Oh, I'm not putting this on any individual citizen, I'm genuinely sorry if it came out that way!
Sharing is virtuous, and everyone should most certainly try to share more (within their means, of course!), but the game was rigged long before those who are alive now ever existed. Unfortunately, as long as the system itself doesn't change, individual action can only achieve so much in terms of offering fair conditions and opportunities for everyone...
Again, no such issue, I'd actually have a bit more respect for LLMs were they this eloquent and pleasant!😀) Glad to have generated a crumb of something good!😁
To be perfectly frank, I can relate... Not gonna give up trying, just that I've never had much use for optimism given how things have been going overall.
Nope... zero. It's just what I feel is the right thing to do, regardless of results. And, on a more self-serving note, I will at least die with a clear conscience knowing that I did all I could do to follow and respect my principles, to be at least a quasi-decent human being.
What did they say? They deleted their account, so we all feel like assholes trying to figure out what you are replying to.
Don't feel obligated to respond, you aren't the "c u next Tuesday" in this situation
Edit: go figure, they didn't delete their account, just whatever they said. This is an incredibly META thing for someone with an 'umbrella emoji as a username' to do.
That's not enitirely true. The American Dream was (and is) settler-colonialism. Early settlers were promised free land if they killed indigenous peoples living there already, which led to a mostly self-sufficient labor class that could use its self-farmed land as a means to support themselves while bargaining for higher wages. If you were a white man, this dream was attainable, period, even if it meant enslaving and genociding millions of people.
Then came the post-war period. The wartime economy was still fairly planned, and aimed at full employment. Further, the US was emerging as world hegemon and de-facto empire. Imperialism and social safety nets largely expanded due to needing to provide better metrics than the Soviet Union was providing again kept the white men of the US living in the American Dream.
Now that imperialism is decaying, and social safety nets have been gutted along with the fall of the USSR as the main rival power, even white men are starting to fall into genuine proletarianization at large. The US is still a settler-colony, but its one where finance capital has dictatorial control yet imperialism is waning, and where many industries have been hollowed out and shipped overseas because imperialism was more profitable. The US is working its way to its own demise.
Agreed, that was the "advertised" goal, and the overall shape things took once it was set into motion. But looking at things now, in retrospect, I genuinely believe that's just what everyone was told to sell them on the idea, with the actual plan being very different for those who had access backstage, y'know?
I mean, it's much easier to motivate people to uproot their lives (regardless of how abysmal their living conditions were at the time) by promising a Land of Opportunity For Everyone, instead of telling them "yeah, we're a bunch of rich guys who want to get even richer, and we need cheap labour to get things started, then work for us, so that we may accumulate all of the wealth."
My point is that, initially, labor-power wasn't cheap. That's why there were slaves and indentured servants, to make up for the fact that the commodity labor-power was pricier. That's what's so dangerous about settler-colonialism, it "works" for a far larger portion of society, which is why it has led to some of the most horrendous crimes of all time.
It's only now that the system is starting to genuinely unravel, but the US Empire's history as one of the most far-right and brutal countries ever is directly tied to its large settler-colonial class relations.
Well, yeah, it's the pyramid scheme to end all pyramid schemes, not arguing against that. But that was the Dream.
And "not cheap" as in "had a wage," as opposed to not being paid at all as a slave (although there were some costs involved with that as well, so not entirely free - I am not arguing for slavery in any way, I was just boiling down the expenditure). But wealth was clearly still pooled at the top, while most people were no better off than they are now, when talking strictly about wealth distribution ratios.
Edit: the only advantage they had was that land was "free for the taking" (if they were willing to do a little genocide beforehand), but even that ended up pooling around a handful of people once things and people settled in.
The disparity is actually skyrocketing moreso now, and steadily has been for the last century. The New Deal, as a response to the USSR, did manage to temporarily lower inequality, but corporations weren't nearly as monopolized. The status we are in today took a long time, and for hundreds of years, disparity was actually much lower than England and other countries that had started capitalism in earnest. The semi-yeoman worker in the US had bargaining power and land, which slowed down tge process of disparity.
None of this is in defense of settler-colonialism. I bring it up because it points to the class character of the US, and helps explain why it's so far-right and reactionary, as well as why leftist radicalization is increasing rapidly.
Yet again, I agree! But wouldn't you also agree that the system always had this in-built inequality? What I meant to say was that, while it was less immediately obvious at the start, the subsequent pooling and acceleration of said pooling were always going to happen within this system.
And that's why I suspect that this was the plan all along, because it has been visible from the start, it didn't require a retrospective if one was paying enough attention. And those who did got very, very rich.
But even if everyone would have been paying attention*, there would be no room for equality, otherwise the entire pyramid would collapse, taking everyone's "more than" with it.
Yes, I absolutely agree that the disparity we see today is a direct result of the former social relations. The agrarian slave-driven economy in the south was certainly going to result in conflict with the industrial economy based on wage labor in the north, especially as the north needed new wage laborers to expand industrially. Historical progression is a process of endless spirals, tendencies and trajectories accumulate over time until a quantitative buildup results in a qualitative change.
However, I don't see it as something that was intentionally planned. Capital doesn't think that way. Capitalist production is an ever-expanding circuit that must constantly be repeated, anything going against that system of voracious profit gets dashed. Long-term planning is characteristic of socialism, not capitalism, nor the semi-yeoman style of settler-colonial capitalism or slave driven agrarian economy.
This is important, because understanding how we got here today can tell us where we are headed. The historic task of the US proletariat in the age of dying imperialism is to topple the capitalist state and replace it with a socialist state, focusing on decolonization and anti-imperialism. The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born. This is only increasingly possible because the US working class is becoming increasingly proletarianized due to monopolist capture of the land, and imperialism is weakening to the point where we cannot be bribed as much by its spoils.
We aren't here because of some 5-D chess from the old bourgeoisie, nor did the settlers have ignorance of the system. The US settler class was bribed using the spoils of genocide, and its only increasingly true now that there isn't really a semi-yeoman class. The immense brutality of settler-colonialism can't keep the US afloat anymore, nor can imperialism.
I'm just trying to help provide a Marxist perspective, as it genuinely gives us a chance of completing the US proletariat's historic duty. I'm a Marxist-Leninist.
Maybe you're right, maybe I'm just so completely lacking any faith in greedy humans that I now suspect everything was a ploy. I dunno, maybe it's one of the pitfalls of hindsight, that it can easily seem to have intentionality when the string of failures is so smooth and perfect. I mean, at the end of the day, Capitalism is, to my mind, uniquely insidious as a system.
Either way, I really don't want you to think I was disagreeing with you about anything else, whether planned or not, it is most certainly worth learning everything we can from its evolution. As you've said, we need to have the future in mind, because this thing'll be around for at least a bit longer...
Sincerely thank you for the theory! I'm not as versed in these aspects for now, so I don't know where I'd land on the political/philosophical spectrum exactly. All I know is that I sincerely want everyone to have a truly fair chance at life without having to worry about being persecuted for who they are, without having to be relatively rich to afford basic healthcare (I'm including the various hormone therapies here because it's well past time we grew the fuck up and stopped obsessing about other people's genitals, as... uuh... someone smarter than me put it) and without the fear that they may starve or become homeless, ffs... And I also know that what we've been doing so far obviously ain't it...
Modes of production are historical phenomena, guided by technological advancements. Capitalism wasn't a choice, but a result of growing industrial bourgeois production resolving its contradiction with feudal agrarian production. The steam engine is what accelerated this process. Zooming out, capital is the real master of capitalists, capitalists are merely the high priests of capital best guessing at what it wants, but ultimately are slaves to the profit motive and how to best extract it.
And no worries! One thing that's helpful, is that the centralization of capitalism over time is exactly what creates a large class capable of collectively planning and running production in the interests of all. The profit motive destroys the profit motive. I try to maintain revolutionary optimism, doomerism is more of a product of the capitalist class trying to remove revolutionary fervor.
Based on your final paragraph, you'd do well with reading leftist theory! I already said I'm a Marxist-Leninist, I actually made an introductory Marxist-Leninist reading list if you want to spend some time on theory, but you can explore whatever leftist tendencies you want to. The two biggest umbrellas are anarchism and Marxism, the former being about decentralization and horizontalism, the latter being about centralization and collectivization (to massively oversimplify), and the biggest tendency in Marxism is Marxism-Leninism. If you want to learn more about what makes these distinct, feel free to ask, I used to be an anarchist myself.
Also, if you can, join an org! If you're US-based, I recommend something like The Party for Socialism and Liberation. There are probably other orgs local to you, though, so do some shopping around. Getting organized is the only way out of this mess, and into the new. A better world is possible!
It's time to read theory, comrades! As Lenin says, "Despair is typical of those who do not understand the causes of evil, see no way out, and are incapable of struggle." Reading theory helps us identify the core contradictions within modern society, analyze their trajectories, and gives us the tools to break free. Marxism-Leninism is broken into 3 major components, as noted by Lenin in his pamphlet The Three Sources and Three Component Parts of Marxism: | Audiobook
Dialectical and Historical Materialism
Critique of Capitalism along the lines of Marx's Law of Value
Advocacy for Revolutionary and Scientific Socialism
As such, I created the following list to take you from no knowledge whatsoever of Leftist theory, and leave you with a strong understanding of the critical fundamentals of Marxism-Leninism in an order that builds up as you read. Let's get started!
Section I: Getting Started
What the heck is Communism, anyways? For that matter, what is fascism?
Breaks down fascism and its mortal enemy, Communism, as well as their antagonistic relationship. Understanding what fascism is, where and when it rises, why it does so, and how to banish it forever is critical. Parenti also helps debunk common anti-Communist myths, from both the "left" and the right, in a quick-witted writing style. This is also an excellent time to watch the famous speech.
Section II: Historical and Dialectical Materialism
By far my favorite primer on Marxist philosophy. By understanding Dialectical and Historical Materialism first, you make it easier to understand the rest of Marxism-Leninism. Don't be intimidated!
Further reading on Dialectical and Historical Materialism, but crucially introduces the why of Scientific Socialism, explaining how Capitalism itself prepares the conditions for public ownership and planning by centralizing itself into monopolist syndicates. This is also where Engels talks about the failures of previous "Utopian" Socialists.
Section III: Political Economy
That's right, it's time for the Law of Value and a deep-dive into Imperialism. If we are to defeat Capitalism, we must learn it's mechanisms, tendencies, contradictions, and laws.
Best taken as a pair, these essays simplify the most important parts of the Law of Value. Marx is targetting those not trained in economics here, but you might want to keep a pen and some paper to follow along if you are a visual person.
Absolutely crucial and the most important work for understanding the modern era and its primary contradictions. Marxist-Leninists understand that Imperialism is the greatest contradiction in the modern era, which cascades downward into all manner of related contradictions. Knowing what dying Capitalism looks like, and how it behaves, means we can kill it.
Section IV: Revolutionary and Scientific Socialism
Can we defeat Capitalism at the ballot box? What about just defeating fascism? What about the role of the state?
If Marxists believed reforming Capitalist society was possible, we would be the first in line for it. Sadly, it isn't possible, which Luxemburg proves in this monumental writing.
Excellent refutation of revisionists and Social Democrats who think the State can be reformed, without needing to be replaced with one that is run by the workers, in their own interests.
Section V: Intersectionality and Solidarity
The revolution will not be fought by atomized individuals, but by an intersectional, international working class movement. Intersectionality is critical, because it allows different marginalized groups to work together in collective interest, unifying into a broad movement.
Critical reading on understanding misogyny, transphobia, enbyphobia, pluralphobia, and homophobia, as well as how to move beyond the base subject of "gender." Uses the foundations built up in the previous works to analyze gender theory from a Historical Materialist perspective.
De-colonialism is essential to Marxism. Without having a strong, de-colonial, internationalist stance, we have no path to victory nor a path to justice. Fanon analyzes Colonialism's dehumanizing effects, and lays out how to form a de-colonial movement, as well as its necessity.
Solidarity and intersectionality are the key to any social movement. When different social groups fight for liberation together along intersectional lines, the movements are emboldened and empowered ever-further.
Section VI: Putting it into Practice!
It's not enough to endlessly read, you must put theory to practice. That is how you can improve yourself and the movements you support. Touch grass!
Mao wrote simply and directly, targeting peasant soldiers during the Revolutionary War in China. This pair of essays equip the reader with the ability to apply the analytical tools of Dialectical Materialism to their every day practice, and better understand problems.
Congratulations, you completed your introductory reading course!
With your new understanding and knowledge of Marxism-Leninism, here is a mini What is to be Done? of your own to follow, and take with you as practical advice.
Get organized. Join a Leftist org, find solidarity with fellow comrades, and protect each other. The Dems will not save you, it is up to us to protect ourselves. The Party for Socialism and Liberation and Freedom Road Socialist Organization both organize year round, every year, because the battle for progress is a constant struggle, not a single election. See if there is a chapter near you, or start one! Or, see if there's an org you like more near you and join it.
Read theory. Don't think that you are done now! Just because you have the basics, doesn't mean you know more than you do. If you have not investigated a subject, don't speak on it! Don't speak nonsense, but listen!
Aggressively combat white supremacy, misogyny, queerphobia, and other attacks on marginalized communities. Cede no ground, let nobody be forgotten or left behind. There is strength in numbers, when one marginalized group is targeted, many more are sure to follow.
Be industrious, and self-sufficient. Take up gardening, home repair, tinkering. It is through practice that you elevate your problem-solving capabilities. Not only will you improve your skill at one subject, but your general problem-solving muscles get strengthened as well.
Learn self-defense. Get armed, if practical. Be ready to protect yourself and others. Liberals will not save us, we must save each other.
Be persistent. If you feel like a single water droplet against a mountain, think of canyons and valleys. Oh, how our efforts pile up! With consistency, every rock, boulder, even mountain, can be drilled through with nothing but steady and persistent water droplets.
"Everything under heaven is in utter chaos; the situation is excellent."
Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO) is a national organization of revolutionaries fighting for socialism in the United States. Our home is in the working class.
