Billionaire investor Bill Ackman called on Andrew Cuomo to step aside from the New York City mayoral race and allow incumbent Eric Adams to take on democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani in November.
Meme image using a meme format called "What Pride Flag Is That?" or "So Are You Like Gay Or Something?", using a webcomic made by sarahmhops. It depicts 2 girls in a shared room, presumably at college / university. The girl on the left is hanging a flag on her wall.
Roommate: "So, are you like, gay or something?
Girl: "What?"
Roommate: "What Pride flag is that?"
Girl: "..." (expressionless shock)
In the original, the flag being hung is the Italian flag. In this edit, it's the fediverse symbol on a white background. The fediverse symbol shown is a proposed design from 2018 called the fedigram. It is a rainbow-coloured pentagon shape, with all diagonals connected and circles at the points, like nodes. The design reflects the interconnected nature of the fediverse, with multiple different software platforms all connected to each other.
Canvas is a collaborative pixel canvas that includes everyone apart of the Fediverse! Any fediverse platform that supports direct messages is able to login and participate for this 48 hour live event
You're invited to talk on Matrix. If you don't already have a client this link will help you pick one, and join the conversation. If you already have one, this link will help you join the conversation
Considering the current intrusive cyber climate, what are the best ways to preserve privacy?
For example, I have been exclusively using a VPN connection network-wide at home setup on OpenWrt, which in turn has a PiHole as its DNS, with the PiHole using Unbound and NextDNS (redundant I know, but I use it to encrypt my requests more than anything else).
I also have Wireguard setup so I can VPN all my devices to my network while I am on the road (also have a NextDNS profile installed. Yes I know, it’s redundant).
I also basically have all my “smart” devices (TV, lightbulbs, air purifier, etc…) at home cutoff from the internet using OpenWrt’s firewall to prevent them from calling home.
I rotate web browsers frequently to try and attempt avoiding getting fingerprinted, not sure how useful that is.
I switched email providers to mailbox.org because f*** Google and Microsoft.
I also am hosting my own cloud drive on Nextcloud to avoid using services like GDrive, OneDrive, Dropbox, etc…
I own Apple devices which aren’t the best for privacy but migrating from a whole ecosystem that I have been embedded in for MANY years is easier said than done. Hopefully in the future that’s my next move.
I feel like there is a lot more I can do but I am not sure what else. I would appreciate any and all suggestions ya’ll might have.
EDIT: I’m not being too extreme with my caution as some comments are making it sound to be. I am a very average person who is privacy conscious yet realize being cut off from the internet and society is not realistic. I guess my threat model is your basic “day-to-day it’s non of your business who am I online or what I do, please don’t profile/fingerprint me, I am just a passerby” kinda threat model.
Aside from iOS, I am already there. Soon enough, I hope, I will migrate from Apple’s ecosystem. Already have my Linux box setup and functional recently. One step at a time.
Get rid of all the connected stuff entirely, delete all your online accounts, get rid of your cell phone and similar devices, start paying cash for everything. Close your bank accounts and keep your money under your mattress. Move into the woods, grow your own food, and don't talk to anyone.
There is a lot, and there are a lot of levels. I am working on this now as well. Escalating from where I was, its a learning process. Too much to type in a single comment/response.
If you would like more info on removing your info from the internet, reducing the amount of spyware on your android phone, de-googling yourself, or limiting how much info you spill while you browse, we can connect and I can share what I have been doing. Ive got plenty I still need to do beyond this, but I am happy to share my lessons learned as it were.
You pretty much got the foundational stuff plus a little more established. Aside from getting away from Apple, which you already mentioned, there's not much more I can think of without going full tinfoil hat. The main thing, in my opinion, is just not being a wide open door and giving away your personal data freely. Sounds like you're there, so long as you don't have social media accounts.
More encryption is the only thing I would think worthy of mention since I don't see that listed anywhere. Encrypted messengers, encrypted storage, encrypted emails.
The measures you’ve taken are more than enough for your threat model. I think it now depends on your data hygiene. Weakest link kinda thing, where it doesn’t matter if your home network is locked down and you use privacy friendly services if you’re careless with your data anyway; which I assume you aren’t.
To your point, one example that comes to mind is that I have read many people complaining about cloudflare, saying it’s “evil” and over extending. While I agree on the aspect of Cloudflare being sort of a monopoly, I am not sure what else to use to route some of my traffic to my services running at home without explicitly opening up ports to the internet by using a reverse proxy for example.
In that regard, Cloudflare has access to my traffic and data could theoretically leak that way, but I am not sure what is a safer and better alternative to it.
