This is a tool. Those post-it notes with molecules from metabolic pathways on them.

Green are interesting endpoints.

The ribonucleic acids (as monophosohates) AMP:upper right,GMP:center right second from the edge, UMP:upper left, center right in the cluster, CMP:upper left, center left in the cluster, TMP:upper left, top of the cluster.
And some cofactors/B-vitamins:NAD/NADP/Niacin/B3, Pyridoxal Phosphate/B6:lower left, Coenzyme-A/B5:lower center edge, Thiamine/B1: center, Folate/B9:right, third from the edge Riboflavin/B2:right, green square at the edge.

Orange are some of the amino acids that are made into proteins: Aspartate:center edge top and right lower orange square, Glycine:left close to center, Histidine:right top, Tyrosine:left edge center, Phenylalanine:left edge bottom, Tryptophan:left on the lower corner square, Valine:first lower center orange square Cysteine:lower center left right member of the pair, Serine:lower center left member of the pair.

Aspartate has two because it’s an intermediate but the amino acid in protein part is more important to me. There may be other inconstancy. This is evolving

Pink are common intermediates, or junctions in pathways depending on how you want to look at it. Pink are also molecules added to reactions. Some pink start pathways and are used so often I saw them as a “pool to draw from” and not a pathway that makes the molecule (I should connect Glycolysis and the Pentose Phosphate cycle). Ribose is used to make so many things in the form of PRPP: center left third from edge. AGUCT, Tryptophan, Histidine, NAD, Folate, Riboflavin Thiamine. There’s a bunch more. Glycine is positioned as something added when making A and G

Blue are intermediates in pathways connected to something green and pink. This needs organized better. Some are missing reaction steps because I’m not working on it yet or interested in it yet. Lower center connects Coenzyme-A/B5 to Valine. AG biosynthesis stretches across the center left to right from PRPP with two pink intermediates, AIR (pink) connects to Thiamine, SAICAR (pink) connects to Histidine, IMP (pink) is an intermediate between A:AMP above and G:GMP below. I have Tryptophan lower center left in a U shape going up from Pink Erythrose-4 Phosphate (E4P) and Phospho-Enol-Pyruvate (PEP). Formate and Bicarbonate are single carbon molecules of interest.

At the moment I’m looking at the protein domain structure of purine (AG) biosynthesis and seeing what is shared with who so I can find new connections. And I’m trying to go back to an abiogenesis post which is proving challenging.

Trigger Warning: I’ll be posting about what I see as examples of rape culture in action so this one is under the fold.

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My co-blogger Abe Drayton at Oceanoxia needs help. They have been job hunting and the pandemic has affected hiring in their country.

They have resources for people in the same situation, and have been covering how the fossil fuel industry and government has been taking advantage of the pandemic.

If anyone can help and they like what read they are accepting patrons.

Aparently this administration thinks being able to arrest and lock up anyone they want for any reason is important. At least that seems like a reasonable summary of what I read from Peter Wade in Rolling Stone magazine (via Lynna at PZ’s Political Madness thread).

This was what I had to say on facebook.

You will bring all proposed constitutional suspensions to the public or you will get a revolution during a pandemic.
This administration has given no one a reason to trust it. As far as I’m concerned they would treat me as bad as they would a migrant.
The Republicans allow such social cruelty that I am rationally prejudiced against them. As a group they simply don’t give a shit about prisoners, abuse by authorities, and and other assorted social cruelties.
The Democrats let Obama become complicit in torture, abuse government whistle blowers, and allowed government espionage against american citizens through telecom companies.
If you do this without a through public hearing the remaining social confidence in government will break.

I’ve been thinking about that. I spend a lot of time thinking about why groups of people do what they do and this one has me somewhat puzzled.

While I’m not sure how it got started I have an idea about how it continued. Once the toilet paper started running low people wanted to make sure they would have some so they ran out to buy it too, which is a least not disease related irrationality. So the hoarding keeps going disease relation or no disease relation.

For the record I’m not participating in that. I’ll use the water in the bowl, my hand, and wash my hands before I join the flock in this.

Now as for how it got started, I don’t know. I’ve to find examples of the early people hoarding it to see what they thought they were gaining. Maybe the toilet paper was just in someone’s field of view when the hoarding instinct clicked on.

The situation with my position in whiteness becomes more complicated when I consider the census.

I still believe that whiteness is a political fiction designed for social dominance. An unhealthy social obsession that damages my country’s politics. “Other” seems like my only viable option. If anyone asks I give them my reasons.

But once again my actions do not exist in a vacuum. I have to plan for social responses. My general position still gets reactions and I’m still seeing people, white people* in all likelihood, choosing to obsess over blackness. One acted like the slave origin of blackness made me a hypocrite, which is pretending blackness and whiteness are equivalent and history lets me kill that. I will watch what white people do with whiteness and pay attention to how they act towards blackness.

What could a social reaction to white people associating with “other” on the census be?

*no more scare quotes because a political group naming themselves white people need none.

Posted to facebook.
“Anyone with a problem with Elizabeth Warren’s tone, or likability is suspect for misogyny until I see the details. ESPECIALLY if you’re a Trump voter. That chucklefuck doesn’t get to be the only one using aggression. I will call that cowardly shit out. Learn to engage with aggressive women. Try to change their tone from what’s legitimate and I’ll poke at that weakness until you crack.”

The behavior in the comments of a recent post by PZ reminded me of another political issue I’ve been meaning to write about. Race and “whiteness”.

