I’m glad you said something. I don’t mind so much when pieces that are critical of solarpunk or a corruption of the aesthetic are occasionally posted here because it gives the community an opportunity to define itself against those representations. I tend to skip over them myself though. I think introspection and criticism are core to the Solarpunk ideal, and I’m glad this essay was a fresh carafe of that tea.

I was looking at the vfairs.com site, where they host content from 2024 and 2023. I guess they started using their own domain exclusively. I expected them to update the vfairs site for 2025.

I think it’s not immediately obvious what Donut Economics is about. It is a category of degrowth, and !degrowth is a fairly active community. Posting about DE there will help spread the word.

It’s strange they haven’t announced for 2025. Did they lose their funding?

Harlan County, USA

The Party of Donald Trump wrote the emancipation proclamation in the 1800s. Who cares?

Mulberry pie, delicious.

If God really existed, it would be necessary to abolish him.

– Mikhail Bakunin

Fascists read mein kampf like christians read the bible – not at all if they can help it. I don’t think his words had the influence or significance you’re honoring them with.

This seems to be the implicit message of all cults and religions, many of which pre-date Hitler by thousands of years. Where did he write this message?

The worst thing Hitler did, long term, the thing he did the most civilizational damage with, was a sentence in a book about how/why one should read books. It’s done more than 8m bodies of damage since.

Help me out, I’m not getting this reference.

No, but I will acknowledge it is insane and idiotic for me to spend time educating people who use Billy Madison memes to accuse others of lowing the quality of discourse.

How was the meaning of this word altered so dramatically in the United States? During the First World War, some of the leading Progressive writers began to use the word liberalism as a substitute for progressivism, which had become tarnished by its association with their fallen hero, Theodore Roosevelt, who had run and lost on a Progressive third party ticket. Traditional liberals were not happy to see their label transformed. In the 1920s, The New York Times criticized "the expropriation of the time-honored word ‘liberal’ " and argued that “the Radical-Red school of thought … hand back the word ‘liberal’ to its original owners.” During the early 1930s, Herbert Hoover and Franklin Roosevelt duked it out as to who was the true liberal. Roosevelt won, adopting the term to ward off accusations of being left-wing. He could declare that liberalism was “plain English for a changed concept of the duty and responsibility of government toward economic life.” And since the New Deal, liberalism in the United States has been identified with an expansion of government’s role in the economy.

– Daniel Yergin, The Commanding Heights

The use of the term ‘liberals’ by the Intercept is not meant to be synonymous with ‘the left’ – its meaning in this context is the political mainstream of the Democratic Party and the left wing of the Republican Party. The term comes from the philosophy of ‘economic liberalism’ and adjacent to terms like ‘neoliberal’ and ‘capitalist’ but inclusive of people who engage in politics consistent with those ideologies without explicitly self-identifying as ideologues.

Respect.

Pew research reports 128/day in 2024. That number includes suicides, which account for ~60% of gun-related fatalities.

A guide for how not to peat a dead horse.

The beauty of it is – the people you go with don’t have to be ‘like-minded.’ You can enjoy Oceans Eleven without endorsing theft, you can enjoy HTBUAP without endorsing sabotage. If your friends feel it crosses a line, that’s a very interesting post-film discussion: Why isn’t it disturbing for people to root against the ‘house’ in Oceans? Is it okay to break the law to get rich, but not to do it for justice?

Even the right-wing reviewers who hate the premise admit it’s a well written film in the vein of heist thrillers.

It’s a really good movie. Not particularly useful if you actually want to destroy something - they were careful to get a consultant to make sure they didn’t break any laws or create liability for themselves or the studio. If you didn’t see it in theatre, you missed out! I’m really glad the feds are wringing their hooves over it, it deserved much better marketing. It is destined to become a cult classic.

The primary reason we decided you weren’t a good fit for SLRPNK wasn’t your ideas, but your chronic pattern of toxic behavior in advocating them. Bad moderation is not the only method of censorship; online bullying can make people disengage from a conversation in spite of arguing good points. I suspect you feel your actions are justified, and people have definitely been toxic to you.

The demographic we value most is people who use de-escalation in conflict and good faith discussion as tools to create a better world. As an anarchist, I know firsthand that these tools become more difficult to wield the father you stand from the rightward-sliding political median. We didn’t enjoy reversing your membership, especially since you were transparent about your identity in your application, which I respect and appreciate. I also feel you used non-SLRPNK alts for most of your fights, which is still inappropriate, but kind of a compliment. I’m happy you’ve found a home where you feel you belong.

Solution? Sewing DIY bags from old clothing.

More reusable and personal than a factory bag, and you already know how to mend it to keep it going. Uses less raw resources than a plastic bag, as it was going to the trash anyways. It’s a great beginner sewing project.