I was wondering, good to know, thanks.

Ah, you want to be brainwashed?

Probably about how they reacted when Putin took Kiev in three days.

Oh, wait…

Wow, you claimed I missed the point - I was just pointing out that you’re putting words into my mouth, but the projection is pretty damn strong here.

The point is that authoritarian will always claim their party is popular, no matter what. If you want an American example, take Trump, he does the same shit.

The people of China have chosen the CPC

To quote you:

Lol. When?

(By the way parties like Die Linke in Germany exist and have unseated traditional capitalist parties - so even with your false equivalency your point is moot)

Here are some more things you’ve twisted and put into my mouth that I never fucking wrote:

• I don’t care if the government is popular
• I don’t care about being able to chose policy (hint: by choosing different parties you can chose different policies)
• And again, I somehow have some specific wish on which policies I want China to implement

All things I never wrote.

But then maybe it’s my fault for expecting good faith arguments from someone who likes authoritarianism just because they agree with the policies of the authoritarian and accuses others of seeing everything they don’t like as authoritarianism (oh, here goes the projection again!)

Well that’s an unfortunate number for something like that…

…und wieder reden wir nur über Symptombekämpfung und Pflasterlösungen. Social Media muss nicht so furchtbar sein. Social Media muss nicht süchtig machen. Sehen wir am Beispiel vom Fediversum. Altersbegrenzungen heißt: Alterskontrollen, mit der Datenkrake die das verursacht.

Wie wäre es, wir regulieren die sozialen Medien an sich? Ein Start wäre es, dass die ihre Algorithmen offenlegen müssen. Dann können wir das verwenden um weitere Schritte zu gehen.

“Why would I vote out [authoritarian government]? It’s a very popular government!” -every authoritarian supporter, ever

And there is a very major difference between one party that controls who gets on the ballot and a swath of parties that agree on a certain economic principle, that’s a false equivalency. And there have been capitalist parties voted out in the West, so even with that false pretext your argument is moot.

Oh, and stop putting words into my mouth. Things I never wrote:

• Western democracies are maybe heading in that direction, possibly -> yeah, they’re not a monolithic block, different countries are different, just like Asian countries are not a monolithic block - and backsliding into authoritarianism isn’t something that happens overnight
• My idea of democracy is a popular party being removed -> no, my idea of democracy is that the people have the right to chose a different party and to publicly voice dissent
• …because westerners don’t like them -> no, because I believe humans have a right to chose who governs them

Now please explain this to the company I work for which is continually moving more and more into the Microsoft world because “the licenses are already included in our contract with Microsoft so it saves us money”.

Lol did you even read my comment? I specifically said the US democracy is crumbling. Three guesses as to what democracy crumbles into.

But yeah OK, China is a great democracy, go ahead and vote out the CCP. I’ll wait.

How do I cut my wifi cable

To be fair, China’s high speed rail network has also grown so quickly because there are no public consultations or similar. They just build it, the people be damned. If you don’t have a democracy, that works. But I would rather live in a democracy than an authoritarian state (at the same time, I’m glad I’m not living in the crumbling democracy that is the US).

Of course, what Elon is saying is total BS, and the US could have started much earlier - or, that is, improved the north east corridor and used that experience to bring more high speed rail to the US much earlier. But anyway…

Yup - I’m for it, in a very specific combination. A universal basic income that is regularly recalculated to ensure that it provides for all basic needs, connected with a flat tax on any income earned through other means and an abolishment of the minimum wage. What it means: taxes become much simpler, the vast majority of people don’t need to do them at all. Employers only advertise with net income, so you immediately know what you’re getting at the end of the week/month. Since there is no minimum wage (and since one isn’t necessary any more due to everyone having their basic needs covered), the economy is more inclusive, since jobs that don’t attract as much money but still benefit society like being a musician can be done that much more. Employees have more power since losing their job doesn’t mean the threat of losing the ability to afford necessities, meaning they also have a stronger position at the bargaining table.

yt-dlp ist schon echt genial…

MKBHD. He used to be, IMO, the best tech channel out there. The reviews were honest, well produced, and held companies’ feet to the fire. The old MKBHD poked fun at the companies’ shortcomings (I specifically remember him telling iPhone users to add a widget - then going “oh, wait…”). The new MKBHD interviews Tim Cook and doesn’t properly question any of the BS he speaks.

Meine Entscheidung, ein bestimmtes Unternehmen nicht unterstützen zu wollen, halte ich für legitim.

Ist es auch, nur er hat dir niemals versprochen, dass er sich das nicht von Amazon besorgt. Das ist so ähnlich wie wenn du bei einer Veranstaltung etwas kaufst - da verspricht dir auch niemand, dass Händler X nicht im Spiel ist. Wenn er geworben hätte, dass Amazon außen vor ist, wäre das eine andere Sache, dann hätte er betrogen, das ist aber vermutlich hier nicht der Fall.

Others have explained pretty well how to examine your threat model, and what is realistic and what is not.

What I notice though, is that you seem kind of panicked. You’re worried about a myriad of different threats. Is there something that has happened in your life that has drastically changed your threat model or did you just read a lot and start worrying?

If it’s the second, slow down. Things won’t drastically change. Pick one thing (Let’s say the recording without your awareness aspect), read up about it, just not on conspiracy websites, understand how privacy controls work, what they can and can’t control, how the OS handles these things, etc. Look at what your settings in that regard, look at what you want to change (if anything), and how it affects your day-to-day life. Live with the changes for a while, until you get used to them. Then move to the next topic.

If it’s the first, then still look at the different aspects one after the other. You won’t be helping anything by panicking.

Ow, now my brain hurts.

Whelp, let’s see how long John Oliver survives this.

I would generally do this. You can do much more by supporting shelters, addiction recovery services, mental health services than the like than by giving individuals money.

In some cases (depends on where you live), you might actually be doing more harm than good. In many major cities the begging is pretty organized, sometimes with clan leaders who then take a part of the donations they’ve collected. It’s much better to support services that can help people out of those situations, because that will go a lot further to give the people the life they deserve.

Honestly, because my last relationship was a disaster that I’m still recovering from, years later. My then partner’s “mother” (I prefer the term egg donor) was and still is horrifically abusive and managed to destroy just about every aspect of my mental health. So right now I’m focused on getting that back into shape as far as possible.

To make matters worse, ever since having experienced that, I tend to attract people who are in abusive situations. When they start talking about what they’re going through I understand them on an entirely different level and wooops, there’s the next one. And yeah, I learned my lesson the first time (well, sort of): don’t start a relationship with someone in an abusive situation. If you’re both interested, make sure they’re fully out of that situation first, then you can start thinking about a relationship.