Most definitely have a lot of Leftist reading to do! If nothing else, I at least know I'm well Left of Center:))
Now that I've mulled it over some more, I think it feels very intentional to me because I do see a lot of similarities between it and Feudalism, yes! It's like Capitalism is comprised of multiple smaller monarchies, referring to Corporations and any organisation/person with a large amount of capital at their disposal, and thus influence. But, yeah, we're talking orders of magitude of complexity above traditional feudalism, so it would stand to reason that it's most likely just a mathematical whirlpool of sorts. I do agree that capital is the main point of power in Capitalism and that everything else has formed around it.
Which, on a personal side note, is so sad when looking at the big picture! It means that the people in power aren't actually driven by anything concretely Human™, so to speak, they've ceeded full control of themselves and their lives over to the accumulation of something entirely fictitious... It'd be lamentable if it wasn't so damned dangerous...
Thank you so much for the reading list! It's so nice to have a quasi-curriculum for these things! And I probably will drop a line or two once I get started with the reading! Truth be told, I'm at the point where I know enough to understand just how little I know about the subject, so I can't even think of relevant questions at the moment. I've focused more on existential philosophy and such so far, needed to fix myself first:))
As for joining an org, that's in my 2-year plan (life got upended, again, so it's running alongside several other need-to-do stuff). I will lean very heavily into volunteer work, hopefully that'll open up some political networks as well. If nothing else, it is urgently clear that it's time to act as a citizen. Thank Christ we've managed to pull another 4 years of European Union (Romanian)... We have a lukewarm Centrist now, but at least it's not a raging Fascist...
Yep! Marx himself said that the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles, after all. Feudalism does have a lot in common with capitalism, but what makes Marx interesting is how he analyzed how capitalism is different. Many leftists of his era were focused on the similarity between capitalism and feudalism, Marx focused on the opposite, how it's different, and this is what propelled him into scientific socialism, socialism as it emerges from capitalism.
And no problem for the reading list! It's designed to be completed in order, and is focused on taking someone freshly radicalized but with no experience with leftist theory, and leave them as someone with a firm grasp on the fundamentals of Marxism-Leninism and how to behave as an organized leftist! It also has audiobooks, queer and feminist theory, a good dose of basic history, and more. Since you mentioned philosophy, the 2nd section goes over Dialectical Materialism, so it might be a really good fit for you if that's your current interest! Still read section 1 before 2, but 2 is a fun section once you get there!
And great to hear you plan on getting organized! Really, that's step 1, but obviously not everyone can do so immediately due to life events and whatnot. Just do what you can!
Yep, that makes a lot of sense. I mean, it's much easier to change things if said change is built upon what's useful from the old. No use throwing out the things which actually do work (whether by design or incidentally, doesn't matter, happy accidents are still happy), plus it has the added benefit of maintaining some degree of familiarity, so I would imagine that makes the pill easier to swallow.
I'll most definitely take it in the order given, the new is always prioritised:)) Sounds delectably thorough, my brain will be happy, thank you! And, yeah, that's pretty much the basis on which I've started pulling hard to the Left (used to be Undecided, a.k.a. I'm Severely Depressed And Don't Have The Space For It). Existentialism steered me toward an understanding of what a satisfying life means for the human psyche, which then shoved me into "well, hey! Sounds like something which would be nice for everyone!" Then I finally saw the world for what it is and... yeah...
Completely agreed, change starts from home, always. It looks daunting, but the fact that so many people remember that Fascism is objectively bad, actually, means it's not impossible.
Thanks so much once again, both for the resources and the conversation! And sorry again if I came off as hostile, I've been struggling to manage a hefty case of misanthropy for the past almost-decade.
No worries, and have fun with it! Feel free to ask any questions or give feedback for it if you want to. It's also an intro list, there's a ton you can read beyond it once you finish, but you should be able to figure out what you want to read when you finish it.
Except we're witnessing the entire establishment media publishing the same claims as they did before except they have already been fully debunked by the UN. So now they are posting provably false information.
A 'journalist' who published the new one literally debunked the claims.
But this is also an rw antisemitic trope, to the extent it has its own wikipedia article, and has since 2003.
Search Zionist control of media and you'll find an endless series of righting fascist, white nationalist, and straight up Nazi promotion of the idea (although they use Zionist and Jewish interchangeably, when I recognize that you geneva_convenience, do understand the difference).
Its a painful kind of wrap-around bending of reality that has happened, and I don't disagree with the reality. I'm just pointing out its irony.
The meme is of the format "Is this something it isnt?", which is intended to highlight the irony that now the left is having to make the same claims rw's have made for decades, but now that its real, the rw actually supports the Zionist control of media, and maybe even represents the primary force of Zionism internationally through Christian Zionism.
It's great that you know how to cite conspiracies from Wikipedia. Now please explain why all the mainstream western news outlets are uncritically citing debunked Israeli propaganda. Including the authors who debunked the propaganda.
Now please explain why all the mainstream western news outlets are uncritically citing debunked Israeli propaganda. Including the authors who debunked the propaganda.
You don't have to imply that there there are any antisemitic dog-whistles. Zionists in America are primarily Christians. I will very gladly change my stance if someone can provide a reasonable explanation for this.
Now please explain why all the mainstream western news outlets are uncritically citing debunked Israeli propaganda. Including the authors who debunked the propaganda.
Is Zei still up Glenn Greenwald’s ass? I still remember them (several years ago at this point) blocking every trans person who even pointed out to them that he’s a bigot, no matter how gently.
Okay, I don’t have links and I’m not going to dig through that shithole to try to find them 🤷♂️ At one point they explicitly thank Glenn Greenwald (try searching by @ and not name) for helping to get their account restored when they got suspended. That was when trans people started pointing out GG is a fuckhead and started getting blocked.
It wouldn’t surprise me if they’ve tried to erase all evidence of it since his turn to the right, but my ass stays mad about people being chummy with bigots.
If a single critical post is proof they hate GG, why isn’t a post thanking him and blocking a ton of trans people evidence to the contrary?
As for what else I would want, what I and all the blocked trans people pretty explicitly wanted was just an acknowledgement that he was transphobic. But that’s too big an ask apparently.
You got a post about the Squirrel explicitly attacking Glenn for his anti woke GOP farming. I didn't even put in effort I just searched Glenn Greenwald on their profile. Can you source what claim you're even talking about?
I already told you I’m not digging around in that waste dump and told you how to find it on your own (search for Greenwald’s @, not his name). Assuming it hasn’t been shame deleted.
If you’re going to refuse to believe this thing I watched happen in real time and have talked about with multiple people actually happened unless I find you the links myself, then there’s nothing else to say here. I didn’t hang out in leftist spaces and argue with libs on the fediverse for 2+ years to lead up to a secret anti-Zei campaign, they just piss me off every time I see them because of their shitty past behavior to trans people.
I have never seen the squirrel post about trans people except if it was used for pink-washing or in Glenn's case the opposite, anti-woke simping for billioniares. Unless you can provide me with some incredibly damning quote it feels like you're just grasping at straws here.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz has ordered the IDF to prepare a plan to establish a camp to concentrate the entire civilian population of Gaza on the ruins of the southern Gaza city of Rafah.
The West and the Zelensky regime have voted for “press freedom” at the UN — while banning Russian media and keeping mum on Russian journalists killed by Ukraine. Time is right to pay tribute to some of them again
According to any person who can recognize disinformation and general bullshittery. I don't need anyone to tell me that Sputnik is untrustworthy, just like RT, Fox News and a long list of other bad sources.
The Ukraine government proper was overthrown by the US empire in 2014 for the crime of being friendly with Russia (among other reasons) and then the empire propped up a Nazi regime that spreads Russo-phobia among its populace
The maidan coup is a straight up fact. Only sounds wild to you because you're so deep in a propaganda bubble that you're hearing it for the first time through a forum comment 11 years late.
Consortium News, 2015: The Mess That Nuland MadeAssistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland engineered Ukraine’s regime change without weighing the likely consequences.
The Maidan massacre trial and investigation produced overwhelming evidence that Maidan protesters were massacred by snipers at Maidan-controlled buildings, rather than by government snipers or Berkut policemen—who were nevertheless charged with the c…
So I actually took the time to read those articles and watch the video. Now I'm not well informed on past Ukrainian politics, but none of them talk of Zelensky. Which I think was elected democratically and not put in power via a coup.
And honestly, if I had to pick between a pro-Russian and a pro-US government in that area of the world, I'd pick a pro US one for sure. It's the least worst choice.
Yes, Zelensky was democratically elected on a platform of peace & reconciliation. Unfortunately he wasn’t able to deliver on those promises, because as soon as he got into office, the fascists made it clear that they’d kill him if he did deliver, and the pressure they put on him to get what they want continues.
I'm sorry but all of that is a big ass load of bullshit. No matter how you try to sugarcoat it.
First you talk about a coup, then you say it isn't. Then you attack Zelensky because he was an actor, completely disregarding what he's been able to do with the difficult situation he's in. Arnold Schwarzenegger was also an actor but was a great politician and was a great governor for California as far as Republicans go. So that's not a good reason to discredit someone. In fact, anybody can go into politics and become great.
His presidential term may have ended a year ago, but how the fuck do you conduct an election when a chunk of your country is under foreign occupation? There are usually measures in place in constitutions for times of war, and guess what? THEY'RE AT WAR!
I tried to keep an open mind about this and your article and watched your videos, but you're over the edge. You're irrational. I'm not gonna have this argument anymore. I'm done.
Saw this video on another platform and I thought let me go to YouTube so I can share it, only to hear AI voices. I'm like WTF? I investigate and find out that it's auto dubbed and that there's no option to disable it. Huh?
Profitez des vidéos et de la musique que vous aimez, mettez en ligne des contenus originaux, et partagez-les avec vos amis, vos proches et le monde entier.
A 19-year-old Lviv resident was detained in Zakarpattia for the thirteenth time attempting to illegally cross the border. He was
trying to get to Hungary, seeking better living conditions.
Don't forget to thank our Lord and Saviour Mr. Zelensky (and the brave heroes protecting Ukraine's borders!) that this criminal was caught!
Just imagine what would happen if he actually managed to escape, and god-forbid lived a happy life instead of being kidnapped in a few years (or earlier..) off the streets and sent into meat grinder to die? That would be terrible!
God bless western democracy.
And some people are really surprised how can people say that Russia is liberating Ukraine... Yeah, those must be tankies. Obviously freedom is slavery.
imagine the pandimonium taking place if all of these criminals got away scott free to live the rest of their lives instead of patriotically dying in the war that the united states fooled the country into starting with russia.
and just like the american ice agents, the border guards don't want the public to know what their faces look like.
War sucks but lets not elevate Russia from starting this invasion. They have the possibility to end the meat grinder. Even if the US had a hand in it, starting war can never be the correct awnser. In the end the regular people suffer for the rich oligarchs power games.
Disclaimer: The article linked is from a single source with a single perspective. Make sure to cross-check information against multiple sources to get a comprehensive view on the situation.
I have never seen security and privacy checklists used for any other purpose but deception. After pondering this observation, I’m left seriously doubting if comparison checklists have any val…
Interesting article, and I feel that it's pretty fair. At first, I thought they were talking about this checklist, but I see they're different. The version I followed doesn't seem to have the same issues (lists jurisdiction but doesn't give it a rating, doesn't list or rate encryption methods at all, no summary at the beginning, etc.).
I think checklists/matrices still have their place, as listing all the branches/options might get too cluttered for a diagram, but I do understand why flowcharts (or the neat venn diagrams that get posted here often) can express information better. I don't think checklists are inherently biased, I just think you need a good decision maker behind the list.
I think the article was an interesting read. From a laymen's perspective it felt like it got to side tracked by the examples mentioned in the intro (the initial list example and signal vs mls).
When I initially started reading I had thought there would be more information for how someone that is new to a subject could spot and differentiate these lists from the ones the author says the article isn't about without being an expert.
Instead it feels like the title of the article ends up being more of a sub header and the sub header "How Do You Compare Signal to MLS?" was actually a more appropriate title.
If you tend towards conspiracy theory-type thinking, you might wonder if the Chinese government is directing its AI sector to use open-source AI to undermine US AI efforts. If they aren't, is it just a coincidence that this is what is happening?
Two things seem inevitable to me if the trend of Chinese open-source AI equalling Western efforts keeps up. A) - It will eventually bankrupt the Western AI companies and their investors, as the hundreds of billions poured into them will never be realized in profits. B) The 21st century will be built on Chinese AI, as it will be what most of the world uses.
The former seems more dramatic in the short term, but the latter is what will be more significant in the long term.
Three sites used by Cambodia’s brutal Khmer Rouge regime as torture and execution sites 50 years ago have been added by UNESCO to its World Heritage List.
Disclaimer: The article linked is from a single source with a single perspective. Make sure to cross-check information against multiple sources to get a comprehensive view on the situation.
Disclaimer: The article linked is from a single source with a single perspective. Make sure to cross-check information against multiple sources to get a comprehensive view on the situation.
Profitez des vidéos et de la musique que vous aimez, mettez en ligne des contenus originaux, et partagez-les avec vos amis, vos proches et le monde entier.
What fucking america are you living in? That might be true in some cozy suburb of Burlington, Vermont, but as someone who’s lived in Chicago and St Louis, the “Le Indians” reality is FAR closer to the american experience
Once I was crossing a signalised intersection in Canada while the pedestrian light was on, and some jackass turning left on red (which is the most illegal way to run a red light btw) almost hit me and had to slam on the brakes, but what shocked me the most was that the driver behind them, also intending to turn left on red, fucking honked at the first driver for having the audacity to stop and get in their way instead of running me over.
I've also had multiple instances where I was about to cross an uncontrolled intersection and a driver (who's usually speeding to the point where I could tell with just my eyes) honks at me to get back on the sidewalk because they don't intend on stopping for me when the laws require them to. Also seen drivers turning right on red (which is legal here in BC for some reason) honking at pedestrians crossing with the light and demanding to go first when the laws say you're definitely supposed to wait until the cross walk clears.
