a place to store all my solarpunk content

Trying to be good to the earth and plot the downfall of capitalism. Here’s where I’ll store different things I want to try out. Nazis, TERFS, and fascists are NOT welcome here. Ben, they/them, 20s. Main blog: @socially-awkward-velociraptor Witchy sideblog: @queer-trans-witchery

[allthecanadianpolitics]

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/social-media-ban-kids-parents-reaction-9.7178010

'Not everything deserves to be banned,' kids say as Manitoba plans to block youth from using social media | CBC News

Some Manitoba youth say an outright ban on social media and artificial-intelligence chatbot use for youth may be a step too far after Premie

[roboticutie]

"These platforms are not neutral. They have been built this way to maximize engagement," Kinew said at the event. "They amplify comparisons between yourself and artificial standards, they amplify outrage and they expose kids to content they're not ready for."

Okay, so.... Ban them from being built that way. Regulate the companies and implement regulations on predatory social media development practices which damage people for engagement. Get to the core of the problem instead of isolating children, maybe.

[los-copa]

her name was Juniper Blessing, she was 19 and she was just doing her laundry

[wispthicket]

From one of her friends on a Reddit post.

[validblogname]

one fight at a time

[melindamagpie]

[helpmotasem5]

Oh my God, my wife collapsed today from extreme hunger and went to the hospital.

My wife is three months pregnant and suffering from severe malnutrition. My youngest child, who is a year and a half old, cries constantly from hunger, and his mother is hospitalized.

For a week now I have been pleading with you to help me so that I don't lose any of my family members.

If anything happens to any of my family, I will never forgive anyone. Remember, I asked you for help and no one helped me.

[helpmotasem5]

We are living through very difficult times. I implore you, with compassion, to help my family.

I don't want to lose my wife or my child. They desperately need your help.

Please donate to save my family.

• Chuffed - PayPal - Vetted#722

[helpmotasem5]

These may be my last words or the last time I write a post about my family, so I will not forgive anyone who sees this post and does not support me with a single word and ignores me.

[helpmotasem5]

My wife's condition is worsening due to a lack of food and medicine; she is suffering from severe malnutrition.

I feel like I'm breathing through the eye of a needle. Oh my God, I can't do anything for her.

[helpmotasem5]

My young child cries constantly, and I am unable to provide them with even the most basic necessities. We urgently need 250 euros to buy medicine and food for their health.

I ask for your help with a heart full of sorrow and loss. 😭

Help me save my family from this hell.

• Chuffed - PayPal - Vetted#722

[helpmotasem5]

Time is running out. My wife is in danger. The medication must be secured as soon as possible, or I will lose my wife and child.😭

[helpmotasem5]

93 / 250 €

Time is running out; we must secure the medication today. My wife's condition is critical; she may die today if we don't get the medicine.

[helpmotasem5]

I don't want to lose my wife. My child cries constantly because of her condition. I can't bear it; I feel like I'm dying every minute.

Please Please Save My Wife , My Baby Chile and My Family

Donate now

• Chuffed - PayPal - Vetted#722

[plushie-sex]

rest in peace eryka caldwell. she was a 41 year old trans woman of color stabbed to death by her boyfriend. she had so much life left and yet it was cut short by this man. i hope the world can be better for trans women of color, sooner rather than later.

[morganitism]

Rest in peace, Eryka. You seemed like such a beautiful soul that brought so much love and joy to those around you.

I'm glad the world had you. I just wish it could have had you for longer.

[restingsusvibes]

Often we think of intimate partner violence, or IPV, as a mostly cishet problem. In actuality, IPV is just as prevalent within the LGBTQ community. (Source)

Eryka's partner had a history of violence towards her. She was staying in shelters as recently as January according to her sister. (Source) Some studies indicate that Trans femmes are at a higher risk of IPV (Source)

In case anyone (esp queer individuals) needs to hear this: you are important and you are worthy. If your partner puts you down or makes you feel like you can't leave them, that's not love. Take care of yourself and be safe 🤍

[wishful-seeker]

I would like to see more people talk about how jobs treat disabled employees.

I used to prep, wash dishes, and cook at mellow mushroom. I had chronic pain that wasn't NEARLY as bad as it is today, but it was still very debilitating. I told my employer "i cannot stand more than 4 to 6 hours. I CANNOT do shifts longer than this due to my illness." And even though i made my boundaries VERY clear, everyday i worked it was 8 hours at the least and 10 or 12 at the most. I would go up to my manager and say "look i really need to leave, my shift is over, my chronic pain is killing me." And he'd say "we really need to here, you HAVE to push through." And so i did, and after one, ONE month of that job my crps got incredibly worse to the point where i could no longer walk my dog around the block which was .5 miles. I quit, and that was FOUR years ago, and ever since that day I HAVE BEEN BEDRIDDEN AND HAVE TO USE A WHEELCHAIR. It is my biggest regret in life.

