What an wonderful and inspiring human, I rarely see uplifting stuff like this so I enjoyed reading about him. I hope he can achieve all his dreams and see the end of coal in his lifetime.

I tried 1) with my mother, who is sadly hooked on right wing news sources. The fires in Europe are being laid by disgruntled migrants and the “elites” are withholding their geo engineering powers due to greed, they could simply make it rain, but that isn‘t profitable enough or something.

She didn‘t really listen to my perspective. Overall, as always, it was a waste of time trying to communicate about anything of substance. I‘ve had a similar experience with a coworker recently, making me feel pretty hopeless sometimes how many people like that are out there.

I loved this, thank you for sharing. I was in this industry when I was young and it was so awful, we basically learned how to brainwash people into buying shit they don’t want or need. Article described it all well. I turned anti-ad for life.

Sadly, most people seem to either enjoy it or not care. I try to do some good as an IT person by teaching about adblockers, but get this: some people want to see ads, yeah I‘m baffled. So it would be a battle to get rid of ads. Neat to hear there is some small progress though.

This is some real “if life gives you lemons” type of stuff, I like it.

I guess it‘s great compared to other big cities, but it could still be better. Not trying to be a downer, but complaining is how we keep the politicians working on this here so it’s in my nature and Vienna could do with even more affordable 2 bedroom apartments. I‘m looking to move there next year and it‘s still a bit too much for someone earning median wage.

Agreed, just not SAP probably, as this thing is closed source, expensive and seems really focused on the needs of bigger business concerning government regulations and finance etc.

A federated ERP for communities, sounds cool I never thought of it that way, but that would be useful for sure.

That‘s hard, I currently work in SAP Basis (tech side) and I‘m not sure. In a solarpunk world, I feel like my job wouldn‘t exist, as it‘s really focused on the needs of “big business” and needs a ton of energy to run this whole system.

I‘ve been thinking though, things like supply chain, material management, etc seem like they might be useful to have open source for alternative organisations too and I found this: https://erpnext.com/comparisons/sap-alternative though idk how good any of this is truly and I‘m not sure how it would serve solarpunk, I‘m still too new to all this and only work with a small part of it, though it does seem to be the brain of business.

Before that I worked as a System Engineer, for a fossil fuel company… there I learned that the interests of such a company and anyone who wants nature to survive are incompatible, as they were greenwashing things in marketing while lobbying against any change and toasting to their profits behind closed doors. It made me feel like a monster.

Sorry if none of this is useful, I‘m mostly here to learn more about solarpunk from you guys cause I‘m so negative from my experiences and I want to change that towards a more hopeful perspective.

I had an idea I wanted to share, in my town we have food coops, which is small group of people who band together to get local produce from farmers, with a focus on it being sustainable too so I‘ve seen they even go with bikes to get it. Though you have to contribute in work too, but it‘s probably better than the stuff in supermarkets environmentally.

I heard about this and thought about joining but been too shy so far, maybe this will finally push me to go apply.

Communities rise or fall with the people in them, especially those who contribute and less those who lurk.

Piracy communities are typically made up of people who are used to being shattered to rebuild elsewhere, so it makes sense that this would be one of those who have less trouble moving.

Fair question and don’t worry it doesn‘t bother me. I guess it‘s wrong, not like I‘m proud of my phobia or something, but I just don‘t want them near me and I definitely do not want to eat them. I also don‘t want to exterminate them or anything though, I recognise bugs are important to the ecosystem (more important than many animals people hold as pets or even humans tbh who damage it), but that doesn‘t mean I like them or want them near me. Maybe with a bit of exposure therapy I could be less triggered by them too, but just mentally thinking of their importance doesn‘t really change that for me.

If I had a garden maybe then my perspective would actually change now that I think of it, I still wouldn‘t want them in my room at all and still use bug nets, but having them live in the garden and be more often exposed to them that way, a sort of safe co-existence, I think I would grow tougher. It‘s just unlikely to ever happen as I‘m a poor renting city dweller who doesn‘t have ambition to grind for a mortgage.

I‘m also all for the biodiversity though in the cities, due to bugs I stay out of these areas (last time I walked in tall grass I had two ticks and they are dangerous here and I was lax on vaccinations luckily nothing happened), but I like that they can live in those spaces more due to environmentalist efforts.

Yeah sorry I got a bit emotional, I‘m just grossed out by bugs a lot, including the popular sea ones. Though I guess if they are in a powder I wouldn‘t mind as an additive.

It‘s mostly for me the issue that a lot of right wingers are also using these sort of articles to push the “the left wants to force us to eat bugs” narrative, which is untrue (there is no force at all), but I wouldn‘t actually put it past some state‘s politicians to go like “let them eat bugs” as a response to rising food prices either.

In which case I would like to respond by aggressively planting vegetables.

I definitely do not want to… I‘d rather die, sorry. To each their own, but if everything else became unaffordable and I‘d be left with bugs, you‘ll find me smuggling veggies and growing them in the city parks, or on company properties or wherever I can find space.

Austria, yes, water is fine like that I would even drink it in the shower without issue. What is an issue is this habit once made for a bad time in Egypt where I didn‘t drink tap water (I was warned), but I mindlessly used it for brushing teeth and that probably ruined my last few days there.

This could have been an email.