Adam Richard @adamrichard@qoto.org

I did find this example of an individual donating a lot of money to try to end coal:

https://thebulletin.org/2019/06/bloomberg-donates-500-million-to-help-end-coal/

However, looking into the details of the article, a lot of the money apparently just went for political campaigning to try to get governments to change their minds. I was hoping for a way to donate to or invest in an actual project that replaces coal with solar panels, something that people want to do but need funding to make happen. So far I still can't find anything, at least for ordinary people. The best I can think of is to do energy upgrades, or lend money to people who want to do energy upgrades but need money to do them sooner. We have enough money in the world to stop climate change, and it sucks that I can't find a way to coordinate enough people with that money to do it.

Something frequently discussed with regard to climate change, e.g. in the latest IPCC report, is that it's up to governments to shut down coal and oil power plants and provide financial aid to poor countries so they can also do so.

However, hasn't it been governments that have been consistently failing us? Or rather, oil and gas companies failing us, and governments not standing up to them, or helping them? For example, I want to divest from coal and oil, but my country's pension fund, which I'm forced to contribute to if I work at most jobs in my country, is forcing some of "my" investments to be in oil and gas:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/pension-funds-ties-to-fossil-fuel-industry-1.6781293

This makes me ask: is it possible for individuals or non-government institutions, etc., to provide the money that's apparently "needed" to switch to renewable energy? It's of course possible to buy stocks in solar panel companies or buy green bonds to finance climate-related projects (similar to how government bonds supply the government's debt and lets them spend money they don't have). Could it be as easy as switching some of our investments to raise the financing needed to cause coal and oil projects to disappear? Or is there something to donate to that would cause them to disappear? If governments of rich countries can do that to help governments of poor countries, then why couldn't individuals or non-government groups?

Even just thinking about the coal power plants in NB, what can individuals do to get them shut down? If NB power doesn't have the money to replace them, then shouldn't individuals be able to invest in something to cause them to be replaced? Or at least buy their electricity elsewhere? But because of, again, the connection of NB power to government and not having another place I can buy electricity (other than buying solar panels, if I own a house), I don't see how we (the people) can shut down those plants.

Of course, it would be a lot easier if we could choose what our pension fund gets invested in. And of course, there are lots of other lifestyle things you can do in your life to reduce your carbon footprint, but I think money is one that is often overlooked, and I don't think most people, including me, have much knowledge of how to use their money to fight climate change.

In Star Trek, they have a money-less society which comes about as a result of replicator technology: since people can assemble molecules into anything they need from a specification, there's no need or motivation to buy and sell things. Instead, the motivation to do things becomes based on reputation or seeking meaning or status.

People usually accept that story as a sensible possible future. But to use the language and ideas of many people today, the replicators in Star Trek would need to be ad-supported. I.e. the replicators would have to show ads to the people who use them, with the people who make the specifications for the different things to replicate getting money from the advertisers.

But doesn't the Star Trek story seem saner? Why then is it hard to accept webpages and software made and shared by people who are just wanting to share it for the same reasons as the characters in Star Trek? Why is it hard to accept that there are enough of us to provide for our basic technological needs? Software and information can be replicated for free, just like in Star Trek. We don't need ads.

Tried using Jitsi Meet for a tutoring meeting and I'm impressed with it. Used it right from within my web browser, no account setup, no software to install, free and open source, just created a name for the meeting and got a URL for the meeting. Has a whiteboard and screen sharing.

https://meet.jit.si/

Things I don't like about relationships that other people like:
-candlelight
-restaurants
-gifts
-modifying appearance to impress
-flowers
-weird names such as "honey"
-meeting people at a bar
-expectation to pay money to go places
-being popular by owning a car
-drinking alcohol to become closer to someone
-weddings
-expectation to dress in clothes that are fancy or match
-expectation for men to ask out women but not vice versa
-sharing money and being attracted to someone with money
-going to ceremonies / concerts / performances / sports games / something where you buy a ticket to watch something that's supposedly serious

Things I like about relationships that other people also like:
-physical touch
-emotions
-having someone to do activities with
-being able to afford a house or apartment

Things I associate with relationships that other people don't:
-zombies
-sword fights

Happy "Understand Aromantics A Bit Better" Day!

This is a good guide for how to reduce Surveillance Capitalism by big tech:

https://gofoss.net/

Of course, you could instead just let them collect data on you but take the effort to block increasingly invasive ads. But there's just no beating that clean feeling of switching to software or sites which are offering something helpful, no strings attached. That's why I love finding out about these kinds of tools.

Not all the steps are easy, so, like me, you'll probably end up making compromises. For example, look at the patheticness I had to do as a result of being stuck with an Apple product:

https://adam4235.github.io/encyclopedia/computer/iphone_reduced_tracking.html

Something that is often unclear concerning Covid is: what does it mean for a person to be recovered from Covid? There's an ambiguity: a person can be recovered in the sense that the virus has left their body, or they can be recovered in the sense that they feel the same as they did before getting Covid.

I've found that I was faced with an uncomfortable dilemma when people ask whether I was recovered from Covid. I'm recovered in the sense that it's been almost a month and I'm testing negative and the virus has left my body. But I still have a slight long term symptom (feel like I have to clear my throat more often than usual), so I don't feel the same as before I had Covid. (Long term symptoms also often happen to me when I get a cold, ever since about 2008, maybe because I got pneumonia at that time. So far they're no worse than that, and I hope it lasts no longer than that. I don't have the loss of energy.)

