I feel that concern wrt burning places you have to do legitimate business at. For those places, I like couponing a lot--at least in the USA (not sure about other places) there's a good amount you can do even nowadays with stacking sales/coupons/rebates/etc. People pull some shady shit too, using quirks in how the registers work to use more than one coupon per product, stuff like that. Some stores (cashiers, managers, etc) may be less tolerant than others, but generally it's really low risk for a good amount of stuff if you develop a good system. I used to go every week just to see what I could get for pennies or free until I ran out of space

coughAnti-school praxiscough

No idea about the security system, but could you shim open a window somehow? Maybe? Idk

As for the teachers' belongings, I think that'd be up to you really. Some teachers are okay I guess, some are utter asshats, but ATAB

Am I just plain retarded

Probably there'd be a better way of expressing that? Those ideas do a lot of harm--probably including to you, partly (tho obviously not primarily in any way), with the fear of being considered it

Good luck!!

sorry for the late response.

Oh, okay! That makes sense actually. Out of curiosity (if you're still invested in this thread!) would you not see any value then in extending the term "anarchist" (either as an adjective or a noun) to any context outside of anarchism as a culture/ideology? Or would that just muddle the anarch-ic with all the baggage of anarch-ism?

apologies for late response.

most fish aren't intellectually complex creatures. humans are.

I'm sure you mean well, but this is genocide logic. I will link an essay, not in an educate-yourself sort of way, but just because it'll express my thoughts here much better than I will.

if all fish hated their tanks and desired freedom, most aquarists would be able to recognize that discontent.

the last people that should be trusted to do so.

happy in captivity

The only type of happiness in captivity is a shallow, manufactured, unsettled one. It is the happiness of Wendy's and a constant room temperature of 24 degrees Celsius.

also to note, bettas, of all species, are tropical fish. assuming the OP lives in the US, they would die a slow, painful death in all waters in the country besides maybe florida and stuff, where they would instead either become horribly invasive if they find more betta splendens or be eaten instantly due to their flashy, selectively-bred colors.

That's fair. I wasn't trying to advocate doing such a thing without researching what habitats they'd be best suited to, or the effect on the local ecosystem. But, honestly, what would alternatives be to releasing them (the ones that already exist) somewhere? The needle? Forced sterilization? (The latter being much more popular, to the point of being actively popular.) Some third option, like networks of animal sanctuaries? There's gotta be something that's neither genocidal, ecocidal, nor leaving them to their fates, looming forever ahead of them.

have you ever seen indoor-outdoor cats? very common. they would definitely not come back if this was always true.

I have--I "have" one. Firstly, there are many issues with consent here even if they "come back" -- primarily that they may or may not have ever learned how to take care of themselves without it. I certainly haven't. Secondly, there's a big difference between being able (both physically and in terms of being "allowed") to come and go from a home base as you please and being trapped inside it. chased down any time you happen to get out, if you have some spirit left. tracked down by the local community to be returned back.

(also, sorry op? this sort of conversation probably wasn't really what you had in mind with this thread)

and part of what they need to be culturally secure from here is the site itself.

sorry for the late reply.

appreciate the honesty. and that is actually consoling. feels important to at least acknowledge

apologies for late reply.

I don't mean to attack you in particular, or act entitled to any sort of labor. Just pointing it out.

unless you're also a kid, this whole 'ageist' line is giving me a bad vibe

Well, I shouldn't admit it if I were, should I? And if I weren't, maybe I'd be speaking from my own past experiences of humiliation and degradation being treated and viewed by the world like that. It's not like there's ever a stable body of people that can maintain any sort of constant identity to speak from here.

Apologies for late reply.

Yeah I back down from that statement. I don't think is a was a good or useful argument to make.

okay :)

You seem to fail to bring up the inherit power dynamics when someone with a developing brain can be harassed by someone with a fully developed brain. I brought up the drug and illegalist stuff because risk assessment is one of the last parts of human brains to develop.

