place in a universe where that would not be a consideration. The first chapter's treatment of humanity is uncomfortable. The further treatment of humans and their domestication pushes that discomfort further, and it feels like the author thinks this domestication is a good thing - that it's a net gain for humanity to be enslaved. It treats it, narratively, like a utopia that people are resisting for no good reason, and that's...

There's a reason we prefer dark fiction over utopia, you know? The difference between a utopia book and a dystopia book, a lot of the time, is that the person writing the dystopia knows the world they're writing would be miserable to live in, and the person writing the utopia hasn't thought that their ideal world might be a nightmare for someone else. We can take a lot of very dark bullshit, but the moment that you lose that awareness that what's happening here is fucking terrible, you lose our... ability to engage with the work. Because if you, the author, aren't displaying that awareness, we can't keep with it. It's like how you can tell when an author doesn't view women as people, but with that view of... autonomy. The disabled. The way that cutting away any choice of how to live is seen as a mercy - and we know this may seem an extreme view of the subject matter presented, but we have seen these ways of thinking in people before, and a lot of those experiences have majorly affected our life.

We can see how someone would like it, if they had different experiences to us, if their brain worked a different way. Unfortunately, it makes us want to physically chew our arms off, and none of the narrative we've seen escapes that... pervasive, all-consuming thought, in the background, that you don't know yourself as well as someone else with a position of power over you. That if you gave up control, someone could make the decisions for you, and that would be good. That life is better when you have no say over what happens to your own body.

If it's something you like, we aren't going to yuck your yum. KINKTOMATO is a thing for a good reason, and you enjoying something is decidedly not our problem - we probably would legitimately never mention it if not specifically asked. But we quite value our bodily autonomy, and we have lived our life in a position where almost all of our problems have come from the fact that there are a lot of people who believe we don't have the capacity to properly make our own decisions, and we have had to battle that, tooth and claw, for years, and still, arguably, don't have all of our life in hand. It feels awful, it strikes on things we have personal experience with from an angle that feels like the author believes that it was stupid for us to attempt to fight people who had best intentions for us, even when "best intentions" can pave a road to hell worse than anything else you can imagine.

The sympathy in this narrative does not go to those who fight against domestication. In this setting, we are treated like a toddler fighting against what's best for us for wanting the right to choose what we do with our own body, and we cannot separate that underlying view from the story enough to enjoy it.

Also it doesn't have enough interesting spec bio for us to tolerate it sorry

[destroyingangelneveragod]

Hold on I just had a thought about mad liberation and how specifically the imperial core carcelizes madness. This is highly shaped by specifically the work of Walela Nehanda, Riot Diaz, readings of "Sick of It" a disability justice and prison abolition zine, Lacey Weekes, along with learning I've done from my friend who I will name M until I get his permission to post his name.

I think western medicine as a societietal institution tries to medicalize, stigmatize, and remove divergence in cognitive function and unreality and erase the autonomy and realities of those of us who just happen to experience this. It's also a core example of why a narrow worldview of acceptable mind types limits human greatness, variance, and collective strength. It is a threat to have people look at anything in any way outside a very specific norm because if we look hard enough we can see society and it's pieces of acceptability, adherence to the norm, and complacency as they truly are. A prison of individualist making.

[hyperlexichypatia]

Hey so I just read your post on the right to die movement and I thought it was really interesting. Do people who are hospitalized/on life support/in intensive care count as disabled, or do you think there are different “rules” in that case? Also, I would be interested to hear your thoughts on the argument that: for someone to make the decision to get killed, they need to be a certain level of “sane” for true consent, and asking someone to kill you definitively constitutes “insanity”.

Second part is easy: I don't believe that "sanity" or "insanity" are meaningful concepts that exist, and bodily autonomy should be for all people all the time. I've written a lot about this topic, which you can find under my tags "mad liberation," "psych abolition," "anti psychiatry"... I'm not a good tagger, but I try. And a lot of Mad/neurodivergent/psych abolition/etc people have made some resource roundups like this one and this one. One of my favorite books I've read most recently is "Psychiatric Hegemony: A Marxist Theory of Mental Illness" by Bruce M.Z. Cohen (you can download it here).

