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rockatanskette · 8 months

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Semi-related to my post on how human conservation practices, but I have a cold today, and it's got me thinking about biological altruism—the biological imperative to put other creatures ahead of yourself, to benefit the group.

When talking about possible interactions with other species, we talk a lot about humans being crazy and thrill-seeking and impossible to kill. Never use a warning shot as an incentive to keep humans out of a fight; it'll just make them angry. And that's true. But a valid criticism I've seen in the "Earth is a death world" community is that according to our understanding of evolution, every planet must be some form of death world. Competition fosters evolution—the wolf with sharper claws survives when its litter mates die. You can't reach space travel without some casualties along the way.

But the dog survives because it makes friends with the strange ape carrying a sharp stick. And the strange ape survives because it befriends the wolf. Underneath the death world is an inextricable and undeniable layer of the bond world; the love world; the world, together.

I imagine some worlds are not death worlds. They're peaceful and tranquil. I suspect there are worlds far more deadly than Earth, where the skies rain diamonds, harder than any substance we know with the species to match. And I imagine that they are united in their confusion at the duality of humankind.

Today is a great example: I have a cold, and I want someone to take care of me, but the people who would are immunocompromised, also sick, or live 8 hours away, respectfully. I also want no one within the walls of my apartment or I will eat them. I feel gross, I feel tired, and I don't want a single human being anywhere near me, even if they did bring soup.

In my constant scrolling through my phone today, I decided to look up why the hell I feel so bad—why everyone feels so bad when they're ill. And the answer surprised me. I always thought it was because your immune system is active, so it's using a lot of your energy. That is part of it. Another part is that your brain and body are communicating across the blood-brain barrier to fight the infection, which is rare and energetically expensive.

But that doesn't explain everything, and according to more current research, it could also be what's called the Eyam Hypothesis: that we feel so gross, so we instinctively isolate from other people. We're too tired to deal with others, and so we don't infect them. Misanthropy for the good of the species. Of course, it can also backfire: one of the criticisms of the Eyam Hypothesis is that humans also instinctively care for each other. If my brother has a headache, I drive to the store for Advil.

Personally, I think it's a little bit of both: biological altruism. Either way, the majority live on. The first thought I had this morning when I woke up wasn't "I feel gross" it was "there's no way I'm going to work today." And while that might not be everyone's first thought, you don't even have to be a particularly altruistic person to not want to leave your home or your bed when you're sick. It's inborn.

And so when the human named Ismail comes down with a case of the interstellar common cold, his alien friend Dyos grows very concerned. Ismail is usually intensely social, almost off-puttingly so. Some crew members joke about how his quarters are for sleeping and prayer only; if he's home alone? You should be worried. But when Dyos demands an answer to the severity of Ismail's malady, the other humans just nod knowingly.

"Nah, he's okay, the medics already cleared him. It's not a severe infection."

"But there are so many...fluids. And his body has changed color."

There is a moment of confusion there until they remember that Dyos's species can see in the infrared color spectrum.

"Nah, that's just a low-grade fever. It should break in the next couple days."

"But he doesn’t want to play chess today," Dyos insists.

"Ohhhh," says human Claudia, finally understanding. "No, that's normal. Humans don't like being around other people when they're sick, it's supposed to be one of the major evolutionary advantages. Protect your community from your illness and the genes live on."

"So we're just going to leave him alone?" Dyos is troubled by this. He can go for weeks without speaking to another life form, but he has seen Ismail grow despondent when unable to participate in social gathering.

"Oh, no," human Claudia says, laughing. "We're going to employ one of the other most longstanding human evolutionary advantages."

There are many to choose from and Dyos settles on, "middle age?"

"Sort of," human Claudia opens up a small shipping container and holds up a brown paper bag tied with a colorful ribbon. It glows brightly in Dyos's vision, almost as brightly as human Claudia's smile. "His nanni's hot soup, express delivery."

