The Russian Presidential Aide and head of the Russian negotiating group with Ukraine also said that recently the Russian Military Historical Society handed over several thousand books to the institutions where Ukrainian prisoners of war are being hel…
Russian state media. Not a credible source for anything (see also the other articles for some glaring examples of misinformation).
Although if Ukraine has less PoWs to exchange, part of the reason might be that Russia would rather see their soldiers die than surrender. They actively shoot their own soldiers.
haha yea, the western media says it's un-credible so it must be true! Not lik they have any incentive to slander a news outlet that bucks approved western narratives or anythin. Nope. No reason at all! 😂
Western media is usually beholden to state department lines, and recieves partial funding. Moreover, western media is thoroughly under the control of wealthy capitalists laser-focusing on their own interests. There's no such thing as "free" mass media.
Which state department do you mean? Are you aware that "western media" is spread over 2 dozen different countries? Sure, US corporate media is highly partisan and corrupt, but even the US has independent media, and many other countries have much more independent media. They're certainly not as dominated by the state, let alone a single state, as they are in Russia. Not even in the US (although that's certainly moving in that direction). And in every western country, even the US, the media will often disagree with or debunk the government's narrative.
Private media is beholden to the wealthiest in society, and often recieves state funding as well. This is true across all western nations, including European nations. The few, minor independent news organizations that go against the grain are overwhelmed by the standard mass media.
Bullshit. Sure, in the US everything is corporate owned and controlled. But in Europe, there are media reporting every side of every story. My primary newspaper (NRC, a major Dutch newspaper) has no problem going against the grain when the situation calls for it. But even in the US with its highly partisan media, there are news outlets for every political leaning, and many do not blindly parrot the government narrative like Russian media does.
Whatever misgivings you have about western media (and some are definitely justified), it's really no comparison to Russia, where a wrong word can have you falling out of a window. Putin brutally silences dissent in a way even Trump can only dream of.
Dutch media isn't particularly different from US media. Further, the "every political leaning" really just translates to various flavors of right-wing, from SocDem to fascist. What gets boosted by private investors is what permeates discourse. Private media is no less biased than state media.
Dutch media is far less partisan than US media, which in turn is still far less state-controlled than Russian media. You're fooling yourself if you want to pretend these are all the same.
Furthermore, SocDem is not right-wing by even the farthest stretch of the imagination. It's moderate left. If you want further left than that, there's still small indie media for you. If you consider every voice out there to be compromised and right-wing, maybe the problem is you.
In modern practice, social democracy has taken the form of predominantly capitalist economies, a robust welfare state, policies promoting social justice, market regulation, and a more equitable distribution of income.
Read your own link, man. It calls Democratic Socialism a wing of Social Democracy. Also, why do you not also share the article about Social Democracy itself?
Now, you would be correct if you merely argued that many Labour movements dipped to moderate right with their embrace of neoliberalism in the 1990s, but outside of that, they've been moderate left. But SocDem has always been considered various degrees of left. Sometimes not even moderately so.
All economies are mixed, what determines mode of production is the principle aspect of the economy. In social democracy, the large firms and key industries are still privately owned, with perhaps some little nationalization, and the state is dominated by the wealthy.
Even after the victory of fascism, the influence, ideology and traditions of Social Democracy continue their baleful and disorganising role, preventing the emergence of a united working class front to confront and defeat fascism. Further, if fascist dictatorship’s grip on power weakens, then Social Democracy stands in wait to come to the rescue of capitalism.
What is beyond doubt is that both Social Democracy and fascism are agents of monopoly capitalism; both fight tooth and nail against the struggle of the working class for its social emancipation. With this as their aim, both disrupt and weaken working-class organisations.
Their methods are, however, different. While fascism smashes the class organisations of the working class from without and opposes their whole basis and counters them with an alternative ‘national’ ideology, Social Democracy undermines them from within by diverting them along reformist bourgeois channels. Whereas fascism relies mainly on coercion, along with deception, Social Democracy relies mainly on deception, along with coercion. Their aims are identical; only their methods differ. In view of the identity of their aims and differing methods, one cannot but agree with Stalin’s observation, made as early as 1924, that “Social Democracy objectively represents the moderate wing of Fascism.” (Concerning the International Situation, Collected Works, vol 6, p.294)
The Marxist-Leninist is reproducing the following article by Harpal Brar from the Stalin Society in order to counter propaganda that fascism is something other than the open terroristic dictatorshi…
You're still equating private funding with independence. Further, social democrats are capitalists, by definition they are right wing. There are exceedingly few leftist voices except for small indie media, across the west, and these voices get drowned out by the huge private mass media corporations that are just mouthpieces for wealthy owners.
Yes, leftist news is worth listening to, but these are by no means the common news sources in the west. Social democtats are not socialists, you cannot be both a capitalist and a socialist. Believe me, I have done reading on the history of socialism, I'm a communist.
Dutch media copies US media to the tee. The difference is that it only follows US democrat media, until far-right movements popped up and one of them created a 'US republican outlet' show.
There's currently a wave of articles in the NRC going on about feminism, for the millionth time, about violence against women, because one teenage girl had been killed. Meanwhile, in Palestine we have hundreds of thousands of women and children dying of a genocide and it's being completedly ignored. And that's deliberate to pull wool over your eyes from the genocide our country is complicit in.
If NRC condemned Israel like it does Russia, we'd have articles like these: "Name of person is resisting Israel for its human rights violations" "Israel keeps repeating it's imperialistic tricks" "Netanyahu's borders doesn't stop at NATO's borders" "The Liberal Party manoeuvres into the heart of a pro-Israeli network" etcetera, etcetera, etcetera
And if NRC would be writing about Russia if it were Israel we'd have articles like these: "Greater-Russia has deep historical roots" "Russian parlement votes against the establishment of a Ukrainian state" "Why did Russia attack Ukraine and twelve other question." "The Netherlands wants Russia to deliver proof that the murdered journalists were Azov nazis" "Russia air strikes Lithuanian military targets" "Putin’s long cherished air strike attack on Poland is also a welcoming diversion" "UK, France and Canada warn Russia that they will take concrete measures if Russia continues this war"
And the problem here is that Russia actually has a legitimate reason for their invasion where Israel does not.
When Ukraine got independent, pieces of Russia that the Soviet Union gave to Ukraine for administrative purposes came with it. It was accepted as Ukraine was thought to be a "sister nation" like Belgium to the Netherlands. Today Ukraine can no longer be trusted to safeguard its Russian population as it tries to join NATO and NATO is anti-Russia. Ukraine has been actively been suppressing its Russian population, including but not limited to machine gunning civilians trying to enter voting booths for the demand of independence from Ukraine. Russia's response to that was demilitarization of Ukraine, targeting military only, with a record low amount of civilians killed per soldier.
That's very different from Netanyahu's "Greater Israel" plan that tries to simply conquer 9 nations, most of them tacit allies, with zero historical roots to them, apart from parts of Palestine, but that already pales in comparison to the area south of Beersheba Israel already occupies that never were historically Israeli. Hamas did a desperate attack on Israel as Netanyahu publicly displayed part of his Greater Israel plan at the UN.
Israel's response to that is genocing, targeting civilians first and foremost. Women, children and hospitals first.
There's currently a wave of articles in the NRC going on about feminism, for the millionth time, about violence against women, because one teenage girl had been killed. Meanwhile, in Palestine we have hundreds of thousands of women and children dying of a genocide and it's being completedly ignored.
If you know about the articles in NRC, you also know that they have many articles about Gaza, and yet you choose to lie about that. Why would you even think you can lie about that when I also have access to those articles?
Gaza: Een Israëlisch bombardement trof het huis van de buren van fotograaf Bashar Taleb, die onder meer voor NRC werkt. Intussen groeit met het offensief in Gaza-Stad de uitzichtloosheid van het conflict.
If you know about the articles in NRC, you also know that they have many articles about Gaza, and yet you choose to lie about that. Why would you even think you can lie about that when I also have access to those articles?
Because you can do both. You can ignore and highlight aspects of a story. Case in point is Donald Trump, the Epstein files and lots of distractions to ignore that, while still having highlighted a few aspects of it in the past and present. Just like the NRC highlighting some aspects of Israel's genocide against Palestine, Donald Trump both can highlight some aspects of the Epstein files multiple times and still put key story aspects, like the fact that he's in it, on ignore by using distractions. Stories of releasing Martin Luther King files, threatening Venezuela, Mexico and invoking national emergencies in cities with mayors or governers not totally aligned with his political viewpoints, sending the military there to detain and deport innocent civilians, are distractions to ignore his pedophile crimes. Or would you say "Why do people keep talking about the Epstein files?" is enough for a pedophile to get away with his crime and isn't trying to make you ignore it, just because he mentioned the crime a couple of times? Because I personally think he's burying one crime with another, dangling shiny keys in front of people in order to hope they'll forget about their heinous crimes and it seems to be working.
And NRC is no different. Like, I don't know about you, but having a pedophile sex offender as your top ally, should maybe raise some concern about what the Netherlands is allied with, a pedophile fascist crime lord that takes orders from a genocidal regime, but it doesn't seem to register with NRC now does it? I guess since NRC collaborated with Adolf Hitler before, that this stuff only comes natural to them. I guess their pro-fascism angle hasn't really gone away at all.
When NRC actually writes about the genocides done by Israel, it makes it look like Israel is having a picnic with Palestine. But there's fully no going around the genocide when Israel is blasting their crimes for the world to hear and see and so pro-Israeli-fascism newspapers like NRC will try anything to distract the public from its heinous crimes and that includes pointing towards any domestic murdered woman or girl and calling that femicide when it's absolutely clear that Isreal is currently conducting femicide as part of its genocide as it deliberately targets civilians before it targets the Palestinian military.
So no, I'm not lying. NRC is publishing stories to ignore the Palestinian genocide. I tell the truth because none of those articles you mention comes even close to acknowdleging that a genocide is taken place there, making NRC is complicit in it, because it is complicit in the genocide. And those articles you posted proves it even further as constantly filters down Netanyahul's heinous crimes in order to normalize them.
The "feminist one-murder equals femicide" IS a giant and insulting distraction from a genocide that's happening right now. A GENOCIDE!!!!! We're not talking about kittens being ignored here, but hundreds of thousands of human lives being slaughtered like Jews slaughtered by Nazis.
Just to illustrate two common denominators of the articles you posted:
1) None of the articles mention the state of Palestine. They only mention Gaza. Have you noticed that? I have. You'd notice it too if Ukraine would be constantly mentioned as "the Ukraine" in any of the Dutch newspapers. 2) None of these articles even mention Benjamin Netanyahu. Have you noticed that? I have. You'd notice it too if Benjamin Netanyahu would be constantly be referred to as dictator. And no, being elected doesn't count. You can't go "Netanyahu was democratically elected, therefore he's not a dictator" and then turn around and take exception on every other elected leader by a majority of people bombarded as dictator by NRC, e.g. Putin, Maduro, Xi.
Now let's go through the articles you posted individually:
When are pro-palestine protests terrorism?
This is just soft pretense of resistance, when in fact NRC silently endorses the genocide of the Palestinians. The NRC refuses to give the rounding up of protesters by UK police as: "UK cracks down peaceful protesters calling for an end to the worst genocide in human history since the holocaust" Because that would be truthful instead of blaming the protesters for siding against genocide.
Desperation in Gaza city by Israeli invasion will lead to a complete destruction
They say destruction where they should be saying massacre. That would be truthful, but NRC always likes to use soft language to soothe you. NRC does this deliberately because NRC is complicit in this genocide.
After a davastating blow of a rocket, Israel opens the offensive in gaza city
NRC uses soft language again. Always does, always will, because it is complicit in this genocide. Do you think they would ever write this way when it comes to Russia? This completely ignoring that Israel is commiting a genocide there.
European patience with Israel shrinking but doesn't agree with a modest sanction.
Why would the EU have patience with a genocide and why does it not seem to bother NRC? Meanwhile the EU has over a dozen sanctions on Russia and is running out of things to sanction with. And Russia isn't commiting a genocide or going for "Greater Russia" world conquest. It is just defending the violent suppression of its own people that have been locked out of Russia's borders during a collapse.
Are the Palestinians becoming bargaining chips for South Sudan?
This type of language NRC uses makes it seem that they want their readers to convince them that Palestinians should be seen as bargaining chips and not human beings. Or else, they would maybe, I don't know, get mad at the people who told them so and write a little bit different about these diplomatic suggestions.
You keep pretending that the NRC is somehow neutral in this conflict. It isn't. It supports the Israeli genocide and will keep supporting it in any way possible. This can and will include distractions because otherwise they'd actually have to write about the truth again.
But I guess you want to keep a blind eye to this and pretend that the NRC is non-partisan, just like it was "non-partisan" during world war II. The new extreme right that the NRC is wholly supporting is now ironically supporting Israelis to commit multiple genocides, as they've already made clear that they won't stop at Palestine. ___
The netherlands are absolutely not exempt from this phenomenon. It affects every country where capital stands above political power and the media, including yours.
It is one of the most important aspects of our media system – and yet hardly known to the public: most of the international news coverage in Western media is provided by only three global new…
None of that confirms the claim that western media is as unfree as Russian media. Sure there are concerns, but even then, none of the quoted percentages are 100%; the other voices do exist. And regardless of the power of money, there are many journalists out there risking their lives to report the truth. Look at Gaza, for example. Many western governments wanted to ignore it but now can't because media keep reporting about the atrocities.
Pretty fucked to say that murdering journalists isn't "brutally silencing dissent" just because other sources report on it, sometime. Do you apply the same standard to Russia?
Besides, the western media have done everything they can to downplay it without losing credibility entirely.
Western governments are (too) slowly changing their stance on Israel and Gaza because western media keep reporting about it.
No, I was just pointing out that it's fucked up that you denied that Israel and the West killing far more journalists than Russia is “brutally silencing dissent”
Then you’re reading the wrong media. I’ve been reading about these atrocities constantly.