Sorry if this is too much of an infodump, but tl;dr: I completely reject the concepts of "sanity" and "insanity", and the concept of restricting anyone's bodily autonomy based on their so-called "sanity."

The first question is a little more complicated -- definitions of "disability" usually include some component of "permanent" or "long-term," so someone who's (temporarily) sick, injured, hospitalized, etc. may not be counted as "disabled" per se. But I don't think it's necessarily that simple. I'm looking at "disability" as the relationship between a person's body/mind and their environment's expectations of them, not really as a stable identity category or a binary. So, say somebody is hospitalized with a broken leg that's projected to heal in six weeks. You could argue that this person isn't disabled, because the condition is temporary, and also, people with temporary injuries/illnesses/etc are subjected to much less systemic and cultural ableism than "long-term" disabled people are, because they're seen as sympathetic victims of misfortune rather than useless eaters. On the other hand, someone who's temporarily impaired is actively living with that impairment in that moment. If this hypothetical person with a broken leg uses a wheelchair, he can't get into an inaccessible building any more than a lifelong chair-user can. And then you get into questions of projected medical timelines, and what constitutes being "no longer disabled." Suppose this guy's broken leg heals, and he no longer uses a wheelchair, but for the rest of his life, he has chronic pain in his leg, and he can't walk as far as he could before the injury. Now is he disabled?

So... it depends? But in general, I would say yes.

Specifically, in the case of physician-assisted death, this is generally only done to people whose disabilities are considered permanent.

So, put another way: If your government thinks you're too disabled to live, you're definitely disabled.

[sonic-adventure-3]

a one-sided familial relationship is funny as fuck that’s what i want for sage. i just really don’t think eggman would ever think of himself as a father, rather than an inventor, a genius, a dictator. and i don’t think eggman would ever view his creations as people or as capable/deserving of autonomy. any affection eggman has for his robots is derived of their usefulness as extensions of his will and intelligence, ultimately. he is arrogant and self-obsessed. i think he occupies a role that is not dissimilar to a father to some of his robots (namely metal sonic and sage, mayyyyyybe omega in a rebellious teen way that i dont think either would ever think of as such), i think it’s absolutely subtext, but the acknowledgement of it runs contrary to every action eggman has ever taken. it’s too much of a change in self-perception for me to believe in, i think is my main thought on it

[david-watts]

gonna have to be honest here this site has been a little bit of a landmine recently for me because there are just. so many jokes that either are directly making fun of biden's stutter or have roots in making fun of his stutter. I don't think I ought to have to play a game of 'is this user going to mock me for having a stutter or is that just reserved for the evil old white bloke' as often as I have lately. get better material

[canichangemyblogname]

“You believe that a movement can simultaneously have deep Zionist roots while relying on antisemitic conspiracies to spread their ideas?”

Absolutely. And I’m tired of y’all pretending that Zionist is synonymous with Jewish or being an ally to Jews.

The RadFem/DivineFem movement is one such example of an antisemitic movement that believes whole heartedly in the Zionist cause. Many of its followers believe “Jewish doctors and billionaires” are “transing” and “gaying” children by funding, supporting, campaigning for, and performing sex changes on children, which they call “synthetic sex.” No such thing is happening. JB Pritzker and George Soros are not performing or funding sex changes for children. The doctors at your local Planned Parenthood or gender-affirming clinic are, by and large, not Jewish AND not operating on children.

The Trans Exclusionary Fem’s rhetoric mirrors the rhetoric the Nazi regime used against Jewish scholars, doctors, and researchers who studied queerness in Germany prior to being shut down and burned to the ground. Right down to the calls for these doctors and successful Jewish business men to be “hunted down” or “prosecuted” for the way they are destroying the “naturally given” (god-given) bodies of (white, Anglo) children.

At the same time that the TER movement frequently traffics in antisemitism, the movement also has deep Zionist sympathies. They believe in the righteousness of the “West’s” military force as a means for furthering human rights. They support Israel despite its Jewish citizens, not because of them, because they believe that the Zionist project more closely aligns to US and UK “western” values in regards to women, and thus will be a “civilizing” force upon the local Arab population, who they see as being a “backwards lot” that cannot respect women. No consideration, of course, for the West’s colonial history of raping and murdering Arab women and imposing upon them the conditions of life designed to bring about destruction. A marginalized group’s material conditions get worse under imperialism, but the TER cares only for the way that Zionism mirrors Manifest Destiny and British “Trade” Expansionism.

