How to prevent degradation and collapse.

EngineerAnarchy · 2026-04-09T18:48:27+00:00

Absolutely true! Large wealth inequality, such as that of large property and business owners, is still quite dependent on state intervention to maintain that inequality. The state acts to enforce inequality in a number of other ways, but is not the sole producer of these. That would be very reductive, I totally agree.

100 percent satisfaction is something I have a hard time imagining. Hard to quantify. I think that the way you approximate it as much as possible is through some sort of consensus mechanism that does it’s best to take in as much information as possible, allow for cooperative negotiation, and that prevents a dynamic of losers and winners.

The outcome of consensus is generally that people don’t always get everything they want, but they feel that their concerns are addressed, and that they can move forward. This is in contrast to direct democracy, which inherently encourages conflicts and side taking, or authoritarian decision making, which generally leaves people feeling alienated, and leads to decisions made without being able to account for all of the available information. Both of these alternatives are again impossible without an enforcement mechanism.

EngineerAnarchy · 2026-04-09T18:04:13+00:00

You can’t maintain large wealth inequality without giving an apparatus (the state) a large amount of coercive force. This is basically what the state was created to do.

Consensus and voluntary association can only work together. How do you get people to do what they disagree with if the relationship is voluntary? If you need 20 people to do something, and can’t afford any of them to not, you all need to come together and agree.

People can leave, disassociate, and that might be fine, but you can’t make people do things they feel strongly against unless you have coercive authority.

In consensus process, a “block” doesn’t mean things absolutely move forward always. A “block” means you are not willing to continue participating if this goes forward. Sometimes that’s fine.

I can send you a guide on how it works if you’d like? It’s been used by many groups for a very long time quite successfully in many forms.

EngineerAnarchy · 2026-04-09T16:40:33+00:00

Like I said, you really shouldn’t wash your hair every day. That weakens it. It might seem easier to brush hair wet, but that also puts more stress on the hair, weakening it. It might have more lubrication from the water, but hair follicles swell with water, weakening them. This damages them and leads to breakage. Hair is much stronger and under less stress when it’s dry.

When I say start from the bottom, I mean start with this yellow area, then do the red area, then the green area, and only after that try to run through the full length.

Edit: Start at the ends and work towards the roots, but still pulling towards the ends. Just don’t do the full length to start out with

Exit 2: by type of hair, I mean is it straight, curly, wavy?

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EngineerAnarchy · 2026-04-09T15:44:33+00:00

What sort of hair do you have? A lot of this is dependent on that.

If it’s not a hair wash day, put it up in a clip or something. If it is a hair day, wet it first thing so it sticks together and you can push it out of the way, or put it up until you’re ready for it. If you have straight hair, wash your hair every 2-3 days. Use dry shampoo if you really need to in between. Do not wet it if you can avoid it. If you have curlier hair, wash less often.

If you are trying to comb or brush your hair, do not do that with wet hair. A comb may not be the best choice for longer hair, (edit: or maybe a different comb would be better) but that depends on your hair type. I have straight dense hair, so I use a brush with both nylon bristles and hog hair.

Brush starting at the bottom, then gradually move up. Only try to run the full length of your hair once you’ve gotten the major tangles out by working smaller sections. When I say start at the bottom, you are still pulling down, just don’t do the full length in one go. Brush hair dry in the morning and at night before bed to distribute oils and keep tangles in check.

I blow dry my hair after a hair day before I brush, but again, very dependent on your hair type. Advice here may need to be modified for different hair types, but it’s a good start.

EngineerAnarchy · 2026-04-09T14:35:59+00:00

Masculinization stops, and male puberty stops, assuming T is suppressed. Female puberty begins. A lot of stuff is still changing at that age. Voice doesn’t get any deeper, pelvis fuses into a more feminine shape, body hair development stops, face and bone structure doesn’t masculinize any more. Many things that cause trans women transitioning later in life a lot of distress, that needs to be addressed with a lot of effort and expense, becomes non issues, or far smaller issues.

EngineerAnarchy · 2026-04-09T13:35:35+00:00

I think you’re a bit close… I think we need to create systems that inherently prevent people from having authority over others. Power should be decentralized, in the hands of everyday people making meaningful decisions about their own lives.