All data is routed through somewhere you don't have control over at some point. If everything is encrypted then you are fine. You could setup a vps and proxy through that instead of Cloudflare, but you are just relying on the vps provider to protect any data/not snoop then rather than Cloudflare.
The only real way to be completely private is to just avoid connecting to the internet at all, but that's not really feasible. Just get to a point where you are comfortable, you've already done more than most to protect yourself (as much as you can without it getting silly anyway). Good job!
You are still exposed by using Apple products. Use linux for PC's with encryption, vpn. For a phone, switch to device, such as a Google Pixel, or several other manufacturers that can use a privacy android rom. I use CalyxOS, private, secure and de-googled.
Lets not forget...operation PRISM which was exposed by Snowden.
A bit late, but you might find useful information in this book: blog.nowherejezfoltodf4jiyl6r5… Not all of it might be relevant to you, i.e. you are probably not doing anything that would require plausible deniability, and probably some other things. But it has some really good info, in my opinion.
Interesting counterpoint to the stuff we sometimes talk about here. It's more for public chat rooms though. MLS (RFC 9240) still interests me and I've been wanting to try coding it.
This is just one of the comments on the Revolt E2EE issue, I guess the author felt so proud of their opinion to make it into a blog post, I wouldn't say anything if they at least revisited the whole discussion and tried to make a reasonable summary. The argument provided in the article against features is simply "too hard to develop, too hard to maintain, nobody cares enough". If nobody cared, nobody would go on Matrix, if everything that was hard to develop were just dropped before even trying, we would have stopped at the hello world (not implying I'm not a lazy developer, but I surely don't want to imply that there aren't brilliant people out there who can undertake scarily big tasks). Giving another feature as a sort of replacement: federated identities, is not a replacement at all, it's a completely different scope. I just can't empathise with the point that they try to make
need to write out requirements here TODO: write an RFC (https://github.com/revoltchat/rfcs) MVP List: OMEMO-style secret chats OpenMLS instead? key verification (verify users through trusted channe...
I do think their point about not using E2EE enabling better moderation is worth considering, because it’s absolutely true that the server being unable to filter malicious content makes moderation harder. Still, imo any decent chat client should support it as an option, because if I’m talking to friends I don’t want any servers having access for any reason. Large guilds for public info, like the KDE matrix for example, shouldn’t be E2E encrypted for this exact reason (iirc it’s not, because matrix allows the choice and KDE has chosen correctly). Lack of encryption doesn’t mean all moderation issues are solved, though, cuz that same unencrypted KDE matrix had a pretty major problem with CSAM being spammed a while back.
So IMO the ability to disable E2EE is valuable for a discord replacement, but the author’s idea that E2EE shouldn’t be implemented… does not follow.
Just looking at what the USA is doing in Gaza, and what they are planning to do to their own most vulnerable population; I'd say they are experts in starving people.
Can the US please fuck off already! Enough with the impotent world policing. Let’s welcome Cuba into participation with the rest of the world. America needs to quit the embargo’s and stop red baiting. It’s fucking tiresome AF.
Marwan al-Sultan, a renowned cardiologist and director of the Indonesian hospital, is the 70th healthcare worker to be killed by Israeli attacks in the past 50 days, says Palestinian medical organisation
Marwan al-Sultan, a renowned cardiologist and director of the Indonesian hospital, is the 70th healthcare worker to be killed by Israeli attacks in the past 50 days, says Palestinian medical organisation
"The Hamas official said the “new” draft was largely a repackaging of terms that the U.S. and Israel tried to strong arm Hamas into accepting in late May. That deal would have allowed some Israeli forces to remain entrenched in Gaza, offered no clear guarantees for a permanent end to the war, and allowed Israel to effectively maintain control of food and aid distribution in Gaza."
"The Hamas official said the “new” draft was largely a repackaging of terms that the U.S. and Israel tried to strong arm Hamas into accepting in late May. That deal would have allowed some Israeli forces to remain entrenched in Gaza, offered no clear guarantees for a permanent end to the war, and allowed Israel to effectively maintain control of food and aid distribution in Gaza."
The group is free...and already has 45 members ready to go next week when we officially start! We'll follow the checklist here. It will be a casual group for accountability and support.
I can help based on my experiences, we can all support each other, and we have at least 1-2 advanced techie people who can answer more complicated questions.
Please join, and tell your friends! Next week I'll post an official welcome and resources..and we'll get started.
If it goes well, I can either start another one and/move to de-Amazon, Meta, Apple, whatever.
(Also, if anyone wants to repost this in r/privacy on Reddit, please do! I apparently don't have enough karma to post there.)