Really? What have you been reading that has accurately been describing Israel, and the West's, planned extermination of the population of Gaza, including the deliberate killing of journalists, and has been doing it consistently over the last two years?
It’s happening. Dutch government just fell apart over
Really? So Denmark is a governmentless failed state now?
You need to come out of your bubble and inform yourself.
Have you considered that maybe you should come out of your bubble and inform yourself? Do you really think that I, as a westerner, am not exposed to Western Media all the time?
This coming from someone who was perfectly happy using the Ukrainian military as a source. Are you going to also try to argue that they are independent from the state?
So yes, I do know what I'm talking about, and I suspect you know to, and are just pretending not to because you can't actually defend yourself on this.
They've got a strict separation between ownership and editors, though. They regularly go against the grain and report deeper than merely repeating the convenient narrative.
Sure, capitalism and independent media don't go together well, but state control and i dependent media are an even worse combination, and on the scale of what's possible, NRC is doing quite well. Certainly much better than Tass.
I read and compare. When Maccabi supporters were picking fights with Arab taxi drivers in Amsterdam, they didn't blindly repeat the government story about pogroms but told what really happened, a story that eventually won out. They've never shied away from stories inconvenient to any government or corporate interest, as long as it's based in facts.
They're highly regarded for their objectivity.
If you want to attack them, you've got to come up with more than vibes.
And the fact that you're baselessly attacking them while defending Tass, is outright ridiculous.
Finally a productive question. You listen to all the sides. You listen to independent media on the ground. You don't just cling to whatever story happens to fit your worldview, but you consider the different stories and watch what adds up and what doesn't. Who leaves out what details to better fit their narrative and who tells the whole thing.
And sure, that means you've got to do some work. Put in some actual critical thought. And yes, lots of people don't like that just stick to whatever narrative they prefer, or even whatever is fed to them. But looking critically at media is a vital survival skill these days.
Blindly accepting known partisan media on the very topic you know they can't be objective about, is not that.
No, I asked how you did it. Because you clearly didn't listen to all sides, and you clearly did just cling to whatever story happens to fit your worldview. You were even at the point of lying to defend your worldview
Who leaves out what details to better fit their narrative and who tells the whole thing.
How do you determine what "the whole thing" is?
And sure, that means you’ve got to do some work. Put in some actual critical thought. And yes, lots of people don’t like that just stick to whatever narrative they prefer, or even whatever is fed to them. But looking critically at media is a vital survival skill these days.
Lol, maybe you should try it then.
Blindly accepting known partisan media on the very topic you know they can’t be objective about, is not that.
Except sides published by state media in countries you don't like, or media that you personally have determined is false. So no you do not listen to all sides, you listen to all sides that fit your worldview. This isn't complicated for everyone else in this thread but it's apparently quite complicated for you
Do you think the state media of a nation committing atrocities is going to tell you the truth about those atrocities? Do you believe Israeli denial of genocide in Gaza?
The only difference between Russian State media and our media, is that the western ruling class is savvy enough to launder their propaganda through privately owned media.
It's absolutely terrible that so many American media is owned by billionaires, but that's not all of western media, and it's still not the same as Russian state media.
I still don't get why so many people here are so desperate to defend the state-controlled media of a brutal dictatorship.
Russia is no more a "brutal dictatorship" than the US is, or the UK, or any number of other capitalist shithole countries that call themselves "democracies." Russian state media is no worse than, for example, the BBC or CNN. But more importantly, it does not have the global reach that the BBC and CNN have. The key thing that you're utterly failing to understand here is that Russia does not have the global hegemony that the US has (and NATO in general, though NATO is just a collection of vassal states subservient to US capital). Russian state media cannot begin to compete on the global stage with the overwhelming stranglehold that western media has over not only their own domestic populations but the rest of the world. We here in the west are not saturated day in and day out by Russian propaganda, but we absolutely are by western capital (which is synonymous with US state) propaganda. Pretending like this is an even playing field is absurd and it's why no one here is taking your whining about eBiL RuZzIaN media seriously. It's not about "defending" Russian media, it's about recognizing geopolitical reality.
Russia is no more a "brutal dictatorship" than the US is, or the UK, or any number of other capitalist shithole countries that call themselves "democracies."
Surely you must recognise how ridiculous that claim is.
Sure, Trump would love for it to be true, and he's certainly trying to, but even in the US, you can still publicly say this, while in Russia, you'd be headed for prison. Putin's political opponents frequently fall out of windows or catch some polonium poisoning.
These things are not the same, and pretending they are, makes you blind to how much worse they can still get. Russia is absolutely more of a brutal dictatorship than even the US, but especially than most European countries.
I'm not denying the toxic influence of money either, but that's still not comparable to the hold Putin has over his country and his media.
I always start out believing people are capable of critical thought and self awareness, until they prove otherwise. Plenty of that in this discussion, unfortunately.
Should I just accept that you're incapable of critical thought or grasping meaningful nuance?
You losers should really expand your list of rote thought terminating cliches, they get incredibly repetitive when you just use them over and over again.
Putin’s political opponents frequently fall out of windows or catch some polonium poisoning.
Hmm... I wonder what happened to the original leadership of BLM? And hey, what are Fred Hampton and Mark Clark up to these days? Has Gary Webb published any articles recently?
These things are not the same, and pretending they are, makes you blind to how much worse they can still get. Russia is absolutely more of a brutal dictatorship than even the US, but especially than most European countries.
Oh believe me, I am well aware how bad they can get, you're just completely unaware of how bad they've already been. You believe all these lies about how terrible Russia is, looking at it only through the lens that western propagandists have carefully cultivated for you without realizing that every accusation they've levied on their enemies is a confession about what they themselves have been doing all along. You're as intellectually domesticated by US imperialist interests as any diehard Kremlin-supporting Russian citizen, only you have the benefit of being on the side that enjoys global hegemony without even understanding what that word means. You're all up in arms about the lies of the media of an enemy state without having even an ounce of self awareness about the lies of the media you're consuming, the very same media from which you think you've learned how uniquely bad the enemy's media is.
I don't even live in the US. I live in Europe, and I'm concerned about the freedom and safety of my fellow human beings, and I'm disgusted by how US imperial interests have suddenly decided to embrace Putin and is turning against Europe.
My side is not enjoying global hegemony. I only wish Europe asserted itself against wannabe hegemons like the US and Russia, but political leaders here are too cowardly for that.
I see American media increasingly parroting Putin's viewpoints, because of this American realignment, and that's what you're asking me to blindly accept? No, fuck that. You talk a lot about others being controlled by propaganda, but I don't see an ounce of self awareness in you.
That's certainly what they want you to accept. What Putin wants you to believe. But this is clearly a case where US and European interests diverge. Trump wants to play nice with Putin while waging his economic war on Europe and the rest of the world, while Europe is trying to stop or slow Russian aggression. And degrading itself trying to keep Trump onboard.
It's a mess, but defending against aggression is still better than surrendering to it. Europe needs to learn to stand on its own feet.
That’s certainly what they want you to accept. What Putin wants you to believe.
The USA empire doesn't work by having individual governments enter secret conspiracies to obey the USA in favour of their own interests. The USA government and military are just stewards of the empire, the empire doesn't exist to benefit them.
Ultimately the majority of oligarchs whom the USA empire exists to serve are born in Europe, or they come from European dynasties that happen to live in the USA. It's simply a system of systemically and organically empowering those who benefit capital.
The EU, which has incredible sway over the politics of EEA nations, is explicitly an organisation that exists to create oligarchs out of capitalists. And who are the European capitalists? Are they staunch nationalists? No of course not, they're globalists with huge amounts of wealth tied up in USA stock exchanges. That means that with only one level of separation, the EU's explicit mission becomes an implicit mission to strengthen the USA empire's power over EEA nations.
But this is clearly a case where US and European interests diverge.
I would recommend this video to you on the topic: youtu.be/J_4srRdIK4k It's recent and current, made by a person who supports social democracy, that is to say, he's not a socialist or a Marxist. He doesn't use marxist dialectics in his analysis but still comes to the same conclusions. I think you'll find him more agreeable. He presents clearly without making assumptions about prior knowledge, citing all his claims, as much as possible using Western sources.
Profitez des vidéos et de la musique que vous aimez, mettez en ligne des contenus originaux, et partagez-les avec vos amis, vos proches et le monde entier.
The leaders in Europe are all financial capitalists who invested a lot of capital into US financial system. Even if European people face hunger tomorrow, their assets are secured at US banks. For this reason, they don't care whether they sign deals that are unfavorable to the European people.
We definitely should elect better leaders, that's for sure. These have to be dragged kicking and screaming into doing the right thing. It takes too much effort, and it's going way too slowly, but they can be moved. They've moved somewhat (not enough) on Ukraine, Gaza and even the environment, all due to popular pressure, but they need to move a lot further. People need to stop voting for the right wing idiots they keep electing.
You should definitely elect better leaders. If something is consensus in all so called "democracies", is that everyone thinks everyone else need to elect better leaders. The majority of the working people, which comprises the majority of population of most (pseudo-)democratic countries are mostly unsatisfied with their governments. This is occurs repeatedly and consistently in all liberal democracies, with a few exceptions. If there's something all liberal representative democracies look alike is that most people don't feel their interests are being represented by their government.
There's a reason why this happens in all capitalist societies. Note that it's not an individual issue and the reason is not lack of education and stupidity, as people often say, as even well educated individuals do bad voting decisions. This is a social and systemic issue and it's not a coincidence.
I won't tell you why, I want you to think about it. Then tell my why this happens.
Read the rest of the discussion. To me, you come across as part of a mob trying to defend Russian state media. And yes, arguing that all of western media, despite its freedom of the press, diversity of ownership and various degrees of editorial independence, is just as bad as Russian state media, is defending it.
I'm not arguing that all of western media is perfect; much of it is corrupt (especially in the US, but that is not all of the west). But not all of it is that bad. And even the corrupt ones frequently disagree with each other. That gives us access to much more diverse reporting than Russian state media provides.
I am aware that making sense of that diversity requires critical thought, which is in increasingly short supply in recent years.
Also note that the link you shared, of Trump flanked by billionaires, comes from western media.
Read the rest of the discussion. To me, you come across as part of a mob trying to defend Russian state media.
And I'm saying that's a problem with your reading comprehension; not the content of my argument. Especially because I never defended Russian state media. I too think state media is bad. The difference between you and I is that I'm not fooled by the corporate proxy that is western media.
I'm not arguing that all of western media is perfect; much of it is corrupt (especially in the US, but that is not all of the west). But not all of it is that bad.
Again, go on...
I am aware that making sense of that diversity requires critical thought, which is in increasingly short supply in recent years.
And yet you seem to struggle to explain how it's so "diverse." What's diverse about it? Who are the non-corrupt Western sources? Please tell me, since I'm so stupid 😕
The difference between you and I is that I'm not fooled by the corporate proxy that is western media.
And that's only something you're reading into this. I'm well aware of the problems with western media. Some of them are notorious for their lies, many are corporate controlled, and especially in the US, refuse to even acknowledge anti corporate sentiment (see how US media struggled to make sense of Luigi Mangione, for example), but they're fairly transparent about it, and and sometimes they really are telling the truth.
With some critical thinking, you can actually discern the truth out of that, without having to resort to Russian state media's reports on the disastrous war Russia is waging.
Lol, those are literally using the Ukrainian military as their source. Not even state media, literally just the state military itself. You absolute hypocrite.
Are you arguing that all video from a warzone is inherently fake?
While it's true that truth is the first casualty in war, and you've got to apply that filter to all news coming from any warzone (also the Russian side; again, see what you're defending), the reports on Russian atrocities, even against their own soldiers, are overwhelming. They're also coming from Russian sources.
But sure, keep your head in the sand. You probably also don't believe reports about IDF atrocities in Gaza, do you?
You know someone has nothing when they're resorting to "are you saying that [obviously false statement that doesn't actually resemble what they said]?"
the reports on Russian atrocities, even against their own soldiers, are overwhelming. They’re also coming from Russian sources.
You say, having only been able to provide sources from the Ukrainian government.
Obviously you're unlikely to see Russian media reporting on how they shoot their own soldiers as a matter of policy, and obviously the only parties close to the front lines as Russian and Ukrainian, but there is a variety of sources reporting on this, and Russia has a known history of using barrier troops.
But if you believe only Russian state media is telling the truth, then no amount of facts will convince you.
This article literally does not contain your claim! You are just LYING THROUGH YOUR TEETH now.
I'm not going to address the rest of them if you're just deliberately posting unrelated articles and lying about their contents, because at that point it's clear you're just being dishonest and trying to waste time!
Lying? Because a Russian source talks about Russian soldiers shooting Russian soldiers in a different context than barrier troops? You're just cherry picking so you don't have to address the facts.
Do you seriously want to argue that atrocities don't exist unless the party committing them admits they exist? You live in a very pleasant world.
Yes, lying. You claimed that Russia was shooting it's own soldiers, and now you're trying to pass off an article about Russian soldiers deliberately injuring themselves to defraud the Russian government out of benefits as a source for that claim. THAT IS LYING.
Ah, you see your precious government defrauded. That's what's upsetting you. I'm pointing out the brutality of the Russian war machine, I'm pointing to a lot of different sources about various kinds of violence, but it's the fraud that gets you.
You haven't even addressed any of the other links I shared, because you're not here to learn, but to spread propaganda.
Learn what? Most people here just repeat shallow dogma. Brainless zingers like that, no actual info. Nothing new at least. Bully people into accepting the propaganda. That's not how people learn.
Well, the thing is Ukraine has been known to use barrier troops. And not only is there actual video footage sputnikglobe.com/20231231/watc… but there is an azov commander openly talking about "motivational troops"
A Ukrainian barrier unit has shot at a group of retreating fighters of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, a source familiar with the situation told Sputnik, providing the agency with confirming video footage taken by a drone.
Isn't that bad optics for Ukraine? If they're killing more and capturing less, then that has to mean something like Ukraine is killing POWs (a war crime), or Ukrainian soldiers have a higher desire to surrender, which could be indicative of idealogical sympathy or of horrible treatment by the army.
