My advanced activities consists primarily of hiking and on a more frequent and casual form day-to-day, just carrying heavy and bulky stuff around.

I was born and raised in the vast wildernesses, forests, wetlands and the old mountains/fells of the Fennoscandic Lappland, so hiking and walking in nature in general has been a big part of my life since I was a wee lad. Even as a teen the closest thing counting as something close to a city was some 200km away, and I spent my pre-teens in a small remote village of 300 inhabitants not so close to anything bigger. Closest village with a church and a few shops a few tens of kilometers away. This is all to give the context in that I haven’t even had much chance to do stuff other than wandering in the wilderness, so whatever I now am has been built and predicated on that mostly.

I have found that the usual form of hiking and backpacking (in nature) in places not requiring special tools or equipment (such as for cliff climbing) seems to favor building up upper body bulk and strength as opposed to a general lightweight build. If we are to assume the logic you suggest is universal and true.

I haven’t been to gym or actively building up my mass or strength, but I’ve grown to be quite heavy on my upper body just by loving hiking and traversing wilderness and fells with a backpack and camping equipment. I’ve also grown pretty hefty thighs and legs overall.

I’ve attempted climbing (in a hall setting, you know as a total beginner) and I’ve got to say: My build is entirely wrong for that. I’m not very agile and the weight the muscles bring makes me very unstable and really bad at swinging/maneuvering. Of course it’s mostly that I’m a total stranger to that and probably would get a lot better with a lot of patience and training, but then my friends with lighter, more usual build (from hobbies in jogging, tennis, soccer or such) with exactly as little experience or knowhow in climbing, were all so much more natural in all that, in much less time and with much fewer attempts.

This is all to say, that your usual hiking and backpacking (especially on a multi-night, even a weeklong carry) is probably not so directly building towards climbing itself, or a lighter build. I think it tends to favor bulkiness to sustain the required carrying weight and the tough, varying terrain. But running of course does favor lightness, maybe the well-paved tourist trails do too, in terms of hiking, but even then you’re going to have to carry a lot and keep a modest pace to be able to sustain the energy for the long haul, while still being able to power through the hills, the ravines, the fells and the deep thick forests with a lot of trunks, large glacial erratics etc, with the weight on your shoulders and back, which I think is pretty much all of it disadvantageous on a lighter build(?)

But that’s neither here or there, just thought I’d offer a differing anecdote. Otherwise I think your (and others’!) points are great!

So are men. Flooded with choices on dating apps and otherwise. It also puts women in competition. And others. It’s not a gendered problem. It’s an attitude problem.

The amount of effort is very likely way more equal to that of those “others” have to expend than most would concede, it’s just that some of the young boys aren’t taught to have a spine and as such expect everything to be easy, then get majorly disappointed when that isn’t the case. World is tough, life is hard, you have to actually fight along the way and struggle to get to places. Just about everyone else already knows this by heart, but some men are barely starting catching up.

Patriarchy isn’t as alive as it was, though very much alive still, so their expectations just no longer match the reality. And that’s a bummer. Boo hoo. Makes them commit mass murder, school shootings, but more widely, outside of those extremes, just fall in love with toxic men with a platform that actually do speak of things that better match their expectations.

It’s simply that some young men are pampered little babies that aren’t adapting to a less powerful patriarchy and have zero idea how to actually live in this world as a normal person without an excess of privileges.

And that’s often just an upbringing thing. And a complex one at that, with not just the parents at fault. Society was, and still is, patriarchal and unequal in so many ways, but slowly gets better at least in west. It’s not the fault of the young men that get sucked into this, they never were taught better. That’s the problem more than anything.

And before anyone comes in pointing fingers, I was assigned man at birth and am still an enby in part presenting as masculine. I know the privilege, and I do also know how hard it is to accept the fact that everything’s easier for us, when your heart feels like everything is hard. That’s just a bummer, but everyone has got it hard. More hard than me. A tough thing to see and recognize, because suddenly my struggle isn’t special. But really, it isn’t though. But that’s not the expectation young men have for some reason… Not always anyway.