My best friend who has seen my whole journey has recently developed undiagnosed chronic pain, and she is in the EXACT same scenario i was 4 years ago. Busting her ass at a pizza place with extreme pain that hurts her so much she tells me "im in so much pain i don't even feel like a person." She doesn't feel LUCID. And her manager and coworkers are saying the same thing "if you don't help us you will let us down, we'll be in the shit."

That job thats hurting you isn't fucking worth it. I promise you no money is worth losing all your physical abilities and never getting them back. Your coworkers and boss do not give a shit about you, so don't you dare suffer for them. They will never understand your struggle and they will never try. They truly think being understaffed is worse than whatever pain you experience. They would rather you permanently damage yourself than inconvenience them. FUCK THEM. DON'T FUCKING DO IT!

[wishful-seeker]

I see people outing their shitty companies they worked at in the reblogs and I just want to say KEEP DOING IT

[mxjackparker]

Babies don't misbehave, they just behave. There's no such thing as a baby being "bad" because they don't understand cause and effect at first and have no concept of others feelings for a while after they do learn that.

A baby is never doing something to upset you. They don't act up to piss you off. They act in the only way they know how, and yes, sometimes the behaviour they're drawn to isn't great! That's why you guide them and comfort.

It's okay to be mad, but you need to remind yourself of this or you'll become resentful. Babies don't misbehave.

[makingqueerhistory]

Womonspace News: Our Voice in the Lesbian Community: Aug 1995

[marxismopportunism]

yankees drill it into your skull that money "wasted" that you see in f-15 jets do not belong to you. it should be money that is used for reparations in the places your government has decimated not your public infrastructure.

[bluelith12]

you think OUR government should prioritize other people over us?

Just to clarify we've done many many many bad things. We should stop, but we aren't obligated to give reparations or give up stuff to help others. How would you feel if you were forced to pay repartions or cut back computing because of your crimes. You focus on our victims pain but never on ours.

[occidentalist]

“You focus on our victims pain but never on ours.”

Bitch u better be joking 😭

[mywingsareonwheels]

Being highly judgemental and feeling morally superior feel really fucking good.

Let's not piss about and deny that. They're deeply satisfying sensations, at least in the short-term, and vastly more so when they are at least to some extent justified. I wouldn't go as far as to call them addictive, but they are compelling.

They're also a trap. There is a reason why encouraging those sensations in their target market is one of the first steps in the fascism playbook (evidence: pretty much the entire history of the pro-fascist media in the UK, for example). And being a left-wing, pro-social justice highly judgemental person can deteriorate politically into something more and more unpleasant so very easily and often without you noticing. But also, cultures that are highly judgemental and heavy on disgust and moral superiority tend to fuck everything up even when the basic principles are good. I mean, this is tumblr. *shrugs helplessly*

(I say "you". I am anything but innocent of seeking out that feeling, and I want to do better. This post is partly me giving myself some accountability on that. :) )

Compassion can be a good antidote. As is nuanced critical thinking.

Be wary of posts on here that demand that you judge more intensely, or think less clearly. Remember that judging yourself too harshly, while much less pleasant, can be just as compelling, and can also cloud the mind.

Remember that the more people you have compassion towards (almost regardless of who they are), the more sensibly you're likely to behave.

And if you're already better at avoiding these traps than I am (entirely likely!) then fricking yay for you, and keep up the good work. :)

[siriosa]

i have trained myself to notice when i am feeling "justified." if it's a good thing i just did, there's no reason to feel justified. so perhaps that thing i did, feeling full of my righteousness, was not exactly a good thing. it may have been a bad thing.

always be interrogating.

[fandomsandfeminism]

What Happens When A Country Bans Spanking?

Researchers look at countries that have prohibited corporal punishment for kids and their rate of youth violence.

Now a new study looking at 400,000 youths from 88 countries around the world suggests such bans are making a difference in reducing youth violence. It marks the first systematic assessment of whether an association exists between a ban on corporal punishment and the frequency in which adolescents get into fights. 

[puolikarhu]

[F]or both boys and girls, [prof. Elizabeth Gershoff] said, “We found [spanking] linked to more aggression, more delinquent behavior, more mental health problems, worse relationships with parents, and putting the children at higher risk for physical abuse from their parents.”

“People often ask: Why didn’t you look for positive aspects?” she continued. “My answer is: We did, and there were none. We see consistently that the more children are spanked, the more behavioral problems they have in the years ahead.”

[quasi-normalcy]

Once again worth emphasizing that this is pretty much the exact opposite of what authoritarians said would happen

[moniquill]

This is an important study in the same way that many ‘water is wet’ studies are; it provides hard data that can be referred back to.

But yeah, startlingly enough if you don’t use violence to control children, they’re less likely to try to use violence to control others.

