Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Helene @helene333.bsky.social · 12d

Would read!!

Reposted by Helene

Nicole Chung @nicolechung.bsky.social · 25d

the most important thing to remember when you see eugenicists who don’t believe that autistic people should exist rambling about “the autism epidemic” is not that they’re wrong about the “cause” (although they are absolutely wrong about it); it’s that they are eugenicists

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EerilyPhD 👻 @ejwillingham.bsky.social · 26d

If you’d like to unpack all the lies being told to the public right now, here’s your fact valet —

Acetaminophen doesn’t cause autism&pregnant people w/fever or pain need it.

Leucovorin isn’t an autism treatment& the reason they’re trying to sell you that is explained in the attached thread& posts

EerilyPhD 👻 @ejwillingham.bsky.social · 27d

Hellloooooo, journalists! Covering the Mon announcement abt #autism? CHECK OUT the last 3 @thinkingautism.com newsletters for background on the loooong trail of grift in mitochondria-autism industry, starting w/a man who co-authored entire study abt his own daughter w/o disclosing the relationship.🧵

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David Kaib @davidkaib.bsky.social · Sep 15

Ask yourself, if this lie or unsubstantiated claim was true, would it justify their conclusion? If the answer is no, than this should not be the primary basis of the pushback

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Brian Merchant @bcmerchant.bsky.social · Sep 9

With students heading back to the classroom, a group of cognitive scientists and AI researchers has published one of the most forceful and evidence-backed calls yet to reject the "uncritical adoption of AI" in academia:

Cognitive scientists and AI researchers make a forceful call to reject “uncritical adoption" of AI in academia

A new paper calls on academia to repel rampant AI in university departments and classrooms.

www.bloodinthemachine.com

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Kevin M. Kruse @kevinmkruse.bsky.social · Sep 2

The president is sending the military to control American cities and if you're a reporter who's framing that illegal power grab as "pushing the boundaries of constitutionality" or "acting boldly to fight crime" or whatever, please go find another line of work where you won't get us all killed.

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Helene @helene333.bsky.social · Sep 3

So cool!

alexis @objetautre.com · Sep 3

I'm thrilled to share that my poem lanterns will be part of the University of Massachusetts Hampden Gallery Triennial exhibition, "Reflecting on the Past/Dreaming the Future"

On view: September 12 – December 3; Amherst, MA

twelve poem-lanterns made of cut-paper and light

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Helene @helene333.bsky.social · Sep 3

Those are gorgeous!

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Helene @helene333.bsky.social · Sep 3

Having to get out early means catching some morning mist in the hills before it burns off.

Photo of a wooded hilltop with the sun shining brightly above the trees. Below, wispy mist hangs over an area of grass and shrubs.

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White Rose Witching @wrwitching.bsky.social · Sep 2

Hey folks, please spread the word. I know it is hard in this hyper-connected digital age, but learn how to organize and communicate in ways beyond social media and apps.

Ice obtains access to Israeli-made spyware that can hack phones and encrypted apps

Trump administration contract with Paragon Solutions gives immigration agency access to one of the most powerful stealth cyberweapons

www.theguardian.com

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Art by Veya @artbyveya.bsky.social · Sep 2

If empathy is a sin, then let me be guilty of it daily. ❤️🌼

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Helene @helene333.bsky.social · Sep 2

Some days I, too, would like to just climb a tree and threaten to jab anyone who comes too close...

Photo of a porcupine partway up a tree trunk, looking at the camera with a halo of quills around its head.

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Helene @helene333.bsky.social · Sep 2

This newsletter has been off to an impressive start, and this week's issue is especially important to read before whatever BS statement RFK Jr comes out with about autism.

Thinking Person's Guide to Autism @thinkingautism.com · Sep 1

"[RFK Jr.] is not a 'vaccine skeptic.' He is virulently anti-vaccine because he took that stand many years ago, made bank and reputation on it, and resists all updates to his stance." @ejwillingham.bsky.social on that public health pox, in the latest TPGA newsletter:

buttondown.com/TPGA/archive...

RFK Jr prepping more lies | Ineffective alt-med | Autistic Bowie

The ever-exhausting (we are so tired) US Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr wants to erase autistic people from existence and has told lies about them for years.

buttondown.com

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Helene @helene333.bsky.social · Sep 2

Sometimes owls look majestic and wise. Other times, they look like lumpy muppets.

Photo of a barred owl perched on a dead branch, with woods in the background. The owl is hunched over and looks like a round blob with another round blob for a head.

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Kate 🍄 @kateammann.bsky.social · Sep 1

Respect the locals! 🦊🤎

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Helene @helene333.bsky.social · Aug 31

If only!!!

Jonathan Edward Durham @thisone0verhere.bsky.social · Aug 31

Phone calls should come through with
a little subject line like emails do, like I’m sorry but I need to know before I pick that thing up

Helene @helene333.bsky.social · Aug 30

Honey is here to sweeten up your scroll.

Photo of a brown, black and white mixed breed dog, sitting up against the back of a red couch. Her ears are back and she is looking at the camera with a sweet expression.

