What if the Great Filter is eugenics?
Maybe at the point a species gets it in their head to intentionally prune their species' genetic diversity is when they collapse because they become a fragile monoculture.
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#eugenics
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@cstross @ardenthistorian.bsky.social I recommend reading "The #TESCREAL Bundle" to see the connections of these people and their fascist eugenic "scifi" ideologies: https://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/13636
One author is on Mastodon: @timnitGebru (while @xriskology doesn't seem to be active anymore).
firstmonday.orgThe TESCREAL bundle: Eugenics and the promise of utopia through artificial general intelligence
| First Monday
Prior to Covid it was normal to mask in the NICU. People understood that premature babies are as vulnerable as they come and need to protected.
Now? Gowns & gloves but no masking.
The damage caused by anti mask rhetoric will be felt for years (possibly decades) to come.
Mask mandates belong in healthcare. We should be providing free respirators at the door & cleaning and ventilating the air.
If you’re a healthcare worker who doesn’t think you need to mask, please read my plea on behalf of vulnerable patients:
https://www.disabledginger.com/p/a-plea-to-maskless-healthcare-workers
We know masks in healthcare stop the spread of airborne disease. We know they reduce the risk of hospital acquired COVID (which has a 10% mortality rate).
We know respirators work even better.
So why aren’t we masking? Why are patients having to bear the brunt of infection control?
https://www.disabledginger.com/p/we-need-mandatory-masking-in-healthcare
The Disabled Ginger · A Plea to Maskless Healthcare Workers from Vulnerable Patients
There’s measles outbreaks in multiple States now, and every time a new cluster is announced there’s an exposure at an ER
Why? Because that’s where the sick people go
It’s one of the reasons disabled people often say they won’t go to the ER unless literally dying.
They’re not safe places for us:
https://www.disabledginger.com/p/i-wont-go-to-the-er-unless-im-literally
The Disabled Ginger · "I Won't Go to the ER Unless I'm Literally Dying"
There’s so much going on in the world that we can’t control.
The Covid pandemic gave way to rising fascism, just like the pandemics that have come before.
People are scared. Many lost loved ones. Society changed overnight. The loss of control that many felt allowed bad actors to rise up and capitalize on people’s fear.
No matter what our governments say or do, Covid isn’t over. It’s still killing and disabling people.
What’s worse, the pro infection crowd has become so loud and emboldened that vaccine uptake is down, masks are vilified and we’re seeing a resurgence of diseases like measles and tuberculosis.
Despite all the infectious disease threats out there, we still don’t have mandatory masks in healthcare.
The one place people absolutely can’t avoid, the place they should have a reasonable expectation of safety, has become one of the least safe public spaces.
Patients are being infected trying to access basic healthcare, because staff refuse to mask. Refuse to test. Refuse to isolate.
It’s eugenics, and we need people to realize it before it’s too late.
We need mandatory masks in healthcare. We must protect patients AND staff. We must protect even the ones who refuse to protect themselves.
https://www.disabledginger.com/p/we-need-mandatory-masking-in-healthcare
The Disabled Ginger · We Need Mandatory Masking in Healthcare, and We Need it Now
Reports that OpenAI is creating specialized AI agents to sell for $20,000 per month.
So OpenAI apparently believes custom-built AI agents are now worth $240,000 per year, about half the cost of the most highly-paid medical professional. It may be no where near as good as an actual human doctor or lawyer or engineer, but it never sleeps, it never gets tired. And in exchange for that ability to work round-the-clock at a fraction of the capacity of an actual human, it takes around a million times more water and electrical energy to keep it running than a human.
If I didn’t know better, then this would be one of the stupidest things I have ever heard, which makes me wonder if OpenAI is having their own AI generate business plans for them now.
