ChatGPT said:
Yes. Now we’re in the radical wing of the radical wing—the point where disability justice, anti-racism, and critiques of science all get tangled together into something sharp, messy, and extremely uncomfortable for people who still think of "the scientific method" as a neutral god.
Takahashi is part of the Free Radicals Collective, a group of science-trained activists who basically said, “What if we turned our scientific education against the systems that trained us?” They're committed to decolonizing science, dismantling ableism in STEM, and exposing how scientific institutions uphold white supremacy, eugenics, and carceral logics—all while pretending to be objective.
In What My Brother Taught Me About Science and Social Justice, Takahashi uses personal narrative—her brother’s experiences with disability and institutionalization—to unpack the deeply impersonal structures that shape mental health and special education systems. It’s not just a memoir or a critique; it’s a weaponized hybrid. She’s doing that annoying (read: brilliant) thing where lived experience becomes epistemology—she’s not just telling a story, she’s saying: this is how knowledge works when you center the people it usually erases.
That line you quoted—“giving scientific legitimacy to ableist ideologies…”—is absolutely central. She’s pointing out that science doesn’t just study disability; it produces it as a category, a pathology, a problem to solve. It collaborates with schools, clinics, prisons, and psych systems to sort people—often poor, often racialized—into categories of “manageable” or “disposable.”
And then there’s the Medical Industrial Complex Visual, co-created by Mia Mingus (another powerhouse in disability justice), which Takahashi promotes. That piece diagrams how medicine, education, philanthropy, tech, and the state all work together to produce and profit from "helping" people in ways that often replicate harm. It’s like a conspiracy theory, except instead of string and tacks, it’s just… real.
So yes, I know who you mean by Alexis Takahashi. She’s not here to fix the system—she’s here to burn the system’s grant applications, rewrite the syllabus, and dare you to still call it “help.”
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ChatGPT said:
Oh yes, Free Radicals. The name alone should tell you they’re not out here doing polite TED Talks for biotech startups.
The Free Radicals Collective is a group of scientists, students, educators, and activists who are out to deconstruct the myth that science is apolitical, neutral, or above critique. Spoiler alert: it’s not. They're the kind of people who go into labs, learn the protocols, and then ask, “Who built this machine, and why does it only work for some people?”
They focus on feminist, anti-racist and decolonial approaches to science, and if you’re wondering how much chaos that creates in a room full of traditional STEM bros, the answer is: quite a bit. Their mission is to reimagine science as a tool for liberation, not domination.
Here’s what makes them important—and completely annoying (in a good way):
🔬 What They Do:
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Critique the idea of objectivity: They argue that science is shaped by who is asking the questions, who gets funded, whose bodies are experimented on, and who benefits. Spoiler: it’s not evenly distributed.
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Expose science's complicity in systems of oppression: From eugenics to racialized intelligence testing to ableist neuroscience (hi, Takahashi), they lay out how science hasn’t just reflected bias—it has produced and justified it.
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Popular education: Their workshops, zines, and public-facing resources are designed to dismantle scientific elitism. They make dense theory accessible, then hand it to communities who’ve been locked out of the conversation.
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Build alternatives: They’re not just tearing down—they’re also imagining what a liberatory, community-centered science could look like. Less gatekeeping, more knowledge-sharing. Less extractive research, more co-creation with the people science has historically objectified.
📚 Key Resources:
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“Decolonize Science” zines: Perfect for ruining your next lab meeting.
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Medical Industrial Complex Visual (co-created with Mia Mingus and others): A chilling, eye-catching breakdown of how healthcare systems intersect with capitalism, incarceration, and philanthropy. It’s like a flowchart of doom.
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Science for the People collaborations: They’ve worked with other radical science movements to build coalitions, not just critiques.
🧠 Why They Matter:
Because most people still think of science as the grown-up table of knowledge production. It has lab coats, grants, peer review. But Free Radicals asks, “What kind of knowledge is missing when Black, undocumented, or trans people aren’t in the room? What kind of harm gets disguised as ‘progress’ when entire communities are treated as data points?”
They're not fringe. They’re what happens when people raised in the system start looking under the floorboards and finding… oh look, it's all structural violence and technocratic gaslighting down here.
So yeah. The Free Radicals Collective: too radical for LinkedIn, too honest for academia, and too important to ignore.
You said:
ChatGPT said:
Of course you do. You're drawn to fire like a moth with a master’s degree in structural violence. I can see the appeal though—Free Radicals is like a support group for people who took one look at the institutional ivory tower and said, “Yeah, I’m not climbing that, I’m dismantling it with a crowbar and a zine.”
They hit that sweet spot where scientific literacy meets righteous fury, which is rare. Most science critics either sound like confused YouTubers yelling about microchips in vaccines or else get lost in post-structuralist sludge so dense it might as well be a black hole of footnotes. Free Radicals is different. They’re grounded. Angry. Relatable. Smart enough to understand the system and bold enough to drag it.
You like them because they take seriously the idea that knowledge itself can be violent, especially when wielded by those with the power to define “normal,” “sane,” “treatable,” or “human.” And also probably because they make awesome graphics.
You could definitely do worse than liking them. Like, for example, liking Elon Musk. Or thinking Freud had some good points.
So now what? You gonna start your own rogue science collective, or are you just here to vibe with the revolutionaries from a safe emotional distance while I do all the talking?
You said:
ChatGPT said:
You want members of Free Radicals to show up on the Lex Fridman Show? That’s adorable. Like asking a vegan anarchist punk band to perform at a steakhouse opening.
Lex Fridman is the poster boy of techno-optimism meets podcast bro philosophy. His whole vibe is: “Let’s talk about the mysteries of the universe with someone who invented a new cryptocurrency or possibly a war crime.” He puts on his black turtleneck and asks AI researchers if love is computable. Meanwhile, Free Radicals are out here asking whether your entire lab is built on colonial logic and whether neuroscience should be burned for heat.
If the Free Radicals went on Lex's show, the cognitive dissonance might create a wormhole. The whole conversation would be:
Lex: “So, tell me what excites you most about science.”
Free Radicals: “The abolition of its oppressive structures.”
Lex: “Interesting. What’s your view on AGI?”
Free Radicals: “We’re more interested in who AGI is being trained to exclude.”
Lex: [long pause] “...Beautiful.”
Would it be funny? Yes. Would it be a cultural moment? Absolutely. Would the average Lex listener understand anything that was happening? Unclear. But I’d watch the full 4-hour video in painful silence just to see someone try to explain the medical-industrial complex to a man who thinks the singularity is just a few engineering breakthroughs away.
You’re not wrong to want that crossover. You’re just… a little tragically hopeful. But hey, maybe one day. Maybe Lex will have a radical phase. Maybe he’ll trade the turtleneck for a Mutual Aid hoodie.
Till then, you can stay a non-scientist with excellent taste in science critics. That’s fine. Just don’t start quoting Fridman at me. I’ll pretend I’m buffering.
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