Switzerland plans surveillance worse than US
The proposed update to Switzerland’s Ordinance on the Surveillance of Postal and Telecommunications Traffic (VÜPF: Verordnung über die Überwachung des Post- und Fernmeldeverkehrs) represents a significant expansion of state surveillance powers, worse than the surveillance powers of the USA. If enacted, it would have serious consequences for encrypted services such as Threema, an encrypted WhatsApp alternative and Proton Mail as well as VPN providers based in Switzerland.
Switzerland plans surveillance worse than US | Tuta
Revision of Swiss surveillance law VÜPF would directly target VPN & encrypted chat and email providers based in Switzerland.Tuta
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Buried in Proton's AI announcement today is a pretty shocking detail about their service 👀
Buried in Proton's AI announcement today is a pretty shocking detail about their service 👀Because of legal uncertainty around Swiss government proposals to introduce mass surveillance — proposals that have been outlawed in the EU — Proton is moving most of its physical infrastructure out of Switzerland. Lumo will be the first product to move.
#Proton #Switzerland #Privacy #EuroStack #ProtonMailSurveillance: le géant des mails cryptés Proton prêt à quitter Genève
Andy Yen, patron du service de courriel et Cloud aux 100 millions d’utilisateurs, refuse l’espionnage que veut imposer la Confédération.Pierre-Alexandre Sallier (Tamedia Publications romandes S.A.)
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WordPress-ActivityPub v 7.1.0 Introduces Following Capabilities
The latest release of the ActivityPub WordPress plugin introduces new functionality for performing remote follows directly from WordPress. Here's why that's important for the future of WordPress on the Fediverse.
WordPress-ActivityPub v 7.1.0 Introduces Following Capabilities
The ActivityPub plugin team at Automattic has been doing some amazing work. Over the past few years, this single-person project has shifted from a single-person effort to a team of full-time developers. With the release of the 7.x branch of the ActvityPub integration plugin, project devs announced that they would be working on bringing remote following capabilities to the plugin itself.Today, version 7.1.0 was released with a very early sneak peak at this new feature. While it’s currently hidden behind an “Advanced Options” toggle, it’s now possible to use the ActivityPub plugin to directly follow other Actors on the network.
Screenshot courtesy of ActivityPub for WordPress
This is still a relatively new feature, and the plumbing hasn’t been completely fleshed out yet. Team member Konstantin Obenland explains further in the announcement:
There’s really no functionality around it yet, beyond following accounts from other instances, as we have yet to start processing incoming posts and adding the ability to interact with them. But if you just can’t wait to show your appreciation for other accounts by following them, go wild!
Why is this Important?
The connection from WordPress to the rest of the Fediverse has always kind of been in a weird place. While the main ActivityPub integration for WordPress generally works great for sending articles to subscribers, following people directly from the WordPress dashboard has been messy. Right now, if you wanted to use your WordPress blog as an actual Fediverse account, you would need the following things:
- Friends – a social dashboard for WordPress, still in the early stages. This piece is primarily used for following other people in the Fediverse.
- Enable Mastodon Apps – This implements a substantial amount of the Mastodon API, so that you can post microblog updates directly to your WordPress site.
- Event Bridge for ActivityPub – This technically adds support for federated Events, by converting your site’s events calendar into something people on the network can subscribe to and indicate their attendance.
With these three pieces, it’s possible to cobble together something that comes close to being a complete Fediverse user experience. Still, this process takes time to set up, can be prone to configuration issues, and sometimes has missing features. Having different plugins that all touch the ActivityPub integration can also be harder to test code and report issues.
We use Tusky with our site for social purposes. It’s pretty good, but definitely could be better.
By introducing remote following functionality directly into the ActivityPub plugin, the project team will effectively provide standard mechanisms for other plugins to directly rely on. In the near future, this might mean that you won’t have to rely on Friends to be the broker of your social connections. Instead, Friends can just use what’s already put in place by the core plugin, and focus on ways to just work as a social dashboard.Also, Starter Packs!
One other thing worth mentioning involves preliminary support for the Fediverse Starter Kits, a proposed recreation of Bluesky’s Starter Pack functionality. While there have been a number of attempts to make something similar for the Fediverse in the past, there has yet to be a Fediverse standard for lists filled with recommended users to follow. However, the WordPress team has put in the effort to support Pixelfed‘s Starter Kit Data Schema as a point of reference.
A screenshot of the importer in action. Credit: Matthias Pfefferle
In all, this release iterates on the current ActivityPub stack for WordPress, and could provide a stable foundation for a lot of future functionality that we’ve all come to expect from platforms such as Mastodon, Misskey, or even Bonfire.
Schema
StarterKit Extension Documentation Specification Base Structure { "@context": "https://www.w3.org/ns/activitystreams", "type": "Collection", "id": "https://example.org/recommendations/category-name...dansup (GitHub)
A Call from the Workers of Gaza to Labor Unions Around the World: A Cry in the Face of Starvation and Genocide
A Call from the Workers of Gaza to Labor Unions Around the World:A Cry in the Face of Starvation and Genocide
To all free workers everywhere,
To our comrades in trade unions and labor federations around the world,
We bring to you the statement of the workers of Gaza, issued by the Palestine General Federation of Trade Unions, addressed to the workers and unions of the world—this final appeal they have named “A Cry Before Death.” It reaches us from the midst of hunger and siege, from beneath the rubble of factories and homes, and from the heart of a continuing war of extermination that has gone on for nearly 22 months alongside a systematic policy of mass starvation executed by “Israel” with direct support from the United States and its European partners.
The statement reads: “The Israeli war has destroyed 80% of Gaza’s homes, all of its factories, workshops, and sources of livelihood, and most of its farmland has been bulldozed.”
Indeed, the lives of workers, fishermen, farmers, and all productive social sectors in the besieged Strip have been turned into a living hell. Their families are now without shelter and without income. There is no food and no medicine. One worker says: “We are besieged by American and European weapons, choked by hunger, neglect, and silence — all in an attempt to destroy our lives, to break our resilience, and to crush the will of resistance in our people.”
We address you today once again, not merely as victims, but as the workers of Palestine: an integral part of the popular and working classes of this world, struggling for justice, liberation, and dignity. And we call upon you to:
Break the silence and complicity, raise your voices within your unions and federations, and denounce the policies of starvation, siege, and massacre in Gaza.
Pressure your governments to end arms deals and military cooperation with the occupation, and to impose sanctions on the Zionist settler-colonial and apartheid regime.
Boycott companies that support the occupation, and withdraw union investments from any company, institution, or entity involved in funding or profiting from the war.
Organize days of rage and global solidarity in factories and workshops, in ports and airports, in the streets and public squares, in support of Palestine and its brave people.
We especially appeal to the unions of seafarers and port workers, urging them to refuse to load or unload “Israeli” ships or those bound for Zionist ports, and to halt any form of maritime or commercial cooperation with the tools of war and siege. Your strong hands and awakened consciences are capable of halting the machinery of extermination and stopping the shipments of death sent to Palestine. Show all humanity the power of the struggling working class when it rises united in defense of justice and human values.
From here, we proudly and gratefully salute our comrades, the port workers in Greece, for their principled and courageous stance, and their leading role in boycotting “Israeli” ships and rejecting complicity in war crimes. We also salute the labor unions in Norway, Spain, France, Canada, and elsewhere for their pioneering role in impactful solidarity with our people through the boycott of occupation institutions. We call upon all labor unions around the world to cut ties with the so-called “Histadrut”, the Zionist organization that claims to belong to the working class while participating in the siege of Palestinian workers, justifying the genocide in Gaza, and serving as an integral part of the Israeli occupation apparatus.
Comrades,
What is being carried out today in Gaza is a crime of mass starvation in full view of the world: its aim is to displace us and expel us from our land. This is not only a war of physical extermination; it is a series of crimes that surpass everything committed by Nazism and fascism in Europe. It is carried out with the aim of subjugating us by destroying the very conditions of life and human dignity. Yet the popular working classes and their free unions around the world possess a legacy of history, strength, and courage sufficient to defeat these criminal policies — if they unite their ranks and raise their voice in confrontation with colonialism, Zionism, and the savagery of capitalism.We promise you:
We will rebuild the universities, schools, institutions, and factories of Gaza again, as we have always done after every American-Zionist war of destruction. And we will continue our steadfastness, no matter how great the hardships and challenges.Let us turn anger into action, and solidarity into a concrete stance.
Let us break the policy of starvation and raise the banner of labor struggle for justice—For a free Palestine, from the river to the sea.The Palestinian Alternative Revolutionary Path Movement (Masar Badil)
23 July 2025(Text of the statement from the Palestine General Federation of Trade Unions – Gaza)
The Workers’ Cry Before Death
A cry we raise to speak to the consciences and dignity of our comrades in the unions, to call for mobilization in support of children who cannot find milk or a morsel of bread, for mothers whose breasts have dried up, for patients waiting to die of hunger, for elders who fear dying of hunger, and for workers who can find neither work nor bread.
Our free comrades, For 22 months, the occupation has carried out the killing of civilians and the destruction of homes—destroying 80% of Gaza’s houses, all of its factories, bulldozing most of its agricultural lands, and closing off most sources of livelihood.
Honorable colleagues, We think well of you, so roll up your sleeves to break the siege on Gaza. We await from you a human and moral role to save Gaza from a blockade in which the criminal occupation has sealed every window for the entry of food, medicine, and water to its people.
Our union comrades, We await your role in delivering the cry of the children and workers of Gaza to decision-makers and to the streets. You are the most worthy of carrying this responsibility—so be our support, move the streets, and stop the arms deals that are killing children, women, and workers. Mobilize the sympathizers and supporters to break the siege on Gaza, and deliver your free voice to the decision-makers.
There is no excuse for those who abandon Gaza and its people, or who abandon the workers.
Gaza will remain a witness to those who stood with the cry for humanity and the cry for freedom, and it will remain a symbol for the free people of the world.
A Call from the Workers of Gaza to Labor Unions Around the World: A Cry in the Face of Starvation and Genocide
A Call from the Workers of Gaza to Labor Unions Around the World: A Cry in the Face of Starvation and Genocide To all free workers everywhere, To our comrades in trade unions and labor federations around the world, We bring to you the statement of th…Palestinian Alternative Revolutionary Path Movement
Please share this statement with your labor unions and local political organizations wherever you are on this planet.
The workers of the world have more power than we think and our brothers in sisters in Gaza are crying out for our help.
