sanity_is_maddening

I can’t speak for every place on earth, but where I live in the south of Portugal, that is very much the problem. And affordable long term rent has been destroyed in all of Europe by Airbnb and similar initiatives. And no, this is not a scapegoat theory. All you have to do is access housing registrations and match against citizenship registered to addresses in the same area and then you start to see the problem. There’s a lot more houses than people that have their permanent address registered to the same area. So then the problem can’t be housing in itself. When one starts to look closer we start to notice a lot of titles to the same people and the same last names as we all would expect. The house to person ratio is quite disproportionate in its distribution. I can tell you that this has been exposed time and time again over time, but since 2008 that it has indeed gotten worse and more so exponentially every year since then.

The problem in just simply building more housing is that the same thing will happen to those new homes. They’ll just be absorbed into this same phenomenon of asset flipping and market speculation in which even rent, not just owning property reaches prices beyond what locals can afford with long term rent even becoming entirely unavailable due to Airbnb and other initiatives alike.

That’s why the governments have to intervene. Especially at a local level. But if a rewiring of the general population doesn’t occur, it will just be lobbied back to the same as before. As it has happened. Because what is simply enforced is not learned. And this is what you are referring to when you speak to the public aversion to government intervention. If not understood and learned, what is then witnessed is the same rope pull of do and undo between governmental administrations, that wears off and alienates the public.

But yes, sometimes the problem in itself can be an increase of population density that exploded beyond the local availability of houses. And then new housing development is required or people will have to choose (more like forced without an option) to relocate.

That is why I said “the problem is not a lack of housing in itself necessarily”. In which I meant it as not always the source of the problem. I didn’t say the lack of housing in itself is NEVER the problem.

There are many contributors to this issue.

Environmental changes and war are also intertwined as they both lead to resource depletion, and become part of the same feedback loop that plays a part in the whole of the Metacrisis. In which both will cause mass migrations. And mass migrations will always cause a disparity between demand and availability in housing, which leads to more inflation and more conflicts over resources, which in turn leads to more mass migrations and on and on and on… This is “systems thinking” and the general public has not caught up to the descent we’re in yet. Or is in denial and refusing to engage in the face of its enormity.

Most problems that are detected by most people are real and feeding into one another. What I said is true and what you said is true and anyone who doubts that is possible is not engaging with the complexity of the world as it is.

There is nothing wrong with weeds. Though there is something wrong with Monocultures that have no place for them and in turn produce nutrient deficient sustenance.

Permaculture and syntropic farming have for decades now integrated them without any use of pesticides. Insuring soil nutrition and nutrient dense foods in the process.

They keep trying to find better ways to do the wrong thing. Yes, this would be better than the pesticide use, but always worse than the alternatives I just mentioned.

And if anyone has the question “is it scalable?” The answer is yes. But it depends…

Because I would still say that given that more than half of the world’s population lives in cities, we need to match the vertical axis of them when we grow their required sustenance. To stack up people vertically and then still spread their consumption horizontally it’s how we get a problem of space ratio as we have.

But even in this form of vertical indoor farming, this should still be moved into the cities or as close to them as possible with the Permaculture philosophy incorporated in them. Vertical Indoor Farming also creates resiliency against weather events and potential pests given that the growing cultivation is isolated inside. All while able to create the appropriate conditions to grow anything all year around. This would help in releasing more surface land from the eroding practices of monocultures and their required plowing and harvesting cycle which destroys the integrity of the soil and leads to erosion. Allowing these spaces to be free from these harming practices while integrating practices of reforestation would be indeed a great development in the right direction.

Not to mention that alongside all this, Precision Fermentation is also an absolute requirement to feed a growing population into the future.

I keep saying for a while that Precision Fermentation is the future. Because if it isn’t, that probably means there isn’t one.

Using the lowest trophic level possible to grow our sustenance directly is the only way to ensure the least destruction possible. Which ensures the most environmental and ethical efficacy. As there should never be anything to distinguish between them in the first place.

What?? Pretty soon you’re gonna be suggesting that there are better ways to transport people around than cars and that we could build better public transportation infrastructure with the tax payers money so that the same tax payers can afford mobility for a lot less while saving time in getting around and polluting a lot less the atmosphere that allows them to breath!

