@afewbugs@social.coop
@afewbugs@social.coop avatar

afewbugs

@afewbugs@social.coop

Devon, UK, Europe

Born @ 341ppm

#Botany #Entomology #Ecology #Sustainability #Composting #Hiking #Cycling #RightToRoam #FlightFree #Bushcraft #WildFood #PlantBased #AncestralSkills #FibreCraft #OpenSource #OpenAccess #SolarPunk #coops #unions #RightToRepair

Profile: a white woman with blue hair & glasses, smiling in a woodland in winter. Header: a Hotbin composter I painted with flowers and insects & the words "Kiri's Compost Collective"

https://justmytoots.com/@afewbugs@social.coop

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afewbugs, to random
@afewbugs@social.coop avatar

"Teachers in England will have to tell parents if children question their gender"

If a parent doesn't know their child's gender then that's because the child doesn't think it's safe to tell them. This needs to be opposed.

#ProtectTransKids

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/jul/17/teachers-in-england-will-have-to-tell-parents-if-children-question-their-gender

nic, to random
@nic@toot.wales avatar

My posts here are mostly in Welsh, but the app I prefer doesn’t (yet) allow switching of language tags, so they're not tagged as such. If you'd rather not see my posts in Welsh, or if they tempt you to make stupid jokes about cats on keyboards or some imagined paucity of vowels, please feel free to mute or block my account. Diolch!

afewbugs,
@afewbugs@social.coop avatar

@nic I'm trying to learn Welsh and where I'm really not at level yet where I can understand most of your posts I'm enjoying trying!

nicol, to random
@nicol@social.coop avatar

Pondering how democratic tools & rules are only as good as they can reflect a group's consensus.

The model in open systems, ie FOSS & now fedi instances, despite problems (centralisation, burnout), remains compelling. It could also be a Team with control (as with post-BDFL projects like CiviCRM) – the key is decision-makers have to reflect consensus. Because it's all open, they know the community can depart/fork with relatively low cost (unlike the Zuskian/techbro dictator).

afewbugs,
@afewbugs@social.coop avatar

@nicol the free time thing is huge, and definitely something I've run across in a lot of activist/eco/Quaker groups where most of the decision making does end up falling to retired people or full-time activists and doesn't necessarily reflect the needs of people with less free time

afewbugs, to random
@afewbugs@social.coop avatar

I realise I'm still grumpy after having a rubbish evening last night, and just to be a complete stereotype of a Mastodon user I'm going to blame capitalism for it.

afewbugs,
@afewbugs@social.coop avatar

I had a headache because I'd been organising a glitzy event designed to show people we are an important, successful centre doing important, successful research, in the hope that they would give us lots of money to continue doing said important research.

afewbugs,
@afewbugs@social.coop avatar

I wish people gave us lots of money to do important research into neglected diseases primarily affecting the majority world because it was the right thing to do, not because we spent a lot of money on champagne, but apparently things don't work like that

afewbugs,
@afewbugs@social.coop avatar

I was taking my headache with me to a meeting of the #ExeterCyclingCampaign when I discovered a puncture, and as I was already running late instead of trying to do something about it I decided to get one of the #CoBikes, Exeter's bike hire scheme (https://www.co-bikes.co.uk/)

afewbugs,
@afewbugs@social.coop avatar

Except there were none, anywhere in the city centre. I wanted to give them my money and couldn't find a free bike to do so. But wait! I checked the app and spotted two free bikes charging at an obscure stop behind the council buildings

afewbugs,
@afewbugs@social.coop avatar

Only when I got there it turned out a pair of Deliveroo drivers were guarding them while they charged. I tried to explain that they couldn't do that, that the charging bikes in the docking station were for everyone. Eventually they cycled off with them. When I sat down to check the app to find any more free bikes they came back and started charging them again.

