It is complex and yet it isn’t. There are understandable psychological and historical causes for the current state. It is not black and white. But nothing is. We just want to make things to fit nice boxes.

If you want to understand it, you need to understand radicalization and how it applies to MENA including Israel. Actions do not come from the vacuum and people are messy. Every person has an agenda.

At the same time, in this specific situation, there are what according to well-established parameters amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity. While there is terrorism committed by Palestinian groups, these crimes are largely committed by Israel. It might be that if the power imbalance were a little less we would see similar actions from the Palestinian state. But it is not.

Just in the last week, we have seen apartheid, ethnic cleansing, what could be genocide, collective punishment, embargo and cutting vital supplies to the area you are occupying. This list is not exhaustive. This is univocally wrong.

The most complex part is not understanding it. The most complex part is solving it.

I had it but really had to scroll to the bottom. It was also not Reddit but articles saying it was the first result. Which is kind of ironic.

Starting fire is pretty relevant skill in Finland for multiple reasons from saunas to cabins to campfires. While I partially learned at home, scouts are pretty good here and definitely taught me a lot of wilderness and survival skills.

I get it. Part of my job is human rights advocacy. It is highly depressive and is getting to the point where I don’t really think we can change things really for the better in at least the next decades. If we had fewer existential threats I would think based on history that the day when we again decide human rights are a good idea would come again. I am purely doing it for the belief that defending human rights even when not changing anything is worth it.

In Finnish. Pilkunnussija is the word.

But they don’t actually want to help long term. They see collapse as a chance to seize power for their own benefit as even the loose control we have to check the power of the powerful is too much for them.

People have no idea what it means. Like no grasp even when stories are everywhere. I’m an aid worker. Focusing on refugees. They can’t even imagine what they go through and what the people who never got to me/safety survived until unsurvivable came in front of them.

Just be warned Moomins are a gateway to communism (Weird internet theory). Or at least to more Moomins. We literally have Moomin everything here.

In addition to general learning which might be my favourite, I have multiple.

Maybe the most niche is a historical reenactment and historical costuming. Latter usually based on extant garments or garment finds. I try to get as close to the original in techniques, tools and materials using the best evidence I can find.

I also plan things that will never happen. I decorate houses and apartments on paper. I make extensive plans for travel that I can never afford unless I win in Lottory. Which I even never play.

I spend absolutely too much time playing with spreadsheets.

At least in Europe, a lot of people find sparring partners through historical reenactment groups. I encourage you to join reenactments for other reasons too.

Do you also do historical reenactment or just sword fighting? I never personally got into the fighting side of things but the former has been one of my favourite hobbies for decades.

My personal favourites from Finnish.

“Ei ole kaikki muumit Muumilaaksossa” “Not having all the Moomins in Moomin Valley” Used for people who are either stupid or lack sanity. There are other variants of this and Moomin one is not older than a couple of decades.

I find our version of Grammar Nazi pretty great. We call them comma fuckers.

“Ei voi kauhalla ottaa jos on lusikalla annettu” “You can’t take with a ladle if it was given with a spoon”. This refers also to a lack of something, usually a lack of intelligence or sense.

Islam as religious text basis doesn’t really differ in a bad way from the other two Abrahamic religions. It even gives some extra rights to women that Christianity and Judaism don’t. Forcing hijab on women is also expressively banned in Islamic theological texts. Doesn’t change how it works in practice as forced hijab is pretty common in fundamentalistic Islamic theocracies. But might explain why converting is a little bit less insane than at the surface level. If I had to choose one of the Abrahamic religions on a purely theological basis I might end up choosing Islam. Please note, I am not trying to give a pass to Islam, Islamic countries or especially fundamentalist Muslims. The issues are myriad. People outside Islamic countries just have a somewhat skewed image of the religion. Both in theory and practice.

Things either need to be really, really bad and people are done or we need to find what they care about more than being comfortable. I was not always politically active. It took until my late twenties and seeing how bad things can really be. I have been an activist on the human rights front for about a decade. And it only happened because I really saw the issues in my country and continent. But while my family knows as I make sure they know, and some kind of care, it is not important enough for them.

But weirdly. My country had literal neo-Nazis as a minister and everyone with a brain thinks we still do as bids of the same feather and so on. And suddenly my leftist but not active friends became active, online and outside that. It is weird when I have been warning that this is the road we are on for the better part of a decade it took it to happen for people to take action. Thankfully we are still solidly democratic so this might work. At least for a few years.

This summer I have switched my Reddit, web browser, password manager, laptop, external keyboard, mouse type and now I either have to learn to live with Windows 11 or deal with the head ache of installing Linux. In other words I feel you. And figuring how to make Windows 11 to be tolerable and having to look into keyboard as touch typist is annoying as hell. I am not sure how I can completely degoogle myself as I use or used everything they have although not for really sensitive content in long, long time. But the fact is my gmail is my first adult email address and is even older than my Reddit account is.

I remember some time in high school somewhere around their IPO my friend told me google will be the next really big thing. If I had had listened listened him and had had some money I might have become a lot richer than I am. There was some now weird optimism and exitement around the now big tech companies. The vision I have of google is really different now than then but I still carry some attachement as sentimental person. I guess I am taking steps. And if anyone has input into which securish cloud storage to use that is somewhat cheap for multiple terabyte of things and can be used from file explorer, please tell me. Thankfully sensitive data is mostly elsewhere.

Basically in those situations people find new ways to be connected. For example, while satellite dishes are banned in Iran they are pretty common in that if you don’t have one you propably know someone who has. Mesh networks are currently being used in Sudan and have been in other countries where government has shut down internet. Usually shutdowns and restrictions don’t happen without warning so people have usually started to smuggle in satellite internet devices. But there are two huge issues. One. you need certain level of technological literacy and there is often some financial cost applied. If you asked my mom what is dark web she would look me weirdly. Partially as her English is not great but I have never heard anyone actually using the Finnish version but mainly because she has no idea what it is. Majority of people are somewhat priced out of satellite internet globally. And no one has heard of mesh networks unless they are techies, activists or people who have experienced government severely limiting internet access.

I am always astounded about how big of procentage manage to stay connected. Need really is mother of inventions. But if you put my mom, stepdad or stepmom in these situations, they would have no idea where to start. The rest of my immediate family would figure it out as we are more or less techies.

Mine is either Paradox Games although my preferred is CK series. Also, dabble in the Sims. Which I have been told is weird mix.

I think people are because of the latest trends in social media thinking that you need to be huge to be successful. While you do need a certain threshold of people, semi-anonymous social media really doesn’t need to be that big. Just big enough to sustain enough little bit niche communities. That doesn’t just need users it needs time. People have this habit of hoping someone else will do the heavy lifting. And while I am not able to mod because IRL, I am still looking into niche communities here to see if I can help in some way as contributor. Just need to get through my imposter syndrome in that I don’t really feel good enough for comment creator.

BTW every time I see you commenting on something it makes me think I joined the right instance. Well, I joined after checking that out but you are just making it so easy to be happy about it.

I’m Finnish. We also start with wooden pencils and graduate to either ballpoint pens or some kind of fineliner marker. I am the only person I know with a fountain pen who actually uses it for normal writing. Mainly because it hurts so much less.