What’s this? Do you want to make sense? We wouldn’t want to start making sense now, would we?

…

Jokes aside now, when it comes to housing, the problem is not a lack of housing in itself necessarily. The crucial part of the problem resides in property hoarding by the wealthy and upper middle-class as long term investments in the form of assets to flip, all while they still obtain revenue in renting them to the highest bidder. Airbnb and similar initiatives destroyed affordable rent all around the world. This to say, that a lot of people in the unprivileged categories didn’t also mind screwing their peers to get ahead. This is what the capitalist system does. It re-enforces sociopathic behaviour in people through them valuing the monetary tokens more than the lives of those around them and the very world in which they have to inhabit. This is what Elizabeth Magie tried to explain the world when she created “The Landlord’s Game”. It has been explained and demonstrated as a predicted model for a very long time. And we all lose in the end. Always.

Saying that the government needs to interfere and create measures to prevent the furthering of this crisis is incomplete without acknowledgement of the required rewiring of the general public to stave off the centuries old social conditioning of appealing to the worst in human condition.

The default setting of a common citizen is not to contribute to a life shared by all that live around them and in turn benefit from the same efforts from others. It is instead to try and survive them all and and not needing the slightest from them. Which is never true, never possible but nevertheless the reason why we are always in this mess. And the reason why we all lose, and even those who lose the least, they still have to inhabit a world that would be better if this wasn’t true.

Individuality also explains the housing crisis in the sense that more and more people have the desire to live alone. And therefore more houses are required. Which in a world like the one we have, that desire is perfectly understandable but in itself also a reinforcement of the loop that causes it.

It’s a mess.

Have an acount on both and use them to verify each other.

I have a Proton mail account. While I’m ready to scold them for stop posting on Mastodon while still posting you know where!!.. I think the stupid tweet that Andy Yen posted got way too out of hand. It was one tweet. You should find the tweet and read it yourself. It’s just a dig at the “Left” in the vein of “wait, since when is a Republican defending small tech from Big Tech more than the Left?” It was tone deaf, and dumb and calls caution to the fact that this may be another dumb tech Bro who likes to tweet irresponsibly just as much as the idiots we know too well. But it wasn’t any form of endorsement at all. Just a tone deaf attempt to create social pressure for the supposed “Left” to do what it is supposed to do. And oh boy, did the tone deaf tweet backfire.

But anyway, I belive, like many people here do, that one shouldn’t put all of one’s efforts to just one bet. That is how we got Google in the first place. You should also have a Tuta Mail as well, especially if you seem inclined to and don’t have an alternative mail to Proton. I’m always ready to jump at any time that I find something that displeases me. And that includes Proton.

There’s also personal preferences at play. What works really well for one person, might not for another.

We should try to spread our choice amongst all the villagers. Do not replace your entire Google suite for the Proton one. That’s how we get another powerful conglomerate.

I don’t like making generalisations…

But…

I agree.

There is absolutely an observable correlation there. And mentioning exceptions will only prove the rule.

Yup. It does, doesn’t it?

I know people with a lot of money to their name who buy second hand just to get around, and people with not much that end up with barely a cent to spare because they’re paying a loan to own a car they couldn’t really afford. Go figure.

“It takes a special type of person”- as you said.

Also, my comment wasn’t a dig at people for liking or enjoying cars at all. It’s about specific ones and how they’re being driven around… we see them around right?

It’s the same with motorcycles to.

The problem is never the vehicles themselves, obviously, it’s the idiots that get drawn to them and ruin what others might enjoy in them as well.

Thank you for pointing that out to me because I really missed that.

That does make blurring the license plate hilariously futile. Well, unless people need to go get their ears checked or cleaned like me.

Thanks again. You gave me something to laugh and something to worry about.

Cheers.

Why is it always the kind of person you think it’s gonna be? I mean, always. One can match the level of inconsiderable idiocy from car models alone.

Imagine knowing you’re wrong and persist and insist this much in continuing to do the wrong thing in front of everyone, so that everyone can behold the thing that everyone knows that is wrong for you to be doing, and you still continue to do the wrong thing that you know that everyone knows that you know that is wrong to do. No? Hurts your brain, doesn’t it?