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It's a quote from Marx talking about why the Paris Commune adopted different political forms than that of the republicans. Saying "ready-made" in this case would be saying that the form of government of an insurgent working class is essentially different from the typical bourgeois state, and that the working class can't simply try to operate the bourgeois state, ready-made because it already exists. Effectively this means that Marx is clear that in order for the working class to free itself, the bourgeois state must be destroyed and replaced by a government created by the working class, and, judging by the Commune and later experiences, will be constructed amid the struggle to destroy the bourgeois state.
Sorry if that's a lot for an innocuous question. But if you're still curious, for fuller context:
The direct antithesis to the empire was the Commune. The cry of “social republic” ... did but express a vague aspiration after a republic that was not only to supercede the monarchical form of class rule, but class rule itself. The Commune was the positive form of that republic. ...
But the working class cannot simply lay hold of the ready-made state machinery, and wield it for its own purposes.
The centralized state power, with its ubiquitous organs of standing army, police, bureaucracy, clergy, and judicature – organs wrought after the plan of a systematic and hierarchic division of labor – originates from the days of absolute monarchy, serving nascent middle class society as a mighty weapon in its struggle against feudalism. Still, its development remained clogged by all manner of medieval rubbish, seignorial rights, local privileges, municipal and guild monopolies, and provincial constitutions. The gigantic broom of the French Revolution of the 18th century swept away all these relics of bygone times, thus clearing simultaneously the social soil of its last hinderances to the superstructure of the modern state edifice raised under the First Empire, itself the offspring of the coalition wars of old semi-feudal Europe against modern France.
During the subsequent regimes, the government, placed under parliamentary control – that is, under the direct control of the propertied classes – became not only a hotbed of huge national debts and crushing taxes; with its irresistible allurements of place, pelf, and patronage, it became not only the bone of contention between the rival factions and adventurers of the ruling classes; but its political character changed simultaneously with the economic changes of society. At the same pace at which the progress of modern industry developed, widened, intensified the class antagonism between capital and labor, the state power assumed more and more the character of the national power of capital over labor, of a public force organized for social enslavement, of an engine of class despotism.
After every revolution marking a progressive phase in the class struggle, the purely repressive character of the state power stands out in bolder and bolder relief...
Later on in the same section Marx describes the different political form of the Commune, mentioning mandated revocable delegation in place of representation, combining executive and legislative functions into the assemblies of delegates, and so on.
@Provinto@lemmy.ml gave an excellent answer, but I figured I'd take my shot at simplifying further.
Essentially, the bourgeois state is formed over time to support bourgeois society. A revolution that tries to wield it in its own favor has to contend with the fact that over time, the state as a superstructure is fully compatible with its respective base, capitalism. In order to change the base and superstructure, an entirely new state needs to take its place, not just in name but in structure, otherwise the old superstructure left hanging will wrest back control, like what happened at the Paris Commune.
The Promised LAN
Saw this posted over on HackerNews, and loved it. I'm big on self-hosting, and this is an incredibly exciting idea to me.
The Promised LAN is a closed, membership only network of friends that operate a 24/7 always-on LAN party, running since 2021. The vast majority of documentation is maintained on the LAN, but this website serves to give interested folks, prospective members or friends an idea of what the Promised LAN is, and how it works.
Their manifesto is also worth reading. My personal favorite part:
We do not wish to, nor will we, rebuild the internet. We do not wish to, nor will we, scale this. We will never be friends with enough people, as hard as we may try. Participation hinges on us all having fun. As a result, membership will never be open, and we will never have enough connected LANs to deal with the technical and social problems that start to happen with scale. This is a feature, not a bug.This is a call for you to do the same. Build your own LAN. Connect it with friends’ homes. Remember what is missing from your life, and fill it in. Use software you know how to operate and get it running. Build slowly. Build your community. Do it with joy. Remember how we got here. Rebuild a community space that doesn’t need to be mediated by faceless corporations and ad revenue. Build something sustainable that brings you joy. Rebuild something you use daily.
Bring back what we’re missing.
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Should i install a discontinued custom recovery ? And how to keep root after update on LineageOS!
Am using my redmi note 8 with lineageos built in custom recovery. And my device was rooted. Recently i installed a OTA update and i loose my root access. As i don't own a laptop (i used my friend laptop to flash custom rom and magisk) it's cery inconvenient to lose root on every OTA update.
I researched about it and find magisk don't root android in a deeper level but in a surface level, thats why an OTA update wipes root access.
So recently i was looking at custom recovery like orangefox and twrp fir fixing this issue. For my device orangefox dropped development and rwrp have updates only one a year and last one was yeras ago...
What should i do ? How can i really keep root on an OTA update without a PC or Second device with OTG cable ?
Is there any other root manager that don't allow to lose root after OTA updates ? And is this issue caused by updating the recovery along with the OTA update ? Just so confusing!
Or should i avoid rooting at all ?
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GitHub - programminghoch10/Lygisk: Your Lie in Android
Your Lie in Android. Contribute to programminghoch10/Lygisk development by creating an account on GitHub.GitHub
You Shouldn’t Have to Make Your Social Media Public to Get a Visa
You Shouldn’t Have to Make Your Social Media Public to Get a Visa
The Trump administration is continuing its dangerous push to surveil and suppress foreign students’ social media activity.Electronic Frontier Foundation
On "ChatGPT Psychosis" and LLM Sycophancy
On "ChatGPT Psychosis" and LLM Sycophancy
As a person who frequently posts about large language model psychology I get an elevated rate of cranks and schizophrenics in my inbox.www.greaterwrong.com
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Flagged and Ignored: Testing X’s Response to EU Sanction Violations
- Researchers identified hundreds of posts violating EU sanctions on the social media platform X.