I was raised to identify as white and today I hate that political construct. It is useless unless one wants to win a political conflict through numbers or fists. It has no other rational use that I can see. It doesn’t focus on any actual relevant social problems, it doesn’t help me figure out who a good person or a bad person is, it seems to have nothing but the social conflict.

The color doesn’t exist in the human population. There are no white people. There’s a range of pigmentation in there.
If the lack of literal examples in a political label isn’t good enough there’s the fact that plenty of light skinned people were said to not be white. The Irish (the same comparison with monkeys in political images at the link) are one example, and today you can see complications over if Jews are white.

Am I missing something? This looks like a huge waste of time and social effort because people need to box themselves into “whiteness” and make adversaries. Think about what it was before “whiteness”. Nation. City-state. City, down to the people on the other side of the “geographical feature”.

If the lack of actual whiteness and the behavior of people obsessed with who is and isn’t white isn’t enough there’s the fact that the term originated in a “need” to separate people (here’s a PDF) for ownership and denial of rights purposes.

The first examples of “white race/people” in the Oxford English Dictionary are no earlier than the 1600s, when Europeans were deeply involved in African slave-trading; the same seems to be true of the corresponding terms in the major European languages. At that point, the use of what was by then a powerfully stigmatizing form of polarized terminology must have seemed comfortingly appropriate.

The reference to “polarized terminology” referrs to the way society (western in my experience) uses “white” and “black” as replacements for “good” and “bad”. Unless you are a bigot “whiteness” looks like a broken social tool if you care about more than base group conflict.

When I point these things out to people I get a couple of responses. This is what I remember so far. Some people agree with the connections and brokenness of “whiteness”. One person demanded to know what I’m going to give them to replace “whiteness”, interestingly they didn’t tell me what they needed but I pointed out the tool is broken if I have a replacement or not.
Another was more explicit about their concerns, “What about blackness? Black people need to stop using blackness!”.

How very interesting.

Instead of being concerned about the label that applies to themselves and some form of group organization that solves problems facing our nations, this person was concerned about the label “they” (black people) are using on “themselves”. Group conflict related fear.
I wonder how conscious this was? It’s happened more than once and it’s a useful way to spot irrational racial group conflict related fear.

But as I wrap this up I need to point out another group conflict related fear, a rational one, the one black people have regarding white people. When Europeans assumed whiteness in order to dominate and enslave they chose blackness and forced it on black people. We took their culture away. What gets done with blackness is black people’s business. It looks like the same kind of attempt to socially control as complaints about baggy pants and rap music.

People who discover the brokenness or offensiveness of whiteness as a political organization tool can’t simply disavow it and ignore it. There are people out there speaking for you. When they say “white people” they mean you. They are implicitly trying to speak for you too. They have to make this assumption so they can’t deny your challenge.
You get to criticize them. If you want to fix society you will critisize them if you safely can. I won’t tell someone to do something risky but I do encourage it, especially with the climate change problems. This shit is fucking our societies up, it’s not based on solving problems. I’m comfortable spending the rest of my life watching for what white people say.

When someone publicly makes claims about people and/or groups and doesn’t support them I see that as politically pissing on fences.

For example the Trump fans who simply post “Trump2020!” in articles about anything considered politically “left” in the US, or in places they consider liberal, or articles about the election…

It’s on the “left” too, but this is my example. I need a political label of disgust having to do with political dominance displays that have no actual substance. Racists have made primate related insults a challenging problem. I’ve no problem respecting that strategic political reality, I’m just making it explicit (the blog name is an experiment and I welcome opinions) . So dogs are the implication, sorry dogs.

The last person I used it on said I didn’t support my argument and had to point out that it was a label for political behavior. From there I overtly meet them at that level, their behavior let met do it. Their comment nothing but the basest expression of personal politics lets you be personal right back.
Do unto others as they give you licence to do unto them (I call it “the inverse golden rule”).

Bigot in cheif.

Irrational, illogical, incompetent, ignoramus… incumbent? No. That needs work. But the alliteration is catchy. Irrational, illogical, incompetent, ignoramus, and I repeat myself.

Trump is a cheat, a cheater, and you shouldn’t let him cheat you even if you voted for him.

Somehow my brand of tourette syndrome has come with personal insult resistance. I’m more sensitive to people insulting one another and I often treat personal insults as a challenge.

Maybe it needs work, I’m going to practice this. There’s social symmetry in there because Trump makes insults for people. There’s an argument for overtly openly reflecting Trump’s bad behavior (not just insults) on his supporters and only stopping with specific supporters when they start critisizing Trump’s awful personal behavior.

With the insulting language it has to beliefs, manner of thought, or behavior. Not face. Not body. Personal behavior relevant to his awfulness. If you go for the irrelevant personal characteristics you’re not focused on the problem, you’re helping to propagate the problem.

You don’t have to worry about letting go of bigoted, irrational, and irrelevant insults. Have you noticed how “ignorant” and “incompetent” and “bigot” or it’s flavors like “racist” and “sexist” are treated as if they’re just insults and not characteristics? You’re not losing anything and you gain focus on social problems. Sure you have to do the work of making sure you can competently use them yourself but it’s worth it.

Just make sure the sting they feel isn’t why you’re doing it or you’re likely to mess things up.

And what is this? This is bigger than me. I’m practicing behavior associated with tourette syndrome phenomena, boundary crossing, insults, finding places where politics justifies me using this, instincts? Personality?