Old Fucking Punk @lwriemen@librem.one

The Amazon River basin is covered with rain forest that many people mistake for a primordial sort of natural reserve, lightly peopled and untouched until recent deforestation.

On the contrary, we now know that the Amazon was once densely peopled as archeologists continue to discover the remains of city after sprawling city. The Amazon forest we see today is the remains of what was once a vast garden, cultivated to supply food to those cities.

Indigenous land use was once so pervasive and intensive that the forest’s soils, normally fairly poor, are pockmarked with patches of terra preta de Índio—“black earth of the Indians”—which are particularly fertile and self-sustaining soils produced by human activity.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-31064-2

This process—of successfully and sustainably managing ecosystems to enhance biodiversity—was hardly the product of scarce humans living with a light touch in an empty landscape, as someone just suggested to me.

From Charles Mann’s “1491”:

“Rather than domesticate animals for meat, Indians retooled ecosystems to encourage elk, deer, and bear. Constant burning of undergrowth increased the numbers of herbivores, the predators that fed on them, and the people who ate them both. Rather than the thick, unbroken, monumental snarl of trees imagined by Thoreau, the great eastern forest was an ecological kaleidoscope of garden plots, blackberry rambles, pine barrens, and spacious groves of chestnut, hickory, and oak. The first white settlers in Ohio found woodlands that resembled English parks—they could drive carriages through the trees. Fifteen miles from shore in Rhode Island, Giovanni da Verrazzano found trees so widely spaced that the forest ‘could be penetrated even by a large army.’ John Smith claimed to have ridden through the Virginia forest at a gallop.

Incredible to imagine today, bison roamed from New York to Georgia. A creature of the prairie, Bison bison was imported to the East by Native Americans along a path of indigenous fire, as they changed enough forest into fallows for it to survive far outside its original range.”

Just finished recording an interview with Sergei for the new CODEPINK podcast he's doing. Really great conversation. I think it goes live next week.

https://www.codepink.org/sergeifired

https://davefleischer.substack.com/p/biden-anxiety-and-how-to-cope-with
"So the first thing you can do to be less depressed and stressed is to stop reading multiple pundits a day, stop fulminating, and get off the sidelines. Start doing the political work that works."

I must not reply. Replying is the mind-killer. Replying is the little-death that brings total obliteration.

I will face the bad take. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the take has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.

What's your favourite #FreeSoftware that is #NotOnGitHub (or on other proprietary code forges like #GitLab.com)?

Let us know in the comments! Feel free to also share code from other #Forgejo instances, #Sourcehut or other platforms.

#FreeLibreSoftware #LibreSoftware #Opensource #FLOSS #FOSS #GiveUpGithub

Anyone from the US who has ever spent a considerable amount of time in a country with a more "traditional" culture will know exactly what this guy is talking about. Those who have spent their entire lives in first world, Western societies though, may have a hard time understanding this. Pretty much any time I've tried to point out the downsides of being WEIRD to a fellow American leftist, they react hella defensively.

https://musaalgharbi.substack.com/p/weird-symbolic-professions

We release today a full english version of our video about the floods in south of the territories occupied by the brazilian state: Disaster Has a Name: Capitalism, narrated by @franklinlopez

https://kolektiva.media/w/5g566YDQrRyQmypp4eink1

All of us who blocked Threads when they announced fediverse integration saw this.

We told you so.

https://www.macstories.net/stories/lgbt-and-marginalized-voices-are-not-welcome-on-threads/

Latest comic: A second Revolution?
#uspol #elections #fascism #authoritarianism #democracy #election2024

Another great farm day, farmer Dan made an effort to teach us new things like how to operate his Jang precision seeder and how to make compost tea from worm casings, kelp, and rock phosphorous. Good conversation about C Factor, too, and the importance of drawing on our accumulated experiences of solidarity.

The chief dingus has some amendments to his cronies' Project 2025. https://www.dailykos.com/story/2024/7/12/2253492/-Cartoon-Trump-s-project-2025

Garry Tan, a literal Christofascist, is a top sponsor of the "new" San Francisco Democrats. https://missionlocal.org/2024/07/see-how-they-run-london-breed-gets-glitzy-at-gala-for-sf-dems-the-new-sf-dems/ #sfPol

Read more in Peter Marshall's "Demanding the Impossible: A History of Anarchism," which Noam Chomsky says "is the book I always recommend when asked—as I often am—for something on the history and ideas of anarchism.” https://pmpress.org/index.php?l=product_detail&p=148

Peter Marshall: “The continued appeal of anarchism can probably be attributed to its enduring affinity with both the rational and emotional impulses lying deep within us. It is an attitude, a way of life as well as a social philosophy. It presents a telling analysis of existing institutions and practices, and at the same time offers the prospect of a radically transformed society.

Above all, it holds up the bewitching ideal of personal and social freedom, both in the negative sense of being free from all external restraint and imposed authority, and in the positive sense of being free to celebrate the full harmony of being. Whatever its future success as a historical movement, anarchism will remain a fundamental part of human experience, for the drive for freedom is one of our deepest needs and the vision of a free society is one of our oldest dreams. Neither can ever be fully repressed; both will outlive all rulers and their States.”

@largess @_noelamac_ @meltedcheese @weaselx86 @Sheril

Human beings are the only species ignoring its own risk of extinction because it wasn't cost effective from the point of view of the rich.

‘Greenwashing colonialism’
Construction of Europe’s biggest wind farm in the Fosen Peninsula began in 2016. A total of 151 wind turbines and 131km (81 miles) of new roads and power cables are now spread across the winter pastures for local reindeer herders and were placed there without the consent of local Sami.

https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2024/2/24/also-forced-from-our-homes-the-norwegian-sami-and-the-palestinian-cause via @susurros

I have been working on this for the past two months, after growing increasingly concerned about the influence this industry is trying to exert. Did you know crypto companies have spent more this cycle than the oil or pharmaceutical industries, despite being a small fraction of the size?

#crypto #cryptocurrency #elections #USpol #lobbying

So this, from Firefox, is fucking toxic: https://mstdn.social/@Lokjo/112772496939724214

You might be aware Chrome— a browser made by an ad company— has been trying to claw back the limitations recently placed on ad networks by the death of third-party cookies, and added new features that gather and report data directly to ad networks. You'd know this because Chrome displayed a popup.

If you're a Firefox user, what you probably don't know is Firefox added this feature and *has already turned it on without asking you*