Let’s not mince words: everything is kind of awful right now.

Today, I wanted to offer some inspiration—a blueprint for action—for building a better world. Let’s dig in!

Build community

The single best way I’ve found to stave off that looming feeling of existential dread about all the things is to build community.

Not a Discord or Signal group. Real, in-your-town community.

Pick something you care about: a problem in your town that needs fixing or something that would make life better for everyone. Then, find some friends, post about it everywhere locals congregate (digital and/or physical), and get to work.

Connecting with and seeing a direct impact in the place you live is a different kind of rush. It’s tangible.

It’s also a form of prefiguration, demonstrating the kind of world you’d want to live in to folks who can’t imagine the value of it until they can see and touch it.

Music

I grew up in the punk and hardcore scene, where anti-fascism, mutual aid, and community care are core values.

Last year, I started listening to punk music a lot more again, and it’s done a lot to rewire my brain in very positive ways. Here’s a quick starter list…

Revolution by Pennywise

One million strong.
We cannot fall.
It’s all for one and one for all!

Architects by Rise Against

Do you still believe in all the things that you stood by before?
Are you out there on the front lines or at home keeping score?
Do you care to be the layer of the bricks that seal your fate?
Or would you rather be the architect of what we might create?

Rise by the Flobots

So much pain, we
Don’t know how to be but angry
We rise together

Hinds Hall 2 by Macklemore

Rap, but still punk AF.

Long the live the resistance if there’s something to resist.
Had enough of you mother fuckers murdering little kids.

It’s bigger than hip-hop by Dead Prez

Again, rap but punk AF.

One thing about music: when its real, they get scared.
Got us slaving for the welfare.
Ain’t no food, clothes, or healthcare.

Dead Men Don’t Rape by Delilah Bon

All the content warnings on this one, and it’s honestly a hard listen but an incredible piece of art.

It’s never been pro-life, only been pro-white
Black mothers fighting for justice
And what about babies? You wanna save them?
You only care when they’re unborn

I’m from the bay by LaRussell

Revolution isn’t just about anger and fighting injustice.

It’s about community and care. And I haven’t seen anyone do that better than LaRussell.

Everything he makes is focused on his community, the people there, spreading joy, and taking care of people. And fuck, do we need more of that in the world!

Books

There’s probably a lot of great nonfiction out there on how to lead and create change. But for me, reading fiction that paints a picture of what could be inspires me to get off my fucking ass and do something more than any biography ever could.

• The Monk & Robot series by Becky Chambers
• The Wayfarer series by Becky Chambers
• To Be Taught, If Fortunate by Becky Chambers
• The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells
• The Dungeon Crawler Carl series by Matt Diniman (more of a how-to for right now)

Shows & Videos

I’m reading a lot more than I’m watching these days, but I will pop on a lot of YouTube videos in the background while I fold laundry, do the dishes, and garden.

• Andrewism, on solarpunk and anarchism
• The Leftist Cooks, on all sorts of left-leaning human interest topics
• F.D. Signifier, a nice mix of media analysis, politics, and culture
• Our Changing Climate, on solarpunk and socialism
• Thought Slime, on all sorts of leftist shit
• Kipo and the Age of the Wonderbeasts, an amazing show about building community in dark times

Ms. Rachel

I don’t have a lot to say here other than “be more like Ms. Rachel.”

If you’re not familiar, she’s the host of a children’s TV show in the spirit of Mr. Rogers and Reading Rainbow. And she’s an very outspoken supporter of LGBTQ+ kids and Palestinian liberation.

As you might imagine, this has pissed off a lot of people and jeopardized her career.

Unlike most media folks, though, she didn’t just stand firm. She doubled down, and has publicly stated she’s willing to destroy her entire media empire to stand up for what’s right.

She has more courage and moral backbone than any US politician. She’s badass AF.

Be more like Ms. Rachel!

Mutual Aid

Care for others. Share what you have. Ask for what you need.

