Rookie

@Space It's great, isn't it? I'm already a freelancer so life hasn't changed that much for me, but I am excited to see an up-shoot in remote work due by the pandemic. Life tastes so much sweeter when you don't have to deal with a daily commute and office politics. If all goes well this will become permanent for you, along with millions of other workers.

It's impossible. The U.S uses the first-past-the-post system. Smaller parties cannot gain any ground there. Unless the U.S. adopts a proportional voting system then there's no hope for voting outside the DNC.

@SickLuv Relax. The outbreak in France is light compared to what happened in Italy. Restrictions may be put in place as the number of cases increases in more municipal councils. Until then there's no reason to change the status quo. Premature lock-downs and restrictions will result in economic losses for the country in the long-term.

It's highly likely that the CDU will form a coalition with the Grüne and form a government arrangement similar to that of Austria. Vote Grüne so you can contribute to that. The Grüne in government will be a big step in the right direction for Germany. After 2025 you may finally get a SPD-lead government without the CDU. Maybe then you'll see some of the issues you mentioned addressed.

Just do it. Deactivate your social media accounts and see if you feel any different after a few weeks/months. You can re-activate them later.

Your country uses the First-Past-The-Post system, so your voter apathy is understandable. Still, you'd be singing a different tune if you were born into a more impoverished country, or if you had a much more difficult upbringing. There are people in your country who are barely scraping by, homeless, in poverty and are constantly having their benefits cut by the current administration. These people can't tolerate candidates who won't fight for their interests. We vote because it's the only power we have to influence the decisions our governments take while in office.

It's definitely up there. It's the least corrupt post-soviet state by far, it's decriminalized drug use since 2002, and ranks highly along a bunch of different international rankings. Population's tiny and declining soon, so you'll likely find a better quality of life there as the government dishes out benefits and freebies to boost the country's birth rate.

Offer SEO services to clients via various freelance websites. You could easily hit the $500 mark every month without having to work too much, and continue work with the same client(s) for months at a time.

@silene Plenty of progress has been made since the Brexit referendum in this country, in the same way that the U.S is still progressing under Trump's presidency. We'll be fine. @Light Lover Corbyn would have lost the election no matter what happened, mainly due to his overall incompetence, his refusal to commit to a Brexit position (even before the election), and his repeated failures to tackle anti-semitism within his. There were so many blunders between the 2017 and 2019 election that completely eroded public trust and confidence in him. I can vividly remember several polls where the public stated that they'd rather have a no-deal Brexit than see Corbyn as their prime minister in the run-up to the October 31st deadline. At the very least his manifesto had some inspiring ideas. I hope the 4-day workweek catches on in the upcoming years. P.S. nice profile picture.

I'm surprised that nobody's mentioned the FPTP voting system. The Tories only increased their popular vote share by 1.2% compared to the last election, which translated into 48 extra seats. Most of the votes under the FPTP system do not get any representation in parliament whatsoever, and smaller parties need to gain a huge amount of votes in order to win just a couple of seats compared to the main larger parties. As an example, the Liberal Democrats won 11.6% of the popular vote, but they only won 12 seats. While I agree that Corbyn's leadership has failed as he lost the public's trust during the brexit negotiations, the seat count does not accurately reflect voter intentions, nor the collective consciousness of the union. The UK is largely stage orange, with major cities and Scotland being the most progressive areas of the union.

I don't listen to news commentators, but I do read a lot of news articles. Sources for learning about all the social progress around the world: https://www.reddit.com/r/Positive_News/ https://www.reddit.com/r/UpliftingNews/ https://www.reddit.com/r/NoticiasPositivas/ https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/ https://www.positive.news/ https://positivr.fr/ For political news or news relating to specific countries, organisations (EU, EAEU, BRICS, MERCOSUR, etc) I do a search on DuckDuckGo and look a the articles under the News tab. Overtime you get a feel for which news sources are decent.

