October 2026 Update
Hello! Happy October, Rabi Al-Akhar, Tishrei, and August. Apologies immediately off the bat that I couldn’t figure out the current month in the Hindu or Buddhist calendars. Hopefully that’s something I can figure out in the future. I want anarchist.nexus to be a space where all anti-authoritarians find a space to be represented. I am early days in this particular “presenting more denotations of the current temporal moment than just the Western Christian Hegemonic representation” project, but I want my siblings across the world wherever they are to at least see that I am trying.
Users of anarchist.nexus will notice that in the past month there have been several quality of life improvements with our server software. PyLova development has enabled some new, really cool, features that I’ve been enjoying making use of. From my own efforts to contribute to PyLova (which I will readily admit have slowed down because my life has gone busy) I would like to also mention that Mia has been making improvements to the performance side of things. I’ve been really happy with the new work, and I think you will be, too.
October Essay
Every month I try to use this space to project to you a little bit of what’s going on in my head so that you can know the kind of administrator you can expect. I feel a sense of duty towards this, and especially to take it as seriously as the rest of my work. Because of the ways roles work on the fediverse, as an administrator, I have influence and power over what the experience on anarchist.nexus is like. The only way I can feel comfortable with this power is if I lay bare the hands I use to make decisions so that you can decide if this is a place you want to spend time. No one can control what you think, and I certainly don’t want to try to. All I want to do is to create a safe environment where people can share their thoughts so that all of us can grow and mold the thoughts we’re most interested in exploring.
This month, I’ve been thinking the most about prison abolition. Not as in I’m thinking the most of that of any person, but as in this is the thought that’s been occupying the most of my brain. I can’t go into too much detail, but recently a Friend was detained for work that I think is very noble. The world around us is chaotic and violent in service of maintaining the coercive ecocidal genocides that burn around the planet. This Friend was accused of the terroristic actions of “preventing a petrochemical company from killing a bio-region.” This Friend was up to 15 years in prison for these “crimes.” Ultimately, this is because laws can only ever serve to maintain the status quo, and the current status quo we exist within is harmful.
So what can we do about it? I encourage everyone to do a few things:
- Join, or found, a worker’s union at your workplace. Take particular note of the Industrial Workers of the World as a potential resource for helping you do this
- Join, or found, a tenant’s union with your neighbors to help protect you from parascitic landlords
- Join, or found, mutual aid efforts in your area to lessen the stranglehold the ownership class has on you and your friends’ and neighbors throats
- Join, or found, a community defense initiative in your area
Sorry this month’s update isn’t longer, I have to talk to some people about donations to bail funds. My lesson learned this month for anarchist.nexus is that I should probably write these updates a week in advance. Last month my lesson was to write down on my calendar that I am going to do them. My commitment to you is to continue to take this as seriously as I do the rest of my work building neighborhoods where neighbors help eachother, because selfishly, that’s the kind of neighborhood I want to live in.