africanprince99

Plant a vegetable garden. Build a rain catchment system. Build a solar power system. Read books instead of consuming other media. Buy only local. Start a consumer or retail cooperative. Don't participate in wanton consumerism.

Voting in the US doesn't yield desirable results because of the gerrymandering and the voting system; however most changes which directly affect people are made at a grassroots level so participate in activities at a grassroots level.

I had not realised this before, that there are multiple versions of the same community on different instances. For example there are multiple meme communities on different instances.

I wonder how this affects engagement considering that although there might be one large community there are several smaller ones. Perhaps not everyone assumes that there's a larger community on a different instance.

Also how does this affect niche communities where it may be that due to high fragmentation these communities might seem unusually small.

Further, if these niche communities remain unusually smaller than there Reddit counter parts would users leave do to perhaps lack of content versus their Reddit counter parts.

This is kind of a chicken and egg - users migrate or engage the more activity there is and it may lead to discouragement if their first impression is that there isn't content.

I don't know I'm probably rambling and don't know what I'm talking about.

Oh dude let me inform you about the state of crime in South Africa - we've had instances where police stations have been firebombed by criminals raiding the weapons store, any property not being guarded being stolen from lawn chairs to vehicles, the unusually high rate crime: 21000+ murders per year, 42000+ rapes per year and that's officially reported stats from the SAPS.

I've seen people being kidnapped, I have even had family and friends who have been kidnapped, women raped and murdered in my locality, countless hijacking and aggravated robberies. I am part of the local CPF so I am on constant communication with police and security companies.

Often the police are completely reliant or heavily rely on security companies. These security companies are often the only people standing in the face of lawlessness. Not necessarily in the wealthiest areas either.

What?

How come?

I think America needs a dose of liberation and democracy their government always bangs on about.

Quite sad to see that this is happening over there. Is this a failure of capitalism or democracy? As those respective systems have not taken into account the invariable devolution into a violent unstable system.

I really don't understand why you're trying so hard to frame this in a rich versus poor issue.

In South Africa you can go to the middle of gangland which is easy to find because crime is so rampant, and you'll find security companies whose residents are their customers not some rich person whose decided to fund security for poor people.

I don't think you understand how serious crime is here that everyone no matter the wealth class is being affected to such a degree that private security companies in both rich and poor areas are the only effective combat against the wave of terror.

I think you're trying to frame this in a Western or American context - it really doesn't apply here.

You're thinking only the rich have security, you can drive to some of the poorest areas in SA and you'll see local residents utilising private security.

It's not that these institutions are not working - they are NON EXISTENT. Imagine if the police simply stopped working, not barely functioning, I mean literally completely non-functional.

And it's not just the police force, it's electricity, water, sanitation, education, healthcare, almost every sector is either borderline non-functioning or completely non-functioning.

Who were the minority?

When I said buy local I was specifically talking about food and similar. Depending on few factors such as: climate, availability of land, other people with similar goals, food can be easy to produce either as a group or individual basis and there are systems looking at an aquaponics cycle for example tilapia -> leafy greens -> BSF maggots -> you can either split this into chickens and tilapia or just back into tilapia (we've done this it really requires a group effort and land availability).

Other things as you've mentioned like furniture can be a little more challenging due to economies of scale (also child labour, corruption, and general shittery) that major corporations are able to exploit that a local tradesperson can't.

For this sort of stuff I just try to budget, I never buy it immediately.

I guess it's about compromises, and unfortunately for certain things we have to do so.

To reiterate the importance of a group, it's really made it a lot easier to cut costs by having a group with various expertise.

Depending on how complicated you want to make it you can build a pyrolysis plant this produces various forms of fuel and can be run of a solar panel. The feedstock to this plant is plastics waste be careful of the plastics though as certain plastics produce chlorine gas.

I.t.o farming I highly suggest into looking at aeroponics and aquaponics. Both have disadvantages and advantages. You can construct systems using off the shelf materials. Stay away from turn key solutions. Aeroponics is really interesting and we've been playing around with it for a number of years.

Oh no the white Afrikaaners did lose power. The ANC came to power in 1994. The other commentators post doesn't make sense for that reason.

Also if you're telling me that the only thing stopping people from raping people, and committing senseless murders is money then that's a pretty sad indictment on humankind.

It's not just economic crimes this is wanton rape, murder, and wholesale take overs of state infrastructure by organised crime outfits. This isn't normal crime like you may encounter in other countries, we are frequently topping the list in the most violent categories of crime.

Right now theres an epidemic of gender based violence, that is men raping and murdering women or male partners/spouses just outright murdering their partners. Doubt this is linked to a war against poor people.

Then think about all the shit we buy. How much of it do we really need? How much of it ends up in the landfill in a year or two?

I worked in logistics for a few years running trucks out of the DRC mainly moving copper cathode and cobalt. When visiting those mines the conditions were horrific from a human and environmental perspective. It really changed how I consume.

Not to mention anything using tantalum capacitors are effectively funding war crimes currently being perpetrated in the DRC.

All of that human life, and the destruction of our plant just to fill a landfill.

How about using your UBI check on basics instead of rampant consumerism. Also if it gets fucked up we as consumers need to take some fucking responsibility.

Also people's jobs are being displaced by technology at a rapid rate and is continuing at a steady pace. Large swathes of the population may simply not have enough money to afford anything because they don't have jobs. So unless you suggest these people simply die off because we make some people rich?

Pretty much saying that poor people have an interest in hiring private security so there's security companies in poorer areas too this is not a rich thing this is a crime is rampant issue. But I guess you live here so you understand the situation on the ground.

Frankly could not care for your opinion unless you live here, or a country with similar rates of crime.

Thank god for the Isrealis then because god damn this country would be more fucked somehow.