Hmm, the order of those steps is a little weird. I would expect disabling ad tracking and such to be first. I also think it's odd that SMS wasn't mentioned, is this an iPhone guide?
Agreed. Week 2, switching browser and search is a couple steps and seems like a good on-ramp to build momentum. Week 1, switching email and calendar is several steps per step and requires some consideration and even paying into a new service.
I can't remember, but I think I wanted to be sure anti-tracker extensions was after installing a new browser...otherwise you'd double your work. This is not an iPhone guide; later in the course we talk about getting a privacy-forward phone OS.
Sounds like a great idea. It will be publicly indexible if people search it online. They'll see lemmy results instead of reddit. And, you can link comments to your Signal group. I don't see a downside
Hello all- I am seeking help trying to figure out why my internal microphone isn't being detected. I have followed a lot of troubleshooting audio guides such as this one and none of it has worked.
I'm on Pop_OS, with wayland, on an Asus laptop,
Here is more info if anyone could by chance help me
arecord -l
**** List of CAPTURE Hardware Devices ****
card 0: PCH [HDA Intel PCH], device 0: ALC294 Analog [ALC294 Analog]
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
systemctl --user status pipewire
● pipewire.service - PipeWire Multimedia Service
Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/user/pipewire.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
Active: active (running) since Thu 2025-07-03 15:19:48 EDT; 24h ago
TriggeredBy: ● pipewire.socket
Main PID: 2192 (pipewire)
Tasks: 3 (limit: 18486)
Memory: 16.4M
CPU: 15.088s
CGroup: /user.slice/user-1000.slice/user@1000.service/session.slice/pipewire.service
└─2192 /usr/bin/pipewire
Jul 03 15:19:48 pop-os systemd[2182]: Started PipeWire Multimedia Service.
Jul 03 15:19:48 pop-os pipewire[2192]: mod.jackdbus-detect: Failed to receive jackdbus reply:>
lines 1-13/13 (END)
do anything for you? (The numbers are for sound card 0, 1, and 2. It looks like, if anything, only 0 would be relevant for you, but you can try the others just in case.)
This command cleans the controls created by applications.
It was a bit of a long shot experiment to begin with. The commands I posted can be useful when an audio device suddenly stops working after it has been working initially during a session, but since your problem is most likely about your device not being recognized at any time, it's not too surprising that they don't do much. Just worth the try.
It is probably due to this change in the Linux kernel. That broke analogue microphone inputs on lots of systems. After that change, there were quite a few additional patches fixing those problems on individual systems (e.g. this one), but there are still lots of broken setups around. I have no idea what the original change was about exactly. It appears to have broken more things than it has fixed, but what do I know.
Yes. Apparently the issue happens with both internal mics and mic connectors where you attach your own mic. The seconds link I provided points to a fix for a specific laptop that fixes a non-working internal mic.
I'm trying to see if maybe i've done something where I have pipewire, pulseaudio, wireplumber all set up at the same time? I also don't really understand the difference between them
Okay, so this is one of Asus's consumer models that fits in the "Windowstop" category, meaning a lot of the hardware is going to be windows-only for various reasons.
It's got an ALC272 which IS supported, but that doesn't mean the microphone will be, especially if it's on the USB bus for whatever reason.
Couple questions:
1) Do other microphones work, just not internal? 2) Does your volume control work as expected 3) Does the webcam work, and does the internal microphone work only when the webcam is engaged? 4) What do apps like Discord or Zoom detect as available for your inputs?
As a test, install pavucontrol and qasmixer. Open pavucontrol, and check ALL the input settings (there are many combos). If nothing there shows activity, launch qasmixer, select the 'hw' view on the right, then try selecting different mixers and see if one finally clicks.
If any of these are successful, your mic is detected, and your mixer settings are messed up so it's not being enabled as an input sink.
If none of these work, you're going to have to dig restart, then run sudo dmesg and grep through looking for information regarding audio devices, or similar errors to see if it can't detect it.
From the product specs, it looks like it might have Harmon Kardon speakers, which may also tie into the microphone, and that's going to be problematic if it's a USB device for a number of reasons I won't dive into. Overall, this model just seems to be problematic from digging around. Example: reddit.com/r/ASUS/comments/160…
Hello all- I am seeking help trying to figure out why my internal microphone isn't being detected. I have followed a lot of troubleshooting audio guides such as this one and none of it has worked.
