Use TROMjaro we even have an ads and tracker blocker system wide, thanks to @TBlock so even when Linux distros will start to insert ads, because some will in the future I am sure, then you'll be protected against this bullshit.
A Trade-Free operating system based on Manjaro Linux Designed for your brain, but you can install it on a computer.No more ads and trackers consuming you, no ‘free’ trials, noContinue readingHOME
A Trade-Free operating system based on Manjaro Linux Designed for your brain, but you can install it on a computer.No more ads and trackers consuming you, no ‘free’ trials, no …
More than 60 naturally occurring steviol glycosides in the Stevia rebaudiana Bertoni plant share a similar molecular structure with an aglycone steviol backbone conjugated with β- and α-glycosidic bonds to different sugar moieties. These glycosides are naturally produced in different quantities within the stevia leaf. Certain minor glycosides with superior sensory attributes, such as Reb D and Reb M, are found less than 0.1% in traditional stevia leaves. New technologies can now produce better tasting steviol glycosides by using enzymatic conversion of stevioside and Reb A, which are abundant in stevia leaf. Several regulatory authorities recently evaluated steviol glycosides produced by enzymatic conversion of stevia leaf extract and approved them safe for human consumption. Steviol glycosides undergo microbial hydrolysis in the colon to generate steviol, which is absorbed and metabolized into steviol glucuronide, and excreted primarily via human's urine. Previous studies have shown the hydrolysis of highly purified individual steviol glycosides extracted from stevia leaf... show more
More than 60 naturally occurring steviol glycosides in the Stevia rebaudiana Bertoni plant share a similar molecular structure with an aglycone steviol backbone conjugated with β- and α-glycosidic bonds to different sugar moieties. These glycosides are naturally produced in different quantities within the stevia leaf. Certain minor glycosides with superior sensory attributes, such as Reb D and Reb M, are found less than 0.1% in traditional stevia leaves. New technologies can now produce better tasting steviol glycosides by using enzymatic conversion of stevioside and Reb A, which are abundant in stevia leaf. Several regulatory authorities recently evaluated steviol glycosides produced by enzymatic conversion of stevia leaf extract and approved them safe for human consumption. Steviol glycosides undergo microbial hydrolysis in the colon to generate steviol, which is absorbed and metabolized into steviol glucuronide, and excreted primarily via human's urine. Previous studies have shown the hydrolysis of highly purified individual steviol glycosides extracted from stevia leaf are converted to steviol in the presence of colonic microbiota of adults. Since colonic microbiota of children may be different from adults, this study investigates the metabolic fate in the colonic microbiota of adults and children of the minor steviol glycosides produced by extraction and enzymatic conversion of major steviol glycosides from stevia leaf. Several in vitro incubation tests were conducted in human fecal homogenates collected from adult and pediatric populations with steviol glycoside test samples comprised of a complex stevia leaf extract, a blend of minor glycosides isolated from stevia extract and two mixtures of steviol glycosides produced by enzymatic conversion of Reb A to larger molecules by attaching glucose units via β- or α-glycosidic bonds. Results from these studies clearly demonstrate steviol glycosides produced by extraction from stevia leaf, or enzymatic conversion of stevia leaf extract, share the same metabolic fate in the human gut microbiota from adults and children. Considering a common metabolite structure and a shared metabolic fate in all ages, safety data for individual steviol glycosides can be used to support safety of all steviol glycosides produced by extraction and enzymatic conversion of stevia leaf extract. #Stevia #kombucha #ikombucha ro #ikombucha pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/327455…
Stevia rebaudiana Bertoni is a valuable plant whose products are increasingly used in medicine, pharmacy and the food industry. This necessitates the use of biotechnological approaches for its mass propagation. Establishing optimal conditions for in vitro cultivation is essential for obtaining high biomass and secondary metabolites production. A large number of articles considering the role of plant growth regulators and other additives in the culture medium in the growth and development of Stevia are available in the literature. However, there are no summarized data about the use of nanoparticles in Stevia tissue cultures. Therefore, this review also includes the research conducted so far on the effect of nanoparticles on Stevia micropropagation. Furthermore, the influence of different elicitors on secondary metabolite production and antioxidant activity of in vitro-cultivated Stevia plants have been discussed. By referring to the collected literature, we concluded that biotechnological approaches applied to S. rebaudiana cultivation might improve the agronomic traits of plants and... show more
Stevia rebaudiana Bertoni is a valuable plant whose products are increasingly used in medicine, pharmacy and the food industry. This necessitates the use of biotechnological approaches for its mass propagation. Establishing optimal conditions for in vitro cultivation is essential for obtaining high biomass and secondary metabolites production. A large number of articles considering the role of plant growth regulators and other additives in the culture medium in the growth and development of Stevia are available in the literature. However, there are no summarized data about the use of nanoparticles in Stevia tissue cultures. Therefore, this review also includes the research conducted so far on the effect of nanoparticles on Stevia micropropagation. Furthermore, the influence of different elicitors on secondary metabolite production and antioxidant activity of in vitro-cultivated Stevia plants have been discussed. By referring to the collected literature, we concluded that biotechnological approaches applied to S. rebaudiana cultivation might improve the agronomic traits of plants and steviol glycosides production. #Stevia #kombucha #ikombucha ro #ikombucha pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/366162…
Stevia rebaudiana Bertoni is a valuable plant whose products are increasingly used in medicine, pharmacy and the food industry. This necessitates the use of biotechnological approaches for its mass propagation.
ZDay, also known as The Zeitgeist Day, is an annual event organized by The Zeitgeist Movement (TZM) for the past many years. For those unfamiliar, TZM started as the activism arm of The Venus Project back in 2008 I think.
