Repair Cafes are part of a new brand of anticonsumerism. The cafes and other efforts try to offer an alternative to mass-produced, disposable goods that have dominated the economy for the last half-century.
Now this is unironically what I think of when the tiny, near-dead embers of patriotism in my soul get a whiff of oxygen.
Great Depression 2.0 is here, what did we do back during the first one?
Well, lotta people fuckin’ starved and died, got terrible diseases, died before the age of 2, or in child birth, etc.
But, we also formed co-ops. We took a random sad sack of broke and broken people, and their stuff, people with no proper wage work available to do, got em together and said ‘anything useful you can do, for anybody else, is better than nothing’
We talked to those people. We commiserated. We built solidarity with others, face to face.
We fixed shit, we jerry-rigged shit, we made things that were completely broke into things that were only slightly broken.
We took shotguns to local foreclosure auctions, and not so subtly implied to anyone other than someone who’d promised to just gift the home back to the homeowner, that the shotguns were loaded.
Nowadays… call it recycling, upcycling, right to repair, what the fuck ever… stop wasting your money on stupid shit that won’t last a year or even ever be used by you once.
You don’t know how expensive food or fuel is gonna be in a month, 3 months, etc. Could triple by next year, who knows.
Build your life around trying to plan for that.
You got a storage unit full of shit? A walk in closet full of stuff you ain’t worn in a year?
You don’t need it.
Somebody else probably could use it. Figure out how to find that person, and get it to them, with as few or at least as fair middlemen involved as possible. You get a fair price, or maybe even a haircut or week of babysitting, fuck, a pound of flour… they get some barely used clothes.
Every random plot of possibly usable garden space, make it bloom. Fuck your yard of useless grass that literally is a traditional offshot of nobility having so much land they could show off making some of it not productive.
HOA in the way? Learn their bylaws and just investigate them by way of malicious supercompliance. Chances are high they’re doing some kind of money laundering or fraud.
… We’ve done this kinda shit before, our grandparents at least.
Most people actually get joy and purpose not from accumulating wealth, but from feeling like they’re actually some kind of important, in the service of others, in some kind of real and tangible way.
The system has failed us, in every possible way…, it will eat us alive if we do not build our own.
Hey, great accumulation of well articulated thoughts!
Maybe a tangible reflection of what many currently feel inside but struggle to focus and express. In a way, a community service you’ve done for others, in the spirit of the broader message here.
Cuba has developed a rich, mature DIY culture after several generations of trade isolation by the US and the collapse of the USSR. With a very limited inflow of tech goods, they basically don’t throw away anything. People cobble together all kinds of machines from pieces of other machines, The maker culture is much more than a hobby, it’s the predominent way of thinking.
As … immensely ironic and basically ideologically cruel as it is, we should absolutely emulate this attitude, learn from them.
They get starved and blockaded, we get flooded with hypereffective digital marketing, insane overproduction of single use garbage, horrendously overpriced cars full of more factory defects than a t34 from 1942, that is half illegal to repair on your own … while almost no one makes anything built to last any more.
Again, very ironic, but this actually results in a very similar situation for most normal people, at least once all the credit cards stop working.
Thank you, but my writing ability, in this sort of way, is nothing in comparison to… Charlie Chaplin.
To those who can hear me, I say - do not despair. The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed - the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress. The hate of men will pass, and dictators die, and the power they took from the people will return to the people. And so long as men die, liberty will never perish…
Maybe a CRT Trans Obama Marxist Hunter Biden Laptop terrorist even…
Think about it, the number 7. So you have seven, the base “sev” as in “sever”, by also “to save”. So from save and then the end of sever, combined you get the word “Savour” which of course is close to “savior”, which for them is the DEVIL…
Savior is six letters - 6
Savour is six letters - 6
And what is a savior? Jesus. Jesus’ dad is god, and he wears loose robes and he doesn’t have super tight, ripped, sweaty abs like Jesus, but he looks good for his age - like Zeus and the little mermaids dad, but more of a dad bod because he sits on clouds a lot and doesn’t swim in the ocean all day.
Dadbod is also six letters - 6
Do you get it now?
666
They want a savior (Satan), who will savour (eat) the dadbod (god)
Now this is unironically what I think of when the tiny, near-dead embers of patriotism in my soul get a whiff of oxygen.
Great Depression 2.0 is here, what did we do back during the first one?