I'm on Pop_OS, with wayland, on an Asus laptop,
Here is more info if anyone could by chance help me
arecord -l
**** List of CAPTURE Hardware Devices ****
card 0: PCH [HDA Intel PCH], device 0: ALC294 Analog [ALC294 Analog]
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
systemctl --user status pipewire
● pipewire.service - PipeWire Multimedia Service
Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/user/pipewire.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
Active: active (running) since Thu 2025-07-03 15:19:48 EDT; 24h ago
TriggeredBy: ● pipewire.socket
Main PID: 2192 (pipewire)
Tasks: 3 (limit: 18486)
Memory: 16.4M
CPU: 15.088s
CGroup: /user.slice/user-1000.slice/user@1000.service/session.slice/pipewire.service
└─2192 /usr/bin/pipewire
Jul 03 15:19:48 pop-os systemd[2182]: Started PipeWire Multimedia Service.
Jul 03 15:19:48 pop-os pipewire[2192]: mod.jackdbus-detect: Failed to receive jackdbus reply:>
lines 1-13/13 (END)
Dumb question: do you have a key on your keyboard that disables the microphone? I don't have my laptop in front of me, but I know there's a key that disables the trackpad and another that disables the camera. I realized that I'd accidentally hit those by going through something similar to this.
the worry I have is that it would end in a nuclear holocaust because the US regime would rather kills us all than accept that it's no longer the global hegemon
Immediately following American air strikes, Iranian military officials jetted to Beijing to negotiate the purchase of J-10C fighter jets and AWACS from China.
Pakistan's air force is equipped with Chinese-built fighters and missiles, and in a recent air battle against Indian forces shot down several top-line Western-built fighter jets and drones.
Chinese defense firms build equipment that is comparable or superior in quality, at considerable cost savings head-to-head against gear from NATO countries or Russia.
What's more, other militaries are struggling to build weapons at all, given that supply chains for the most advanced munitions and systems run through China for rare earth metals, and the other BRICS countries for raw materials.
If China agrees to supply Iran, it will remake the military and diplomatic landscape of the Middle East, for decades to come
The uk and Australia doing something hardly makes it true of "the western countries." Rewording to "some western countries" could make the statement true though.
Did you miss the part where the US also revoked their visas? I didn't see it in that specific article, but they were also cancelled from German appearances.
just ain't the case, this is a thing that happens sometimes at monied levels of capitalist event planning in Imperial Anglophone countries, not in day-to-day life for all the Volk
don't pretend like western governments have this kind of reach and power, it will cause people trapped in their borders to kill themselves
It's not the case...it just happens sometimes? It doesn't count when it does happen because it's capitalism? We have to ignore when it happens because if people realized, they would be too distraught?
I genuinely don't understand what's doing on with this comment.
I thought it might be interpreted as mean spirited which wasn't the intention and assumed nobody had seen it yet anyway. I'll bring it back just for you!
I thought it might be interpreted as mean spirited
ngl, it is, a touch, but, I mean, seriously, "no it's ok because capitalism and don't tell people or they'll kill themselves" lol, um, wut? lol ... there is no other way to respond to that.
It isn't the case that stage musicians need to be government approved. It is the case that high-profile acts at high profile shows are being censored. There is a huge difference.
*and thanks for bringing your comment back, it was civil and i was happy to clarify
I think the line between needing corporate approval for your music, and needing government approval for your music is a blurry one, and it is difficult to judge what actually happens from the outside. The people who grant the corporate approval play golf, do drugs, and get hookers with people in government, so the government could have politely asked the capitalists to ban the act. Let's not undersell the deep alignment between corporate and government power.
Let's be honest, that's true in every country where the government has real power. The moment you're an actual threat to those in power, you'll get shut down.
I am new to linux knows very very basic linux like using it for more then year know how to sort little issues etc. I have my laptop with me having specs as following: **Hp Elitebook 840 G4 Core i5 7th Gen 8gb Ram 256 gb SSD Full Hd 1080 maybe resolution Currently using Fedora KDE Edition **
Use for basic working sometimes it gets load sometimes but still a good one.
Help me if you can install Tekken 7 or if not then tekken 3 will work for me as well.
I dont litterly know anything fully technical so kindly if you gonna tell me explain it to be with step by step detailes please and let me know each thing. It'll be great help 🤞
Note: If Tekken 7 can't be installed on fedora or need anything else to change, kindly recommend me, mostly i have used debian based systems and rest i have is fedora so if anything is nkt suitable, let me know please.
Gonna post in multiple communities to get extra help. Thank you
Sure. The steam version is easiest, just install steam, get the game through steam and it should just work. Heres a website that tracks compatibility with linux through proton, valve's solution to running windows games, its installed by default when you get steam: protondb.com/app/389730
It has a pretty simple GUI and you can click your configs together.
At first you have to define a "bottle" which simply represents an virtual environment for your Windows-Application or Game.