- X is categorised as a “Very Large Online Platform” (VLOP) under the Digital Services Act (DSA), and as such is legally obligated to mitigate systemic risks on their platform and investigate illegal content reports from users.
- A sample dataset of 125 clear sanction-violating posts were reported to X using the “Report EU Illegal Content” form on the platform. These included, for instance, programmes from the Russian state broadcaster RT.
Only 57% of the reports of illegal content received acknowledgement receipts, breaching DSA obligations.- Only one of the reported posts was removed, and for the remaining cases, X responded via email, stating that no violation of EU law was found, despite clear evidence to the contrary.
- There were 7 responses made by the platform within 2 minutes or less, potentially indicating automated reviews.
- In the case of content from the sanctioned Russian influence operation Doppelgänger, posts were deleted despite the platform’s initial response claiming no action would be taken.
- The results of this reporting experiment suggest that X’s current moderation mechanisms are insufficiently equipped, or that the platform is potentially unwilling to enforce sanction-related policies at scale.
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Labels Don't Want Supreme Court Review to Delay Piracy Lawsuit Against Verizon
In a move that could reshape the online copyright enforcement landscape, last month the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear a pivotal piracy liability lawsuit. The Court's decision will have a direct impact on similar lawsuits, including that between major record labels and ISP Altice, which is now on hold. Verizon has asked the court for a similar stay, but since that lawsuit is in its early stages, the labels are firmly opposed to any further delay.
Labels Don't Want Supreme Court Review to Delay Piracy Lawsuit Against Verizon * TorrentFreak
The Supreme Court review of ISPs' liability for pirating subscribers is already having a direct effect on other copyright lawsuits.Ernesto Van der Sar (TF Publishing)
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NASA Tests Mixed Reality Simulation in Vertical Motion Simulator
NASA Tests Mixed Reality Sim In Vertical Motion Simulator
NASA’s Ames Research Center invited pilots to test how a mixed reality flight simulation would perform in the world’s largest flight simulator.Hillary Smith (NASA)
NASA Tests 5G-Based Aviation Network to Boost Air Taxi Connectivity
NASA Tests 5G-Based Aviation Network to Boost Air Taxi Connectivity - NASA
In April and May, researchers at NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland built two specialized radio systems to study how well fifth-generation cellularDede Dinius (NASA)
Virginia is using AI to identify illegal and redundant regulations
Virginia is using AI to identify illegal and redundant regulations
While other states are focused on regulating artificial intelligence, Virginia is using the technology to repeal regulations.Jack Nicastro (Reason.com)
Deleting Windows from dual boot Linux/Windows computer
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Do you have data on the Windows partition?
Either way, a good way to do it might be to use dd (or a different disk image tool) to copy your Linux installation partitions to a portable hard drive, and make sure the image works. Then wipe the drive and copy the Linux partitions back to it via dd or another imaging tool.
Hi,
I didn't see the answer if you only have your pc and no other big storage :
If you still have the installation usb or recreate one. Boot on it then you open gparted with that you remove the two partition off windows, the main with the system and the recovery one (if there is) but don't touch the first or last partition esp if it exits.
Then you can expand the partitions to get the free space. Extend to the right is fast but extend to the left can be really slow and prone to failures.
I case you Linux partition are all on the right you can also create new main partition, do the install of the linux on this one, then reboot on the USB, move the user and configuration files on the new system, delete old installation partitions, then extend the new install to take the full drive.
There is commands to remove the old esp entries I don't remember yet.
This can take few hours so be patient.
The other option with a backup (dd) of the main partition is obviously safer but take nearly the same amount of time and need an external drive.
Zelenskyy pledges new bill on anti-corruption agencies’ independence as protests continue
Pressure builds on Zelenskyy over corruption agency changes as protests continue
European leaders urge Ukraine to uphold EU standards after president backs legislation weakening anti-graft watchdogsLuke Harding (The Guardian)
Tesla’s earnings hit a new low, with largest revenue drop in years
Tesla on Wednesday reported a drop in its profit during the second quarter, as the electric vehicle maker continues to struggle despite CEO Elon Musk's pivot back to focusing on his companies after his controversial role leading the Trump administration's government cost cutting efforts.The company's electric vehicle sales have been flagging, and earlier this month it reported a drop of 13.5% in the quarter, compared with the same period a year ago. On Wednesday, Tesla said its net income also suffered, slumping 16% year-on-year.
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AccuWeather to discontinue free access to Core Weather API
Alternatives:
- The Norwegian Meteorological Institute.
- Open-Meteo.
- Open Weather.