This is why when queer people and women in the “West” express concern for the treatment of women and queer people under Imperial invasion, the TER’s usual response is to tell the stupid faggots and cunts that SWANA citizens would rape us and throw us off roofs. They point and laugh, “Look at how these dumb trannies show humanity toward people who don’t respect their human rights,” as they campaign to strip us of our bodily autonomy and access to any public accommodations. “They’ll throw you off roofs,” says the man who posts about wanting to beat queers to death in bathrooms for the protection of “real women.” The “Western State” is somehow our saving grace; the best place for our human rights, but really the only threat to them.

While they feign to care about the treatment of women and queers in SWANA nations, the TER ignores the fact that our brutalization occurs in our own— supposedly “civilized”— countries at the hands of their policies and state actors who support their cause. I truly find it hard to believe that the TER cares about whether I’m thrown off a roof given how they discuss my lack of humanity. They will only ever bring forward the brutalization of people in the “West” when it serves their narrative, like when they want to justify their support for the violent weaponization of the paternalistic carceral state for the supposed protection of women (see: slogans that say “The only good criminal is a dead criminal”). Which women? Certainly not Black women. Not Indigenous women. Not immigrant women. Not queer women. Middle and upper class WASPy ladies.

[citriosis]

praying i can still get a ticket when i get paid. i am determined to go to this and have fun. i want to be able to have fun despite everything. i don't want to push too hard but i want to live my life. i want my autonomy. my body can attack itself all it wants. i'm going to have fun. i'm going to have fun. i deserve to have fun.

[bun-latte]

Sometimes i really wish there were more agere posts about littles who are like, 9-15 years old. :(

it only ever seems to all be things 0-6 years old, mostly focused on pre-school to MAYBE first grade age.

I think itd be nice to have more posts that focus on later school years, and about social/cognitive norms for those ages too.

[mythicalcoolkid]

If I had a nickel for every time I had to watch "I can't believe they're doing this!! This is heinous, who could have seen this coming?! <thing a minority group repeatedly and explicitly said would happen if x other thing went unchallenged>" I could afford to live somewhere with fewer human rights violations

[ernestbruce]

Poison Critical podcast

[hyperlexichypatia]

Do you really support freedom of choice, or do you just see one choice as the "obvious" one that "anyone" would make, and are therefore oblivious to how people are coerced into it?

[secularprolifeconspectus]

Quick Pro-Life Responses

Keep in mind: the fundamental disagreement between pro-life and pro-choice is on whether a fetus is being formed into a person, or if the fetus is already a person and is simply developing.

Confidently assert, “you say that because you think a fetus is not a person yet.”

They may concede fetuses are people in word, but still not conceptualize them as full people worthy of equal consideration.

“I have the right to bodily autonomy.”

Abortion is literally suffocation, poisoning, or dismemberment of a living human organism.

Abortion induces fetal demise by depriving a human of oxygen, blood, or vital function.

Bodily autonomy does not justify abuse of power and excessive force over a helpless person.

Abortion, a disproportionately brutal response to a passive threat, is aggressive violence.

“No one has the right to use my body.”

Correct. But, a prenatal person does not use a pregnant person’s body. They have no agency.

A pregnant person’s body takes care of the prenate. This care is ordinary and healthy.

Abortion is not like refusing care to a dying person, it is like murdering a healthy captive.

No one has the right to murder someone who they caused to be dependent on them.

“I have the right to revoke my consent.”

When you give consent, you agree to accept the foreseeable outcomes and risks of an action.

The creation of a bodily dependent is a foreseeable outcome of consensual intercourse.

You cannot revoke consent to outcomes. You can revoke consent to actions.

You may not violently sacrifice a helpless person to “mitigate” a risk of a consensual action.

“Anything dependent on my body is a parasite.”

If you make parasites, then you’re a parasite; it’s misogynist to suggest women are parasites.

The female body would not actively try to make pregnancy happen if it were parasitic.