During the 2022 offensive Ukraine themselves claimed KIA:PoW ratio something like 21 to 1. For comparison, even the most brutal fighting on Okinawa which is infamous for Japanese not surrendering and US not taking prisoners had that ratio around 14 to 1. So by their own admission Ukraine was either not taking prisoners or killing surrendering soldiers.
This guy makes one mistake in his reasoning. He's absolutely right about Trump not offering a real peace deal, but he talks about the conflict as if it's something the US forced on Russia, which is of course not true; it's Russia, and specifically Putin, who chose to start this war and invade Ukraine. He talks about NATO expansion as if that's something the US is pushing, but again, countries want to join NATO because they feel threatened by Russia.
Russia started this war because NATO rejected Ukraine's membership, leaving Ukraine vulnerable. But it wasn't a definitive rejection, leaving Putin to think he had a closing window of opportunity to invade Ukraine, which is why he rushed into this foolish war. Harder guarantees for Ukrainian security would have dissuaded Putin.
EU, meanwhile, never wanted anything like this, and even remained in denial after the invasion started. The EU just wants to trade with Russia and treat it as a normal country, a trading partner. Even after Putin invaded, they kept buying Russian gas for quite some time and some countries really didn't want to stop. Because gas is more important than human lives, to some.
Freezing the conflict is a bad idea; there needs to be a permanent peace, but there can only be a permanent peace if Russia stops invading its neighbours (this wasn't the first time), and Putin made it clear he has no plans to stop. He's frequently talking about Lithuania, Moldova, and more recently Azerbaijan.
It's pretty clear what the problem is here. It's Russian imperialism. Putin's dreams of empire. His unwillingness to accept other nations as equals.
This is a very naive reading of the Ukraine-Russian conflict. First of all, the conflict actually started in 2014 when Russia reacted by annexing Crimea after president Yanukovych was ousted following the Maidan uprising (which was carried out with EU/US support). Since then, there have been many skirmishes between Ukrainian military and pro-Russian separatist groups in the Donbass region, before Russia escalated the conflict in 2022. You should know that Crimea and Donbass are regions of a Russian ethnical majority, and these people didn't support the Maidan uprising.
Secondly, I am tired of people (especially liberals) which talk about laws, agreements and treaties as having some kind of supernatural power to stop things from happening. It's as if treaties, laws, agreements and commitments were never broken in real life, as if there was a supreme mystical power that bounded every party to commit to them.
Ukraine is not under NATO in all but paper. Its troops were trained by NATO countries, they are being supplied by NATO countries, there are mercenaries (and clandestine troops) from NATO fighting in the frontlines, the intelligence provided to Ukraine is from NATO countries. Not only that but the top NATO members are overseeing all Ukraine political decisions. Ukraine is not in NATO today because NATO countries never wanted to be directly involved in the first place and just wanted that Ukraine and Russia to bleed each other for their benefit.
Today NATO is actually a means to make all members fund the US military industrial complex, and provide other material and human resources to US, Germany, France and UK imperialist adventures. To this day NATO was never used as a defensive alliance, but NATO was always used in offensives against other countries. If Russia was weak like Afghanistan, then I'm sure NATO would have advanced in full force, like they did after the 9/11 attacks.
I am trying to gather some information on steps, procedures, and options for increasing privacy while crossing into the US.
My girlfriend goes to school in Canada and crosses the borders frequently throughout the year for; long weekends, extended holiday breaks, semester breaks, and summer breaks.
She'll be going back to Canada for this next year and with everything happening she's asked me to help her find ways to limit her exposure to data being reviewed or stored as she's studying a more Social/Liberal Arts degree which could flag her as a target because of the current political climate.
I've also suggested possibly limiting border crossing instead of coming back as often as she used to.
I'm working through articles and finding things from EFF and ACLU, but would happily taken suggestions, guidance, or any direction from anyone willing to share.
I've considered trying to find a way for her to backup her devices, maybe store those backups in the cloud, create "decoy" states of her devices (elaboration below), then restore the original state of the devices once she's safely past the border.
Devices:
iPhone 11 [18.6]
MacBook Air 13 [Possibly Sequoia 15.5, as stated in her iCloud, she doesn't have it with her right now]
For "decoy" device states, I mean having some apps and data on the devices, but nothing identifying/or that might otherwise give agencies data to further search (online account names/services, stored passwords, large collections of contacts/message histories, etc.)
I've suggested trying to switch to android/PC devices to provide alternative privacy/security options, but her family pays for the devices so it's just the same brand as whatever they have. So, that's not an option at this point, but any statements regarding increased effectiveness, or even lack thereof, by switching to different brand devices may help with any future transition considerations.
Thank you very much for taking the time to read through my post and any guidance you might be able to provide is highly appreciated.
On the advice of various experts, people are locking down social media, deleting photos and private messages, removing facial recognition, or even traveling with “burner” phones to protect themselves.
In Canada, multiple public institutions have urged employees to avoid travel to the US, and at least one reportedly told staff to leave their usual devices at home and bring a second device with limited personal information instead.
It seems like you already know what you’re doing and I agree with everyone else: backup your data and reinstall later. Create an iCloud account specifically for travel purposes.
This article mentions someone who opted to delete their social media accounts before coming to the US. So don’t be surprised or offended when some of us start deleting our comments, lol. Good luck.
EDIT: As long as you have a travel account you shouldn’t need Advanced Data Protection but perhaps after you/she reaches her destination.
1) Burner: Take a device that isn't a normally used device for each category. Make sure it has nothing you care about on it, no incriminating web history, no accounts logged in or saved as cookies that are incriminating, etc, etc. This is simplest, most expensive, but also most fool-proof against all possible threats.
2) Wiped: Wipe the device before travel, possibly backing things up in the cloud to download after arriving. You'll have to back up again with any changes you make and wipe again before traveling back then at your final destination again restore the device from backups. If you have serious fears of close inspection or forensic analysis then it would behoove you to use a secure erase feature on the drive and reinstall the OS rather than just trying to delete problematic files. For smartphones especially doing this and restoring from a cloud back-up can be pretty easy, for laptops it's more of a pain.
3) Mail ahead: Take the devices to a package service, UPS, FedEx, DHL, etc ahead of time, mail them ahead of or just behind you so they arrive just before or slightly after you. For this to work you need a fixed accommodation that can accept packages and which you trust to store them and give them to you. This technically doesn't prevent mail interception but unless you're a high value target that's unlikely at present as its kind of a multi-agency intentional effort thing. Still I'd mail the device in a fully encrypted state.
No other feasible options exist. You can encrypt yes and if you are a US citizen you cannot be denied re-entry (non-citizens can be not only denied entry but barred for years after for refusing to decrypt a device/cooperate) but they can seize your device and hold it for up to a year while trying to crack it and you'll have to expend effort to get it back at the end of that period. They can also put you in a holding cell for hours or hypothetically up to a couple days if they really want to press it accuse you of something and be unpleasant during that time.
Among the recent public letters was one from dozens of Orthodox rabbis demanding “moral clarity” to what they called a humanitarian crisis.
By Elizabeth Dias and Lisa Lerer Aug. 26, 2025, 12:01 a.m. ET
As Israel’s tactics in Gaza have increasingly provoked international condemnation, rabbis from across the world are taking the unusual step of speaking out against the Israeli government’s conduct in the war, on moral and religious grounds.
Over the past few weeks, as reports of starvation and mass killings in Gaza have spread, a significant number of clergy across the spectrum of Jewish observance and affiliation have signed a series of high-profile, carefully crafted public letters criticizing the Israeli government.
Rabbis Emerge as Growing Voice of Criticism of Israel’s Tactics in Gaza
Among the recent public letters was one from dozens of Orthodox rabbis demanding “moral clarity” to what they called a humanitarian crisis.
By Elizabeth Dias and Lisa Lerer Aug. 26, 2025, 12:01 a.m. ET
As Israel’s tactics in Gaza have increasingly provoked international condemnation, rabbis from across the world are taking the unusual step of speaking out against the Israeli government’s conduct in the war, on moral and religious grounds.
Over the past few weeks, as reports of starvation and mass killings in Gaza have spread, a significant number of clergy across the spectrum of Jewish observance and affiliation have signed a series of high-profile, carefully crafted public letters criticizing the Israeli government.
Instructions to add Plasma Discover package manager back into Bazzite using a Systemd Sys-Ext. Based on Travier's Fedora Sys-Ext work at travier.github.io/fedora-sysex… and relies on his base images on quay.
I'm really excited about the application of SysExts to bridge the gap many perceive in adopting atomic distros! This seemed like a fantastic solution to adding this tool back for those who want it, without the overhead of package layering
This is interesting, Bazzite abandoning Discover was the final straw for me to dump Bazzite on my TV pc and move back to Kubuntu. I don't have GameMode anymore but the feeling of being in control is worth it so won't be switching back
I thought so, and its not something Ublue has started using yet to my knowledge - there's some good potential that a lot of stuff they add could just become a set of extensions you can plug in like Lego bricks
The issue with them right now is there's no update mechanism. If you use something as a system extension that depends on a library in the image, and that library gets updated, you could have an unbootable system or at the very least a non-functioning application until you can update your system extension manually.
Ideally that update mechanism needs to be a part of bootc so if your system extension is part of your boot process it can be updated ahead of time before the image is loaded.
We've looked at it since it's inception and it's something we really want, it's just nowhere near ready yet.
But why tho? Bazaar (the few times I use it instead of cli) actually works without randomly freezing while loading, searching, downloading, deleting, just about everything, unlike when I tried using Discover on Arch, Opensuse, Kubuntu, Fedora, and Fedora Atomic.
I've never had issues with Discover on Fedora KDE and then even when I moved to Kinoite. I didnt have any issues using it on my Bazzite machine. I wanted it back, I also wanted to see if it was something I could do with a SysExt, which as I said is something I'm excited about, as I have started using them to add stuff on my Kinoite work machine.
It doesn't take Bazaar away, it just puts the items back for anyone who wants it. Spoiled for choice
Among the recent public letters was one from dozens of Orthodox rabbis demanding “moral clarity” to what they called a humanitarian crisis.
By Elizabeth Dias and Lisa Lerer Aug. 26, 2025, 12:01 a.m. ET
As Israel’s tactics in Gaza have increasingly provoked international condemnation, rabbis from across the world are taking the unusual step of speaking out against the Israeli government’s conduct in the war, on moral and religious grounds.
Over the past few weeks, as reports of starvation and mass killings in Gaza have spread, a significant number of clergy across the spectrum of Jewish observance and affiliation have signed a series of high-profile, carefully crafted public letters criticizing the Israeli government.
Rabbis Emerge as Growing Voice of Criticism of Israel’s Tactics in Gaza
Among the recent public letters was one from dozens of Orthodox rabbis demanding “moral clarity” to what they called a humanitarian crisis.
By Elizabeth Dias and Lisa Lerer Aug. 26, 2025, 12:01 a.m. ET
As Israel’s tactics in Gaza have increasingly provoked international condemnation, rabbis from across the world are taking the unusual step of speaking out against the Israeli government’s conduct in the war, on moral and religious grounds.
Over the past few weeks, as reports of starvation and mass killings in Gaza have spread, a significant number of clergy across the spectrum of Jewish observance and affiliation have signed a series of high-profile, carefully crafted public letters criticizing the Israeli government.
Among the recent public letters was one from dozens of Orthodox rabbis demanding “moral clarity” to what they called a humanitarian crisis.
By Elizabeth Dias and Lisa Lerer Aug. 26, 2025, 12:01 a.m. ET
As Israel’s tactics in Gaza have increasingly provoked international condemnation, rabbis from across the world are taking the unusual step of speaking out against the Israeli government’s conduct in the war, on moral and religious grounds.
Over the past few weeks, as reports of starvation and mass killings in Gaza have spread, a significant number of clergy across the spectrum of Jewish observance and affiliation have signed a series of high-profile, carefully crafted public letters criticizing the Israeli government.
I changed my main machine over to Linux in the beginning of April, setting it up on its own NVMe so I could keep my other drive with Windows 10 intact and dual boot when needed.
I've been having a blast - ricing hyprland, better workflows, great gaming experiences.
Then yesterday I realized that I hadn't actually bothered to dual boot once since testing out the Windows entry in my systemd-boot menu when I first set it up.
Guess who just gained a 1TB drive to install more games?
I wiped out the Windows drive with no remorse. Damn, that felt good.
You should be able to natively do what Rufus does in Linux, if you have a disk imaging software installed. I think Ubuntu comes with gnome-disks, you right click an ISO file, click open with, select disk image writer, and select the destination device (your USB drive) and it writes the ISO file to the USB device. You should double check it actually makes it bootable, but I think it does.
You can also use Ventoy to do what you want. You install it to the USB drive and then just drop the ISO files into a folder that you want to boot from, and it creates a menu for you to choose which ISO file to choose at boot time.
Ventoy is an open source tool to create bootable USB drive for ISO files. With ventoy, you don't need to format the disk again and again, you just need to copy the iso file to the USB drive and boot it.
Trying to set up Ventoy on a flash drive through Linux looks like a hassle. Windows, I know what I have to do: download the installer and push the button. In Linux, it's obviously not that simple.
I have 2 ssds. 1st ssd has 512MB partition for both Windows and Linux bootloaders and rest of the storage for data, games etc. 2nd ssd has both Windows ans Linux OS on different partitions and some more partitions for data.
It's good to have a critical understanding of RT's viewpoints. In this case, like the other user said, it's Trump driving his own wedge (per usual), so ofc RT will run an article on it.
My understanding of this problem is that there's still a very strong cultural impetus that males aren't allowed to have/share their feelings. In a way, even "go to therapy" is dismissive, in that the ppl saying it (often those that care about them most) don't want to be bothered to address their feelings, or the precursor(s) to the depression, directly. Acknowledgement is definitely a step in the right direction, but I think there's a ways to go. Just my $0.02
ok i will rephrase to: is society not offering real solutions nowadays.