Join your local Buy Nothing Group. Start a community fridge. Shovel driveways for the elderly and disabled in your town. Raise funds for people who’ve lost their jobs or had family members kidnapped by ICE.

Care for your neighbors. Build community.

Anti-Capitalism

This goes hand-in-hand with mutual aid, but build systems outside of capitalism.

Share. Repair. Reuse.

Buy less and save more. Support local and family owned businesses when you can.

Be weird

There is almost nothing fascism hates more than people who won’t toe the line and conform.

Be weird. It’s a good form of virtue signaling.

Dye your hair. Paint your nails. Wear what you want. Ignore artificial norms around gender expression and what “people your age” should wear and what “looks attractive.”

It’s all bullshit. It’s all made up. None of it is real. None of it matters. It’s all about control.

So fuck that. Do what you want. Be weird!

Like this? A Lean Web Club membership is the best way to support my work and help me create more free content.

What if you read things around the web the way you watch movies or listen to music?

A couple of days ago I made a post on Mastodon introducing lettrss.com, a project that takes a book in the public domain and sends one chapter a day to your RSS reader.

Xinit replied with a great point about RSS feed management:

This is fascinating, but I know how it would go based on the thousands of unread RSS feeds I’ve had, and the thousands of unheard podcasts I subscribed to. I’d end up with an RSS of unread chapters, representing a whole book in short order.

Regardless of my inability to deal, it remains a great idea, and I will absolutely recommend while hiding my shame of a non-zero inbox.

When I first started using RSS, I thought I’d found this great tool for keeping tabs on news, current events, and stuff I should and do care about.

After adding newspapers, blogs, magazines, publications, YouTube channels and release notes from software I use, I felt a false sense of accomplishment, like I’d finally been able to wrangle the craziness of the internet into a single app, like I had rebelled against the algorithm™️.

But it didn’t take long to accumulate hundreds of posts, most of which I had no true desire to read, and soon after I abandoned my RSS reader. I came back to check on it from time to time, but its dreadful little indicator of unread posts felt like a personal failure, so eventually I deleted it entirely.

Will Hopkins wrote a great post on this exact feeling.

I don’t actually like to read later:

I used Instapaper back in the day, quite heavily. I built up a massive backlog of items that I’d read occasionally on my OG iPod Touch. At some point, I fell off the wagon, and Instapaper fell by the wayside.

[…] The same thing has happened with todo apps over the years, and feed readers. They become graveyards of good intentions and self-imposed obligations. Each item is a snapshot in time of my aspirations for myself, but they don’t comport to the reality of who I am.

I couldn’t have said it better myself. This only happens with long-form writing, whenever I come across an essay or blog post that I know will either require my full attention or a bit more time than I’m willing to give it in the moment.

I’ve never had that issue with music. Music is more discrete. It’s got a timestamp. I listen to music through moods and seasons, so much so that I make a playlist for every month of the year like a musical scrapbook.

What if we took this approach to RSS feeds?

Here’s what I replied to Xinit:

This is something I find myself struggling with too.

I think I’m okay knowing some RSS feeds are seasonal, same as music genres throughout the year. Some days I want rock, others I want jazz.

Similarly with RSS feeds, I’ve become comfortable archiving and resurfacing feeds.

For reference, I follow around 10 feeds at any given time, and the feeds I follow on my phone are different from the ones on my desktop.

You shouldn’t feel guilty about removing feeds from your RSS readers. It’s not a personal failure, it’s an allocation of resources like time and attention.

Further Reading

Marco Arment, Sane RSS Usage:

RSS is a great tool that’s very easy to misuse. And if you’re subscribing to any feeds that post more than about 10 items per day, you’re probably misusing it. I don’t mean that you’re using it in a way it wasn’t intended — rather, you’re using it in a way that’s not good for you.

This article was produced with support from WIRED.

A Meta executive in charge of building the company’s metaverse products told employees that they should be using AI to “go 5x faster” according to an internal message obtained by 404 Media . 

