Solarpunk

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I've lived in London, UK in dense urban housing, the only time I've ever spoken to anyone in the area was when a neighbour below had a water leak caused by the floor caving in underneath what could only very charitably be called my bathroom.

He could barely speak English and seemed to be living in the same squalor studio but with a family of 4, he was a man and like 20 years older than me.

Then I moved out to a flat in a smaller town, very suburban, closest shop was like a 10 min walk. I don't think I've seen a single person ever speaking in public apart from groups of university students, whom I wouldn't want to approach for fear of being accused of being a groomer (I'm trans and besides that frankly I would've kept my hand firmly on my wallet if some adult approached me out of nowhere when I was in uni), and 50 year olds out on the town either with kids or just getting lunch for work.

I tried to organise with my neighbours once to get the landlord to install some sound insulation, but I asked them to at least stop blasting the music from speakers at night at their daily house parties of 20-30 people (they already lived in a house share of 6, packed like rats) in the meantime, which apparently crossed a line and caused a conflict that endured for years and involved attempts on their behalf to scam me into paying their energy bill by going to the landlord.

All other attempts at talking were met with gaslighting and aggression, I had to resort to discussing it with the landlord because I was worried they were gonna cave in the ceiling with their attempts at smashing things at their floor so I'd give up and leave, fortunately a guitar amplifier aimed squarely at the ceiling blasting the X-Files theme throughout the night got them to stop and we are now in a temporary cease-fire.

That's probably the closest to earnest human communication I've experienced with a stranger. Fwiw I don't think I've ever witnessed anyone else talking to anyone else like that either, in fact I'd say by sheer coincidence I'm the only person I know who even has seen their neighbours.

Closest my best friend got was an auto-generated emaul from their landlord's agency filing a noise complaint on behalf of neighbours when we both could've sworn their place was empty of furniture, nevermind people.

He doesn't "do politics", and when I prompted him, he didn't seem to even understand what the word meant or how policy would even relate to anyone's day to day life. All he follows is K-Pop and gadgets. I only know him from school, the rest of my friends are my exes.

Some anarchist I am, huh?

When it comes to friend circles, either people are exactly as radicalised as I am in theory, but don't bother with any praxis because they don't know what to do either or are so incredibly depressed by even broaching the subject they avoid it altogether, apart from maybe donating to the green party or more realistically some weird debate streamer, or some of the more far removed acquaintances don't understand politics and probably couldn't even name who the current prime minister is, all they care about is football and maybe if they're nerdy - FIFA on da Xbox with the lads. Nevermind politics, even basic history usually escapes them. Maybe they've gone on twitter once to look up their favourite brand and now say Trump seems like a charismatic funny guy.

A friend of mine used to say that about Putin - that was the extent of her political opinions that and being "kind", despite the fact I repeatedly told her it's not very nice when I'm a literal refugee from Russia thanks to the guy.

A mutual friend of ours did get radicalised eventually - she became a nazi, not like rightoid or alt-right but dead on "dear leader" hitler-loving nazi and excitedly once showed me a portrait of some SS guy she drew which she expected me to like despite knowing I was trans, (later, she offered me to try meth with her, which was funny but not actually that odd since we did drugs together all the time) we used to at least have stuff to talk about though because she seemed to at least think actively about the world, even if her conclusions to almost all problems were invariably some form of eugenics and "more white people", even public transport would be solved with this, according to her.

When it comes to the workplace, I think we used to have some vaguely political discussions, but as my immigrant status hinges on maintaining a job, and it's in tech - for what has now been acquired and is now managed by an American multinational and with that brought the attitude of that culture, I tread very very lightly.

Needless to say, the alienation is brutal. Most people generally seem like a different species, I think me and my cat have far more in common than I do with any people, whether it understands Kropotkin or not. People and events seem procedurally generated, they appear just as randomly and quickly as they disappear, no one seems to have more than 2 lines of dialogue.

Even outside of politics, most everything I am deeply invested in is something seemingly no ordinary person has ever even heard of, at least on the internet people seem real, hivemind af sure, but not as atomized. Maybe in the US people are just way more engaged with this stuff.

Thanks for linking that post, it's a neat story, but it seems to start in medias res of having already organized an entire event, not exactly helpful instructions wise, but inspiring for sure.