This is why I hate drivers. They call cyclists and pedestrians entitled while doing shit like this.
Russia and Belarus intend to develop their own artificial intelligence model built on “traditional values” that would be “understandable” to citizens of both countries.
I think so. I lost count of the little things, it really was death by a thousand paper cuts.
I was a pretty rabid fan of Ubuntu, still have an x86 and ppc CD of 5.04 somewhere.
But by the time snaps started appearing, and then Ubuntu pro, Ubuntu decided to revert some of my customized configs in /etc after an upgrade, I had had enough. When snaps were reinstalled after an upgrade in 2021, I just flipped over to Debian, which has come a long way in being usable out of the box.
I have been using ffmpeg to convert audio files to MP3 format for my commercial web service and have found out that ffmpeg is no longer available in my version (12.
At the time, canonical was throwing its weight around and essentially bullying Debian upstream repos. Around this time, there was a mass exodus of the Debian leadership over this kind of thing.
The old guard of Debian wasn't as... enthusiastic about systemd either, but look what they use now.
Firefox has instructions on their website for adding their PPA and pinning it over Ubuntu's. I find it interesting that they made an official response that seems to say "yeah nonconsensual snaps are bad, here's another option"
I switched from Ubuntu to Debian, and it's basically the same thing, just faster since it uses native packages instead of Snaps. Ubuntu might as well run all it's apps in Docker containers.
You could rebrand Debian to Ubuntu and most users wouldn't even notice.
I've been enjoying CachyOS as well. I haven't gone digging into documentation too much but when I search I typically end up on Arch related forums. Chatgpt helps a lot too.
Arch requires reading the manual to install it, so installing it successfully is an accomplishment.
It's rolling release with a large repo which fits perfectly for regularly used systems which require up-to-date drivers. In that sense it's quite unique as e.g. OpenSUSE Tumbleweed has less packages.
It has basically any desktop available without any preference or customisations by default.
They have a great short name and solid logo.
Arch is community-based and is quite pragmatic when it comes to packaging. E.g. they don't remove proprietary codecs like e.g. Fedora.
Ubuntu is made by a company and Canonical wants to shape their OS and user experience as they think is best. This makes them develop things like snap to work for them (as it's their project) instead of using e.g. flatpak (which is only an alternative for a subset of snaps features). This corporate mindset clashes with the terminally online Linux desktop community.
Also, they seem to focus more on their enterprise server experience, as that is where their income stream comes from.
But like always, people with strong opinions are those voicing them loudly. Most Linux users don't care and use what works best for them. For that crowd Ubuntu is a good default without any major downsides.
Edit: A major advantage of Ubuntu are their extended security updates not found on any other distro (others simply do not patch them). Those are locked behind a subscription for companies and a free account for a few devices for personal use.
Not really with archiinstall, but indeed as you say reading the manual is an expectation. Their philosophy is "creating an environment that is straightforward and relatively easy for the user to understand directly, rather than providing polished point-and-click style management tools", as well-summarized by Wikipedia.
wants to shape their OS and user experience as they think is best
tbh that goes for every distro. It's just that Canonical is more hands-on with its approach. The major complaint with Snap besides performance issues is Canonical making it so that only the Snap versions of popular apps (most famously, the bundled Firefox) are available by default.
I don't know about everyone else, but the last couple of years has had the most unstable Ubuntu releases, with the most unrecoverable releases when issues happen.
I've since moved to Fedora for desktop and straight Debian for server.
I used it a little way back in 2005-2006ish, and decided to give it a try again after a third reinstall of ubuntu within a year last year.
though, I'm about to get a "new" laptop and may toy around with Arch on the old one. I had previously tried setting up Arch in a VM but that's not supported and ended poorly.
I can't speak to Arch but I use Ubuntu every day. I hate on Ubuntu because I use it every day. They make terrible choices. They've got common, serious issues people have reported at least as far back as 2009 with no acknowledgement or plan to address. I'm on LTS and they push through multiple reboot requiring sets of updates a week, heedless of the impacts.
I don't feel like learning a totally new environment so I'll be switching my main computer to Mint whenever I get the time. So I can deal with someone else's annoying decisions for a while.
I feel your pain with Ubuntu, though last time I used it was about a decade ago. As bad as it is (relative to some other distros), it's still miles ahead of Windows. So, you've got that going for you!
I like arch because: - it is rolling release and I like having up to date software and not having to deal with distro upgrades breaking things - it is community run and not beholden to a company - packages are mostly unmodified from their upstream - the wiki and forums are the best of any distro
the wiki ~~and forums~~ are the best of any distro
If you don't participate in it that is. If you veer only a little off of their strict rules, then Arch forum will ban you and they won't allow you to even read the forum.
I don't really have a concise answer, but allow me to ramble from personal experience for a bit:
I'm a sysadmin that was VERY heavily invested in the Microsoft ecosystem. It was all I worked with professionally and really all I had ever used personally as well. I grew up with Windows 3.1 and just kept on from there, although I did mess with Linux from time to time.
Microsoft continues to enshittify Windows in many well-documented ways. From small things like not letting you customize the Start menu and task bar, to things like microstuttering from all the data it's trying to load over the web, to the ads it keeps trying to shove into various corners. A million little splinters that add up over time. Still, I considered myself a power user, someone able to make registry tweaks and PowerShell scripts to suit my needs.
Arch isn't particularly difficult for anyone who is comfortable with OSes and has excellent documentation. After installation it is extremely minimal, coming with a relatively bare set of applications to keep it functioning. Using the documentation to make small decisions for yourself like which photo viewer or paint app to install feels empowering. Having all those splinters from Windows disappear at once and be replaced with a system that feels both personal and trustworthy does, in a weird way, kind of border on an almost religious experience. You can laugh, but these are the tools that a lot of us live our daily lives on, for both work and play. Removing a bloated corporation from that chain of trust does feel liberating.
As to why particularly Arch? I think it's just that level of control. I admit it's not for everyone, but again, if you're at least somewhat technically inclined, I absolutely believe it can be a great first distro, especially for learning. Ubuntu has made some bad decisions recently, but even before that, I always found myself tinkering with every install until it became some sort of Franken-Debian monster. And I like pacman way better than apt, fight me, nerds.
Arch has a very in-depth wiki that's the go-to resource for a lot of Linux users, and it offers a community-driven way to have access to literally anything that's ever landed on Linux ever through the AUR. It's also nice to have an OS that you never have to reinstall (assuming all things go well).
Why that turned into such a cult-meme is anyone's guess though.
About 10 years ago it was The Distro for first time linux users to prove they were a True Linux Enjoyer. Think a bunch of channers bragging about how they are the true linux master race because they edited a grub config.
Before Arch that role belonged to Gentoo. Since then that role has transitioned to NixOS who aren't nearly as toxic but still culty. "Way of the future" etc.
All three of have high bars of entry so everyone has to take pride in the effort they put in to learn how to install their distro. Like getting hazed into a frat except you actually learn something.
The Ubuntu hatred is completely unrelated. That has to do with them being a corporate distro that keep making bad design decisions. And their ubiquity means everyone has to deal with their bad decisions. (snap bad)
This is it mostly for sure. I used to be that True Linux Enjoyer. I still install arch sometimes but I only ever use an arch-derived distribution now that comes with an installer. I already feel like there’s not enough time in the day without having to manually copy files off a USB stick
I have a similar need for a "niche" install. I need Arch for it. I'm doing a laptop installation with LUKS2, TPM2, Secure Boot, systemd-boot with UKI, BTFRS, Apparmor and it has a Oculink eGPU dock station.
Last time I used EndeavourOS, I managed to get the graphical installer to install BTRFS on LUKS, it did require custom partitioning in the graphical installer, snapper just worked after that.
Zram (or was it Zswap?) was pretty easy to enable after installatiok
The bootloader might be beyond what the graphical installer can do though... I never really bothered switching...
To add, before the change the Gentoo wiki was a top resource when it came to Linux questions. Even if you didn't use Gentoo you could find detailed information on how various parts of Linux worked.
One day the Gentoo wiki died. It got temporary mirrors quickly, but it took a long time to get up and working again. This left a huge opening for another wiki, the Arch wiki, to become the new top resource.
I suspect, for a number of reasons, Arch was always going to replace Gentoo as the "True Linux Explorer", but the wiki outage accelerated it.
And here I am, just planning on going to Mint or something whenever win 10 support finally actually ends. I had Ubuntu like 15 years ago for a while, but I'm at a point where I want to do less learning about my operating system.
The way I see it, you can have an OS that breaks less often and is hard to fix, or an OS that breaks a little more often that is easy to fix. I choose the latter. 99/100 times, when something breaks with an update, it's on the front page of archlinux.org with a fix.
The problems I've faced with other distros or windows is the solution is often "reinstall, lol", which is like a 3 hour session of nails on a chalkboard for me.
How user friendly is the installation process? I've never tried, so I don't know. I'm curious now; just based on how people talk about it, I always perceived it as as distro that requires a lot of technical knowledge to use like Gentoo, which I unsuccessfully tried to install way back in 2010. I'm more knowledgeable and patient these days, so I may be able to work with arch.
You can use archinstall and it is dummy simple. Just have another computer or phone around to look things up and go down the menu like a checklist. My admittedly limited arch experience has so far been "run archinstall, use pacman to install tools as I run into things I'd like to have". I have a Framework 16 with the built in GPU, I imagine some hardware complicates this process but just look stuff up it's all out there unless you're on some really wild hardware. Even without archinstall you can follow the arch wiki and you're basically replicating what the tool does but using the wiki as your checklist and needing to type more
Well, Ubuntu uses Snap, which is a rather poor packaging solution that basically no other distro has adopted. By default it's a little bloated, it's made some controversial decisions (rust coreutils), and other distros just do what Ubuntu does better (like Mint)
People that got into Linux when most of the main distributions were easier to install than windows in most cases. Some people wanted to show off that they can install a Linux like it was when we did it back in the 90s for some reason I still don't understand till this day. I do like their wiki though. Works great for debian as well as arch.
I've been a slackware user since the late 90s. I take for granted how easy it is to install today. I've been tinkering with a socket 7 build, and nothing is easy. Installing slackware 8 is a pain in the ass. I can't even get half my hardware working on win95! It's not like riding a bicycle.
It's funny because I see the same cult behavior, but for Fedora. I've never understood the point of this distribution that has never worked well for me.
I'm on Manjaro by the way, because I love everything about Arch except the release style.
Funnily enough, I feel the opposite. Manjaro never worked reliably for me, but Fedora works great for my use case. Is it perfect? Fuck if I know. But it's a good, no-nonsense, extremely low maintenance, super reliable distro that I use daily with zero issues.
Also, they pioneered the atomic distro concept that has amazing use cases, and some fantastic projects are based on this technology. My gaming PC runs Bazzite for a zero-maintenance, immediate gaming experience. My dads laptop runs Bluefin and he hasn't broken it yet, and he's capable of breaking every single OS.
That said, never heard of fedora being a cult at all. Hell I feel it gets far less recognition than it should honestly for being cutting edge and stable.
But you're still getting updates every day, just two weeks later than Arch. The "testing" is just two other branches somewhat closer to the Arch package releases.
I'm using Fedora, but I'm not going to say it's my favorite. I liked MX and OpenSUSE a lot. Just had a hard time with running them on a computer. Fedora just worked out the box.
When I got fed up with windows 8.1 (and windows update bricked it), I first used ubuntu. How well or not it worked depended on the version. In version 19 it got some ugly white message boxes. I searched for how to change their color and found an angry dev saying no you cant change that. This was the final bullshit. Then I switched to arch, which lets me choose how my stuff looks and doesn't have the whole 3/4 versions are buggy thing. It works and ubuntu does not.
Arch is amazing for what it is, hence the love. It’s what you make of it; by default there’s nothing and you design your own system from scratch. This leads to a very passionate and enthusiastic community who do great work for one another, for everybody’s benefit. Anything under the sun can be found in the AUR, the distro repos are fresh and reliable, and every issue that arises has a hundred people documenting the fix before it’s patched.
Ubuntu has a bad reputation for inconsistency, privacy invasive choices, etc. I don’t think all the hate is deserved, as they corrected course after the Amazon search fiasco, but I still won’t use it because of Snaps. They have a proprietary backend, so even if I wanted to put up with their other strange design decisions I can’t unless I wanted closed source repos. That goes against my whole philosophy and reasoning for being on Linux to begin with, and many feel the same.
Normal people who use Arch don't bring it up much, because they're all sick of the memes and are really, REALLY tired of immediately being called rude elitist neckbeard cultists every time they mention it.
The Ubuntu hate is because Canonical has a long history of making weird, controversial decisions that split the Linux community for no good reason.
Unity would be the first example, and although Unity was actually a good DE, it was too bloated and almost non-modifiable.
People jumped ship to Linux Mint that had its priorities straight.
Mir and Snap were bigger issues though as Wayland and Flatpak were great replacements for X11 and AppImage and did not need another competitor.
But the privacy issues were the straw that broke the camel's back. People left windows for linux so they wouldn't have to deal with this kind of nonsense.
I actually jumped when Ubuntu jumped to Gnome 3. Gnome 3 was too bloated for me and it looked ugly.
I decided to see what Arch Linux was about and eventually settled for Manjaro Linux. Arch + Xfce for the win.
I left Ubuntu after Unity, it could have been the greatest thing ever, but Canonical deciding what was best for me felt too much like Microsoft just shoving whatever garbage they wanted to my system.
I'm quite experienced in Linux but I wouldn't use either. Arch is great if you like to tinker, Ubuntu sucks for the not so libre approach , corporate ties, telemetry etc. I distrohopped before but today I just install my debian based distro and shit works.. Ubuntu I've installed twice before when I was new to Linux, and have had a major issues every time due to official updates that broke internet drivers and other things, that's a fun one when you only have one PC . Not to mention its so bloated that shitty computers that I like to thinker with it have a hard time catching up. The arch thing is also mostly a kind of meme, targeting the more unbearable nerds. People I hated when I was a noob (they will let you know you are) But they are found everywhere and in general I don't think there's more of those people in arch community than anywhere else. It's more of a stab at elitism than arch specifically.