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Chanda Prescod-Weinstein 🌌 @chanda.blacksky.app · Aug 29

Important thread:

Colin Carlson @colincarlson.bsky.social · Aug 29

With O'Neill (apparently) taking over CDC (if they ever get around to firing Monarez), I think it's worth looking back to Project 2025 and asking what they actually intend to *do* to CDC. So, I went to remind myself today. Here's what's in store:

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Helene @helene333.bsky.social · Aug 29

I don't even know what proper supports would look like in my life.

Thinking Person's Guide to Autism @thinkingautism.com · Aug 29

A review found that 90% of autistic people aged over 50 in Britain are either undiagnosed or misdiagnosed, and the same is likely true in other countries. Our middle-aged & older autistic people deserve proper supports NOW after a lifetime without accommodations.

www.theguardian.com/society/2025...

Older autistic people need more help after years of misdiagnosis, review finds

Research estimates 90% of Britons over 50 with autism aren’t getting right treatment and face added difficulties

www.theguardian.com

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Faine Greenwood @faineg.bsky.social · Aug 28

There’s an enormous amount of stuff in this book I’d like to highlight, but start with:

“What emerges as the most elementary insight is that, since we do not now have any ways of making computers wise, we ought not now to give computers tasks that demand wisdom.”

What could be more obvious than the fact that, whatever intelligence a computer can muster, however it may be acquired, it must always and necessarily be absolutely alien to any and all authentic human concerns?
The very asking of the question, "What does a judge (or a psychiatrist) know that we cannot tell a computer?" is a monstrous obscenity. That it has to be put into print at all, even for the purpose of exposing its morbidity, is a sign of the madness of our times.
Computers can make judicial decisions, computers can make psychiatric judgments. They can flip coins in much more sophisticated ways than can the most patient human being. The point is that they ought not be given such tasks. They may even be able to arrive at "correct" decisions in some cases-but always and necessarily on bases no human being should be willing to accept.
There have been many debates on "Computers and Mind." What I conclude here is that the relevant issues are neither technological nor even mathematical; they are ethical. They cannot be settled by asking questions beginning with "can." The limits of the applicability of computers are ultimately statable only in terms of oughts. What emerges as the most elementary insight is that, since we do not now have any ways of making computers wise, we ought not now to give computers tasks that demand wisdom.

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Helene @helene333.bsky.social · Aug 29

This whole thread of highlights from this book is worth reading (as is the rest of the book, I suspect).

Faine Greenwood @faineg.bsky.social · Aug 28

I finally read computer scientist Joseph Weizenbaum’s 1976 classic “Computer Power and Human Reason.”

This book deserves a massive revival in our current age of grotesque and largely thoughtless AI creep into everything:

JOSEPH WEIZENBAUM
COMPUTER POWER AND HUMAN REASON
FROM JUDGMENT TO CALCULATION

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Helene @helene333.bsky.social · Aug 28

Main message in Ron’s post is that it isn’t either-or. We affect the large scale through our work on whatever scale we work on. Rather than “forget the world, focus on you and yours,” it’s more like "this is *how* we save the world."

We and our direct connections *are* the world, together.

White Rose Witching @wrwitching.bsky.social · Aug 25

“Stop trying to save the world, and start trying to save your community.”

New blog post! This was a very difficult and confusing message to receive this month, and it took me a bit to piece it together with some of the other things in the dream.

New Moon Ritual: August 2025 — White Rose Witching

“Stop trying to save the world, and start trying to save your community.” That was the message a very stern Queer Ancestor shared during this month’s new moon ritual. And it is a message I’m honestly...

www.whiterosewitching.com

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ashley scarebanks 💀🕯️ @ziibiing.com · Aug 27

it feels like such a simple ask.

All i WANT iS A FUCKiNG WorLD WHere My frieNDs CaN LIVe WHERE PEOPLE ARE FED, LOVED, safe. WHeRe eVeRyoNe caN AGRee tHAT We SHOULDNT BOMb KiDS and THat the PLaNef is woRTH SAVING

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Cottagecore Spider Jerusalem @andyeyeballs.bsky.social · Aug 25

OK nerds, I have a challenge for you.

@tangledwilderness.bsky.social has just published my Letter to the Trans Teens Thinking About Giving Up as a zine. I want to see how many copies of it we can get into the hands of the people who need to read it, and I need YOUR help.

A title page in handwriting-looking font saying: "A Letter To The Trans Teens Thinking About Giving Up // <3 // by Andy Izenson // #44 -- August 2025"

A screenshot of text reading: "Dear friend,
Throughout all of human history, three things have always been true:
1. There are trans people.
2. There are boring assholes who try to make there not be trans people anymore.
3. They fail."

A screenshot of text reading:
"I want you to know that whatever happens, there is a future for you, because there is a future for us.
I don't know what that future is going to look like, but I know that you're not going to face any of it alone."

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Helene @helene333.bsky.social · Aug 24

I've heard good things about that one, too, and it's on my list! I also enjoyed Medea by Eilish Quin, and while that was a different author, I found their approaches to these two figures compatible.

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