I mean, as a woman, i will probably never understand how it feels to never really/freely be able to share emotions and be vulnerable. I thought this whole problem is somehow getting better or is better nowadays and that society is moving forward, though. Also, if "go to therapy" is dismissive, then what is a better response, i wonder.
Haha sorry in advance for a long response, I love psychology and am a strong male mental health advocate 😀 TL;DR: I don't have the answers, its getting better societally but that doesn't solve it at an individual level, I believe loneliness and being heard are major contributing factors.
I'm hard pressed to give you a good answer on that. I think it's more socially acceptable for men to have feelings, but maybe it's hard for the crop of men 30+ to understand that due to their upbringing, and seek help (it's getting much better for Gen Z, I understand). So maybe the options are there, but the "man up" mindset persists?
There may also be an individual element to it - the willingness to learn about our own feelings after decades of "man up" can be perplexing at best (I've been blessed with some wonderful women in my life and it is still in my blindspot all the time). I understand there are also many women that expect their men to "man up", not to say that's the norm though.
I don't have a good answer for you on the last point either. I think go to therapy is great, but i find that being male and our problems can be wildly isolating and lonely experiences - being told to go to therapy is kind of "take your feelings over there". At the same time, until men are able to build healthier communication with their loved ones, I think it won't be solved (which is where therapy does help).
I would also think that this "men-up"-mentality is a generational thing and eventually (hopefully) dies out soon (in men and women and anything inbetween). In order for that to happen it would probably help not to reproduce and repeat the belief that the mentality persists (for example by sharing memes that suggest otherwise...maybe i can help with that). You know... be the change you wanna see.
I guess there is also a nasty trend of going backwards and anti-DEI all over the world (in my understanding the E in DEI is suppose to also cover that whole male-mental-health inequality aspect) so that doesn't help.
Regarding the response "go to therapy": i was told the same thing several times and it sometimes felt like "i don't want to listen to your problems anymore" or "go fix yourself, you're not functioning like you're supposed to" and that does hurt. As i grew older i realized that these responders usually mean well and probably were overwhelmed themselves or were simply unable to help or didn't feel qualyfied enough to help. So the message they were unable to transport probably was something arround: "i care for your feelings and i am here for you but also i have limits to be respected and i want you to get the best help you need. Sadly i can not provide this, so i would suggest to seek help of a professional. I will help you as best as i can to make this happen"
Another aspect is (I'm not trying to derail now, or use whataoutism this is just sideaspect or orverlapping development) the somewhat common expectation that women are expected to do care work or emotional labour for free, which sometimes gets disappointed. And maybe there is a trend of women being less willing to do so nowadays. I don't know If that makes sense and one would have to look at actual data on this but i don't even know which field of study collects data on this topic.
any way it seems to be a somewhat complex topic but i stand with the believe that memes shape perception of the world and one can use that to also shape that stupid society for the better (i know i am heavily overestimating the power of memes but one can hope and dream 😀)
I'm sorry I didn't respond sooner, I just wanted to give this the time it deserved 😀
I agree the man-up mentality needs to die, or at least be dialed back. It's not inherently bad, tough love is a thing, but our society has taken manning up to an untenable extreme. For the record, I think the meme did an excellent job of putting a truthful light on the current reality - it definitely got us talking!
I agree about DEI, and love your comment about equality. Ppl often forget that equality means for everyone, and I think men are villainized as a general punching bag (punching up?). In this respect, I think men maybe pay a price that is overlooked for the more tangible equity issues (e.g. pay and service access for minorities)? But I'm cautious to bang that drum too hard haha just thinking it through.
I see what you're digging at about therapy, and it's possibly a perception issue on my end. It's hard to tell someone they need therapy at any time, and my sensitivities may just be coming into play there. Therapy can be incredibly helpful.
Women absolutely get saddled with unfair emotional labour. I think it's a bit of a downstream effect of unhealthy male emotions, in that men are taught to clam up and hide from feelings for decades, then get into relationships with women who just want the best for their partners. Men finally have a safe place for the first time in their lives, and BOOM all of it comes out with no skill at managing it haha. I'm not excusing this behavior, it can lead to some bad outcomes. I think there's a balance - ppl in relationships need to do their fair share or emotional labour (relationships aren't always 50/50, sometimes they're 90/10), and men haven't been taught to do their half. But at some point, they also need to take accountability and learn to do their half, dang it (see tough love lol).
All in all, I agree this is a stupidly complex topic, and I agree we proooobably won't fix mens' relationships with the world and themselves in this conversation, but we can try! That said, I'd be very happy if we could find a way to meme our way to a better place for everyone 😀 thank you for digging into it with me!
So, a lot of men went to college, got degrees in computer science having been sold the abject lie that higher education means greater job prospects, only to find programming as a career has been repealed because AI. They now have expensive college loans to repay and the same job prospects they did as a high school junior.
What's a therapist going to do about this? Other than, you know, waste your time and take your money.
Help you understand. Make new attainable goals. Find some peace. Change your mindset. Therapists aren't wizards, just like doctors don't just make ailments like cancer just go away. They help us heal as much as we can and then treat whatever symptoms linger. We do as much good as we can. I'm sorry society did this to you and to us.
I feel like the op meme would hit harder with this on the well guy cause they're fine to push the 'lesser evil' when it means getting their preferred evil in. when it comes to opposing communism then it's suddenly purity testing is fine
It lasted less than a generation, because it was a terrible design. They tried to get rid of capitol, but instead married the power of the state with the power of capitol
A benevolent hypercompetent dictator is obviously the greatest system of government. The rub is in the details
It did quite well, considering how it rapidly indistrialised their union of states, gave national-level voting rights to women before USAmerica did, fought external and internal sabotage, was waay better than the USAmerica which had racial discrimination on voting till the 1960's etc. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_R…
They also were the major force to fight against Nazis.
Cool, so they rapidly industrialized. Putting aside my feelings on industrialization, how is that useful a second time? It's also not unique
That system was good for growth, but it instantly was filled with corruption. It was manageable when there was explosive growth and everyone in the government just skimmed a little off the side, but once they modernized that growth slowed. From there the corruption spread like cancer
They went from being mostly agrarian to the most advanced county in the world to complete stagnation, and finally collapsed into complete oligarchy at record speed
I'm not saying they did nothing good, but that model is trash. We can learn from what it did well, but it has no answer to bad, or just selfish, actors
What we need is stability and quality of life, and for that I think you need to set an upper limit on how much power any one person can obtain.
I'm on board with the end goal, but this is a bad starting point to build a new system on
The USSR lasted several generations, generations are measured by the few decades and not by centuries. It lasted as long as it did because it worked remarkably well.
One thing that is important is that they didn't "marry the power of the state to capital." They had a publicly owned and driven economy, central planning is completely different from private ownership and production for profits.
But what I meant by they married the power of the state to capital is that as an agent of the state, you had the authority over capital.
In capitalism if you want a factory, you need money (and/or investors). In the USSR, you needed an agent of the state to make it happen.
In theory, that works. In practice, the agent of the state often becomes an investor - they profit off the factory, either through bribes up front or skimming off the top to sell the products on the black market
It's a system that invites corruption at all levels. No amount of policing can regulate a system when the individuals are incentived to skim off the top... This works at a smaller scale, but when you scale it up to county size ideology and policing will never tamp down the temptation. And the more people do it, the more normalized it becomes
You will always have people trying to exploit any system, the system has to have an answer that doesn't assume the individuals will act in good faith
You have to align incentives between actors and the system as a whole. I don't think you can do that top down, but you could do it bottom up. No individual should be allowed to have much power, and centralized planning concentrates power
You'll never approach communism top down. You can only do it by empowering the workers, from the bottom up
This is a pretty big misunderstanding of both what capital even is, and how socialist economies, the USSR included, function.
First, capital. Capital isn't a synonym for "means of production." Capital is a social function. Money, commodities, means of production, etc can all function as capital. What makes something capital is its use to generate more wealth in the form of profits. A worker that owns their own hammer is not an owner of capital, but an owner of a tool.
Secondly, socialism. Socialist economies, where production is generally planned for use rather than profits (depending on the stage), does not have the system of "skimming" like you imagine. In the USSR, the difference between the top and the bottom of society was about ten times, as compared to thousands to billions in capitalism.
Communism, in the Marxist sense, can only come about through full collectivization of production and distribution, it can't happen from the bottom-up. I just posted an updated Marxist-Leninist reading list, maybe give it a try!
It's time to read theory, comrades! As Lenin says, "Despair is typical of those who do not understand the causes of evil, see no way out, and are incapable of struggle." Reading theory helps us identify the core contradictions within modern society, analyze their trajectories, and gives us the tools to break free. Marxism-Leninism is broken into 3 major components, as noted by Lenin in his pamphlet The Three Sources and Three Component Parts of Marxism: | Audiobook
Dialectical and Historical Materialism
Critique of Capitalism along the lines of Marx's Law of Value
Advocacy for Revolutionary and Scientific Socialism
As such, I created the following list to take you from no knowledge whatsoever of Leftist theory, and leave you with a strong understanding of the critical fundamentals of Marxism-Leninism in an order that builds up as you read. Let's get started!
Section I: Getting Started
What the heck is Communism, anyways? For that matter, what is fascism?
Breaks down fascism and its mortal enemy, Communism, as well as their antagonistic relationship. Understanding what fascism is, where and when it rises, why it does so, and how to banish it forever is critical. Parenti also helps debunk common anti-Communist myths, from both the "left" and the right, in a quick-witted writing style. This is also an excellent time to watch the famous speech.
Section II: Historical and Dialectical Materialism
By far my favorite primer on Marxist philosophy. By understanding Dialectical and Historical Materialism first, you make it easier to understand the rest of Marxism-Leninism. Don't be intimidated!
Further reading on Dialectical and Historical Materialism, but crucially introduces the why of Scientific Socialism, explaining how Capitalism itself prepares the conditions for public ownership and planning by centralizing itself into monopolist syndicates. This is also where Engels talks about the failures of previous "Utopian" Socialists.
Section III: Political Economy
That's right, it's time for the Law of Value and a deep-dive into Imperialism. If we are to defeat Capitalism, we must learn it's mechanisms, tendencies, contradictions, and laws.
Best taken as a pair, these essays simplify the most important parts of the Law of Value. Marx is targetting those not trained in economics here, but you might want to keep a pen and some paper to follow along if you are a visual person.
Absolutely crucial and the most important work for understanding the modern era and its primary contradictions. Marxist-Leninists understand that Imperialism is the greatest contradiction in the modern era, which cascades downward into all manner of related contradictions. Knowing what dying Capitalism looks like, and how it behaves, means we can kill it.
Section IV: Revolutionary and Scientific Socialism
Can we defeat Capitalism at the ballot box? What about just defeating fascism? What about the role of the state?
If Marxists believed reforming Capitalist society was possible, we would be the first in line for it. Sadly, it isn't possible, which Luxemburg proves in this monumental writing.
Excellent refutation of revisionists and Social Democrats who think the State can be reformed, without needing to be replaced with one that is run by the workers, in their own interests.
Section V: Intersectionality and Solidarity
The revolution will not be fought by atomized individuals, but by an intersectional, international working class movement. Intersectionality is critical, because it allows different marginalized groups to work together in collective interest, unifying into a broad movement.
Critical reading on understanding misogyny, transphobia, enbyphobia, pluralphobia, and homophobia, as well as how to move beyond the base subject of "gender." Uses the foundations built up in the previous works to analyze gender theory from a Historical Materialist perspective.
De-colonialism is essential to Marxism. Without having a strong, de-colonial, internationalist stance, we have no path to victory nor a path to justice. Fanon analyzes Colonialism's dehumanizing effects, and lays out how to form a de-colonial movement, as well as its necessity.
Solidarity and intersectionality are the key to any social movement. When different social groups fight for liberation together along intersectional lines, the movements are emboldened and empowered ever-further.
Section VI: Putting it into Practice!
It's not enough to endlessly read, you must put theory to practice. That is how you can improve yourself and the movements you support. Touch grass!
Mao wrote simply and directly, targeting peasant soldiers during the Revolutionary War in China. This pair of essays equip the reader with the ability to apply the analytical tools of Dialectical Materialism to their every day practice, and better understand problems.
Congratulations, you completed your introductory reading course!
With your new understanding and knowledge of Marxism-Leninism, here is a mini What is to be Done? of your own to follow, and take with you as practical advice.
Get organized. Join a Leftist org, find solidarity with fellow comrades, and protect each other. The Dems will not save you, it is up to us to protect ourselves. The Party for Socialism and Liberation and Freedom Road Socialist Organization both organize year round, every year, because the battle for progress is a constant struggle, not a single election. See if there is a chapter near you, or start one! Or, see if there's an org you like more near you and join it.
Read theory. Don't think that you are done now! Just because you have the basics, doesn't mean you know more than you do. If you have not investigated a subject, don't speak on it! Don't speak nonsense, but listen!
Aggressively combat white supremacy, misogyny, queerphobia, and other attacks on marginalized communities. Cede no ground, let nobody be forgotten or left behind. There is strength in numbers, when one marginalized group is targeted, many more are sure to follow.
Be industrious, and self-sufficient. Take up gardening, home repair, tinkering. It is through practice that you elevate your problem-solving capabilities. Not only will you improve your skill at one subject, but your general problem-solving muscles get strengthened as well.
Learn self-defense. Get armed, if practical. Be ready to protect yourself and others. Liberals will not save us, we must save each other.
Be persistent. If you feel like a single water droplet against a mountain, think of canyons and valleys. Oh, how our efforts pile up! With consistency, every rock, boulder, even mountain, can be drilled through with nothing but steady and persistent water droplets.
"Everything under heaven is in utter chaos; the situation is excellent."
Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO) is a national organization of revolutionaries fighting for socialism in the United States. Our home is in the working class.
Capital is what allows you to obtain the means of production. Before capitalism, capital required a title of nobility. It is not the same as money... Capitalism is the system where capital is just money. Just money can buy the mine, can buy the land, can buy the tools for the factory, can employ the workers.