Prenates never directly cause pregnant people harm; they are not aggressors or parasites.

Using developmental dependency to justify murder is simultaneously ageist and ableist.

“An embryo is just a clump of cells.”

Human embryos meet NASA’s criteria for the characteristics of distinct living organisms.

Human embryos are self-directed and their development follows a body plan.

Human embryos are organized and individual. They already have inherited capacities.

Tumors and gametes do not follow an organized body plan.

“Early humans have no cognitive capacities.”

By week 3, the embryo has a spine and is developing a nervous system.

By week 5, the embryo has a rudimentary brain that controls their pulse.

By week 8, the embryo has pain reflexes and can move their limbs.

It’s incredibly ableist to use the cognitive inabilities of a human being to justify their murder.

“If a fetus is a person, so is a brain-dead human.”

A brain-dead human is, obviously, dead. It’s an oxygenated corpse, the remains of a person.

Death occurs when human organisms stop resisting entropy and lose organic integration.

Preborn people actively resist entropy (decay) and have organic integration (unity).

An early human organism isn’t dependent on a mature brain to organize her vital functioning.

“Later abortions only happen for medical reasons.”

According to two studies by pro-abortion researcher at UCSF Katrina Kimport, this is untrue.

Kimport’s studies found that the reasons for later abortions are similar to early abortions.

Later abortions aren’t euthanasia; infants are stabbed with lethal injections and dismembered.

Perinatal hospice and palliative care relieve suffering. Dying babies deserve love, not murder.

“What about rape and incest?”

Abortion is not evidence-based treatment for sexual trauma. Abortion is traumatic as well.

A preborn child should not be condemned to the death penalty for their father’s crime.

It is safe for most menstruating children to carry pregnancies to viability with sufficient prenatal care.

Children conceived in incest are likely to have disabilities; that’s not reason to murder them.

“What about health of the mother?”

Every abortion ban in the US has exceptions for if the mother’s life or body is in grave danger.

We are not against tragic cases of triage. We are against elective induced abortion.

Some procedures coded medically as abortions aren’t legally or ethically defined as abortions.

Pro-life doctors report that the bans have not impeded their ability to treat their patients.

Your Core Arguments

There is no sound evidence or consistent logic that proves the preborn are the only class of human beings exceptional to the rule that humans are people with equal rights.

If a being is in the dynamic process of bonding with us as kin, then that being is a whole actual person by the manner of actively and inherently relating to our collective humanity.

Embryonic humans are full and equal people like us because they latently embody our same capacities and are manifesting them as we are, on account of sharing our nature.

[thatdiabolicalfeminist]

I really don't think it's true that abusers always know they're abusive or that if you're worried you're being abusive, that automatically means you're not.

There are patterns of harm we can fall into without really realizing what's going on. We live in an abuse culture that justifies and even celebrates certain kinds of abuse and makes them seem normal.

Maybe when you're trying to protect yourself from harm you set your boundaries so far out from your own autonomy zone that you're infringing on someone else's. Maybe you think you're being fair because you aren't thinking about what it's like for the other person, you're too focused on staying/getting in your own comfort zone.

Maybe you're so used to dysfunctional interactions that every conversation is a power struggle, and you don't even realize that when you're "winning" all the time you're grinding someone else down—you're too busy being relieved that you're not "losing" all the time anymore like you did in the past with someone else.

Maybe you think you're being "funny" and it's "banter" to constantly tear down someone in your life. Maybe you assume they're having fun with it too and that this is how you act friendly towards someone.

Maybe you believe lies about what rape is or what abuse is. Maybe you grew up being told men always want sex and you don't even realize when you're pressuring him into it that he genuinely doesn't want it and it's not a game. Maybe you believed the lies that women say no to seem modest but if she "gives in" that's how you know for sure she wants it. Maybe you thought physical arousal was the same as consent.

Maybe you thought being mean when you're in a bad mood wasn't abuse as long as you don't hit. Maybe you grew up in an environment where any conflict meant you had to hurt the other person as much as possible emotionally in order to "win".

Maybe you're a parent who learned that spanking or scaring your kids is how you keep them in line, which seems necessary to protect them. Maybe you don't realize how cutting some of the things you say are, or how thoughtless or unkind you're being. Maybe you never learned gentleness before you had kids, or don't understand what's age appropriate.