I feel like it isn't really specific to arch, every distro has a following, but some are more "passionate" about it than others. I think arch, NixOS, and gentoo are the most notable.
It has: - a great wiki - many packages, enough for anything you want to do - its the only distros that is beetween everything done for you and gentoo-like fuck you. - and the Memes.
pacman, seriously, I don't hear enough of how great pacman is. Being able to search easily for files within a package is a godsend when some app refuses to work giving you an error message "lib_obscure.so.1 cannot be found". I haven't had such issues in a long time, but when I do, I don't have to worry about doing a ten hour search, if I'm lucky, for where this obscure library file is supposed to be located and in what package it should be part of.
rolling release. Non-rolling Ubuntu half-year releases have broken my OS in the past around 33% of the time. And lots of apps in the past had essential updates I needed, but required me to wait 5 months for the OS to catch up.
Hmm, finding what package a file is in is absolutely possible on Ubuntu/Debian too. You can use the online Ubuntu/Debian packages search, or use apt-file.
"I run Arch btw" became a meme because until install scripts became commonplace you had to have a reasonable understanding of the terminal and ability to read and follow instructions to install Arch Linux to a usable state. "Look at my l33t skills."
Dislike of Ubuntu comes from Canonical...well...petting the cat backwards. They go against the grain a lot. They're increasingly corporate, they did a sketchy sponsorship thing with Amazon at one point, around ten years ago they were in the midst of this whole "Not Invented Here" thing; all tech had to be invented in-house, instead of systemd they made and abandoned Upstart, instead of working on Wayland they pissed away time on Mir, instead of Gnome or KDE they made Unity, and instead of APT they decided to build Snap. Which is the one they're still clinging to.
For desktop users there are a lot better distros than Ubuntu these days.
I left Ubuntu for Arch because I got sick of Arch having everything I wanted and Ubuntu taking ages to finally get it. I was tired of compiling shit all the time just to keep up to date.
Honestly glad I made the change, too. Arch has been so much better all around. Less bloat and far fewer problems.
I installed arch before there was the official install script. It's not that is was THAT difficult, but it does provide a great sense of accomplishment, you learn a lot, customize everything, and you literally only install things you know you want. (Fun story: I had to start over twice: the first time I forgot to install sudo, the second I forgot to install the package needed to have an internet connection)
All of this combined mean that the users have a sense of pride for being an arch user so they talk about it more that the rest. There is no pride in clicking your way though an installer that makes all the choices for you
IMO Despite some unjustified rumors Arch is a very stable distro. For me it feels the same as Debian stability wise while still being on the cutting edge side. The Arch wiki is the second most important reason.
The problem there is that stable vs unstable distro uses a slightly different meaning of the word stable than you would use to talk about a stable vs unstable system.
In distro speak, a stable distro is one that changes very little over time, and an unstable one is one that changes constantly. That's sort of tangentially related to reliability, in that if your system is reliable and doesn't change then it's likely to stay that way, but it's not the same thing as reliability.
I think Arch is so popular because its considered a middle of the road distro. Even if not exactly true, Ubuntu is seen as more of a pre-packaged distro. Arch would be more al a carte with what you are actually running. I started with Slackware back in the day when everything was a lot more complicated to get setup, and there was even then this notation that ease of access and customization were separate and you can't have both. Either the OS controls everything and its easy or you control everything and its hard. To some extent that's always going to be true, but there's no reason you can't or shouldn't try to strike a balance between the two. I think Arch fits nicely into that space.
I also wouldn't use the term "cultists" as much as "aholes". If you've ever been on the Arch forums you know what I'm talking about. There is a certain kind of dickish behavior that occurs there, but it somewhat is understandable. A lot of problems are vaguely posted (several times over) with no backing logs or info to determine anything. Just "Something just happened. Tell me how to fix it?". And on top of that, those asking for help refuse to read the wiki or participate in the problem solving. They just want an online PC repair shop basically.
I'm not sure either. I think arch used to be one of the less popular distros (because of the more involved install process, solved now by the arch-based distros with friendly installers), despite having some of the best features, so it required more "evangelism", that's unecessary now. Arch-based distros are now some of the most popular ones, so its not necessary.
Others have commented on why its so great, but the AUR + Rolling releases + stability means that arch is one of the "stable end states". You might hop around a lot, but its one of the ones you end up landing on, and have no reason to change from.
That is the main reason I use Arch. I am not a Linux expert but I am able to solve most of my problems reading the wiki. I used to use Ubuntu and Mint but those ended with me copy pasting stuff into the terminal and not really learning anything. When I switched back to Linux this time I went with Arch.
Because there are still people who have not yet seen the light. Once everyone has joined the fold they will not be able to remember why anyone resisted in the first place.
There are a lot of different reasons that people hate Ubuntu. Most of them Not great reasons.
Ubuntu became popular by making desktop Linux approachable to normal people. Some of the abnormal people already using Linux hated this.
In November 2010, Ubuntu switched from GNOME as their default desktop to Unity. This made many users furious.
Then in 2017, Ubuntu switched from Unity to Gnome. This made many users furious.
There's also a graveyard of products and services that infuriated users when canonical started them, then infuriated users when they discontinued them.
And the Amazon "scandal".
And then there's the telemetry stuff.
Meanwhile. Arch has always been the bad boy that dares you to love him... unapproachable and edgy.
Nix is great but not the saving grace I thought it would be. I daily it. Like it. Run cinnamon coming from Mint. But to be fair. It takes real effort and time to setup your config file, comment it thoroughly and then master the system. Once it's fully automated backups and all you can hop machine to machine and it's like you never left your OG machine. There's pros and cons for sure.
If there was a simple Debian based distro that I could declaratively manage via a single config file, I think I'd try it. I.e. not using Puppet or Chef that can only bootstrap a system state, but something to truly manage a system's entire life cycle, including removing packages and anything littering the system file tree. But since there isn't, I'm using NixOS instead.
Having a DSL to declare my entire system install, that I can revision control like any other software project, has been convenient for self documenting my setup and changes/fixes over time. Modularizing that config has been great for managing multiple host machines synchronously, so both my laptop and desktop feel the same without extra admin work.
Nixpkgs also bolsters a lot of bleeding edge releases for the majority of FOSS packages I use, which I'm still getting used to. And because of how the packaging works, it's also trivial to config the packages to build from customer sources or with custom features. E.g. enabling load monitoring for Nvidia GPUs from btop that many distros don't ship by default.
I've started with ubuntu/mint and it was always a matter of time before something broke then i tried everything from then all the major distros and found that I loved being on a rolling release with openSUSE Tubleweed (gaming and most new software works better) and BTRFS on Fedora (BTRFS let's you have boot time snapshots you can go back to if anything breaks).
After some research I found I can get both with arch so installed arch as a learning process via the outstanding wiki and have never looked back. Nowadays I just install endevourOS because it's just an arch distro with easy BTRFS setup and easy gui installer was almost exactly like my custom arch cofigs and it uses official arch repos so you update just like arch (unlike manjaro). It's been more stable than windows 10 for me.
Tldr: arch let's you pick exactly what you want in a distro and is updated with the latest software something important if you game with nvidia GPU for example.
I had moved from Slackware to Debian but by 2004 the long release cycles of Debian were making it very hard to use any Debian with current hardware or desktop environments. I was using Sid and dealing with the breakages. Ubuntu promised a reskinned Debian with 6 month release cycles synced to Gnome. Then they over delivered with a live cd and easy installation and it was a deserved phenomenon. I very enthusiastically installed Warty Warthog. Even bought some merch.
When Ubuntu launched it was promoted as a community distro, "humanity towards others" etc despite being privately funded. Naked people holding hands. Lots of very good community outreach etc.
The problem for Ubuntu was it wasn't really a community distro at all. It was Canonical building on the hard work of Debian volunteers. Unlike Redhat, Canonical had a bad case of not invented here projects that never got adopted elsewhere like upstart, unity, mir, snaps and leaving their users with half-arsed experiments that then got dropped. Also Mint exists so you can have the Ubuntu usability enhancements of Debian run by a community like Debian. I guess there is a perception now that Ubuntu is a mid corpo-linux stuck between two great community deb-based systems so from the perspective of others in the Linux community a lot of us don't get why people would use it.
Arch would be just another community distro but for a lot of people they got the formula right. Great documentation, reasonably painless rolling release, and very little deviation from upstream. Debian maintainers have a very nasty habit of adding lots of patches even to gold standard security projects from openbsd . They broke ssh key generation. Then they linked ssh with systemd libs making vulnerable to a state actor via the xz backdoor. Arch maintainers don't do this bullshit.
Everything else is stereotypes. Always feeling like you have to justify using arch, which is a very nice stable, pure linux experience, just because it doesn't have a super friendly installer. Or having to justify Ubuntu which just works for a lot of people despite it not really being all that popular with the rest of the linux community.
I don't really understand either. Where are the Gentoo and LFS elitists? It seams like there should be more of those than arch elitests. Maybe it's just because more people use arch.
Ok, I think I can provide some insight into this that I think it's missed on other replies.
I switched to Arch back when Arch had an installer, yup, that's right, Arch used to have an installer, then they removed it and you had to do most of the process manually (yes, I know pacstrap is technically an installer, but I'm talking about the original ncurses installer here).
After Arch removed its installer it began to attract more purists, and with that the meme was born, people online would be discussing stuff and someone would explain something simple and the other would reply with "I use arch BTW", which meant you didn't need to explain trivial stuff because the person had a good idea on how their system works.
Then Arch started to suffer from being too good of a distro, see those of us that were using it consistently saw posts with people complaining about issues on their distros that never affected us, so a sort of "it doesn't happen on my distro" effect started to grow, putting that together with the excellent wiki that people were linking left and right (even for non Arch users) and lots of people became interested.
This new wave of users was relatively new to Linux, they thought that by following a tutorial and running a couple of command lines when installing arch they had become complete experts in Linux, and they saw the "I use Arch btw" replies and thought they meant "I know more than you because I use Arch", so they started to repeat that. And it became common to see posts with people being L337 H4ck3r5 with no clue whatsoever using "I use Arch btw".
That's when the sort of cult mentality formed, you had experienced people who liked Arch because it was a good distro that didn't break on its own with good documentation to help when you screw up, these people suffered a bit from this and told newbies that they should use Arch. Together with that you had the other group who thought because they installed Arch they were hackers telling people Arch was waaaay too hard, and that only true Linux experts should use it. From the outside this must have felt that we were hiding something, you had several people telling you to come to our side or they couldn't help you, or pointing at documentation that looked specific for their distro, and others saying you weren't cool enough for it probably felt like a cult recruiting.
At the end of the day Arch is a very cool distro, I've tried lots of them but prefer Arch because it's a breeze to maintain in the long run. And the installation process is not something you want to throw at a person who just wants to install Linux to check it out, but it's also not complicated at all. There are experts using Ubuntu or other "noob" distros because at the end of the day it's all the same under the hood, using Arch will not make you better at Linux, it will just force you to learn basic concepts to finish the installation that if you had been using Linux for a while you probably already know them (e.g. fstab or locale).
As for Ubuntu, part of it stems from the same "I use Arch btw" guys dumping on Ubuntu for being "noob", other part is because Canonical has a history of not adoption community stuff and instead try to develop their own thing, also they sent your search queries to Amazon at some point which obviously went very badly for their image in the community.
I used Ubuntu as my first distro out of curiosity sometime around 2006. I've tried others (Mint, Pop OS, Debian, Fedora) but mostly settled with Ubuntu because it was just kind of ok for me and as another user said, there was a lot of articles that helped with getting things working because it became popular.
I had heard of Arch and to your point the it's complicated thing very much kept me away from it even though I have been using computers for around 30 years and was comfortable using a terminal.
The other thing is gaming, I consistently had problems with the nvidia cards that I've had over the years and never really cared to dig into trying to get things to work so Linux was kind of my testing ground for other things and just general learning about how things work.
Then I finally just had enough of Windows a couple of years ago, and with gaming support getting better I went back to Ubuntu and it just didn't feel good, I wanted something different that was setup how I wanted it so I looked into Arch.
I tried a couple of times to manually install it but my attention span (ADHD) kept me from focusing on the documentation enough to actually learn what I was doing. In comes the archinstall script, it was basic enough for me to follow and understand to get my system up and running.
I went through roughly 3-4 installs using it and testing stuff after I had it running and breaking stuff and just doing a fresh install since the script made it very easy. Since then I have learned a good bit more, and honestly don't think I will ever use another distro for my desktop. Just the ability to make it exactly what you want and things just work. Not to mention the documentation is massive and the AUR is awesome.
I do use Pop OS on my wife's laptop since it decided to automatically upgrade to W11 which crippled it and I just wanted something that I could just drop on there that would work with no real configuration since the only thing it needs is Citrix which works ootb and she can use all her office tools through that and has libre office if she wants to do something locally.
I do have a separate drive with W11 on my desktop, its used for one thing, SolidWorks. Which I use enough to merit having windows.
Arch was and still kind of is seen as the "I use Arch BTW" crowd, but it really shouldn't be that way. The install script isn't fancy, but it works. I think that would be one of the biggest barriers to break that mindset and open it to more people that are still fresh to Linux. I think that having even the most basic "GUI" for installing Arch would do wonders.
I don't use either now. I have tried both. When I started with Ubuntu i was great; fast, light, all the good stuff. Then it started to get bloated and wouldn't run on my old machine... So I moved to Arch and it saved me and I used it for years.
My way of thinking and working is incompatible with most premade automatism, it utterly confuses me when a system is doing something on its own without me configuring it that way.
That's why I have issues with many of the "easy" distributions like Ubuntu. Those want to be to helpful for my taste. Don't take me wrong, I am not against automatism or helper tools/functions, not at all. I just want to have full knowledge and full control of them.