@Apparition of Jack https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_integration#Stages From an economic standpoint, one of the main reasons that Brexit is so foolish is we're economically disintegrating from our largest trading partner and re-imposing tariffs on our trade with them, while also losing out on all the trade deals that the EU have with other trade blocs and countries. Brexit thankfully won't make much of a dent on the global economy, nor will it massively damage the EU, with the exception of the Republic of Ireland which will be disproportionately impacted by Brexit due to how economically and politically integrated it is with the UK. The unfair toll on Ireland is a key reason for why the EU won't veto our extension requests; they don't want to be responsible for creating a crisis on the Irish border. Although support for the EU is at an all-time high, in some countries, namely France and Italy, far-right populist parties still threaten to wreck havoc with the European project. Getting rid of the UK should nonetheless give the European project more stability because of how poorly it's playing out. Quite a large number of financial firms, banks and businesses have relocated out of the UK and into EU countries so they can continue to work within the EU Single Market. Banks and other businesses are closing down their firms across the country. There's been a large increase in the number of Irish passports being issued to Brits since the 2016 referendum. London will soon no longer be considered as the financial capital of the world. All this highlights the UK's declining importance and the world's favouring of the EU over the UK. We may also see a slight drop in the importance of the English language within the EU, although I doubt it will be too significant. The Euro will strengthen as more EU states (Croatia, Bulgaria & Romania) will be adopting the Euro in the coming years. Without the UK's opt-out other member states won't be as tempted to hold onto their own currencies. I have no clue what a post-Brexit UK will look like. Probably the same place with higher prices, continued austerity due to the financial hit of Brexit, and an endless argument between conservative and regressive parties on whether or not we should be in a customs union with the EU. Our country will still be as divided as its ever been, with the poor suffering the most from our break with the EU. I assume the UK will re-join the EU in 3 decades after the older, more conservative generation die off. We'll likely have re-joined the customs union much earlier than that, and we'll use the Euro like all of the other member states. I'm excited to see how this will play out over the next few months.

Corbyn is vehemently demonised by almost everyone because he's a huge threat to the status quo. Unlike Sanders, Corbyn has almost no support among the general public or even his own party, to the point where the British public would rather face a no-deal Brexit than elect Corbyn as prime minister. I don't have a source for that, but I've seen several opinion polls which reflect this fact. Some of Corbyn's policies are surprisingly conscious and have a real possibility of ending years of austerity and re-distributing wealth across the country (something the UK is shockingly bad at, with most of the country's wealth concentrated in South-East England), but there's almost no chance that his policies will be realised. The British public don't trust him, they see him as dangerous, and they'd rather vote the Tories into power again. That being said, I would still vote Labour. They're the only party that has a chance of beating the conservatives, and they have a marginal chance of forming a government with a Labour-SNP coalition. From my point of view Brexit is now inevitable. The British public is too unconscious to realise their mistake, Emmanuel Macron is sick of our shit, and a people's vote would take too long to complete itself. On the flip-side, Scottish independence is imminent as soon as they get a second referendum, and Northern Ireland will likely reunify within the next 3 decades. Far-right parties in Europe who previously wanted to from the EU now want to reform it from within. Support for the EU across other member states is at an all time high, and a lot of people (including me) are now significantly more aware of what the EU is, does and how it affects our lives. Brexit is overall good.

The United States are largely responsible for the start of the drug war and the criminalization of drugs and psychedelics in the first place, and they spread these prohibitions to their allies across the Atlantic. Unless they start loosening and liberalizing their views and laws on drugs then it's unlikely that the rest of the world will follow suit, regardless of how far up the spiral their collective consciousness is. Let's not forget about the stigma and ignorance attached to the use of these substances. Nobody expected Portugal's drug policy to be as effective as it was at the time of its initial implementation, and still almost 2 decades later most of Europe has failed to follow suit and still criminalizes drug users, even after it's been proven to be effective. The psychedelic renaissance is strongest and has the most support in the US, so that's where legalization will most likely start. Europe is surprisingly puritanical when it comes to their drug policies.

MDMA clinics are opening in the US this year. https://www.reddit.com/r/UpliftingNews/comments/cv69re/the_first_mdma_clinics_in_the_united_states_will/ Psilocybin mushrooms will likely be decriminalized and legalized long before LSD and other psychedelics. Before the full legalization of these substances, I'm hoping that we can at least decriminalize mushroom spores and grow kits in more countries to make these substances more accessible. The current laws regulating spores and grow kits are all over the place. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_status_of_psilocybin_mushrooms

I have no clue on which programming languages are in demand, but here are a few other skills you can use to get a job: Copywriting Google AdWords Graphic Design Marketing (SEO, SEM, SMM) Photography Programming (Someone else will break this down for you) Project Management Proofreading & Editing Online Teaching/Tutoring Transcription Translation Virtual Assistant Web Development Writing