[fullpraxisnow]

“Americans are largely unaware that Mexicans were frequently the targets of lynch mobs, from the mid-19th century until well into the 20th century, second only to African-Americans in the scale and scope of the crimes. One case, largely overlooked or ignored by American journalists but not by the Mexican government, was that of seven Mexican shepherds hanged by white vigilantes near Corpus Christi, Tex., in late November 1873. […] From 1848 to 1928, mobs murdered thousands of Mexicans, though surviving records allowed us to clearly document only about 547 cases. These lynchings occurred not only in the southwestern states of Arizona, California, New Mexico and Texas, but also in states far from the border, like Nebraska and Wyoming.”

— William D. Carrigan | 1744. American History: The Lynching of Mexicans

[anarchistmemedistro]

[forfuckssakejim]

Yeah quiet quitting is great and all but have you tried chaotic working?

Like. I remember back in my grocery store cashier days I did so much crazy shit.

When WIC (Women, infants, and children voucher program to help low income mothers/families with children) people were in my line I would pretty much know who they were. Before the cards they had to tell us upfront they were WIC and show us their vouchers for what they were allowed to get (it was awful some times. Like. 2 gallons of milk. $4 worth of vegetables etc etc). They’d always have items hanging back, waiting to see what the total was and if they would have to take it off the belt.

I began to place the fruits/vegetables a certain way on the register scale so that like 1/2lbs of grapes read as like .28lbs or something. Then act shocked when I said that they still had X amount of lbs left. They got all their fruit and vegetables.

I think it started to kinda? Catch on to the women? Because I would have the same moms in my line month after month. And even after they switched to the cards (they worked like food stamp cards?) I’d still do the same thing. They were able to get more produce for whatever shitty max amount Indiana gave them.

Anyways. Be chaotic. It’s more fun that way.

[bshmatthews]

[rudavoidish]

Y'all if you're American please email your politicians and senators against the parents decide act. I'm fucking begging because we're reaching a tipping point.

[hetrosjistin]

Call or Write Congress About H.R. 8250: Parents Decide Act - GovTrack.us

Quick and easy link to both find your congressmen/women and giving you a quick and easy way to copy / paste the message into it. You want to oppose. It's an act that will demand that all major OS makers integrate a direct forced age verification control into all OS.

[rudavoidish]

I received a comment on this that I figured would be very helpful- it's a template for communicating with your representatives. Be sure to use it for reference

Dear Representative [Name],

I am writing to express my strong opposition to H.R. 8250 (The "Parents Decide Act"). As your constituent and a concerned citizen, I believe this bill introduces unprecedented risks to digital privacy and security.

Specifically, I am alarmed by:

SEC. 2(a)(1)(B): Requiring age verification to even use an operating system creates a mandatory "hardware lockout" that ends anonymous computing and forces users to hand over sensitive identification data to major corporations just to power on their devices.

SEC. 2(a)(3): Mandating that OS providers create a system for all app developers to access verification data is a massive security vulnerability. This effectively creates a centralized API of user identities accessible to thousands of third-party developers, many of whom may lack adequate data protection.

This bill does not protect children; it creates a centralized surveillance infrastructure at the OS level. I urge you to protect the privacy of your constituents and vote NO on H.R. 8250.

Sincerely,

[Your Name]

[Your Zip Code]

[willowtree1527]

This is a hell that us down under in Australia are already living in, and it’s not even effective at what it claims to do in protecting children.

Given that, in the wake of this mandatory identification policy, my country seems to be moving to hand over its citizens biometric data, like fingerprints, Face ID files, and identification documents, over to the USA and to ICE to maintain the visa free travel (ESTA) we have, I strongly urge any US resident to send these emails, or make calls.

But if you can’t do that, the most powerful thing you can do is spread the word. Tell your friends, family, coworkers, anyone who can help.

My reach will likely be small, and so I don’t know if this will mean very much in the grand scheme of things, but I cannot stand to see this tracking happen to another population as it did to mine.

And if you think it won’t affect you, it will. All anonymity goes out the window when your accounts can be linked via your personal ID

I wish you all luck in preventing this act from going through.

[kidzbopdeathgrips]

it's really funny how the entire world basically just blew the fuck up six short years ago and nobody wants to admit that that may have had some lasting consequences lmao

[kidzbopdeathgrips]

like so much of Everything today is premised on the idea that the earth-shattering catastrophe which happened within living memory of everyone older than a third grader has had no meaningful material or psychological effects on the general public and i don't think that's good, lol.

"(some of) the top-line economic indicators (sorta) recovered (in most places) so everything is fine and we don't need to talk about it" is not a sustainable framework for interfacing with reality

[kidzbopdeathgrips]

"why is everyone so angry and paranoid now?" "why is politics so dysfunctional now?" "why is [x] [y] and [z] now? blah blah blah"

2020: