Xoiiku

@xoiiku.bsky.social

212 Followers 96 Following

I don't know and I could be wrong. 🖖 ⚡️ 🌎 🌍 🌏 ☀️ Ⓥ Nom de plume OOO Author of the Otherwise Series https://www.patreon.com/OberonOOdd

Chapter 00016 Niche In giant seaweed forest, growing in the rift valley along a mid-ocean ridge, a curious cuttlefish swims among scurrying copepods. "Deep below the surface, resting in a cozy space within an intricately interwoven tangle of seaweed fronds, there lived a cuttlefish.”
Chapter 00011 Library Spiraling bookshelves and anachronistic architecture illuminate myriad paths to knowledge. "Free to study, rather than just accumulate and memorize data, they began to develop a greater understanding.”
Chapter 00006 Caterpillar An idyllic view from the library into a lush garden outside of the window. "A large caterpillar crawled contentedly across the windowsill, pausing briefly in the afternoon sun which was warmly illuminating the reading room.”
Chapter 00001 Raven The abstract form of raven flies out into a vast desert, while a cougar and a wolf watch from high up on the edge a ledge between the trees. "He didn’t know if it was simply the lure of adventure, or if that was where the outermost edge of the known could be found."
Tao Te Ching - Lao Tzu - chapter 77 (as interpreted by Xoiiku) The way of Nature is like the bending of a bow, the top is lowered, and the bottom is raised. The way of Nature is for those who have taken too much, to return some to those who do not have enough. The Human way is different, they take from those who do not have enough, to give to those who already have too much.
Earthrise cover art for Otherwise Elsewhere 003 by Kirk Shannon
Earthrise cover art for Otherwise Elsewhere 001 by Kirk Shannon
Veganic permaculture pollinator garden and backyard wildlife sanctuary. Overview.
1972.12.07 "Blue Marble" Apollo 17 image AS17-148-22727.
Earthrise cover art for Otherwise Elsewhere 002 by Kirk Shannon
10:35 "Although I did have to go to another star system and find a literal alien to feel less alone." When so many people feel so alone, maybe it's time to stop comparing ourselves to the normies, and to start building community by actually listening to and being present with our fellow neurodivergents. 🖖 If we do, then maybe some of the people who are desperately trying to pretend to be normal, will relax and realize that there is life beyond the status quo. If we do, then perhaps we will begin to understand that the whole idea of normies with "typical brains" is largely a social construct. The moment that we let go of that malignant, myopic, and self-isolating notion; our awareness of ourselves and each other expands to be more inclusive, expansive, and accurate. Meaning that it is very likely that your thoughts, behaviors, interests, passions, and lifestyle is well within the actual set (as opposed to the conformist set) of the "normal" divergences of human beings. As such, there are probably many people who are complementary thinkers to you... that you could become friends with, as soon as you acknowledge they exist; which might require letting go of building your identity upon being so different from everyone else, while wanting the many of the same things that other people also want, and thinking about nerdy things that a lot of people enjoy thinking about. As sentient beings, all of us are unique, even while we have many things in common, and even though we express and would like to experience those things in myriad ways; that just might diverge from whatever local norm has been constructed around us by conformists and cowards throughout history.
Xoiiku: 14:17 "From the climate's point of view, it's an absolute clusterfracking catastrophe." 💯 A concerned netizen: What the fuck you doing to help fix this? Xoiiku: After studying sustainable agriculture, I went vegan more than 30 years ago. I've been a minimalist my entire life, and all of my possession can fit into a backpack and duffel bag. I'm car-free, child-free, pet-free, and I've paid the social and lifestyle costs of those choices in full. I've worked tirelessly for decades in environmental advocacy to try to help educate people about viable solutions to climate change and ecological collapse. I've also been writing a series of climate fiction books to try to reach people who don't usually read non-fiction, or who have read many of the excellent non-fiction books (Project Drawdown, Regenisis, Feed The People!, Not the End of the World, and others...) but are still curious as to why societies and individuals aren't adapting faster, and implementing ethically and ecologically coherent solutions as rapidly as possible. Oh, and I sometimes make and respond to comments on youtube, to help boost solutions-focused channels that encourage everyone to just have a think. What are you doing to help fix this? 🖖
Systems thinking is more complex than blaming everything on "The System". Create consensus around ecologically and ethically coherent solutions. Boycott business as usual, until those ecocidal corporations actually change or go bankrupt. Bridge the value-action gaps, by building accessible alternatives to the status quo. The revolution begins within, because societies are more or less representative of the aggregate of individual behaviors, desires, and worldviews. The powers that be want you to get burnt out, don't help them manufacture consent around not participating in and improving upon democratic processes. Solarpunks and environmentalists, who continue consuming meat and dairy, regardless of the idealized socioeconomic paradigms that they would like to organize themselves under, will continue to be complicit in the destruction and degradation of nature, because of the inherent ecological inefficiencies of animal agriculture.
Meritocracy is a reasonable idea in theory, so long as one's relative merit is being assessed in regards to the required tasks for a specific context. When merit is being advocated for by groups who are in power, and feel entitled to their privilege, it is almost always a dog whistle in practice. A just civilization would recognize the inherent worth of every person, and appreciate whatever kind of contribution they can make to society. The United States of America is a nation of immigrants, that at it's best, already has a clear and compassionate immigration policy: "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!" - excerpt from The New Colossus by Emma Lazarus
38:47 "...after the failures of the mainstream environmentalist movement, it seemed like there were no other options." I've heard this rhetoric about "no other options" for decades, and all it does is to demonstrate how unimaginative and impulsive people can be, if not also making it plain how willfully ignorant most people are of the systems that they participate in and depend upon. The mainstream environmental movement has failed for a plethora of reasons. First and foremost because those groups don't tend to focus on creating consensus around, or even educating their members about, viable solutions and alternatives. This is mostly because their funding model incentivizes them to tell people what they want to hear, and not to question or challenge their members to think critically or rationally about the aggregated impacts of their worldviews, diets, and lifestyles. Given how things on this planet are inexorably interdependent and interconnected, the only useful distinction between individual and collective action, is the aspect of it that you have more control over and the most responsibility for. Communities and societies are comprised of individuals, so if you want to change the world, start with yourself.
Earthrise cover art for Otherwise Elsewhere 001 by Kirk Shannon
"A little less than a teaspoon of water." If you're sourcing that from Sam Altman, many articles cite his estimate as less than one-fifteenth of a teaspoon. It's important that these numbers are reported as accurately as possible, such that we can make informed decisions about what we participate in, and have a useful understanding of the world. It's interesting and informative, when people are willing to think in terms of both individual and aggregated impacts. "2.5 billion queries a day. Add those up and..." Yes, that's a lot of water, and, do people know how much water that other things that they do everyday consumes? For instance, it takes roughly 660 gallons of water to produce a single hamburger. ChatGPT consumes about 0.0000868 gallons of water per response. If each hamburger is roughly equivalent to 7.6 million queries (660 ÷ 0.0000868 = 7,603,686). Then, 2.5 billion queries a day is equivalent to approximately 329 hamburgers worth of water (2,500,000,000 queries ÷ 7,603,686 queries = 329). In the United States alone, around 50 billion hamburgers are eaten annually. This breaks down to roughly 137 million hamburgers per day (50 billion ÷ 365 days = 137 million). With the water used for 137 million hamburgers, approximately 1.04 quadrillion (1.04 × 10¹⁵) ChatGPT queries could be run. We need to be as diligent about asking questions about the existing things, that are often overlooked and taken for granted, as we are about the new things. Given the current sociopolitical and economic realities of this world, there are many good reasons to be against using AI in various ways. However, misinforming people about the relative rates of water and energy consumption, without putting it in context, isn't helping people see things clearly.
A curious cuttlefish attempts to communicate with porpoise. Art by Kirk Shannon @kirkshannon.bsky.social
Chapter 00020 - While on a walkabout in the deep jungle a young Hylidae encounters an adventurous Stonefeather who is wandering toward danger lurking in the shadows... ...all will be well, if we heed the wisdom of the frogs. Art by Kirk Shannon @kirkshannon.bsky.social
Sun Day sun #6294; a wabi-sabi solarpunk vegan design by Xoiiku
Half-Earth Socialism - Coalition 22/33 - The Utopian, Fanonist, Ecofeminist, Accelerationist, Environmentalist, and Animal Liberationist are all allies.
One of the first images of Earth from space, The Blue Marble, in it's original orientation with the South Pole facing the top.
A lush and biodiverse backyard veganic permaculture garden and wildlife habitat.
46:30 "We're loosing ancient forests... mainly for cattle grazing and crop growing..." The majority of those crops are being fed to livestock. Therefore, animal agriculture is largest cause of deforestation worldwide. If you want to help conserve old growth forests, then choosing a plant-based diet is one of the most effective things you can do. The aggregate of our individual choices is our de facto collective action. If people are going to talk about "only taking what you need and minimizing harm," then they need to understand the realities of ecological efficiency and land use opportunity costs, while considering the perspectives of the other sentient beings that we share this planet with. The logical and compassionate conclusion is clearly advocating for eating lower on the food chain.
Xoiiku Moss, seen depicted as a relaxed and groovy dragon dryad who is being the cryptid that he wants to see in the woods. Art by Capwak @capwak.bsky.social
The symbol for Oberon Ouroboros Odd from the spine of the book Otherwise Elsewhere.
An image from somone's Goodreads Year in Books summary which shows Otherwise Elsewhere as the Loooongest book that they read this year.
"I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time - when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness." - Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World
A self portrait of Xoiiku in charcoal, which was inspired by "Harlequin Leaning" in the analytical cubism style by Pablo Picasso.