As others have said here, I tend to spend a lot on computers, specifically a lot on computer hardware personally. I work in tech, and when I get home, I like to tinker and see what fun stuff I can do with them. I find it a very mindful, grounding, and fulfilling activity. I’m also a big fan of free and open-source software (and I’m also on lemmy, surprise surprise) so a lot of what I do is rigging up FOSS solutions for friends and family like a Jellyfin media server or a retropi. I’m very lucky that I’m currently in a position where I can afford small hardware expenditures like that and give them away to people who can use them. It makes me feel good, plus it (hopefully) popularises free software in my community!

As inasaba has said, Stoic philosophy is very helpful for simple living, but a book from a different school of thought that I really found quite a bit of value in is How to Do Nothing by Jenny Odell. It discusses a variety of ways to resist the attention economy of social media while also not becoming a hermit, by building small, local, and intentional communities, and setting aside part of your day to just mindfully doing something that brings you joy (The titular ‘doing nothing’) Plus, it’s popular enough that there are usually a few copies at your local library. If that’s not simple living, I don’t know what is!

So, reading this post, I’m left with a couple thoughts:

1. Elections aren’t fraudulent just because you don’t like how they’re conducted. I can think of good reasons why orgs would structure elections in that way. Only counting votes from people present prevents absenteeism, and no voter anonmymity means that people are responsible for the fallout of their choices. Note that there are certainly counterarguments for each of these points, but there are nonetheless good reasons to have elections like this. Elections in orgs don’t have to directly mirror elections in your state to be considered valid, and in fact, they probably shouldn’t.

2. As others have said, most anarchist orgs don’t really have elections as such. The organization attempts to reach consensus with a few conditions, and if consensus isn’t reached, those that dislike the outcome just won’t participate or will leave and start their own org.

This left thing that you’re in sounds like it’s not explicitly anarchist, but it’s hard to be sure from what you’ve said. If it’s not anarchist, then I guess your choices are to play by their rules, or leave and form an explicitly anarchist chapter that does something similar. Although I should note that playing by their rules isn’t necessarily a bad thing. I’m in plenty of leftist orgs who I’m not in 100% ideological agreememt with because they do good work. You’ve got to decide whether splitting is worth it or whether it’s better to maintain unity.

That anecdote ends with “Then they came for me, and there was nobody left to speak for me.” The state doing stuff is not inherently bad. The state doing stuff that weakens those who protest injustice, and disperses networks of resistance is. Huge megacorporations will never care about anyone but themselves, because that’s what they’re structurally set up to do. I wouldn’t worry too much about this legislation yet.

Not only can I, I’ve been living without a car in London for a few years now. As people have said elsewhere in this thread, grocery shopping is a pain, but it’s definitely doable. I think it helps that I live somewhere more or less central in town and not in suburbia hell. Like the real estate guys say: Location, location, location. It may or may not be possible to give up your car in London depending on where you live.

Wild ARMs is a pretty great PSX JRPG that would be a nice choice for a July GOTM because of its Wild Western feel. Wind Waker might also be a good choice. Regardless, I’m looking forward to seeing what wins, and playing it!