I question the rhetoric of "developing" and "developed" brain at all? The science of whose brain is more developed than whose doesn't exactly have the most egalitarian history, or motives. I don't think it's a coincidence that there's this system in place to brutally condition all domesticated beings from birth into the logic of this hell-world AND the dominant scientific dogma (and I say dominant, because there's contradictory science) cleanly justifies this by claiming their brains are faulty and need the coercive 'guidance' of 'developed' (and fully-conditioned) beings. I know deconstructing that way of thinking feels...dangerous, like you're setting people up to be abused, but that fear is what makes it so pernicious. There are other ways of understanding that abuse that doesn't reinforce the logic of oppression culture.

Also it seems like her beliefs are making her parents worried for her, so I can't image they would be too upset that people on the internet where trying to convince her to be less violently radical.

Who gives af what her parents think? Unless you're just worried about possibly them using their legal power and protect-the-children rhetoric to attack Raddle, but like, still.

Edit: maybe having a rule where we younger people have to make a new special account type. It might have some specifications like

• unable to post or comment in illagalist and drug forums( the drug forums are debatable)
• DMs disabled except for admins
• have a culture where people will convince them to get a little older before going out and doing illegal and or violent praxis.

Yeah, that's all adultist af. Goddamn.

Again, this feels blatantly discriminatory. Unless there's some more cover-our-asses logic there I'm missing, that's pretty openly ageist gatekeeping.

Ethical reasons?

Overall this logic feels...I dunno, I was considering saying hypocritical or something, but maybe it's more that I'm not sure how strong one's argument for self-protection would have to be to justify(?) open discrimination against an entire demographic of people.

The existence of factory farms (or farms at all, arguably) proves that the all-consuming domination of at least a-human animals by at least humans exists, so claiming the concept of "anarchy" doesn't apply to their lives at best abandons them to be imprisoned forever, at worst naturalizes their imprisonment. And that's just one facet of it -- any life one claims "anarchy" doesn't apply to is one that can experience fierce authoritarianism bereft of solidarity from others.

I don't see a need to or the benefit of extending the concept of anarchy to apply to non-human beings. What does it matter to me if the nightshade is living in anarchy? It provides nothing to further anarchy by explaining that a nightshade's life is anarchic. Humans aren't nightshades.

Isn't that...sort of...blatant human supremacy?

Indeed. Maybe it's even against culture? Hmmm

Oh, I forgot to add: that rhetoric will inevitably lead to further policing of youth, the extension of the already near-comprehensive surveillance of their lives deeper and deeper where there might've been room to breathe. That is the inevitable response to the "corruption" of the "innocent": tightened control during the pre-existing process of their production as citizens by adultist institutions.

Hmmm! Maybe there's something there that has to do with, like, "the domicile" as the center of domestication? Or as a base at least? Indoors/outdoors: the outdoors are uncivilized and uncontrolled, and the indoors are civilized and controlled. It requires constant activity in the form of labor to maintain this controlled, human-dominated environment. Traditionally, "men" maintain and expand empire in the field, while "women" maintain and expand empire by...what, maintaining this controlled space that frames their lives? And requires them to depend on the products of empire through it? And then provides the controlled environment for the intimate domination of their children's lives, which expands empire reproductively.

It feels like I'm missing a lot of nuance, but I think this anti-cleaning thing is onto something!

Not sure if phone farming is still a thing? I've also heard of people really taking advantage of checking account and credit card sign-up bonuses, which come from banks, yay! (And contributes to horrid things the more money you have the account/the more you spend I suppose, which I guess would be something to balance)

Yay! More anti-monogamy in the world :D

My approach though is less "abolish monogamy because it's gained a privileged position above non-monogamous identities" (if that's what you're saying?) and more, "monogamy is an identity that is then given privileges (if any other identities are granted existence to reincorporate dissent) because it is useful in its abusiveness, abolish it." Or something.

The dynamics you describe are a big part of why I'm uncomfortable calling myself "polyamorous," or any identity like that, as opposed to just refusing monogamy: it's not that monogamy "isn't for me," and "live and let live," or whatever? It's that I think monogamy's gross just in itself and I want it to die. It's part of my indignation at the idea of someone having claiming that kind of control over what my relations with others I have, but not because of a personal preference or "orientation" or whatever, because I find that kind of relation abusive.