“Metaverse AI4P: Think 5X, not 5%,” the message, posted by Vishal Shah, Meta’s VP of Metaverse, said (AI4P is AI for Productivity). The idea is that programmers should be using AI to work five times more efficiently than they are currently working—not just using it to go 5 percent more efficiently.

“Our goal is simple yet audacious: make Al a habit, not a novelty. This means prioritizing training and adoption for everyone, so that using Al becomes second nature—just like any other tool we rely on,” the message read. “It also means integrating Al into every major codebase and workflow.” Shah added that this doesn’t just apply to engineers. “I want to see PMs, designers, and [cross functional] partners rolling up their sleeves and building prototypes, fixing bugs, and pushing the boundaries of what's possible,” he wrote. “I want to see us go 5X faster by eliminating the frictions that slow us down. And 5X faster to get to how our products feel much more quickly. Imagine a world where anyone can rapidly prototype an idea, and feedback loops are measured in hours—not weeks. That's the future we're building.”

Meta’s metaverse products, which CEO Mark Zuckerberg renamed the company to highlight, have been a colossal timesink and money pit, with the company spending tens of billions of dollars developing a product that relatively few people use. 

Zuckerberg has spoken extensively about how he expects AI agents to write most of Meta’s code within the next 12 to 18 months. The company also recently decided that job candidates would be allowed to use AI as part of their coding tests during job interviews. But Shah’s message highlights a fear that workers have had for quite some time: That bosses are not just expecting to replace workers with AI, they are expecting those who remain to use AI to become far more efficient. The implicit assumption is that the work that skilled humans do without AI simply isn’t good enough. At this point, most tech giants are pushing AI on their workforces. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy told employees in July that he expects AI to completely transform how the company works—and lead to job loss. "In the next few years, we expect that this will reduce our total corporate workforce as we get efficiency gains from using AI extensively across the company," he said. 

Many experienced software engineers feel like AI coding agents are creating a new crisis, where codebases contain bugs and errors that are difficult to fix since humans don’t necessarily know how specific code was written or what it does. This means a lot of engineers have become babysitters who have to fix vibe coded messes  written by AI coding agents. 

In the last few weeks, a handful of blogs written by coders have gone viral, including ones with titles such as: “Vibe coding is creating braindead coders,” “Vibe coding: Because who doesn’t love surprise technical debt!?,” “Vibe/No code Tech Debt,” and “Comprehension Debt: The Ticking Time Bomb of LLM-Generated Code.” 

In his message, Shah said that “we expect 80 percent of Metaverse employees to have integrated AI into their daily work routines by the end of this year, with rapid growth in engineering usage and a relentless focus on learning from the time and output we gain.” He went on to reference a series of upcoming trainings and internal documents about AI coding, including two “Metaverse day of AI learning” events.

“Dedicate the time. Take the training seriously. Share what you learn, and don’t be afraid to experiment,” he added. “The more we push ourselves, the more we’ll unlock. A 5X leap in productivity isn’t about small incremental improvements, it’s about fundamentally rethinking how we work, build, and innovate.” He ended the post with a graphic featuring a futuristic building with the words “Metaverse AI4P Think 5X, not 5%” superimposed on top. 

A Meta spokesperson told 404 Media “it's well-known that this is a priority and we're focused on using AI to help employees with their day-to-day work."

💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org →

Armin Ronacher, who is quite a well-known open source developer (especially in the Python community) and who would probably consider himself a very rational, pragmatic person when it comes to “AI” usage posted an interesting post on Mastodon today:

Post by @mitsuhiko@hachyderm.io

View on Mastodon

So his thought is that giving especially younger, less experienced developers “AI” assistants makes sense to get their feet wet, get into contributing to open source but that the quality of the “AI” systems is not there yet to be used by experienced developers who also might have to shoulder a lot more responsibility for the overall quality of a product.