I used Gentoo for years and it was heaven for me, the possibility to turn every knob exactly like I wanted them to be was so great, but in the end was the time spend compiling everything not worth it.
That's why I changed to Arch Linux. The bare bone nature of the base install and the high flexibility of pacman and the AUR are ideal for me. I love that Arch is not easy, that it doesn't try to anticipate what I want to do. If something happens automatically it is because I configured the system do behave that way.
Ubuntu? Its a can't make up its mind what it is trying to be while always becoming a crashy mess. When it first came out I remember trying it and immediately broke it.
The last time I installed it recently it had issues out of the box.
So I love Debian but it prides itself on stability so packages tend to be older. I think this is good for a server but probably not great for a desktop. Ubuntu came along and was like we'll be like Debian but newer packages. Everything was cool for a while but then they started doing shitty things. The first that I can think of was ads in the terminal. This was not great for an open source app. Then when you did apt install firefox it installed Firefox as a snap. WTF?!?!? (apt should install .deb files, not snaps). Because of this, lately I've decided to avoid Ubuntu.
I used Gentoo for a while and it was great but configuring and compiling everything took forever. I'm getting too old for that. Arch seems like a good alternative for people who want to mess with their system. So it's become a way for people to claim they know what they are doing without having to recompile everything. (Note: I haven't used Arch, this is just my perception)
Recently I got a new laptop and I had decided to put Linux on it and had to decide what distro. Arch was in consideration but I ended up going with OpenSUSE Tumbleweed because it's got the latest but I don't really have to configure anything. If I had more time, I might go with something like Arch but I don't really want to do that much fiddling right now.
I wonder if it's just me or if other people who were around before Ubuntu feel the same way but the reason I hate Ubuntu is that it seemed to take over the Linux world.
A lot of the information about how to do something in Linux was drowned out by how to do it in Ubuntu. When searching for information you have to scroll down in the search results for something that sounds unrelated to Ubuntu.
Ubuntu material was often titled "how to do it in Linux" and you thought you had a good long tutorial until you read a few paragraphs in and realized it was for Ubuntu and wouldn't work for you for whatever reason.
Even some software that says it's available on Windows and Linux just means they have a Ubuntu package and if you're really good there's a chance you might be able to figure out how to use it on a non Ubuntu system.
It's like when Ubuntu came out, people just assumed that Linux was Ubuntu. I've never used Ubuntu so a lot of the information I've came across regarding it has just been in the way of me finding useful information.
Arch has a cult like following because it emphasizes simplicity and customizability. If you have the time to fully administer your own system, there is no better choice.
Ubuntu is corporate, frequently out of date, and sometimes incompetent. They got big a long time ago when they were a significantly easier option than their competitors, but I really don't think there's compelling reason for a new user to install Ubuntu today.
To add to the arch management, after a while you learn the golden rule - set it and don't fiddle with it too much. Nowadays there is very little maintenance to it. I run an update followed by shutdown. Once every 2-3 months there is some issue, that takes a forum search to fix and once a year it breaks to the level where I need about half an hour to an hour to fix it.
Maybe it's masochism, but I like Arch because it forces me to make mistakes and learn. No default DE, several network management choices, lots of configuration for non-defaults. These are all decisions I have to make, and if I try to cut corners I usually get punished for it.
However, I think the real reason I stick with arch is because this paradigm means that I always feel capable of fixing issues. As people solve the issues they face, forum posts and wiki articles (and sometimes big fixes) get pushed out, and knowledge is shared. That sense of community and building on something I feel like Arch promotes.
For me, Ubuntu is ugly as all hell and comes with so much I dont need. It also ran slow on the first machine I ever installed it on. I like Arch because I got my feet wet there. It was my classroom.
The Arch users being so vocal is more of a trope to me. Never fails to make me smile.
Ubuntu started as a great endeavour. They made Linux much more approachable to the less tech inclined user.
It is an achievement to get a distro capable of basically work out of the box that hides the hard/technical stuff under the hood and delivers a working machine, and they did it and popularized Linux in the process.
Unfortunately, they abused the good faith they garnered. The Amazon partnership, their desktop that nobody really enjoyed, the Snap push. These are the ones I was made aware of but I risk there were more issues.
I was a user of Ubuntu for less than six months. Strange as it may sound, after trying SUSE and Debian, when I actively searched for a more friendly distro, I rolled back to Debian exactly because Ubuntu felt awkward.
Ubuntu is still a strong contributor but unless they grow a spine and actually create a product people will want to pay for, with no unpopular or weird options on the direction the OS "must" take, they won't get much support from the wide user community.
I don't know if that ever was true but I definitely disagree with that nowadays because Arch is in my opinion significantly more approachable and easier to daily-drive than Gentoo.
I have to use Zoom for a online class and I was wondering how I can make my Zoom experience more private? Is there a Zoom client that I can use like how there are privacy-focused Discord clients? What privacy tips would you recommend?
Not much really. Separate profile on your machine or run it in a VM. Then maybe use a vpn. But that doesn’t really hide anything from zoom itself. Maybe use a throwaway email.
I refuse to use the Zoom client on my computer and instead use the web client. There might not be 1:1 feature parity, but it's never been a problem for me with other people.
I'm in the process of getting a new printer and since I recently (December 2024) switched to Linux it would be nice if it would be Linux compatible. So far I've decided on the Canon PIXMA G550 printer but I can't find anything about it's compatibility so I figured I would just ask here in the hopes someone might have the same printer or knows someone who has the same printer and can tell me if this printer works with Linux. If all else fails I could still use the printer with my tablet or phone using Canons app but using it with my desktop would be much more comfortable.
I think network printer made by big manufacturer recent years should be fine with IPP driverless. They found Printer Working Group of IEEE, this organization maintains IPP standard and IPP Everywhere™ Certification. AirPrint can be treated as Apple version of IPP Everywhere, the difference between them is AirPrint requires Apple Raster but IPP Everywhere requires PWG Raster (and JPEG JFIF file format if color printer).
Ah, so they are actually differences between IPP Everywhere and AirPrint (apart from AirPrint including the whole autodiscovery stuff)? Good to know. The latter is usually more prominently advertised though which is why that’s the one I mentioned.
But yeah, it should be very common for these to be supported with anything remotely recent.
IPP Everywhere also include full autodiscovery stuff (mDNS and DNS-SD, of course, Apple call this combination as Bonjour). So I said raster is the only difference.
Raster is unimportant in Linux situation because CUPS support both PWG Raster (It's actually a subset of original CUPS Raster) and Apple Raster. Whichever one your device supports, CUPS will work fine.
When you say proprietary drivers, I assume that means they are only available for x86_64 platform... leaving ARM64/aarch64 devices, like Pi's and such, out of luck?
Something I've experienced with similar printer drivers. Hence the ask.
I've currently been messing around trying to make the Switch 2 Pro Controller work on Linux using the raw HID commands from this website, to potentially build into a driver as a bit of a project to get better at C. However, seemingly nothing I use can send any commands properly, or at least in a way that makes the controller work. I've tried both echo, sending bytes to the /dev/hidraw6 device (that device at least on my system, may vary on others), as well as hidapitester (a wrapper for hidapi). I know the device works, as a WebUSB tool that uses the same commands makes the controller work on this system. Is anyone more familiar with this, and can point me in the right direction? I'm on Fedora Linux 42 if that info helps.
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Hi all, I have tried everything, and now I am coming here for help. Hopefully someone can tell me what's happening here. So, I have this older pc that I have converted into a steam console, first with Bazzite and now with Chimera OS. Both work very nicely, but the one issue that persisted on both distros is that when I put the pc to sleep from game mode (press xbox button>power>sleep) then wake it up, the screen is not receiving a signal, it not even a black screen, just no signal. I would have to force reboot it to be able to get in. Nothing works. I can't even get into a tty screen or do anything. It is connected to a samsung tv 65mu8000 via HDMI cable. I have UHD color input enabled for that input, just to give more details.
I have tried disabling the wake up animation like some folks suggested and that didn't do anything. I have tried disabling the display core like some other searches suggested by putting amdgpu.dc=0 in modprob.d in its own file. I have tried blocking the intel iGPU, even though this CPU doesn't have one. Nothing works. It has an intel core i7 5930k and an AMD RX 6600. I would appreciate any help or suggestions Thank you
I've had the similar problems with bazzite in desktop mode coming back from sleep or screen off, first with Nvidia, then solved by switching to an AMD graphics card, but now it happens there too. I have two workarounds.
1) Try Ctrl+Alt+F1and Ctrl+Alt+F3. You should be able to switch to console then back to desktop/login screen.
2) In KDE Plasma, there's a way to map wake screen to a keyboard button. That worked for me until I reinstalled the OS and never bothered.
I think this is a Plasma or SSDM issue but idk how to report it properly.
It would allow SSH if the desktop is locked, they're separate. If you can get in via SSH then you can poke around logs like dmesg and see what's up. There will probably be some messages to give you something more specific to search with.
You think it's the screen/hdmi at fault, but it might not be. I've had the problem with two laptops in the past (the bug was with all distros I tried), and in one case it was a BIOS that Linux didn't like, and the second one was the internal wifi that its linux driver was buggy. For the first laptop there was nothing to be done, so I disabled sleep completely in the bios, while for the second one, I disabled the wifi modules in the kernel's blacklist, and then used a usb wifi that I knew it worked better. Both cases were appearing as a dead screen, but it wasn't the screen/hdmi/gfx card to blame. In yet another case, with a thinkpad laptop, the wake up was working, but it would wake up 30 seconds later than anticipated. In that case, it was the fact that its thunderbolt was dead (hardware had gone bad), and only when I disabled it in the bios completely the laptop would wake up correctly and fast.
In all those cases, I had to look at the kernel logs to see what was the issue. There were traces of the problem of which hardware exactly was creating the problem. It might look like a screen/hdmi problem, but most of the times, it's not.
There's an AUR open-tv package for Arch/Artix/..., and there's even an AUR open-tv-bin version, but I prefer looking at the build recipes if available, and if not using Arch/Artix/... one can read through the PKGBUILD and see how it builds.
Far less useful, far more dangerous, but maaan the people love it. 🤷🏼♂️ I guess, like the OG monkey bars and swing-set over old concrete slabs... it can stay. The people've spoken.
Expect a steep learning curve even if you know Linux inside out. Don't assume things work the way they did on Arch (or most other distros). If your hardware doesn't work well, or you otherwise need some proprietary stuff, check out gitlab.com/nonguix/nonguix. Good luck!
Guix channel for packages that can't be included upstream. Please do NOT promote or refer to this repository on any official Guix communication channels.
Yep. Totally using nonguix. I'm trying out Guix for the reproducibility and system management, not (just) for the FOSS software.
From my initial research, I thought that Guix was only going to allow 100% FOSS software. But I've learned that's not the case. It's actually pretty easy to add additional channels in order to install non-FOSS software. The third-party channels integrate nicely!
I've not used Guix but I don't think any distro has anything close to number of desirable available packages as arch--- so be prepared for that. My ventures into debian, suse and fedora were made quite annoying by having to work around the many missing packages. Including user-facing applications, dependencies and background programs. I never quite got down with distrobox, maybe that's the cure.
this chart on wikipedia gives the impression that Debian has more packages but that's not the way it feels when you are looking for something. Maybe they have a lot of dot matrix printer libraries from 1992 or something which bring the number up.
Arch includes a lot of not-at-all-free packages (which it is impossible to distinguish in pacman or other tool as far as I can find), orphaned, new packages that haven't yet made it into other repos, and packages where no attempt has been made to submit them to other repos.
On arch I have virtually never had to go outside the repos for packages. It's very hard to give up once you are used to it. (Even though it's better to use properly libre/free stuff and other benefits of a more curated approach like security, stability and quality.)
The thing about Guix (and Nix) is that there doesnt need to be a package in the repos. You can either make your system automatically compile from source (which is how many AUR packages work) or use something like distrobox, bottles, flatpak to run extra software
You also need to source ~/.guix-profile/etc/profile.d/flatpak.sh in order to get the desktop icons to show up in the GNOME app launcher. (Using guix home for that!)
Need to work on getting distrobox setup next. I was able to guix install distrobox, but it requires some extra configuration apparently.
Btw, here's the guix home configuration file I used to add the contents of flatpak.sh into my ~/.profile, in order to update the XDG_DATA_HOME env var.
Neat. Although, I wanted to go through the installation ~~pain~~ experience. Eventually, I'm hoping to run Guix on a server. I'm starting with my laptop first.
– Hardware must be well supported in fully-libre-land - I was trying to install on a Mac Mini and had to go nonguix pretty much right away. That kind of spoiled the whole effort.
– Profound meditation and enlightenment on the essence of Scheme is a must. I had one of those 'no, this is where you don't want a closing brace' moments and my zen was blown out of the water.
I would have soldiered on, but personally I like Arch first and foremost because I can (and do) have a local repo by rsyncing a rotation of mirrors couple of times a week. Just in case the Internet dies one day, you know. I realised Guix was not really suitable for the apocalypse use case, so after that brace episode I decided to stick with what my spine already knows.
After all that is said – I really hope you fare better 😁
Hardware must be well supported in fully-libre-land ... had to go nonguix pretty much right away.
Yep, same here. I started with nonguix. I didn't realize it was easy to add additional channels.
Profound meditation and enlightenment on the essence of Scheme is a must. I had one of those ‘no, this is where you don’t want a closing brace’ moments and my zen was blown out of the water.
Aaaah. I juuuust had this happen to me. Took me a bit to balance the parens again! 😂 Although, so far Scheme seems nicer than Nixlang. I've also had curiosity to learn a functional language, so Guix gives me a reason to learn about functional programming.
personally I like Arch first and foremost because I can (and do) have a local repo by rsyncing a rotation of mirrors couple of times a week.
Are these mirrors for prebuilt packages? If not, you should be able to pull from other channels, create your own channel and include all your packages while building them locally.
