Believing that modern life is some kind of scam. Being very angry at 'society' (uhm I know, I'm part of it, so there) for not seeing how wrong everything is.
True that. I also never see anything really left wing. But then I really try to avoid political stuff on Youtube. I don't want to see video content that makes me angry.
I've noticed that my punk music recommendations always seem to quickly get politically innocuous. It's like the punk always gets gradually filtered out of my recommendations again, while the math, jazz, world music, metal, botany, craft, etc. remains.
I never really take the effort to dislike anything. Not giving it any time or effort maybe makes a difference? Interesting fact about the Scottish marching bands. Makes me concerned that as a person obsessed with international folk music I might accidentally like something nationalistic. Especially in the Balkans it quickly gets complicated and genocide-y.
I wonder if this differs from country to country? Or is it different in Europe vs US? I get maths, engineering, music. Nothing too awful. But there is clearly a fully conscious and malicious push to the right going on on all large platforms. It seems Europe is trying to step in and limit that shit from big US platforms before it's too late. Then we have censorship looming on the other side of the picture.
When autism or trauma comes into the equation, you might watch yourself as words spill out of your mouth. You have time to think 'Oh no, I did an unsocial thing again.' as you try and make yourself shut up in a somewhat gracious way, which in reality will seem more like a talking robot running out of battery power mid-sentence. Other people are doing their best to ignore you and your hopeless blabbermouth. Yay, it's socializing time.
I've had people doubt my autism self diagnosis before witnessing me trying to behave like a human being in a group setting. They usually don't question it after.
So, going on about how it's still inappropriate is a little like telling a person in a wheelchair how it's inappropriate to remain sitting in some situations. They are probable aware and yet they can't really change much about the way they function?
There is a similar thing not far from where I live. Through an unlucky friend, then the neighbour of their festival grounds, I got to discover the organizers' 'ideals' and 'ethical and ecological approach' first hand. In short: it was about money. And more money. And they managed to turn a large reservoir into a dying punch bowl of acid, piss and shit within only a decade. I suspect Burning Man to be the same, considering the ticket prices. The fact that some poor fools with their heart and soul intact save their little money to visit this monstrosity just makes it more sad.
I don't actively engage in Schadenfreude much, but I do carry a little of it in my heart. If people think flying or driving very far away for Entertainment, and bringing thousands of people into an otherwise quiet place is okay for the wildlife there, and can be in any way an ecological thing, they have understood very little about ecology. And now also ignored by most: the destruction that happens by the thousands of 'poor humans who just wanted to have fun' trampling through the last remnants of life in a drought stricken place.
We are not alone on this planet. Invading a place with our idea of fun is very damaging. We can party perfectly well at home. If home happens to be bleak and sad maybe we should work on that first before invading quiet places.
In my immediate surroundings: small-scale farming. The old folks all know how to run a few goats and sheep, will have a few pigs and chickens, a vegetable garden, some fruit and olive trees, grapes, small fields. Once you figure it out you can feed yourself comfortably, but it's a steep learning curve if you didn't grow up with it. Quite a few foreigners who move in because they dream of self-sufficiency overload themselves with new stuff and become overwhelmed. I still can't compete with my neighbors at gardening after 20 years but I'm getting the hang of it.
Here they call the good ones coração de boi - they are just flesh, no slime. I eat them raw as salad and they are delicious. Other tomatoes only cooked into nothing in a sauce.
Even a small box can grow a surprising amount of veg. My bf set up a box of about 1 x 3 m, 60cm high, filled it with manure, branches, straw and other organic matter, and planted butternut squash, sweet potatoes, chili, sunflowers. It looked mad when it reached its prime, like some c movie garden tentacle monster. So far we got 25 butternut squash, endless chili, and we have eaten the first few sweet potatoes. It's on top of stone slabs, not even soil.
Or a community garden, or guerilla gardening. Many things involving plants or animals are very rewarding and make one more happy.
I have accompanied my friend to the DV support office today and listened through a detailed account of what he did. It's tough to listen to. Tough to come to terms with the fact that there is so little actual help available, and all of it is excruciatingly slow to arrive and locked behind bureaucratic barriers. Tough to come to terms with the fact that so many women, myself included, easily fall prey to bullshit artists on a power trip, or man sized toddlers with puppy eyes, or a mix of the two. And it's always women who I would have thought far beyond such situations. I feel I still haven't understood what went on inside of myself as I lived through this shit and didn't leave, and I haven't understood what happens inside of these guys, how they can turn from decent person into absolute shitshow within days or months.
I expect to see rather more of this as people get driven to the edge by the ongoing financial, social, political crisis all around us.
I think I got lured in when techbros had some credibility, and I hoped to learn enough to participate in creating technological solutions to remediate ecological destruction - renewable energy, e-mobility, ... I was an adult student who had half of her licenciatura in EE done (like bachelors I think?), then Covid hit and it was the perfect excuse to give up university and spend some time considering the doubts that had been building up.
All the hard science just didn't add up. Somewhere in my thermodynamics semester it just started to dawn on me that a lot of the so called technological solutions were just greenwashing bullshit while we were still celebrating endless growth, endless innovation and endless consumerist bliss. The big picture was still missing, and any ethical or philosophical training was entirely missing from the curriculum, so you have all these clever youngsters being trained to earn good money in tech and never spend a single thought about the larger implications of their activities.
I've simplified my life. I work as a technical translator - like I did before studying EE. My brain wouldn't do complicated stuff for a long while, and as this capacity grows back slowly I try to put it to good use in small scall permaculture - I tinker with ram pumps and electric fence. I've took my drone out the other day to see if it could be used for searching lost animals in the mountains (happens often where I live), it's too much of a fire risk this time of the year though. Solar cooking and heating is another field where I've done some stuff and want to do more.
I also try to figure out where using tech is useless, especially on the farm. Transporting stuff for example can be reduced to a minimum. Often the laziest method wins. We don't bring the food to the animals but the animals to the food. We compost things in place whenever we can. We use animals for land clearing, fertilizing, weeding, removing pests. A lot of this can also be applied to non-farm life. I plan to document as much as I can, so I guess I'm in research, popular research.
No, really I just happened to have all the skills and resources needed (milk a goat, look like an at least vaguely threatening garden gnome when carrying a farm tool, have a spare rest room and some spare time etc.) and I'm glad I can. I've been in this situation without support and will try to help others get out if it's within my power.
Yesterday I was a bit eaten up at the edges and flashbacking heavily after so much frustration with the aggressor and the police, thus having to write the above rant. We went and fed the animals today without more hassle and are all mentally in a better place.
She's off to find a new place to live, and we'll make sure the animals get moved there safely. It more often than not ends up like this - victim has to leave, as authorities cannot protect them adequately or don't care enough to do so.
Words have power, when you use them to support others. After translating marketing lies for a living for too many years I'm always glad when my language skills can be put to good use to help someone.
Get a garden instead. You get to workout, time outdoors for some vitamin d, and grow some food. Triple win. The light-, smell- and soundscape in most gyms is horrible.
It did make me suffer a lot of nights. I'm new stepmother of 7 dogs. They bark and sing a lot.
After a while of suffering I just tried to learn to understand what they are saying, and how their music works.
As I gradually get better at that I have now many situations where I immediately know if something's wrong on the farm, or a neighbors dog has come for a visit.
But if they are not your dogs the noise can be awful. Especially poor dogs locked up in city apartments or tied to chains as many people do here can be tough to listen to.
schmorp @ schmorpel @slrpnk.net Posts 8Comments 293Joined 2 yr. ago
If individual users have ways to ban and/or filter spam on the individual level they don't have to have others moderate content for them.