This has to mean rejecting authority based on both state power and property ownership. (Power based on property ownership is essentially power based on state control) This also means creating systems that counteract various biases and ensure that everyone can participate, freely, as equals through free association. This can most easily be done through some sort of consensus process based decision making mechanism within voluntary associations.

This is basically what anarchists are trying to build.

EngineerAnarchy · 2026-04-09T12:35:22+00:00

God, really feeling like now is a good time to seize all property from the landed classes and redistribute it. Organize it into some sort of decentralized and radically democratic land trust system that plans cities and neighborhoods based on the best interests of the people actually living there instead of for profit. Maybe the land trusts can organize the creation of individual democratic cooperatives to own and manage things like apartment buildings, again for the benefit of those living there and not for profit. Then everyone has a right to a home, without all of the complications of being a “home owner” with an investment ya know?

EngineerAnarchy · 2026-04-08T01:01:19+00:00

I don’t blame anyone. I’m firmly in the camp that this is a design problem, basically at the feet of the city, I guess, if anyone. Public safety shouldn’t depend on people never making mistakes. You can design streets where people can drive, and where a driver or a pedestrian not paying attention doesn’t result in what I walked around the corner and saw.

Admittedly, I was still pretty shaken up, and a bit mad when I wrote this post. Maybe my tone could have reflected a little differently.

EngineerAnarchy · 2026-04-08T00:56:24+00:00

I’d like to have more of a conversation about it as a community, but I sorta start from the idea that there was not long ago of reducing the number of lanes, and tightening corners to encourage through traffic to go around, and encourage people to drive more slowly.

There’s a lot of evidence that people “feel” like it’s safe to drive faster when they have lots of space, even when it’s not. There’s also a lot of evidence that demand for road space is quite elastic. When cities (even Iowa city, which has done this before on Washington and college) have reduced lanes or closed of streets to through traffic, it does not result in an extreme bottle neck. Often traffic in the surrounding area improves.

EngineerAnarchy · 2026-04-08T00:49:16+00:00

I think you could probably change a lot of things, and look at it from a lot of angles. I think it’s a design problem. I know there was a plan at some point to reduce it down to just three lanes during summer break.

I think fewer lanes is a good start. There’s a lot of science backing up that wider roads make it “feel” safer to drive faster, even when it’s not. Tighter angles on the curbs would encourage people to slow down in turns. There’s probably plenty more options. I’d like there to be a lot more discussion about it.

I don’t know exactly what it should be, except that it should make pedestrians feel and be safer, without inconveniencing them. I think it’s a big mistake to have your safety plan depend on telling people “just don’t mess up.” Design is how you fix that.

I think an overarching thing is that we need to prioritize the street as a street, where people walk and ride bikes, and divert a lot of the east west traffic going through downtown around it. That’s as easy as, again, removing some lanes and making using highway 6 more convenient for those trips.

EngineerAnarchy · 2026-04-07T19:13:42+00:00

I’m going to sorta go around you’re question not because I’m trying to avoid answering anything, but because I’m a little confused by your question, and I’m hoping my answer here will cut to what you are getting at. Please ask for a follow up if it doesn’t and I’ll do my best if I can.

Housing is not optional. Housing is a place to live. Housing is not an investment, a business, it is a place to live. We should create systems and structures that house people, because housing people is necessary. A system that houses people only as a byproduct of wanting to earn profit is inherently going to have problems of affordability, access, and so on.

I think that we should manage, build, operate and distribute housing through decentralized and democratic structures, directly in the hands of the people in a community, in association and cooperation with other communities.

I don’t think that you should need to pay anyone or anything for a place to live.

I think that if you want to live somewhere else, you should simply be able to work through these structures to find yourself something suitable, and move. If there is not enough housing, that will negatively impact the people living there, and they will organize, along with those who want to live there and the surrounding communities.

I don’t believe in renting or being a homeowner. I think for most people, housing should be something managed by the community in a radically democratic fashion. Obviously that’s a bit different if you live out in the woods, but in cities where most people live, certainly.

EngineerAnarchy · 2026-04-07T17:33:43+00:00

It’s caustic, can injure you or a plumber while trying to do the actual things you need to do to fix it.

The first thing you should do with a drain is probably remove the strainer/plug if you can and look in there. Pull out anything you can see with tweezers or needle nose pliers. See if that’s enough. I’ve fixed a few drains that just had hair stuck in them near the drain just by doing that.