Sure, but then I'd be downloading every single source 'package' and compiling for both x86 and ARM - not exactly feasible. Keeping just the sources might be an option though. The point is to have the whole repo, not just the packages I use, so that in the SHTF scenario I can help others install Arch and any software they may need on their machines. Muhahaha, Arch will prevail 👻
I've also wanted to try out Guix for a while.. part of the reason I'm leaving a comment is just so I can recheck these posts later 😛
But when I do I for sure will start out from nonguix because I'm quite confident that my hardware won't be supported (I even have a recently purchased Wifi 7 card that relies on ath12k module that I'm quite sure won't be in the official Guix repo.. maybe I'd even need to compile it myself..)
I see in the nonguix readme that there's a way to generate an iso that includes already a nonguix kernel, so I'll have a look at that.
It even looks like you can create a writeable image to run from a USB thumbdrive, which looks very interesting, I gotta try that!
I've been burnt by Arch before which is what has got me into exploring other distros. I might ultimately end up again in Arch like you, who knows, but it looks like the way Guix works is well suited for hosting your own repo too.. I think I've seen before someone hosting their own Guix repo in github, including also a bunch of configuration for their system, which got me curious.
Guix channel for packages that can't be included upstream. Please do NOT promote or refer to this repository on any official Guix communication channels.
I love it especially because of the guix shell and guix shell container for dev environment isolation. It is a whole different ecosystem from the ground up though so it's not an easy ride. But those two features make it worth it for me. Also it's GNU distro which imo is a plus.
guix shell and guix shell container for dev environment isolation
Yeah! This is one of the features I'm most interested in. I haven't gotten to using this feature yet, but I was curious about it.
Let's say I'm working on a project that requires Go, Node, maybe some C library, and GNU Make. Seems like I would be able to use guix shell for this, right? Great.
Now if a friend wanted to work on the project, could I share my guix shell configuration with him? (Assuming he's also a Guix user.)
I'm currently using distrobox.ini plus distrobox assemble for this kind of workflow, but of course this isn't totally reproducible.
Let's say I'm working on a project that requires Go, Node, maybe some C library, and GNU Make. Seems like I would be able to use guix shell for this, right? Great.
Iirc guix shell is for one off package or programs you want to test, say you want to quickly format a drive to exfat or so, when you exit the sub-shell, the installed packages are discarded
guix shell containers would work best for your scenario but I have little experience with them
yes, you would share with him guix manifest which is a file that specifies which packages should be present. What is important to note are inferiors which is a mechanism to version lock the packages.
thats it 😀 Now you need to pin package versions to guix versions via inferior so that you can share the manifest and be sure you have exact same stuff on the other machine. Otherwise the specified packages get updated everytime you update your system. I learned that the hard way by having to wait for latex to download everytime I updated my system.
You need to edit your /etc/config.scm or where ever you store your system config. Import the right modules/services, add your user to cgroup, add iptables-service-type to your services, add rootless-podman-service-type and configure it.
(use-service-modules containers networking …)
(use-modules (gnu system accounts)) ;for 'subid-range'
(operating-system
;; …
(users (cons (user-account
(name "alice")
(comment "Bob's sister")
(group "users")
;; Adding the account to the "cgroup" group
;; makes it possible to run podman commands.
(supplementary-groups '("cgroup" "wheel"
"audio" "video")))
%base-user-accounts))
(services
(append (list (service iptables-service-type)
(service rootless-podman-service-type
(rootless-podman-configuration
(subgids
(list (subid-range (name "alice"))))
(subuids
(list (subid-range (name "alice")))))))
%base-services)))
Then of course you run guix system reconfigure /etc/config.scm.
Now you can do a simple guix install distrobox. If you install distrobox first, you don't end up using rootless podman and you run into more problems that way. (You have to use distrobox --root.)
After that command, everything should work like normal. Enjoy. 🍻
distrobox create --image docker.io/library/archlinux:latest --name arch-dev
distrobox enter arch-dev
Btw, here's how you configure HiDPI for GNOME. Unfortunately, my laptop has a hydeepeeay display, so it's not fully compatible with Linux. (It's 3840x2160, so at least 2x scaling is possible, hypothetically.)
Commands from the Arch Wiki, but also adds cursor scaling:
$ gsettings set org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.xsettings overrides "[{'Gdk/WindowScalingFactor', <2>}, {'Gtk/CursorThemeSize', <48>}]"
$ gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.interface scaling-factor 2
The default GNOME configuration is some how missing that. I didn't have to do that in Arch, but I do in Guix. IDK. Anyway, if you don't run those commands certain apps will be tiny, including a tiny mouse cursor.
I want to love Guix (both the package manager and the distro). I want to love Scheme. But I can never find any good tutorials for Scheme and using it with Guix. The GNU documentation is more of a reference than a tutorial. I use Emacs on the daily, and I just can't get into Scheme.
Israel’s war in Gaza is chipping away at so much of what we – in the United States but also internationally – had agreed upon as acceptable, from the rules governing our freedom of speech to the very laws of armed conflict. It seems no exaggeration to say that the foundation of the international order of the last 77 years is threatened by this change in the obligations governing our legal and political responsibilities to each other.
The rules of the institutions that define our lives bend like reeds when it comes to Israel – so much that the whole global order is on the verge of collapse
Yeah but alliances like NATO and the UN weren't built to prevent genocide. They were built to protect certain power structures and to keep certain nations in control. Stopping genocide was sometimes useful in accomplishing this but nothing more. They never actually cared about people and never will.
That's so true. 30 years ago the US, with the help of it's vassals, hid its Imperial wars and resource extraction under the banner of globalization and human rights.
BANGKOK (AP) — China said Sunday that European medical device companies will be barred from selling to the Chinese government as a countermeasure for the European Union’s restrictions on the sale of similar products from China.
After the commission found that China has asymmetrical trade barriers for EU medical devices, it recommended some actions. For the past year EU was trying to negotiate China opening their medical market to the same level EUs market is open to China. It failed.
More symmetrical tarrifs incoming (from both sides).
La Social Web Foundation ha partecipato al 20° Internet Governance Forum delle Nazioni Unite in Norvegia .
Abbiamo ospitato il workshop "Privacy Preserving Interoperability and the Fediverse", che ha riunito sviluppatori, esperti di policy e organizzatori di community per esplorare la crescente importanza – e complessità – della privacy nelle piattaforme social decentralizzate di Meta, Data Transfer Initiative e Social Web Foundation. Con l'espansione globale dell'adozione di Fediverse, questa sessione si è concentrata su come raggiungere l'interoperabilità senza compromettere la privacy e l'autonomia degli utenti.
Aside from the Ars Technica article in the xpost, there's a lot of "it depends."
It depends on not just the OS, but if it's a custom image built for Dell or HP or Asus etc. computers, what settings are on, what settings were on by default, what bloatware is pre-installed, etc.
Typically, all MS or Apple really want are to know what apps you have installed, zip code, email address, IP address, crash reports, and possibly keywords they can associate with advertising. That's their baseline wish list, which is all advertising fodder, and depending on your settings, that can quickly expand to "anonymized" (it's not) cookie use, tracking of websites visited, etc.
If you have a custom image (i.e. a Dell specific version of Windows) the laptop manufacturer will look for access to roughly the same data.
With the whole Copilot fiasco, recording things like keystrokes and screenshots really are potentially in play now. But, again, only if you have foolishly installed Copilot and turned that stuff on. And that only after huge public outcry. So there's always a non-zero risk of that, but do your due diligence to know you settings.
Can you strip out bloatware and tighten down Windows to a reasonable degree? Sure. But because MS can and does change system settings without your consent, you might find in 6 months an article about a setting you turned off, that they turned back on and you had no idea.
Even if you turn off the setting and it stays off in subsequent updates, how can you know that the setting actually does anything at all? That is to say how can you trust Microsoft does not ignore the setting and just gathers the data always.
It might be not sending any extra data - which can be verified via packet sniffing like Wireshark - but how do you confirm they are not saving the legit requests you do and collect it silently at the backend? It cannot be proven (beyond reasonable doubt).
Since they are closed source, we can't know. We can find out that messages are being sent at certain moments, but not what data is being contained in the messages, communications carrying this sort of data are always encrypted (for obvious reasons).
For legal reasons they often include some vague allusion in the terms of service about collecting information.. but they are never very clear on what data exactly they take when and how, so it's left up to interpretation.
There is so so so much, and they do get caught, and when they do we keep a peek into how invasive they are. As someone who has had to worry about being targeted by intelligence agencies and nation-states, I was completely blindsided by corporate/capitalist surveillance.
for example, look at this action by Meta, where they broke out of security sandboxes and exploited protocols in order to tie your browsing history (even private browsing) back to your identify saved in their databases back in meta land
the amount of data that is being harvested and sold, and resold, is absurd, and the greater threat is not just that they are exploiting you, its that they dont care who the data gets sold to. Bad actors (criminals, etc) can and will purchase information they can use against you.
So, consider the unintentional ramifications of all that info being harvested and available in addition to the intentional ramifications of hyper greed, and couple that with the amount of available compute and you will see that you do not need to be a person of interest, everyone is a data point that can be and will be exploited.
I would encourage everyone to take their privacy seriously.
I swear meta is just built different in terms on spying on people compared to everyone else. It's like they have a team of ex non ethical elite hackers to find security vulnerabilities in everything and exploit everything as much as possible.
This is the real issue. It's not so much the intentional sale of your info for profit, or, for the majority of people, the threat of surveillance states finding out you're one of their enemies of the month. Most people are hit by criminals using the info to target them. For example, if they know your adult child's information and have samples of their voice data from social media, they can make an AI bot to impersonate them and ask for money. Or, if robbers happen to be targeting a neighborhood, they can use your location information to determine when you aren't home. These are much more complex than most of these scams, though. Most are much simpler, but using some combination of info from social media, security breach data, location data, etc. All of that data is being bought and sold now. Mostly by "legitimate" companies. Things like that are the major consequences for the majority of people.
not sure about win/mac, but for android yes they do keep record of stuff like what apps are being launched and upload/sync to google account. it's not hidden though.. it is(was) literally available on google account history or something (was about 7 years ago)
regarding keystrokes there was a case of a famous chinese keyboard app doing dubious stuff. not sure if i can say it's on a os level but i'm pretty sure more than a few chinese phones ship with that. citizenlab.ca/2023/08/vulnerab…
In this report, we analyze the Windows, Android, and iOS versions of Tencent’s Sogou Input Method, the most popular Chinese-language input method in China.
Few people can be sure of that, because it would require digging in their assembly code which can take a lot of time, but they have a financial incentive to do that and they love money, so all sane people assume that they very much do. And they also get caught sometimes (multiple times!), so thinking they would just stop would be foolish.
Summer league is still getting started and I'm curious what y'all are thinking so far.
I haven't watched every game but I have some thoughts myself. I thought Tim Connelly was crazy for drafting another French center but I understand it now, Joan getting 7 blocks in his first game has convinced me that he can replace (and possibly exceed) Gobert in the future. Dilly, TSJ, and Clark were exciting too, the wolves' young core is looking nice especially on defense.
I had higher hopes for pistons' 2nd round pic Chaz Lanier, I'm hoping he gets some better catch-and-shoot looks going forward but those aren't as common in summer league. Ron Holland on the other hand might as well have been LebRon Holland. 28pts 11reb 3stl 4/5 3pt is impressive, especially the improved shooting, I hope it's not a fluke.
Speaking of fluke, all eyes have been on Cooper Flagg and Bronny James. We'll see in a couple hours if Coop can have a better game today, 5/21 from the field is rough though. Bronny was playing lockdown defense too which seems to be his new identity, we'll see if he can keep this up, he could be a rotational player going forward.
Anyways would love to hear what other people are thinking and feeling so far!
A new Yahoo/YouGov survey finds that about twice as many U.S. adults say they would vote for a candidate with Mamdani's platform (50%) than say they would not (26%). Could it be a blueprint for Democrats elsewhere?
You get told by every mainstream news everywhere on social media that this is an “evil socialist”.
It’s been a trend for atleast the past 30 years that policy wise the average US voter has been way further to the left than the average party they vote for.
Germany-funded long-range weapons to arrive in Ukraine by late July — Impeccable results: New Skynex video shows Ukrainian forces destroying Russian drones with German gun — Ukraine destroys Russian drone unit after Kherson infant killed, child should nev
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Russia’s war against Ukraine
Smoke billows above the city’s buildings following mass Russian drone and missile strikes in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv on July 12, 2025. (Yuriy Dyachyshyn / AFP via Getty Images)
2 killed, 38 injured as Russia launchesmissile, drone attacksstriking Ukrainian cities far from front line. Russia continued its attacks on western Ukrainian cities overnight on July 12, striking communities far from the front line with drone swarms and missile attacks for the third straight night.
Germany-fundedlong-range weaponsto arrive in Ukraine by late July, general says. German Major General Christian Freuding confirmed that the weapons systems’ initial deliveries are expected by the end of July. The arms will be supplied in a “high triple-digit quantity,” he said.
Trump considering sendingnew funds to Ukrainefor first time since taking office, CBS News reports. The funds could come from the $3.85 billion remaining in Presidential Drawdown Authority from the Biden administration or from frozen Russian assets, current and former U.S. officials said.
Zelensky signals majorcabinet reshuffle, calls for defense reforms. Zelensky said Ukraine “requires more positive momentum in relations with the United States, alongside new steps in managing the nation’s defense sector.”
‘Impeccable results’ — NewSkynexvideo shows Ukrainian forces destroying Russian drones with German gun. Filmed in an undisclosed location at an unspecified time, the video published on July 12 shows Ukrainian soldiers shooting down multiple Russian targets with a German-made Skynex air defense system.
‘Cut off the head’ — Ukrainian intelligence accuses‘Putin’s favorite’ brigadeof another war crime. “Cut off the head, impale it on a pike, throw it the f**k away,” says the voice attributed by HUR to a company commander from Russia’s infamous 155th Marine Brigade. The intelligence agency said the order, intercepted on July 10, concerned a Ukrainian prisoner of war (POW).
