Asklemmy

Part of what creates in me so much faith in communism is my profession vs my interests.

I am an engineer. If I didn't need to sell my labor I would be an engineer who solves problems and creates progress. Since I live in America, I don't.

Gymnastics, surfing, and study and write philosophical works. And maybe practice guitar.

I would do loads of degrees. History, English, Psychology, Politics, Spanish, etc. Having the brain space to focus on learning would be amazing. I did my masters part time while working full time and it was a nightmare. Glad I did it but I couldn't do my best as I was bogged down in work stuff.

I would also like to learn more languages. I do a bit of Spanish and Danish when I can but I rarely have the mental energy after work.

Travel too. Maybe write a book.

I would be what I am now, just a more "official" version of it, since what I do is akin to a paid hobby and has no firmly nested societal position. But that's assuming what I do would be valued in other types of societies either (it's just barely valued in Capitalism). I know a Marxist society most likely wouldn't value what I do as it's only a necessity-based job on a technical level. And it would have little relevance in Distributism, I think. Mutualism is a coin toss.

I'm an intellectually overqualified filmmaker surrounded by anti-intellectuals (I routinely get made fun of for being interested in technical stuff)....and right now, I am on workman's comp with a broken foot. So: exactly what I am doing right now is exactly what I would want to be doing.

What's that?
Hanging out with my daughter in my lab,

Learning

• Haskell/Plutus
• Purescript
• using Nix to glue them together
• hacking an espresso machine (either with a RISC_V Lychee Pi or an ESP32...haven't decided yet).

Practicing:

• guitar

Blazing:

• chronic

I'd be writing a lot more music

Probably sleep or do gamedev in a full time fashion.

I would love to do more with animation especially non-traditional animation like LED or Pinscreen, but the barrier of entry is just too high.

Same thing I do now, but instead of full-time work / part-time student, I'd flip it to part-time work and full-time student.

I'm hanging on to the bottom step of the medical ladder - this field is fascinating as fuck, and even as just a tech I get a lot of satisfaction in my role (albeit minor relative to doctors or nurses) in helping others recover from whatever sickness/injury they present with.

Without the financial barriers and current need to work till exhaustion to afford rent, I'd be highly interested in going all the way to physician, but at the rate I'm able to actually afford the time and money to take classes, I'll be pushing 40 when I'm able to clear the hurdle from tech to nurse; and it already hurts to move half of my fucking joints, so once this nursing shit is finished, I don't see myself climbing any more ladders, literal or otherwise... at that point it'll just be the counting the days till retirement or planning out the most pleasurable way to commit suicide.

I'd play music for my community. It's alright by myself but I love an audience.

Get involved in whatever community food garden is around.

Make art. Give it away.

If I could start from scratch, maybe something. In my current condition I would probably just feel unproductive and guilty every day, with no personal direction of my own.

Without capitalism, I'd probably be serf like my great-grandparents were. There's a lot to criticize about capitalism, but it's still an improvement on its predecessor.

I'd probably still be a mechanical engineer, but maybe I could have gotten some more education in the direction of nuclear power and/or automation. I might have also had another kid instead of just one.

Edit: I'd also like to learn and get good at welding. It would be cool to not only engineer a nuclear power plant, but to help actually build it as well. Then again, I'd probably never get good enough at welding to do so unless I devoted myself to the trade. Maybe I could just get some shifts as a plant operator after it's built.

Rock climbing. I got into over summer but I only have time to go once or twice a week at most. And that's just indoors. A whole outdoor trip would take way too much of my time, time that I don't have.

What would you when you get in this undefined yet not capitalist utopia and are forced to work long hours at a job you didn't choose to help further the cause of the revolution?

I think about this at least a little bit most days.

I'd finish some video games again.

Work on more music, ideally practice piani again to get my theory back on track.

Make projects, communal gardening etc..

Outside the selfish self-enrichment kinda stuff, teach kids programming, and participate more in my hema club.