The sociological theory of weak ties, introduced by Mark Granovetter in 1973, reveals that infrequent, low-intensity social connections act as vital bridges that link otherwise disconnected social groups. These weak ties facilitate the flow of novel information, resources, and opportunities, supporting innovation and adaptability within social networks (Granovetter, 1973). Over time, this foundational insight has found compelling parallels across disciplines including technology, neuroscience, quantum physics, organic chemistry, machine learning, and cloud computing. These interdisciplinary connections expose shared principles of connectivity, plasticity, and novelty underpinning both natural and human-created complex systems.
The Ventromedial Hypothalamus, Autism, cPTSD, and Type 2 Diabetes: Piecing Together the Neuroendocrine Puzzle
Living as an autistic human with cPTSD, my personal health journey has always intersected with questions about the brain, stress, and physical illness. Recent neuroscience is finally exposing the depth of mind-body connections in conditions like type 2 diabetes (T2D)—and for people wired differently, like those on the autism spectrum or living with the scars of toxic stress, these findings feel especially urgent. A new mechanism, outlined in Lin et al. (2025), peels back the lid on how metformin, the most common diabetes drug, directly interacts with the brain’s ventromedial hypothalamus (VMH) to control blood sugar. This opens new theories about the unique diabetes risks faced by neurodivergent and trauma-affected populations and whether treatment responses might also diverge.
Human Cognitive Diversity as Adaptive Radiation: Genomic and Neurodivergent Pathways to Species Dominance
Rapid radiations, in which bursts of diversification yield disproportionate contributions to extant biodiversity, underlie most of the known diversity of life (Wiens & Moen, 2025). This principle holds across clades of animals, plants, fungi, and protists. We argue that a parallel process manifests in humans: our global dominance as an apex mammalian species derives from rapid internal diversification of cognition, behavior, and social interaction styles. Drawing on evolutionary genomics, epigenetics, and neuroscience, we propose that neurodiversity—including autism and related neurodivergent profiles—constitutes an adaptive radiation within a single species, sustaining variation that enables resilience, innovation, and ecological mastery. We synthesize evolutionary biology with human neuroscience to suggest that the same mechanisms responsible for generating flowering plant and arthropod hyperdiversity also operate, at a psychological and genomic scale, in Homo sapiens.
Autism: A natural, evolutionary neurotype (review)
Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is traditionally conceptualized as a pathological condition characterized by impairments. However, a growing body of scientific evidence supports understanding autism as a naturally occurring neurodevelopmental variant shaped by complex genetic and environmental factors and maintained through evolutionary mechanisms. This review synthesizes current knowledge from genetics, neuroscience, and evolutionary biology to argue that autism represents a natural neurotype rather than a disorder. It also addresses common misconceptions rooted in deficit-focused medical models and highlights the neurodiversity paradigm’s implications for research, practice, and social inclusion.
The ‘Sacred Triad of Being’ & The Importance of Your ‘Why’
Much of the deepest wisdom in life arrives in deceptively simple packaging. Ancient cultures often distilled immense truths into symbols, short sayings, or small practices that contain layer upon layer of meaning. What initially appears simple often turns out to be what I think of as a Matryoshka doll of concepts; ideas nested within ideas, each entangled with larger social, cultural, and even biological systems. This is how the concept of the Sacred Triad of Being emerged for me. It is at once individual and collective, personal and political, psychological and philosophical. The triad is composed of three equilateral spheres […]
Don’t threaten me with a good time (#theory)
This paper proposes a formal framework that reliably reduces semantics and epistemology to syntax within American English and integrates mechanisms to identify and remove lexicons of known biases and associated ontological or ideological slants. Drawing from linguistics, logic, epistemology, AI ethics, and computational bias detection research, the framework is outlined with demonstrations, objections addressed, and future work clearly defined. The incorporation of bias detection and mitigation ensures the system’s neutrality and epistemic reliability.
Speech Bias Harms, Undermines Democracy
At first glance, the challenges autistic people face with speech and the misinformation crisis threatening American democracy may seem worlds apart. Yet, both stem from the same deep-rooted cultural bias: an insistence on speech as the only legitimate mode of communication. This bias excludes, silences, and harms those who communicate differently, but it also leaves society vulnerable to manipulation, polarization, and the breakdown of meaningful dialogue.
Muttering, mostly.
Audio only; the intermittent mutterings that flow through my brain. Archival, mostly for me, these are not the droids you seek, move along…
Recovered from the stacks – 2023
This item was located on an old drive and is being inserted into the blog for archival purposes. The Cost of Being “Too Nice”: A Personal Reckoning There’s a harsh trade-off in modern existence—a tax on autonomy charged in the currency of conformity. To get in the door, you yield a piece of your will, and in return, you’re handed the legal minimum: a salary just above drowning, benefits dictated by those who’ve never sweated at your level. Every dollar is stretched across the real cost of staying operational: food, shelter, medicine, sanity. It’s a balancing act demanded by all […]