#Cooperation

[whentvsfly]

Once the results are done, I'll multiply 255 to the decimal version of the percentage, and see what color we make!!

[nemfrog]

Rats carrying eggs up stairs. Our dumb neighbours. 1870.

Internet Archive

[blackcat-brazil]

Gerd Arntz, Factory Occupation, 1931.

[philosophybits]

Under any circumstances, sociability is the greatest advantage in the struggle for life.

Peter Kropotkin, Mutual Aid

[nonsense-repository]

[dryndelicate]

Bringing together the design talents of @hollyjumper and the natural modeling talents of @alyssa-ai, who is doing a one-off excursion into the equestrian world here, I can present beauty and elegance in its highest form.

[alpaca-clouds]

Solarpunk and the Third Place

Let's talk about third places. It is a topic that has been brought up in a lot of Solarpunk and leftwing places have brought up during the last few months. Andrewism has made a video on it for example. And given that during the last few weeks I actually made a lot of use of third places, I thought I also could talk a bit more about it.

See, I have spoken about this: Due to my roommate just being very hard to live with right now, I kinda fled my home. (Which yes, is due to her mental health, but that does not make it any better for me.) And basically I just looked into: Where the hell could I spend my time?

And then I remembered the thing that I did throughout my youth: Hang out at gaming stores and, well, play games. I did that a lot for so long, given it is often a place for nerds to gather. And yeah, what can I say? It still works.

Heck, I found even someone who plays Digimon Cards with me.

But of course we do know - again it has been discussed a lot - that in recent times a lot of third places have either been erased, or the way we live have stopped the third places to work the way they used to work like this.

Let's quickly go over what a third place is: A third place is a place where you can hang out and get to know people. A place distinct from the place you live and the place you work in (or school, for students). Stuff like a park, a café, a library... things like that. Places that encourage you to interact with new people and start conversations.

Recently those places have been destroyed a lot. Partly because a lot of them have become hard to afford (especially on a regular basis), partly because they have become shut down, and partly because our culture actually does no longer encourage interacting with strangers.

And, I mean. Yeah. Parks are counted among third places, but honestly, I cannot remember that I actually interacted with a stranger in a park. If a stranger talks to me, I am afraid they are a creep. And if I see someone I think I could get along with, I do not dare to talk to them.

The fact that most of us run around glued to our electric devices (I am counting myself there as well) does not help this fact, right? If I am sitting in a café, I am usually working on my laptop, which will make it less likely that folks interact with me. And, of course, my autistic self will also not do that in turn.

Solarpunk both as a genre and a vision for the future is very much build around the idea of community and working together as a community. And for that we need third places in Solarpunk futures. Places that are easily accessible and that people can just go to to talk to people.

But more than that, Solarpunk also needs a society and social rules that actually allow for folks to interact with each other, talk to each other and ask each other for help and stuff.

Sure, there also need to be safe and silent spaces for people with needs like that (including autistic folks like me). And really... Frankly, I would not know how to talk with someone outside a nerd context, lol.

[wayti-blog]

Any religion that professes to be concerned with the souls of men and is not concerned with the slums that damn them, the economic conditions that strangle them, and the social conditions that cripple them, is a spiritually moribund [at the point of death] religion.

Martin Luther King Jr., speech, 1960

[rollerska8er]

the importance of basic fact-checking

it's kind of crazy how doing research to learn if something is bullshit or not is not, like, a thing most people do as a matter of course?

for example, let's say someone says "did you know that in the medieval era, people used to sleep for a few hours, get up and do things for an hour, then go back to sleep?"

now, you might say "wow, that's really interesting!" and you might tell your friends about this cool fact.

but this factoid, if it is untrue, might give someone a distorted view of history, and of sleep. it might make them think that perhaps people in the medieval era were healthier because of this sleeping pattern.

so, you google it. or you duckduckgo it. whatever.

and your searching may take you to the Wikipedia article for polyphasic sleep. and this Wikipedia article contains a section dedicated specifically to this topic.

you may learn that this idea that people in medieval times slept in two phases is in fact a theory put forth by the historian A. Roger Ekirch, which suggests, based on 500 historical references, that this biphasic sleeping pattern truly existed, though it is as yet unconfirmed - until the nineteenth century and the advent of electric lighting, he suggests, these two distinct sleeps a night were common.

what you may also learn, is that Ekirch also believes that the way we currently sleep is actually way healthier for us, and believes that it contributes to our longevity.

and of course, we must not forget that Ekirch is a historian, not a scientist, much less a somnologist, and while his theory is interesting, it is not actually a medical prescription one way or another.

this is just one example - it is common to see people claim certain absolute facts about history or science, and extrapolate from that information some kernel of truth about how we ought to live our lives, how we ought to live in accordance with "our nature" (which is, in fact, mutable).

scepticism is something you have to practice at. you have to get a nose for sniffing out bullshit. you need to learn how to engage with novel information in a way that is not credulous, but questioning it. i am not saying question everything - that way lieth conspiracy theories - but i am saying that before you uncritically believe a claim about the world, you have a personal responsibility to read further into it.

and if you don't have time to do that, then you shouldn't believe everything you read, and you certainly shouldn't spread misinformation.

in our modern world it is easy to instantly share information without running background checks on it first. this is a major drawback of "reblogging" and "retweeting". so, the next time you see something like this, look into it.

remember that there is no Santa Claus. and the world is no less beautiful for his absence.

[dairising]

[whentvsfly]

The last poll went well Let's do another!

There will be 3 polls total, one each for red, green, and blue. You can vote in each to add more of a color, or less. The final %s will be turned into decimals, multiplied by 255, then turned into a color with that rgb value!

(and remember! Too much of all the colors will make white, while too little will make black!)

BEGIN!

[trapelias]

I had drawn this art before the game updated recently. So there I smile without fear that this cute fish will kill me after my regular ✨FLASH✨

Also here is my dear fellow @kirs-en . She’s the one who showed me this sweet game.

[hexagr]

Tonight I saw a conflict among a group of people, and I had a stark realization: I could never be what is colloquially referred to as a "cop-caller," mostly because my cultural customs and dignity prevent it. I deeply value living in a society where adults address conflicts directly and constructively rather than escalating every minor issue. This is to say I prefer autonomy—the virtues of personal accountability and responsibly handling matters within one's own means—and have no desire to live in a nanny state. I'm mostly confident in my ability to reason—to argue for sane reasons if necessary, or to cooperate, compromise, etc. within groups by virtue of my own agency 99% of the time. My mind does not include whatever constructs cause some people to think, "someone walked on that patch of grass?" or "that person hurt my feelings?—let's call the cops." There are, of course, situations in which calling the police is probably the optimal decision—but that's entirely different from, say, situations involving jaywalking or a person merely feeling socially disenchanted.

[in-tenebris-et-in-solitudine]

[philosophybits]

I would unite with anybody to do right; and with nobody to do wrong.

Frederick Douglass, "The Anti-Slavery Movement (1855)"