Direct Action for Hope

I also run the good news blog Reasons for Hope. Here you can find links and info on direction action, organizing, etc. that doesn't necessarily fit on a good news blog. Plus info and awareness posts, as well as my own activism, thoughts, and takes, also about things that don't fit well on a good news blog. Filter the tag "dafh potentially triggering" if you don't want to see posts that are talking about really fucking up stuff. If my/those posts are making you spiral, I so genuinely encourage you to filter it. Doing what you can to help is more important than being aware of everything. "We must not let the perfect become the enemy of the good." There IS hope and I so truly believe that we CAN heal ourselves and the world.

[jkottke]

The United States Disappeared Tracker is “tracking persons politically arrested, detained, or disappeared by the Trump regime since March 9, 2025”.

[rederiswrites]

Just watched Adam Conover (of Adam Ruins Everything) make such a solid point that I think we should spread far and wide. Yes, having AI write your emails is lazy, sure, but people love being lazy. We need to really emphasize that sending AI emails (or using AI responses on social media, or publishing AI flyers, or or or) is rude.

It's rude. You're making someone take their time to read something you couldn't bother to write. You're telling them they were so unimportant you couldn't be bothered to actually take the time to say something yourself. And frankly, you're lying about it while you're at it.

It's rude.

[anarcho-communism-revolution]

[sodomit]

Been thinking about making this post for a while, so here it goes.

The trans community has a specific type of transphobia towards nonbinary people who were assigned male at birth, and that is forcing womanhood onto them posed as purification or salvation.

The reverse, forcing nonbinary people assigned female into the man role, also exists, but it's frequently done with open hatred (e.g. "those they/thems are actually men trying to sneak into women's spaces") and therefore it has been called out by several people I interact with.

The former, not so much.

Many tend to see misgendering of someone amab towards womanhood as fundamentally benevolent or unserious. Real people develop new kinds of dysphoria and quit trans spaces because of that, including some of my acquaintances, but it's all seen as accidental collateral damage for the noble goal of making more women discover themselves.

"But what if you're denying a closeted self hating trans woman a chance to be called a woman" is seen as a more valid argument than the distress being actively done to people of other genders, and it's fucking bonkers.

I refuse to keep centering non-abinary* perspectives in this conversation.

* abinary spectrum includes agender, xenogender, and other things adjacent.

[odyver]

alright I've got to do some quick math to explain attitudes towards AI to my boss.

we're looking to create an AI policy, and when we were talking about this, my boss (older millennial) was genuinely shocked to hear that younger people do not (seem) to view AI positively (a la the recent commencement speakers being booed)

please rb for larger sample size!

Question 1/3

What is your age, and do you feel AI is a net positive or net negative in our lives today?

under 18, AI is a net positive

under 18, AI is a net negative

18-29, AI is a net positive

18-29, AI is a net negative

30-45, AI is a net positive

30-45, AI is a net negative

46-60, AI is a net positive

46-60, AI is a net negative

over 60, AI is a net postive

over 60, AI is a net negative

Remaining time: 2 days 18 hours

[odyver]

Question 2/3

How often do you visit or interact with museums/archives (whether in person or online)?

Frequently (multiple times per month)

Often (multiple times per year)

Occasionally (a couple times per year)

Rarely (once every couple of years)

Never :(

Remaining time: 2 days 18 hours

[odyver]

Question 3/3

If you saw a museum was using AI in exhibits, marketing, research, etc., would you be more or less inclined to visit that museum?

under 18, more inclined

under 18, less inclined

18-29, more inclined

18-29, less inclined

30-45, more inclined

30-45, less inclined

46-60, more inclined

46-60, less inclined

over 60, more inclined

over 60, less inclined

Remaining time: 2 days 18 hours

Thank you for helping with this data collection. Please rb for as big a sample as possible!

🫶

[directactionforhope]

Also honestly useful numbers to keep around for anyone who needs some data to convince a boss or coworkers that young people dislike AI.

Literally just don't say the poll was on tumblr:

"A poll of over 100,000 social media users found that a strong majority of 18-29 year olds believe that AI is a net negative in our lives, and are less likely to go to an institution that they notice uses AI in its marketing."