#i feel like this is the one that's going to get discourse and to that i say:#stop it i no feel good #we can talk about other human responses to disease when my skull goes back to being the right temperature #send good feelings the us postal service won't let my babushka send me soup #anyway #humans are human #humans are space orcs #humans are space australians #earth is space australia #earth is a death world #earth is a bond world #lemme know if i forgot any of the main ones

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jpitha · 1 year

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Humans are Deathworlders: avoid #Humans are Mary-Sue's and #Humans are Saviors

One thing I've noticed around here is a propensity to make everything human can do a Deathworlder thing. Do that too much and you write yourselves into a corner, or you put a new cover over old racist tropes. Observe:

Humans live on an oxygen rich world: Do that, and now your humans need to wear O2 masks everywhere that's not human made and your sapients need to wear masks in human spaces. Additionally while O2 isn't flammable per se it makes everything else burn really, really well. Doing this could lend some fun flavor to the world, but consistency is key. Also, breathing masks hide emotion really well.

Humans are strong: Make them too strong and in any sapient spaceship or station they run the risk of just hulking everything and breaking it, not making friends and influencing people. Corollary: make them strong because they're from a high gravity world and suddenly all your humans in space get osteoporosis because their bones atrophy in the low gravity. Astronauts in microgravity lose a ton of their muscle and bone mass even after only a couple months in orbit. I'd say that you probably don't want the sapients that interact with your humans to come from a world that's much less than 60% earth gravity.

Humans are predators: Remember real predator/prey relations. Prey species have defenses, otherwise the predators would just gobble them all up and lose their food source (and the prey species would die out). Horses and other equine species kick like hell. Other species have super thick hides, or are masters of camouflage or live on an opposite schedule to their predator species, etc. Being a predator isn't a guarantee that we could just lord it over all sapient prey species. Give your prey species defenses and have them show them off sometime.

Only Humans Can Save the Day: Yes, Yes I know. We're human and we're the ones doing the writing BUT, Do #Humans Save the Day too much and you just make a different flavor of the old White Savior trope. Your other sapient species need to help out too.

Other Human Specific things: For every "cool thing" that "only humans do" make sure your sapients have a cool thing of their own. If your humans are the only prey species, make sure your other prey species have cool things they do that they evolved to avoid their local predators. Humans are warriors? Make your other species be negotiators or collaborators. Humans eat weird food? There's plenty of things we can't, don't or won't eat. Give your sapients a weird food they love.

Only Humans Do Art: This one bugs me the most. Humans do art, but it is specist to assume that ONLY humans do art. Art is an offshoot of culture, an offshoot of bonding, an offshoot of collaboration. Unless you decide your sapients became sapient A WAY DIFFERENT WAY than we did (and sure, if you want to do that, go nuts), your human friendly sapients have art. I promise. It might not be like human art and there might be some fun interactions about that. But making them NOT have art is just another flavor of White Saviorism.

#humans are deathworlders #humans are space orcs #humans are space capybaras #humans are space australians #writing #sci fi writing #humans are human

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ecoamerica · 15 days

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youtube

Watch the American Climate Leadership Awards 2024 now: https://youtu.be/bWiW4Rp8vF0?feature=shared

The American Climate Leadership Awards 2024 broadcast recording is now available on ecoAmerica's YouTube channel for viewers to be inspired by active climate leaders. Watch to find out which finalist received the $50,000 grand prize! Hosted by Vanessa Hauc and featuring Bill McKibben and Katharine Hayhoe!

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hoshi-kawaii · 11 months

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Love is love.

Humans are human.

#pride month #pride #trans #trans pride #love is love #humans are human #trans rights #trans rights are human rights #human rights #people are people #should it be all humans are humans?

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cemeterything · 2 months

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been thinking about fantasy/scifi rule systems and free will

#🐉#human rules is you can go nuts show nuts but so can everyone else

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cipher-of-the-round-table · 2 months

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Right, considering the current state of corporate politics on this site, and that it seems that only those affected seem to be actively speaking on the matter, this needs to be dragged out to a wider audience.

This extends to refusing to believe in bogus call-out posts for frankly minuscule thinks such as being horny or kinky, especially if the target is presenting in an ‘unconventional’ manner, (therians, etc.) this double standard where it is seen as ‘degenerate’ for transfemmes to merely exist in certain spaces, yet everyone else is fine to do so is disgusting and part of the reason for the backlash.