If I say I'm recovered, then I reinforce the following mistaken idea about Covid - that it's a temporary sickness that you get for a few days and then get better and, if you're lucky, don't die from. But the scary thing about Covid is not the possibility of dying. It's the possibility of never recovering, of having some kind of permanent damage. Since I don't know yet if that's the situation for me, celebrating being "over" it seems out of place. Is my immune system permanently weakened? Are my lungs permanently weakened? I have no clue, so as a result it bothers me when people are like "yay, you're over Covid".

But if I say I'm not recovered, then people might think I'm still sick in the contagious sense. In many cases, people take months or even more than a year before they feel back to being the same again, but obviously the virus has long left their body and it's safe for them to go places.

So it's no wonder people with long Covid feel like nobody is listening to them. The significance of Covid compared to other sickness is not the serious immediate effects, which are rare for vaccinated people, but the fact that it very often has a long-term impact.

The next step of my obsession to rid myself of companies tracking me for advertising is to escape cloud file storage. For that purpose I've discovered a great open source way to sync files locally called Syncthing:

https://syncthing.net/

Rather than storing files in the cloud on a company's server, it just syncs files between your different devices. It doesn't work on iOS, though, only Android, but I also want to get rid of my iPhone anyway and use LineageOS now that I've figured out how degoogle Android phones and since iOS doesn't allow an adblocker in Firefox.

Ever since syncing my data with a Palm Pilot 15 or 20 years ago I've found syncing to be a challenge, and I also want to keep things backed up, so like many people I've resigned myself to using cloud services for some of this. You can also use SSH or other file sharing systems but the advantage of Syncthing is you don't have to configure it with a username/password/IP address or things like that - it just connects devices that you physically have in your possession and disallows other people with other devices from connecting to you.

Another reason I've been thinking of doing more local syncing and less relying on internet services is from reading about the carbon footprint of the internet. It's difficult to tell how much of an impact various internet actions have in the grand scheme of things, but since I have many GB of data to keep backed up, I'm sure it's more environmentally friendly to keep it local and not cause companies to build infrastructure to store it, especially when their apparent incentive for doing so is to access my data for advertising.

I took an old tablet with a broken screen and installed LineageOS on it, as my first attempt at rooting a device and trying an open mobile OS. This is a great post giving some of the reasons for doing so and a basic outline of the process:

https://brainbaking.com/post/2021/03/getting-rid-of-tracking-using-lineageos/

For me it went pretty smoothly. The most difficult part was actually getting the back cover off my tablet, which isn't necessary for rooting all devices - I had one of the more challenging ones (Amazon Fire HD 8).

I get the impression that privacy is a big motivation for people to switch to open source these days. There are different reasons people care about privacy or sound alarms about privacy violations: for me, it's not so much that I don't want people to know things about me, it's that I don't consent to the economic model of companies tracking me and storing data about me for advertising purposes. So any time I find a way to be in control of the computers I buy and the data I create, I consider it a win.

December kale harvest. I love my kale and my kale loves me! #foodnotlawns #foodisfree
https://adam4235.github.io/recipes/supper/kale_potato_soup.txt

I set up a second mini PC with Linux Mint XFCE edition which I found for only $70 used (it's a bit old but still has an SSD) and which uses only 15W of electricity. The XFCE edition is ideal for older hardware.

One piece of software that makes this setup extra useful is barrier, which is a free virtual (software) KVM switch, i.e. lets you use the same keyboard and mouse on 2 computers that are both turn on, and switch between them without unplugging things:

https://github.com/debauchee/barrier

Setting up barrier took a bit more effort that their page indicates - you also have to ensure that one computer always has the same IP address by configuring your router (in my case, go to http://192.168.2.1, login, Advanced setup -> DHCP reservation). And I had to disable SSL in the barrier options to get it to work.

Since I play PC games, my other computer pretty much has to have Windows and be powerful and consume a lot of electricity, and I think a lot of people are in my situation. The advantages of having a second Linux mini-PC beside it is to save electricity when I'm not gaming and be able to use Linux for all other tasks besides gaming, without needing to reboot whenever I want to switch between a game and another application. A virtual machine is another thing people do but I think my setup is better because VMs are slow, it saves electricity, it prevents me from having to deal with the annoyances of using Windows all the time, and it means I have a spare computer for when one dies.

I tried out Pop!_OS, a free Linux operating system, and am very happy about the Auto Tiling feature (in the top right menu). I've long been a fan of tiling window managers but have been frustrated by their all-or-nothing approach and keyboard-only approach. With Pop!_OS you can turn tiling on or off for all windows or only for certain windows, and you have the choice of mouse or keyboard! Really hoping this starts a new trend.
https://pop.system76.com/

TL;DR: If you have "low" income and oil heat you can get up to $5000 to switch to a heat pump, and you get the money before you pay the contractors. I highly recommend heat pumps.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/federal-funding-heat-pumps-1.6658539

This is a continuation of my posts to my blog (and Facebook) in an ad-free and algorithm-free space. My older blog posts are here:

https://humansarentrational.wordpress.com