My biggest frustration, currently, is a lack of time and energy to devote to my creative projects. I still give them some time, but between a full-time job, child care, and other day-to-day responsibilities, it is not as much as I would like.

My wildest hope for society in my lifetime is that we will experience dramaticly shorter work weeks. Keynes predicted 15 hour work weeks by 2030 or so. If I could afford a modest life on only 15 hours of labor, and devote other time to family, friends, and art, I would feel so amazing. I'm skeptical of the claims of AI, but a society where a shorter work week is the norm would turn me into its biggest fan.

Anyway, despite my frustration, the time I spend with my creative projects results in my greatest self-satisfaction, after the time I devote to raising my children. And the creative outlets I pursue today are directly related to the artistic skills I developed in my youth (including music). So yeah, it probably won't pay the bills, but there's much more important things in life than bills.

If "the state" is indeed a tool used by "the people" to accomplish the will of the the people, then sure, I think nationalization of large, nation-wide or world-wide corporations is probably fine and good. But this requires a totally different world order. It's hard to imagine something called the USA as participating in such an arrangement.

I don't think a "less corrupt" USA government is one that should be taking over the likes of Google, however. Even the more polite version of the USA is one that dominates the world through military force and local communities through a surveillance apparatus (see Flock now, but basically every town in America gives half of its general budget to the police). The data that Google holds needs to be regulated by the government, not handed over to the government.

There's no particular reason why the USA government (or some other country) couldn't spin up its own new search engine service that provided something akin to 2010 Google search, with no advertising to boot. There's no political will to do something like that, but that seems much more imaginable than nationalizing Google/Alphabet, and I think perhaps still entertains your hypothetical.

Arnold Lobel is also just very funny. Grasshopper on the Road made me laugh out loud the first time I read it my kids. The opening story about beetles that love morning ("The Club") feels so timely.

I eventually got over that, but now I live in a much cooler climate where shorts aren't really expected, even in the warmer seasons, and I'm grateful because I do feel more comfortable with pants (and long sleeves, for that matter).

Different strokes/neuro-eccentricities for different folks!

Let's try again. What's a nicer way of saying that?

I think copyright as it exists is abused by large companies and stifles culture. Broadly speaking, I think copyright should be a much shorter term, lasting more like 20 years rather than the 100+ years that is typical (life of the author + 70 years). The exact term is debateable, but the purpose should be to allow the artist sufficient time to monetize their creation for themselves, and then allowing the art to belong to the broader culture. There should be a worthwhile financial incentive to create art.

My utopian dream would be a radically restructured society where we do not expect people to have "artist" as a career. Instead, people would work 15 hours a week doing the work that must be done to contributue to society. The compensation from that 15 hours of work guarantees all their needs to live in modest comfort. People then have more leisure time to pursue whatever they find self-actualizing, which for many will mean creating art and sharing it with the world.

And if the books are not in the public domain, then they should not be allowed to train their AI models with the material without some kind of license or agreement with the owner of the copyright.

From there, you can connect with other individuals on other servers with similar interests or whatever. But your online identity would be rooted to where you actually live.

Time to move to a new city? You just migrate to a new Mastodon server. Makes sense.

As it stands now, Mastodon servers are primarily centered on some kind of shared interest, but I don't think that makes much sense. I am a person with many interests, so which do I pick? Over time, I might gradually lose interest in a subject, or simply prioritize something else. Do I leave that old server? It seems like a hassle to move, but it seems weird to stay. The result is that Mastodon servers seem so arbitrary, when they should be really important.

Other servers could still exist for the misfits or for people who otherwise find their city's server objectionable. But I think a city being the "default" option would make a lot of sense.

It uses ActivityPub, so you interact with Mastodon and stuff, if you are into that.

"Paper Website" seems appealing, but I haven't tried it yet: https://paperwebsite.com/

I think you know that, and that you are alluding to that with quotation marks. But I'm not sure how the person you are replying to is using the term "left." I feel it is important to clarify when discussing how the Left views immigration.

Clarification aside, I agree with what you said.

In the USA, where I live, there is not much of an ethical or cultural defense to prevent immigration. The dominant culture, white people, are themselves immigrants. To deny others the right to live and work here is selfish at best. If some people are allowed here and some people are not, the only logically coherent next step is to return all land and resources back to Native American hands. If we do not have the stomach for such a bold transition, then the next best thing is to welcome everyone. To do otherwise means allowing and denying people a life here on extremely arbitrary, hypocritical reasons (and usually racist reasons, frankly). So, at least in the USA (and I believe more broadly, North and South America), the political Left must necessarily be pro-immigration if they wish to be anti-racist.

Speaking even more broadly, Leftists have generally be in favor of internationalist cooperation (a la the famous song The Internationale). But how exactly that relates to immigration policies is debatable.