I was anticipating a negative take on Solarpunk based on the title, but it’s actually quite a well made video with good points. I do wish she had touched on the ideology behind solarpunk (Anarchism), but otherwise good stuff.

Over on the r/Solarpunk community on reddit, there’s often debates as to what constitutes solarpunk, with many arguing that AI and greenwashed buildings should count. I’ve even seen an argument for solarpunk being compatible with capitalism once or twice, and this video would make for a good rebuttal.

The despair you feel toward the average person’s lack of interest or outright dismissal of these very real problems is unfortunately common. As others have said, the magnitude of the problems we face is often paralyzing. How to begin addressing these massive problems was a question asked by a mother to Noam Chomsky in 1992, and I think his answer still holds up quite well. One of his big points is that it’s pretty much impossible to tackle any of this alone, you need a group to brainstorm ideas on how to solve things and not feel so helpless as a single individual surrounded by a sea of uncaring people.

In a way, this community, slrpnk.net, and even the fediverse as a whole is acting as a place for people to come together and know that they’re not entirely alone, though finding a group in real life who shares your values would allow you to really start enacting change, even if on a small scale.

Also @DigitalDilemma@lemmy.ml

It can often take empathy to be able to even see or care beyond oneself and towards a bigger picture. An unemphatic person could, and often does, simply reject an ideology that may not place their own wants or desires above that of others, even if they are in the same class as those who would benefit from such an ideology.

An average right-wing libertarian is often not terribly wealthy and works for a living, putting them in the working class, but they may find Ayn Rand’s flavor of selfish ancap/libertarianism appealing due to a lack of empathy, even if practically it does not improve their circumstances.

There are other people doing things, too and you can find them.

Short guide for how to find those like-minded folk: https://infosec.exchange/@tinker/113589807117870451

Speaking for myself, I’d love to see a StorySeedLibrary community here on slrpnk, if it’s something you’d be interested in :)

Helluva good post. Thanks for sharing your thoughts here.

Fair enough :p

Ding ding!

It’s the name of the channel, not a description of what Oracle does (hence the pipe between them). I edited the title to add a bit more context and make it more clear that they do not, in fact, do good work.

Ah! Totally misinterpreted your comment then, sorry 😅

I thought its discussion of how much Civilization focuses on conquest, colonization, and combat over most other systems, to the point of it becoming a bit ridiculous if you try to go pacifist, was interesting. The year it was written didn’t seem a detriment.

Finasteride only really effects hair on the scalp, since beard hairs aren’t effected by the chemical that finasteride protects against.

Ah, gotcha, so when my neighbor’s house needs to be redone because he rewired it himself, I’m on the hook for that.

I already mentioned that a community could collectively decide to continue to enforce building codes.

Too bad I have to stand by and let a couple of transient drug addicts cook meth in the house next door again

There would be much less incentive to create drugs for profit in a world without money.

Not saying there wouldn’t be drugs or addicts, but it’s extremely likely the scale of the problem would be fairly drastically reduced, as many people turn to becoming drug addicts due to becoming homeless as a way to find some way to cope with the extreme stress and trauma of the situation. Without money, there would be no reason for China to continue to sell fentenyl and other drugs to the cartels to be shipped into the US, and the same for Cocaine from South America. That would leave only what could be reasonably produced at home, which would likely take the form of weed.

If, on the chance that someone did start producing meth in a community that has collectively agreed to not allow for that, they could potentially be ejected from the community.

Sure thing. That’s totally going to happen. … it fall apart into vague handwaving about how everyone will be all helpful sunshine and smiles, which we know for a fact, people aren’t that at any level of their being.

It seems that you believe people are only motivated by money, status, or power. But we have examples of societies that were able to implement an Anarchist way of existence, such as Catalonia during the Spanish Civil War, which abolished money, the state, and was able to thrive as federated communities. George Orwell went there, and spoke of how excellent that mode of society was, to the point that he fought in the war and took a bullet in the neck for it.

Except it wouldn’t be their home. Someone else built it

They could have built it themselves, too.

So the community bears the effort and cost of maintaining houses (or apartments) which they are not allowed to benefit from.

Bear in mind that the community would render aid to anyone who needs assistance in maintaining their own properties as well. It would be mutual aid. For the ‘cost’ of perhaps choosing to maintain a temporarily empty property, you would never need to ‘purchase’ a new roof, heater, or repairs for your own home. The community would help you the same way you helped them.

You’re also ignoring my mention of the benefit that this mutual aid would enable others to travel to maintained community housing anywhere in the world for free.

I think we would see a significant number of people jumping from home to home, trashing each one and then moving on to the next, leaving the community with the choice of cleaning up those homes, or letting them become uninhabitable hazards, and a blight on the neighborhood.

I think you’re putting a bit too much weight into the idea that the only thing keeping most housing stock in good condition is that financial barrier. I think most people would want to keep their home in good condition without financial pressures forcing them to keep it nice. If everyone let their home go into disrepair, then there would be no ‘good’ homes to jump to. It’s in the interests of everyone to maintain good housing stock, so that if you ever did move you wouldn’t only have shitholes to choose from.

If you think people would suddenly start taking care of a home just because they have one, then I’ve got a bridge to sell you, just look at all the litter and pollution people dump everywhere. Take a moment and look at cars in parking lots, and I bet you’ll find at least one that is packed to the brim with garbage, to the point of being dangerous to drive.

