solbear

Well, there is no chance I will have this ready before the election, so I guess I will get to see what happens anyway.

But if your time frame is 50 years, the fascism would have to start soon.

January 20th, 2025? :p

Depends how decisive and long-lasting that victory would be, right? Could we not see the right wing continue to push the country towards authoritarianism and possibly even a straight up fascist dictatorship, to then have that reversed through some big event before 2075? Or maybe you meant "wins against the left" as something very permanent?

Wow, this is really cool - thanks for sharing! I'll take a closer look at this, I am loving the idea. I have just recently started with some traditional TTRPG (DnD), so this is really good timing in that sense as well :)

Nice, thank you! I've only read non-fiction by Doctorow so far (Chokepoint Capitalism and The Internet Con) - I think many of the things he advocates for are definitely part of a Solarpunk future, so I imagine his fictional works would be worth a read in that regard. I'll add it to my reading list, and I'll make sure to get the humble bundle that I recently saw advertised!

What a poor contribution to the thread... I am well aware of the consequences, and I am highlighting one specific consequence that I am seeking advice on how to deal with. I am specifically asking for stories from people who have had good success either maintaining adult friendships despite divergence in lifestyles, or establishing new adult friendships. Your comment brings nothing to the table.

I interpret your last comment as "going with the flow" in order to "survive". If that is a strategy that somehow brings you fulfillment in life, good on you. I am very comfortable with my choice of not having kids, but as with everything, there are trade-offs, and I'm just looking for ways to navigate those. As the commenter below pointed out: the situation would be worse if I had kids myself, as I would anyway have to forego the kinds of adult interactions I've described (and am missing), and I would instead rely on enjoying the new type of children centric interactions. I sincerely doubt I would.

Thanks for sharing your experience. It seems you have found a sweet spot that works well for your life, and you sound like a good friend. I get the impression that you enjoy a kid's company far more than I do, though. I generally get exhausted around them and the stressful lives their parents lead, and I don't actually want to be a part of this. Which is a me-problem, I know. I fully agree with you when you say that they will probably not be knocking on my door when they are ready to be social again, but it sounds like a very one-sided effort to maintain a friendship in the meantime. My friends mostly move out of the city back to where they grew up as well, so just popping over with a meal is not always possible. I have myself moved elsewhere for work now, partly because the number of friends still staying in the city I lived in before had greatly diminished.

I used to go on mountain hikes with my best friend from my childhood once a year (we've already lived in different cities for a long time, so we haven't really been hanging out for many years), but he's awaiting twins anytime now, so it's going to be at least some years before it will be possible for him to even consider spending any vacation days on such a trip. I used to have yearly cabin trips with friends from university until they got all got kids approximately at the same time (during COVID). They now go on kid-friendly family vacations together. I used to frequent restaurants with a fellow foodie. We sometimes still do, but it's gone from maybe once a month to once every two years. It is these kinds of relationships that I miss.

That uncle role is not something I am looking for, though. I am after adult relationships, and it is the loss of these I am saddened about. For the record, I do not blame neither the parents or especially their kids for this change. They do not owe me a continued adult relationship for our entire lives. It is completely up to them to pursue this life, and as I said, I am happy for them as long as this is what they really wanted, and I agree that their kids should be their priorities once they have had them. But so far, in my experience, the kind of relationship becomes completely different. For instance, my girlfriend and I were invited over for dinner to one of my close friends from my twenties, his wife and their two kids. After we left, we were both left with a feeling that we hadn't talked with them at all - we were interrupted constantly by their kids seeking their parents attention. Some parents handle this better - I know others who are better at setting boundaries for their kids and teaching them to not interrupt and wait for their turn, but the interactions with them are still very different - their lives almost entirely revolves around their kids. I was once involuntarily part of a conversation regarding the color and viscosity of kid's shit.

When I reread my original post, I realize it could be interpreted like I want to somehow get things back to how they were before. I know they won't be, and it's not what I meant. I was simply after real stories (i.e. not imagined solutions) of how people in a similar situation, having experienced a similar loss of close friendships, ended up with either new, great friends with a similar outlook on life or anything else that improved that part of their life.

I once described my perfect morning to a colleague, in much the same way you describe your Sunday morning. He started laughing and said that will be gone with kids. I told him that was one of the many reason I did not want kids, and he looked genuinely perplexed that was even a possibility. His main reason for wanting kids (at least what I could come up with at the time) was the joyous thought of being able to teach someone a lot of cool stuff. The fact that he could achieve that without kids (i.e. volunteering teaching kids programming, electronics or whatever) didn't seem to have dawned on him either. I haven't spoken with him for some time, and I imagine he has gotten a kid with his wife by now. I hope for his sake that the kid(s) will be interested in what he has to teach, because if he did not have any other reasons for wanting them, he's in for a disappointing couple of decades...

By the way, I'm sad this community is not more active. Are there any similar communities on Lemmy dedicated to a childfree lifestyle that goes under some name I don't know?

Until your system does anything useful with third party votes or couch-sitting, you go out and vote every time for whatever does the least damage to democracy. But don't disengage from the political world after the election. Between elections, you work to change the system. Find groups that tries to do this and volunteer. If you really care about it, you will need to dedicate your time to the cause, even though it might seem hopeless and may very well be.

I understand your situation sucks and you are tempted to say "Fuck the status quo" and desperately do something different in hopes that something will somehow change. But you know who do go out and vote, every fucking time? The racist assholes who would love to see Trump and his fascists cronies in power. And if that happens, it is game over. You will never get any chance to change anything, except from after a big traumatic event such as a big war ("civil" or otherwise).

For computer related stuff there are tons of good free and open source options with focus on privacy that kind of goes under the radar when just following the masses. And then there's always piracy. Yarr!

I'm not sure that the combined energy consumption of the aggregate financial system is less than 0.5%, but it does, unlike Bitcoin, provide utility, not withstanding any reasonable objection to the fairness of this system.