But I do know better. It sounds stupid because they are lying about their stated goals. Their actual goal is for the wealthy ruling class to eliminate all human labor by any means necessary, and create a perfect wealth-generating machine for themselves. Nevermind that the logical extension of this is that they will have to murder everyone else on Earth who is not among their trusted inner circle, as all other humans are all potentially competitors for their natural resources. All their talk about a hybrid of humans and smarter-than-human machines is the philosophy of transhumanism put into practice, “transhuman” being just another word for “Ubermensch,” or “master race.” That is the real goal, which is why this ridiculous business plan by OpenAI actually makes sense.
https://dair-community.social/@timnitGebru/114113004264163371
Via @timnitGebru
Distributed AI Research CommunityTimnit Gebru (she/her) (@timnitGebru@dair-community.social)Friends, someone pop this bubble already please.
https://techcrunch.com/2025/03/05/openai-reportedly-plans-to-charge-up-to-20000-a-month-for-specialized-ai-agents/
“Take off your mask so I can see your pretty face”
“You won’t catch covid HERE! You can take off your mask”
“You seem anxious about Covid”
“Why are you masking? Are you sick?”
Lack of mask mandates in healthcare means patients are judged, mistreated & harmed when trying to access care.
Hospital acquired COVID has a 10% mortality rate. Patients are going in for necessary care and losing their lives or ending up disabled.
Healthcare workers are burned out, sick and exhausted.
The current situation is not sustainable.
We know how to reduce (if not eliminate) COVID and other hospital acquired infections.
So why aren’t we doing it?
My latest articles looks at masking in healthcare from the patient perspective. The challenges, the struggles, the avoidable infections and the trauma that comes from having healthcare workers abdicate their responsibility to “do no harm”
https://www.disabledginger.com/p/we-need-mandatory-masking-in-healthcare
The Disabled Ginger · We Need Mandatory Masking in Healthcare, and We Need it Now
1 in 3 doctors in the NHS report being too tired to adequately care for their patients.
“Of the 69% who said extreme tiredness had or may have impaired their ability to treat patients, 1 in 4 said one of their patients had been harmed or a near miss had occurred”
I’ve learned to adapt to Covid risk in healthcare. I can wear a respirator and eye protection. I can monitor the CO2 levels. I can bring extra masks for healthcare workers. There are proactive things I can do to keep myself safe.
How can I protect myself against healthcare workers who are too tired or sick to do their jobs properly?
We need to talk about this more. Covid is known to cause cognitive damage. Many healthcare workers have been infected multiple times.
Those of us with complex chronic illness already know how hard it is to access safe, competent and timely care.
What will that care look like in another five years if we don’t start mitigating Covid?
The Guardian · One in three NHS doctors so tired their ability to treat patients is affected, survey finds
Replied in thread
@arstechnica A good and important article! All this #AI hype is so anthropocentric! (And many #AGI people rely on fascist ideologies like #eugenics).
Replied in thread
Disability is a minority group that you can join at any time. It often happens in an instant and without warning.
You can’t plan for it. Most of us didn’t plan for it.
Everyone believes they will be the exception, but the truth is we’re all one accident, illness or catastrophic event from life changing disability
Cuts to social security will be devastating for disabled people. Delays in approval and funding will cost lives.
https://www.npr.org/2025/02/28/nx-s1-5296986/trump-worker-cuts-social-security-administration
Replied in thread
I'm sure he isn't the only one... Just the only one to get caught!
Staffer for #Musk’s DOGE resigns over #racist social media posts that advocated for #eugenics
#MarkoElez was one of two top #DOGE staffers granted access to the #TreasuryDepartment’s payment system
by Andrew Feinberg, Friday 07 February 2025
"One of the two staffers for Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency who was granted access to the U.S. Treasury’s sensitive payment system has quit his post after the White House was asked about his history of racist social media posts, including those supporting eugenics and repealing of the 1964 #CivilRightsAct.
"The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday that Marko Elez, a 25-year-old programmer who was brought into government service by the world’s wealthiest man had a profile on #ElonMusk’s social media site X featuring posts in which he said he supported a 'eugenic immigration policy,' and made other racist statements. Eugenics supports 'racial improvement' through 'selective breeding' to improve the human race.
"In one September post reviewed by The Journal, Elez reportedly wrote: 'You could not pay me to marry outside of my ethnicity.'"