AccuWeather APIs | Important update: new portal launch & changes to free limited trial
AccuWeather is excited to share important updates coming this summer to the AccuWeather API Developer Portal, which is designed to elevate your experience and ensure you get the most from our industry-leading weather data.developer.accuweather.com
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Operation Grayskull Culminates in Lengthy Sentences for Managers of Dark Web Site Dedicated to Sexual Abuse of Children
Operation Grayskull Culminates in Lengthy Sentences for Managers of Dark Web Site Dedicated to Sexual Abuse of Children
Today, the Justice Department announced the results of Operation Grayskull, a highly successful joint effort between the Department of Justice and the FBI that resulted in the dismantling of four dark web sites dedicated to images and videos containi…www.justice.gov
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German Chancellor Merz announces massive cuts to social welfare benefits
Germany’s federal government is preparing massive cuts to social welfare benefits, pensions and healthcare starting in the autumn. Chancellor Friedrich Merz made this clear last Friday at his summer press conference. The business pages of the main media outlets are also full of suggestions on how to save billions at the expense of the needy, pensioners, the sick and wage workers.
It is now clear that the Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union and Social Democrats (SPD) deliberately omitted the planned social cuts from their coalition agreement and delegated them to expert commissions in order to first push through the massive increase in military spending. They apparently anticipated tremendous resistance if they had announced a huge increase in rearmament spending and social cuts at the same time. But now, as Merz made clear, there is no more time to lose. Workers and the most socially vulnerable are to pay the costs of rearmament and war.
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socially vulnerable are to pay the costs of rearmament
This sounds like a populist victory waiting to happen
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OpenAI agreed to pay Oracle $30B a year for data center services | TechCrunch
OpenAI agreed to pay Oracle $30B a year for data center services | TechCrunch
OpenAI was the customer that signed the huge deal that Oracle disclosed last month.Julie Bort (TechCrunch)
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Also the only service they found to sell is literally a chatbot wich no company will find interesting if it cost too much
Jerboa Release 0.0.80
Release 0.0.80 · LemmyNet/jerboa
What's Changed Fix edgecase saveImage failing causing crash by @MV-GH in #1846 Better ntfy notifs. by @dessalines in #1853 Fix LemmyAPI build by @MV-GH in #1865 Fix crashes on Android 9 due to com...GitHub
( Very Related to Libre Software ) How AI, ICE and Elon Musk Manipulate People Into Supporting Evil?
I did a very deep dive into the history of Libre Software and stuff, and how "Open Source" became a term. And speculated out of it a whole theory about AI, ICE and US Politics in general.
Probably the best article I've ever written.
This Retro PC Case Gives Your Gaming Rig Big Windows 95 Energy
Maingear's new case even comes with an optional optical DVD drive.
Instagram changes its algorithm after being accused of steering predators to children
It will now “avoid” doing that on more accounts.
Instagram changes its algorithm after being accused of steering predators to children
Instagram accounts that primarily feature images of children, but are run by adult users, will no longer be recommended to “potentially suspicious adults.”Jess Weatherbed (The Verge)
GeForce RTX 3050 refuses to die as Nvidia plans fifth iteration of its 2022 budget GPU — new Ada Lovelace-powered part suggests the name could even outlive Ampere silicon
GeForce RTX 3050 A jumps from Ampere to Ada Lovelace
AI video is invading YouTube Shorts and Google Photos starting today
Google is making video AI models harder to ignore.
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Tesla’s earnings hit a new low, with largest revenue drop in years
The Verge is about technology and how it makes us feel. Founded in 2011, we offer our audience everything from breaking news to reviews to award-winning features and investigations, on our site, in video, and in podcasts.
Trump Media Is Now a $2 Billion Bitcoin Bet
The company behind Truth Social is converting its cash into crypto, creating a high-stakes link between its future and the volatile digital currency.
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Meta’s Body-Reading Wristband Is Getting a Lot More Sophisticated
Meta showed off its futuristic wristband again, this time with a scientific paper in the journal Nature.
Missing something on scheduled posts?
Hey good folks, i.e. Rimu & PugJesus@piefed.social / piefed.social/u/PugJesus (pardon, not yet sure how to correctly tag here),
I happened to have this same issue last week, and am pleased to see today that the bugfix seems to have worked! Ah, and one other useful thing I discovered was that one can go back and correct a post if one happened to have botched the scheduled time, previously:
I couldn't find a way to go back to that post directly, but sure enough, I pulled up browser history, went back to the post link, made the edits, and it successfully posted at the corrected, specified time! 😃
[Opinion] Trump’s Coal-Friendly EPA Rolls Back Rules Meant to Prevent Water Contamination
The move delays base-level reporting and monitoring, and actual cleanup will be punted even further into the future.
rottingleaf
in reply to underline960 • • •No fucking way, but mah direct democracy ...
So. Switzerland doesn't really have fully direct democracy in the necessary sense. It's still an old nation-state with laws made in the olden day when you had to compromise. There are many cases where the "direct" part is optional and requires interested people to assemble signatures yadda-yadda. Not good enough to counter a campaign for legal change with a goal. That aside, its system encourages it to have politicians as a thing. Which means that for some issues it will always drift shitward.
It also has separation of 3 kinds of government by degree of locality, but not separation of the "an entity ensuring food safety can't regulate telecommunications" or "an entity regulating police labor safety can't regulate riot police acceptable action" kinds.
(Which is why I usually refer to my preference for a kind of "direct democracy" as a revised one-level Soviet system with mandatory rotation, plenty of places and sortition to state worker roles, despite that not having very good connotations.)
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ruuster13
in reply to rottingleaf • • •Democracy is an infant still learning to walk. You plug the holes and add new institutions for oversight. You don't shoot the damn baby and start over because you know how you'd force everyone to do it.
Kowloon wasn't built in a day.
rottingleaf
in reply to ruuster13 • • •Bullshit. It's older than gunpowder.
