Unwell to Begin With

About Unwell to Begin With

Biology and the environmental movement have a eugenics problem. Eugenics has also been gaining ground in public policy and discourse in many parts of the world lately, with scientists, policymakers, physicians, wellness influencers, and techbros alike increasingly posing it as a solution to intensifying socio-ecological crises. But what do disabled people and others in the crosshairs of this ideology — those of us who are ”unwell to begin with,” according to this logic — have to say about nature and the not-so-natural disasters reverberating across our communities? What lessons do crip knowledge, creativity, joy, and practices of interdependence offer urgently right now? Taking love for crip and allied communities as our starting place, we talk to people with diverse expertise about how they understand socio-ecological problems and challenge eugenic “solutions” in their environmental thinking and politics. This work is funded by a SSHRC Insight Grant of the Canadian government.

Publisher

mholmberg

Category

science · society & culture

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

2 Jun 2025

Latest episode

24 Apr 2026

Latest episodes

4 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   24 Apr 2026

   Episode 4: Trans studies speaks back to invasion biology, with Drs. Anita Simha and Banu Subramaniam

   “…the idea that there was some... kind of Edenic world before that we need to return to, and that, to me, is so caught up with immigration politics and the xenophobic politics. And so when you- and historians have shown this- when you are fighting xenophobia of humans, you also do that with animals and plants.” “…queer and trans people, you know, very naturally, have a lot to say about cis and heteronormative ideas about reproduction. They have a lot to say about good and bad bodies, about biological control. And so I think that there's kind of a nice dovetailing, maybe, between wanting to counter that… scarcity mindset, that's sort of already conceding that… we're gonna lose basically everything so whatever we have left, we have to hoard amongst ourselves (us being, you know, white nationalist basically Americans)… and bringing a queer and or trans perspective.” Mollie (she/her) sits down with Drs. Anita Simha (they/them) and Banu Subramaniam (any) to discuss why the concept of “invasive species” (and science more generally) is inherently political; how many of the same histories, discourses, technologies, and legal frameworks link human xenophobia with invasive species management; plants’ amazing biological plasticity over time and space; how queer and especially trans ecologies upend white nationalist, cisheteronormative categories and narratives at the core of mainstream ecology; how queer and trans ecologies radically expand the human and ecological futures we can envision as possible; why “invasiveness” isn’t a biological trait; interdisciplinary struggles working across feminist STS and biology; practical next steps (i.e., why joining your local union and removing data centers or military bases would probably do more for the environment than pulling weeds); and falling in love with the many gorgeous and incredible plants of the North American coastal plain. Anita is a plant community ecologist and postdoc currently based in the Department of Biology at Louisiana State University. To find out more about their work (including their co-authored chapters and articles with Banu), you can visit Anita’s website at https://anita-simha.github.io/. Banu is the Luella LaMer Professor of Women and Gender Studies at Wellesley College, and their latest book is Botany of Empire: Plant Worlds and the Scientific Legacies of Colonialism (University of Washington Press, 2024). Links to other work referenced in the show: Banu’s award-winning book Ghost Stories for Darwin: The Science of Variation and the Politics of Diversity (University of Illinois Press, 2014) Anita and Banu’s recent piece in the journal Area on trans studies and invasion science Lenzner, B., et al. (2022). “Naturalized alien floras still carry the legacy of European colonialism.” Nature Ecology & Evolution, 6(11), 1723-1732. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-022-01865-1. For more reading on/an intro to trans ecologies, see Trans Studies Quarterly’s 2024 special issue on trans ecologies (also featuring a piece by Anita and Banu!) More context for the famous ecology texts we critiqued in the episode: Garrett Hardin’s "Tragedy of the Commons"; Paul Ehrlich’s Population Bomb; Charles Elton’s The Ecology of Invasions by Animals and Plants For further reading on the Elwha River dam removals, see this overview by the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe More info about the incredible biodiversity of the North American Coastal Plain Banu's second book, Holy Science: The Biopolitics of Hindu Nationalism (University of Washington Press, 2019) More information about the violence of Canada's recent anti-migrant Bill C-12, condemned by human rights groups If you have any comments or questions about the show, you can reach us at nomorelawnmowers@proton.me Transcript by Mollie Holmberg. Theme music for the show is roswell by Fog Lake off the Free Music Archive and licensed under CC BY 4.0.

2. 