I don't want to consider myself any "alternative identity" in large part because they're designed to coexist alongside the mainstream ones and assimilate dissenters back into the citizenry, as one can see with how polyamorous arrangements often serve the same reproductive purpose as monogamous ones. (More and more so the more accessible such narratives become to reactionaries, the more they take on a pacifying respectability. Like how same-sex marriage can look so much like a patriotic couple with 2.5 well-behaved kids in the suburbs with a picket fence paying bills and getting to work on time.)

As for other writing, I think rolequeer theory has some analysis like this? I know the theorists would think it, or something like it. I can't find one essay in particular after a brief internet search, so it's possible what I'm thinking of is just that I applied those ideas to what I was already thinking about monogamy? Either way, I recommend it! While current me disagrees with some of the theorists about some things, like the desirability of holding on to identities of oppression, it has lots of fascinating and useful ideas, especially the "consent as a felt sense" idea.

You know, I've been thinking about this for years -- and was faced directly with it for years after becoming truly conscious of it -- and I don't think projecting this "innocence" narrative on young people is really helpful? It often comes from people trying to be kind, but when it comes down to it it's not all that much.

Like, it's one thing to have compassion (and if you're being honest with yourself and them, all the other emotions you have about what they do/have done, possibly including a raging hatred) for someone who's within the ideological narratives of oppression culture, but it's another I think to reduce them to the "innocent" subject. It's just sort of condescending, and incredibly degrading. (What adult isn't insulted at being called a "child"?) This is a pretty well-established instinct when it comes to sexism, when "women" are the innocents that must be protected/didn't know what they were doing/are poor sad victims. Sin and innocence are two sides of the same coin -- both are tools of social control. The framework is rotten.

The breakdown of the sin/innocence binary is where the perpetrator/victim binary breaks down too, which I think you're coming across! Are veterans perpetrators of imperial violence, or victims of it? Are homophobic "men" who police others' and their own performance of masculinity perpetrators of gendered violence, or victims of it? Are those industrialized citizens who buy products originating from vast, incalculable systemic violence (as they all are, really) partially out of entitlement and partially out of a dependence on the economy and partially to fill the holes in their souls victims of socioindustrial destruction, or its lifeblood? Has one walked into the armored belly of the beast to be incorporated, or been dragged into it? Usually it's both, or rather, elements of both narratives but really neither. Ultimately there's only the Consumption, and personally I don't think imposing either of those narratives onto people is very helpful to understanding the workings of it, let alone liberating for those within it.

Just my thoughts. Don't mean to rip you apart, heh!

I mean, calling it some other word doesn't make it less of a cage. It's a box they're forced to live in in order to contain them and they're prevented from escaping. It's a cage. A "crate" is a nicer word for a cage, a "pen" is a nicer word for a cage, a "carrier" is a nicer word for a cage. So is tank.

And, really? Have you asked them? If the dangers of freedom are so unsurmountable it's worth living literally in the same clear box your whole life, why does anyone ever try to leave? Why do even pets who've lived in captivity their whole lives run away at the first opportunity? Why do feral cats object so strongly to being recaptured? If you imagine a human in that scenario, is it or is it not workable as the basis for a low-grade horror film?

There are always dangers to freedom, and there's always a learning curve when you step out of your cell. The stresses of that change are important and can be mitigated through mutual support in that transition. That doesn't mean you're better off in your prison, or that anyone else has the right to decide that you are.

I was referring to their tank, the small transparent container they were presumably planning on putting the fish in to live every day until they died, so yes.

...So letting them go free in the world (that admittedly they probably don't have any experience with, which isn''t something to be looked over) is abusive, but forcing them to live in a cage their whole life isn't?

I have no practical experience with this, but it doesn't seem very difficult? If you have any old bank statements or bills online from your housed life (from within some frame of time?) I think it would just be a matter of photoshopping the new address onto it. I doubt they do any verification of the document? But they'd also mail the license to you at that address (and maybe other things?) so I feel like finding and accessing that drop spot would be the tough part logistically. And someone who legitimately lives there finding that mail and snitching on you.

There aren't any housed friends or friendly progressive strangers available to volunteer to let you claim residency at their place? If you could find that, then you could just open a bank account under that address if you have an alternative ID and use a document from that bank, or switch a cell phone/credit card bill/bank account statement to that address (possibly making sure it looks like you got it physically? not sure whether that's required). Maybe that's obvious and you've already thought of it though.