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Jericho missile of feminism, LGBT stuff, multiple fandoms, hot people and (really) bad puns. Fic writer, French, Web Media student, addicted to Marvel and Kittens. This blog can be NSFW My AO3

[charlesoberonn]

PolSci majors, what does it mean when judges want their own security service because the official security services are more loyal to a felon rapist than they are to the rule of law?

[charlesoberonn]

Thank you for your insight

[charlesoberonn]

[not-your-asian-fantasy]

High Court in India affirms trans women are women in landmark ruling

The High Court of Andhra Pradesh in India has ruled in a landmark decision that trans women are legally recognised as women.

[violently-puppy-deactivated2026]

HUGE GOOD NEWS

the world may seem bleak but PLEASE take time to feel the trans joy and to be happy for our sisters in India

[anexperimentallife]

[textmessagepolicy]

[ayeforscotland]

Kill each other.

[ayeforscotland]

Donald Trump deporting Elon Musk because he revealed he was in the Epstein files would be so fucking funny.

[thebibliosphere]

[mytearsrricochet]

[beggars-opera]

Me reading the Trump/Musk breakup news this week:

[cosmonaut775]

Hey do y’all remember when Boeing fucking killed a guy last year. And we all said “huh I guess Boeing fucking killed a guy” and then went on with our lives. And everybody knew that Boeing had fully just fucking executed a guy and nothing came of it. Like there was no police investigation no justice no nothing. Like literally EVERYBODY knew that Boeing had full on murdered a guy to silence him and there wasn’t any consequences for them. Kinda crazy.

[flamie87]

and there was even less talk when openai did the exact same thing more recently

[flamie87]

So for those who are, very understandably uninitiated on this story:

On 23 October last year (2024) the New York Times published an interview with former OpenAI researcher Suchir Balaji who worked on organising and gathering data for OpenAI until 2022 when he begun thinking about the morality of it. He eventually came to the conclusion that what OpenAI is doing blatantly violates copyright law and decided to leave the company altogether in August 2024.

After he came out with this accusation he was set to appear in court to testify against OpenAI’s data-gathering practices, something which had the potential of being a complete disaster for the company and the generative AI industry as a whole.

That was until 26 November, just days before he was due to appear in court, when he suddenly and mysteriously was found dead inside his own apartment. Investigators concluded that the death was self-inflicted, something which his family has disputed.

There was also “sign of struggle in the bathroom and looks like someone hit him in the bathroom based on blood spots”, and his apartment showed signs of having been ransacked for evidence: “The pin drive is missing. His computer was messed up.”.

Overall it feels pretty clear-cut what happened, that is to say that OpenAI had him killed because he was a legitimate threat to their business, indicating that they are fully aware that the way they’re gathering data is completely illegal.

Sources:

Alys Davies, 14.12.2024, OpenAI whistleblower found dead in San Francisco apartment. BBC News

Barney Davis, 16.1.2025, Suchir Balaji’s family demand outside investigation into OpenAI whistleblower’s death. The Independent

Cade Metz, 23.11.2024, Former OpenAI Researcher Says the Company Broke Copyright Law. The New York Times

[zaph1337]

For those of you who don't know about the Boeing case, a whistleblower named John Barnett was found dead in the middle of his deposition: https://www.qcnews.com/news/boeing-whistleblower-set-to-testify-is-found-shot-to-death/

And there actually was an investigation, but it concluded that it was suicide: https://apnews.com/article/boeing-whistleblower-suicide-9fe771a97c5745b9c53f24c04141e474

It is possible that it was suicide (which doesn't make Boeing look any better, obviously), but I wouldn't be surprised if the "surveillance footage" was doctored in some way, especially since another Boeing whistleblower, Joshua Dean, also died after he testified: https://www.snopes.com/news/2024/05/07/boeing-whistleblower-deaths/

That being said, the deaths motivated even more whistleblowers to come forward against Boeing: https://fortune.com/2024/05/09/more-boeing-whistleblowers-emerge-law-firm/

Hopefully Suchir Balaji's story will have a similar effect, especially with all the evidence pointing to assassination.

[our-queer-experience]

helen “trans people are perpetuating gender steriotypes” joyce is now upset that the scientific american is writing about how women were hunters too back in the day, not just mothers and caretakers. feminist win!

[the-gummy-worms-have-me]

I think I found the article!

The Theory That Men Evolved to Hunt and Women Evolved to Gather Is Wrong

The influential idea that in the past men were hunters and women were not isn’t supported by the available evidence

Read it if you have the time, it's very interesting.

[mikkeneko]

Reading the article I see why TERFs are mad about it; it explicitly makes the distinction between gender as a social entity and sex as a biological category, and defines biological sex having multiple factors, both of which are anathema to TERF philosophy.