Now… Why is his license plate blurred in the video? Does this level of inconsiderate behaviour deserve that level of consideration in return?

I’m not sure if the OP is trying to expose this article as an idiotic thing or not, but I can’t take this nothingness of an article seriously.

I’m 40 and I’m sure that I “gave” this supposed “stare” to both older and younger people several times this month alone. And we’re barely past midway through it.

Yes, it is smug and rude and most of the times uncalled for. But I don’t remember a time when this wasn’t around. I’ve given this look and received it since I’m able to remember existing. It’s not a generational feature, it’s not even a cultural one, as I’ve met people from all ages and places that do this my whole life.

And it’s not that the young are more rude, is that everyone is more rude now.

We all know that social exchanges took a turn for the worst since algorithmic social media really started to take off circa 2010, and it only got worse when everyone got locked with it as their only form of social exchange during covid lockdowns. This is not a GenZ problem, nor a U.S. problem, this is a problem for most people in most places now.

Blaming this on the young when they had no saying in establishing this mess and when they were obviously never in charge of any decisions that led us here is the typical nonsense to expect from the most idiotic reasoning of the establishment and legacy media.

“Oh, you know who we should blame for the shitty world we have? The people who were never in charge of anything and never had any saying in a single thing whatsoever. That’s who!!”

I’ve witnessed this nonsense too many times my entire life and I don’t know how people fall for something so easy to recognize as inconceivable. And not with just the youth. It’s always stupid to assign blame to the people with the least available agency in the room, or in the world.

And I hope you all catch it and stop it everytime someone is trying this nonsense in front of you.

This article deserves the very “stare” that is trying to attribute to GenZ. If they do indeed do it more than others, articles like this only re-enforce that they should keep doing it. Because it very much earns that reaction.

And how many people kept warning everyone of this and for how long?

I am a bit tired of the lack of foresight. In reactive vs proactive measures people only seem to understand reactive ones.

I’ve been telling people about the dangers of the lack of digital sovereignty, in relation to nations, communities and individuals for I don’t even know how long. As many many others have for even longer.

It’s as if one keeps telling someone to fix the fissures in the hull of their boat while on shore, but they only seem to understand what you mean when the boat is leaking through these same fissures at sea.

It’s only then that it starts to sink - pun very much intended.

By that point it’s too late. And the outcome might be a tragic one.

It’s the same with the environment.

It’s the same with their own health.

It’s the same with everything.

One doesn’t need to ponder about this for very long to pinpoint that this is because the absence of reference is what makes it harder to acknowledge it. Because one has a harder time understanding what one doesn’t have a frame of reference of, and then the subsequent dismissiveness ensues.

The great tragedy of all the proactive efforts is that when they are successful, something has been avoided, and therefore unseen.

We register rescue, not prevention.

And it’s only in the rescuing that the understanding of what could have been avoided starts to be perceived. Not everyone is like this, but most people seem to be.

But I don’t know how as one gets older, sees what might be a cliff ahead and finds only reasoning for a faint downslope.

And I no longer care to know if it is due to denial, laziness or ignorance anymore. Because I’m quite exhausted of this.

I understand you being protective of the communities you manage and that it’s a delicate task to begin with. And an effort that so often goes unrecognised and unappreciated.

But please, don’t feel accused or worse, insulted, because I oppose banning. My opposition to it is not a personal stance against you or anyone else.

In relation to upvotes/downvotes, I use them to generate a quick dislplay of engagement in the communities I follow. But even though I do it, I still find that it is always a lazy form of engagement that is both unappealing and uninteresting and on top of it all it is a system that lacks clarity and it’s easy to hijack with bots and brigade hits. And it is that way because it requires very little effort and time to do so. So I always found that we could do without that system and I would much prefer it.

