Wanted to swing in here with a disability perspective if that’s okay - while it’s not exactly off-grid living, a lot of people with disabilities have homes that are optimized for accessibility which can be confusing for visitors! We also tend to need stuff to be done a specific way which, while not technology related, is really important and can add a learning curve.

Some examples off the top of my head: Computers might have screen readers, trackballs, alternative keyboards, accessible buttons, etc. Stuff like light switches, thermostats, door handles might be modified to suit limited mobility. Appliances like microwaves or coffee makers can be voice activated or have larger/more grippable buttons (which aren’t always intuitive in today’s touch-screen world).

The smallest personal example I can think of would be cooking with food allergies, which I know is not an unusual thing these days, but a lot of my friends are still confused about how cross contamination works, e.g. if you use a butter knife for butter you can use it to spread that butter on your toast but you cannot dip it in the jar of jam, because that would contaminate the jam with dairy and gluten. Or, a personal example, I was teaching my partner how make a mug cake using only one tablespoon measurer and explained that you must add the ingredients in a specific order (such as flour last) or you’d be successively contaminating each ingredient for my little brother.

My household also just does a lot of things very specifically for our needs, like we vacuum instead of sweep because of my allergies, and I go around and shut curtains in various rooms throughout the day because our AC isn’t strong and we try to use it as little as possible. I wash laundry on cold to protect the fabric but dry it on hot to kill the dust mites. We use soap bars instead of soap dispensers for hand washing which often throws off guests, and I keep the liquid dish soap in a hair conditioner pump bottle (it’s what I had, can’t afford a fancy decorative one, also it works really well anyway) which also throws off guests XD And the left side of the sink is always clear and we do not put dirty dishes in there, partly so we can refill water bottles without them touching dirty dishes and partly to accommodate my partner’s autism.

My balcony garden has a weird system of jars underneath the plant stands to catch any water that drains out of the pots after I water them, plus there’s currently a bunch of soup pots and random containers on the roof to catch rainwater. There’s no spigot on my balcony and I don’t have the energy to go back and forth a bunch for water XD And my “watering can” is an old vinegar jug.

Not sure if any of that is helpful for what you’re looking for, just some thoughts c:

I reject the idea that law enforcement is always necessary. Laws are frequently unjust and anti-solarpunk. I don’t care about people breaking laws if the laws don’t serve the people. But let’s say all the laws are just - I also reject the idea that we need a bunch of power-hungry assholes with weapons and legal immunity to “enforce” them.

Here’s the thing - we rely on the police to do a broad range of tasks and, at least in the US, we hand them a gun to do all of those tasks. The traffic lights are down? Take your gun and go stand in the intersection. Parking tickets? You’ll need your gun for that. Homeless people on the streets? Don’t forget your gun. House broken into? Here’s a gun, try not to shoot the wrong person.

The simple answer is that we should have a different team of (trained, specialized) people for each of those scenarios. Police don’t receive training in each of those areas which means they are frequently in danger and frequently relying on violence or the threat of violence to get things done. It’s not fair to the officers and its not fair to the people they “serve.” I want to see a team who handles traffic, a team to respond to homeless people (though hopefully we’ll be on our way to finally providing housing for all), a separate team for crimes like burglary and theft, etc etc.

Here’s a resource for you (and others) to check out, they explain things much more succinctly than me: https://defundthepolice.org/alternatives-to-police-services/

As for a military - I will be completely honest, I haven’t educated myself as much on alternatives to that, but I do question your assumption that we will always need to defend ourselves. It assumes that people will always be attacking us.

TW: rape mention

::: spoiler This is my thought as well. I know it’s not palatable to think about - we don’t want to extend empathy to rapists, of course we don’t. But we can’t say that some people deserve help and others don’t. I’ve thought about this a lot for my own moral values, and yeah, if we have someone who is unable to stop themselves from raping (whether by some kind of psychological issue or because they simply don’t want to), then I want to extend community support to them just like anyone else.

That might look like having them in some kind of supportive housing situation (NOT a prison) where they can be supervised, or allowing them to go out and have a job if they’re showing signs of working hard against the urges with a caretaker present to, well, stop them from raping. Medication that lowers the libido would be necessary. So would counseling.

I don’t like the idea of helping someone who happily rapes any chance they get, but I will not ever play God and decide who gets human rights and who doesn’t.

In terms of “enforcement” in the cases of rape, I think we can safely get rid of cops and lean toward a team of mental health professionals who can employ things like supportive confinement and counseling etc.

spoiler:::

This is so cool! I’ve always wanted to do a planted tank with shrimp, it’d be incredible if I could do an edible planted tank with shrimp

Tbh I don’t think having the protag say something like that would be enough these days… definitely combine it with the author’s note XD Let people who get it automatically complain that it’s too on the nose or something if they want to.

