the_abecedarian

because capitalism, mostly

Pandoc can convert many kinds of files to docx, pdf, and lots of other things. Use the text editor of your choice!

Haha I sympathize. Glad to help!

There’s also this mega list that overall leans libertarian-socialist, but contains authors from many perspectives

The Srsly Wrong podcast mixes and explains ideas about socialism (from a number of sources) in a lighthearted way. Use the suggestions in the “Start Here” sidebar on their site.

Anark is an anarchist youtuber, with clear explanations of ideas, strategies, and concepts for anarchist and libertarian-socialist (not at all like right wing “libertarians”) forms of socialism. He disagrees heavily with authoritarian socialists (who are apparently a big part of lemmy.ml).

Zoe Baker is a youtuber who is a PhD-level scholar of anarchism, who also has a lot of videos about Marx’s thought.

The quotes are not there for their accuracy, but to illustrate Musk’s outlook and intentions. He sees all entitlements as a bad thing per se and will break whatever norms and rules he can get away with to get rid of them, citing great replacement lies as a justification to the far right and citing “efficiency” as a sop to the less-far-right. Whether he can get away with it remains to be seen, but my original comment was an off-the-cuff “Musk is trying to destroy social security”, not a detailed argument about what has happened so far. I think, given the experience of so many other government agencies with Musk and DOGE, that this is a fair statement for casual posting.

Process counts as much as benefits. Difficulty making payments is a form of sabotage. Even delaying payments counts as a cut because some ppl will die before having received a payment they would have.

Why else would Musk be messing with SSA? “Efficiency” ? Why not take him at his word? A couple choice quotes from that article:

• “Most of the federal spending is entitlements,” Musk told the Fox Business Network. “That’s the big one to eliminate.”
• "Musk said Monday that federal entitlements are “a mechanism by which the Democrats attract and retain illegal immigrants by essentially paying them to come here and then turning them into voters.”

It’s just an excuse. They want to get rid of him because they don’t like his politics and he’s an activist. Whether the state categorizes you as a citizen, resident, tourist, undocumented, etc. should have nothing to do with your right to speak out.

but please don’t

Ofc Musk is trying to destroy social security as we speak

It often takes a personal crisis to get people to doubt the cult/white supremacist group/multilevel marketing scheme they’ve been a part of for a long time

feckin’

The difference is that this affects his voters’ (the ones with any money) place in the hierarchy. If their retirement accounts zero out, they’re no different from the poor people they consider themselves above and made so many choices to separate themselves from. If they introspect a little bit, they might even say “then what have I been working so hard all this time for?”

The dems become the rational alternative. These Trump voters can hold their nose and vote for a little less brutality on the trans folks and a little more DEI lip service as long as they stabilize the market.

Meanwhile ofc the dems are likely to keep 80% of the immigrant deportation policies, tax cuts for the rich, etc.

Please don’t take an interview that someone who needs a job needs

Note that you can encrypt an analog journal, it just requires you to use a manual cipher, like these https://www.cryptomuseum.com/crypto/manual.htm

I use a typewriter (a Triumph Gabriele-e), blank looseleaf (a particular kind of heavier printer paper), and a springback binder to hold it all. Sometimes I use a fountain pen, but my writing isn’t particularly beautiful.

By “journaling” I do it as a kind of braindump on an as-needed basis. Pure stream-of-consciousness without any pressure to make it coherent, organized, or eloquent. I don’t do this every day, but I end up writing once per week-to-10-days.

I have a separate (paper) planner and digital info-repository, Joplin: https://joplinapp.org/

Trusting your gut makes sense. It sounds to me like he’s got a medium level of interest, but isn’t in a hurry to hang out terribly often. Part of it could be that, since he already lives in the area, he’s just going to prioritize existing family and close friends over a possible new one.

Making friends in a new place can be frustrating. Just find various kinds of meetups (sports, volunteering, hobbies, clubs, etc) that interest you and eventually you’ll pick up a couple of friends. You have to go in with no expectations for any particular person, but put out invites and see who ends up wanting to hang.

Good luck, keep trying! It took me a year to build up a base of friends when I moved fairly recently.