PUTTING TERFS DNI IS NOT THE BE ALL AND END ALL, YOU GENUINELY HAVE TO PUT YOUR MORALS OF BEING RESPECTFUL INTO PRACTICE.

REBLOG IF YOUR ACCOUNT IS A TRANSFEM SAFE SPACE.

We need to show these higher ups how much we truly value them.

Edit 1: Changed the wording of the post and decided to put in a reminder.

Edit 2: Further Re-iteration on the wording and format edits.

#trans rights #transgender #traaaaaaannnnnnnnnns #transfem #trans pride #trans rights are human rights #terfs not welcome #trans

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witchywitchy · 2 months

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Keep talking about Palestine!

#free palestine #palestine #signal boost #gaza #from the river to the sea palestine will be free #social justice #palestine resources #colonialism #imperialism #jerusalem #the west bank #end the occupation #tel Aviv #human rights #united nations

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nezreblogz · 3 months

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#palestine #gaza #free gaza #free palestine #jerusalem #yemen #lebanon #middle east #human rights #united nations #politics #colonialism #fuck israel

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brightlotusmoon · 3 months

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#humans are a fun species #good for them #master splinter would approve #for the city #humans will always make gods out of the absurd

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loathsome-sickness · 4 months

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"people show their true colours in life threatening situations" no, they show you what they act like when they're mortally terrified, an emotion notorious for literally turning your entire brain off to the point where people who go into those situations as a profession need to be literally trained on how to not have that happen

#am i arguing with random 'philosophical' type villains in my own head?#yes #it's a favourite past time of mine i hate every one of those 'i know the true nature of humans because i did horrible things to them' types #with every part of my soul

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etakeh · 4 months

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#humans #population #Robert Evans #I am not a ZPG person necessarily #but I do like the idea of taking care of the people we have before we worry about adding more #but rich people have other priorities #Elon musk

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rockatanskette · 8 months

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I don't have a deep philosophical take on this, I just need to share it: aliens witnessing competitive eating contests. First Encounter with Joey Chestnut. Xlibthar meets Miki Sudo. An intergalactic conflict is averted with one video of Takeru Kobayashi eating twelve pounds of chicken satay in one sitting. The image of a hot dog is a threat in nine star systems.

#humans are space orcs #humans are space australians #humans are human #earth is space australia

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ecoamerica · 15 days

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youtube

Watch the American Climate Leadership Awards 2024 now: https://youtu.be/bWiW4Rp8vF0?feature=shared

The American Climate Leadership Awards 2024 broadcast recording is now available on ecoAmerica's YouTube channel for viewers to be inspired by active climate leaders. Watch to find out which finalist received the $50,000 grand prize! Hosted by Vanessa Hauc and featuring Bill McKibben and Katharine Hayhoe!

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silvermoon424 · 1 month

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New reaction pic for y'all to be used when you get into an argument about trans healthcare and your opponent starts talking about the 0.8% or whatever of trans people who regret transitioning

#trans healthcare #trans rights are human rights #trans rights #transgender #trans #reaction pic #trolley problem #1k #2k #5k #10k #most popular

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astraystayyh · 4 months

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the fact that Israel can precisely target ONE apartment in an entire residential block in BEIRUT to kill two hamas leaders, proves once again that they CHOSE to carpet-bomb Gaza and murder 31.000 Palestinians to "defend themselves" against Hamas. Israel CHOSE to kill civilians, they CHOSE to bomb every hospital, every school, every refugee camp, every residential block. israel does NOTHING to spare the lives of palestinians, they want to thin out the population of gaza so they'd be able to settle their citizens there.

this is a genocide it's an ethnical cleansing PLEASE WAKE UP don't stop talking about Palestine it is not a trend, people are still dying, Israel has no plan to stop if WE don't force it to, through public pressure and protesting and boycotting. it's the least we can do.

#free west bank #free palestine #free gaza #gaza #palestine #israel #save palestine #stop israel #human rights #current events #west bank #jerusalem

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correctopinionhaver · 2 months

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