I do absolutely disagree but one has to admit that this sounds very reasonable at first glance. I have literally heard the same argument made by a computer science professor, just not about computer science. And that conversation made it 100% clear that the argument does not hold up.

At the end of last year I was part (don’t ask me who or how, sometimes things just happen) of a sorta academic debate/workshop thingy on “AI” and its influence on learning and culture and creativity etc.

I was in a session with a professor for computer science who also is a musician (I forgot the instrument he plays): His argument was that giving people access to service like Suno (an “AI” company that lets you generate a song from a prompt) is democratizing because learning to play an instrument or even compose a song is really hard and takes a long time. (This is coincidentally exactly the argument the Suno CEO made at the beginning of this year: “It’s not really enjoyable to make music now […] It takes a lot of time, it takes a lot of practice, you need to get really good at an instrument or really good at a piece of production software. I think the majority of people don’t enjoy the majority of the time they spend making music.“)

So this professor’s hope was that if Suno let’s people generate music quicker they will get into it and then actually learn how to do it properly – either for the love of creative expression or just because at some point generating boring Suno stuff is no longer enough. There is one problem though. He had argued against that just minutes before.

He and another professor were minutes before talking about how teaching students to program no longer works the way it used to. The mode that I also had to go through when I was still a student is that you have a course that gives you the theory and concepts and an accompanying seminar in which you get increasingly difficult programming tasks to do either by yourself or in a group to actually put what you learned in the lecture in practice: The thought is that you cannot learn programming just by reading about it. It is a practice. Which means you need to practice. And it sucks to admit that: That’s the reason I failed my first programming course. I didn’t do the homework because I thought it was dumb to do these weird programming tasks. So I failed the test.

Students these days don’t get into the practice of programming because there’s always a “Copilot” or “Assistant” basically doing the work for them. And it absolutely works because the tasks you get while learning to program are dumb and keep repeating. Because you need to learn a handful of things and there’s just not too much use in trying to find a new way of expressing them so the plagiarism engine doesn’t generate the solution.

You cannot give people tasks to practice because they’ll hand in generated answers. That’s not the students’ fault: They are young and inexperienced, they have been told for years at that point that they need to get their degree as quickly as possible to get a job and their reason to study CS is to get a good job. It’s not a profession it’s just a random certificate that could mean more money doing some boring job (ideally as consultant so you never have to actually get involved or bear the consequences of any decision).

But what both professors who teach at different German universities confirmed is that the students who get through their courses using “assistance” will in fact not learn to actually program. Because why would they? They are optimizing towards getting their certificate and spending time to learn to program when some generator can give you code that works well enough for a passing grade without having to spend nights figuring shit out is a waste. It does not align with their goals. (And again: That’s not the fault of the students. That’s on us for shaping our education system into something not about intellectual curiosity and development of skills but into a form of certification generator that might get you a well-paid job.)

People who you teach that something comes from nothing will (mostly) not start doing “the same” thing in a more complex way, a way the demands more off of them. Because it’s hard to develop an appreciation of the things doing something can give you of the different quality of the product if you never had to touch the product in the first place.

LLMs teach you that you do not need to engage with any substance. That if you can think it, it will appear. Now people with more experience will instantly see that the quality often is garbage: Essays written with LLM help are often bland and boring, code contains structural problems, Suno music is soul-crushingly boring.

The best things in life are often acquired tastes. Sure (almost) everyone loves sweet stuff but having developed more of a complex appreciation of the nuances of what is possible allows you to experience a world of wonders that “just put more sugar in” doesn’t allow. But it’s a bit of an uphill battle. Understanding and appreciation takes time and engagement. You need to be present and actually interact with the world.

And this is where we come back to code. Learning to code is fucking annoying. It’s hard and you make a lot of mistakes. And when looking at experienced people’s code you often feel like a dumbass. It’s frustrating. And I am all for making the frustration less: Give people mentorship based on positive feedback and appreciation of the learner’s work and effort.