These are things that require authority under both feudalism and a Marxist-Leninist system
Socialism does not require skimming off the top. That's obviously the opposite of what it aims to do
But going all in on central planning basically guarantees a system of skimming off the top.
There are other, better models for socialism. What if all companies became worker controlled, direct democracy style? What if the state controlled everything considered utilities, from food to healthcare to power and electricity to education, and you let capitalism compete in the background?
Communism is where the state withers away, because it's not needed. Where we grow beyond needing rulers.
You'll never get there by concentrating all the power and capital in the state. You could get there by using the state only as a check to make sure everything remains bottom up
Again, what determines what is capital or not is its social role. It isn't purely money within capitalism, there's money capital, commodity capital, etc.
Further, you're deeply misunderstood on the rest of this comment.
Central planning in a fully collectivized economy does not certify "skimming off the top." You're thinking of socialist production and distribution as the same as capitalist, but with the government. On the contrary, socialist production makes it far less likely, compared to capitalism where that is the sole aim.
All companies being worker controlled cooperatives is not a better model, it's much worse. Cooperatives can be a part of a broader, developing socialist economy, but cannot form the basis, as competition will result in some cooperatives flourishing and others dying, resulting in class striation.
Having public ownership for part of the economy and private for the rest is either social democracy, ie capitalism with safety nets, or the primary stage of socialism, before more development and collectivizing. If the large firms and key industries are privately.owned it's capitalist, if they are publicly owned it's some kind of socialism.
a. Social democracy, as its still capitalism, still has far more "skimming off the top" as that's the purpose of capitalism to begin with. You're still under a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, the workers still have no power, and in the global north you still rely on imperialism.
b. The socialist market economy is just what the PRC is doing now, and it's extremely effective. They are still pursuing a fully collectivized economy, but are working with diverse forms of ownership of medium and small firms as they are only in the primary stage of socialism.
The state withers away when class withers away. Communism in the Marxist sense is a global, fully collectivized economy run along a common plan. The state is merely the extension of the class in power, ie the bourgeoisie or the proletariat, it isn't a class in itself. Once all property has been collectivized by the state, it ceases to function as a "state," but planning still takes an active role. Over time, formal structures are replaced by habit, but you still have a huge, interconnected, planned economy.
Ultimately, you are fundamentally confused about what Marx was advocating for, and are mixing it up with anarchism, when these are fundamentally different concepts. Reading theory would be a good idea for you.
Orwell hated the working class, his chief critique was that the working class is too stupid to think for itself and that it is destined to be swayed by whoever is most charismatic. The same monster snitched on gays, jewish people, and communists to the British government, and during WWII claimed that criticizing the USSR was the real litmus test of a leftist. That's not even getting into his history of sexual assault.
As for the USSR in reality, read Blackshirts and Reds and This Soviet World. If the CPSU was a "ruling class," it absolutely failed at being so. The discrepancy between the wealthiest and poorest in the Soviet Union was around ten times, but that number is in the thousands to billions in the Tsarist and capitalist eras respectively, and not just in Russia, but all capitalist systems.
...what? I criticized Orwell for his hatred of the working class, anti-semitism, homophobia, work with MI6, anti-communism, being a sex-pest, and criticizing the country that was responsible for 85% of Nazi soldiers killed during World War II in the midst of fighting said genocidal invader. The issue wasn't "thinking for himself," it's him being a social fascist antisemitic fed. Critique of him is by no means hypocritical.
Do you have some theory reading which supports that, comrade? If not then you should read more theory, comrade. Make sure to post like 15 paragraph replies when you're done compiling your theories.
I already posted the sources for Orwell being a piece of shit at the beginning of this conversation, though that certainly isn't "theory." It's just documenting how much of a piece of shit Orwell was as a human being.
Comrade earlier you said that the CPSU was a failure, why are you so critical of glorious leaders, comrade? Would it be so bad if they were in charge of everything, comrade? You need to read more theory, comrade.
The one of the defensive is you, and the people you're defending allied with the nazis to split Europe between themselves as well as enabled the nazis war effort via trade of necessary materials.
The communists spent the decade prior trying to form an anti-Nazi coalition force, such as the Anglo-French-Soviet Alliance which was pitched by the communists and rejected by the British and French. The communists hated the Nazis from the beginning, as the Nazi party rose to prominence by killing communists and labor organizers, cemented bourgeois rule, and was violently racist and imperialist, while the communists opposed all of that.
When the many talks of alliances with the west all fell short, the Soviets reluctantly agreed to sign a non-agression pact, in order to delay the coming war that everyone knew was happening soon. Throughout the last decade, Britain, France, and other western countries had formed pacts with Nazi Germany, such as the Four-Power Pact, the German-French-Non-Agression Pact, and more. Molotov-Ribbentrop was unique among the non-agression pacts with Nazi Germany in that it was right on the eve of war, and was the first between the USSR and Nazi Germany. It was a last resort, when the west was content from the beginning with working alongside Hitler.
Harry Truman, in 1941 in front of the Senate, stated:
If we see that Germany is winning we ought to help Russia, and if Russia is winning we ought to help Germany, and that way let them kill as many as possible, although I don’t want to see Hitler victorious under any circumstances.
Not only that, but it was the Soviet Union that was responsible for 4/5ths of total Nazi deaths, and winning the war against the Nazis. The Soviet Union did not agree to invade Poland with the Nazis, it was about spheres of influence and red lines the Nazis should not cross in Poland. When the USSR went into Poland, it stayed mostly to areas Poland had invaded and annexed a few decades prior. Should the Soviets have let Poland get entirely taken over by the Nazis, standing idle? The West made it clear that they were never going to help anyone against the Nazis until it was their turn to be targeted.
It's time to read theory, comrades! As Lenin says, "Despair is typical of those who do not understand the causes of evil, see no way out, and are incapable of struggle." Reading theory helps us identify the core contradictions within modern society, analyze their trajectories, and gives us the tools to break free. Marxism-Leninism is broken into 3 major components, as noted by Lenin in his pamphlet The Three Sources and Three Component Parts of Marxism: | Audiobook
Dialectical and Historical Materialism
Critique of Capitalism along the lines of Marx's Law of Value
Advocacy for Revolutionary and Scientific Socialism
As such, I created the following list to take you from no knowledge whatsoever of Leftist theory, and leave you with a strong understanding of the critical fundamentals of Marxism-Leninism in an order that builds up as you read. Let's get started!
Section I: Getting Started
What the heck is Communism, anyways? For that matter, what is fascism?
Breaks down fascism and its mortal enemy, Communism, as well as their antagonistic relationship. Understanding what fascism is, where and when it rises, why it does so, and how to banish it forever is critical. Parenti also helps debunk common anti-Communist myths, from both the "left" and the right, in a quick-witted writing style. This is also an excellent time to watch the famous speech.
Section II: Historical and Dialectical Materialism
By far my favorite primer on Marxist philosophy. By understanding Dialectical and Historical Materialism first, you make it easier to understand the rest of Marxism-Leninism. Don't be intimidated!
Further reading on Dialectical and Historical Materialism, but crucially introduces the why of Scientific Socialism, explaining how Capitalism itself prepares the conditions for public ownership and planning by centralizing itself into monopolist syndicates. This is also where Engels talks about the failures of previous "Utopian" Socialists.
Section III: Political Economy
That's right, it's time for the Law of Value and a deep-dive into Imperialism. If we are to defeat Capitalism, we must learn it's mechanisms, tendencies, contradictions, and laws.
Best taken as a pair, these essays simplify the most important parts of the Law of Value. Marx is targetting those not trained in economics here, but you might want to keep a pen and some paper to follow along if you are a visual person.
Absolutely crucial and the most important work for understanding the modern era and its primary contradictions. Marxist-Leninists understand that Imperialism is the greatest contradiction in the modern era, which cascades downward into all manner of related contradictions. Knowing what dying Capitalism looks like, and how it behaves, means we can kill it.
Section IV: Revolutionary and Scientific Socialism
Can we defeat Capitalism at the ballot box? What about just defeating fascism? What about the role of the state?
If Marxists believed reforming Capitalist society was possible, we would be the first in line for it. Sadly, it isn't possible, which Luxemburg proves in this monumental writing.
Excellent refutation of revisionists and Social Democrats who think the State can be reformed, without needing to be replaced with one that is run by the workers, in their own interests.
Section V: Intersectionality and Solidarity
The revolution will not be fought by atomized individuals, but by an intersectional, international working class movement. Intersectionality is critical, because it allows different marginalized groups to work together in collective interest, unifying into a broad movement.
Critical reading on understanding misogyny, transphobia, enbyphobia, pluralphobia, and homophobia, as well as how to move beyond the base subject of "gender." Uses the foundations built up in the previous works to analyze gender theory from a Historical Materialist perspective.
De-colonialism is essential to Marxism. Without having a strong, de-colonial, internationalist stance, we have no path to victory nor a path to justice. Fanon analyzes Colonialism's dehumanizing effects, and lays out how to form a de-colonial movement, as well as its necessity.
Solidarity and intersectionality are the key to any social movement. When different social groups fight for liberation together along intersectional lines, the movements are emboldened and empowered ever-further.
Section VI: Putting it into Practice!
It's not enough to endlessly read, you must put theory to practice. That is how you can improve yourself and the movements you support. Touch grass!
Mao wrote simply and directly, targeting peasant soldiers during the Revolutionary War in China. This pair of essays equip the reader with the ability to apply the analytical tools of Dialectical Materialism to their every day practice, and better understand problems.
Congratulations, you completed your introductory reading course!
With your new understanding and knowledge of Marxism-Leninism, here is a mini What is to be Done? of your own to follow, and take with you as practical advice.
Get organized. Join a Leftist org, find solidarity with fellow comrades, and protect each other. The Dems will not save you, it is up to us to protect ourselves. The Party for Socialism and Liberation and Freedom Road Socialist Organization both organize year round, every year, because the battle for progress is a constant struggle, not a single election. See if there is a chapter near you, or start one! Or, see if there's an org you like more near you and join it.
Read theory. Don't think that you are done now! Just because you have the basics, doesn't mean you know more than you do. If you have not investigated a subject, don't speak on it! Don't speak nonsense, but listen!
Aggressively combat white supremacy, misogyny, queerphobia, and other attacks on marginalized communities. Cede no ground, let nobody be forgotten or left behind. There is strength in numbers, when one marginalized group is targeted, many more are sure to follow.
Be industrious, and self-sufficient. Take up gardening, home repair, tinkering. It is through practice that you elevate your problem-solving capabilities. Not only will you improve your skill at one subject, but your general problem-solving muscles get strengthened as well.
Learn self-defense. Get armed, if practical. Be ready to protect yourself and others. Liberals will not save us, we must save each other.
Be persistent. If you feel like a single water droplet against a mountain, think of canyons and valleys. Oh, how our efforts pile up! With consistency, every rock, boulder, even mountain, can be drilled through with nothing but steady and persistent water droplets.
"Everything under heaven is in utter chaos; the situation is excellent."
Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO) is a national organization of revolutionaries fighting for socialism in the United States. Our home is in the working class.
Didn't say that, you just outright didn't clarify your vague, vacuous statement. You, on the other hand, defended a homophobic, anti-semitic, rapist fed.
Hey man, I saw some of your posts and while you're here, I just want to thank you for all the work you do making anticommunists look both factually ignorant and personally deranged.
In the past, I've heard about how Google can keep records of all your Google phone's past locations and text messages.
What about RCS messages which supposedly are encrypted from Android to Android? I know that it's possible that they secretly keep a log behind the scenes, but as far as the regular consumer knows is there any record being kept with regard to the contents of these RCS messages?
MMS is not a text message, it’s a media message (that’s what the M stands for).
See, that's interesting because I was always taught that "text message" is just an overarching term used to describe SMS and MMS. The notion that a text message is a synonym of SMS and only SMS is a new one to me!
Yes, RCS chats are encrypted (supposedly)
Good to know! Do you happen to know if the decryption keys are stored offline or on the carrier's end? Because if the latter, then okay it's more secure than SMS or MMS but only in the sense that some encryption is better than none. Lol.
I mean it's in the name. A message containing media and not text is simply not a text message. Many people use them incorrectly but it's literally in the name.
RCS is (supposedly) E2EE so keys are stored locally.
I mean it’s in the name. A message containing media and not text is simply not a text message. Many people use them incorrectly but it’s literally in the name.
Hey, I get it now. Lol. I was just explaining what my mindset was.
RCS is (supposedly) E2EE so keys are stored locally.
Well, you can have E2EE with keys stored server-side. It's just kind of pointless from a security/privacy standpoint, but I've seen it happen.
Okay, so, originally, I was going to look it up to prove you wrong, but after looking it up across multiple sources, it seems that you're right and I'm wrong.....mostly.
However, the Wikipedia page section "Definitions" does back me up somewhat. It says:
The term "end-to-end encryption" originally only meant that the communication is never decrypted during its transport from the sender to the receiver.[23] For example, around 2003, E2EE was proposed as an additional layer of encryption for GSM[24] or TETRA,[25] ... This has been standardized by SFPG for TETRA.[26] Note that in TETRA, the keys are generated by a Key Management Centre (KMC) or a Key Management Facility (KMF), not by the communicating users.[27]
Later, around 2014, the meaning of "end-to-end encryption" started to evolve when WhatsApp encrypted a portion of its network,[28] requiring that not only the communication stays encrypted during transport,[29] but also that the provider of the communication service is not able to decrypt the communications ... This new meaning is now the widely accepted one.[30]
(Relevent text is embolded.)
So, I'm not misunderstanding, just misinformed that the definition changed.
Make no mistake, of course: I do appreciate you correcting me as I hadn't realized the definition had changed. Lol.
Lately I've been exploring FreeBSD and OpenBSD. One of the more interesting things about them is how they handle OS and package upgrades.
On FreeBSD, the freebsd-update command is used for upgrading the OS and the pkg command is used for managing user packages. On OpenBSD, the syspatch command is used for upgrading the OS and the pkg_* commands are used for managing user packages.