Ukraine destroysRussian drone unitafter Kherson infant killed, child ‘should never have been a target,’ governor says. “Dmytro should never have been a target. I thank our soldiers for their just retribution. No occupier who brought death and destruction to our land will escape punishment,” Kherson Oblast Governor Oleksandr Prokudin said.
Ukrainian doctors transplantorgansof deceased girl amid Russian strikes, saving 3 children. “This is a story about humanity, the incredible power of a parent’s decision, and the chance for life even in the most difficult times,” the hospital said in a statement.
Read our exclusives
Analysis: Russia is stepping up attacks. Allies are stepping back. What happens to Ukraine next?
Short of a massive injection of military aid, or crushing sanctions on Moscow, there’s little that Trump could announce that could help Ukraine bring Russia’s full-scale invasion to a swift end on terms favorable to Kyiv.
Photo: Drew Angerer, Saul Loeb, Alexander Nemenov/AFP via Getty Image
Learn more Ukraine’s top anti-corruption activist faces charges that his team calls political vendetta
Vitaliy Shabunin, the chair of the Anti-Corruption Action Center’s executive board and member of the Armed Forces, was charged with evading military service and fraud — an accusation his team rejects.
Photo: Evgen Kotenko/ Ukrinform/Future Publishing via Getty Images
Learn more Ukrainians grapple with how to memorialize a war still being fought
While the improvised memorial reflects a public need to honor those killed in the war, designing a permanent monument for a conflict with no clear end presents a unique challenge for urban planners and designers.
At least13 killed, 46 injuredin Russian attacks across Ukraine over past day. Russia launched 623 aerial weapons overnight, including 339 Shahed-type drones, various decoy UAVs, and 26 Kh-101 cruise missiles, the Air Force said.
Hungarian foreign fighterkilled in Ukrainefighting against Russia, media reports. Benjamin Aser, originally from Hungary, was previously a contracted soldier in the Hungarian Defense Forces.
General Staff: Russiahas lost1,032,690 troops in Ukraine since Feb. 24, 2022. The number includes 1,070 casualties Russian forces suffered just over the past day.
International response
Slovakia seeks EU guarantees onRussian gas phase-outahead of sanctions deal, Reuters report. While Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico said the sanctions package itself is not objectionable, his government has blocked the proposal over concerns about a separate EU plan to fully phase out Russian gas imports by 2028.
Polish president-elect urges Ukraine to allowfull exhumationsof Volyn massacre victims, despite resumed work. Speaking at a ceremony in Chelm marking the 82nd anniversary of the 1943-44 Volyn massacres, Polish President-elect Karol Nawrocki said the victims “do not cry out for revenge, but for a cross, a grave, and memory,” and urged Ukraine to authorize further work across multiple sites.
Former Wagner fighter seeksasylum in Finlandafter fleeing across Russian border, media reports. The man, identified only as Yevgeny, reportedly served in a Wagner assault unit and fought in eastern Ukraine, including in Bakhmut and around Selydove.
French army chief says Russia sees France as‘main enemy in Europe’due to Ukraine support. The head of the French army, General Thierry Burkhard, attributed Russia’s view of Paris as a primary adversary largely to France’s unwavering support for Ukraine since Russia’s full-scale invasion.
Russia blamesWestern sanctionsfor collapse of UN food deal. A day earlier, the U.N. announced that the three-year agreement would end on July 22. The deal “will not be renewed” because of disagreements, a source close to the discussions told the AFP.
Russia’s Lavrov cautions West onNorth Korea security pact. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov accused the U.S., South Korea, and Japan of military buildups around North Korea. “We warn against exploiting these ties to build alliances directed against anyone, including North Korea and, of course, Russia.”
In other news
Putin backs ‘zero enrichment’ in newIran nuclear deal,sources tell Axios. Russia’s position, conveyed to both U.S. President Donald Trump and Iranian officials, marks a notable shift given Russia’s historical public advocacy for Iran’s right to enrich.
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Russia's position, conveyed to both U.S. President Donald Trump and Iranian officials, marks a notable shift given Russia's historical public advocacy for Iran's right to enrich.
I got firstnamelastname@gmail.com when gmail was still 'invite only'.
The one drawback to that is there is a General in the U.S. Army with my exact name who doesn't understand how email works and apparently gives out my email address as his. I wish I knew what his actual email address was so I could let people know what it is. I bet he's missing out on a lot of VA functions and barber appointments because he couldn't be assed to remember his actual email address.
Zwei Jahre. 24 Monate. 730 Tage. So lange gibt es diesen Blog – und das nur, weil ich eigentlich nur für mich die Mediatheken durchforste, um Filme zu finden, die etwas riskieren. Filme, die weh tun, irritieren, begeistern, wütend machen. Filme, die nicht glatt gebügelt wurden, Filme für meinen ganz privaten Eskapismus. Ich schreibe darüber, weil sie mich beschäftigen. Weil ich etwas sehe, das nicht untergehen sollte im Strom der Flachware. Und weil ich glaube, dass Filmkritik viel mehr sein kann als Konsumberatung.
Zwei Jahre. 24 Monate. 730 Tage. So lange gibt es diesen Blog - und das nur, weil ich eigentlich nur für mich die Mediatheken durchforste, um Filme zu finden, die etwas riskieren. Filme, die weh tun, irritieren, begeistern, wütend machen.
L’altro giorno mi è venuta l’idea pazza che più pazza non si può etc etc… solito andazzo. Ma, per quanto l’andazzo sia sempre lo stesso del cazzo, il risultato delle mie macchinazioni è anche stavolta originale, e la primissima versione utilizzabile di esso è già in produzione da ieri sera. Occhi aperti sul nuovissimo gnammifico […]
Pignio pignatico si rende superpignastico per pignare cose e cosine
L’altro giorno mi è venuta l’idea pazza che più pazza non si può etc etc… solito andazzo. Ma, per quanto l’andazzo sia sempre lo stesso del cazzo, il risultato delle mie macchinazioni è anche stavolta originale, e la primissima versione utilizzabile di esso è già in produzione da ieri sera. Occhi aperti sul nuovissimo gnammifico pezzo di software che è Pignio.octt.eu.org!!! (Che per poco non rischiava di chiamarsi Octterest…) 💣💫💥 Questo coso spunta fuori dal fatto che, negli ultimi tempi, stava uscendo sempre più la necessità per me di avere un merdino per salvare ed organizzare elementi come link singoli o file multimediali, anche e soprattutto al volo, e potenzialmente renderli accessibili al pubblico… non so: memini, reference, cose da stampare, forse roba PDF file, tutto sotto il mio controllo a prova di sparizione. Ovviamente, una cartella con varie sottocartelle (magari sincronizzata su una repo Git pubblica), che in altri casi sarebbe l’opzione più ovvia, nel complesso qui non va bene, perché l’agilità va a farsi benedire… ma, io sono pur sempre una ragazza magica, dunque non devo accontentarmi delle soluzioni esistenti!!! 😍
In effetti, di software specializzati per salvare cose ce ne sono a bizzeffe… ne hosto io stessa da anni uno per link e articoli dal web, Shiori… però, non so, manca in tutti quella cosa in più per questo caso d’uso… Tra cui, il fatto che è bello facile a salvare elementi singoli dentro tutti quei robi, ma se io ipoteticamente (…e praticamente) avessi cartelle già piene di roba sul PC, che stracavolo dovrei fare? Quindi, beh, semplicemente ho progettato Pignio per operare direttamente sul file system, pescando e salvando sia file che metadati da e su file nella cartella del server, e ho fuso insieme quei due universi che mai devono toccarsi, rispettivamente della banalità informatica e dell’alta informatica… in altre parole, è flat-file, e sono negativamente stupita del fatto che non esista alcun altro software lato server per questo scopo qui ma con questa caratteristica. 🤥
Ora è davvero nelle fasi iniziali, e funziona bene… bisognerà vedere poi quanto regge, soprattutto con decine o centinaia di migliaia di file multimediali da trovare sul disco, con altrettanti file INI messi affianco da cui vengono letti i metadati (e quanto sarà l’overhead sul disco avendo tutti questi file da poche centinaia di byte ciascuno), ma la struttura del file system (per gli elementi creati dalla app stessa, identificati da un ID Snowflake, non i file tirati da fuori) penso di averla architettata bene. Sarà davvero la prova definitiva per l’architettura flat-file, se davvero finisco per riempire il sistema con questo passo… ma, in compenso, una repo Git sarà perfetta per fare il backup di tali questi miei preziosi dati (cosiddetto “mio tessoro“), non avendo blob di database. 🤤
Lo stile dell’interfaccia, e a breve anche il sistema di raggruppamento di elementi in collezioni, vabbé, l’ho copiato spudoratamente da Pinterest, e mi sembra ben ovvio… ma, differenza di Pinterest, Pignio ha vantaggi molto tosti… in primis è mio, quindi posso sistemarlo per non avere tutti i bug di merda (Pinterest ne ha infiniti!), poi è self-hostabile, quindi i dati sono già sempre fisicamente in mano a me; e, in più, funziona senza JavaScript, e quindi anche su browser vecchi (pur se con un layout mezzo rotto su quelli, per via del framework che ho usato, UIKit)… figurarsi se io trascuravo proprio una cosa del genere. 😤
Il lavoro da fare è ancora tantino però (e te pareva), perché, a parte le collezioni, ci sono cose solo da sistemare. Cose piccole, come l’importazione automatica di elementi da feed RSS esterni (…ed implementare i feed della roba dalla app stessa)… ma poi anche cose grosse ma assolutamente necessarie, come avere un OCR automatico sulle immagini, o più in generale il riconoscimento dei contenuti per fare tagging automatico, così da ottimizzare la ricerca e potenzialmente avere un algoritmo di suggerimento utile in un’istanza con più utenti. A proposito… ancora non ho nemmeno finito di implementare i permessi per gli utenti, quindi non posso invitare ancora nessuno a provare la mia istanza… però, ho reso pubblico il codice già da ieri (nonostante inizialmente pensavo di aspettare un po’, perché potrei cambiare alcune cose della struttura dati… ma francamente non freca): gitlab.com/octospacc/Pignio. GODETE!!! 😈😳
All analyzed dating apps collect your location, name, phone number, photos or videos, user and device IDs, purchase history, and sensitive information such as racial or ethnic data, sexual orientation, pregnancy or childbirth information, disability status, religious or philosophical beliefs, political opinions, genetic information, and biometric data. The most data-hungry dating app is Grindr, which collects 24 data types, followed by Bumble (22), Plenty of Fish (18), Tinder (16), Hinge (15), and Headero (9).
Dating apps not only collect extensive personal and sensitive information but may also combine this data with information from third parties to enable targeted advertising. Additionally, data collected from your app about you or your device can be shared with data brokers, further increasing your exposure and the risk of your information being used in unexpected ways. This practice is known as ‘tracking’. While all analyzed dating apps (except Headero) collect data for tracking purposes, Bumble is the leader, collecting four data points in total: email address, location, device ID, and advertising data.
We conducted a survey in the US, asking people about their use of various phone apps, including Bumble. Only 6% of respondents said they currently have Bumble installed on their phone, while 16% reported using it in the past but no longer do. Among those who have tried the app, usage is most popular among the 25–34 age group (32%), followed by 35–44 (28%), 18–24 (21%), and those aged 45+ (19%). Additionally, 60% of current or past Bumble users are male, and 40% are female. The majority of Bumble users, 68%, reside in big cities — while 20% live in small towns and 11% in rural areas. This suggests that while Bumble is aggressive in data collection and tracking, its actual reach remains relatively focused on younger, urban, and male demographics.
Besides potentially exposing your personal data when using dating apps, there is also a risk of interacting with fake profiles. It is estimated that around 10% of profiles are fake. To put this in perspective, Tinder has about 75 million monthly active users, which amounts to 7.5 million fake profiles. This means there is a very high probability of encountering a fake profile at some point when using dating apps. These profiles are often created with the intent to deceive, scam, or manipulate others, which could lead to financial loss or emotional harm.
Despite being the most data-hungry dating app and its past controversy over allowing users to filter matches by ethnicity⁵, Grindr is the highest-rated app in the Apple App Store, with a rating of 4.5 out of 5. Other analyzed dating apps are rated between 3.7 and 4.4. Grindr collects more data types than its competitors, including users’ names, email addresses, phone numbers, precise locations, sensitive information, email and text messages, search histories, and 17 additional data types. Nonetheless, Grindr’s high user rating shows that many still value the app’s experience over its data collection practices.
Headero, the least popular app among those analyzed, recently had a data leak that exposed 352,081 user records, 3,032,001 chat records, and 1,096,904 chat room records. That seems like a lot, considering it has only 100K downloads in the Play Store. While Headero collects just nine data types, it still experienced a large-scale data breach, showing that users should be careful not to share too much information with any dating app and be mindful of conversations in the app, as they may not be as private as you would expect.
All analyzed popular dating apps collect your location, name, phone number, photos or videos, user and device IDs, purchase history, and other sensitive information.
primo [strong]messaggio[/strong] :blush:
[img=https://cdn.bsky.app/img/banner/plain/did:plc:xgiwtxbtt6xc7low5vdz7dq4/bafkreihowoxwn5kuczf2lkerkgv55lblose3so6kwij7wjtwwiqr2v4ow4@jpeg]I ranger espongono la bandiera americana al contrario, simbolo di emergen
Love a good news day
brem
in reply to brem • • •PS ~ that bird is an immigrant.
Hopefully that fun detail won't go unnoticed now.
(👁 ͜ʖ👁)
latenightnoir
in reply to brem • • •brem
in reply to latenightnoir • • •Sharing is hard.. mmmkay?
(but for real, I do my part. I just wish that everyone didn't want so damned much. I have little and would give it all, and have. And do. Often.)
latenightnoir
in reply to brem • • •Oh, I'm not putting this on any individual citizen, I'm genuinely sorry if it came out that way!
Sharing is virtuous, and everyone should most certainly try to share more (within their means, of course!), but the game was rigged long before those who are alive now ever existed. Unfortunately, as long as the system itself doesn't change, individual action can only achieve so much in terms of offering fair conditions and opportunities for everyone...
brem
in reply to latenightnoir • • •You are correct.
