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  • Evan Lightelight@tenforward.social
    Oct 31, 2026, 1:38 PM

    @lifewithtrees @pathfinder @Tamtam @autistics Indeed, it is countercultural in almost every culture. Cultures generally favor conformance. I'd argue that it is almost one of the definitions of a culture: it's what defines someone who is part of the tribe from someone who is not.

    Tribalism and, so, fear of the foreign is an aspect common to many species. I have to imagine that this naturally evolved from the scarcity mindset needed to survive. Capitalism thoroughly encourages this mindset. For that matter, it keeps us concentrated more on our same and near-rung social competitors and far less so on those further up the contemporary feudal hierarchy that we live in. And that's how capitalism likes it.

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  • TamtamTamtam@mastodon.de
    Oct 31, 2026, 1:59 PM

    @elight @lifewithtrees @pathfinder @autistics patriarchal non- cultures do. I wouldn't generalize that. culture is a human thing. Every dominant patriarchal culture is underpinned by the creativity of grassroots or counterculture ( or whatever you want to call it) As every such cultures is underpinned by female unpaid labor. Hierarchies that are prevalent in most of today's cultures, live on the creativity and labor they suck out of the diversity that exists on the bottom tier of their construct. We are still one species. Energy , ideas, and creativity still flows from all kinds of people just the hierarchies are tying to control and use/abuse it, which comes with a lot of restriction and suppression that ultimately makes us poor and stuck in uncreative ways, through which those cultures( as ours) then destroy themselves. Then the cycle begins again, Until we learn not to do that anymore. Not to fall for artificial scarcity, control, power, fascist leaders and not have our primal fear and aggression instinct manipulated into war and destruction. And reconnect to abundance of the real and the natural world.
    Or it did start again. This time we'll have to learn. It won't restart. Because the bottom tier has always been nature, and it's marvelous creativity, diversity and abundance. And it bears no more cycles.

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  • Evan Lightelight@tenforward.social
    Oct 31, 2026, 2:13 PM

    @Tamtam @lifewithtrees @pathfinder @autistics I respect your optimism and also disagree with it. Human nature seems to be to repeat the mistakes of the past when we either forget or believe that we are somehow exceptional in ways that the lessons of the past no longer apply.

    There are too few of us, and we are all different and sparse, that I strongly doubt that we NDs can create and foment such an idyllic culture, standalone or otherwise. History supports this.

    I say this because I don't see our species as substantially more intelligent, in some ways, than others. The vast majority, including even us, often function from the older parts of our brains. Those parts consume less energy. And conserving energy, when possible, is a behavior of life.

    That said, it is one of our peculiarities that we hyperfixate, and, so, fail to conserve, that causes us to appear uncanny.

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  • Evan Lightelight@tenforward.social
    Oct 31, 2026, 2:22 PM

    @Tamtam @lifewithtrees @pathfinder @autistics A way to foster these cultures you seek is to create them ourselves.

    I did this, two decades ago. I a subculture focused on encouraging tolerance and inclusion and mutual support, akin to what you described. I partially succeeded but the cost to me was high: the emotional labor to hold it together, to steer it toward the unselfish yet just close enough to the mainstream to encourage more participation.

    It cost me too much. And it contributed to the bill of suffering that led to the burnout I have existed within for years now.

    Constructing and maintaining a subculture so out of alignment with the dominant culture either takes an immense selfish drive or its opposite. Neither of these are sustainable.

    The dominant cultures win because they appeal to natural human instincts. We, NDs, tend to exist outside or adjacent to those natures.

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