Anyway, they were making these annual events where they would invite all sorts of people to give talks, mostly those active within the movement. Some talks were very interesting, some boring, a few very weird 🙂 . But overall I was always interested in this ZDay and I would watch it either live or the recordings. At least some of the interesting ones (in my view).
For the past few years I tried to get myself into these ZDay evens to present TROM. I was close to get to the Frankfurt one a few years back, but they had no more available spaces for my presentation. A few months ago I’ve red that there is a new ZDay coming in Prague, and it would be the last one because TZM wants to decentralize the movement. So, being the last one, combined with the fact that one of my best TROM friends lives in Prague,
I said that now is the time for me to invite myself to ZDay :). And make sure I go there!
I sent some 2-3 emails but got no reply. After a few weeks someone got back to me and told me that they are aware of TROM and they would like to have me there.
Exciting!
You see I always kept myself active with TROM, but I was never invited anywhere to present it. Maybe it is because before 2018 I was not willing to do these sort of things at all, and I would not put myself out there. But also because I am not on Facebook, Whatsapp, Telegram, Discord and all of these trade-based platforms where most activists hang out, so I did not make friends/contacts with any of them really. And I get the feeling that this is how you get into these events.
Anyway, excited to go. I had a month to prepare but I worked more than half of the month on a new big release of TROMjaro. So I had around 2 weeks left to come up with a presentation. We do so much at TROM that it is insane to try and present it all in 30-40 minutes, the time they would give me for my talk. So I had to come up with a more unique way of presenting it.
It was my first time using LibreOffice Presentation so it took a few days to get used to it, but then I LOVED it! You can easily animate stuff, create shapes, paste images, do it all!
My talk would be called: How to Grow a Saner Society. A Lifetime Adventure!
I wanted to keep it more positive and focused on our trade-free approach. I figured that the people who were familiar with TZM are already over-saturated with the “how bad this society is” and want to hear something new. Like what we can do about it.
I bought a wireless presentation remote controller and I practiced the presentation. I was quite happy with it. Sasha and Georgi were my test subjects and they seemed to love it. That was encouraging.
I bought the tickets to Prague – expensive as fuck – and put everything I needed into one small backpack. Let me say that I LOVE the fact that now I have a proper laptop, thanks to Roma and Gui mostly who donated enough money for the campaign to buy me a new laptop. It helps a fuck ton because I do a lot on the laptop and to be able to carry it with me was a must. It is thin, metal, powerful, lots of storage, but big enough so I do not even need an external screen to do my work most of the time.
See how happy I am because of this laptop? 🙂
All I need is my 18-buttons mouse and I am all set:
Now I can go. I have control over all of the TROM projects thanks to the laptop and my mouse 😉
The TROM Crew!
Roma was about to host me for the entire stay, and I decided to stay for 13 days or so. Aaron, who lives in Dresden (2h away from Prague with the bus/train) would join too. But also Vicky and Rafa from Spain who came to support me, us, everyone :). I was so happy that we had a part of the TROM Crew for the ZDay!
These people are so nice, and calm, and friendly. They are family! I don’t say it lightly.
We spent the next day together and it was relaxing. That’s the OK sign for when you dive! So you know 😉
Roma hosted me like I was a king or something. Everything was so neat at his place, and clean, and organized.
He even gave me his own big room and he slept on a mattress in the livingroom. You know I am not the best when it comes to go visit people and places. I would say I may be the worst. Even when I was a kid I never “slept over” to any of my friends’ places, because I feel uncomfortable. I get very easily bothered if I do not have my own kind of comfort. I struggle with the sleep (light burns me alive and I go to sleep early in the morning so if the room is not very dark the vampire in me will suffer a lot); I also struggle with eating….You know actually there are 3 essential things that put a huge toll on my life: eat, sleep, and shit. 🙂
I have a lot of digestive issues so I can only eat a few kinds of foods. Therefore I am always stressed about what I am going to eat. I need those specific foods! And because of that, the other side of the coin colon has to struggle to deliver. Ok. I’ll stop here, but these normal things are very abnormal for me and are stressful. Combine that with the fact that I struggle to fall asleep and keep myself asleep….and you get a clusterfuck of daily issues.
Is it clear now that I need my own comfort and control over my daily life?!
Ok. So basically Roma hosted me in a way that I felt at home. And this is quite an achievement I would say. His apartment was so nice I wouldn’t mind to sleep in the living-room on his NEW mattress that is better than my bed at home! But he insisted to give me his room.
I was happy and relaxed:
Thank you Roma, you are the best human I swear! 🙂
Ok. Time for ZDay!
We went to the venue and I thought we would see a bunch of people outside waiting. But it was no one. I was told that some 40 people reserved a seat weeks ago and that they were reserving more. That there are some 100 seats available and I think I’ve heard that they were all booked before the event.
Anyway, I was expecting to see some people outside. One guy came to us and recognized that we were from TROM. That was nice. Likely our TROM “handprint” tshirts were a clue :).
We went inside and we saw a few people. The venue was very nice. I recognized some of the people. They were all very nice! We were in!
The venue was a lot smaller than I thought:
But very neat and well organized. They even had super tasty foods there:
I wish I could fucking eat some!
Mind you everything was free there, no one paid anything. These guys organized it all from their own money and donations. So kudos to them it was a super nice place.
They even had live translations with live-human-flesh-and-meat translators. They gave us individual headphones:
Am telling you they were very well organized. Well, almost.
The first hurdle was that they had a Widows laptop that was the main machine streaming the presentations to the projector, and my presentation was made in LibreOffice (LO). So it was not working…we had to install LO, then a font, then test a bit to make it work. I told them I will use LO weeks before the event, and I was told that “This should not be a problem. All of the computers will be running Linux to my knowledge.” – Well it was fine eventually. But I was a bit surprised.