You can define which Windows Version you want to create and it asks you, if it is a Desktop-App or a Game you want to run. And based on that it will create an environment prepared for your Individual situation.
Idk if you have the specs to run tekken 7 but you can try if you already own the game. sudo dnf install steam Then open steam and go to the settings look for compatibility and make sure thats on. Then try running tekken 7.
If tekken 7 is to laggy you can try tekken 3. If you want to try that I can type up instructions. You can either install the PC version or use a ps2 emulator and play the ps2 versions. I'd recommend the ps2 emulator because its easy and the games are easy to find.
BYD has laid the foundation stone for the expansion of its electric bus production facility in the Hungarian city of Komárom. This will see the production capacity of the plant, which opened in 2017, tripled to 1,250 vehicles per year.
I never understood BRICS. Sure, they are the second line of industrial powers (China?) but especially India Russia and China hate each other to the bone. They are partners only on paper. If someone can explain it to me please go on .
And this is something the MAGAts lack the fundamental capacity to begin to understand. Right wing propaganda doesn't even need to address this and spin it to a positive for trump because it would simply confuse their peons.
I'd agree, but libs aren't constantly thumping their chest that their choice is the infallible god-king of wealth and economics and can do no wrong. Also I feel if this happened under a dem president the news would cover it and would include deeper information about why. That being said, I'd predict that when the next dem president is voted in and this needs to be addressed, we'll get much more information about why it matters.
I see that the map uses red to represent BRICS. It looks like the Cold War maps of the "communist horde" taking over the world that I saw as a kid in the early 60s. The ariticle even lends a "we must stop them in Vietnam" aspect.
“That thing that’s already over a decade old and already much larger than the G7 in terms of population, landmass, natural resources, and industrial production… Never going to happen.”
The Confederation of Sahel States (CSS) has officially launched the Alliance of Agricultural Seed Producers of the Sahel (APSA-Sahel) - West Africa Weekly
The article mentions the GMO controversy, then says the seeds are adapted to the climate of Sahel. Don't hybrids tend to revert to one of the parent's genetics after a generation? Would these seeds not have to be GMO? I'm intrigued!
Elon Musk bet big on the Cybertruck.
It didn’t emerge from focus groups, mimic successful truck models, or even resemble Tesla’s own—at the time—successful S, X, 3, and Y lines. It was an ...
The Supreme Court on Thursday granted a request by the Trump administration to send eight men who have spent more than a month imprisoned on a U.S. military base in Djibouti to war-ravaged South Sudan.
Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented.
By a 7-2 vote, the justices lifted an order from U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy that had blocked the men’s expulsion to South Sudan. Murphy intervened despite a Supreme Court ruling last month that put a hold on a prior nationwide injunction he issued requiring the administration to give deportees advance notice of their destination and a “meaningful” chance to object if they believed they’d be in danger of harm.
these where the first versions of empire that existed on this world and full of equal parts flaws and dumb luck as a result
the modern hybrid euro-colonial versions also have flaws and luck on their side, but, more importantly, they learn and adapt from each other and, as a result, have a pattern that we can now identify.
The actual paper the number comes from (Fate of Empires by John Glubb) is complete bullshit, though. Even the cherry-picked examples it uses, which are limited strictly to the surroundings of the Mediterranean, don't use any kind of consistent criteria for when an empire starts or ends. He tries to count "Alexander (and his successors)" as one coherent entity and then picks an end year in which all of them had either already collapsed long ago or would not do so for many decades to come. He cuts centuries off of the Roman Empire's lifespan by just saying that the empire was unstable and getting invaded a lot (and ignoring the Eastern Empire entirely). HIs reckoning of the "Arab Empire" includes three separate caliphates, and the end date isn't even the actual end of any of them
Other than that, no, it does not attempt to find an average in the sense of a mean lifespan. It actually does argue that 250 years for an empire can be compared to a human living 70 years.
Then it wouldn't be reasonable to assume the US would collapse right at the average (mean) though. If the majority of empires collapsed at the same age (the mode) it would be different, but the mean tells you very little about when any particular empire will collapse.
The mean number of children per household is a decimal, that doesn't mean any households have partial children.
It's not really that straightforward though, is it? Firstly is it a mean or a median average? What counts as an empire? When do we date the rise and fall of specific empires? These are not questions with straightforwards answers. Would Hitler's Germany count as an empire? How many Roman empires were there?
What bit did you worry I hadn't read? Was it an answer you posted in another thread, perhaps, that you're talking about? I don't believe there was anything in my reply that suggested I hadn't comprehended anything relevant up to that point...
Average out of which number? There has not been enough empires in human history to get any kind of valid statistical conclusion.