Read more:
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/elon-musk-doge-staff-quit-b2693784.html
#USPol #reproductiverights #Fascism #BodilyAutomony #USHistory #WhiteNationalism #Genocide #BadDOGE
The Independent · DOGE staffer quits after exposure of racist social media posts
Replied in thread
America’s Forgotten History of #ForcedSterilization
By Sanjana Manjeshwar on November 4, 2020
"In early September, a nurse working at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (#ICE) detention center in #Georgia came forward with shocking allegations of medical neglect and abuse, claiming that numerous involuntary #hysterectomies (uterus removal surgeries) were performed on detained #ImmigrantWomen. This allegation understandably evoked fury and outrage among the general public, with numerous people denouncing it as a #HumanRights violation and yet another example of the current administration’s cruelty towards women and immigrants. Many people, including prominent liberal politicians and public figures, viewed it as something distinctly un-American and at odds with our country’s values — a common refrain that echoed in response to the allegation was 'This isn’t the America I know.' There were countless comparisons to #NaziGermany and other #totalitarian, human rights-abusing regimes, as well as a pervasive sense that the United States was engaging in a uniquely cruel and unprecedented act. Unfortunately, this is a misleading impression.
"While the allegations against ICE are undoubtedly horrific and must be investigated, they are not at all unprecedented or un-American — in fact, they are very American. The United States has a long, egregious, and largely unknown history of eugenics and forced #sterilization, primarily directed towards #PoorWomen, #DisabledWomen, and #WomenOfColor.
"The American #eugenics movement originated in the late 1800s and has always been undeniably based in #racism and #nativism. The word 'eugenics' originally referred to the biological improvement of human genes, but was used as a pseudoscience to justify discriminatory and destructive acts against supposedly undesirable people, such as extremely restrictive #ImmigrationLaws, #AntiMiscegenationLaws, and forced sterilization. The ultimate goal of the eugenics movement was to 'breed out' undesirable traits in order to create a society with a 'superior' genetic makeup, which essentially meant reducing the population of the #NonWhite and the mentally ill. The eugenics movement was widely accepted in American society well into the 20th century, and was not at all relegated to the fringes of society like one might expect. In fact, most states had federally funded eugenics boards, and state-ordered sterilization was a common occurrence. Sterilization was seen as one of the most effective ways to stem the growth of an 'undesirable' population, since ending a woman’s reproductive capabilities meant that she would no longer be able to contribute to the population.
"The Supreme Court case Buck v. Bell (1927) decided that a Virginia law authorizing the mandatory sterilization of inmates in mental institutions was constitutional. #CarrieBuck, a 'feeble minded woman' whose mental illness had been in her family for the past three generations, was committed to a state mental institution and was set to undergo a sterilization procedure which required a hearing. The Supreme Court found that the Virginia law was valuable and did not violate the Constitution, and would prevent the United States from 'being swamped with incompetence…Three generations of imbeciles is enough.' The Court has never explicitly overturned #BuckVersusBell.
"California’s '#AsexualizationActs' in the 1910s and 1920s led to the sterilization of 20,000 disproportionately #Black and #Mexican people who were deemed to be mentally ill. #Hitler and the #Nazis were reportedly inspired by #California’s laws when formulating their own #genocidal eugenics policies in the 1930s. When discussing the Asexualization Acts of California, Hitler wrote, 'There is today one state in which at least weak beginnings toward a better conception [of citizenship] are noticeable. Of course, it is not our model German Republic, but the #UnitedStates.'
"Throughout the 20th century, nearly 70,0000 people (overwhelmingly working-class women of color) were sterilized in over 30 states. #Black women, #Latina women, and #NativeAmerican women were specifically targeted. From the 1930s to the 1970s, nearly one-third of the women in #PuertoRico, a U.S. territory, were coerced into sterilization when government officials claimed that Puerto Rico’s economy would benefit from a reduced population. Sterilization was so common that it became known as '#LaOperación (The Operation)' among Puerto Ricans.
"Black women were also disproportionately and forcibly sterilized and subjected to reproductive abuse. In #NorthCarolina in the 1960s, Black women made up 65 percent of all sterilizations of women, although they were only 25 percent of the population. One Black woman who was subjected to a forced hysterectomy during this time was #FannieLouHamer, a renowned #CivilRights activist. Hamer described how nonconsensual sterilizations of working-class Black women in the South were so common that they were colloquially known as a '#MississippiAppendectomy'.
