Yeah The Stereotype Of Every Autistic Person Being A Super Genius Who Has A Hard Time Communicating And

Stop Doing Borders

I would put Gahlok instead but I don't have the canister handy

There exist another dimension called The Empty World. It's very much like ours, in fact it seems to have been identical up until a few weeks ago, but it always seems that way. If you go there today, it was identical in late february, and if you go there this october, it'll have been identical until september.

It's empty, as you might guess. There's no humans, and no animals bigger than a cockroach. The sky is grey, and it slowly rains ash. It's colder than our world by a bit, enough to require a jacket even in summer. The streets are empty, the cars parked neatly in their garages or in lots, but they're all empty and abandoned, their doors locked like they expect their owners to return any minute now.

The newspapers left on stands don't mention any oncoming disaster. We have no idea what the TV or internet would have said: the power is out. The power is very, very out. Not just the grid, but batteries are drained. The cars won't start, the emergency lights are out, and anything with solar panels seems to be getting less energy than you'd expect, even with the perpetually overcast sky.

It's a very silent world, like the calm after a snowstorm. Sounds don't seem to echo as much as they should, nor does sound seem to travel as far. The radio spectrum is empty except for static, there's no one transmitting on any frequency.

There's fewer fires than you'd expect. Even places you'd expect to soon catch fire without human intervention are still standing, undamaged. Campfires can be lit but with difficulty: something is keeping them from burning as they should. Even if you pour kerosene on a campfire it'll barely grow, it's like something sucked the energy out of everything.

All the locked buildings are still locked. Alarms don't sound if you break in (understandable, given the power situation), and of course no one comes to investigate. So The Empty World is your oyster: you can break in wherever you want (provided you can physically do it: some doors are pretty hard to pry open even with tools), take whatever you want, and bring it back here.

Everything resets when you leave. You always enter The Empty World like it's your first time there, like this just happened and you're late to the party... but the party keeps getting rescheduled. You can even take something multiple times if you want.

When you enter The Empty World you get there at the same relative position as you are on this world. If you're in New York, you show up in the empty New York. If you're in Topeka, you show up in empty Topeka. So you have to travel around this world to get to where you want, and you can't just appear in the middle of a bank vault... unless you break into the vault from this world. (So it's great if you work at a bank and want to steal from your employer without repercussions, but not so useful otherwise).

You don't just have to take things, you know. You can take computers and files and books and diaries. You will have to deal with recharging laptops and breaking through any security when you get back, but it's doable.

So, imagine you've just gotten access to The Empty World. What are you going to do with it? What will you take, and where will you go?

to me that always came across as making a point about radical ideas not actually being unthinkably extreme like liberals sometimes pretend. kids can often figure out stuff like, hey, maybe it's messed up to have both homeless people and empty homes at the same time. even if it's simplistic, it shows the basic concepts as obvious things that people should agree with.

people say shit like "my radicalization was that when i was a child i wanted everyone to be treated nicely" and it's so annoying. that's not radical you can be a liberal and say that shit. what you're saying is "i have a child's understanding of politics." your childish idealism isn't going to establish a proletarian state that supresses the bourgeoisie and builds a socialist economy

i think part of what bothers me (among many other things) about the dilution of punk on here lately is that it erases so many other subcultures.

like, a lot of people on here seem so desperate to label themselves and anything they like as punk despite it not having any relation to punk music or aesthetics (which, yes, is necessary to associate something with a music-based subculture), because they're hoping to get non-conformist brownie points on the non-conformist website. and if you really are non-conforming to a great deal of present social norms, that's great, but that doesn't mean you're punk, because punk doesn't have a monopoly on non-conforming.

the term you are looking for is counterculture, and there are many of them. there were many of them before punk, and there have been many of them since punk.

what do you think hippies were/are? why do you think conservatives hated them so much? are you gonna call hippies punk too? what about rap, hip hop, reggae? disagreeing with the status quo is not purely a punk thing, and we are doing so many countercultures a great disservice by pretending like anything that disagrees with something is punk.

it's not just musical subcultures either. many of us are already part of a non-conformist counterculture simply by partaking in queer culture. if you don't like punk music and styles, you aren't punk, but that's fine. calm down. take this coming from a punk as myself: if we have the same political goals, but you don't like my weird crusty bands, you are not punk, and i will still be delighted to throw bricks with you.

i think all this time i didnt actually believe that id ever been traumatized by anything

i go into fight-or-flight when a sales person talks to me

i dread having to negotiate a salary or a major purchase, or do any kind of haggling.

there's a real person right there in front of me and they do not want what is best for me. they are going to try to harm me, even if it's only financial harm. i care about other people, right? i don't want to hurt them by making them accept a bad deal. i want to surrender, to let them have whatever they want, but i’m not allowed to. i’m punished if i do.

above all, i loathe the fact that i'm supposed to be nice and pretend that we're friendly when money is turning us into enemies.

There's this interesting phenomenon where when you're a child, or some other vulnerable minority dependent on a job for shelter, you are actually under duress almost constantly. You can't say "I don't want to work today," you cannot say "I don't want to do the dishes, actually," you cannot choose not to participate. In a lot of cases, the punishment is explicit. Your parents might yell at you. Your boss might fire you. But in other cases, it's implicit. The mood will sour. You lose leeway. People get mad at you. And that creates a really shitty environment where you're constantly being coerced to do things!

And here's the kicker; you're not allowed to acknowledge that. You cannot acknowledge that you are being coerced, you cannot acknowledge that your free will is not being respected, because that's punished too. Your boss insists that you act excited. Your parents punish you for acting surly. You are forced to fake enthusiastic consent, constantly. It's a fucking nightmare. Your hand is being forced, you do not have the option to say "no," and if you ever, for a second, try to acknowledge that, everyone acts like you're the aggressor.

Dino Mommy Summer

Something that I think should be an important part of solarpunk aesthetics is screws.

Look at your smartphone. No screws. You've got to have specialized tools to get inside your phone to repair something. There are certain pieces of tech that are glued in place and glue can't be undone without permanently breaking the bond.

But screws!

You can take apart a broken old radio, repair what's broken, and, if you were careful in taking it apart, you can put it back together and have a fully functioning radio and all you need is a common screwdriver!

It's hard to build screws and other mechanical fasteners because it requires more planning than clamps and glues, but isn't that what solarpunk is all about‽ It's about care and sustainability and and a radio or a computer built carefully with repair in mind is a sustainable computer that stays out of landfills and in use.