It also includes these fascinating paragraphs about the role of estrogen in different types of physical activity, directly debunking the widespread notion that estrogen is the weak human's hormone and only does weak human things:

Given the fitness world's persistent touting of the hormone testosterone for athletic success, you'd be forgiven for not knowing that estrogen, which females typically produce more of than males, plays an incredibly important role in athletic performance… The estrogen receptor—the protein that estrogen binds to in order to do its work—is deeply ancient. Joseph Thornton of the University of Chicago and his colleagues have estimated that it is around 1.2 billion to 600 million years old—roughly twice as old as the testosterone receptor. In addition to helping regulate the reproductive system, estrogen influences fine-motor control and memory, enhances the growth and development of neurons, and helps to prevent hardening of the arteries. Important for the purposes of this discussion, estrogen also improves fat metabolism. During exercise, estrogen seems to encourage the body to use stored fat for energy before stored carbohydrates. Fat contains more calories per gram than carbohydrates do, so it burns more slowly, which can delay fatigue during endurance activity. Not only does estrogen encourage fat burning, but it also promotes greater fat storage within muscles… which makes that fat's energy more readily available. Adiponectin, another hormone that is typically present in higher amounts in females than in males, further enhances fat metabolism while sparing carbohydrates for future use, and it protects muscle from breakdown. Anne Friedlander of Stanford University and her colleagues found that females use as much as 70 percent more fat for energy during exercise than males. Estrogen's ability to increase fat metabolism and regulate the body's response to the hormone insulin can help prevent muscle breakdown during intense exercise. Furthermore, estrogen appears to have a stabilizing effect on cell membranes that might otherwise rupture from acute stress brought on by heat and exercise. Ruptured cells release enzymes called creatine kinases, which can damage tissues… Linda Lamont of the University of Rhode Island and her colleagues, as well as Michael Riddell of York University in Canada and his colleagues, found that females experienced less muscle breakdown than males after the same bouts of exercise. Tellingly, in a separate study, Mazen J. Hamadeh of York University and his colleagues found that males supplemented with estrogen suffered less muscle breakdown during cycling than those who didn't receive estrogen supplements.

The article also talks about sexual dimorphism in different species, concluding that "Modern humans have low sexual dimorphism compared with the other great apes," and that overemphasis on averages obscures the wide dispersal of individual traits, which is what I keep saying.

[aethersea]

Anthropologists also look at damage on our ancestors' skeletons for clues to their behavior. Neandertals are the best-studied extinct members of the human family because we have a rich fossil record of their remains. Neandertal females and males do not differ in their trauma patterns, nor do they exhibit sex differences in pathology from repetitive actions. Their skeletons show the same patterns of wear and tear. This finding suggests that they were doing the same things, from ambush-hunting large game animals to processing hides for leather. Yes, Neandertal women were spearing woolly rhinoceroses, and Neandertal men were making clothing.

I also thought this part was cool :)

[genderqueerdykes]

PLEASE read this article, this information is incredible for everyone looking to unlearn bioessentialism

[anti-terf-posts]

official anti terf post

[bogleech]

You know, as the concept of “zombifying fungi” becomes more and more popular, I notice it still referred to everywhere as like a “brain parasite.” So I guess a lot of people overlooked or forgot how in 2019 it was discovered that cordyceps and other similar fungal parasites leave the brain and nervous system completely untouched. They only control the muscles. They use chemical signals to make the muscles flex in real time where they want to go :)

[bogleech]

It’s funny how many people are replying “but that’s worse!” like you didn’t know that’s exactly why I put a smiley

[acegodzilla]

[fencehopping]

Extruding pasta

[mylittleredgirl]

[snailfish-enthusiast]

The wonderful Glass Octopus. Living at depths of around 3000 ft and only being about a foot long, these strange little creatures are rarely seen by scientists.

[onscreenkisses]

I thought I was going to lose you again.. Thanks for sticking around this time

JUMANJI: Alan + Sarah + moments

[blizzardofjj]

[ellynneversweet]

Darcy’s introduction in Pride and Prejudice is really ‘what if you had just had the worst month of your life because your ex-bestie tried to lover boy scam your baby sister out of her share of your dad’s life insurance and your friend dragged you to a shitty party in a dive bar in the neighbourhood where he’d just signed a short term lease, and you decided to let your bad mood show because you were never going to see any of the assholes in this stupid shitty bar EVER again. And your friend ended up making out with a girl he’d just met there while you were stuck talking to her sister who was less cute and then her mother appeared and started trying to matchmake and started saying how if she was twenty years younger she’d clime you like a redwood and ooooh is that a black Amex, guess the next round is on you hahhahahahaha, while her other sister (how many fucking sisters does she have?!) flashed an obviously fake ID at the bar and ordered six vodka-diet red bulls and no one in her family except the less-cute sister even tried to stop her. And you went home and consoled yourself that you would never see any of these people again but then you met them over and over again because they live next door and your friend and the cute sister keep meeting up to make out but not actually date and then. You fall in love with the less-cute sister because it turns out she’s really witty and charismatic but she already knows and remembers and resents the fact that on a day when you were in a shitty mood you called her mid out loud in a dive bar.’

[thememedaddy]

[oneheadtoanother]

Nothing drives this society more crazy than a woman who doesn't hate herself

[helila]

[hollyevolving]

I adore Shirley Manson.