I think the leadership is less socially conservative compared to the past, but they represent some very conservative bases so they more or less are having to crawl progress forward or they risk a schism.

The previous pope, Pope Francis, stacked the Vatican with more progressive leaning cardinals. I believe Pope Leo will be following in Pope Francis’ footsteps in terms of appointments.

Both likes and dislikes, imo. Bad actors and their bots can make it appear as though their stance is a widely held belief, they can dog pile dissidents, they often attack a straw-person for a point you never made to pull others against you and derail the conversation, etc.

With user level tools at your disposal, such as on BlueSky, you can at least coordinate a response to flag potential bad actors and even have the options to mute/block them by default. If your account were to be hacked and publishing disruptive content which was not something you would post, then your account could end up on these mute/block lists and you’d need to communicate the issue with the individuals that maintain these mute/block lists.

I’m personally in the boat of seeing kids as adding to one’s life rather than draining it and making dreams rather than taking them away. But having kids is something my partner and I want. My only other dream is to ever own the roof over my head, but that’s not totally likely.

I feel that having kids would not seem as daunting for more people if we had real safety nets to support people that would even consider being parents. Such as free daycare, a basic income, universal healthcare, and stipends specifically to pay for costs associated with kids like for diapers, bottles, books, ever changing clothes sizes, etc.

Agreed, unless the system itself is changed, at the state level, within each state, to use a different voting system. Which is worth pursuing btw, and something Alaska and Maine have both pulled off.

I’m so tired of seeing people getting mad about the two party system, but not even bringing up the fact we can totally change the system to use a form of Ranked Choice Voting, just by getting signatures to put it on the ballot! Well at least for over half the states this method works.

People’s energy would be much better spent advocating for groups like the Equal Vote Coalition or Fair Vote. Both of those groups desperately need volunteers and could actually use the social media advocacy given they are getting single digit support on Fediverse sites currently.

Accelerationism won’t get you what you want, it just ensures authoritarians are in power no matter what. Historically, these people don’t care about redistributing squat.

Focused changed at a local level can actually bear fruit and can be scaled up. Social programs can already create an economic floor, even under our current capitalist system. For instance, Universal Basic Income implemented at a state level or federal level would solve the economic woes people encounter.

If you think your framework has any grounds of legitimacy you should be able to think of how to even make it possible on a small scale level.

What’s functionally stopping you from living on a commune on an empty dot on a map or a deserted island and making your dream of no government a reality with your peers?

What a refreshing conclusion to the story, it’s nice to read about these positive outcomes where the couple grows from the experience.

Open communication is one of the core things that makes relationships last imo.