In relation to banning, I think it is possible to devise other methods of guiding online spaces. I never like when I see a comment or a post removed. Never. I would much prefer that in the case of mods, a system of different flags used for flagging different circumstances was set in place. Like one for trolling, another one for spam, a different one for toxic and insulting use of language, and especially the one for the ban that upsets me the most out of all the banning choices, the off topic one. As I’ve said in another comment in this thread, I’ve never been banned from any community in any platform. But I have had comments removed where I was merely responding to other people and a new branch of conversation emerges amongst a few of us, only for our comments to be removed and our conversation ended with total disregard or respect for the conversation we were having. This is insulting to everyone involved, as any good conversation can lead us anywhere and these are not in person or broadcast events running on a clock. People can respond at their own leisure, and anyone who is not interested can just collapse the comment branch and move to the next branch within the thread. This way of fencing topics is a community killer and I’ve left quite a few communities over the years because of this type of moderation alone and not the community itself. It is not of my interest to be in a space where people are shut down, especially when everyone involved is being respectful and we’re doing what these platforms were really intended for, which is to take in different perspectives from all types of people from anywhere in the world. If not for that, I have a life and this is of no interest to me to waste my time on if I’m not reaching and accessing people and realities that are not my own.

But this is my opinion. And by definition I’m a commenter not a poster. And I’ve never been interested in moderating. Because I like the equalitarianism of being amongst others sharing ideas without any disparity to differentiate us. Which is another reason as to why we could do without the lazy upvote/downvote system which interferes without engaging.

But I am going to repeat what I said at the beginning… I understand you being protective of the communities you manage and it’s a really delicate task to begin with. And it truly is an effort that so often goes unrecognised and unappreciated.

So, regardless of what our differences of opinion might be, I’m still grateful for your efforts and I’m glad that there’s still people around that care enough to try a hand at what is a hard bargain from the get go.

Yeah, I agree that the complexity is larger in practice than just saying no bans. And I’ve even commented recently that I’ve heard directly from coders that it is easier to code and built the platforms than it is to manage the user base. I also said I’m not a coder so I can’t make that claim. But I’ve heard it first hand.

But I still can’t agree in principle with the blank nature of banning. I have to say that I’ve never been banned from any online space. Not once. Not on reddit, not on Lemmy, and I hope that continues now on Piefed. So, I’m not defending this principle on a basis that I’ve experienced a ban in its true opressive form like some people are sharing in this thread. Because I haven’t. But I have in the past taken a stand in defence of people that I vehemently disagreed with, because I believe however heinous their comments or choice of words were, I want them to be out in the open. That is how the accountability can actually occur. And that is how they get to be challenged. Not cast out without reasoning. If they leave to set up shop somewhere where only the heinous will follow, that’s how we allow this wound to fester and spread its putrefaction. And no form of accountability or consequence actuality took place. None whatsoever.

And it was extremely bad news when I saw the freedom of speech starting to become a proud talking point of conservative and retrograde outlets more than a decade ago. Which was in my impression at the tail-end of Gamergate. ( But did it ever end though? SJW versus Anti-SJW just got rebranded as Woke versus Anti-Woke) But sill, I think back then was when all the grifters that are now famous spotted this great online grift : Say something obnoxious or questionably dubious, then let in the brigade that want to tell them they can’t say that, so that they can sound the horn and call the free speech absolutists and cry out that freedom of speech is under threat and nearly gone. All while they have the freedom to recycle and repeat this nonsense over and over.

This type of political play has been around for a long time…

But here, online, it’s truly the same method of the old online Troll. I mean, I even found some trolling in the past absolutely ingenious and even hilarious in some cases. But I guess a lot of people didn’t learn the old ungated ways of the internet, where we would spot the Troll and know not to feed it. As the online spaces became more deranged it became harder to distinguish and we went from playing “spot the troll” to playing “is this satire?” really quickly.

But still, anyone perceptive knew these rising grifters only wanted to defend this right so they could get to opress the rights of others and control the narrative all while cashing in on furthering the protective barrier for the wealthy class to keep hoarding more wealth and control. I believe some were even being sponsored to do so. And there’s been some evidence uncovered of some extreme far right groups even directly funding this type of bait in Europe. I mean, it was always clear as day, but they managed to garner a lot of suppport from gullible people who thought they were being virtuous in the defense of freedom. But they were surrendering control to the faction and people who want to control speech the most. Because they always have wanted to control it the most all along.

