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alxd ✏️ solarpunk prompts

The American #BuyMeACoffee payment platform sanctioned Ukrainian creators banning them from receiving money, because...

...their country got invaded.

"The cited reason appears to be "because Russia occupies 20% of your country"

It's really ridiculous how "global" payment platforms can hurt already vulnerable people because they don't want to deal with legal messes. Something @pluralistic mentioned multiple times in his writing.

tumblr.com/justacynicalromanti

#ukraine #ukrainewar #finance

The American #BuyMeACoffee payment platform sanctioned Ukrainian creators banning them from receiving money, because...

...their country got invaded.

"The cited reason appears to be "because Russia occupies 20% of your country"

It's really ridiculous how "global" payment platforms can hurt already vulnerable people because they don't want to deal with legal messes. Something @pluralistic mentioned multiple times in his writing.

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smeg

@alxd @pluralistic

I have mixed feelings on this one. It absolutely sucks for Ukrainians, of course. But OFAC and similar sanctions specify an embargo on Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine. If any system, subprocessor, or service can't make the region distinction, and can only identify Ukraine as a whole, and you can't replace it easily, you find yourself in a tough spot of blocking all of Ukraine or needing to shutdown all US operations.

Kote Isaev

@alxd In this regard my conclusion is that there is more sense to not use a global payment platforms at all and take a special attention to locally available ways to accept payments available in your own country, including some APIs or services in bank where you have account.

Mark T. Tomczak

@alxd @pluralistic True, but the alternative is "corporations have more power than nation-states" and I'm not entirely sure we want that either...

alxd ✏️ solarpunk prompts

In the recently resurfaced debate about #solarpunk (or lunarpunk) aspects of #web3 and #blockchain I'm intrigued by one aspect:

Why do we accept being given a solution without outlining the problem in the first place?

Why do we listen to #DAO pitches instead of asking ourselves how we want to run our communities, how do we want to make decisions, vote, discuss things?

Just stating the problem first would make it very clear that there are multiple technical solutions, not just the Web3.

alxd ✏️ solarpunk prompts

Every time I encountered someone pitching a DAO or a Blockchain to an organization, they specifically bundled several things together to make them indistinguishable - the culture with the technology, the way a community is organized with the tools they use. With that, there fewer footholds for any kind of question, insight into what is really happening.

This is what I mean by saying that the technology is transparent and it's not always a good thing, because it makes us unable to discuss it.

alxd ✏️ solarpunk prompts

I'm proud to present my #review of #kimStanleyRobinson 's #theMinistryForTheFuture : alxd.org/ministry-for-the-futu

Be warned, it's a #longRead !

After three long years of struggling with the book and analyzing it I finally put my thoughts into a coherent blogpost. I never expected the Ministry to be #solarpunk , but I hoped that it will paint a future to look forward to.

#books #literature #climateFiction #climate #future #futurism #sustainability #blockchain #globalSouth #carbonCoin #parody

I'm proud to present my #review of #kimStanleyRobinson 's #theMinistryForTheFuture : alxd.org/ministry-for-the-futu

Be warned, it's a #longRead !

After three long years of struggling with the book and analyzing it I finally put my thoughts into a coherent blogpost. I never expected the Ministry to be #solarpunk , but I hoped that it will paint a future to look forward to.

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Brian Marick

@alxd @jmeowmeow I found /Ministry/ somewhat disappointing, but I interpreted it rather differently: it undercut itself, but not as parody, more as tragedy.

I take it that he thinks the bottom-up communal approach you approve of in the imaginary /Sustainability/ *won’t work*. You might argue that he’s wrong to assume it would fail, but that’s a different argument than the one you’re making. (1/7)

Adam Greenfield

@alxd I just can’t take a book seriously which proposes central bankers and cryptocurrency as the sovereign solution to our troubles, you know?

will stedden

@alxd thank you! I've had so many people recommend this to me and never picked it up. Now I'm wondering whether they were recommending to dissuade my worldview or whether they are so far removed from thoughts of the future they can't tell the difference.

alxd ✏️ solarpunk prompts

#solarpunk #illustration , #conceptart : Sustainable African City, Miyazakified

Part two, more aspect ratios, some different locales.

CC-BY-NC 4.0 #midjourney

Looming towers of multi-level buildings, a drilled-in baobab tower over a market of varieties
An African market with buildings surrounding it and a baobab
Northern African city with a market, a towering baobab above it, sand-colored blocks of flats in the background
Bluish light over an African market with a tree in the background and a very cone-looking organic building to the right
Guillem CANAL

@alxd This is madly beautiful, can't believe what IA is capable of these days.

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