But that’s not what LLMs provide. Or promise. LLMs promise that you can be a part of a community and all the status and clout that comes with without putting in the work. And I do not see that there is a path to mend that foundational issue.

So in summary I don’t agree with Armin that his position is the rational or mature position. I think it’s still based on a significant amount of hopium, on a narrative about the world that does not align with what we see in reality.

There’s something profoundly different about Pride when it’s not just a party. Don’t get me wrong — I love a parade and the excuse to day-drink with glitter on my cheeks (both) as much as the next person. But Pride 2025 felt heavier, more urgent. When your very existence is under legislative assault, throwing on that rainbow flag becomes an act of defiance rather than just celebration. I came out as gay in 2005. The world feels like a scarier place now than it did then.

As someone who’s spent years working in civic tech “for good” trying to make the world a little bit better, I’ve watched governments weaponize policy against vulnerable communities before. But 2025? This really is different. More coordinated. Cruel. And yet my community’s response has been nothing short of extraordinary.

When the Government Comes for Your Kids

Let’s start with the gut punch that landed right in the middle of Pride month. On June 17th, the Trump administration announced they were shutting down the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline’s LGBTQ+ Youth services^[1]. You know, the hotline that had helped 1.3 million young LGBTQ+ people since 2022. The one serving kids who are four times more likely to attempt suicide than their peers.

The timing was deliberate. Cruel. Almost impressively evil.

This came after January’s executive orders that essentially erased trans people from federal recognition^[2] and banned gender-affirming care for anyone under 19^[3]. Because apparently, “protecting children” now means denying them life-saving medical care and cutting off their suicide prevention resources.

But here’s the thing about targeting kids — it pisses off literally everyone who has a functioning heart. And that includes a lot of Republicans who suddenly discovered they have trans grandchildren and gay nephews.

The Numbers Game From Hell

The statistics this year read like a horror novel set in a legislative house in hell. 942 anti-transgender bills under consideration across 49 states^[4]. Nine hundred and forty-two. That’s a coordinated campaign.

And it’s working. The Supreme Court dropped their anti-trans healthcare decision right in the middle of Pride month—June 18th^[5]. Twenty-seven states now ban some form of gender-affirming care for kids. Six states make providing such care a felony. The hate crime numbers? 2,949 anti-LGBTQ+ incidents reported to the FBI, with more than one in five of all hate crimes now targeting our community^[6]. GLAAD tracked an additional 918 incidents just in 2024—that’s 2.5 attacks on LGBTQ+ people every single day^[7].

These aren’t just numbers. They’re our friends, our kids, our community members getting harassed, threatened, and hurt for existing. This is my family.

Corporate Cowardice

And where were our supposed corporate allies during all this? Mostly hiding behind carefully worded statements about “focusing on our core business values” while quietly withdrawing Pride sponsorships. 39% of corporations scaled back their public LGBTQ+ engagement this year^[8]. Target—Target—got rejected as a sponsor by Twin Cities Pride because they’d already caved to right-wing pressure.

Honestly? Good for those Pride organizers. We’re all tired of companies that want our money but won’t stand with us when it gets hard. The retreat of corporate sponsors forced Pride events back to their grassroots, activist roots. The budgets were smaller, the parties less flashy, but the message was louder: we’re not going away.

When the World Gives You Hope

While America was busy legislating us out of existence, other parts of the world were moving forward. Thailand became the first Southeast Asian country to legalize same-sex marriage on January 23rd, with over 1,754 couples getting married on day one^[9]. Australia completed nationwide non-binary recognition^[10]. The Czech Republic ditched sterilization requirements for legal gender changes^[11].

Even in the UK, where the Supreme Court decided that trans women aren’t legally women^[12] (because apparently British judges missed the memo about basic human dignity), Hungary passed a constitutional ban on LGBTQ+ events^[13], and Viktor Orbán continued his slide into authoritarianism, people kept fighting back. Budapest’s mayor organized Pride as a “municipal celebration of freedom” with backing from 33 foreign embassies^[14].

