devon

Yes I love his stories, his makeup, his way of explaining how his autism/ed/tranness all connect... he lives in a world all his own and i envy it tbh, he's uncompromisingly himself

thank you! 😎 im the new buck angel except good

yep. so much of what i thought originally was just "eating disorder, stop being a thinness-worshipping asshole and youll be all better" turned out to be autism related: disconnection from the body due to repeated invalidation, texture preferences that are hard to meet, ARFID, sensory issues related to clothing and disgestion, exercise as a stim and regulation method, overwork and busyness, etc

eating disorder recovery took me fully two years or more, not just because of behavioral changes and extreme hunger, but because of the digestive issues depriving yourself causes too. almost nobody talks about this! but when your body is deprived it slows digestion down dramatically to preserve energy, which means you dont get as many hunger cues, and when you do eat, your food just sits in your stomach not being processed for ages, which can cause uncomfortable bloating and constipation and all kinds of problems that make eating regularly harder. The only way to get past this is to just keep eating and drinking water and toughing it out. Of Herbs and Altars on Youtube has some videos about this but before I encountered them I had no idea what was happening to my guts, circa 2015-17 when I was refeeding.

eating a lot is fun but having to shit a ton later really sucks

i dont think supporting one of the system's own hand-selected representatives is taking out a tooth of the beast so much as polishing it, but if one is electing a radical left local politician or voting for a economically progressive city policy then sure! sounds like you and i basically agree

I used to have more hope for Parliamentary systems where more parties do get representation but functionally when you break down what the parties are and how they operate together it doesn't seem all that different and a lot of the same fundamental core problems are there.

Any representative republic style electoral system is going to have a lot of flaws and skew authoritarian if you ask me. Direct democracy is better. (Graeber also has a book on this, the Democracy Project!). But i think it does also have its own big flaws. and we all have a lot to learn from the many different decision making structures Indigenous societies had and have, the mutability of them being the biggest feature that we lack. It used to be common for the "rules" of political decision-making to be constantly subject to change.

Great question! I think when people believe that all social care systems will collapse without the government, they are buying into a very colonialist idea that human beings are at their most basic level selfish and irresponsible and won't care for their communities. This is not the case! Thousands of years of human history prove this not to be the case, and so do the behaviors of humans right now during moments of crisis.

Look to the people of Gaza -- they are not leaving their disabled behind. People are sacrificing all that they have to care for their elderly relatives, neighbors, and friends. The only reason that disabled people in Gaza are dying is because the region is being deliberately deprived of resources by Israel. If aid were let in and the Palestinian people were free, they would feed their hungry, treat their sick, supply insulin, teach children, and perform everything that we currently in the US rely upon the government to supply.

Another example of this can be found in how humans respond to natural disasters. Rebecca Solnit's book A Paradise Built in Hell is a beautiful read on this, following numerous real-life disasters across the globe. In every case, people did not riot and pillage or dissolve into violence--- they formed stable encampments, doctors and pharmacists worked their jobs without pay, cooks made food without expecting a wage, everyone pooled their resources and looked after one another.

We also see examples of this when other governments have fallen -- and all governments eventually do! When a nation-state ends, life doesn't end. People keep going to work to make the medicine and put on the leg casts and wash physically disabled people's bodies and make the food. People WANT to feel useful, helpful, included, and looked after, and they will do these things without being forced to by an authoritarian power structure. We see this in the campus encampments and the incredible outpouring of generosity they are experiencing too.

It is quite common for a person to mistakenly believe that the government is all that is keeping our social order working, and that we are all just one moment away from violent chaos and deprivation without it. But that really isn't true. Even without the government, we will still have the *people* who understand how food production and logistics work, the *people* who research and test the drugs, the *people* who watch the children and nurse the elders and fix the roads and butcher chickens.

Without the alienating, exploitative economic structure we currently have, it would actually be EASIER and more efficient for us to take care of one another with these skills, because our time wouldnt be wasted on bullshit jobs that don't contribute to society.

There are lots of great readings about all of this on the Anarchist Library, but I recommend starting with David Graeber's books! Bullshit Jobs, then Debt the first 5000 Years, then Utopia of Rules, then Dawn of Everything. Bullshit Jobs is the easiest read.

As David Graeber used to say (RIP -- read his books!!!!), anarchy is a thing you do, and we are all anarchists in the privacy of home and communists among our closest friends.

When you break a law that is unjust, you're eroding the authority of the state. When you give food and supplies to people in need without them having to pay for it, and without the government knowing about it and being able to track it, you're doing anarchy and communism too. When you destroy a weapons manufacturer, you are doing anarchy. When you drive nails into trees so that they are useless to loggers, you're doing anarchy. When you squat in a building without paying rent you are doing anarchy. When you decide not to snitch on a neighbor living out of their car you are doing anarchy. When you take DIY hrt you are doing anarchy. When a teacher in texas intentionally fails to rat out a trans child to their parents, they are doing anarchy.

When a collective of us decide to take responsibility for feeding, protecting, educating, and caring for one another instead of relying on the state to do it, we are dismantling the authority of the state. (Look into the social programs the Black Panthers offered -- especially their free health clinics and meal programs. They were doing something incredible. And the state found it very threatening, which is why it attacked them.)

You don't have to destroy the United States yourself. you just have to live as if you are free, and do what you can to free and care for others.