But this was only possible because some people really intended on policing speech instead of disarming the nonsense with facts through the same freedom. As righteous as their motivations might’ve been, this was a truly misguided step.

The righteous path cannot mimic the behaviours and practices of oppression and tyranny. It will only bring about the same cycles of resistance. As it obviously has.

Nothing that is merely enforced is ever truly learned, and this way true progress is never achieved.

The upvote/downvote system was always meant to be in relation to one agreeing/ disagreeing or liking/disliking with what one is interacting with, and I do believe that it is the inescapable function of it, regardless of how much thought one puts into it or not. One would have to find a bizarre thought process that could result in one avoiding that inevitability. Like someone who chooses to upvote what they disagree with or downvote what they agree with. Doesn’t sound conceivable. Maybe in an algorithm driven platform one could use this as a thought experiment to find the opposite of oneself or one’s own opposition in suggested content, but here without an algorithm to drive it, not even that is conceivable.

In regards to people piling on and using downvotes in a form of a brigade attack, similar to review bombing pieces of media… While I dislike this profoundly and find it enormously toxic, it is still within the realm of public expression. If one means to silence it, one means to suppress the freedom for others to express themselves as both individuals and as a group. As much as I find it despicable or toxic in a lot of contexts, I can’t bring myself to justify the act of banning this form of expression in showing discontent. As I’m sure we’ve all found moments in which we agreed with a form of public outrage expression such as this one. But we’re still all being baited into pack mentality which is an essential feature to maximise engagement in algorithmic platforms. And it is why it is a key requirement for me now that if I’m to join any platform that this feature needs to be non-existent. No algorithm driven platforms for me, thanks. If the user is not driving the experience, I find it repulsive, and so should anyone else.

As to banning in general… The user as an individual can block whomever they so desire, including entire instances. That is the control that anyone should be allowed to have as an individual. But not banning. Moderating or not, I find banning a suppression tool that can be used to suppress legitimate criticism, and it does happen all the time. Everywhere. So, I’m opposed to banning. Even in extreme cases of crude language and abhorrent and toxic behaviour. As I find that banning is sweeping the problem under the rug and not allowing it to be seen, identified, analysed and to further uncover the root causes of that said problem. Be that of an individual or any type of mob mentality. Back when I left reddit, I didn’t leave because there were too many shitty users, I left because they were being rewarded with attention without examination. And the algorithm there was what did that and still does. There and everywhere else.

I’m 40. Even recently someone here reminded me of the concept of “Eternal September”. I hadn’t heard it in a long time. But I’ve seen it happen many times. The absence of an algorithm alone is enough to build a fence to stave off some of the largest problems of modern online spaces.

For anyone who doesn’t know, not even the incel community was a toxic one when it started. In the late 90’s it was just people sharing their insecurities in those forums. And it was composed of both male and female users seeking to find connection through the act of sharing their insecurities in an attempt to find a way out of loneliness. Cut to now and what the hell happened? I was too young back then to parse through the nuances and complexities of what was going on those forums. But one thing that I always pondered was if whatever happened there was the prelude to Gamergate. Because I think Gamergate was what “trained” algorithms to reinforce toxicity because it tracked the maximising of engagement that occurred, and then reinforced it because maximising engagement was what it was supposed to do. And just like people swept under the rug the incel community gone terribly wrong by dismissing it as some trivial internet phenomena, people did the same with Gamergate as they dismissed it as some trivial dumb gamer thing. And now look at where we are. But the fact is that this was and has been growing for a long time, people just didn’t bother to assess it, and banning this to the outer margins was one of the reasons it grew. And then the algorithms came and rewarded and emboldened it all.

If I had to sum it up I would say… Modern civilization isolates people, which generates loneliness, which generates resentment for others and an enormous need for connection, which then finds connection in resemblance in the loneliness and resentment of others online, with the internet not solving the loniless that is seething underneath of it all and even reinforcing it. It’s a loop. And it is not secular to men or young men, it’s everyone without a social life and real connections that gets caught in this loop. And the algorithimc influence only accelerates it.

This all to say that banning people is another one of the contributors that leads people down darker and darker paths to find somebody that will listen to them. As uncomfortable as it might be to encounter this, I want all this in plain sight, and I want everyone of sound mind to try to engage and try to disarm what is causing the people in question to spiral down.