Unlike Linux, these BSDs have a clear separation of OS from these packages. OS files and data are stored in places like /bin and /etc, while user installed packages get installed to /usr/local/bin and /usr/local/etc.
On the Linux side, the closest thing I can think of is using an atomic distro and flatpak, homebrew, containers, and/or snap for user package management. However, it's not always viable to use these formats. Flatpak, snap, and containers have sandbox issues that prevent certain functionality; homebrew is not sandboxed but on Linux its limited to CLI programs.
There's work being done to work around such issues, such as systemd sysext. But I'm starting to feel that this is just increasing complexity rather than addressing root problems. I feel like taking inspiration from the BSDs could be beneficial.
To answer the question in the title: No, because these systems inherently have different architecture. Something like OpenBSD (the OS) is relatively self-contained. Linux distributions have system components that are externally developed, but a user might rely upon.
What exactly is the "problem" you have with Linux package managers? It's specifically extra complexity to separate "system" and "packages". This works well for *BSDs that often develop the entire OS themselves, but would pose extra challenges for Linux distributions, where the line between "OS" and "user installed package" is much more blurred.
I feel like in Linux any distinction between "OS" and "something else" would be arbitrary, except, perhaps the example of the AUR vs regular packages in arch, or maybe the universe repo in Ubuntu. Why would you want a whole different system for managing those packages?
It’s not so much about a second package manager as it is about having a base system and separating extra software from the base system.
Moving extra packages out of the base system allows the extra packages to be updated quicker. Fewer things get frozen when the stable point in time distro release is tagged. This also helps the base as it can move without having to worry about every piece of software in the repos being compatible with the changes.
The concept exists as 3rd party repos. However, most aren’t setup to be as cleanly separated as ports are.
You could use something like homebrew for your packages while keeping just system packages to the default package manager. It has the upside of being separated and more recent, but it can mean duplicate packages are on the system.
Homebrew is good for unsandboxed CLI programs, but unfortunately not GUI apps.
An issue I ran in the past when using a custom OS on my phone was that flatpak, containers, or snap were able to talk to my phone properly to flash the OS. So on an atomic distro, I would either have to install Chromium using something like rpm-ostree, systemd systext, or boot into a traditional distro like Debian.
You are fundamentally misunderstanding how these work though. "Sandbox" is good when any userspace executed binary may comprise a system. How does that refer to a GUi, as you are using it? The actual executable code has nothing to do with it having a graphical interface.
My first point is that homebrew is only good for CLI applications. Almost no GUI apps are available, the only one I know of is xeyes.
My second point is that homebrew is unsanboxed. That’s good for programs that don’t work well sandboxed, such as fetch tools like fastfetch.
This leaves a gap of a good supported way to install GUI apps that are unsandboxed. I used to need this when I used an Android phone with a custom OS. I needed to have unsandboxed Chromium with adb tools to flash and update the OS. However, when sandboxed, Chromium doesn’t have access to adb tools.
Again, no. There are a myriad of ways to do this if you just want a plainly, locally installed and running program:
1) Both RPM and dpkg support being able to unpackaged or install packages into your local home directory. 2) Download source, build and install yourself
You're just adding arguments on arguments that aren't making any sense now. You're original comment and understanding has been addressed.
You’re just adding arguments on arguments that aren’t making any sense now. You’re original comment and understanding has been addressed.
My main point is that I'm worried about additional complexity. On most atomic distros, you're not supposed to touch the base system, so various tools are preinstalled or available: flatpak, podman, homebrew, snap, appimages, systemd sysext.
The BSDs seem to enjoy a separation of OS and user packages with reduced complexity. Though their task is easier since they are complete operating systems, whereas linux is just a kernel and many different projects put together, and many different groups putting out their own distros with varying packages and compatibility.
Both RPM and dpkg support being able to unpackaged or install packages into your local home directory
It would be really cool if dnf and apt got good, easy, simple support for installing packages into the home folder. But that's not what's happening. The proposed solution seems to be systemd sysext, which again, prompted me to have worries about complexities about how software is being managed on more "modern" distributions.
You’re just adding arguments on arguments that aren’t making any sense now. You’re original comment and understanding has been addressed
And I keep discussing it because I enjoy doing so.
How to install rpm package without root permission ? Is it possible to install RPM packages without root permission? Is it possible to set a different folder and RPM database for rpm installation ,without root permission ? can we adopt the below meth…
Unlike Linux, these BSDs have a clear separation of OS from these packages. OS files and data are stored in places like /bin and /etc, while user installed packages get installed to /usr/local/bin and /usr/local/etc.
What do you consider the OS? Is firefox a part of OS? Is office part of OS?
On FreeBSD, the freebsd-update command is used for upgrading the OS and the pkg command is used for managing user packages. On OpenBSD, the syspatch command is used for upgrading the OS and the pkg_* commands are used for managing user packages.
Personally, the ditching of /usr/local mess was one of the selling points of Arch for me, but in a way you could achieve this in Arch. Create a secondary pacman config with RootDir set to /usr/local and alias pacman --config /etc/pacman_local.conf as pkg_pacman
Points for þe how-to. In not sure I agree about losing /usr/local being a good þing. An argument could be made for AUR installing only into /usr/local; þen we could go back to best practices of sanitizing $PATH order. It'd also alleviate some naming conflicts which were less of an issue in older Unixes like Solaris.
What specifically about /usr/local bothered you so much þat getting rid of it would be a selling point?
it partitions same things into separate locations One library is here, another one is here, some older version there, which one should this binary load? Where should I point the -L to? Of course, compiling things completely from scratch is unmaintainable anyway (that's why PKGBUILD was another big point - it's easy to create your own AUR packages that will get pacman-level maintainability), but sometimes you want to check if that new patch solves your issue
if distro does not care, the packages will have different prefixes I can see some use of /opt. But it should be my decision if I want something installed in /opt/bin or /usr/local/bin. In distros that did not enforce where things are put in, it was all over the place. But to be fair, to me, even bin/sbin separation is bs
Gentoo will allow you to update the small set of required system packages and their dependencies separately from everything else (emerge --update system), but doing the reverse would require some pretty heavy micro-management.
I think of those as BSD thoughtful and pondered, and Linux as fairly fast and maybe thoughtless (in the jouyful sense that things have to go forward). In the end BSD is definitely cleaner, but behind, and Linux is much messier but is at the front of what's going on.
And I'm sayin this as someone who's worked with both systems for decades and even though I prefer Linux on the desktop or on servers, on embedded systems, where you'd need some really clean code to poke at, BSD really shines.
Of course BSD works fine (mostly) everywhere. It's almost as good today as it was in 2000.
Alpine package manager and use of MUSL over glibc are pretty similar to a BSD. Like others have pointed out there are limits to how closely a Linux distro can match the deliberate structure of those distros given the different design philosophy
Satellite data has revealed the accelerating rise of sea levels, aligning with past climate projections and showcasing the undeniable role of human activity in driving global change.
I really want my primary mobile computer to be a tablet mainly because I genuinely like the form factor. My current Linux laptop is dying and I thought I'd just buy the newest Lenovo Thinkpad Surface clone but Lenovo seems to have discontinued it because I couldn't find a 2025 version anywhere, same with HP and Dell's Surface clones. And most of the Windows tablets I could find online have dinky Intel N processors instead of Core.
Can anyone recommend a high end tablet that runs Linux well? Failing that, how bad is the Surface really with Linux as the only OS?
It seems weird having the keyboard facing outwards. I know it gets disabled when folded back, just seems wrong. I'm not saying it is wrong just that it kinda freaks me out a little bit because I'm a bit odd like that.
I'm looking at ideapads though, that might be nice.
I have an old laptop that does that and the keys are very distracting whenever I hold it in tablet mode. I find myself holding it awkwardly on one side to avoid them, even though I know they're disabled. It is still a nice feature though, I like being able to transition a laptop to portrait mode sometimes.
Minisforum V3, but they're now so highly sought after, they aren't cheap.
Both KDE and Gnome have their own issues with pure tablet modes though, so just a heads up. Gnome is way better IMO, but the keyboard is still kinda "meh" compared to Android. KDE is kind of all over the place, depending on which apps you're using.
I have a minisforum v3 that I'm not using - just don't love the surface style form factor. I'm willing to sell it for a good price if anyone is interested. Based in USA. Feel free to DM me
I wouldn't call N series "dinky". N100 runs my daily device, coincidently surface-like tablet Chuwi Hi 10 Max, and three of my homelab servers. Proccessing power is more than enough to run modern desktop distro, all the todays shitty javascript websites, work in IDEs, virtualize, and all others server-side task I throw at them.
I have a minis forum v3 that I use all the time. It's got decent CPU and GPU for a laptop class.
It competent runs Indy and older games, has reasonable battery life, and the general performance is more than enough for productivity.
Touch screen works flawlessly, accelerometer required some tinkering as did volume control. Thumb scanner was easy to get working. I have not gone back to try getting the IR camera for face detection working.
It runs games on par with the steam deck. Works great for a lot of newer or demanding titles if you set the settings apropriately.
Does your pen/sylus work?
I also have a minisforum V3 running archlinux and I can't get the stylus to write in rnote or to draw in krita or to work in Osu!. It just moves the cursor but it never "clicks".
Ahh, I got mine used when a window 11 update "bricked" a lots of them. Rather than do am RMA this guy just got a new one and gave me the old ones saying if I could fix it then I could keep it.
Unbricking was not easy so I can understand why he just replaced it.
Sheeee-it, þat's got a better CPU þan þe mini-pc in using as my desktop (5800H). Half þe RAM, and I don't suppose þe NVMe is upgradable, is it? But, still, it's a spanking CPU.
The 8840U is equivalent to the Z1E that's in the Lenovo Legion Go and ROG Ally X, so it's a super competent chip! If gaming is your main use case, you might wanna check out Bazzite 😀
starlite runs the n100 and n200 cpus. the cpus are pretty great (have an n100 on my nuc). the problem with linux is the touch interface first and foremost imo. i have an old windows tablet converted to linux and its a daily headache. well, was. i haven't used the thing for months.
I've got a Lenovo tablet with an Intel Pentium processor that runs Fedora okay. Everything works, but especially remembering/detecting orientation with the keyboard attached is about as polished as stucco.
Apparently the hardware defaults to a portrait layout; it's a 1080x1920 monitor, not a common 1920x1080, and by god and all his rapey little clergy if it CAN wake up in portrait mode, it will. Waking the thing up means turning it on, ripping it in half, waiting 3 seconds for the monitor to rotate back to the way it was when you put it to sleep, and then clicking the keyboard back on.
Drivers are okay. I had some problems with screen freezing but these were fixed easily with some kernel params.
With a full battery, I get 6 hours coding in C with VSCode and some browser tabs or 5 hours of YouTube playback. You'll get about 8-9 hours if you are doing something like writing text
Gnome is fantastic for this form factor. Especially libadwaita stuff, as their HIG plays very nice with touchscreens.
A powerbank will give you practically infinite battery for a whole day. I love this machine so much...
Device is set to power saver in this picture but I must say power saver doesn't seem to be doing much. I don't notice a reduction in performance nor see a improvement in battery life.
I just leave that on power saver if I am not doing anything resource hungry. Possibly out of habit
How's the performance for media on that thing? I was eying up the surface go line to replace an android tablet that I mostly use for playing movies and TV shows I've downloaded. Think it would do okay playing back 1080p and higher content?
I bought a second hand surface pro 7 recently and I'm quite in love with it! With a few GNOME plugins it's a quite capable tablet AND a quite capable laptop on the go.
I just went through this with Dell xps 2 in 1 and surface pro 8 with mint and other OSes. Linux just is not fully ready for touchscreen it's 90 percent there but for instance the last 10 percent is text boxes when clicking won't spawn the keyboard, the keyboard regardless of input app is clunky, not phone grade speed, it's possible but you my as well stick with a small 10 to 13 inch laptop. The folio is janky at best, using the slate solo is odd to hold and gets hot. Battery sucks. I tweaked and spent so much time wanting it to work. It just isn't ready yet.
Back in the early days of 1995, I picked up a Slackware CD from the computer shop I worked at in lieu of payment with no idea what it was or how to use it. This was my first foray into the world of Linux. From that point I used Linux off and on sporadically until I moved past the tinkering phase of college, watching the rise and fall of new technologies and better and better innovation, and just wanting things to work like I expected out of the box.
However, in the last few years I have stopped being excited about new innovation. Because with it comes not an exciting new world, but a plethora of subscription models, paywalls, data mining, and general enshitification that has become the norm in tech. Things have stopped working like I expect out of the box. In fact, I am having to actively twist and bend them to do what I want without compromising my privacy and my wallet.
Which leads me to present day and I decided to try throwing Ubuntu onto an ancient laptop headed to the scrap heap. It worked flawlessly right out of the box. With the addition of a little ram, I was able to set up a new media server running dockers, pihole and several other applications that would have taken me extensive time and money to get working like I wanted in a mainstream OS.
I found myself excited again about technology.
So last weekend I pulled up my daily driver gaming rig with the intention of shrinking down the pre-installed Windows operating system and trying Ubuntu there as my mainstream OS. Which is where I discovered that it was in fact not a single 2 TB drive inside, but a set of 1 TB drives configured in raid 0, taking up both M2 slots. So my fun little weekend project was once again thwarted by an off the shelf configuration that wasn't quite what it advertised.
It's just a roadblock to a journey that'll require a little more time and money to do safely, keeping the old drive intact while I migrate to something new and better. But that's okay. Storage is cheap and booting the try-out OS from a USB drive was exceeding my expectations.
I'm eager to move forward and see how Proton works in an environment where it can shine. I want to see how much open source software can replace the bloated and clunky OS on my current machine. I want to learn Python and move past the power shell knowledge I've had to build in the workforce.
Sounds great. Ubuntu works good out of the box. My only recommendation with Ubuntu is that instead of using 'Snap' checkout flatpak. Snap will update shit without your knowledge, or say so, and is 'closed'. Snap goes against the philosophy of a free and open system, where as flatpak does not. And flatpak provides just as many apps as Snap AFAIK.