I’m not saying in this new way of society that everything will just become magically perfect, but I very much doubt it would be an epidemic on the scale you’re thinking of. Even in your example of garbage filled cars, you don’t find half the parking lot like that, only one at most. Just because a handful of people might not take care of their home doesn’t mean it wasn’t worth it to stop millions of people worldwide from suffering and dying on the streets, throwing themselves under busses due to hopelessness.

No, there is a financial risk and financial incentive when you own a home, or even rent an apartment. If you don’t take care of it, then you lose out on that risk.

There are millions of dilapidated homes that are owned by the people who live in them. There are thousands upon thousands of rental properties that landlords will let become unlivable and condemned. Owning a property or even having consequences does not stop that from happening.

there are zoning laws, city, state, and national laws that pertain to maintaining a home, along with certifications and inspections to make sure the dwelling is safe to inhabit.

There is nothing stopping a community from continuing to enforce those laws if they desire.

but it’s also clear that “just make housing a right and let anyone move into a house that the community has to pay for and work to maintain” is an idealistic dream that naively handwaves away reality.

“It’s easier to imagine an end to the world, than to the end of capitalism.”

I’d suggest looking at some more in-depth analysis instead of dismissing the concept off hand from a short comment.

Maybe it the family in it moved out because they only needed a quick place to stay short term after moving to a new city? Could be that it’s housing for a college student who has gone back home during summer break?

I think in most cases, short-term housing as you describe would be best served by more dense apartment complexes that are maintained by the community, and the people who stay in them for those short periods. They would be maintained in the same way that public transport or libraries would be maintained, as a public resource that everyone has access to and needs.

The benefit to those who maintain such complexes is that they would also freely have access to use such facilities in other parts of the country. This is not terribly dissimilar to how individual Native Americans were able to travel vast distances in America and expect accommodation from virtually any tribe they came across (that weren’t hostile due to a larger conflict), because without such universal accommodation, each tribe would be limited in how far they could travel or trade. It was to all tribes mutual benefit to give each other that accommodation, in an early form of mutual aid (you can read more about that in David Wengrow’s book, The Dawn of Everything, a very interesting read).

Maybe a nicer house opened up in the area, so the resident left their old house to go to the new one?

The Dispossessed by Ursula Le’Guin offers an interesting solution to that scenario. In that book, money does not exist, and housing is simply a right that all are entitled to. Couples and families are given larger accommodation when it becomes available, which is managed by an elected housing committee.

A single family home would be unlikely to be empty for long in a desirable area, so I don’t think abandoned homes would be a significantly bigger issue than they already are under our current system. As a current example, In Japan, many smaller rural towns with dwindling populations have such an abundance of unoccupied homes, that they’re actively paying people to move out to the area, and will sell the house for under $10k in the hopes someone will take them up and maintain it.

It would fall on the neighbors to maintain the house until someone else moved in to it.

Only if they wanted to. There would be no one to force them to do such a thing. They may elect to do so since they would have much more free time in a socialist world (estimates usually suggest around 3 months of community work would be required to give everyone a good standard of living, with the remainder of of the year being free time to do with as they please).

How do you think they are going to feel when some “house jumper” moves in who just lets the place fall apart and moves on to another location because it costs them nothing to let the house go to ruins and they have no personal interest in maintaining it?

How is that prevented in our current society? Many home owners let their home go into disrepair despite owning it. Sometimes this is done out of poverty, or a lack of motivation for upkeep. The only way to force someone to maintain their home in our current society is with HOA’s who give fines or even jailtime to individuals if they don’t. They don’t have the most popular reputations.

Regardless, a community could decide to implement HOA-like rules if they all agreed to it, and then someone could decide if they wanted to live there and abide by those rules, or go somewhere where there aren’t any (like our current system).

I don’t mean regarding maintenance, I mean why are the houses empty?

I could see a very undesirable area having houses left abandoned, just as they are in our current system. But in areas that are desirable, why would a house be left abandoned for so long when everybody needs a place to live?

A group from in the community could keep track of what houses aren’t being used so they could direct people needing a home toward them. Perhaps if someone is moving they could inform that group that the house in now available, and give them the keys.

Could you elaborate what you mean?

In a theoretical socialist society, people would not be allowed to own multiple single family homes, only the one they’re currently using, since renting an essential need creates a power imbalance.

As a stop-gap, all currently rented single family homes (as in renting the entire house, not just a room in a house), could be converted to rent-to-own contracts, so that at some point that power imbalance ends and the renter is no longer being exploited.

Whether or not a small business owner is for or against raising wages depends entirely on their own ethical compass, and whether that compass is strong enough to turn away from the temptation of extra profit. It’s rare that individuals are so altruistic to be able to fully turn off the impulse for profit incentive and personal enrichment.

In contrast, a worker owned coop would not have that issue, as all workers would have equal incentive to raise wages as much as is reasonable while still maintaining the ability for the coop to thrive. Their individual ethics or moral compass wouldn’t factor in nearly as much.

If you’re using that currently, do you notice that on a fresh reboot, if you sit at the desktop and just wiggle the mouse for a while, or keep creating selection boxes with your mouse, KDE will freeze for a random amount of time?