You’re so right about Trump being a symptom. All of these things were devastatingly huge problems under Biden, under Obama, going back literally to Washington. Thinking we just need to get rid of One Bad Guy is why we got a Biden presidency and then many people stopped being activists - status quo was never a good thing. I think hypothetically I would give some specific calls to action + a little bit of anarchist theory in the author’s note to nudge people in the right direction? Maybe some people would say that I should let fiction be fiction, but it’s my book ¯_(ツ)_/¯ And I’m thinking if I can catch people at their most open and thoughtful, ie right after that final page, maybe they’ll intake the moral message a little more?

Honestly, I’ve been thinking about this… I’m an indie author and I’ve thought sometimes that maybe I should finish my books with a little author’s note about my intention? “Thank you for reading my book about people working to save dragons from environmental devastation. The dragons are a metaphor for all species on Earth and we should save them from real life environmental devastation.” Which sounds silly, but like… there’s definitely a way to do it that isn’t too on the nose, y’know, maybe for this example talk about all the research on real life species I did for the book, or how I hope readers will take this as inspiration to save the “dragons” of the world…

Or maybe it should be even more on the nose and go straight for “Donald Trump wants whales to die, don’t let him”

ooo thank you!! I had a peek through and found a link that brought me to even more resources in my area. Turns out there’s a few different groups around here working with native plants and offering them up for sale!

Building on what you said about it being “only a game” - I’m shocked sometimes by how often people are able to decouple fictional experiences with their real life… for example, one of the core messages of Subnautica is working with the environment rather than bending it to your will, and that was extremely impactful for me. Playing that game made me think so much about our own environment and my place in it (and still does). But my friend played it and his takeaway was “fun fish game” and nothing else.

Or like how right-wingers love Superman for some reason.

I don’t know how we combat this. Fiction and other mediums like art, aesthetic, style, etc offer an easy gateway into the world of solar punk, but how do we encourage people to actually… move through that gateway instead of just staying at the entrance?

This sounds cool as hell!! I love the display concept art. And I especially appreciate that there’s an option for staying at “home base” in the game - one of my first thoughts at the top of the article was “oh, I wouldn’t be able to do something like this because of my mobility limitations,” at which point I was proven wrong XD

I think this is super important. While I wish people would get into solarpunk stuff because it’s the right thing to do, generally speaking, people don’t have the capacity to think about idealogical stuff constantly, or plain just don’t want to. I finally built a habit of brushing my teeth twice a day because I love how my nice clean teeth feel and that I can read a book on my phone while I do it, not by telling myself about cavities constantly.

Sewing your own clothes - it’s fun and you can make it exactly the way you want it, suiting your exact body type!!

Using devices until they’re dead-dead - if a little tinkering can make them run longer, why waste the money? I could spend that on so many video games. Plus when you get a new laptop or whatever you have to go through the whole process of setting it up and transferring all of your stuff over…

Reusable mugs/water bottles - they’re cute and fashionable and I can coordinate them with my outfits + tbh I find it extremely annoying to look around trying to find a trash can for a plastic water bottle or Starbucks cup. Or they pile up in the car which is also annoying af

Using bar soap instead of liquid hand soap or body wash - it’s SOOOO much cheaper which means that you can either buy more of it OR spend that money on wonderful artisan soaps, which is what I do. I love my special goats milk soaps with all the wonderful smells and designs you just can’t get from Walmart

Adding to the vegan one - even just switching to wild caught fish only is so much healthier for your body, it’ll make your hair and nails look amazing, and if you’re a seafood fan, who wouldn’t love seafood all the time?

May I share a post recently from our own slrpnk.net? @Pencilnoob shared a bunch of info about volunteering with local fire squads that I found really insightful! Turns out it’s not all about running into burning buildings c: https://slrpnk.net/post/40223075

I hear you on the joyful creative work. I am only recently starting to write again after all the energy and joy was sapped out of me by survival. Here’s to finding ourselves again <3

I looooove curb shopping. Ninety percent of my house is furnished with curb finds (the rest is thrifting finds)

Do you have any resources for the herbalism practice? That sounds extremely cool

Cheers to using the library!! I don’t go often but I do love my Libby app

I’m really torn on it because on one hand, if calling it Thread Repair could get more people (especially men) to participate, that’s a good thing! I also just like the sound of thread repair XD On the other hand… maybe men should learn to be interested in things that aren’t personally catered to their tiny baby feelings. Get over it and fix your damn socks.

I dunno. I’m also eternally torn between “men created toxic masculinity and they need to fix it themselves, not expect women to do it for them” and “men need the women in their lives to help them escape toxic masculinity because we’re outside it (for the most part) and everyone needs help sometimes”

Talk to me about these cheap power banks - what kind of cheap are we looking at here?

I’d never heard of OpenStreetMap and I’ve gone down the rabbit hole since last night - this is cool as hell, thank you for introducing me!!

I’m still building the habit of turning lights off when leaving a room hehe. I’ve learned a lot about those little things recently - turning the lights off, stopping the dishwasher before the dry cycle, and someone below said that a computer uses less energy when the screen brightness is down so I’m doing that now too c:

Also seconding on thrifting, it’s so much fun!! I also love repairing.