"Additionally, many Native American women were sterilized against their will. According to a report by historian Jane Lawrence, the Indian Health Service was accused of sterilizing nearly 25% of #Indigenous women during the 1960s and 1970s. In 1973, the year that Roe v. Wade was decided by the Supreme Court, supposedly ensuring reproductive rights for all American women, the reproductive rights of thousands of Indigenous women were entirely ignored as they were forcibly sterilized.
"Forced sterilization, especially in exchange for a sentence reduction, occurs often in the criminal #LegalSystem today. Government-sanctioned efforts to prevent incarcerated people from reproducing were widespread in the 20th century, and still continue today. In 2017, a judge in #Tennessee offered to reduce the jail sentences of convicted people who appeared before him in court if they
'volunteered' to undergo sterilization. In 2009, a 21-year-old woman in #WestVirginia convicted of #marijuana possession underwent sterilization as part of her probation. In 2018, an #Oklahoma woman convicted of cashing a counterfeit check received a reduced sentence after undergoing sterilization at the suggestion of the judge. According to a report by the Center for Investigative Reporting, almost 150 women considered likely to return to prison were sterilized in California prisons between 2004 and 2003. Although they had to sign 'consent' forms, the procedure, when posed as an incentive for a reduced sentence, generates an ongoing debate about whether or not consent actually exists in these situations. Proponents of the sterilization of incarcerated individuals often cite a lack of 'personal responsibility,' when in reality, many of these individuals face a lack of support and resources. Even if incarceration was somehow the singular determinant of one’s morals and character, sterilization as part of a prison sentence is still a fundamental violation of the right to #ReproductiveAutonomy — something judges and prison officials choose to ignore."
Read more:
https://bpr.studentorg.berkeley.edu/2020/11/04/americas-forgotten-history-of-forced-sterilization/
#USPol #reproductiverights #Fascism #BodilyAutomony #USHistory #WhiteNationalism #Genocide
Berkeley Political Review - UC Berkeley's only nonpartisan political magazine · America’s Forgotten History of Forced Sterilization - Berkeley Political ReviewIn early September, a nurse working at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention center in Georgia came forward with shocking allegations of medical neglect and abuse, claiming that numerous involuntary hysterectomies (uterus removal surgeries) were performed on detained immigrant women. This allegation understandably evoked fury and outrage among the general public, with numerous people
Continued thread
#ForcedSterilization of #DisabledPeople Isn’t a Relic of the Past
In a majority of states, #eugenics-era laws still let doctors sterilize disabled patients against their will.
by Julia Métraux
February 27, 2025
"'In order to prevent our being swamped with incompetence,' Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote for the majority in 1927’s Buck v. Bell, the state could—and should—'prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind.' Forced sterilization, the court held, was not only legal but laudable.
"In 1924, 17-year-old Carrie Buck was institutionalized, having been deemed 'feebleminded' on the grounds of 'promiscuous' behavior. In reality, Buck was raped by her foster family’s nephew. Three years later, with the Court’s blessing, Virginia’s 'State Colony of Epileptics and Feeble Minded' sterilized Buck against her will. The decision, passed at the height of the 20th-century eugenics movement, has never been overturned.
"'There’s a very different standard being applied to disabled people’s autonomy.'
"To this day, 31 states and #WashingtonDC, still have laws on the books that allow for the practice—and just two, #Alaska and #NorthCarolina, have laws that fully ban the #nonconsensual #sterilization of disabled people, according to a 2022 report from the National Women’s Law Center. There’s no official account of just how many disabled people have been sterilized under those laws.
"Some of these laws aren’t even that old. In 2019, #Iowa and #Nevada passed new forced sterilization laws that applied to people under #guardianship. Both bills passed unanimously, and the end result is consistent with laws on the books in other states. There was no discourse among politicians—let alone objections—about the ethics of sterilizing disabled people without their consent.
