[meristohm]

I'm in my 40s, main job is parenting & homemaking, previously taught high school physics, math, and other science, also did some engineering/materials science, and I also do part-time work for a local public utility. I like it being feasible to walk to work again.

As we layer on the abstractions I feel further and further removed from the land that sustains us. It's an existential threat. I don't knowingly choose to use any products of LLM/ML, and I've scaled back my computer use to: reading some blogs (low tech magazine & no tech magazine, plus sites linked from there); access to library ebooks; medical access for family; credit-unioning; watching a streamed show with my spouse for date night or something on PBS with the family (otherwise I don't bother with streaming, and I can imagine a time again when I don't even read, but a lot has to heal/reassemble for that to be tenable); and keeping up distance friendships via videogames (BG3 and Solium Infernum are all I play these days, and then almost never solo, after decades of "self-medicating" after a rough childhood).

I read mostly nonfiction now, towards being a knowledgeable member of the rural community I'm in, inspired in part by Jessica Carew Kraft's book Why We Need to be Wild. We're in this together, and the best place to start is with those within walking distance.

[paulcole]

> As we layer on the abstractions I feel further and further removed from the land that sustains us. It's an existential threat.

“Abstractions” is a lovely euphemism for “people.” You’re distanced from the land that sustains you because at the bottom of the ladder are people doing the work.