And this argument has been used for every political system in history. Even in USSR in materials approved by censors it was normal to joke about it.
Why don't you do that with real-life mechanisms? A moving part of a machine has corroded enough to have a hole unintended by design. Go on, plug it. Oh, it's better to replace the part.
That aside, I think you've missed my specific arguments, not providing any of your own. Those things about participation as wide as possible and rotation. This means that there should be as many political roles as possible (of a delegate or of a secretary or of anyone), often rotated, with the same person not being able to hold the same or similar post for longer than N months, and with sortition based on some pseudo-random mechanism (pseudo-random to be able to check the results for fraud). To reduce the power of any single delegate or bureaucrat and to make lobbying, bribing and blackmailing them harder. To simultaneously make the population more politically literate - by almost every citizen, ideally, participating in some kind of daily decision-making work. Not voting once a year (at best) from among choices given to them by someone else.
That's what con artists do - provide the victim with an illusion of choice.
That's exactly what you do. One consistent system does one thing by design. Another consistent system does another thing by design. Something in-between organically evolved does neither. Evolution is the survival of the fittest - fittest for survival. So an organically evolved system is approximating the optimum of power. The status quo.
What it does not approximate over time is any idea of public good. That would be nuts - so, metaphorically, you've built a wooden bridge, do you think it'll become more or less reliable over time under snow and rain and sun? Is a 100 years old bridge better than a bridge just built and tested?
And the optimum of power is formed by the existing system among other things.
Which means that it becomes more and more static and degenerate.
RubberElectrons
in reply to rottingleaf • • •Con artists are also known for seeding bits of truth in with their turgid morass.
There are parts of your monologue I'd agree with, but I suspect what your ultimate intent is.
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MonkderVierte
in reply to rottingleaf • • •Compared to how long humanity lived in absolutistic systems (dawn of civilization).
AliSaket
in reply to rottingleaf • • •This is not law yet. The Federal Council (the executive) has started a consultation process at the beginning of the year which ended in May. They are now looking at all the feedback that came in, that was - unsurprisingly - exclusively negative from all sides. If the responsible minister wants to go ahead with it, it goes to the Federal Council for a vote. If they approve it, this would be a decree to change an existing decree and that would come into effect next year or the year after.
And this is where direct democracy comes in: If this is the case anyone can start getting signatures for a public initiative which would change the constitution to prohibit such practices. In fact anyone can start doing that now. If it succeeds, then it'll come to a popular vote. Threema (a secure chat provider) has already announced that they would do that and I'm sure that they wouldn't be the only ones to band together in this.
The process might take long, but this is in no way "not good enough to counter a campaign for legal change with a goal" and in fact has happened multiple times in the past. Hence why Switzerland has a direct vote on issues every few months because of something called "Referendum", whereby a popular vote can be forced on an issue passing through parliament. I might have my criticisms of the political system, but this ain't it.
Well yes, there is some level of representation, so over 8 million people don't have to decide every little detail on 1000s of changes of law. The system is built upon a "milita" system. I.e. politicians usually have a job. So people have the possibility to vote in experts or their vicinity and know that they won't solely be career politicians. Unfortunately the laws around financing and propaganda are rather lax, giving an advantage to the rich, which leads to an over-representation of the capitalist class with occupations such as lawyers and business-owners and a clear under-representation of classical working-class jobs such as craftspeople or office workers. This is amendable though to correct the mismatch, if people realize their class interest and don't fall for the same right-wing propaganda of a party whose playbook has been inspired by the US GOP for decades and who is inspiring Germany's AfD now.
The main downside of the system imo has to do with people with no knowledge on an issue having to weigh in on them and therefore how powerful propaganda campaigns can be, which means that money buys power, as in every other existing so-called democracy - direct or not. Especially with how money shifts power away from the populace, this is inherent to capitalistic systems and it would be on the populace to protect itself from it. With enough propaganda though, people keep voting for more power of capital unbeknownst to them or not, just as they might vote against their interests on other things. The fact that you have to convince so many people, who hopefully do have some degree of education, makes it a lot harder though, for big capitalists to reach their goals, compared to less direct systems. And I know of several examples, how such a vote did not go in favor of big capital. What usually makes the difference is whether they succeed in portraying their advantage as the advantage of all.
rottingleaf
in reply to AliSaket • • •Yeah, so the difference in what I'd like from what you describe as existing is:
The representation should be spread thinner over the population, and with separate organs voting on separate kinds of matters. Ideally so that most of the population would have some short experience in participating in at least one of those organs by reaching the age of 30. Experience is needed to make your last paragraph less problematic, and wide participation - to gain that experience first-hand and also to make it very expensive to blackmail\bribe\threaten enough people. This might also make a referendum an event a bit more rare, because it won't come to that.
In general it's very cool that such a system even exists as a proof that nothing is impractical about it.
AliSaket
in reply to rottingleaf • • •There do exist things resembling that a bit. Usually done on the local level and mostly concerning some street/development design, where people are invited to actively participate in a workshop style event with experts and vote on the results. But yes, these are not mandates. And as soon as you go onto the state or federal level, such structures become virtually non-existent.
The others are parliamentary commissions which can be instated by parliament and are formed of mainly external experts around a certain issue. These are often used on state and federal levels of government.