The toxic young men still are the minority, it’s worth recognizing that too. But they are very loud and very hurt little babies :-( we have to suffer through their incapability to adapt to reality by possibly even just dying in one of their mass shootings.

It’s fucked up, and I’m not sure if there’s anything or anyone we can easily blame. And no easy answers either. I hate this part of reality.

If you do not need it, how about selling it off to someone who actually needs it..?

Oh wow, hadn’t heard of graphite/graphene yet, and it looks so interesting! I rarely explicitly thank a comment that gave me a lot personally, but this time I think I have to. The graphene framework and the concept of artwork as compiled programs is pretty intriguing read! Thanks a bunch!

And even if technically notable enough, you still need some objective sources for any claims made, even simple things like profession, even if your works speak for themselves. And what the mods deem an acceptable source seems arbitrary.

I listen to a lot of indie music or local smaller bands, and often, even though they gig a lot and have several albums practically on every digital platform, I can’t find the bands in there, nor any of their members.

Often there’s a red page there with some contributor discussions where they argue with each other about these things.

Seems so wonky to me, since I just came from their gig, having listened to them for 10+ years.

Well, I lived in such conditions most of my adulthood before having a kid to care for, and it was possible precisely because it was just me. Either it was a small town not even close to a big city, or it was a small town at the outskirts of a big city, some 20-30km away. I loved it. Still do.

But it’s so hard to uproot once you have all the other stuff like not only your own job, but also your partner’s. And kid’s school or daycare or whatever. And then having to work out the bus routes for the small humans and figure whether or not it’d be plausible for them to adjust to that and not get burned out or lost or confused or whatever.

And once you need more space, it’s much harder to find places to rent in the small towns. Mostly for sale, if it’s beyond two bedrooms. And in that case it’s much more complicated since you need to go to the effort of getting the place evaluated, arranging the loans and finances so you can pull it off, and that’s a big decision since it’ll probably lock you in there for quite some while, because small towns don’t move houses fast if you decide to go, so you could be looking at years before you get the sale done and another mortgage.

It’s just so hard. Once you are in the city, it’s hard to leave. And the more you root in the city, the harder it gets.

I hate it. I hate the city. I hate most about it.

But I love my family and would suffer in a city until my death if that’s what it takes to keep it together.

But as a positive anecdote, in my life prior to rooting down, as a younger and more adventurous human, I found that maintaining a community and a good group of friends even somewhat far away from the rest of them is easy and most importantly, comes easy. Its natural. I never found community a problem, because I always had a few groups of friends and it was always enough for us to touch ground together only monthly or every other month, so our location wasn’t really a concern. Most of us lived apart anyway. And the actual day-to-day sense of community came from work or uni or that kind of thing. I was never alone, though I lived blissfully far from most everyone.

So the only thing that really makes it difficult is trying to find a way and a good timing for not only one, but three+ people to move at once with all of them being happy with it. That’s a puzzle I’ve found near impossible to crack.

If we had a lot of money saved or good enough jobs to get a nest egg going, the problems likely wouldn’t matter and could very easily be worked around. But alas, we are just lower middle class, and while we are well enough off, moving is a completely life changing and paradigm shifting thing. It’s not something to choose lightly.

Maybe that plays a part within your group of acquaintances too? My work is even WFM and my partner could likely commute easily from most of the options we have within 100km. So technically we have a lot going for it. Should be easier.

But it’s not. Life is complex.

Edit: For context, I’m in Europe too.

Besides, the tickling and scratching and poking of the grass isn’t really helping with the mood. Or the ticks. Or those random small rocks and/or roots and/or dried rabbit shits.

Or that one group of crows intently watching you from the tree close by and laughing at you

That’d be impossible for the psyche to actively pursue every single day.

I would recognize my limitations and the framework of reality, and I’d probably just start a website that I update every morning. That’s pretty much all I can do if it’s daily. Ignoring it would feel horrible and guilty, but actively dedicating all my time to try and find these people on a daily basis? That’s a surefire recipe for burnout and still, very damaged psyche because of all of those I got close to but didn’t get in touch of in time.