I have a laptop with an Intel i5-1335 CPU and I'm about to receive a mini PC with a Ryzen 8845HS, which is going to be my main computer now. If I just install the SSD M.2 of the laptop on the mini PC, is there any software I need to install that was not installed when first installed Linux on the SSD while being in the laptop? Or something that I need to change in the configuration concerning the new architecture? is it OK to do that? In other words, can Linux deal with the change without any issue or misconfiguration? Just trying to see if I can avoid the work of installing Linux from zero and all the software that I already have on the laptop. I'm using Debian Trixie.
Assuming there is full hardware support in the new machine, it'll be fine. You'll want to install the AMD firmware and microcode packages if they don't get auto selected during updates, and make sure if you're using any GPU acceleration to have the proper Mesa packages and extensions installed and enabled for AMD hardware versus Intel as it's currently probably configured.
Linux works very differently than Windows. In the majority of cases, assuming the architecture are the same (they are for you), you can just swap the drive and it'll just work. You only need to tell the BIOS to not from the drive. The only considerations would be around graphics, but even then it should come up well enough so you can install packages if needed.
I did swap a drive from an Intel desktop to an AMD desktop. It worked with no issues. Just make sure the kernel is new enough to support the CPU in the new PC before swapping the drive.
With a privacy protecting setup, the mainstream internet is almost unusable. To sign up for social media or even a gmail account, one has to provide a phone number for verification. Youtube doesn't work when not signed into a Google account, or if one is connected to a VPN. Even downloader programs like yt-dlp and freyr have been rendered useless by the strict access controls of the major platforms. There is a vast amount of community, DIY, and educational material of all sorts behind these platform walls, so how can someone who doesn't want to be tracked access any of it these days?
There are alternatives like archive.org and peertube which are wonderful but have nowhere near the amount of content that people have been uploading to YouTube over the years. For example, if I need to fix a washing machine and there is a tutorial on YouTube, how can I see it while still preserving a modicum of privacy online?
Have you tried DuckDuckGo browser? That’s what I use if I need to view something on YouTube. There’s Enable Duck Player in Settings, mine is set up to open a new window (no ads).
EDIT: No sign up or phone number required. My VPN is always on.
For everything but IG and FB, there's a mess of alternative front ends. For YT, there's a dozen ways to log in with an alt front end app. Freetube, Grayjay, all the pipe pipe pipe apps. Then Invidious routing traffic.
It sounds like you're over-doing something like JS blocking. You have to find a balance.
Maybe ask in a privacy community and get specific on needs and your threat model.
Does FreeTube work for you? It gives me "Sign in to confirm you're not a bot" for every single video. It might work without VPN but I'm not interested enough to try.
It sounds like you’re over-doing something like JS blocking. You have to find a balance.
Wisely put and I suspect you're right, but if it's really just about using a VPN I feel like, "Well why do you want to know my IP address so bad?". I did do the JS blocking trick for a totally unusable web experience but now I allow JS and it's just a widely unusable web experience ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Edit: doesn't lemmy.world block people from posting through a VPN?
Yeah, FreeTube works fine for me, just not all VPN locations. Though the Invidious API never seems to work unless I'm using Invidious frontends on a browser. Just cycle your VPN locations until you find one that works. That's the benefit of a VPN. They can't block all the IPs.
But that shouldn't be affected limiting JS on a browser. JS blocking isn't a trick, it's a tool used for the right occasion. It's not for everything all the time. Even Tor allows JS.
Some sites also use canvas blocking as a metric to determine if you're a bot or not. Bit that wouldn't affect Freetube. Freetube is its own app, so I would check to see what it has under the API settings. It should fall back to the "local API" which is just your internet connection. The Invidious APIs rarely work for me anymore.
Pacman sucks ass and this is a hill I will die on. Sure, it's fast, but there's such a thing as too fast. Like when I was updating the system once and it decided to delete bash to replace it, but it couldn't replace it because bash was gone already and my shell died since that's what I was logging in with. Oops! System is completely unusable now, got to reinstall arch again, because pacman pulls stunts like this.
This type of shit happens if you intentionally mess up your own system (or use Manjaro). pacman requires extra confirmation (instructions only found in its man page) before even allowing you to delete bash (base requires it). bash has also never been replaced, and even if you deleted it, it would still be loaded in RAM. Even still, if you deleted it and immediately rebooted, it would be a quick fix for anyone familiar with the distribution they're using, and would not require reinstalling the whole thing.
nix flake update
nix flake check --no-build
git commit -a
nh os switch
Is the routine I've settled into. Flake update because I use flakes, flake check because it's easier to see any warnings about deprecated options and the like so I can fix them preemptively, git commit after the check to avoid back-to back commits where the second is fixing some issue with the first, and nh because I like the pretty dependency graph and progress bar.
--changed-use, -U: * Tells emerge to include installed packages where USE flags have changed since installation. This option also implies the --selective option. Unlike --newuse, the --changed-use option does not trigger reinstallation when flags that the user has not enabled are added or removed.
--getbinpkg [ y | n ], -g: * Using the server and location defined in PORTAGE_BINHOST (see make.conf(5)), portage will download the information from each binary package found and it will use that information to help build the dependency list. This option implies -k. (Use -gK for binary-only merging.)
I use informant which in theory fixed this but even then there is an issue on it about some things happening earlier in pacman than the transaction hook it uses so... Bleh. This shit needs to be built into pacman itself, seriously.
This is a recent example of a problem that required manual intervention or the system would not boot after updates. This happens every now and then on arch, it's why you should check arch news before updating.
Also: apt-get is intended as low-level APT interface for scripts, just use apt instead. I get why people are confused nowadays, because APT documentation is terrible.
Yep. I'm on Debian for many years now. Every broken update I can recall was either caused by an undocumented PPA or nvidia drivers (which have finally been fixed, for my card at least)
I don't see much of a difference between the two. That's why now I'm uninstalling everything I use everyday and put them back as "portable" variants - downloaded as tarballs from their sites, github, or downloaded from Arch's archive. Already did that with Telegram, Pinta and the browser, soon Audacious will meet the same fate cuz for some reason it uses GTK2, not GTK3 as it should. Plus, having them as tarballs means I can have better versions than those in mint's repo.
Too bad that pacman can't be used on Mint, that would be awesome!
Starting next year, Google will begin to verify the identities of developers distributing their apps on Android devices, not just those who distribute via the Play Store.
Google will require developer verification for Android apps outside the Play Store
Starting next year, Google will begin to verify the identities of developers distributing their apps on Android devices, not just those who distribute via the Play Store.
While I won't tell people exactly what to search, I can guarantee that I can find malware first try on Google Play. Google Play Integrity is just as dodgy.
When a preventative measure very obviously won't solve the stated problem, that may not be what it's really there to solve. This is another of Google's anti-open-source moves designed to bring all Android devices entirely under their control and surveillance. It goes along with their bringinh all Android development in house and making it harder for third parties to make their own custom versions of Android (Graphene OS etc.). It also seems a little odd that this happens right when several countries are introducing requirements that users supply ID to visit websites.
If it helps, my comment was more riffing off of noodlejetski's phrasing than what you'd originally said. "pulling things straight outta your ass" felt like some off-brand magician so I wanted to make a joke about that.
I swear I just saw something the other day that said it was unauthorized outside the region. I remember thinking it was strange. I swear I remember seeing it.
We currently sell in European Union, UK, Norway and Switzerland. Please be welcome to use our products anywhere in the world, however due to our limited resources we can only support the noted regions.
For fucks sake, let's find out what Fairphone needs in the US to be used with other services and create a gofundme for them to get it. Goddamn I am beyond sick of Google's shit right now. It is constantly a nightmare to get around their bloatware and deal with the rest of the surveillance nightmare on a daily basis. Fairphone works on T Mobile but they suck!
My personal favorite is how they are doing it to prevent data theft and malware. All they have ever done is trick people out of data. All of their shitty apps that I can not remove from my Samsung phone ARE the malware I do not want. Fuck Google and every person that works there!
fuck google and all, but yes they will. what other mainstream phone is any better? apple? give me a fucking break.
android without gapps will be a niche for the foreseeable future, and niches get ever easier to kill. with the play integrity thing and banking apps, i don't see linux phones getting real traction either as much as i'd like it to.
Yeah the real problem is somewhere else this just symptomatic of the capitalist mode of production and classes society. But no one want to talk about it! So we are getting fuck in the ass by those who possess the means of production and the product of our labour, understood? Alienation big time. The brave new world.
Fairphone 6 looks quite interesting and has a Google-free option. People are saying it's a bit buggy but they're fixing the bugs rapidly. And two-day battery life sounds pretty good.
I mean, some of us did when GrapheneOS and folks started to bootlick goolag for their walled garden in pro of security as well as the economical breach they did not cover (Pixels are not available to everynyan) and even incentivated.
It is unlikely that there will be a real resistance, the majority will resign themselves like submissive cattle and only a few will try to fight to the end, I have already seen this in history.
Is sad that PinePhone are inaccesible in a lot of places. They dont send where I live because they use DHL (shitty service which charges 34 euros to send from the capital city to where I live because is "remote area" despite is the city in the airport and is nearer than the capital city) and the pricing was 1.5 times the price of the product so they cancelled the option (as well as they dont know the different custom that may exist in special zones in the same country).
The provided (Pine64) could just use a different shipping company for those cases, such as Seur which is more reilable and fair than DHL. Yet they hold themselves in that.
And, just like that, no more modded apps, no more custom stores, everything is tightly under control unless you install a custom ROM (and then it's no more banking apps,etc.). And it's all for our own good, after all, big brother Google knows what's best for us!
My (major Canadian) Bank app (TD) has always just worked, no matter the state of my bootloader or root, and I've never bothered with Magisk Hide or anything like that to try to dodge root checks.
Requirement of authentication apps is making it trickier too. If you want to go to a concert or sporting event vended by ticketmaster, you're fucked outside of Android and iOS.
Clocking into jobs increasingly requires Android or iOS.
yeah, I had to resurrect an old phone to go to a concert last week. It's possible I'll never go to one again. I wouldn't have bought the tickets had I known about that bullshit.
Yes, there used to be papers for "coordinate systems" you could use as 2FA, and SMS one-time-passwords.. but they are slowly being rolled out in the EU due to security concerns and the "Strong Customer Authentication (SCA)" standards mandated by PSD2. EU banks are transitioning to app-based and biometric authentication now... here you literally need a phone if you want any form of online banking.
those are just android with some modification. two years from now google can easily disrupt them too.
phones need a copyleft new OS. not a foss one, an actual copyleft one. with an independent group managing it.
an OS that a company can decide what app I can run on it is just a surveillance apparatus gadget.
google never wanted user to have control of their phone even 10 years ago.
the easiest way to check this is to see if you can stop an installed app to ever do stuff without you explicitly opening it. they are so many "triggers" that apps can register and run based on them that user cant do anything about them. "wifi connected" "wifi disconnected" and so on.
if an app can "listen" to these triggers and I cant disable it from listening to them (even for non-system apps) them I don't really own my phone. then android is just a attention stealing spam machine at best and spying and terror gadget for world's supremacist regimes too.
I think even apple iOS has that option (disabling backgournd refresh per app ) and in that regard is better than android. If I wasn't against non-foss software and I didn't live in Iran, at this point apple iOS is not that different fro google and is more polished too.
Wish we lived in a world where open source was funded even at a single percentage of what this oligopoly pulls in each year. We'd have a viable alternative to the duopoly by now.
I think you didn't get the subtility of my irony. That wasn't an interogative phrase but and exclamative one accompanied with an adjectives: World. I should have said welcome to the brave new world social credit score coming soon.
I made fun of the Liberux Nexx before due to its outdated cpu being promoted as new but this is making me change my mind. Speed isn't worth the walled garden. I have concerns about the battery life but all it takes to remedy that is a powerbank. Banking apps might be a problem but if I find their websites wanting I can just use them on an old cheap android.
It is disappointing that the Liberux Nexx missed its fundraising goal and had to open a new one. And the new one is only 10% of the way there, with no prototype and delivery on next summer. That's cutting it very close with the timeline of these restrictions. indiegogo.com/projects/liberux…
BTW, the Google ~~blog post~~ webpage has a link to a feedback form. Doubt it will do anything, but if you want an abyss to yell that's good as any: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAI…
It seems Google has been tightening control over Android in recent years and this looks like the next major step. Most people probably won’t care and the only realistic option for users who value software freedom and privacy is to wait until Linux or another free and open-source OS becomes a viable alternative. Overall a disappointing turn of events for the mobile computing space
ECOSYSTEMKEY FEATURESGET /E/OSNEED HELP /e/OS is a complete, fully “deGoogled”, mobile ecosystem /e/OS is an open-source mobile operating system paired with carefully selected applications.
Well, it's not a cheap phone, but it's a phone for the rest of your life, it's full modular, that means, you can fix and change everything by yourself any component of the phone, no need to pay money to an technic workshop. Apart it offers also sys specs which fits the price.
Well, even if you can't afford the price for an FairPhone, you can use /e/OS or also LinageOS in your Phone instead of Android, they are free and full based on the Android code, so all your apps will work in these without problems, but without Google breathing in your neck, dictating which app you can use and which not. You can also use some Linux distros made for Mobile, like Ubuntu Mobile and others, but these are not so compatible with Android apps, despite that Android is also an modified Linux, so it's better to use the mencioned de-googled forks.
I use LineageOS4microG but as far as I can read, this will apply to Android itself and I am yet to see if LineageOS devs will avoid implementing the measure or what.
They're closing in on alternative ROMs with their fucking shitty device integrity checks, I'm afraid it's only getting worse. I literally had to switch back to stock Android because none of the e-government apps of the country I live in NOR two out of my three banks work on /e/. Literally impossible to participate in society unless I sell my soul to Google, sadly.
I really hope we're able to fight back and win the war.