I know it’s not pleasant nor easy, but if we avoid it, the result will be even more unpleasant and harder to deal with.

Just take a look at the world now… Loneliness was weaponized by the indecent, because the decent refused to engage. And it is still going on and on.

And the antidote can’t be the continuous matching of resentment nor to allow the conditions that set this in motion to remain unacknowledged.

We lost track of what money was supposed to be for… a representation of the resources and services in circulation. In which it was supposed to facilitate trade by creating tokens to facilitate transactions without the requirement of trust in the absence of a good, like when a farmer would need a tool from a blacksmith but the goods that the farmer has are only available when harvested in which the tool that the blacksmith has is required to retrieve them. In the presence of trust, the blacksmith was going to still trade and expect the goods when time was due. In the absence of trust, like in relation to a stranger, this trade wouldn’t go forward. Money as a representational token solved this sort of common issue. And this became a necessity when tribes went above the Dunbar’s number.

Cut to now…

What the hell is an economy even supposed to represent anymore? It is certainly not a representation of the resources and services in circulation, that’s for sure. 6 out of 9 planetary boundaries already breached all to ensure the survival of this abstraction. Some even call it Moloch as a reference to the pagan god which required human sacrifice. I thinks it’s worse, as it requires the sacrifice of everything, not just humans. But it is certainly a clever nod to something that was only real because people believed it to be.

Back to your project. A FOSS Barter Facilitator. There’s nothing I don’t like about this. Just make sure the protocols remain open to federation of future FOSS Barter Facilitators and you have a slice of Utopia to challenge the dystopian hell we’re in.

You have something here that can alleviate people’s lives in times of great need. Resource collapse is imminent now. If that is not at least partially avoided, that makes the collapse of the global economic system inevitable. What happens after that is a fool’s errand to even attempt to guess. We only know it’s not gonna be peaceful and nice given the stupidity in human nature. Scarcity always leads to the forming of new predation systems. That is how predation was formed in Nature. The incapacity for self-regulation led to animals to reproduce and consume more than the regenerative availability of their setting allowed, leading them to predate on each other. This is how violence emerged in Nature and still does to this day. When we lose track of self regulation we return to the scavenger’s rule of the wild.

But this helps in giving people access to trade without the requirement of capital tokens. Huge spikes in inflation, unemployment and mass migrations are only going to increase in volume and in rate as resources continue to collapse worldwide. We’re in a feedback loop and war and A.I. will only accelerate the velocity of it.

Or, you know, we could have more ideas like yours and reduce resource intake, increase individual resiliency and in doing so, lessening the panic in the common struggles.

So…

I’m certainly saving this post and link and share it with anyone who is inclined to listen.

I’m not a coder, so I thank you for such a wonderful contribution to the world.

deleted by creator

I’m not entirely clear as if you just meant that as a thought experiment… Because I wasn’t suggesting anything in that direction, actually. I was merely stating that the ratio of space required to grow food for the population in cities should match the vertical design of cities themselves. And even include these vertical farming structures within cities themselves. It all needs to match the design of efficiency in housing. Otherwise, it’s just a race to the bottom in how to run out of surface land and resources the fastest way.

Also, I want to mention that this idea that the entire lives of people would have to be dedicated entirely to farming has always been greatly exaggerated as to scare off people from procuring sovereignty for themselves and their communities. My girlfriend and I grow some of our food. I would say even if I took the task alone with the intention of feeding us both entirely all year round, it would take me about less then 2 months worth of work spread out across two seasons. That out of an entire year leaves a lot of time to spare. Not to mention, that I could use the same time to grow more for more people. After you put what you need in the ground, setting an automatic irrigation system, the maintenance work is not that much of a hassle, especially using the syntropic method within a permaculture design. The early stages of setting this up are laborious indeed, but after that, not really, not really at all.

This all to say that this is another one of those myths that capitalism has ingrained falsely in people as to keep the labour of the masses retained to the benefit of the few who gain the most from it. It’s about insuring the conditions where the elite can keep manufacturing the consent in others to exploit them. And insuring dependency is always the way to do it.