When you're an abuser or a rapist who didn't realize at the time how much harm you were doing, it can cause serious cognitive dissonance to realize the impact of your actions. It's easy to get defensive and decide that since you don't think of yourself that way, there's no way you could possibly be an abuser or a rapist.

It's easy to say that if you don't want to be an abuser, you're not. But it's not always true.

It is absolutely vital that everyone learns how to interact in safe and respectful ways. We're all responsible for figuring out how to not harm other people.

Believing that it's impossible you're harming other people can make you MORE likely to harm them, because you're not checking yourself to make sure that you're not.

[hellyeahscarleteen]

Sex and Disability

This Disability Pride Month, check out our series on Sex and Disability! This isn't meant to be a be-all-end-all guide to sex and disability because a) it's not, and b) there just can't ever be such a thing with any guide to sex. This series, much like your entire sexual life, is a work in progress and an endless, ongoing conversation. We hope this can be a good place for you to get started, and something that starts you on the path of good feelings about sex and your disability. Read the introduction above, or skip to one of the sections below:

Taking Your Body for a Ride: Masturbation and Disability

Disabled Sex: Sex for Two (or More)

Consent Is Sexy: Sexual Autonomy and Disability

Sex on the Brain: Sex and Autism, Mental Illness, and Other Cognitive Diversity

Your Body is Not a Sex Object: Devotees and Disability

Wheelchair, Bound? Kink and Disability

I Beg Your Pardon? Dealing with Rude Nondisableds

(Check out the rest of our disability-focused content here)

[luna-azzurra]

Writing Child or Teenage Characters:

Writing child or teenage characters requires an understanding of their unique perspectives, thoughts, and behaviors at various stages of development. Here are some tips to help you capture the essence of child or teenage characters realistically:

1. Research Developmental Stages: Familiarize yourself with the developmental stages of children and teenagers. Understand the physical, cognitive, emotional, and social changes that typically occur during these periods. This knowledge will help you depict characters at appropriate stages of maturity.

2. Voice and Dialogue: Pay attention to the language and vocabulary used by child or teenage characters. Their speech patterns, sentence structure, and word choices may differ from adult characters. Reflect their age and level of education in their dialogue to make it authentic and relatable.

3. Emotional Authenticity: Children and teenagers experience a wide range of emotions, and their emotional responses can be intense and sometimes unpredictable. Show their emotions through their actions, reactions, and internal thoughts. Be mindful of age-appropriate emotional depth and understanding.

4. Observational Perspective: Child and teenage characters often notice and interpret the world differently than adults. Highlight their unique observations, curiosity, and innocence. Allow them to have a fresh perspective that can bring a sense of wonder or discovery to the story.

5. Growth and Development: Portray child or teenage characters as evolving and growing individuals. Show their learning experiences, mistakes, and the lessons they learn along the way. Capture their gradual understanding of the world and their evolving sense of identity.

6. Relationships and Peer Dynamics: Explore the dynamics of friendships, peer pressure, and social hierarchies that are prevalent during childhood and adolescence. Show the influence of friends, family, and mentors on their thoughts and behaviors. Highlight the importance of relationships in their lives.

7. Hobbies and Interests: Reflect the passions, hobbies, and interests that are common among children and teenagers. These activities can shape their identities and provide opportunities for self-expression. Incorporate their hobbies into the narrative to add depth and authenticity.

8. Growth of Independence: As children and teenagers mature, they seek more independence and autonomy. Depict their struggles with authority figures, their desire for freedom, and their exploration of boundaries. Balance their growing independence with their need for guidance and support.

9. Challenges and Coming of Age: Explore the challenges and rites of passage that child and teenage characters face. Address issues such as identity formation, peer pressure, academic stress, bullying, first love, and self-discovery. Treat these themes with sensitivity and avoid trivializing or dismissing their experiences.

10. Evolving Relationships with Adults: Capture the evolving relationships between child or teenage characters and the adults in their lives. Show the shifting dynamics, conflicts, and moments of connection. Avoid portraying adults as one-dimensional authority figures or overly understanding mentors.