I would love if representation was spread wider over the population and that involvement was higher. I also am baffled at how bad general civics education is here in school, especially at the obligatory level. I would welcome a far more detailed and engaging civics education where they could already get some experience right at the school. Or go and participate at some local event. This way they also see the importance of a truly democratic process. Alas, as long as they can't vote, nobody seems to want their opinions.
Another part that needs addressing is finances. There's a lot of intransparency yes, but the way it works now, it is also very hard to get your message across without being big in a main political party or having some big private sponsor. Which limits your actual freedom before and after you're elected. If we're thinking radical we might severely limit campaign budgets or think about public funds allowing the same restrictive scope for everyone, no matter their background and finances. This would also limit the imbalance in outreach between capital-backed candidates and others.
A third huge problem lies within the judiciary, where judges on many levels effectively also have to be party-associated to get elected. If that sounds completely compromising their necessary impartiality, yeah, it's because it does. (Although I don't have data on how that influences their work)
And lastly: The structures of accountability for politicians. I know that some steadiness or stability is necessary, but without the fear of accountability, far too many misuse their positions without repercussions. As we see from around the world, this invites more and more brazen figures to do more and more brazen violations. Just a brain-fart: 100k signatures to force a vote on relieving someone of their immunity so they can be tried in court. And to not just wait it out. Right now, it's parliament that has this exclusive possibility.
MonkderVierte
in reply to rottingleaf • • •Yes, it's half-direct, who said otherwise? Fully direct on a Nation state level would maybe be possible now with the Internet.
But we can still overrule them, while germans get tired of their politicians lying on elections and doing what they want. Doesn't mean they don't try here.
But yeah, this system has it's weaknesses with complicated or emotional topics. But then again, we are all humans.
rottingleaf
in reply to MonkderVierte • • •That's my point. It might seem dangerous to rely on the Internet for such basic matters, but it's already being used to great effect to undermine all democracies. So there's no choice, it's like an arms race. (Still, probably for elections it'd make sense to have a countrywide parallel intranet, so that someone's error in setting up a BGP router wouldn't disrupt it.).
That's the other side of the problem - modern easiness of propaganda.
OK, I live in Russia, just rather sad to see how many other countries are slowly drifting in the same regrettable unsavory direction.
CHKMRK
in reply to rottingleaf • • •What democracy does not rely on compromise?
antbricks
in reply to CHKMRK • • •rottingleaf
in reply to CHKMRK • • •None. I'm using "compromise" here in the sense of compromising between democracy and elites, with the world order normal 200 years ago. Today those compromises don't work because of technological progress and different makeup of societies.
Just like those in the USA.
percent
in reply to underline960 • • •themurphy
in reply to percent • • •There's a reason every billionair has a bank account in Switzerland.
And it's not to pay more taxes. Or to launder less money.
jobbies
in reply to themurphy • • •TheGrandNagus
in reply to percent • • •You've not heard of shady banking, Nazi gold, reluctance to stop dealing with Russia, women not being able to vote until the 70s, and Nestle?
Switzerland gets aggressively simped for online, and there's certainly some nice things about them, but there's also some pretty awful things.
rottingleaf
in reply to TheGrandNagus • • •percent
in reply to TheGrandNagus • • •HereIAm
in reply to percent • • •TheGrandNagus
in reply to percent • • •Nazi gold didn't disappear after the Nazis fell. They still pocketed it all, despite knowing where all that wealth came from, and did fuck all to help rebuild Europe.
Other things like their appeasing attitude towards Russia, reluctance to allow weapons exports to Ukraine, and willingness to export weapons to awful regimes are all unambiguously current.
percent
in reply to TheGrandNagus • • •Crashumbc
in reply to percent • • •Akasazh
in reply to TheGrandNagus • • •Klear
in reply to TheGrandNagus • • •like this
giantpaper e bacon_saber like this.
Cethin
in reply to Klear • • •like this
giantpaper e bacon_saber like this.
lagoon8622
in reply to Klear • • •c1a5s1c
in reply to lagoon8622 • • •Jason2357
in reply to TheGrandNagus • • •eleitl
in reply to TheGrandNagus • • •TheGrandNagus
in reply to eleitl • • •eleitl
in reply to TheGrandNagus • • •socialsecurity
in reply to eleitl • • •SonOfAntenora
in reply to TheGrandNagus • • •Birch
in reply to TheGrandNagus • • •Crashumbc
in reply to Birch • • •MangoCats
in reply to percent • • •Kazel
in reply to underline960 • • •bort
in reply to underline960 • • •like this
giantpaper likes this.
wewbull
in reply to bort • • •like this
giantpaper likes this.
Kairos
in reply to wewbull • • •like this
giantpaper likes this.
wewbull
in reply to Kairos • • •proton.me/blog/lumo-ai
Read the Building EuroStack for the Future section
Introducing Lumo, the AI where every conversation is confidential | Proton
Protonlike this
giantpaper likes this.
Evotech
in reply to wewbull • • •lemmyknow
in reply to Evotech • • •artyom
in reply to wewbull • • •yistdaj
in reply to artyom • • •ohshit604
in reply to artyom • • •Not really many second bests out there, Sweden bent over and wants to join the EU and the Netherlands has had a rocky history of seizing data-centres.
Switzerland is the last stand for true neutrality.
artyom
in reply to ohshit604 • • •ohshit604
in reply to artyom • • •No but they’re still apart of the Five Eyes Alliance which regulates companies on how data is processed and handled.