WorldPride: The Resistance Gathers

Which brings me to WorldPride in Washington DC. 2-3 million people descending on the nation’s capital during the most hostile federal environment in decades^[15]. The parade route literally passed within one block of the White House. The symbolism wasn’t subtle, and it wasn’t supposed to be.

This wasn’t just a celebration; it was a demonstration. A reminder that we’re still here, still fighting, still incredible. Jennifer Lopez performed. RuPaul showed up. Kamala Harris sent a video message. But more importantly, millions of ordinary LGBTQ+ people and allies gathered to say “no” to erasure.

The “March For All” initiative let people march on behalf of LGBTQ+ individuals worldwide who can’t march safely themselves^[16]. In a year when visibility felt dangerous, making ourselves seen became an act of solidarity with those who couldn’t.

Political Wins That Actually Matter

At least we’re getting better representation in government. Sarah McBride became the first trans member of Congress. Julie Johnson became the first LGBTQ+ representative from a Southern state. Emily Randall made history as the first LGBTQ+ Latina in Congress^[17]. Twelve LGBTQ+ House members total—a record.

It matters to have people in power who understand that our rights aren’t theoretical policy debates but literal life-and-death issues for their constituents.

The Organizations Doing the Real Work

Every single one of our lives is better with trans people in it. Trans people are teachers, doctors, artists, engineers, parents, friends. They’re the nurse who holds your hand in the hospital, the teacher who sees potential in the weird kid, the neighbor who checks on your elderly parent.

The fight against trans rights isn’t really about bathrooms or sports. It’s about whether we’re going to be the kind of society that protects its most vulnerable members or throws them to the wolves for political points.

Trans people—especially trans women of color—have been at the forefront of every major LGBTQ+ rights victory. Stonewall was led by trans women like Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P. Johnson. The movement for marriage equality was built on decades of groundwork laid by trans activists who never got to see their own recognition.

We owe them everything. And right now, they need us to show up. So, as we finish the month of June, I want to draw your attention to three organizations that deserve your money right now:

Trans Lifeline runs the only national crisis hotline staffed entirely by trans operators. They refuse to call emergency services without caller consent, understanding that police involvement often makes situations worse for trans people, especially trans people of color. With a 4/4 star Charity Navigator rating, they’ve been literally saving lives since 2014^[18].

Donate at translifeline.org

Advocates for Trans Equality (A4TE) emerged from merging two powerhouse organizations—the National Center for Transgender Equality and Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund. They’re the people fighting in courts and Congress, with a perfect 100% Charity Navigator score and over 20 years of experience getting things done^[19].

Donate at a4te.org

Transgender Law Center (TLC) is the largest national trans-led civil rights organization, prioritizing BIPOC communities and fighting landmark cases like the one that established rights for transgender inmates. Also rated 100% by Charity Navigator, they’ve been in the trenches since 2002^[20].

Donate at transgenderlawcenter.org

The Work Continues

Pride 2025 reminded me why I got into civic tech in the first place. Technology alone can’t solve systemic oppression, but it can amplify voices, connect communities, and organize resistance. The apps that help trans people find safe bathrooms, the platforms that let LGBTQ+ youth connect with supportive adults, the databases that track anti-LGBTQ+ legislation—this is tech serving justice.

The attacks on our community are unprecedented, but so is our response. We’re not just surviving; we’re building something better. Pride 2025 wasn’t just about celebrating how far we’ve come. It was about committing to the work still ahead.

Because here’s what I know after watching this community fight for decades: they can pass all the laws they want. They can retreat their corporate sponsorships and write their hateful op-eds. But they cannot legislate us out of existence.

We’re still here. We’re still fighting. And we’re still beautiful.

Support the organizations doing the real work. Show up for your trans friends and neighbors. And remember: our liberation is bound up together.