Oh wow, are we getting a world war with China and Europe allied against Russia and the US?

Things are all wonky

Really, talking realistically I’d move far north domestically, far from cities.

But if we’re talking ideally, I would definitely love Longyearbyen or the region in general. But that’s not even remotely feasible, if we are being entirely honest.

Yeah, it’s a hard balance to find, trying to maintain your own mental wellbeing, career, social relations like friends and family, household, money with all that comes with it, and then also try and bring up a small human in as healthy and as encouraging an environment as possible.

Sometimes you just have too much going on, especially in today’s world, so I also do get the occasional breaks given by some screen time.

But it can also be productive, it doesn’t have to be mindless and meaningless content. But it’s sort of understandable to default to anything at all that can give them something to do for a moment, if you need to.

But I’m not much of a parent either, in the way that I don’t really know what I am doing. I can’t imagine most do either.

4-5 books a night?

Jesus

I mean good for you and them, but that is wild

Everyone’s different, though, as you said, so for sure work with what you have and try and be the best you can for them, so that they may be the best they can

I feel surprisingly insecure in my own parenting style and capabilities, if it is normal for such a young kid to even think about some of that stuff. When I was 5yo, I was eating pebbles outside and climbing on trees thinking I’d surely get to clouds this way.

Well, the amount of comments just going with the premise of a 5yo kid actually understanding logical operators or circuits is a little bit concerning, seeing as mine can barely do the car puzzles with the arrow commands, and they are 6.

Uh oh.

If you mean self-hosting email, then good luck.

It’s a lottery with the IP and even the IP space you get, whether anyone will actually receive your emails.

I hosted my own for a few years, but god fed up telling everyone to dig through their junk folder for my emails, and not being responded to very often, probably because of just that.

Maybe some providers have it better, but I tried a few and each was just not good. I really think Microsoft, Amazon, Google and other big players have intentionally separated the good, trusted IPs, ones they use for email services specifically, and made the other worse

Definitely not. The orange man and the US in general is equal in my eyes to Russia. A bad, backwards place I would fight if it tried to thrust its diseased member into my current life and surroundings.

Instead, I’d give a lot for what I have now: The relative safety and social progress, as well as the socialist elements such as our guaranteed welfare for everyone without gotchas or requirements, the general atmosphere of acceptance towards sexual and gender minorities etc.

A lot of reasons to “throw my life away”. The life wouldn’t be worth much if I couldn’t be myself, if I couldn’t survive and thrive even when unable to work or function. So I’d rather go fighting for those as opposed to bending over to get fucked either way.

Personally I’d go if they just let me. I’m a reserve sergeant with strong will to actually do something, knowing full well I will perish there, and cry for mommy in a ditch, or something else entirely, as of yet unimaginable to me.

Defense is something I accept and will always help with if I just can, if the cause is right. Other kinds of war or violence? I’d rather go to jail than participate. In defense of gender minorities, people with mental health issues struggling as it is, when we now have great support networks and financial help guaranteeing housing, food, electricity, everything necessary, I would face the horrifying prospect of unimaginable pain and fear, desperation, so that those that do not wish to, or can’t, do not have to.

I have strength and vitality some do not have. And if the only thing standing between the peaceful, at least good enough life they (we!) now have, is the sacrifice of those just selfless enough to face horrors, I’d feel bad letting them do it without me, if and when I am capable to help.

But this is only as long as the thing we’d defend is worth defending. Our current state definitely is. I’m openly pan-sexual enby, and nobody looks at me twice. I get to work, study, participate in society just like most everyone do. If that is in danger, I won’t sit down and wait for them to come for me and my kin.

But I also don’t think anyone else should be forced to do that, unless they really do want to and understand the horrors of what it will be.

I have the benefit of military training and familiarity with guns and warfare in general (in theoretical level, though, which is still better than nothing), so I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself if I didn’t put those to use in defense of my fellow minorities often persecuted elsewhere.

And this is if we only strictly try and think about this fiscally. The human, social and moral side only expands from this, and are much more important, too.

The thing is, there are no ideal options here. While the 700bn goes to violence, at least in my country I know for a fact it goes to defense, since we very explicitly have no general armed forces, only defense forces. The same is not true for Russia or the US.