Boom. Every word of that is true. We're saying "a strong majority" to compensate for the massive sampling bias (aka running the poll on like the one social media website where everyone still hates AI). Because a poll or study with a biased sample can absolutely still give you information - as long as you remember that your data will be skewed by a certain amount

Also the less you get into specific numbers, the less likely anyone is to ask where you found the poll lol

[anarchist-rat-swarm]

In case you don't know, churches in the US are required to remain non-political in order to keep their tax exempt status. You can fill out a Form 13909 with the IRS to file a complaint about a church or other tax exempt organization that violates these kinds of rules.

Ya know, if you ever wanted to send the IRS after Christofascist churches. It's safer than arson.

[a-book-dragon]

You don't have a male or female brain – the more brains scientists study, the weaker the evidence for sex differences

Rather than distinctly male or female, the human brain is much more like the heart, kidneys and lungs – basically the same no matter the sex of the body it's in.

rb to make a biological essentialist mad <3

[liminalweirdo]

“This collapse is a telltale sign of a problem known as publication bias. Small, early studies which found a significant sex difference were likelier to get published than research finding no male-female brain difference.”

[mckitterick]

the notes on this are toxic - to help clear up any misunderstanding, here’s the actual science paper:

Dump the “dimorphism”: Comprehensive synthesis of human brain studies reveals few male-female differences beyond size

With the explosion of neuroimaging, differences between male and female brains have been exhaustively analyzed. Here we synthesize three dec

in short: brains are brains

[acti-veg]

Antibiotics use in livestock could rise by a third in next 15 years, UN report warns

Governments urged to act to prevent potentially disastrous impacts on human resistance to medicines

Animal husbandry accounts for close to three-quarters of global use of antimicrobial medications and in many countries their use is poorly monitored. Some herds are routinely dosed and in many countries antimicrobials are used to increase the growth of animals bred for meat.

This is one of the leading causes of the rise of superbugs, which are threatening to render antibiotics useless against increasingly resistant diseases. Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) already costs an estimated €11bn (£9.5bn) a year within Europe alone and is predicted to cost $1tn globally by 2050. AMR is forecast to kill tens of millions of people unless there is concerted action, and to make what are currently routine surgeries such as hip replacements life-threatening.

[lastoneout]

I do actually wonder if part of the reason people start believing ancient aliens type conspiracy bullshit is because they're so divorced from labor they don't understand that a bunch of guys could absolutely quarry a large rock, move it somewhere, and build something with it because that's not actually all that hard or complicated. I've seen people use a simple chisel and hammer to crack boulders the size of houses clean in half, this stuff is a skill that needs to be learned ofc, but the idea that it was impossible for humans to build large, complex, sturdy structures with relatively "primative" tools is so silly I struggle to understand how someone could believe that unless they legit have no idea how labor works.

It's the same beef I have with Fallout. I know they excuse humans being so slow to redevelop society with all "knowledge being lost in the war" but that's just...not how things work. Humans figured out construction and farming very early. There's no way for humans to truly forget how to do this stuff, especially since people survived and could preserve and share what they know. But I just cannot fathom how in 300 years no one's figured out construction or fiber arts or soap making or anything humans have historically figured out super early in the process of being human.

And the only way I can see someone write a world like that is if they either didn't care (fine, it's not real and I get digging the apocalypse vibe) or were so divorced from the process of labor and creation that they actually think those things are way too hard for someone to figure out on their own.

If you think humans couldn't do these things without being taught or helped you have a very warped idea of technological progress and human ingenuity. No one taught humans how to build and create, we figured it out on our own, and it was not just smacking rocks together until something clicked either, ancient humans were just as intelligent as modern ones, they could use logic and reasoning to figure out how to do something new based on what they already know.

Idk it's a theory anyway, but I really do think it's interesting how as a kid I def could believe doing these things is impossible for ancient humans to being an adult who knows things and literally cannot even comprehend believing any of the incredible things ancient humans can do were "impossible" in any way. It wasn't. Humans are incredible, stop underestimating us. And crack open some wiki pages or even youtube tutorials so you get a grasp of how the world works, it's good for you.