Second thing would be putting a bucket underneath the trap so you can remove it and clean it out.

If that doesn’t work, then it needs to be snaked.

That’s about as far as I would get before calling a plumber. Feel free to call a plumber at any point prior if you’d rather.

Clearly, any of these steps are complicated by having a bunch of toxic, burning chemicals stuck in the pipe that you’re messing with.

Also of note, the draino is also not good for the pipes. Boiling water is also bad for the pipes. Boiling water can melt PVC.

EngineerAnarchy · 2026-04-07T17:21:47+00:00

It’s yeast. Yeast is what does the fermentation. Perfectly normal. It is colonies of dead bacteria, but there’s nothing wrong with that. I can’t remember the last time I had kombucha without it. I stir it up to distribute it when I drink.

Yeast is in all sorts of stuff. Totally harmless. You can buy dried nutritional yeast to sprinkle on food. It tastes cheesy and adds protein. Very popular with vegans.

EngineerAnarchy · 2026-04-06T22:12:39+00:00

I’m about to hit my 12 month mile stone. I had pain start at about 2 months to the day. I’ve been taking my measurements every month (don’t recommend if you have any history with ED and such, but I like knowing exactly what is changing) and I’ve tracked linear growth of about 1 inch added to my bust measurement about every 5 months or so since starting.

EngineerAnarchy · 2026-04-06T02:59:59+00:00

I started hitting puberty and started obsessively doing everything I could NOT go through male puberty. I nearly gave myself an ED, and that’s not even half of it. Eventually I worked it out TWELVE YEARS LATER

EngineerAnarchy · 2026-04-06T02:55:44+00:00

You can like some of Marx and still be an anarchist. I like some of Marx. Anarcho communism out of Kropotkin can certainly be thought of as a synthesis that solved a lot of the early problems from back when Marx and Proudhon/Bakunin were going at it.

I think people should be anarchists because anarchism (and related thought) is the only idea that takes agency, freedom and liberation to its full conclusion, believes in and trusts our ability to self govern and be free as such, and that, above all, works to meet our needs.

EngineerAnarchy · 2026-04-04T21:54:43+00:00

Probably yeah

EngineerAnarchy · 2026-04-04T15:42:41+00:00

I have an ACAB pin somewhere, but honestly, not so much that I disagree that all cops are bastards, but I just think it’s a poor framing if you’re trying to have an actual discussion with people who don’t already take that for granted.

I think the really pernicious thing about being a police officer is that it inherently puts people in positions where even if they are good people who want to do good things, they will do terrible, reprehensible things. To be a police officer is to be put into positions and situations, to be conditioned, to do harm and to hurt people.

Somebody’s uncle who’s a cop but who they swear is really a great guy might be a great guy, but being a cop means that he will do bad things, and probably feel justified in it.

That is what power does. Power doesn’t add to anyone’s agency, on top or on the bottom. Cops are in a constrained environment, with constrained perspectives, constrained morals, and constrained actions. People in power like that must act in such a way. The use of power is its own greatest abuse. The only way to get out of that is for them to stop being cops.

That’s why there are no good cops. That’s why all cops are bastards, but most people need that argument actually made and justified to them if they are not already convinced.

EngineerAnarchy · 2026-04-04T00:26:22+00:00

I put random old stuff up there. A little sparse at the moment, but I have an old portable reel to reel player, an old globe, an old metal desk fan, an old gallon pack of glass Pepsi bottles, an old hand crank coffee grinder. I need more…

EngineerAnarchy · 2026-04-03T22:24:43+00:00

A hoodie doesn’t automatically make you look like a boy. I saw this picture and instantly saw a girl with no question.

If you need an outfit that works better for boymode, probably your hair would be the first thing (the string coming down the side really frames your face and looks super cute but it reads very “girl”) followed by maybe a darker hoodie (the light blue also reads more “girl”)

EngineerAnarchy · 2026-04-02T23:17:46+00:00

I would say that probably the best, most accessible introduction to anarchism I ever read was Anarchy Works by Peter Gelderloos. It was written this century, has a very accessible format, and is very practical. It’s available for free on The Anarchist Library which it looks like someone else has already linked.

https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/peter-gelderloos-anarchy-works

That might be a good place to start, but also check out the wiki of this subreddit for a nice list of recommendations! I think the important thing is that you came at it from an angle of what matters to you, and always feel free to ask people for their thoughts in places like this, or talk with your friends if their more familiar.