I hope, as it turns out to actually be true and the premonitions hold, word of mouth would get enough people interested that I can feel good enough about it, but also maintain the routine without fear of burning out.

That’d be perfect.

I can’t believe how hard it is to find people willing, even on a completely theoretical level, to live in a little bit more closer knit community with some shared facilities and land for common goods. Even if I say it need not be the cliche hippie commune, it can just be people living co-operatively and having just a bit more together time, simultaneously even saving some money and resources, by having shared facilities and lands. Most recognize just one thing about it. Energy and water treatment self-sufficiency seems to interest people, but not enough for them to even consider a shared community “hall” with a kitchen and room for everyone to eat, so that a every single house need not have a full, everything included kitchen. Same for bath and toilet stuff. And electricity utility rooms. Or anything, really, that isn’t your own personal and private as usual living quarters with the basic facilities so you don’t need to be social every time you need to pee or have a breakfast.

I recognize this is practically just an apartment building, but in a horizontally laid out format, I guess, with some space between the apartments for personal space even outside, and some extra niceties like an all-inclusive kitchen with a full set of tools and facilities to cook practically anything, without everyone having to buy all of that individually and also with a fraction of the cost for being shared between all. And some crops for a bit more self-sufficiency, same for electricity and water facilities.

People are fine with large apartment buildings where you can practically always hear your neighbors and have some minor shared stuff like saunas and very basic recreative rooms and the usual utilities like electricity and water and yard maintenance handled by someone else.

I feel like a close knit community — with shared spaces for stuff you don’t need 24/7 but rather only occasionally and in limited periods each day, and increased self-reliance and independence and more national-catastrophe-resistant facilities, with the understanding that some of the lots are saved for specific professionals like an electrician, farmer, animal handler, plumber, etc and require minor extra investment, shared between all, to pay for them handling the day-to-day — would win in almost all fronts against an apartment building, except maybe in that it would have to be a little more remote in location because extra land needs and need for appropriate soil for crops etc. But a commune like that could easily just have a shuttle or two and arrange co-rides even each day to the nearest town or city. Could even save on personal cars by having that.

I don’t know, I’m rambling now.

I get frustrated because I’m probably not seeing the value other see in living alone, separate from others living alone all around you. Or the proximity to more densely populated areas maybe? Or whatever it is that makes people not even consider a community such as the one described. There must be a lot of things I’m not seeing that normal people see, and it makes me so anxious that I can’t see them. But then again I’m not neurotypical. Not the first area of interest I seldom get to share with someone, anyone.

Yeah that was how I read it, and I assume from the downvotes a lot of others too, but I guess it was a bit ambiguous. To be fair, here’s their elaboration: (Comment)

Make of that what you will.

Fair enough, I see your point now. I don’t know enough about the US side of the sanctions, or more in-depth details from any side, so I can’t say if that is wrong or right. But I do know that the wording in your earlier comment had very different implications than what you are now saying. But maybe that’s on me for not asking clarifications.

Fuck, never thought I’d agree with something like this and actually think the reasoning I give myself, to let myself agree with such obviously bad stuff, makes sense.

It’s so fucking depressing. While I don’t live in Poland, I live in a Russia-bordering country with similar stuff having been debated for a very long time, and still today, though as I understand it, we never gave up our mines in the first place, for reasons that now make perfect sense and seem good, but without hindsight never seemed good in the past and seemed simply wrong.

We do A, that’s very bad and leaves us open for attack, which doesn’t seem like such fantasy today, when Ukraine is under such an attack. But say we do B… that’s morally reprehensible and just outright bad, too.

I can’t reason about these things, because it just ends up feeling like I am abandoning my principles and some ethical standards I’ve long held… but then again I can’t rightly go against these things either, because they seem perfectly rational deterrents right now, to avoid a majorly fucked up situation down the road.

I feel like I’m losing myself as a human, as a conscious being, because the reality no longer matches the expectations I’ve had and the “rules” I’ve long maintained do exist.

