I really like stuff from Neal Stephenson and recently enjoyed Perido Street Station by China Mieville a lot, but those aren't exactly light reading. You have to be able to stomach a lot of infodumps that don't really go anywhere.

I've also been getting into Cory Doctorow a lot. His stuff is a lot less dense and the themes he explores will often be of interest to the people here.

I'm also catching up on Terry Pratchett's Discworld series, which comes highly recommended. It's lighthearted fantasy that still manages to talk about Important Stuff, such as morality, power, inequality, etc.

That's not a meaningful question.

The state props up and defends systems of oppression and inequality such as capitalism. I might be more sympathetic towards Marxists than most here but the idea that you can channel state power in a completely beneficial direction just doesn't add up.

Similarly, capitalism requires a state to function.

Capital and the State are like one of those bosses in RPGs where if you don't kill them at roughly the same time, they just heal each other back to full health.

Leaving aside that the word "criminal" might become meaningless in an anarchist society, it would depend on the specifics. What community, what act, what does the perpetrator want, what does the victim want, what does their respective loved ones want, etc.

/u/celebratedrecluse does a good job addressing this already, but the question as it stands simply can't be answered.

The idea of an "ideal anarchist society" isn't something most anarchists are interested in. Anarchism is a process, not something we can actually achieve. Our struggles are perpetual and we'll always need to be on the lookout for how a society can or should be changed. There's always risk of hierarchies establishing themselves or individuals and groups needlessly restricting others.

To pretentiously quote someone:

I am an Anarchist not because I believe Anarchism is the final goal, but because there is no such thing as a final goal.

-- Rudolf Rocker

Similarly, the idea of punishment and crime aren't necessarily useful to describe anarchist approaches towards justice, transgression, and deviance.

From wikipedia

They typically produced short, fast-paced songs with hard-edged melodies and singing styles, stripped-down instrumentation, and often political, anti-establishment lyrics. Punk embraces a DIY ethic; many bands self-produce recordings and distribute them through independent record labels.

(Emphasis mine)

It has a lot to do with a shared background, politics, aesthetic, etc.

Do you think that it could help me even if they just gave me antidepressants for a systemic issue?

Maybe, although other forms of therapy might be better-suited for you.

Medication doesn't help you actually deal with systemic problems but can make it easier to cope. A therapist might be able to give you a different perspective or coach you towards a solution.

Why can't people even consider that we're going to have to change the way we live rather than just change what powers our devices?

I think most people genuinely can't imagine that being the solution and I can't blame them. Over the last few centuries, improvements in technology have directly solved a lot of problems for people. Okay, it also created a ton of problems, but seeing as the direct material conditions of people in the West improved, they didn't think about those problems too much.

Additionally, propaganda (in the broadest sense of the word) continues to promote a future which is pretty much the same as today, but "better" in some vague way.

I've not been in the mood for gaming lately. I've started the newest God of War, which is very fun, but my spouse and I agreed that I wouldn't play beyond where they got and they haven't been playing a whole lot.

The other games I was playing were Assassin's Creed Black Flag and Horizon: Zero Dawn but I put those on hold since things were getting a bit boring. Constantly doing the same handful of activities for basically no reason. Horizon, at least, has interesting worldbuilding and enemy design.

I've also been playing Overwatch again but the community and team play is so hit-and-miss that even starting the game can be draining.

I feel ya. I've deleted reddit on my phone and I'm increasingly limiting its availability at work. Technical solutions often help.

The game had potential for a story like this during the first one but didn't quite follow through after that. It's a real shame.

only to hear them say something sexist, racist, transphobic, classist, etc that I just lose all affability towards them

Yeah, I feel that. I have some rather close friends that I've know for years and it took me over a year to get them to stop using "gay" as a general pejorative. They're also casually racist and generally pretty bourgeois so there are topics that I often avoid near them.

That being said, I find myself able to be friends with people I disagree with. It's a mark of privilege, to an extent.

At some point, it's just better to be alone.

That's just terrible for your mental health. Ideally, we could find other likeminded people to befriend but who has the time and energy for that?

I was reading through the article and was like: "Wait, I'm not emotionally stunted and I do put in effort to maintain friendships but I still feel like I'm losing a lot of friends for no reason." The article, however, addresses this as well:

After several failed relationships, Scott Shepherd realized that despite being an empathetic, self-aware guy, he was still missing a key element to his emotional health: a few good (woke-ish) men.

And yeah, that's a problem as well. I don't have a lot of options for this in my immediate circles and I honestly have no clue how to solve that.

I also think, and the article doesn't really address this, that this is made worse by the general alienation of capitalism and how it sucks out your energy and free time. It's just hard to find time and energy to do meaningful activities with anyone. It's even hard to do them with my spouse and we live in the same house.

There's also a crowdfunding attempt by the users to buy the site (Tumblr) but I'm not sure how serious that is.

That's a weird interpretation of utilitarianism.

This stems me slightly more hopeful than previous European election results, but I doubt it'll meaningfully change anything.

In fairness, it's a pretty old card. I won't claim that any company is "woke" but Creative has developed more sensitivity to real-world politics.

This resonates hard. Disturbingly so. I've never been in favor of strict non-violence but I've never considered myself a violent person. But more and more I've found myself returning to thoughts of violence, seeing as it seems the only path to some form of mitigation of climate catastrophe. It's pretty worrying.

Such a weird card. I always consider putting it in a deck, but it pretty much always falls short. Although it might find a home in my ADHD-themed commander deck.

It isn't, not really. The article describes the NV-A (New Flemish Alliance) as a center right party that's somewhat courting far-right voters. In reality, they have a very strong far-right contingent and the party as a whole is becoming much more radical. They're just very savvy with their wording and maintaining plausible deniability.

Recently, a far-right youth group Schild en Vrienden (somewhat similar to the Proud Boys in the US) was made public. Most of these guys were talking about voting NV-A, protected a talk by one the most popular NV-A members, and NV-A kept mostly silent about the whole affair.