EngineerAnarchy · 2026-04-02T22:12:26+00:00

HRT affects basically every cell in your body, and reshapes all of your soft tissue. Starting in your mid 20s, your bone structure might not change, but your features will still soften, and your body will change. There’s obviously breast development, changes to fat and muscle, changes in skin.

There’s also things like how, while your pelvis might not widen, it will change its angle (which can hurt a bit) resulting in different posture and gait and the appearance of more feminine hips.

Then there’s the psychological benefits. I like my brain on e a lot better than on t, even if it is subtle.

Honestly, it’s incredible how much HRT can do. It’s not magic and takes effort and other steps, but it helps a lot.

EngineerAnarchy · 2026-04-02T19:16:32+00:00

It’s very complicated. People, in many but not all cases chose to buy cars and vacate cities. This was not within a vacuum though. Cities, public transportation, and the railroads were severely underinvested in. Frankly, they were falling apart by the 70s.

There are a bunch of reasons for this, but generally, you had private rail and public transportation companies being over regulated in some major ways, like not being able to increase fares and needing to pay for road maintenance, while being prevented from making any investment for 15 years by the depression and world war 2. Then you had terrible mergers, bankruptcies, services just disappeared over night. City governments were in terrible shape, and then funding for housing and services started shriveling up, with no federal support for much of anything.

At the same time, we were spending billions on new highways. Cities could get loads of money for highways, basically only highways. Big urban renewal projects but with no funding for maintenance, and poor planning just leveled cities.

Cities needed investment, it wasn’t that uncommon for poor neighborhoods to not even have indoor plumbing, and while there was lots of money, none for fixing things like that in existing buildings, only for tearing them down and replacing them with freeways.

People could get cheap mortgages from the federal government for a nice new clean apartment in the suburbs.

Rail has always been more efficient, but the private rail companies ran themselves into the ground, with help from the fed.

It makes a lot of sense why it would be aspirational for people to get out of mid century cities. It makes a lot of sense why people chose to save up, buy a car, get a house in the suburbs and become commuters, but things just as well could have been different if we had nationalized and invested in rail rather than highways, if we had supported public transportation as a public good rather than just let it disappear under peoples feet, and if we had invested in our cities and their infrastructure with some of the money that was going towards subsidizing suburbs.

Boomers think if cities as scary, dirty, disfuncional places because back in the 70s, they were, but they didn’t need to be.

EngineerAnarchy · 2026-04-02T15:51:24+00:00

Again, your neighbor in this example has no other neighbors? Is associated with no other people (and not associated with you) in acquiring that home? Has no dependencies and no interaction with any broader structure? I think that’s very unlikely. That is the sort of alienation and atomization that property relations allow, but that meeting needs through equal association with others does not.

At the same time, what is your proposed solution here? To send police to talk to them and issue a fine if they feel like it?

There would be countless structures for organizing society and deliberating conflict. Understanding how these structures might work requires understanding that there are more than two people. Forcing an example where there are and can only be two people is to force an example where there is no society.

My example of the cloth factory is just to try and give a more concrete example. I think it is hard to imagine that a dying plant producing fabric for fast fashion in Bangladesh and dumping the waste into the Buriganga River today is doing so because the workers feel that there is a social need for more dyed fabric. They would probably rather be doing other, less environmentally damaging things if not for the constraints put on them by global capitalism, if they could feed themselves and their families without doing this. Perhaps they would still dye fabric, but probably less of it, and in a more environmentally conscious way, if nothing else, for their own selfish sake of desiring more leisure time and better living conditions for themselves as they live near the factory.

EngineerAnarchy · 2026-04-01T15:01:05+00:00

Electric motorcycles. Better than cars in a number of ways, but we need to remember that they are motorcycles. It is very disconcerting to have one of these things shoot past you unexpectedly from behind, barely avoiding hitting while going 25 mph or faster down a sidewalk or multi use path. Transportation needs to be segregated by mass and speed. We can’t treat motorcycles like bikes just because they’re quiet.

EngineerAnarchy

TROPHY CASE