Sounds good to me brother. What you've outlined here is strikingly similar to the lifestyle I'm shooting for, except I'd favour living in a van. You can park it in more places, so it feels more like freedom. I suggest you also look into doing house sits once you make your Shuttle Bus lifestyle work. You get to stay in big homes for free, they're extremely quiet homes because it'll literally be just you inside, you get a temporary home base to settle into, and a proper destination to go towards while you're on the road. Once you can live anywhere you can pretty much drive to whichever house sitting gig you want. Here are some resources. I hope they can be of use to you. Best of luck attaining your freedom brother. https://www.mindmyhouse.com/sitters/search_assignments/country_72__sort_default#results https://www.housecarers.com/advanced-search-results-housesitters.cfm?co=us https://www.amazon.co.uk/How-live-van-travel-everywhere-ebook/dp/B0714DVK5Q/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1549670074&sr=8-1&keywords=mike+hudson+van

@Moreira God, I can only imagine how hard that must've been to suffer through, but I'm glad you're feeling healthier now. Ironically mackerel was one of the foods my mother tried to get to me eat because she thought that eating sardines = eating any type of fish... When my next batch of sardines comes in, I'll be sure to avoid anything more than 3 servings a week. Stay healthy, brother!

I may be posting this in the wrong place but I'm not sure where else I can get some opinions on this subject. My current consists of 100% plant-based foods, with one exception - sardines. Rationalisations about my concerns for my vitamin B12 intake, lack of taste in my diet when I have no plantain and/or dates, and fish not being meat, tends to pull me towards consuming them. They make their way into my diet about once a month. They're extremely small fish and are priced pretty cheaply at £0.40 for 120g (84g drained). What I want to know is simply - how bad is it for the body for me to be eating sardines? I notice no real changes in how I feel on a moment-to-moment basis unless I eat them everyday for a few days. I don't notice any bloating, feelings of being sick, apathy, increased reactivity or anything else that junk foods would otherwise give me. I've tried researching this online multiple times, but there are tonnes of deceptive studies out there...

@SgtPepper Because of my doubts on 1) The conductors of the research, who may have financial incentives to portray sardines in a positive light and thus obscure the truth, and 2) The method in which the supposed benefits have been derived from whatever studies were conducted. False studies I've seen from Food Industry, Pharmaceutical Industry and Tobacco Industry, and a bunch of others, have led me to be highly skeptical whenever I read any kind of research paper. Some the utter bollocks the Food Industry pumps out in regards to terrible foods being marketed as healthy, just led to me to being skeptical about sardines. I love them, but what I read seems to be too good to be true. But maybe I'm wrong. I hope I'm wrong in this case; It's rare that I can eat something now that both tastes good and doesn't kill me in the long-run.

Thanks for the speedy responses guys. @Moreira Sorry to hear about your experience with mercury. Do you mind elaborating on what exactly you experienced as a result of mercury accumulation? @SgtPepper The information I researched led me to the same conclusions too, but I'm wary of any non-plant based foods that sound like they're too good to be true, or a "good/great" alternative to meat. I'll slowly eat up my current supplies and hope for the best.

Daniel M. Ingram is the man you're looking for. He wrote this phenomenal book which is becoming increasingly expensive: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Mastering-Core-Teachings-Buddha-Unusually-ebook/dp/B079LW4J8K/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1545479599&sr=8-1&keywords=daniel+ingram

Those are some great intentions, but there are a lot of issues that immediately come to mind regarding regulating and enforcing this license, and how any group of people have the power to create an arbitrary test that an entire country must now adhere to so that they may have children. The backlash would be astronomical, and, depending on how many people pass the test, we could see a major plummet in birth rates, a growth in black markets and a mass migration out of whichever country this license was enforced in. From my perspective this is too radical, and will only create more problems than it hopes to solve. You can't stop obesity, neglect and child abuse by denying unconscious parents of their children. Societies tend to be pro-natal, and a HUGE chunk of the population believes that having a family = happiness. They won't just let this law pass through. They won't just go on as normal when they see other adults who were allowed to have children while they weren't. All kinds of violence and community issues would arise from this license. A better hope is just waiting for new male birth control methods to come online. Depending on how effective and available it is, it could systemically wipe out teenage and unwanted pregnancies for a whole generation, without causing massive backlash. Big Pharma's putting up a mountain's worth of red tape on those methods ever seeing the light of day, but it should help curb the births of children into poor, broken, and abusive households/communities.

Why not just give back to Leo? Your money would go much farther, and your contribution would feel more personal since you already have a pseudo-connection with him. https://actualized.org/tip-jar

S O L D Thanks Ariel. I've been reading some of your posts for a while and have always found them really insightful and inspirational. Thanks for creating a way for me to give back to you. I'll include your course link when I make my next journal entry too.