I was also surprised that they did not have a remote controller for the presentation. Luckily I brought mine and everyone would eventually use it. Without one how are you going to present? Using the laptop arrow keys?…
But don’t get me wrong, these are small details. Everything else was great there. Super duper nice and organized.
At one point this guy approached me and he told me that he translated the TROM II documentary into Polish. He was “Jaro”, or “Jaromatrix”? That’s how I know him from the TROM Chats.
It was so cool to see someone in person who was part of our chats for some months now, if not longer. Such a nice guy! He wanted for us to talk more, but it was a bit too chaotic and busy for me, so we didn’t get to spend too much time together. Thank you man for coming and I hope to meet you again!
We had some interesting discussions before the event started:
I was very surprised to see Zach and Arjang. I was aware of their youtube channels because I added them to our TROM Curated Videos a few months ago. Zach is part of this Moneyless Society project, and Arjang has his own Beyond Capitalism channel. They did not present at ZDay because there was no more space, but we got to talk a bit. Interesting people!
Ok, and so it started!
There were not many people, but it was still exciting.
The issue with languages!
The entire presentation and the talks were in Czech. Only I did the talk in English. Most people in the audience did not understand Czech. So for the first 3 talks that were in Czech, we had to wear these headphones and listen to the live english translations:
And it was….well….not fun! It was really difficult to focus on the presentation and listen to them. It is difficult to do live translations let’s be honest. Plus the speakers had a few slides mostly with text, in Czech, so it was basically impossible for me or anyone I talked to, to understand the talks…. It is unfortunate that we do not speak a common language and have to struggle so much.
I appreciate very much the effort, honestly, however for us it was impossible to make sense of the presentations. I think one presentation was about a sort of credit-trade-system, and one about permaculture, but as I said it was impossible to get much out of them.
The problem with the recording.
30 people seeing my talk is very good, but it would be a shame not to record and share it with hundreds or thousands of people online. So having the recording of my talk was paramount for me.
We decided on the spot that perhaps it is a good idea for us to film too. Roma had a camera and a tripod and I am so happy that we took that decision!
You see, I asked beforehand the organizers if they would film and make the recordings available for us too. They said that of course they will. However when we were there they would stream with an ipad that was either in one corner or moving around, and Zach was also filming at times. But it didn’t look to me like they had that very organized. I later was told that the streaming was in Czech, even mine…so for those who wanted to watch the livestream (probably the vast majority of people) it was not watchable.
Look, I understand that the event was held in the Czech Republic, and some Czech people do not understand English, but I think it would have been good to stream it in English honestly. But anyway, the streaming quality was not great for later use anyway.
Zach also filmed but for one he did so more dynamically, and he would move around quite a bit. And so he will not capture my slides many times. Tthe way that I made my presentation was to rely on the slides, make it fun, animated, interesting, funny at times. Without the slides it does not make sense. Zach also filmed with a camera in RAW format, a format that I think it is proprietary (.braw). Some 150GB in size for less than an hour of footage. Plus because it is RAW you get a washed out video that needs color grading/editing. This made it nearly impossible for us to share these files and edit them. I can’t even play these files in Linux without their proprietary/licensed codec. To edit I had to install the trade-based Davinci Resolve video editor, the editor made by the same company that made the camera that Zach was using. And the recording from Zach was missing a few bits here and there.
Look, call me crazy but I think it is insane to make the digital media so enormous. 4k, 8k, raw and whatever K, in my mind they make no sense, unless you are BBC filming a nature documentary all around the world and presenting it on large screens in cinemas… I am not trying to be mean, and Zach if you read this post please be open minded and do not take it personally. We need to be mindful about the fact that the digital too has a real impact on resources: pollution, waste. You know you have to store large files on physical hardware, and transport, and download, and backup. Energy consumption, manufacturing, waste. Multiply with billions of times and you get a massive impact. Plus it is impractical, especially when these formats are locked-down.
Anyway. Zach was very patient and shared with us the files.
He also recorded the audio from a stage mic, separate form the one we were holding for the presentations. Because of that it recorded with a lot of echo. The audio was attached to the videos so it was again difficult to deal with them because you had to, well, extract the audio from those super massive-in-size videos.
Therefore we were left with Roma’s recording, with the mic from the camera itself. As you may imagine, a lot of echo and background noise. I really wanted to take my lavmic with me, but I was SURE they will record directly from the presentation mic itself….
I wanted to give you all of these details because the presentation that you will see has a bad audio…and we really tried to improve it but it is kinda impossible to make it sound well. I worked for the past weeks on this ZDay presentation and that’s only because I had to deal with the above issues. Else I would have made this article a lot sooner.
Basically we ended up with two presentations. One from Roma’s camera: video and audio. And one a mix between Roma’s and Zach’s footage and recordings. Whatever you like best….
Here I am on the stage:
I was not nervous really. People were asking me about that. It is because I know what I want to say and the things I was presenting are important and real. For me this is not a presentation, it is me talking to people about some really fucking important things! Why would I be nervous?
Ok here’s the Roma-based presentation:
And this is the Roma-Zach-based presentation:
I think the analogy with evolution works wonders. And it gives people a great visual of all that we are trying to say and achieve. It worked out a lot better than I expected. I thought about this analogy while we were recording for TROM II, but I didn’t include it in the documentary because it was a spontaneous thing and not so well thought as this presentation. In a way I think this presentation is a very well explanation of what we do at TROM. Maybe the best and shortest presentation about TROM.
It seems that many people really liked it. So that was super fantastic.
After my presentation there were a few video remote presentations. Basically pre-recorded videos that we would watch. I want to briefly mention this one about Humania. I’ve heard about this project a month before ZDay. Now, I cannot show you the presentation because where can I find it? But I was aware of them presenting this project before I went to Prague. Someone even sent me their slides. I looked over the project and I want to say a few things. For one I am quite sure that the people behind it are good people. One of them, Ziad, is someone I worked with on TROM for several years. I was so surprised to see him involved in this. Ziad helped me rebuild TROMsite and VideoNeat several times. We spent many nights working online on these projects. He was always so kind and very computer-smart. Anyway, I am happy to see him active because he kinda disappeared a few years ago. We haven’t talked since then.