Farming wise, and regarding our current food systems, I think that people in general should learn more about syntropy if we are to communicate better as to what needs to be achieved. As it will mean different approaches depending on geography. Not to mention Urban vs rural settings would also require different approaches as well.

Then it would also be easier to gather support for innovations such as Precision Fermentation. Because using bacterial and microbial life to grow our sustenance is ingenious. The lower the trophic level we consume from, the lesser the destruction. And it would also be faster. Always.

If we truly insure true efficiency, we truly minimise destruction. And maximise the potential for prosperity for all, including non-human animals, plants and all other organisms.

Unfortunately the only efficiency that our current systems are designed for is to maximise profit. Which requires continuous growth, which is unsustainable and will ultimately lead to its own inevitable collapse. 6 of the 9 established planetary boundaries have already been breached. It’s only a matter of time now. As to how much time that will take and how much of the world will be taken with it, that is all tied to massive amounts of data for us to even fathom to process.

And AI is currently accelerating all this race to depletion in all fronts.

So, yeah, optimism right now, would be indeed for fools as you say.

I don’t think white nationalists mind being called white nationalists. The same for zionists or islamists. What these descriptors and the people who stand by them have in common is that they all share isolationism, supremacy and the disdain for otherness. These features are all intertwined and inseparable, like the three sides of a shitty triangle.

One can say being called one of those descriptors when one finds them wrong and disagreeable is obviously offensive to the person in question.

As for if it constitutes hate speech… it’s a mess. I’m not one to police language and speech.

As the defense of every hateful person is that they can just be ignorant. And how true that is. But how convenient as well.

Trying to legislate intention is impossible, and banning words is a terrible idea. And using the elusive concept of the status quo for a barometer of what is acceptable is also not a good idea at all. So… what are we left with? Allowing speech to fight back speech, basically. It’s far from perfect, but is the best we have.

But in this case, yes, this is just someone drumming up fear in the racist bias of a portion of the public.

As for if he is ignorant and believes the nonsense he speaks or doesn’t and is just mad that there’s an actual voice for the people to hinder and reduce the control of the elites, which include him and the moron tech bro brigade he’s a part of…

I would say the distinction is irrelevant.

But that’s just me.

I’m going to hinder the complexity that is required to properly answer your question, for the sake of brevity…

Islamist=zionist=supremacist

You can say that it’s the same product in different colours.

As to this case in particular… It’s a racist trying to call someone a racist to distract from the fact that this is a capitalist that doesn’t like a socialist, because power doesn’t concede and it hates sharing.

Mamdani is actually succeeding at connecting the elite class to all the societal issues in the population’s eye.

So… It’s time for whistling in the racists through the post 9/11 phobia. Which in New York… you can fill in the rest.

If someone wants to add more complexity to my very reductionist take, please do.

Thank you for beating me to it. I 100% agree with you.

But I have to say, in order to meet the nutrient density requirements, they would have to completely reform the agricultural sector. Which I would love, but we know how this goes with these people.

And the fact that in 2025, we keep stacking people on top of each other to the point that more than half of the world’s population is living like this in cities, which is integrated in a vertical axis, but the energy consumption of the same people is still spreading elsewhere on an horizontal axis… that is foreboding the worst of outcomes in this regard.

The permaculture philosophy and the syntropic method would have to be integrated. And with it, vertical indoor farming in cities as a necessary response. But this would mean the end of monocultures and pesticide use. No more plowing either. Terrible for the microorganisms in the soil, means terrible for everything else. Soil policy would have to be in place as a baseline… it’s a lot.

But I keep saying this… Environmentalism, veganism, sustainability and ethics are all the same thing. The very same thing. It’s trying to insure that our lives as both the individual and the mass population causes the least destruction and suffering as possible. And that we can aspire to be net positive to all biological life on the planet. If the general population understood this, we could be heading somewhere. Unfortunately without understanding entropy and how the trophic balance is achieved, I doubt that one can understand syntropy or what the hell I’m even talking about right now.

But yeah… Syntropy vs Entropy is hard to explain in a small paragraph to the ADHD crowd of our time, I guess.

So… Optimism is just not in the cards. Not for me at least.