Also, the ancient egyptian empire lasted over 3k years, for you to get an average of 250y with such outlier you would need to include what, several 10y "empires", or divide empires by ruler. Which would then make the conversation moot since each US president would be a new "empire".
The claim comes from John Glubb, and he used this chart to make the average out of... 11 data points!?! While missing tons of other ancient empires that lasted thousands of years?!
So to answer your comment, yeah math is easy. Impossible to reach such average number with all the data though, given that it was made with a wildly incomplete and incorrect data...
No, not even close. The Egyptian Empire lasted from 1570 to 1069 BC.
The claim comes from John Glubb
No, there are others as I've already mentioned. The Changing World Order by Ray Dalio also arrives at the 250 year number. Cliodynamics and Structural-Demographic Theory suggests cycles of 200-300 years as well.
The Egyptian Empire rose during the period of the New Kingdom (c. 1570- c. 1069 BCE), when the country reached its height of wealth, international prestige, and military might. The empire stretched...
When someone says "death to America", they aren't saying "death to Americans". A government/state is a regime, not all it's people, despite how much as nationalists love to stoke that sort of patriotism. So I have no problem with the slogan, I call for the fall of the US imperialist regime.
Where is that constraint coming from? "Death to [x]" is a statement of a desire.
"Death to Americans" would be a call for the deaths of citizens. Obviously Iran doesn't consider the typical American citizen to be oppressing them, so they are not interested in calling for that.
Someone yelling "death to America" could still be supporting the death of George W. Bush or Donald Trump, who are Americans. It could even involve combating many in the US military. That's still very different from calling for "death to Americans", because the target is the regime, not its citizens simply for being citizens.
But I still think you've raised an interesting discussion to have so I've tried to answer it.
In an ideal world, regime change. Relatively peaceful dissolution is preferable and possible (consider the death of the Soviet Union).
However, given the ruthlessness of the people with the most power in the US, I suspect they would gladly kill millions of Americans before even considering a peaceful surrender. People are shot by the state in regular protests, let alone one directly threatening the state (case in point - Jan 6 had a protester killed by police). So unless some interesting lucky opportunities open up (such as a military coup), the USA will (continue to) kill Americans to maintain stability, regardless of whether those opposing the USA kill a single American.
Given that situation, it sounds like any resistance to the US is bad because will likely involve deaths of innocent people. Yes, but the other side of the story is that to do nothing ''also'' results in the deaths of innocent people. To the people running the show, it's completely normal to oversee the constant atrocious social murder of many thousands each year through poverty, artificial scarcity of food and medication, healthcare denial and other neglect in the name of profit. We overproduce enough food to feed everyone, there's enough land and property to house everyone.
To do nothing is to allow many Americans to keep dying each day from easily preventable deaths. To fix that system will most likely kill many Americans in the process. You can almost simplify it down to a trolley problem - there's no clean solution whichever choice you make. But, for each of us, there is a correct decision.
Maybe it'd be a good idea to use a word other than death, which is clearly being misinterpreted to mean killing people. "Dissolution of [x]" obviously isn't as snappy, but it's an improvement at least in terms of accuracy of intent.
I hate to be nitpicky about a meme but I love to be nitpicky. This claims is based on bullshit statistics that the author made up or bent to his will. The Ottoman empire alone shows this to be incorrect but Rome too stands out. Besides what would an arbitrary amount of time have to do with the collapse of complex economic systems. Its bullshit idealism and I hate seeing it.
Also worth pointing out that, while America may be 249 years old, no one would consider it an empire for the majority of that time. Its debatable, but I would argue we didn't really reach an empirical level of power until the late 40s, when we started taking over what was left of the British Empire's influence over the middle-eas5.
The US has always been a settler-colony, but it became more Imperialist after World War I with the inter-ally debts. It became world hegemon after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, however.
Despite all the and suffering it has caused and will cause, Trump admin has at least handed us the beginning of a breakdown in US hegemony as trust has eroded with other nations who are all busy pivoting away from it right now.
Unfortunately upon breaking the gridlock, other nations are scrambling to maintain the status quo rather than leaning into the future by redoubling commitments to address human and climate crises before it’s too late for the humans.
It's funny to imagine our descendants in whatever America becomes defending the empire by saying it wasn't America's fault it collapsed, it was Israel's; hopefully though one of the things they admit is it's also because of culture war idiocy and other arbitrary, fabricated social divisions; EDIT: Also the empire's insistence on capitalism and wasting the talents contained in around 350 million people; China capitalizing (haaaaa, see what I did there?) on their population with excellent access to really good education and health services has turned their one billion people into its most powerful asset, meanwhile in America humans are also an asset, but in the form of slavery (wage slavery and actual slavery).
depends how you define Rome, from 753bc and the Byzantine empire lasted all the way to 1453CE. so Rome lasted longer if you count it as the Roman empire.
