Temperatures above 50C used to be a rarity confined to two or three global hotspots, but the World Meteorological Organization noted that at least 10 countries have reported this level of searing heat in the past year: the US, Mexico, Morocco, Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iran, Pakistan, India and China.
In Iran, the heat index – a measure that also includes humidity – has come perilously close to 60C, far above the level considered safe for humans.
Heatwaves are now commonplace elsewhere, killing the most vulnerable, worsening inequality and threatening the wellbeing of future generations. Unicef calculates a quarter of the world’s children are already exposed to frequent heatwaves, and this will rise to almost 100% by mid-century.
I’m a living being who does not want to associate with humans.
Autistic people are more likely to be Therian (identify as partly non-human and non-humanoid animal): Therianthropy: Wellbeing, Schizotypy, and Autism in Individuals Who Self-Identify as Non-Human, Clegg et al., Society & Animals 2019.
Looking at some brief descriptions of the terms (I’m only mildly aware of them) there is also the related group of Otherkin, who identify as not fully human, but do identify full with human-like sapience. The personal experiences of a ‘Machinekin’ (identifying as part sapient robot) are presented in _ Exploring Other-Than-Human Identity: Religious Experiences in the Life-Story of a Machinekin _, Shea, S.C, 2020, published in Religions. Neve discusses the relationship between autism and feeling othered in terms of gender and non-human Machinekin identity first hand.
Searching for autistic and otherkin, I find regular discussions in autistic spaces about how people believe their otherkin and autistic identities and experiences overlap. Much of this is in Autism / Neurodivergence discords, which can’t be searched. However, these discords provide a managed group of fellow travellers with information that doesn’t leak out to search engines. Nevertheless, some discussion about this is searchable. Here’s one comment:
Alienkin. So much wrong planet syndrome. Hi, yes. Not alien, definitely relate to alienness though.
So much of my life spent asking “Why do neurotypicals do X thing?” only to later find out that they do it because it’s done, it’s their social identity. If their social identity mows the lawn, they mow the lawn. It doesn’t matter that there’s a cost of noise pollution and ecological destruction. They do it because their social identity does it. If their social identity revolved around jumping off of cliffs, they’d do that too. It’s why there’s so much “acceptable” ritual sacrifice, war, and other such horrific acts of atrocity throughout human history.
So I definitely relate to alienness. To do something “because it is done, the done thing” is the most utterly bizarre and strange concept to me. I understand to do something if it might be ethical, or kind, or clever, with an accompanying reason. But because “it is done?” It’s bizarre.
Another discussion is titled “Does being autistic feel like being a robot who is trying to learn how to be human?” Top responses agree to this, giving various explanations of why it occurs, or how it feels, including:
I feel more like I’m missing a sense. It’s like in every interaction in a group there is a second conversation only I can’t hear that tells people when It’s their turn to speak and elaborates on what the person means. I’m watching everything and analyzing everything to try to figure out what everyone else is getting that I’m not.
and
Yea kinda, or like an alien, who forgot his human handbook on scp147, if you have seen the show resident alien, I related a sadly large amount to the alien.
and
That’s why folks called me Dr. Spock growing up. I come from Vulcan, live long and prosper
There are questions about this on sites like Quora, with responses like “I’ve known since I was a kid that I had autism, so this might not relate to me. However, as a kid, I called myself an alien in this world. It’s probably common when it comes to robots, but I was an alien to this world.”
Unless you are legitimately an alien or a cat or something that somehow got on Lemmy (and I apologize if this is the case), then you are a human. You can’t identify your way out of being a member of this species.
The fact my fellow autistic people are disidentifying from humanity is extremely concerning. Even worse I can understand why given the behaviour of so many humans being what it is. Plus constantly being marginalized in human societies doesn’t help.
The solution though isn’t to stop identifying as being human and pretend to be something else. The solution is to re-evaluate what being human is. Too much emphasis in popular culture is placed on humanity or being human as some positive thing where someone who is truly human couldn’t be the villain or the mass murderer. The reality is the human race is broad and doing a genocide is just as human as inventing the vaccine for TB. Those things we can do because we are human, with human capabilities. Another animal wouldn’t think to make a vaccine, or to do a genocide, they do what they because of instincts, learned behavior, and survival.
Unless you are legitimately
I’m legitimately someone who has no emotional connection to humans as a group.
The solution though isn’t to stop identifying as being human and pretend to be something else.
Fun fact: a lot about what it means to be humans is also pretending to be human. Apart from the observable biological / genetic / genealogical classification differences, everything else about humanity is entirely created by humans, and they can disagree about many features of it.
I have no interest in that pretence. I do not identify with humans. If you want to change that, endorse society / the majority to attempt to feed all children. That’s my moral benchmark for when I will feel like I align with human principles.
Another animal wouldn’t think to make a vaccine
I am absolutely and completely sure that time and space are both infinite, and therefore the chance of us being the only intelligent life is zero.
I am also absolutely and completely sure that, given that time and space is infinite, and cosmological time involves the destruction and rebirth of the existence of matter itself in a cyclical process, that humans are - given an objective view of cosmological time - no more important than any other animal. We, and all our works, are just as transient.
Autistic people identify as non-, or other-than- human in other ways than furry, e.g. Machinekin or Alienkin.
Me? I just don’t want the label of human, because I don’t respect human society.