Now, Humania….it is a project that wants to build a community, kinda like TVP. This is their “3D planning”:
They even had to start the presentation by saying that “No, it’s not The Venus Project…” 🙂 – well if you see their presentation then this is kinda the Venus Project…but should not matter. What matters is that I’ve heard about these projects hundreds of times for the past decade. And none survived. None went beyond some Google Docs and some 3D models. And I am not saying this in a mean way, I wish these people had the resources to do something, but I am FRUSTRATED at this approach overall.
TVP made people dream about new worlds, built almost like in parallel with this one. Dome houses, maglev transport, circle-shaped cities, automation, etc.. I am quite sure Fresco was not that naive to think that this is the future, and he said it a bunch of times actually. But people started to focus more and more on these technologies. And forgot the message: this monetary system (trade system more exactly) is the source of most problems. This is a long conversation to have and we made several TROMcasts about it, but in essence I now realize that people got the wrong message and they fantasize about building a new city to prove how a new society looks like. TVP itself jumped on this train for the past many years, to the point of sounding like a cult.
My frustration is with the fact that people focus too much on these fantasy lands that are at best some simplistic 3D models, while ignoring the real things and progress that we can do today. The volunteering, the open source, the organizations helping others, and so forth. We NEED to work with these in order to change something! TVP made people ignore these real and realistic approaches because they think that these approaches are patchworks.
Anyway watch our TROM II documentary to see what I’m talking about in terms of a realistic approach to maybe change this society.
So I was a bit concerned that after my presentation which was about real things, the Humania presentation will make people fantasize again about things that do not exist, nor will they ever exist in that manner.
We had a Q&A where people would kind of push this sort of mentality a bit and I answered a few questions. I would love to show you that, but only Zach recorded it and I do not have the mental resources to extract all of that from the .BRAW files….maybe I’ll do it one day, but I tried to explain these things in the Q&A. There weren’t many questions tho, and not a lot of engagement.
But after the Humania presentation I quite enjoyed the TZM Italy video presentation that was very down to earth, about sharing and communities that were real:
How they organize sharing events and stuff like that. They were a lot more in tune with TROM I would say than any other at the event.
Overall I really enjoyed it and except for the recording part, everything was really well put together.
After the event.
After the event was over we spent an hour or so at the same place and many people came to talk to me. They told me they knew about TROM and were impressed by how active we still are. It was a great feeling to meet such people. All of them were very nice, very chill, it was so cool to have important discussions with so many people. You see, I said that I was surprised to see so few people attending, but after the event was over I was so happy there weren’t more than 30 or so, because it would have been chaotic after the event. I enjoyed the after-event a lot more than the event itself, because I got to talk to these people. I talked so much that I could not even go pee haha. I was glued there.
Man….I don’t know how to put it in words, but I felt like I was part of something. Physically. These were people that I didn’t know, and yet they were very much aware of the things I was talking about for years now. We could click immediately.
This is Lenka:
She came because she got our TROM Newsletter about the event. She is from the Czech Republic and was living in Prague. She recently watched the TROM II documentary and got to know about TROM from one of her friends, Benji. Benji follows TROM from almost the beginning of it all, but he could not come unfortunately. We clicked with Lenka within minutes, as if she was our friend for years now. From discussions to jokes, from how kind she is to how down to earth she is.
We also met Ante, from Croatia.
His tshirt was saying “f*ck capitalism” and that made him a welcome friend in our group. haha. He was so nice, friendly, and I really enjoyed the conversations we had.
Cihan, Cliff, Kristina, and a bunch of others were such great people.
We went out to eat something after the event, and spent a few hours passionately talking to each other. I got to talk a lot with Cihan and Cliff (one of the main organizers of the event). We talked about this approach of building communities, or not building them. About TZM, activism, TROM, and more. Unfortunately there were a few people with who I did not talk much, and I thought we will the next day when we should have met again. But not all came for the next day meeting. It is unfortunate because I really wanted to talk to all of them.
I was so tired by midnight. So we headed home.
Next day, fun day.
We went to meet for one last time with everyone else. Zach also wanted to interview me for a film/documentary he is working on. He is traveling to many places and interviews “activists” or people who have something important to say I suppose. He understands, like we do, that this is a fucked up society, and why it is fucked up; and the guy is very active trying to make people aware of this, but he’s also aware of how many good people are in the world and how we could think about change. And he wants to put these people in the spotlight.
I had some more discussions with him and Arjang (the guy at the piano – he is good at that), but we had to say goodby. Both of these guys do their own thing and I am very happy to see that. Maybe we can collaborate in the future. Videos, projects, podcasts, discussions.
We met with the few rest again and went to eat something. Unfortunately only a few were present this second day, because the rest had to leave. But overall lengthy, funny, interesting discussions that lasted for hours at this Indian restaurant that could have killed me if I were to touch any of their foods, even if only with my bare hands.
The less hectic and more calm parts of my journey were here. Aaron had to go home unfortunately, and I, Rafa, Vicky, Roma and Ante, went to Roma’s place for some chill time. We ordered some pizza and had lenghty and really interesting discussions.
I hope to meet Ante again because I really liked the guy. We exchanged contacts and I will for sure contact Ante at some point.
Vicky and Rafa had to leave the next day. These guys were the glue for all of us because they are kind and hug everyone.
Vicky is so funny with her “custom” English, she makes us all laugh so hard. She says “Fucking shit!” so many times, and with her Spanish accent it is hilarious.