The Roman Empire began in 27 BC with Augustus, the first emperor of Rome. It eventually split in half in 395 AD. The Western Roman Empire, including the city of Rome itself, fell in 476 AD. The Eastern Roman Empire, or the Byzantine Empire was centered on Constantinople, not Rome.
The point is Rome did not last 1,480+ years as you and the other poster claimed, not even close. Odoacer conquered Rome and became the first barbarian king of Italy in 476 AD.
No, Tattorack is correct. Material conditions decaying makes it easier to topple, but Materialists know that without the working class organizing and acutally overthrowing the system, it won't fall. The system still has to be killed and replaced, otherwise it will linger on.
Not exactly true. USSR, felt without a single drop o blood, most because it's economic opening movement started too late. US government is taking actions that are isolating US commercially, increasing its debt and losing relevance in the world's diplomacy.
The USSR wasn't an Empire, which played into that. Further, the reforms it introduced weren't because it opened up too late, but because they played against the socialist system of planning. The PRC's approach to economic reform retained full state control and is focused on unity, rather than disunity, which is why it's working.
Neither is US. The empire reference is related to the imperialist state policies. Not the same but similar to that was the policies of USSR with other countries of the Soviet block and what Kzar Putin is trying to do with th Baltic's today.
Your point of view about the Glasnost, Perestroika and consequently the dissolution seems more from the structuralist point of view (which is valid and revelvant for the dissolution), while my argument is more from the economic point of view.
In a very pragmatic way, the closed economy model of USSR imposed many of the issues that deepened the structural problems (like you mentioned) and accelerated the dissolution. Based on Gorbachev own opinion, the Chernobyl disaster was the start of the dissolution: combination of a repressive internal policy creating a fertile environment for corruption, burocracy and inneficiency, together with an outdated industry caused by isolationism.
US seems to be doing the same: closing its economy, negationism, losing diplomatic relevance, ...
Although a completely imbecile, Elon is right in one point: there is only one party in US right now, and it is not even remotely aligned with what the Americans need/desire. Same type of structural corrosion that brought the Soviet block to dissolution.
The US is absolutely an Empire, it practices imperialism, by which it extracts vast wealth from the global south. The USSR didn't do that.
Further, I'm absolutely focused on economics. The Soviet economy slowed, but was still growing. The dissolution of the USSR was multifaceted, complex, and not boiled down to one failure. Further, its conditions are entirely different from the US, which is a decaying Empire, the fruits of imperialism are diminishing and disparity is rising.
I'm a Marxist-Leninist, economics are core to my analysis.
Imperialism is the highest stage of the capitalist mode of production, in which monopolies and cartels become the prevalent economic force of society. Lenin synthesized...
Saying that USSR didn't extract wealth from other countries in the block, treating them as colonies is a huge stretch. All the political control was crntralized in Moskow, Russia promoted a vast resource extraction, specially from Ukraine, imposed language suppression, cultural assimilation and demographic engineering e.g. Holodomor.
The Soviet economic system was federated and planned. The political control in Moscow wasn't absolute by any stretch.
The various Soviet Republics were not colonies, not by any stretch. Resources and goods were shipped around the whole system as needed, not just imported into Moscow.
There was no forcible cultural assimilation. There was a huge effort to cultivate a soviet identity, but there wasn't an attempt to erase cultural identity. The famine in the 1930s was caused by natural causes, not "demographic engineering," grain was re-allocated to Ukraine once it was known that there were famine conditions. There was forcible re-allocation of various ethnic groups like Koreans, which did exist, but this isn't the same claim you made either in scope or character.
So no. The USSR was not imperialist, not by the correct concept of imperialism as a form of international extraction, nor the vague "Soviet Bad" thing you tried to make it out to be.
Imperialism is the highest stage of the capitalist mode of production, in which monopolies and cartels become the prevalent economic force of society. Lenin synthesized...
PikaOS maybe too "hobby oriented" to expect "sleep stability", but I understand most/all bugs to be debian or kde upstream ones. Is gnome still much better at stability? Is there a distribution that fixed sleep problems for you? open vs closed nvidia drivers?
Are there motherboard manufacturers that suck less at linux?
I have a Gigabyte motherboard, and the only issue I've run into—even with Arch—is this specific B550 board uses some third-party sensors, and the necessary it87 module doesn't load and isn't included by default. This makes it impossible to utilize tools like CoolerControl to manage fan curves.
