Realistically, there’s going to be no way to stop this. It’s too useful. It works and most people appreciate it. I know this because I have visited southern China recently. I’ve seen the train stations and coffee shops where people now think nothing of leaving their belongings completely unattended. This level of surveillance effectively makes petty crime impossible. It’s widely seen as progress, in a way it is progress, and there’s no going back.

The challenge remaining is to keep some level of democratic accountability over our governments. That’s feasible but it’s not going to be easy.

Zero and I feel bad about it.

In (very partial) mitigation, I regularly contribute bug reports and other detailed feedback on lots of issue trackers.

Here’s the fundamental problem. I benefit from a whole bunch of FOSS projects. I absolutely cannot afford to donate 5 USD to each one per month. Even donating $1 to each would be unaffordable - and of course that makes no sense because of the fees problem. It’s the same problem with podcasts, and indeed basically all internet content.

We have to find a way to make non-DRM micropayments work better. It’s the only alternative to the poisonous ad-based information economy. I so want a solution like Flattr to become widely adopted. That is: I decide a cap on my monthly donation total, and then that sum is divided up among the projects I choose according to criteria I choose.

This is the correct but boring (but correct) answer.

This is the sort of specialized question that should be asked in a specialized community, rather than here. It even concerns a country, and communities always exist for countries.

Who is this “we” you talk of?

And that’s on TV. Watching it as a spectator: wait, wait, wait, wait, wait (wait… wait…], WHOOSH

Cricket. Not even close.

So, a bookmarks list basically.

Prediction: you’ll never actually read most of what ends up on this to-read list.

just a voice reading a text […] Simon Whistler

The ultimate voice reading a text IMO. Specifically, a voice reading a text that it has clearly never seen before and where the producers have not even bothered to explain how to pronounce the names in it. IMO Simon Whistler is like Justin Bieber - essentially a product of the YouTube algorithm. In this case, a hipstery guy with an amazing beard and a posh authoritative accent talking confidently about… whatever. To me it just screams inauthenticity. But it’s obviously what people want so congrats to him for riding the gravy train.

The main public library in Paris opens on every single day of the year except one, and it’s not Christmas Day. It’s 1 May.

I found that to be a revealing statement of values.

Yep. Pathetic and embarrassing.

This is all true. it’s something that crosses my mind whenever I spend (i.e. waste, probably) any time at all in debate. In person too, BTW, although text feels even worse because of the way it disembodies your interlocutor.

And yet. Open debate is all we have. The alternatives cannot possibly be better. I tell myself that even if 99% of it is useless, that remaining 1% can make a lot of difference statistically. I can certainly think of occasions when I’ve changed my mind, or at least seen things in a new light, because of a single comment someone made in debate. But yes, it’s rare.

Luigi Mangione.

ITT: lots of generic VPN advice by people who have no experience with the specific problem.

French fries, shorly.

There is nothing inherent about technology that means it must be used for evil.

Sure. In theory. But there are things we know about humans and their weaknesses, and these things are not going to change overnight (except perhaps in the fever dreams of some Marxists, of whom you might be one). Technology of this power did not exist before, and now it does. So technology is indeed the proximate problem.

While this is essentially true, IMO it’s become a bit of a distraction. The immediate problem we face today is technology.

In the 90s, people believed technology (i.e. the internet) would protect liberty against power (or “security”). We thought that removing the barriers to information would put our rulers in a goldfish bowl where we could keep an eye on them. It was a reasonable expectation. But it turns out to be us in the goldfish bowl.

It seems those with power simply have more time and resources available for surveillance. And now the technology is reaching a point where rulers will soon have awesome tools at their disposal, and they’re sure gonna be tempted to use them.

Our problem is technology. Not sure how to put a positive spin on this. Technology itself will provide some solutions. But IMO it’s more important than ever to get involved in politics. In any appropriate way.

Sad if true. I don’t see it being practical to tell people to use different apps depending on the number of interlocutors.

Yes, it was called Pidgin. But things become more complex when you add E2E encryption. The ideal destination is a single agreed protocol, just like one exists for things like telephones, the web, and email.