[towerologia-sideblog]

Archeology educator Milo Rossi in his Ancient Aliens debunked video (link under the cut)

[lastoneout]

You'll never guess what video inspired this post lmao

[this-is-a-love-story-isnt-it]

This insane update from Neocities

[teaboot]

Can I be honest with yall I don't want to hear SHIT against cishets at pride this year

[directactionforhope]

We will NOT be saying SHIT that would imply / suggest / require people should in any way out themselves in order to go to queer stuff during an administration that is doing everything it can to target queer people!!!!!!!!

And that means no identity purity tests

I don't care how good your intentions are or how important your specific goal is. Requiring someone to tell you that they're queer to access a queer space means that everyone in that space has outed themselves to every other person there by showing up

Protect your community. Stop expecting people to tell you the ways in which they're vulnerable.

(Also no one gets to be the identity police, kill the cop in your head, etc. etc.)

Besides:

Pride is a protest, yes - and that means it would be foolish of us to make it harder for more people to come protest oppression with us!!

And strength in numbers IS real - whether it's about optics, about normalizing dissent, or about whether protestors can block an intersection or occupy a building

[micdotcom]

The ‘Real Housewives’ has a long history of homophobia and transphobia. Here it is.

After the most recent seasons of Real Housewives of Orange County andReal Housewives of Dallas sparked controversy among LGBTQ viewers for airing what some saw as anti-LGBTQ rhetoric, a Mic reporter decided to take a deep dive into Housewives history, rewatch old episodes and rethink the impact of the many plotlines that have played out over the years. It wasn’t long before she realized that the Real Housewives of nearly every city have a lengthy, well-documented past of problematic LGBTQ moments that have largely been ignored by Bravo in the name of entertainment. Here is an annotated timeline of every homophobic and transphobic moment on ‘Real Housewives.’

[thediscossessed]

If you ever thought for a damn second about giving this website money because they add little pride flag decals I'm gonna need you to put that paper into a trans woman's Bank account ok thnx

[girlballs-archive]

oh. oh okay LITERALLY every single video i've ever uploaded to my blog has been flagged as explicit. like. my fucking gamedev videos are apparently sexual content

[girlballs-archive]

can't even appeal them. i genuinely hope everyone working at tumblr loses their jobs and never touches a website ever again

[foone]

Important rules for the "age verification" era of the internet that we're living in:

1. Do not do age verification.

2. If you have to do age verification, cheat. Do not under any circumstances give them your real ID.

[very-gay-alkyrion]

Free Tool Says it Can Bypass Discord's Age Verification Check With a 3D Model

The tool presents users with a 3D model they can then manipulate to, the creator says, bypass Discord's age verification system.

Oh no I dropped my link, what a horrible thing! Sure hope this doesn't get reblogged until it reaches users from the UK and Brazil!

And remember to not make a second account just to test out what works best when verifying your identity

[asksanguinius40k]

A reminder that we still dont support Age Verification bullshit.

[flower-crowns-and-combat-boots]

Paywall removed here

[stjohnstarling]

It will leave you happier and more at peace if you stop trying to monitor and control other people's behaviour online. In an indefinitely large open space like Tumblr, it is simply not possible to have community standards, because you are, in fact, not in a real community with almost any of the people you encounter on this website. There are potentially upwards of a million people on Tumblr alone, and it is a completely porous space, the idea that we are any kind of coherent group is nonsense. On the same point, the idea that any random selection of people who happen to share an interest, fandom, or hobby in a large open space like this make up any kind of real community is also nonsense. The more you can focus on the actual, individual people you interact with online, the people it is possible for you to know and care about, and not trouble yourself with the behaviour of strangers, the more mentally free you'll be (by all means study other people like bugs, though.)

[animentality]

[bobcatmoran]

I absolutely blame Facebook for this shift. Words cannot describe how freaking WEIRD it was in the mid-00s when there was suddenly this popular website where you were required to use your real, brickspace name and encouraged to post photos of yourself. Every single bit of Standard Internet Safety prior to then said that you should never ever ever do either of those.