But is it better to now feel like you’re betraying yourself, to potentially help defend future generations from having to lose themselves in a similar manner? Or is it better to stay true to myself and potentially help the fall of our current progressive, socially even impressive situation, after which the principles I stood so true to, are no longer even a possibility? Or does choosing the former actually lead to the increase of the chance of future looking equally bleak and unstable?

I don’t know. I don’t fucking know. And I hate it.

It’s not just US though. I think a sovereign country should have a say in who they trade with and who they do not. Thinking USA somehow holds the puppet strings was probably plausible before Trump, but right now I’m simply surprised they have managed to survive this far without collapsing completely. It’s not in any way plausible that the country led by that baffoon, doing all the things he’s doing currently, is somehow the puppet master of the western world, straight dictating who does what.

No, it’s been a choice by the EU to also join USA (or is it the other way around? I think the US propaganda machine could’ve managed to make it seem like US-led effort, but is it?) in these economical battles against an aggressor attacking a sovereign European country. And it simply makes sense, don’t need any large conspiracies to explain that. Just sensible. Europe defending Europe.

Regarding Israel though… I guess the military power of the US, no matter how much of a buffoon is ultimately at the helm, causes some to consider twice before putting on sanctions against them. But that image is largely falling apart right now, and I’d love to see Europe uniting in sanctions against Israel, too. Those disregarding others’ sovereignty and attempting to assimilate them, deserve nothing good from us or as many of others we can sway.

I mean they are the single most powerful military force in the world right now, with no one even close to equal them. It holds some weight necessarily, when they choose to do something. Or choose not to do something.

But that alone being enough to simply dictate what other nations do? I think not. And it’s becoming more and more clear to me that it probably never was like that. But they have a ridiculously large backing for soft power too. Maybe this image we have about this is purposefully build to make murica seem like such a power player. Maybe it’s all just bark, little bite? They do have the biggest set of teeth though, so if they do bite, it might hurt unless you have a lot of friends to stand with you.

You know, I just realized how removed I am from German as a language.

I saw those lyrics and in my head I couldn’t help but read it in the voice and musical style of Rammstein.

That sounded pretty good, too.

But I also realized I don’t really have any other exposure to German, outside of singular scenes in some movies or tv-shows.

You are mad and just keep stating the same bollocks over and over, as if your take on the world and this situation is the only relevant and correct one.

You should be ashamed of this entire exchange, yet you maintain some misguided sense of superiority.

I have tagged you three times with this exact trait before, so you definitely have a habit of doing this. Each time you’ve been called out, and each time you maintain you are the only one who knows the truth and speaks true.

The problem is in you, not “us” who can’t see the light you pretend to share.

This is the fourth tag your account gets. But I won’t be blocking you, I will continue to call you out, unless or until you embrace your ignorance and block me too.

Happy solitude, you god.

Things have been very upside down lately on multiple fronts..

Yeah, I mean in practice he’s dismantling the current empire. Really wish he’d do it properly though, with enough time for their now free vassals to get their own feet down.

Also really wish he wasn’t going for another empire more local, with all the Panama, Greenland and Canada stuff…

Oh wow, are we getting a world war with China and Europe allied against Russia and the US?

Things are all wonky

But it doesn’t really matter. As long as one uses multiple apps/forums, I.e different echo chambers, and touches grass in Wild West spaces from time to time, like reality, it’s all fine.

I think the effect of echo chambers is just altogether overblown, and also the natural inclination for a human to just stay in one place, not being curious to peek behind other curtains from time to time. The latter is one of the key traits of our species, we are just simply too curious to ever be completely taken by echo chambers. The individuals with less curiosity and more inclination to stay in place, not change anything, may have this problem more due to those traits. I.e. conservatives.

As long as ones curious and doesn’t explicitly communicate with other humans in one dedicated space, it’s all fine. It’s actively harmful to our psyche to be exposed to something like 4chan or Tate brothers academy just for the sake of not being in an echo chamber.