have you watched the video till the end?

I’ve considered in the past the design of an open-source (possibly federated?) dating app and there are very complicated disincentives in a system that is not algorithimically mediated.

I believe the format of the dating app, let alone a dating app for platonic relationships, shouldn’t be proposed again unless you want to make money out of it.

The idea of a tunnel 1 to 1 across space to engage with another, isolated individual is not something that should be pursued further. This problem should be addressed by rebuilding social environments (even online, even through new forms of software if necessary) where you know you can meet like-minded people filtered by social dynamics that keep out toxic and predatory people (or horny people if you are in for a platonic thing) through swarm intelligence, social pressure and community values. We need a new grammar of online communities to build communities where flirting and getting to know people beyond a superficial level and with romantic or sexual intentions is feasible without attracting predators, groomers and other people that often target sex-positive or “dating-positive” online communities.

the state has no business deciding anything about aesthetics. Also incels.

For that you need different people and communities, not different tools

Mental health looks different for everybody. For instance, for me being too functional is the issue and I have to actively root myself in the world, intentionally connect with people, break the flow of work, union organizing, networking, building stuff. Alienation is the consequence and it looks very different from, for instance, my GF’s experience of ADHD+Autism related stress

Banners of Ruin. I guess I will be the only human in that world. Maybe they will kill me, maybe they will consider me a God.

at what stage are you in Satisfactory?

I play often automation games, management games and strategy games. I’m always looking for people to start a gaming group with, since I really don’t fit into gaming culture and I’ve left that world a long time ago.

Right now anyway I’m playing: Banners of Ruin, Timberborn (yeah no, I’m not a furry lol) and occasionally R6: Siege and Chivalry 2.

The Wheel of Time. A solid meter and a half of fantasy saga.

I can agree with this reading of SolarPunk and it’s kinda how I’m using it too. Nonetheless this doesn’t make it more of an aesthetic. You’re shifting the frame from considering SolarPunk as a model to considering it a tool.

Indeed SolarPunk is “used”, like every utopia, to promote a specific political model that is not necessarily represented inside the utopic model, in its content, in its narratives. There’s more than one layer. You call it “not being in your face”.

The author of the video, I believe, doesn’t make this distinction. For him, SolarPunk is a blueprint and taken as a blueprint, it lacks a lot of stuff. You might conflate the aestethic with the intentions and ideas of those using Solarpunk for a political goal, but they are not the same. In the world out there, most people take SolarPunk as a blueprint without looking at the broader “deeply anarchist project” behind it and think “it’s that easy”.

The video correctly highlight that it’s not that easy. The criticism I would make is that the video suggests to embed a set of values, considerations and narrative elements to the aesthetic that will inevitably make it lose its appeal as an utopia and fail in its purpose as a tool for agitation and the creation of desires.

why? I feel the same criticism has been developed more in depth by other people. The fact that there’s no social tension or politics implicit in the solarpunk aesthetic is a well-known problem. As is the general association of solarpunk with techno-optimism.

Also the video is not really criticizing the attitude or values of the “core” solarpunk writers and artists but more the reception in some internet circles. Let’s call it “base solarpunk”. That “base solarpunk” that exists in the mind of many is not a concept to be understood, but a forming ideology to be shaped that is just loosely coupled to solarpunk as an artistic aesthetic

There’s no major force pushing users to adopt federated software beyond privacy concerns and distrust for big tech. This means mass adoption won’t happen unless big tech collapses or gets regulated to death by forces external to the fediverse.

The only strategy I’ve seen articulated so far for federated social media is “be ready for when scraps will fall from the table of Big Tech”.

Be aware that the author of this blog is a well known Italian nazi-transhumanist that is famous for making shit up about himself, his expertise and the IT industry since the early '00. Don’t trust a single word that comes out of his mouth.

Action Network

I don’t think they are really comparable. I mean, I guess there are scenarios where one might not be interested in using both but it’s mostly about the strategy you use to reach your audience than the tool themselves.