One time we were talking about Rafa’s parents and I ask her “How do you get along with Rafa’s father?” and she said, in a cute and spanglish-voice “Oh I love your father!”. hahahah. She always mistakes the mine, yours, their, he, she. And that’s so funny. One time she showed us a butterfly, because she is studying about insects, and she said “This boterfly es dangeros.”. And I was like “Hmm….doesn’t look like it.”. “No, she is dangeros!” – she said, and she quickly pulls up the translation app on her phone to make sure she said it right, and while typing I see the translation “This butterfly is in danger of extinction.”. hahahah
She is so funny. And Rafa too. And so homie. Chill. Nice. Always lovely to meet them!
The next fun and awesome days.
I already feel nostalgia while writing about this, and that’s a good sign that I enjoyed it so much. The next days we met with Lenka, and we had such a nice time together.
We went to the Illusions museum.
And it was very confusing and fun.
I want to emphasize on how well we got along with Lenka because it was so surprising to feel so comfortable with someone that you just met. And the wonderful message I got from her friend Benji. It would be a great shame if we were not to meet again, Lenka, and I cannot accept not meeting you Benji. We have to!
Lenka took us to some nice places outside the city center, because she also hates these crowded places and she likes the nature more. I think the saner you are, the more you gravitate towards this, because crows usually means tourists and consumption. Also pollution, waste, concrete jungles.
We talked a lot lot, and we laughed a bunch 🙂
I spent my days relaxing and working on my laptop from the great comfort of Roma’s apartment. Unfortunately Roma had to work every day. That made me quite angry because this guy should not be forced to work on things that he does not want to work on. No one should! I fantasize about him being able to take his skills and come join TROM fully….and who knows maybe it can happen. This guy works so hard to take care of his parents, it is quite inspiring. And he had to come alone to Europe from Russia, and create a life for himself and manage a lot of things. He got his shit together believe me! Down to earth, organized, calm and sticking to his plans!
My friendship with Roma got really strong and real. We are not friends anymore, we are brothers. We have so many things in common. On top of our TROM-Discussions I can talk for hours with Roma about tech, because we are equally fascinated by it.
Let’s visit Aaron!
Believe it or not but I’ve never traveled with a train. And Aaron was 2h away with the train….2 plus 2 equals Dresden. Let’s take the train to Aaron!
I honestly very much enjoyed the train ride. It was quite nice inside and the ride is so smooth I never felt like I was going somewhere. In the car or the bus you can get sick pretty easily (at least I do) if you stay on your laptop, or talk to people and not pay attention to the road. Because it is too snakey….But with the train it’s so much nicer!
We stayed at Aaron’s nice place, in the attic basically. And I’ve said it so many times but Aaron is one of the most chill and nice dudes I know.
We would spend only 2 days in Dresden but it felt like 4 to me. Aaron took us around to visit the place. We went to a nice park and we played table tennis:
And saw some weird places…
I was surprised to see how in Germany people are very keen to share, to do open source projects, and so on. Look at this place:
Places like these should be everywhere. You would also see cardboard boxes with stuff all around the city, where people would put stuff for others to grab. I love this mentality. And the icing on the cake was when Aaron took us to this Hackerspace. These spaces are basically, from what I understand, meant to allow anyone to come there for free and work on their projects. Take a sit, connect to the internet, grab a drink, even cook some fucking food….all for free. They even had lots of tools to repair your devices:
I talked to one of the guys “in charge” of the place and he was so nice and down to earth. They were working on some software to help the refugees/ukrainians find a place to stay in Germany, and on other projects too. The guy never had a job and he was saying “If you take care of your mother, is that a job?”. I immediately loved it. They get it. We should not have “jobs” but focus on the things that we consider as important and not expect anything in return for that. Enjoy the things that we do. As simple as that! I talked to them about TROM too.
It was such a cozy place. I am grateful to Aaron for taking us there. I loved it. And there are hundreds, if not thousands of such spaces in the world. Here’s a map:
We even worked a bit to fix Aaron’s laptop. Glue, tools, space. No one asks you anything. Go do it!
You know there are so many people around the world that understand we should take care of each other and be good humans, and fuck this consumerism! That gives me some hope. We need to find them, tell them about TROM too, share the views, discuss, promote, and scream louder together.
The next day Aaron took us around some nice, more nature-oriented places. We had something good to eat, then we headed back to Prague.
I spent 2 more days with the awesome Roma and I really felt relaxed and unusually for me, at home.
I really enjoyed it. The ZDay was well organized and I met new wonderful people, my best friends came with me for the event and I made new friends there. I was treated so well by Roma that I cannot thank him enough. And we visited some very cool places too.
I hope that at least some people got curious about what we do at TROM, and who knows maybe join us, even invite me to other events to present it. If I have the money and means I will go. I am fearless 🙂 I go anywhere now haha.
BUT
I am however extremely happy to be back home. I was missing Sasha and she is still my wonderful-one. It is such a shame she could not come. Work, papers…bullshit. I hope if there is a next time we will go together. I hope Georgi can also come, and other TROM friends!
You know, I am happy to live in a very small town….
I went at the beach the next day, and I was reflecting back at how big cities are not meant for humans. Both Prague and Dresden are too big….You want go meet your friends? 30-40 minutes with the public transport. Wanna go to a park/forest? You have to cross many streets and walk for quite a bit, or take again the public transport for half an hour. Cars, trams, buses, subways….many people, all busy. A huge rush. A lot of buildings, a lot of concrete. I was missing the quietness, the nature, the calmness, the fucking trees, the fucking sea. HELLO fucking NATURE!
And it is so expensive in big cities. I spent so much money. Here I never spend money when I go out. Here, when I go out, I go directly into he “out” where I want to go. The beach is 5 minutes away, the mountain is 10. Forest is 20. And that’s barely crossing any streets. And it is so empty and quiet when it is off season. I was missing that a lot. I got so tired in Prague because of so many people, all almost running somewhere. I do not think humans should live like this. Luckily Roma stays outside of Prague a bit. And it is calm there. Thank fuck! I am happy for him!