   26 Oct 2025

   Episode 3: Silicon Valley's TESCREAL eugenics cult with Dr. Émile Torres

   “Many people find these ideologies to be so risible and silly that they wonder why anyone would spend time talking about them. And… the best response I have is that the reason we should talk about these and take… precious time out of our day to understand them, is precisely because there are billions and billions of dollars backing this movement.” In this episode, host Mollie Holmberg (she/her) talks with Dr. Émile Torres about the pro-extinctionist TESCREAL worldviews driving the race to build artificial general intelligence; how these worldviews evolved directly out of Western Christianity and eugenics [ft. cameos by Julian Huxley and Peter Singer]; what the f*** TESCREALists actually mean by ‘artificial general intelligence’; why these ideologies are ludicrous if you think about them like an actual engineer (or from the perspective of any human person who has ever used a smartphone); why TESCREALists’ obsession with ‘existential risk’ spells very bad things not just for most of humanity, but also the planet; and holding climate pessimism alongside a commitment to keep fighting for a more just and livable future. To find out more about Dr. Torres’ work on Silicon Valley and the TESCREAL movement, you can visit their website at https://www.xriskology.com/ and check out their podcast Dystopia Now co-hosted with comedian Kate Willett. Émile’s latest book is Human Extinction: A History of the Science and Ethics of Annihilation (Routledge). Links to other work and websites discussed in the show: Gebru, T., & Torres, É. P. (2024). The TESCREAL bundle: Eugenics and the promise of utopia through artificial general intelligence. First Monday, 29(4). https://doi.org/10.5210/fm.v29i4.13636 Nick Bostrom’s “Letter from Utopia” Julian Huxley’s Religion without Revelation Bertrand Russell’s 1903 essay “A free man’s worship” Peter Singer’s essay “Famine, affluence, and morality” & his book with the cursed title I will not be repeating here [cw ableist violence] The excellent recent Wired article "The Worm that No Computer Scientist Can Crack," on efforts to replicate C. elegans as a computer simulation What We Owe the Future by William MacAskill University of Exeter study on global mortality associated with 1.5 degrees C warming Naomi Oreskes on conservatism in the climate science community Discerning Experts: The Practices of Scientific Assessment for Environmental Policy (University of Chicago Press) & summary of the book's arguments in Scientific American Mutual aid links mentioned in the outro: Distro Disco on unceded Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh land Crips4esims gazafunds.com sudanfunds.com The Sameer Project Sudan Solidarity Collective If you have any comments or questions about the show, you can reach us at nomorelawnmowers@proton.me Transcript by Mollie Holmberg. Theme music for the show is roswell by Fog Lake off the Free Music Archive and licensed under CC BY 4.0.

3. 

   26 Aug 2025

   Episode 2: "Life is built on a rickety stool" with Dr. Haley Branch

   “When people think about evolutionary biology, they think of ‘survival of the fittest.’ It is the first thing that comes to people's minds, and it is a gross misconception of evolution, and it's consistently been weaponized against people, and that's specifically Black people, people of color, Indigenous folks and disabled people specifically… It was coined by a eugenicist. I will not say their name. It was not Darwin's theory.” For this second episode, host Mollie Holmberg (she/her) talks with Dr. Haley Branch (she/her) at the Yale School of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology about how her training in ballet informs her approach to studying plants; debunking “survival of the fittest” and other common misconceptions about evolution that are foundational to eugenics; publishing science that upsets the worst men on the internet; what caring for plants teaches us about disabled life; and her efforts to make field work in ecology and evolutionary biology more accessible for disabled scientists. To find out more about Dr. Branch’s work on desert plant ecophysiology, ableism in evolutionary biology, and building spaces for disabled scientists in higher ed, you can visit her website at https://haleyabranch.weebly.com/. Links to other work and websites discussed in the show: Branch, H.A. et al. (2022) “Discussions of the “Not So Fit”: How Ableism Limits Diverse Thought and Investigative Potential in Evolutionary Biology.” The American Naturalist, 200(1), 101-113. https://doi.org/10.1086/720003 Turner, S.E. et al. (2014) “Social consequences of disability in a nonhuman primate.” Journal of human evolution, 68, 47-57. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhevol.2014.01.002 If you have any comments or questions about the show, you can reach us at nomorelawnmowers@proton.me Transcript by Mollie Holmberg. Theme music for the show is roswell by Fog Lake off the Free Music Archive and licensed under CC BY 4.0.

4. 

   2 Jun 2025

   Episode 1: Autistic Knowledge Ecologies with Audra Mitchell

   Audra Mitchell discusses autistic knowledge ecologies and crip knowledge systems with Mollie Holmberg, exploring their relevance in fields like International Relations and environmental studies, in this interview.

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