Civil engineering. And they’ve been confused at how the Italians beat them to it ever since

Nah it’s America

Yeah I live in a populous red state and was forced to join a union for a job. It was as bad as how they forced me to wear hearing protection and steel toe shoes on the factory floor. Watch out or you may be forced to do such things as well

In the US standard is 2.5 hrs/month. I can’t say for certain I made that back cash, but by the time benefits and job security were added i more than made it up

Access to the means to project force is necessary for equality. Without it equality only lasts as long as those able to project force allow it. War is terrible, but when the Iranian revolution occurred a womens’ army would have likely been far more effective than the mass protests were.

The legacy of Scythia remains. We will live as equals, ideally peacefully.

And seriously the women’s armies of Syria have been an inspiration and source of awed respect since I was a teenager. I dream of a Middle East in which they may live in peace and equality.

The YPJ is tougher than any fascist. And the philosophy behind them is something I agree with, women’s liberation is strongest when we demonstrate the capacity to project armed force.

Ok I would be down to just turn my hearing aids lower and lower in response lol. The funny thing to me is I’m not much deafer then they make people. I just come pre deafened and they can’t have that. It’s like if the marines wouldn’t take anyone who bought a car they can’t afford and cheats on their girlfriend, like fair enough but I’ve met y’all it’s strange to insist you be the ones to get people to this state.

Yeah I spent a decent chunk of my 20s attempting to explain to them that I’m deaf

I did my part by being born with a sensory disability. Mind you I’m also too mentally ill to enlist…

And one thing to understand about anarchism is that it’s very much a goal oriented philosophy more than most other political philosophies. What that means is that you get a lot of different approaches and concepts from people trying different things to attempt to achieve similar goals. And this often involves practical differences between different situations. Rojava is necessarily going to do things differently from how the maknovists did things and they’re both very different from how some punks who bought some land for a commune in the American Midwest will handle it.

Ok but also as an adult, don’t let yourself get into that cycle. Find reasons to get out of the house and meet new people. Even when you’re married. I’ve seen so many adults let themselves become isolated because it’s easy, but ensuring you have hobbies that get you out of the house and talking to people is so valuable

I used to live in a small town with a cheap historical monoplex about 15 minutes walk from my apartment. I’d just check what was playing on my drive home from work all week and if I was interested I’d walk over on the weekend and see a $10 showing of something. I’ve never been much of a moviegoer but it was really nice. Literally the only nice part of living there except the 15 minute commute to the job I had. Round here though it’s just not worth going to a movie alone

Ain’t most swamps also forests?

My family drove through Kansas once when I was a kid, and yep, the Great Plains are kinda rough on the head if you aren’t used to open grasslands. It’s like being on the ocean but grassland instead of water. Just grass and land as far as the eye can see

I would expect most to not be evenly distributed. Florida’s forests are likely largely the Everglades, and I’d suspect New Mexico’s are up north outside the desert.

And yeah, here in Ohio the remaining forests are largely in the south, but we were once a very forested state

Did not expect Alabama to be on the same level as West Virginia and Vermont

Yeah, I’m trans and there’s a push and pull there. I spent a long time trying to get people to understand and speak up for me so I don’t have to be the one to correct when I’ve been misgendered, but I remember being young and confrontational once and I got into fights over it and probably made trans people look like psychos at the time. And I was definitely worse to be around when I was doing more activism and community support.

I’ve long since accepted that gentle nudges and honest connections are the key to mass acceptance, but that at times we will have to make showy displays of our struggle for equal rights. And that doesn’t mean I don’t get to be angry or frustrated when I’m being hurt, it just means I need to accept that people trying are trying and that my role as someone who’s increasingly an elder in my community is partly to encourage people to know when to yell and when to gently correct

What’s hope got to do with it? You survive. That’s it.

But for real, because my people have endured persecution before. As I look at our incoming persecution I see that we got further this time than in a long time and so we must endure and survive and go further again.

But no matter what you survive

So I want to start with the pretext that I’m a lifelong defender of euthanasia. I’ve watched my mom slowly die of brain cancer as she lost function.

That said, euthanasia is easy to combine with removal of the autonomy of the disabled and can lead to very bad places. Especially since less severely disabled people is a positive incentive for governments.