Many sticks; strong together.
Single stick is weak.
(Sorry to mash up ancient quotes with a quote from the Planet of The Apes remake & bastardize it, but for modern purposes this will suffice.)
latenightnoir
in reply to brem • • •brem
in reply to latenightnoir • • •Thank you; kind fediversor. Your supportive words contribute to my energy for world betterment!
Sorry to sound like a bot or AI; them fuckers basically stole my style & those like me.
latenightnoir
in reply to brem • • •Broadfern
in reply to latenightnoir • • •“That's why they call it the American Dream, because you have to be asleep to believe it.”
This isn’t new either.
latenightnoir
in reply to Broadfern • • •☂️-
in reply to latenightnoir • • •latenightnoir
in reply to ☂️- • • •☂️-
in reply to latenightnoir • • •latenightnoir
in reply to ☂️- • • •brem
in reply to latenightnoir • • •What did they say? They deleted their account, so we all feel like assholes trying to figure out what you are replying to.
Don't feel obligated to respond, you aren't the "c u next Tuesday" in this situation
Edit: go figure, they didn't delete their account, just whatever they said. This is an incredibly META thing for someone with an 'umbrella emoji as a username' to do.
latenightnoir
in reply to brem • • •Oh, they said just that there has to be a hint of hope somewhere in the back of my mind, otherwise why act as such.
Edit: to clarify, nothing malicious or unbecoming.
brem
in reply to latenightnoir • • •Why delete it then? Umbrella only supposed to protect us from wet.
Not say anything, not delete. Shield.
latenightnoir
in reply to brem • • •No idea! If I were to guess, I'd say privacy reasons, leave no trace, but that's speculation on my part.
A pity, though, that we live in times where conversations get downright deleted due to privacy concerns...
Edit: not blaming the deletion, blaming the times, to be clear.
Cowbee [he/they]
in reply to latenightnoir • • •That's not enitirely true. The American Dream was (and is) settler-colonialism. Early settlers were promised free land if they killed indigenous peoples living there already, which led to a mostly self-sufficient labor class that could use its self-farmed land as a means to support themselves while bargaining for higher wages. If you were a white man, this dream was attainable, period, even if it meant enslaving and genociding millions of people.
Then came the post-war period. The wartime economy was still fairly planned, and aimed at full employment. Further, the US was emerging as world hegemon and de-facto empire. Imperialism and social safety nets largely expanded due to needing to provide better metrics than the Soviet Union was providing again kept the white men of the US living in the American Dream.
Now that imperialism is decaying, and social safety nets have been gutted along with the fall of the USSR as the main rival power, even white men are starting to fall into genuine proletarianization at large. The US is still a settler-colony, but its one where finance capital has dictatorial control yet imperialism is waning, and where many industries have been hollowed out and shipped overseas because imperialism was more profitable. The US is working its way to its own demise.
latenightnoir
in reply to Cowbee [he/they] • • •Agreed, that was the "advertised" goal, and the overall shape things took once it was set into motion. But looking at things now, in retrospect, I genuinely believe that's just what everyone was told to sell them on the idea, with the actual plan being very different for those who had access backstage, y'know?
I mean, it's much easier to motivate people to uproot their lives (regardless of how abysmal their living conditions were at the time) by promising a Land of Opportunity For Everyone, instead of telling them "yeah, we're a bunch of rich guys who want to get even richer, and we need cheap labour to get things started, then work for us, so that we may accumulate all of the wealth."
Cowbee [he/they]
in reply to latenightnoir • • •My point is that, initially, labor-power wasn't cheap. That's why there were slaves and indentured servants, to make up for the fact that the commodity labor-power was pricier. That's what's so dangerous about settler-colonialism, it "works" for a far larger portion of society, which is why it has led to some of the most horrendous crimes of all time.
It's only now that the system is starting to genuinely unravel, but the US Empire's history as one of the most far-right and brutal countries ever is directly tied to its large settler-colonial class relations.
latenightnoir
in reply to Cowbee [he/they] • • •Well, yeah, it's the pyramid scheme to end all pyramid schemes, not arguing against that. But that was the Dream.
And "not cheap" as in "had a wage," as opposed to not being paid at all as a slave (although there were some costs involved with that as well, so not entirely free - I am not arguing for slavery in any way, I was just boiling down the expenditure). But wealth was clearly still pooled at the top, while most people were no better off than they are now, when talking strictly about wealth distribution ratios.
Edit: the only advantage they had was that land was "free for the taking" (if they were willing to do a little genocide beforehand), but even that ended up pooling around a handful of people once things and people settled in.
Cowbee [he/they]
in reply to latenightnoir • • •The disparity is actually skyrocketing moreso now, and steadily has been for the last century. The New Deal, as a response to the USSR, did manage to temporarily lower inequality, but corporations weren't nearly as monopolized. The status we are in today took a long time, and for hundreds of years, disparity was actually much lower than England and other countries that had started capitalism in earnest. The semi-yeoman worker in the US had bargaining power and land, which slowed down tge process of disparity.
None of this is in defense of settler-colonialism. I bring it up because it points to the class character of the US, and helps explain why it's so far-right and reactionary, as well as why leftist radicalization is increasing rapidly.
latenightnoir
in reply to Cowbee [he/they] • • •Yet again, I agree! But wouldn't you also agree that the system always had this in-built inequality? What I meant to say was that, while it was less immediately obvious at the start, the subsequent pooling and acceleration of said pooling were always going to happen within this system.
And that's why I suspect that this was the plan all along, because it has been visible from the start, it didn't require a retrospective if one was paying enough attention. And those who did got very, very rich.
But even if everyone would have been paying attention*, there would be no room for equality, otherwise the entire pyramid would collapse, taking everyone's "more than" with it.
Cowbee [he/they]
in reply to latenightnoir • • •Yes, I absolutely agree that the disparity we see today is a direct result of the former social relations. The agrarian slave-driven economy in the south was certainly going to result in conflict with the industrial economy based on wage labor in the north, especially as the north needed new wage laborers to expand industrially. Historical progression is a process of endless spirals, tendencies and trajectories accumulate over time until a quantitative buildup results in a qualitative change.
However, I don't see it as something that was intentionally planned. Capital doesn't think that way. Capitalist production is an ever-expanding circuit that must constantly be repeated, anything going against that system of voracious profit gets dashed. Long-term planning is characteristic of socialism, not capitalism, nor the semi-yeoman style of settler-colonial capitalism or slave driven agrarian economy.
This is important, because understanding how we got here today can tell us where we are headed. The historic task of the US proletariat in the age of dying imperialism is to topple the capitalist state and replace it with a socialist state, focusing on decolonization and anti-imperialism. The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born. This is only increasingly possible because the US working class is becoming increasingly proletarianized due to monopolist capture of the land, and imperialism is weakening to the point where we cannot be bribed as much by its spoils.
We aren't here because of some 5-D chess from the old bourgeoisie, nor did the settlers have ignorance of the system. The US settler class was bribed using the spoils of genocide, and its only increasingly true now that there isn't really a semi-yeoman class. The immense brutality of settler-colonialism can't keep the US afloat anymore, nor can imperialism.
I'm just trying to help provide a Marxist perspective, as it genuinely gives us a chance of completing the US proletariat's historic duty. I'm a Marxist-Leninist.
latenightnoir
in reply to Cowbee [he/they] • • •Maybe you're right, maybe I'm just so completely lacking any faith in greedy humans that I now suspect everything was a ploy. I dunno, maybe it's one of the pitfalls of hindsight, that it can easily seem to have intentionality when the string of failures is so smooth and perfect. I mean, at the end of the day, Capitalism is, to my mind, uniquely insidious as a system.
Either way, I really don't want you to think I was disagreeing with you about anything else, whether planned or not, it is most certainly worth learning everything we can from its evolution. As you've said, we need to have the future in mind, because this thing'll be around for at least a bit longer...
Sincerely thank you for the theory! I'm not as versed in these aspects for now, so I don't know where I'd land on the political/philosophical spectrum exactly. All I know is that I sincerely want everyone to have a truly fair chance at life without having to worry about being persecuted for who they are, without having to be relatively rich to afford basic healthcare (I'm including the various hormone therapies here because it's well past time we grew the fuck up and stopped obsessing about other people's genitals, as... uuh... someone smarter than me put it) and without the fear that they may starve or become homeless, ffs... And I also know that what we've been doing so far obviously ain't it...
Cowbee [he/they]
in reply to latenightnoir • • •Modes of production are historical phenomena, guided by technological advancements. Capitalism wasn't a choice, but a result of growing industrial bourgeois production resolving its contradiction with feudal agrarian production. The steam engine is what accelerated this process. Zooming out, capital is the real master of capitalists, capitalists are merely the high priests of capital best guessing at what it wants, but ultimately are slaves to the profit motive and how to best extract it.
And no worries! One thing that's helpful, is that the centralization of capitalism over time is exactly what creates a large class capable of collectively planning and running production in the interests of all. The profit motive destroys the profit motive. I try to maintain revolutionary optimism, doomerism is more of a product of the capitalist class trying to remove revolutionary fervor.
Based on your final paragraph, you'd do well with reading leftist theory! I already said I'm a Marxist-Leninist, I actually made an introductory Marxist-Leninist reading list if you want to spend some time on theory, but you can explore whatever leftist tendencies you want to. The two biggest umbrellas are anarchism and Marxism, the former being about decentralization and horizontalism, the latter being about centralization and collectivization (to massively oversimplify), and the biggest tendency in Marxism is Marxism-Leninism. If you want to learn more about what makes these distinct, feel free to ask, I used to be an anarchist myself.
Also, if you can, join an org! If you're US-based, I recommend something like The Party for Socialism and Liberation. There are probably other orgs local to you, though, so do some shopping around. Getting organized is the only way out of this mess, and into the new. A better world is possible!
Cowbee [he/they]
2024-11-12 13:19:57
latenightnoir
in reply to Cowbee [he/they] • • •Most definitely have a lot of Leftist reading to do! If nothing else, I at least know I'm well Left of Center:))
Now that I've mulled it over some more, I think it feels very intentional to me because I do see a lot of similarities between it and Feudalism, yes! It's like Capitalism is comprised of multiple smaller monarchies, referring to Corporations and any organisation/person with a large amount of capital at their disposal, and thus influence. But, yeah, we're talking orders of magitude of complexity above traditional feudalism, so it would stand to reason that it's most likely just a mathematical whirlpool of sorts. I do agree that capital is the main point of power in Capitalism and that everything else has formed around it.
Which, on a personal side note, is so sad when looking at the big picture! It means that the people in power aren't actually driven by anything concretely Human™, so to speak, they've ceeded full control of themselves and their lives over to the accumulation of something entirely fictitious... It'd be lamentable if it wasn't so damned dangerous...
Thank you so much for the reading list! It's so nice to have a quasi-curriculum for these things! And I probably will drop a line or two once I get started with the reading! Truth be told, I'm at the point where I know enough to understand just how little I know about the subject, so I can't even think of relevant questions at the moment. I've focused more on existential philosophy and such so far, needed to fix myself first:))
As for joining an org, that's in my 2-year plan (life got upended, again, so it's running alongside several other need-to-do stuff). I will lean very heavily into volunteer work, hopefully that'll open up some political networks as well. If nothing else, it is urgently clear that it's time to act as a citizen. Thank Christ we've managed to pull another 4 years of European Union (Romanian)... We have a lukewarm Centrist now, but at least it's not a raging Fascist...
Cowbee [he/they]
in reply to latenightnoir • • •Yep! Marx himself said that the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles, after all. Feudalism does have a lot in common with capitalism, but what makes Marx interesting is how he analyzed how capitalism is different. Many leftists of his era were focused on the similarity between capitalism and feudalism, Marx focused on the opposite, how it's different, and this is what propelled him into scientific socialism, socialism as it emerges from capitalism.
And no problem for the reading list! It's designed to be completed in order, and is focused on taking someone freshly radicalized but with no experience with leftist theory, and leave them as someone with a firm grasp on the fundamentals of Marxism-Leninism and how to behave as an organized leftist! It also has audiobooks, queer and feminist theory, a good dose of basic history, and more. Since you mentioned philosophy, the 2nd section goes over Dialectical Materialism, so it might be a really good fit for you if that's your current interest! Still read section 1 before 2, but 2 is a fun section once you get there!
And great to hear you plan on getting organized! Really, that's step 1, but obviously not everyone can do so immediately due to life events and whatnot. Just do what you can!
latenightnoir
in reply to Cowbee [he/they] • • •Yep, that makes a lot of sense. I mean, it's much easier to change things if said change is built upon what's useful from the old. No use throwing out the things which actually do work (whether by design or incidentally, doesn't matter, happy accidents are still happy), plus it has the added benefit of maintaining some degree of familiarity, so I would imagine that makes the pill easier to swallow.
I'll most definitely take it in the order given, the new is always prioritised:)) Sounds delectably thorough, my brain will be happy, thank you! And, yeah, that's pretty much the basis on which I've started pulling hard to the Left (used to be Undecided, a.k.a. I'm Severely Depressed And Don't Have The Space For It). Existentialism steered me toward an understanding of what a satisfying life means for the human psyche, which then shoved me into "well, hey! Sounds like something which would be nice for everyone!" Then I finally saw the world for what it is and... yeah...
Completely agreed, change starts from home, always. It looks daunting, but the fact that so many people remember that Fascism is objectively bad, actually, means it's not impossible.
Thanks so much once again, both for the resources and the conversation! And sorry again if I came off as hostile, I've been struggling to manage a hefty case of misanthropy for the past almost-decade.
Cowbee [he/they]
in reply to latenightnoir • • •latenightnoir
in reply to Cowbee [he/they] • • •Awesome, thank you!❤️
Wish I was 20 again, miss pulling all-nighters reading without needing to recoup for half a year afterwards...
Sandouq_Dyatha
in reply to brem • • •The American government: you have to rent the klansman robe
Zerush
in reply to brem • • •