Maybe it’s just me but I could never live in a big city.
This was the first time I went somewhere to present TROM and I will not forget this experience for a long long time. But trust me when I say this, 70% of the success of this experience (for me) is because of how well Roma treated me. If I were to feel uncomfortable, and it doesn’t take much to make me very uncomfortable, then everything else would have been a painful experience. Thank you man!
This event inspired me to think about creating our own yearly event, like the Trade-Free Yearly Event where we invite many organizations and people from around the world to give speeches/lectures, even have some workshops to for example showcase TROMjaro and so on. Wild ideas for now….but making a 14 hours documentary in 2011 was also a wild idea. Even doing the TROM Meeting, or TROMjaro…. So maybe, maybe we will do this….
Stay tuned! Follow our work at tromsite.com/ because we are hellishly active!
Thank you again to everyone who organized this ZDay, overall I loved it! Any sort of criticism I said in this article is in fact not that important, and at the end of the day the overall experience matters and that was fantastic!
The Venus Project proposes an alternative vision of the future,if we apply what we already know in order to achieve a sustainable new socio-economic system
Finally finished reading this 😄 Wow that was a wonderful experience, all of the people you met at zday and the new friendships that formed there - all great! 😀 I also really liked the illusion museum, I can tell from the photos that you really enjoyed your time there. And man those "sharing places" @aaron showed you were amazing, now I have a newfound appreciation for Germany 'cause of all these great things they do 😁 I hope more and more people around the world start doing these.
I was kinda surprised to learn that you've never been in a train before, but makes sense if you've never had to travel very far. Hope you enjoyed your ride, it is one of the better ways to travel IMO. And man I could totally relate to your feeling of wanting your own comfort place and familiar food, lol 😄 Thanks a lot to @esh who did a great job hosting you there 🙏
And like you I also prefer going to less crowded places, especially in nature where there is quiet and peaceful 😌
I wanted to ask why @bigworldsmallsasha didn't come with you but thought it might be related to the job or the residency situation in Spain, guess I was not entirely wrong. Hopefully everyone can come next time when you go for an event like this, or who knows maybe we'd have our own TROM event one day 🤞
I (Tio) had a great time in Prague at the ZDay event, and I made a blog post all about it, here - tiotrom.com/2023/09/the-zday-e… - it is a big blog post, because it was a big and wonderful experience.
Our living beings, you may have left our eyes, but you have never left our hearts. The second largest kingdom, after the animal, is represented by plants. The distinctive feature of plants is obtaining energy from sunlight, through the process called photosynthesis. Most plants have wide flat surfaces - the leaves, at the level of which this process is carried out. Just as there are many groups of animals, from simple worms to complicated mammals, so the groups of plants are also numerous and varied. Mainly plants are divided into two broad categories – simple plants without flowers, and flowering plants. Plants never seem to be active. But inside the millions of microscopic cells that form the body of a plant, thousands of chemical transformations take place, forming part of the body's vital processes. Like the body of an animal, the body of a plant has specialized areas to perform certain functions. Roots take from the soil water, mineral salts and other substances necessary for life. The rigid stem supports parts of the plant on the surface of the soil, away from an... show more
Our living beings, you may have left our eyes, but you have never left our hearts. The second largest kingdom, after the animal, is represented by plants. The distinctive feature of plants is obtaining energy from sunlight, through the process called photosynthesis. Most plants have wide flat surfaces - the leaves, at the level of which this process is carried out. Just as there are many groups of animals, from simple worms to complicated mammals, so the groups of plants are also numerous and varied. Mainly plants are divided into two broad categories – simple plants without flowers, and flowering plants. Plants never seem to be active. But inside the millions of microscopic cells that form the body of a plant, thousands of chemical transformations take place, forming part of the body's vital processes. Like the body of an animal, the body of a plant has specialized areas to perform certain functions. Roots take from the soil water, mineral salts and other substances necessary for life. The rigid stem supports parts of the plant on the surface of the soil, away from animals on the ground that might eat them, and above other plants so that the leaves capture more light. The leaves of plants are a kind of small factories that produce food with the help of light. They have a wide surface, to capture as much light as possible, and contain inside a green substance called chlorophyll, which absorbs the energy provided by sunlight. Chlorophyll uses energy to achieve a chemical reaction. Water, absorbed from the soil, and carbon dioxide, received from the air, unite and form glucose, which contains a large amount of energy stored in chemical form. Glucose is then used as a" fuel " for the plant's vital processes. The whole phenomenon is called photosynthesis-a word that means"to produce with the help of light". The carbon dioxide needed for photosynthesis is taken from the air. It penetrates the leaf through small holes located on its lower face, called the stomata. In addition to organic substances, photosynthesis also results in oxygen, which is eliminated in the air. Living beings need oxygen to live. Plants contribute to maintaining a sufficient amount of oxygen in the air. We were only able to offer you a small space and positioned on the north-west side of the building, even if it was against our wishes. However, we lived together for a shorter or longer period of time. Thank you for this and for all you have offered. We hope that many wounds can be healed with these words: Forgive us! Life is eternal, and love is immortal, and death is but a horizon; and a horizon is nothing but the limit of our sight. - Rossiter W. Raymond
Plants meditate all the time. Because they simply give up on themselves and accept the sun's rays and raindrops. Tuberoses are flowers with impressive beauty and fragrance. Regular consumption of tuberose can bring numerous benefits to our health. Gene expression is the process in which a plant's DNA code is translated into instructions for biological processes such as growth. Our plants, including tuberoses kept in an environment without sunlight, responded to sound waves. At 125Hz and 250Hz sounds rbcS and Ald genes are created, which are known for responding to light, while more active sound waves at 50Hz made these genes less active. So wherever we are our flowers are a friend that we can visit at any time. Thank you we are grateful/grateful and we apologize! Even the smallest and smallest plants can have some of the strongest roots.
