Human Technologies

Tools, systems, and protocols designed to modify, augment, or manage the biological and psychological capacities of individual human beings. This spans the ancient (yoga, meditation, mnemonic techniques) to the futuristic (cranial implants, gene editing, nootropics). Unlike Social Technologies, which target relationships between people, Human Technologies target the person themselves—their memory, mood, lifespan, or physical capability. They are the applied toolkit of self-improvement and, sometimes, self-transformation.

Human Technologies Example: The prenatal vitamin is a Human Technology—a mundane chemical intervention to optimize fetal development. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is a Human Technology—a structured protocol for retraining maladaptive thought patterns. Both are engineering applied to the human organism, one biological, one psychological, united by the goal of improving human function through deliberate design.

by Dumu The Void February 11, 2026

Human Supremacy

1. A sci-fi ideology where humanity is viewed as the dominant or rightful species in a universe shared with aliens. Common in space operas, military sci-fi, and dystopian future settings.

2. Outside of fiction (theoretically), a stance that if intelligent extraterrestrial life were ever discovered, the preservation, survival, and continuity of humanity should take absolute priority over alien life — especially in situations of conflict, coexistence, or limited resources.

Where it’s mainly used:
Mostly in science fiction (books, games, movies, fandom discussions), especially in stories involving alien invasions, galactic politics, or interstellar war. Outside fiction, it appears in speculative debates about first contact scenarios.

Key distinction:
Not about Earth animals or real-world racial supremacy — it’s a humanity-first mindset in the context of extraterrestrial life. The core idea is preservation of the human species above all non-human intelligent life.

Example 1:
“When the aliens demanded Earth join their empire, the council went full human supremacy.”

by fatal alex February 19, 2026

Spectral Variables (Social Sciences and Humanities)

The foundational insight that studying human meaning, culture, and society requires attending to the ghosts that quantitative methods miss. These spectral variables include historical trauma that shapes community responses, unspoken power dynamics in an interview, the researcher's own positionality relative to those studied, the language gaps that lose meaning in translation, and the silenced voices that never make it into the archive. In social sciences and humanities, spectral variables aren't noise to be eliminated—they're the signal, or at least the key to understanding what the signal means. Good humanistic research maps the ghosts rather than pretending they aren't there.

Spectral Variables (Social Sciences and Humanities) "Your survey data shows 80% satisfaction. But the Spectral Variables tell a different story: people were afraid to be honest with government researchers, the translator softened critical responses, and the community's historical experience with surveys made them tell you what they thought you wanted. Your data is accurate and completely wrong—haunted by ghosts you never asked about."

by Abzugal Nammugal Enkigal February 23, 2026

Critical Human Sciences

A broad framework applying critical theory to all disciplines studying human life—psychology, sociology, anthropology, history, linguistics, and more. Critical Human Sciences examine how these disciplines have been shaped by power, how they've sometimes served domination, and how they might serve liberation. They insist that studying humans requires understanding the social context of the study itself—that the observer is part of the observed, that knowledge is never neutral, and that the human sciences must be self-aware or risk becoming tools of control rather than understanding.

"Psychology was used to pathologize resistance; anthropology was used to justify colonialism. Critical Human Sciences asks: how can disciplines that have served power now serve freedom? Not by pretending the past didn't happen, but by learning from it. The human sciences study humans; critical human sciences study humans studying humans. Reflexivity is the price of honesty."

by Dumu The Void March 3, 2026

Marxist Human Sciences

A broad framework applying Marxist analysis to all disciplines studying human life—history, psychology, sociology, anthropology, and more. Marxist Human Sciences examine how modes of production shape human consciousness, how class relations structure human experience, and how human liberation requires transforming both society and self. They draw on Marx's early writings on alienation, his later critiques of political economy, and subsequent Marxist traditions in philosophy, psychology, and cultural theory. Marxist Human Sciences insist that understanding humans requires understanding the societies that make us, and that changing those societies is part of becoming fully human.

"Capitalism makes us see ourselves as isolated individuals competing for scarce resources. Marxist Human Sciences ask: is that human nature, or capitalism's nature? Could we be different in a different society? The human sciences study humans; Marxist human sciences study how humans are made and remade by history. Not just describing what we are, but asking what we could become."

by Dumu The Void March 3, 2026

Left-wing Human Sciences

A broad framework applying left-wing values to all disciplines studying human life—history, psychology, sociology, anthropology, and more. Left-wing Human Sciences examine how human experience is shaped by power, inequality, and social structure, and how knowledge can serve liberation. They draw on Marxist, feminist, anti-racist, and other critical traditions to analyze both human reality and the disciplines that study it. Left-wing Human Sciences are self-aware about their own political commitments, rigorous in their analysis, and committed to human flourishing.

"Psychology can pathologize resistance or it can understand it. History can celebrate power or it can tell stories from below. Left-wing human sciences choose—to study with the oppressed, to analyze with liberation in mind, to produce knowledge that serves freedom. Not propaganda, but scholarship that knows it's always political and chooses its politics wisely."

by Dumu The Void March 3, 2026

Critical Theory of Human Sciences

The application of Critical Theory to all disciplines studying human life—psychology, anthropology, history, linguistics, and more—examining how they've been shaped by power, how they've served domination, and how they might serve liberation. Critical Theory of Human Sciences asks: How have these disciplines constructed "the human" in ways that exclude? How have they pathologized resistance, exoticized difference, erased alternatives? It doesn't reject the human sciences but insists they must be self-aware, reflexive, and accountable. Studying humans requires understanding the politics of studying humans.

"Psychology pathologized homosexuality; anthropology exoticized 'primitive' cultures. Critical Theory of Human Sciences asks: what other violences hide in our disciplines? The human sciences study humans, but they're also human—flawed, political, complicit. Critical theory demands they remember that, reflect on it, and do better."

by Abzugal Nammugal Enkigal March 4, 2026