Well, lotta people fuckin’ starved and died, got terrible diseases, died before the age of 2, or in child birth, etc.
But, we also formed co-ops. We took a random sad sack of broke and broken people, and their stuff, people with no proper wage work available to do, got em together and said ‘anything useful you can do, for anybody else, is better than nothing’
We talked to those people. We commiserated. We built solidarity with others, face to face.
We fixed shit, we jerry-rigged shit, we made things that were completely broke into things that were only slightly broken.
We took shotguns to local foreclosure auctions, and not so subtly implied to anyone other than someone who’d promised to just gift the home back to the homeowner, that the shotguns were loaded.
Nowadays… call it recycling, upcycling, right to repair, what the fuck ever… stop wasting your money on stupid shit that won’t last a year or even ever be used by you once.
You don’t know how expensive food or fuel is gonna be in a month, 3 months, etc. Could triple by next year, who knows.
Build your life around trying to plan for that.
You got a storage unit full of shit? A walk in closet full of stuff you ain’t worn in a year?
You don’t need it.
Somebody else probably could use it. Figure out how to find that person, and get it to them, with as few or at least as fair middlemen involved as possible. You get a fair price, or maybe even a haircut or week of babysitting, fuck, a pound of flour… they get some barely used clothes.
Every random plot of possibly usable garden space, make it bloom. Fuck your yard of useless grass that literally is a traditional offshot of nobility having so much land they could show off making some of it not productive.
HOA in the way? Learn their bylaws and just investigate them by way of malicious supercompliance. Chances are high they’re doing some kind of money laundering or fraud.
… We’ve done this kinda shit before, our grandparents at least.
Most people actually get joy and purpose not from accumulating wealth, but from feeling like they’re actually some kind of important, in the service of others, in some kind of real and tangible way.
The system has failed us, in every possible way…, it will eat us alive if we do not build our own.
In the words of Adam Savage:
“I reject your reality, and substitute my own”.
We do not have another choice.
Hey, great accumulation of well articulated thoughts!
Maybe a tangible reflection of what many currently feel inside but struggle to focus and express. In a way, a community service you’ve done for others, in the spirit of the broader message here.
Cuba has developed a rich, mature DIY culture after several generations of trade isolation by the US and the collapse of the USSR. With a very limited inflow of tech goods, they basically don’t throw away anything. People cobble together all kinds of machines from pieces of other machines, The maker culture is much more than a hobby, it’s the predominent way of thinking.
As … immensely ironic and basically ideologically cruel as it is, we should absolutely emulate this attitude, learn from them.
They get starved and blockaded, we get flooded with hypereffective digital marketing, insane overproduction of single use garbage, horrendously overpriced cars full of more factory defects than a t34 from 1942, that is half illegal to repair on your own … while almost no one makes anything built to last any more.
Again, very ironic, but this actually results in a very similar situation for most normal people, at least once all the credit cards stop working.
This was very well written. This message resonates with me deeply. Thank you. 👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾
Thank you, but my writing ability, in this sort of way, is nothing in comparison to… Charlie Chaplin.
https://www.charliechaplin.com/en/articles/29-The-Final-Speech-from-The-Great-Dictator-
I still cannot watch or even just read this without being moved to tears.
We need a new story to believe, now that the ‘American Dream’ is so thoroughly broken.
We need hope, placed in the right direction… in ourselves, and in each other.
Wow, sounds like you’re some sort of commie terrorist.
Maybe a CRT Trans Obama Marxist Hunter Biden Laptop terrorist even…
Think about it, the number 7. So you have seven, the base “sev” as in “sever”, by also “to save”. So from save and then the end of sever, combined you get the word “Savour” which of course is close to “savior”, which for them is the DEVIL…
Savior is six letters - 6
Savour is six letters - 6
And what is a savior? Jesus. Jesus’ dad is god, and he wears loose robes and he doesn’t have super tight, ripped, sweaty abs like Jesus, but he looks good for his age - like Zeus and the little mermaids dad, but more of a dad bod because he sits on clouds a lot and doesn’t swim in the ocean all day.
Dadbod is also six letters - 6
Do you get it now?
666
They want a savior (Satan), who will savour (eat) the dadbod (god)
Wake up.
Oh no!
… I am quite sure they will call me ‘some sort of crazy person’.
That kind of society sounds kinda sweet