Révoltes urbaines : Les quartiers populaires sur le devant de la scène
La révolte de la jeunesse populaire fin juin oblige à penser les vécus de dominations dans les quartiers populaires comme une question globale. Une campagne exigeante et ambitieuse doit être menée pour exiger justice pour les quartiers populaires et ne pas laisser les jeunes isolé·es.
La mort de Nahel Merzouk le 27 juin dernier, tué à bout portant par un policier, a provoqué une semaine de révoltes dans les quartiers populaires qui s’est étendue à tout le pays dès le deuxième soir. Le jeudi 29 juin, la marche blanche organisé à Nanterre par la mère et les proches de Nahel a été réprimée violemment et la nuit du je
Révoltes urbaines : Les quartiers populaires sur le devant de la scène
La révolte de la jeunesse populaire fin juin oblige à penser les vécus de dominations dans les quartiers populaires comme une question globale. Une campagne exigeante et ambitieuse doit être menée pour exiger justice pour les quartiers populaires et ne pas laisser les jeunes isolé·es.
La mort de Nahel Merzouk le 27 juin dernier, tué à bout portant par un policier, a provoqué une semaine de révoltes dans les quartiers populaires qui s’est étendue à tout le pays dès le deuxième soir. Le jeudi 29 juin, la marche blanche organisé à Nanterre par la mère et les proches de Nahel a été réprimée violemment et la nuit du jeudi au vendredi sera la plus forte de la révolte.
Les semaines suivantes, la marche annuelle pour Adama Traoré à Beaumont-sur-Oise sera interdite ainsi que les rassemblements sur Paris. Alors que le ras-le-bol des jeunes a explosé spontanément et qu’on leur fait le reproche de commettre des actes violents, présumés non politiques, dans le même temps on interdit les expressions et mobilisations pacifiques des comités Vérité et Justice… bel exemple d’hypocrisie d’État ! Les réponses politiques et policières seront elle autorisées en un florilège de propos racistes et de dépolitisation de la révolte. Alors que l’exigence d’abolition du permis de tuer voté par Cazeneuve en 2017 s’imposait comme réponse, le gouvernement fera tout pour qu’on éloigne la question du meurtre de Nahel et qu’on se centre sur les pillages qui « n’auraient plus rien à voir avec sa mort » : il ne faudrait pas qu’on fasse le lien entre pillage et inflation par exemple, alors que beaucoup de commerces de première nécessité ont été pillés.
Le système du ghetto
Mais ici, violences policières et inflation vont de pair. La révolte oblige à remettre les quartiers populaires sur le devant de la scène comme une réalité ayant son unité d’oppressions articulées. Ces oppressions sont trop souvent approchées dans leurs fragmentations : question sociale / capitaliste d’un coté, question raciale / coloniale de l’autre, distinguant exploitation, chômage, logement souvent traités séparément, et non reliés aux discriminations racistes et sexistes. En réalité, les maux sociaux des quartiers populaires et les différentes dominations ne peuvent pas être séparées, et dès lors, les revendications non plus.
La situation de nos quartiers n’est ni exceptionnelle ni accidentelle : partout dans le monde les classes dominantes font la guerre aux prolétariats urbain discriminés et leur réservent un régime de gestion coloniale et d’abandon contrôlé. Au menu : chômage, discriminations et paupérisation. Ces populations sont assignées aux travaux précaires, créant les conditions des maux de la pauvreté (survie et débrouille illégale, etc.) pour ensuite le leur reprocher, les réprimer et les incarcérer… pour le plus grand profit des exploiteurs capitalistes (voir par exemple l’économie des prisons privées aux USA [1].
C’est le système du ghetto. En France cela se traduit par des quartiers où les non-propriétaires se retrouvent : des populations d’origines ouvrières, souvent immigrées ou issue de la colonisation, de nombreuses mères célibataires, subissant humiliations quotidiennes, discriminations au travail, à l’éducation, au logement, à la santé... Ce processus de paupérisation / précarisation / discriminations fait système et profite à la bourgeoisie : reproduction de classe, population étranglée soumise à de mauvaises condition de travail et de bas salaires (contrats précaires, intérim, sous-traitance). Les banlieues sont les laboratoires néolibéraux avant généralisation : hier les zones franches, les emplois jeunes et contrats aidés (le CPE avait été une humiliante réponse aux révoltes de 2005), aujourd’hui l’uberisation dont Macron s’est fait le chantre, et qu’il a vendu comme une solution contre le chômage. La bourgeoisie par son séparatisme de classe a ghettoïsé les banlieues, pour mieux les « reconquérir » ensuite par la gentrification et le « nettoyage policier » [2].
Nous n’avons pas à faire ici à des accidents et à des abandons involontaires, mais à un système causé par un régime étatique et économique raciste qui ne tiendrait pas sans l’accompagnement idéologique qui justifie le traitement inégalitaire et policier (islamophobie, récemment la stigmatisation « des profiteurs d’aides sociales qu’ils enverraient au bled »…)
De 2005 à aujourd’hui, des évolutions
Mais cette particularité des quartiers doit être reliée à la contestation sociale générale, comme le mouvement des retraites où de nombreux travailleurs et travailleuses des quartiers populaires se sont mobilisé·es. Ce moment de forte mobilisation de plusieurs couches de la société a lui aussi été un moment d’explosion face aux détresses sociales du moment, tout comme les gilets jaunes en 2018, dont la répression a obligé à regarder en face les violences policières.