But I suppose you are right in that it depends on the specific country. I’m from a progressive social democracy, the world’s happiest people multiple years in row according to some studies, so it’s easy for me to say I’d rather choose the current situation over getting Russia or US conditions here… but maybe the same is not true for all European countries. There are many, after all, and in case of Hungary, for example, I would probably feel the same as you. There wouldn’t be much of a difference, just the flavor of who gets to oppress you and your people.

But there is no choice here, in my country, in which the current social situation remains as good as it is here, and in which we also do not spend any money on defense, local as well as Europe at large.

If the choice is between oppressive leadership, I’d much rather choose my current flavor. People can be who they are here, there’s no militia silencing our voices, and while things could be better in a million different ways, they also could be so much worse, as demonstrated by the two dickswingers, Russia and USA.

In an ideal world we would not spend on violence. I agree with that. It’s a waste. It leads to people dying, especially innocents. But it’s not an ideal world. And until it is, the choice has to be between different flavors of bad, I suppose, and personally I would 100% always choose the flavor in which I feel safe, happy and supported as a gender identity and sexual minority with mental health problems and adhd. And I would hope that most would do the same.

Because the alternative is just going to be fatal for me, at least, and a lot of people like me.

Edit: And yeah, you can pick out my points and their details in many ways, but the fact that the alternative can be picked out in so many more ways, remains. It’s all relative. I don’t see it as a good option to sacrifice good, just because it is not perfect, and get an outright horrible outcome. I’d much rather just try and help things remain at least good…

Edit2: Also, to address the “everybody wants to invade you” part: The US has declared it will start expansion and assimilate parts of other sovereign countries. One of those being part of Europe… An European country is currently deep in a defense war against a nation that has also declared that letting my country gain independence was a mistake and that is listed in multiple writings of prominent leadership members as one of the next countries that will be part of Russia “again”. So I don’t think everyone wants to invade us, not by a long shot. But there are countries that have been very explicit in their want, or even need, to fucking invade us and start enrussificating us.

The fact that you aren’t even considering these things, things that are well known and plainly and openly broadcast by these dickswingers, in some cases for many decades now, just tells me that you fail to understand what it actually is like being an openly stated target of assimilation. You make it a joke, as if nobody ever wants to conquer anyone, but it’s just fucking fantasy to think that. Right now, the same country that has stated my country “is in fact” part of their country, is, in real time, fighting a war of assimilation not too far from our borders… I get that this might not be close to you, you may live somewhere far away and don’t know this, but it hits a bit different when you are actually here. I can’t even imagine what it is like for Ukraine…

I do hope you could also try and expand your point of view and gain some perspective. The world is fairly shit in terms of things like this. Pretending otherwise won’t change that. The moment you blink, the nazis and oligarchs just do what they already have told you, over and over, what they will do. And next thing you know, you are being raped in a prison for being “a deviant” and your murder is then hidden away as your peers continue to face this reality.

Yeah, well, say we successfully block any further military spending here in the eu.

Is Russia going to stop their spending? USA?

No?

Then what will we do when they come for us next?

This wouldn’t be a factor if our nations were almost alike and no practical changes would occur should they conquer majority of Europe, but most of Europe is comparatively in another sphere in terms of progressiveness and social stuff. Compared both to USA and Russia.

Would the 700bn used, right now, in some better causes be worth it, if in somewhat near future we’ll have our minorities in concentration camps, killed or expelled? Our social systems torn to shreds, poverty and income differences rising? The authoritarian/oligarch rule we’d get then would spend that 700bn in many multiples in warfare, but also similar amounts extra for police and other oppressive powers to silence any and all opposition.

I’m just saying there are things worth defending, such as lgbtq+ rights, (comparatively much more progressive and universal) social equality and you know, the basics such as low levels of impoverishment, guaranteed housing for everyone, quality and unhindered education etc etc.

The sentiment is understandable and in a naive sense I agree, but the paradox of tolerance applies here, and it’s not so straight forward.

Sometimes you just have to punch a nazi in order to stop them getting too comfortable and getting bold. Well, right now the equivalent of the nazis here are, and have been, emboldened for over a decade, and it’s unfortunately going to take a lot of punches to stop them swallowing everyone whole and imposing even worse environments and even more poverty for all.