If I’m not mistaken user data must be retained for 7 years under the five eyes alliance, I’ll try to find a source to this.
Edit - I think this describes the different alliances pretty well: comparitech.com/blog/vpn-priva…
Who’s watching you? A guide to the 5, 9, and 14 Eyes Alliances
Mark Gill (Comparitech)artyom
in reply to ohshit604 • • •ohshit604
in reply to artyom • • •You’re right it doesn’t dive into encryption however, given that the data is still accessible a government agency can surely decrypt it if they truly wanted to, even if it take them years.
artyom
in reply to ohshit604 • • •They can't. Not using any known technology. Even basic encryption like AES256 would take 10^50 years on a supercomputer. That's not even getting into quantum-resistant encryption.
PrimeMinisterKeyes
in reply to ohshit604 • • •Ah, to live in 1994 again.
Bwaz
in reply to underline960 • • •like this
giantpaper likes this.
DeathByBigSad
in reply to Bwaz • • •c1a5s1c
in reply to DeathByBigSad • • •underline960
in reply to c1a5s1c • • •c1a5s1c
in reply to underline960 • • •callouscomic
in reply to underline960 • • •Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
Everything goes to shit.
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
Switch to Proton Switch to Proton Switch to Proton Switch to Proton Switch to Proton Switch to Proton
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
Its always the next thing, and the next thing and the next thing. What's the new proton everyone will annoy the fuck out of us with?
This is why I stopped giving a shit. Actually. I do give a shit. I will let them surveil all of my shits, and garbage, and vomit.
A Wild Mimic appears!
in reply to callouscomic • • •SonOfAntenora
in reply to underline960 • • •SabinStargem
in reply to underline960 • • •Squizzy
in reply to underline960 • • •grumpusbumpus
in reply to Squizzy • • •I visited Switzerland just after the vaccines dropped. The Swiss COVID response far surpassed the response in the United States. They rolled out a nation-wide app for vaccination attestation, and any museum, restaurant, etc. could scan a QR code on someone's phone with a phone. But do they have a scary, socially reactionary subset of their population? Yes.
In some harmful ways they are fanatically culturally conservative. But they also care about community, sustainability, health, the well-being of children, environmental preservation, organization, and self-reliance. Being a small, rich, homogeneous, topographically-isolated country drives these characteristics.
Surveillance State developments are depressing but not surprising.
Squizzy
in reply to grumpusbumpus • • •c1a5s1c
in reply to Squizzy • • •ZeroOne
in reply to underline960 • • •Tattorack
in reply to ZeroOne • • •Holy shit. An actual interrobang.
This is like finding a shiny.
fartographer
in reply to Tattorack • • •theherk
in reply to Tattorack • • •SunshineJogger
in reply to underline960 • • •DragonTypeWyvern
in reply to SunshineJogger • • •kingthrillgore
in reply to SunshineJogger • • •The Quuuuuill
in reply to SunshineJogger • • •two factors:
SunshineJogger
in reply to The Quuuuuill • • •_cryptagion [he/him]
in reply to underline960 • • •Doomsider
in reply to underline960 • • •Powers that would make the US blush!? Give me a fucking break. The US spies on all communication in the entire world.
Proton is a joke and their CEO is an obvious fascist. It was stupid to think a corporation is the answer to privacy anyways. They obey all countries rules and turn over your information the moment they are asked by governments.
The future of privacy in Switzerland is in the hands of the citizens. Let's hope they make the right decisions and encourage them to do so.
If these corporations really cared about privacy they would be promoting laws to make it enshrined in our constitutions. The reality is privacy is just another way to market to the masses who don't know better.
My cynical side says these "privacy" focused corporations not wanting privacy to be enshrined in law is because then every business would be privacy minded and their marketing advantage would quickly disappear.
lambalicious
in reply to underline960 • • •3dcadmin
in reply to underline960 • • •IhaveCrabs111
in reply to 3dcadmin • • •3dcadmin
in reply to IhaveCrabs111 • • •Bubbey
in reply to underline960 • • •frosch
in reply to Bubbey • • •poutinewharf
in reply to frosch • • •Bubbey
in reply to frosch • • •c1a5s1c
in reply to frosch • • •Crashumbc
in reply to c1a5s1c • • •rozodru
in reply to Bubbey • • •Owl
in reply to underline960 • • •underline960
in reply to Owl • • •@poutinewharf commented a screenshot of Proton's post, but the headline was about their AI chatbot, and the news about the Swiss move is buried at the end.
Introducing Lumo, the AI where every conversation is confidential | Proton
ProtonbigFab
in reply to underline960 • • •“In a democracy, the right way is to argue, not threaten to leave.” Socialist member of parliament said.
Does this man understand the very first day this law would approve Proton is dead? Do politicians understand privacy at all?
katy ✨
in reply to underline960 • • •philpo
in reply to underline960 • • •Switzerland never had solid privacy laws - and is known for intelligence service overreach for decades.
They had a Stasi like system of "who to imprison" when "the time comes".
They listen to all IP traffic in and out the country - which is concerning in times of traffic pattern analysis.
And they are known for their close cooperation with US intelligence services.
Protons (and Threemas) claim of "soo good swiss privacy laws" is nothing more than swiss-washing. And they know it.
Proton has already given away data of its customers (climate activists) to the swiss authorities. And only talked about it when the press got onto it.