Au printemps avec la répression des manifs retraites et de Sainte Soline, cette question s’est réimposée, avec l’exigence de dissolution des BRAVM. La Macronie, qui a essuyé un nombre important de mouvements sociaux depuis 2017 de plusieurs couches différentes de la société, a la hantise que toutes puissent converger. Elle réprime donc à tour de bras. Les choses ont changé depuis les révoltes de 2005, qui ont vu après cette date les mobilisations dans les quartiers populaires se renouveler et se diversifier. Les comités Vérité et Justice nombreux et organisés ont percé le mur du silence à travers les mobilisations de différents collectifs (Lamine Dieng, UNPA, comité Adama, etc). Ils ont interpellé une gauche et des organisations de luttes qui ont elles-mêmes connu un renouvellement générationnel (la génération CPE fut contemporaine des révoltes de 2005, 20 ans plus tard elle est aujourd’hui animatrice de lutte et sensible à ces questions). De ce fait la révolte ne fut pas isolée comme en 2005 : citons par exemple la venue de Sophie Binet à Nanterre le lendemain de la mort de Nahel.
Tout ceci constitue une victoire dont le gouvernement a peur. Si la Loi Séparatisme avait quelque peu affaiblit le mouvement antiraciste ces dernières années, la révolte a provoqué un sursaut auquel a répondu le mouvement social. Un appel signé par différents syndicats, associations et organisations politiques fut rendu public très rapidement « Notre pays est en deuil » [3] qui appellera aux manifestations des jours suivants. Une date pour une marche unitaire est déjà prévue pour la rentrée, le 23 septembre [4]. Il s’agit de pérenniser ce sursaut dès la rentrée, de l’inscrire dans le temps et qu’il soit vecteur de luttes de masse contres les injustices dans ces quartiers. Les luttes dans les quartiers populaires ont par ailleurs toujours existé, les marches pour l’égalité des années 1980 (dont on fêtera les 40 ans à l’automne, et qui sera un rendez vous important) ou les initiatives du MIB (Mouvement de l’immigration et des banlieues) [5] qui avait lancé la campagne « Justice en banlieue ». Nous devons désormais construire une nouvelle mobilisation de masse.
Nous exigeons justice en banlieue
Le mouvement libertaire doit prendre toute sa place dans les mobilisations à venir où la diversité des tactiques doit être un atout. Nous devrons favoriser convergences et auto-organisation, et prévenir des écueils militants à même de créer de nouvelles divisions, rancœurs et désillusions : ni se substituer, ni abandonner. Nous devons également comme libertaires porter nos propres revendications et analyses. Après 2005, certaines revendications s’imposaient à nous [6], toujours d’actualité, nos exigences démocratiques et autogestionnaires doivent prendre une épaisseur politique plus importante pour contrer l’hégémonie de la théorie fascisante du grand-remplacement : remettre en cause offensivement l’État-nation, sa république assimilationniste et sa laïcité autoritaire et identitaire, par l’affirmation, la reconnaissance et la dignité du peuple des banlieues tel qu’il est : populaire, multiculturel, créolisé, en mouvement, aux histoires diverses (ouvrières, migratoires, coloniales, de luttes) affirmer son droit a la liberté d’expression et à l’hybridité culturelle !
Nous devons affirmer le droit a la reprise en main totale des habitant·es des quartiers populaires sur toutes les décisions qui concernent leur vie : le droit à la santé et à de bonnes conditions de vie loin des pollutions, à la souveraineté alimentaire, le droit a des services publiques sous contrôle des habitant·es et autogérés par elles et eux ! Une oppression radicale exige des réponses radicales.
Nicolas Pasadena (UCL Montreuil)
[1] Angela Davis, Une lutte sans trêve, éditions La Fabrique, 2016.
[2] Les répressions accrues accompagnent souvent les plans de rénovation / gentrification, cf Mathieu Rigouste, La domination policière, une violence industrielle, La Fabrique, Paris, 2012, 257 pages.
[3] « Notre pays est en deuil et en colère », sur le site de Solidaires, solidaires.org.
[4] 1er août 2023, « Appel à la marche unitaire du 23 septembre « Pour la fin du racisme systémique, des violences policières, pour la justice sociale et les libertés publiques » », sur le site de Solidaires, solidaires.org.
[5] MIB, Mouvement de l’immigration et des banlieues, actif dans les années 1990-2000
[6] « Quartiers populaires : cinq ans après les révoltes, qu’est ce qui a changé ? », Alternative libertaire, n° 201, décembre 2010.
Rokosun
in reply to Tio • • •Finally finished reading this 😄 Wow that was a wonderful experience, all of the people you met at zday and the new friendships that formed there - all great! 😀 I also really liked the illusion museum, I can tell from the photos that you really enjoyed your time there. And man those "sharing places" @aaron showed you were amazing, now I have a newfound appreciation for Germany 'cause of all these great things they do 😁 I hope more and more people around the world start doing these.
1/3
like this
Tio and Roma like this.
Rokosun
in reply to Rokosun • • •I was kinda surprised to learn that you've never been in a train before, but makes sense if you've never had to travel very far. Hope you enjoyed your ride, it is one of the better ways to travel IMO. And man I could totally relate to your feeling of wanting your own comfort place and familiar food, lol 😄 Thanks a lot to @esh who did a great job hosting you there 🙏
And like you I also prefer going to less crowded places, especially in nature where there is quiet and peaceful 😌
2/3
like this
Tio and Roma like this.
Rokosun
in reply to Rokosun • • •I wanted to ask why @bigworldsmallsasha didn't come with you but thought it might be related to the job or the residency situation in Spain, guess I was not entirely wrong. Hopefully everyone can come next time when you go for an event like this, or who knows maybe we'd have our own TROM event one day 🤞
3/3
like this
Tio, Roma and Sasha like this.
Tio
in reply to Rokosun • •like this
Roma and Sasha like this.