I suppose this is exactly why…

I’d probably dedicate some days each week to friends or family, to have more active contact before it’s late, but be shamelessly selfish the other days and spend them trying to finish some of my hobby projects and finally finishing The Witcher 3 if possible.

That’s going to be rough to those currently on my daily agenda, like partner and kid, but I’ve given so much to them, and so little to others I care about, that the balance has to be leaning towards the latter.

Not sure if I actually could do that though. But that’s what I’d hope I’d be able to push for.

It took me over ten years to realize this too, although I was young and stupid so it kind of follows. I started carrying a bag with a seal with me and if there wasn’t a public ash tray in view, I’d just drop them in there and I was so ashamed when I first started that, since it was so easy and all the things I thought would be problems, like the smell, just… literally never was. And how quickly the bag would fill up, ugh. All that used to go to the ground. Note however that I was conscious of littering and always if I knew there was an ash tray, say, no more than some 100m detour from my current path, I’d just take the extra steps to put it there. But they are surprisingly rare, especially towards the end of my smoking habit, when smoking started to really die out and be a lot less common. A lot of places, like bars for example, didn’t necessarily put ash trays by the door or terrace, which was how it used to be.

I’m lucky I got out of the habit. But I can sort of emphatise those who do it without thinking about it, especially if they are young.

Younger generations are also lucky, at least here, since smoking is so ludicrously expensive nowadays with the taxes and all, and add to that good education, I very rarely see young people smoking anymore. Seems to be mostly people in their 30s or 40s — my age group — and of us, mostly the “hillbilly” types.

I do use nicotine pouches though, to this day. Low nicotine ones, but anyway. Those are very natural for not trashing, like the Nordic snus, since the pucks/containers come with its own small compartment for the used pouches, that’s easy to clean up at home. And those pucks are very recyclable too (granted that the region has the sort of plastic sorting that differentiates washable/directly reusable containers like we do for glass) which at least from what I have seen, gets done properly a lot of the time.

In general, I think the newer generations are much more aware of all this and do a great job of being conscious of the environment, not only at the global scale, but also just the local environment and surroundings too.

Let’s just hope we didn’t fuck up bad enough so that they might have a chance at adulthood and actually transferring all that to more effective and serious politics and activism. We might just get saved ourselves, too, if they just learn to be decisive enough to push us fuckups out of the picture. God I hope enough of them have the dreams, passion and idealism to actually have that drive and fire.

This became a random tangent, sorry if you got this far!

Yeah, this is how I feel too. I commend their courage and honestly think this was for the greater good, but I’d also have them prosecuted with some amount of clemency, because otherwise, where do we draw the line? Who’s ok to kill, how do we reason about this? I don’t think it’s ever ok to kill, but I also believe sometimes drastic action such as a kill can lead to good outcomes. This is how we fight against fascism and tyranny too. Nobody expects anyone to remain forever peaceful under tyranny. Of course people fight, and it’s noble to do so. But… context matters. We are not that far yet, so it seems more important to safeguard the general safety of everyday life and have some amount of de facto rule of law that ensures that.

I think this also encourages better, more detailed preparation and planning for those that sacrifice their own safety, health and freedom to help that of others. If they never get caught, we might never need an actual answer to this hard question.

Was replying more in the general, not specifically to you, but yeah. I’m a musician too myself, and have a wide range of other creatives in my inner circle, and this whole copyright topic is extremely hard. But I think we mostly can ignore that aspect when we consider the moral side as-is. A lot less complicated that way. Again, more in the general sense for all the comments in this post, sorry to drop it all here.

It’s one thing to just do a similar melody by accident, and entirely another to ask the artist if you could use the melody, get explicitly denied, then go on and use that melody anyway, changing a single less relevant note in there.

I think everyone gets this distinction innately, we just get caught up in the copyright law aspect of this, which I’m not claiming isn’t relevant. It’s just Musk being a clear scumbag, whichever way you lean on the lawfulness side of it.

Edit: What I mean to say is, it’s fairly clearly morally corrupted and wrong, but it’s not so immediately clear to accept as such in this reality, where declaring so might have consequences beyond this instance.

Just answering your question. No matter how dystopian, it is the reality we live in.