"Sterilization and Social Justice Lab co-director and founder Alexandra Minna Stern said that early IQ tests, which sought to measure intelligence in part on the basis of class- and culture-based questions involving Beethoven’s sonatas, the early United States, and college athletics, were 'used to categorize people who would then be targeted for sterilization,' generally those who were '#marginalized or maligned in some way': in #California and the #Southwest, often #MexicanAmericans; nationwide, #Black, #Indigenous and #poorer white Americans, particularly women. The people behind the tests, Stern says, were 'white, #elite men who wanted to create a certain type of society in their own image.'
"NWLC senior counsel for health equity and justice Ma’ayan Anafi, who is also disabled, told Mother Jones that “forced sterilization laws are a really powerful example of how violations of disabled people’s bodies and rights are baked into our legal system today.”
Read more:
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2025/02/forced-sterilization-eugenics-scotus-state-laws/
#USPol #reproductiverights #Fascism #BodilyAutomony
Mother JonesForced sterilization of disabled people isn't a relic of the pastIn most states, eugenics-era laws still let doctors sterilize disabled patients—even against their will.
When you’re chronically ill, you have to endure people telling you to “just try harder” or insinuating that you don’t really want to get better.
They don’t understand that health is temporary. Anyone can become disabled at any time.
It’s not a moral failing. It’s not about “trying harder”. It just happens.
That reality is hard for people to face. They don’t want to consider the frailty of the human condition. Their internalized ableism won’t allow it.
So they blame us. They gaslight us. They abandon us.
We deserve better. Help us fight for better systems of support. More accessible and inclusive societies. Better preventative healthcare.
Your future self will thank you.
Same old right wing puritanism dressed up in economic drag - republicans still believe that the elderly, poor, disabled, and under-educated should be left in a gutter to die b/c they're not profitable for corporations.
It's vile & disgusting. This is what christainity and being republican *is* now, and they should both be soundly rejected by every decent person.
They worship mammon.
Mass sterilisations of disabled people was not just a thing in 1930s Germany, eugenics and racism also led to sterilisations of:
disapled people in Sweden
Roma in Slovakia
Inuit in Greenland
in the last decades and I'm sure there are many more examples!
It’s hard to explain the hope I had at the beginning of the pandemic. I was scared, but I also thought we were going to become a more inclusive society. We were going to adapt and become more accessible. We would care more about chronic illness.
I never imagined we would be capable of ignoring millions dead and 400 million disabled. That we would start blaming people for their comorbids instead of actually mitigating a dangerous multi system virus.
Having that hope ripped away and replaced with eugenics and fascism has been incredibly painful.
I still grieve for what could have been.
If you think mask bans are “no big deal” because there’s medical exemptions, please consider the following:
Police are not doctors Many disabilities are invisible Disabled people don’t live in a bubble. I need my friends and caregivers to mask to protect me Everyone should have the right to protect their health, you shouldn’t have to already be sick to be permitted to mask Criminalizing masks sends a message that maskers are “bad”. It emboldens anti-maskers and increases odds of aggression
The reality is that mask bans are discriminatory, ableist and eugenicist. They push disabled people out of public spaces. They put marginalized and POC at increased risk of police profiling.
There’s no official policy for a medical exemption either, it’s at police discretion.
If you’re stopped and questioned, you will have to prove you’re masking for the “right reasons”
I’m more than willing to admit that if I were stopped by a cop for masking, I would appear nervous, shaky, tachycardic and probably “suspicious”.
Not because I’m doing anything wrong, but because my illnesses do not respond well to stress and the police are stressful.
It’s not right to put the onus on the masker to defend their right to mask. We’re still in a global pandemic. Texas has a measles outbreak. There’s tuberculosis in Kansas. Bird flu is spreading and it’s the worst year for influenza A in over a decade.
Masks are a public health tool. They’re a disability accommodation. They should NOT be criminalized.
For more on mask bans and medical exemptions, I wrote an article on the Nassau County ban here:
https://www.disabledginger.com/p/nassau-county-ny-makes-masking-illegal
The Disabled Ginger · Nassau County, NY Makes Masking Illegal - Why Medical Exemptions Aren't the Answer