Thankfully, some kind soul manages a DKMS module via the AUR, in spite of both Gigabyte and the IC manufacturers being less than helpful.
No issues with Debian / Ubuntu on many laptops since early 2010s, mostly with Intel graphics. I had a Vostro 1400 with Nvidia and it also resumed fine, but that was 2009-11 so the experience with the Nvidia driver from that time is likely irrelevant.
System76, Framework, even Dell officially supports Ubuntu in limited cases.
I'd just try a couple different distros and see which one has the fewest issues for you. If you like, you can pay for official support from Dell or Canonical. If you do identify an issue in a supported scenario (Ubuntu version + device model) they will actually help you troubleshoot and resolve the issue. RHEL is the same if you want to pay a bit more.
I'm running CachyOS with Gnome, Gigabyte motherboard, AMD processor, closed Nvidia drivers, and sleep works just fine. I haven't had any issues in that regard.
Could try Fedora based like Bazzite or just regular Fedora. Obviously a sample size of 2 isn't saying much, but Bazzite is less buggy with the hardware on my HP laptop, and my destop with an Nvidia GPU.
Before asking for another distro, you should figure out, what is the root cause of the trouble you observe. Usually sleep/wake up under Linux are highly hardware dependent. Even the SteamDeck, which has payed first level hardware support by Valve, has sometimes trouble waking up properly after sleep, at least in desktop mode. Good luck!
A problem with PikaOS is that the log files seem bad or I couldn't find the right one. Lots of seemingly amateur errors in log (no permission for system to write to system) that don't seem to lead to imminent crash. Log files don't pick up having to hit power switch maybe.
My main question was the easy "did a distro switch solve sleep issues for anyone"? Maybe switch to Mint would at least have more google hits on solving issues? Someone downvoted the "switch to x11 graphics driver before sleep" try, and I'm losing patience on tracking it down as you suggest.
Not sure if it is applicable, but wouldn't it be an option to use the Fedora Workstation Live CD, mount your swap partition into the live system and send it to sleep via SystemD?
This should give you feedback with a fairly recent kernel and Gnome has (at least for me) been the desktop option with the least amount of bugs I encountered.
Waking up from sleep is of course part graphics card/drivers, and BIOS code. My husband had his share with his nvidia card crashing the system when coming up from sleep under Wayland, but I believe these things have been mostly ironed now. However, if you have a buggy BIOS, you're out of luck. I've had such a DELL laptop, latest firmware installed, and no matter which distro I tried, it wouldn't wake up from sleep properly. So, if that's your issue, there's not much you can do, apart from getting compatible hardware. There are hardware lists of compatible hardware in some places, including archlinux's wiki i believe.
It's probably more to do with hardware than distro. That said, using major distros is more likely to win. FWIW I've used fedora and voidlinux on my 3 Dell laptops over the last 12 years with nary a problem. One of them had nvidia but I used nouveau.
I use Fedora with KDE and never have issues. Though I no longer have NVIDIA cards in any of my computers. The drivers suck on Linux in general and were the cause of many of my previous issues with Linux overall.
By #MEE staff Published date: 3 July 2025 20:22 BST Last update: 07:00 EDT
"The day before she was released, on Monday, Sakeik was awoken by guards and told that she was going to be removed from the detention facility in Texas, where she was being held. An officer told Sakeik that she was being deported, but then she was not.
Sakeik was first threatened with deportation on 12 June when ICE agents brought her to the tarmac at Fort Worth Alliance Airport and told her they were deporting her to “the border of Israel.”
A US federal judge had previously ordered that Sakeik could not be deported."
'Ward was arrested and almost deported simply because she is Palestinian and ICE thought they could get away with it'
- Chris Godshall-Bennett, lawyer representing Sakeik
Palestinian woman released from ICE custody after lengthy detention
By #MEE staff Published date: 3 July 2025 20:22 BST Last update: 07:00 EDT
"The day before she was released, on Monday, Sakeik was awoken by guards and told that she was going to be removed from the detention facility in Texas, where she was being held. An officer told Sakeik that she was being deported, but then she was not.
Sakeik was first threatened with deportation on 12 June when ICE agents brought her to the tarmac at Fort Worth Alliance Airport and told her they were deporting her to “the border of Israel.”
A US federal judge had previously ordered that Sakeik could not be deported."
'Ward was arrested and almost deported simply because she is Palestinian and ICE thought they could get away with it'
- Chris Godshall-Bennett, lawyer representing Sakeik
A Palestinian woman was released from custody by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) after the US government tried for the second time to deport her despite a federal court ruling prohibiting her removal.
🤭
FundMECFS
in reply to django • • •