afewbugs,
@afewbugs@social.coop avatar

And I'm ashamed to say we had an argument, that left me a) still with no bike and b) painfully aware that I am in fact The Asshole here. I just wanted a bike to go to the pub with, whereas it was these significantly less privileged guys livelihoods

afewbugs,
@afewbugs@social.coop avatar

But it just left me sad that we can't have nice things can we? It's #GeorgeMonbiot's thing about public vs private luxury all over again - a public luxury like a nice bike hire scheme is hard to use because it doesn't have enough funding to provide enough bikes for them to be available to everyone. Whereas Deliveroo, which delivers the private luxury of having restaurant food available for a few clicks by means of these guys on zero hour contracts isn't struggling to sustain itself

afewbugs,
@afewbugs@social.coop avatar

Then today I discover that the other arm of the CoBikes coop, #CoCars, which operates an electric car share scheme, is going into administration (Via a private Facebook group, https://www.facebook.com/groups/737341873381458)

afewbugs,
@afewbugs@social.coop avatar

It wouldn't' surprise me if CoBikes followed. Bristol's already lost its bike hire scheme, which I tried and failed to use on three separate trips, and on each occasion failed to find a working bike https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-news/bristols-big-issue-bike-rental-7481316

afewbugs,
@afewbugs@social.coop avatar

You can read about George Monbiot's idea of public luxury, private sufficiency here https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/may/31/private-wealth-labour-common-space. Instead we're hellbent on building a word of public insufficiency, where we're told there just isn't enough money for good things for everyone - an NHS that doesn't require you to wait 18 months in pain, decent public transport, properly insulated, affordable homes, public spaces you don't have to spend money to exist in

afewbugs,
@afewbugs@social.coop avatar

And we're told relentlessly that this is a worthwhile price to pay for private luxury (for those who can afford it and therefore deserve it). And we do live in an era of unprecedented private luxury - next day delivery, access to more music than you could listen to in a lifetime streamed directly to you for a monthly subscription to Google or Amazon or Spotify (maybe a few pence of which goes to the artist), a mindboggling array of consumer goods and clothes and foods

afewbugs,
@afewbugs@social.coop avatar

And that's why it's so easy for vested interests to push back against the environmental movement, saying "Look, these hair-shirted killjoys want you to give up everything pleasurable in your life!" Because honestly these little private luxuries are often what makes life bearable. No one has any time so they need next day delivery. No one has any money and Amazon is cheaper than the local shop in the town centre

afewbugs,
@afewbugs@social.coop avatar

And when you've had a long day and are bloody miserable because you've been trying to work around systems that increasingly don't work and don't have the energy to cook it's nice to be able to order a takeaway, have a glass of vegan Amarula (yes that's a thing that exists now!) and watch Marvel's latest

afewbugs,
@afewbugs@social.coop avatar

But we could have so much more, you know? We could not be working in jobs we don't like to be able to afford rents that get more impossible every year. We could not be getting worn down dealing with potholes and exorbitant fares for trains that break down half the time and a postal service that loses anything important you give it. We could have shared hire bikes and cars and rivers you could swim in without drinking sewage

afewbugs,
@afewbugs@social.coop avatar

"We need to accept polluted rivers so people can have cheap chicken"
"What if we didn't though?"
"People need cheap chicken you monster because they can't afford better quality food."
"BUT WHAT IF WE MADE IT SO THEY COULD THOUGH?"

afewbugs,
@afewbugs@social.coop avatar

@quixoticgeek Yeah that powerlessness is honestly the worst part of it all

afewbugs,
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@quixoticgeek I've come to the conclusion that the most useful thing i can probably do is just keep banging on about this stuff in the hope that eventually enough people will think about it

afewbugs,
@afewbugs@social.coop avatar

I wrote about the collapse of #Exeter's #CoBikes #BikeHire scheme, and why we need to stop just accepting that public good things can be left to fail when they're unprofitable and impoverish all our lives #PublicLuxury

https://tangledbankforaging.uk/2023/07/14/public-vs-private-luxury-why-are-we-so-willing-to-accept-that-we-cant-have-nice-things/

afewbugs, to random
@afewbugs@social.coop avatar

Lions say fuck your gender roles

https://www.iflscience.com/zuri-the-18-year-old-female-lion-at-kansas-zoo-grows-a-mane-65999

afewbugs, to random
@afewbugs@social.coop avatar

Fuck tha police.

Crows and magpies using anti-bird spikes to build nests

#corvids

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2023/jul/11/crows-and-magpies-show-their-metal-by-using-anti-bird-spikes-to-build-nests?

afewbugs, to UKpolitics
@afewbugs@social.coop avatar

This is just pure evil. "Robert Jenrick has cartoon murals painted over at children’s asylum centre
Paintings were considered too welcoming at Kent centre for lone children arriving in UK"

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/jul/07/robert-jenrick-has-cartoon-murals-painted-over-at-childrens-asylum-centre

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