There are already people working on decentralized insulin production, quick google search brought me to this: https://openinsulin.org/

Le Guin is far and a way my favorite author. I’ve found her work to be consistently interesting and relevant.

The magic school part of it is also interesting compared to the kinds of stories that come later (see: Harry Potter), because the school is actually competent. The teachers are good mentors and provide an actually safe learning environment. As a result, not much of the story actually takes place there and the only thing that goes wrong is because of Ged’s own personal failings.

So, thermocouples are commonly used in industry to make temperature probes, typically in the form of a coil of wire containing two conductors of different metals. I wonder if it’d be possible to get ahold of some thermocouple wire and put together a solar cell at home?

This is why the unification of ends and means is so important. If we want to achieve a society that is non-hierarchical and free from oppression, the systems that we build within the struggle against oppressive forces needs to embody non-hierarchical organization and practice.

It’s why a revolution that’s created by a small minority, a “vanguard,” ceases to be revolutionary once it recreates state power and then must structure itself to the maintenance of it’s own authority.

Most anarchists don’t reject scientific endeavors, especially those that have huge benefits on quality of life. I don’t think anyone really disagrees that the washing machine was a bad invention, nor any such invention that reduces the burden of domestic labor. Science and technology themselves are not the problem, rather the problem is with the incentives of the system around science and technology. A great example being the pharmaceutical industry. Medicine and the treatment of disease is obviously a good thing, but profiteering off of those medicines and treatments is the real problem. An anarchist would argue that these companies are not necessary to advance medical science and that many people would research medicine purely because they want to treat disease and not because they want to make all of the money in the world. In fact, the people actually doing the research are chronically underpaid, underfunded, and overworked.

As for “everyone for themselves,” this gets to a really interesting discussion amongst anarchists. Anarcho Communism leans into the idea that, without the hierarchical power structures of states, people will generally choose to self-organize amongst themselves to better their own lives. Forming non-hierarchical communities that share resources as needed, hence the communism part.

Generally anarchists assert that people do not have to participate in systems if they don’t want to, while also asserting the right of the individual to oppose hierarchical power structures that would try to erode the rights of an individual’s self-determination.

Does that help?

Willingness to learn a new platform is in no way correlated with general life knowledge. Even if someone isn’t contributing to the code base or moderation or creating communities, there are absolutely people that contribute in the form of engagement or other areas of knowledge.

If I want to connect with, say, people that know about permaculture, animals, how factory management works, or a group of mom’s doing a book club. These people can know really interesting things without also (necessarily) being tech savvy and there should absolutely be space for them on social media. User accessibility is not a bad thing.

I’m not sure it totally fits, but Always Coming Home by Ursula K LeGuin was an amazing read. The premise is that an ethnographer of the future is writing about a future, post climate change California people called the Kesh. Most of the book is actually stories the Kesh themselves tell, be it poetry, folk tales, an autobiography, and even a snippet from a novel.

It’s an absolutely transformative book that I can’t recommend it enough. It’s like nothing else I’ve ever read.

• Always Coming Home - Ursula K. LeGuin - I absolutely loved this book. I’m still keep thinking about the Kesh people that this book explores. Very strange read, absolutely recommended.

• The Fifth Season - N K Jemisin - Really enjoyed this book. The way it uses perspective was really great. The ending felt okay. I’m definitely going to be picking up the next one sometime soon.

Currently reading Too Like the Lightning by Ada Palmer, which has been a fascinating read thus far, but I’m only halfway through.

After that I’m planning on reading Among Others by Jo Walton (I loved her Thessaly series)

I’m planning on trying Obsidian for my next project. I’ve been using it to keep notes on my WIP already though.

What I’m currently using is SmartEdit Writer which I wouldn’t actually recommend to anyone. It doesn’t really have a ton of support, but it does enough that I’m not going to take the time to migrate my current project.