If they really wanted to make sure the data on the phone is safe, the integrity checks should be about making sure the phone is built from FOSS with available source code, that can be publicly audited and even the banks themselves could check it for security.. which should actually rule Google services out, not the other way around!
I'm starting to feel like the Mobile Computing space died somewhere around when the Subnotebooks and the PDAs died and we've been living illusions ever since. It's the Mobile Appliance™ space now.
What would you get instead? I think if Google actually follows through with this, I'll switch to LineageOS, which is still Android. Obviously, iOS is much worse on this front.
There's no alternative that won't have major limitations. I predict it'll just be more like going back to the days of jailbreaking to install unsigned apps. Unfortunately AOSP is already pretty much unusable without Google services installed for the vast majority of apps.
Aside from Signal messenger, I feel like I could go back to having a casio watch, some sort of GPS in my vehicle, and a dumb phone. My phone is ancient and hasn't gotten a security update in years, I was thinking of going Graphene next but maybe the solution is to just dump it and go full 1990s again.
Use this form to submit questions or feedback about the new Android developer verification requirements announced in August 2025.
You can learn more about the requirements in the Android developer verification guide. Sign up for early access here.
If you have the stock OS from the manufacturer, it will affect you. If you flash a custom ROM, it won't.
Edit: You can still use F-Droid regardless of which android you're running, but if you run stock you can only install the apps that have developers registered with google.
I'm probably going to spam this around a bit, since most people don't seem to know about it, but a reminder that FuriLabs has a (GNU+)Linux phone with decent spec.s and the ability to run Android app.s (from what I've heard) pretty decently: furilabs.com/
Biggest drawback is it's based on Halium. Usual growing pains of a new product/company apply but apparently the company is pretty responsive and their dev.s have worked with customers to get things like calling working with the carrier and bands of their country where it hasn't worked before so improvements move pretty quickly.
I don't own one, myself, so I can't give any personal experience but I've seen it around for a few years now but most people don't seem to even know about it. Maybe there's a reason for that? But none I've ever seen anyone say.
Is this just a signature check when installing? Could it be bypassed by getting your dev cert and just signing everything you want to install? Things like obtainium and fdroid could even have a "load your own cert" option and automate this.
OpenAI, Perplexity AI and Yahoo have expressed interest in buying Chrome, as Google's legal battle escalates. Here's what it could mean for the future of the web.
What would happen if you disabled all connections on a Tesla? Or put it in some kind of Faraday cage? Would it just shut itself down, or would it keep running in its current state?
The problem is that I feel android being sold would give it to a closed source entity. Ideally, a judge would make it so AOSP goes to a nonprofit governing body independent of any corporation, but I have a strong feeling that is not what will happen (in the US).
Yeah, MS would probably buy Android to get back into the mobile market.
I agree. Ideally, Android would be something like Debian or a mobile project of the Linux Foundation. It would really be better off if it wasn’t beholden to a company.
The mobile OS wars have already settled on Android and iOS. Closing off Android would destroy the market, and I don’t want to go back to the days when Windows Mobile was the leading mobile OS.
Odds are low of anything good happening because of this administration.
Android would be unprofitable and unsustainable in isolation. So that would leave each OEM to build their own thing, but to make a long story short, everybody would just get an iPhone. So then I wonder, if making such a ruling would create the void for a monopoly, what's the sense?
My interpretation of what the proponents of separating Android from Google are arguing is that it's exactly Google Play, Gmail, Google Maps and the other parts of GMS that must be uncoupled.
Android is already largely open source. Yet it takes a massive investment from Google to continue developing it and curate the app store with it.
I'm genuinely struggling to envision how we move from the current situation to a somehow better but more fragmented ecosystem that doesn't negatively affect consumer experiences. Whichever way I've approached it, it plays in the favor of one company in particular who already has a leading market share in the US, and I truly don't see how that would be better.
Sadly the failure is a governmental one. Not on any of us.
We have monopoly laws. Mechanisms to break them up. But they generally aren't enforced. It happens occasionally but almost never on the size of company that it was made to be used on.
It could be profitable the way RHEL or the Mozilla Foundation is profitable.
Companies will pay for OS support, and companies will pay for access. Android as a foundation with a company selling OS support and services which could be rebranded would be profitable.
I’m thinking about the wider IoT space here beyond only mobile.
The primary ways in which the Mozilla Foundation earns money is through search partnerships, donations and grants. Guess who is the major contributor.
As for Red Hat, this comes down to subscriptions or enterprise offerings, neither which really apply to a consumer OS unless you're willing to pay a subscription fee out of pocket. I doubt there will be much to be earned from offering consulting or training, either, unless they make Android exceedingly confusing to use.
The only companies that would pay for Android are OEMs who are already making thin margins, and effectively it'd drive the price of non-iPhones up. The alternative is that OEMs take the Huawei option and fork AAOS and develop it at their own expense.
The primary ways in which the Mozilla Foundation earns money is through search partnerships, donations and grants.
Yes. It’s the same thing with the Linux kernel and other large FOSS projects. There isn’t a perfect fit for Android, but it would be better than the way ASOP is run now.
As for Red Hat, this comes down to subscriptions or enterprise offerings, neither which really apply to a consumer OS unless you're willing to pay a subscription fee out of pocket.
Consumer devices ship with proprietary software which is licensed all the time. It could be a library or an entire OS. Consumers are not the target market, like consumers aren’t the target market for RHEL.
The prime example is Windows. It’s licensed to Dell or whomever and ships with the hardware. The license is baked in.
Some people might be willing to pay if the price is reasonable enough. Android has support for major vendors, so using it as a base would be a boon to people doing things like media boxes and signage.
I doubt there will be much to be earned from offering consulting or training, either, unless they make Android exceedingly confusing to use.
It’s the opposite. Make it easy to use. Companies pay for tools which reduces developer time.
The only companies that would pay for Android are OEMs who are already making thin margins, and effectively it'd drive the price of non-iPhones up.
The smaller OEMs would pay for licenses, PS hours, and backend services. They don’t have the expertise or budget.
Samsung? They’re going to keep doing what they’re doing because they have the expertise and budget to fork from upstream. It’s possible they would rally around Android, like companies have rallied around the Linux kernel.
OEMs do this with Linux already, so it would bring Android more inline with the norms.
It's funny you should mention this, because Google has needed to adapt this for mobile and are already open source. If the opportunity existed for a "free" and open source version of Android to be embraced by consumers, there are many such options today, like GrapheneOS (or even forking AOSP, for that matter).
My concern is that if the major contributor to that steps out, the volunteer community will need to substantially step up.
Consumer devices ship with proprietary software which is licensed all the time
The reason I called out your example of Red Hat is to illustrate how enterprise is financing a free consumer experience.
With a very limited enterprise market, it's not realistic to expect this to apply to an almost exclusively consumer product.
So there are two options. Either we don't have an open source Android and in addition to the license cost of GMS, OEMs would have to license the OS itself. The alternative is that OEMs shoulder the development cost of their own fork of AOSP, which would simply be passed on to consumers. Either way, this would drive up the price of devices.
I'm not sure why you're speaking in hypotheticals about what Android could be if it had license fees, as it's readily available in open source under the Apache license today and, despite that, steadily losing market share.
I hate to say it, but unless Chrome becomes an open source project, I'd rather that it be owned by Google. No other company that could make money on a browser should own Chrome.
I don't trust the US government to do literally anything right with this, and I'm kinda surprised Google didn't already gift an underage child to Trump so he'd make the problem go away.
However a perfectly viable option that I'm sure the previous government looked into would be to entrust Chromium (which is Open-Source though not copyleft) to a new, independent nonprofit made of Google's former chromium team led and paid for by a consortium of the major commercial chromium users (Google, Microsoft, etc.). It would be in everyone's best interest to share the relatively small financial burden so that Chromium can remain decent and competitive.
This wouldn't be anything revolutionary. This approach of financing an independent open-source project as a "common good" is basically how the Linux kernel has been developed for many years now, most Linux code is written by corporate sponsors.
Google has said it didn't maintain a monopoly through such agreements and that consumers could change their device defaults to use other search engines.
It's not complete truth. I use librewolf because you can set search engine to custom. In chrome you can only pick from predefined. With this fact Google controls it's competition. You can't compete with monopoly by being invisible because they always watch you.
Going forward you can now only search and browse the web by mail!
Isn't that great?
Some guy in the government.... I got another request for titties. Have we organized the titties files yet? The request is pretty clear... Larger than C cup but smaller than triple D.
outdated news from may 2nd, in fact today a judge ruled that google won’t have to sell chrome or android, and they can keep paying mozilla/apple for being the default search engine
BUT, they will have to share search data publicly, and the default search engine deals can’t be exclusive anymore
While Donald Trump’s attacks on the Fed are deeply authoritarian, the institution itself is far from blameless. From the 2008 crash to the pandemic, its primary aim has been to protect the interests of the wealthy.
As the GOP kills incentives, Rewiring America is offering free online tools and weekly calls to get more clean energy and efficient appliances into homes.
Found this player in a closet and decided to test it. As some buttons weren't working, tried opening it, and then taking a photo of the model to ask a technician. It came out surprisingly aesthetic, me thinks.
Many of us are currently on summer vacation, but there are a few important additions this last month:
Thanks to monumental efforts by @matc-pub and @sleeplessone1917, lemmy-ui is now updated to work with the new lemmy 1.0 API, and all that's needed is to support the new features, and work out a few more bugs. Special thanks to both of them for their work.
MV-GH added video support to jerboa, and has been doing a lot of bug-fixes there.
@dullbananas has a PR which optimizes some migrations significantly and reduces DB size, which will likely be merged after some code reviews soon.
We added 1.0 milestones for both lemmy-ui and jerboa, to make sure every new feature gets added to the front ends.
An open source project the size of Lemmy needs constant work to manage the project, implement new features and fix bugs. Dessalines and Nutomic work full-time on these tasks and more. As there is no advertising or tracking, all of our work is funded through donations. Even so there is barely enough time in the day, and no time for a second job. The only available option are user donations. To keep it viable donations need to reach a minimum of 5000€ per month, resulting in a modest salary of 2500€ per developer. If that goal is reached we can stop worrying about money, and fully focus on improving the software for the benefit of all users and instances. We especially rely on recurring donations to secure the long-term development and make Lemmy the best it can be.
This compiles, lints and mostly works.
There is an issue with inferno triggering clicks twice. This is noticeable where
buttons toggle state, e.g. the markdown preview will show and then hide the
p...
We could def use the help. There's probably a good amount of issues outside of help wanted, that wouldn't be too difficult. Feel free to comment in any of them and we could help you get started.
I have setup a small recuring donation. Remember everyone if your not sure about donating, donating a very small amount is infinitely times more valuable than not donating at all.
cause they're fine to push the 'lesser evil' when it means getting their preferred evil in. when it comes to opposing communism then it's suddenly purity testing is fine
mcv
in reply to bubblybubbles • • •Russian state media. Not a credible source for anything (see also the other articles for some glaring examples of misinformation).
Although if Ukraine has less PoWs to exchange, part of the reason might be that Russia would rather see their soldiers die than surrender. They actively shoot their own soldiers.
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bubblybubbles
in reply to mcv • • •☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆ likes this.
mcv
in reply to bubblybubbles • • •☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆ doesn't like this.
Cowbee [he/they]
in reply to mcv • • •☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆ likes this.
mcv
in reply to Cowbee [he/they] • • •☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆ doesn't like this.
Cowbee [he/they]
in reply to mcv • • •☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆ likes this.
mcv
in reply to Cowbee [he/they] • • •Bullshit. Sure, in the US everything is corporate owned and controlled. But in Europe, there are media reporting every side of every story. My primary newspaper (NRC, a major Dutch newspaper) has no problem going against the grain when the situation calls for it. But even in the US with its highly partisan media, there are news outlets for every political leaning, and many do not blindly parrot the government narrative like Russian media does.
Whatever misgivings you have about western media (and some are definitely justified), it's really no comparison to Russia, where a wrong word can have you falling out of a window. Putin brutally silences dissent in a way even Trump can only dream of.
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Cowbee [he/they]
in reply to mcv • • •☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆ likes this.
mcv
in reply to Cowbee [he/they] • • •Dutch media is far less partisan than US media, which in turn is still far less state-controlled than Russian media. You're fooling yourself if you want to pretend these are all the same.
Furthermore, SocDem is not right-wing by even the farthest stretch of the imagination. It's moderate left. If you want further left than that, there's still small indie media for you. If you consider every voice out there to be compromised and right-wing, maybe the problem is you.
davel
in reply to mcv • • •Eh… DemSoc is left wing while SocDem is basically welfare capitalism these days.
Capitalism with welfare policies
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mcv
in reply to davel • • •Read your own link, man. It calls Democratic Socialism a wing of Social Democracy. Also, why do you not also share the article about Social Democracy itself?
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social…
Now, you would be correct if you merely argued that many Labour movements dipped to moderate right with their embrace of neoliberalism in the 1990s, but outside of that, they've been moderate left. But SocDem has always been considered various degrees of left. Sometimes not even moderately so.
political ideology
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Cowbee [he/they]
in reply to mcv • • •mcv
in reply to Cowbee [he/they] • • •Mixed economy is the word for it.
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixed_…
economic system combining public and private production
Contributors to Wikimedia projects (Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.)Cowbee [he/they]
in reply to mcv • • •like this
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LemmeAtEm
in reply to mcv • • •"Social Democracy objectively represents the moderate wing of Fascism." - J. V. Stalin
marxistleninist.wordpress.com/…
Bourgeois Democracy and Fascism
The Marxist-LeninistCowbee [he/they]
in reply to mcv • • •mcv
in reply to Cowbee [he/they] • • •They exist, though. They're worth listening to. Critically, of course, as with all media.
Yet they are also socialists. By definition. They're trying to find a balance, and have at times been quite successful.
Seriously, read up on the history of socialism. There's a lot more to it than you probably think.
BrainInABox
in reply to mcv • • •Cowbee [he/they]
in reply to mcv • • •like this
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folaht
in reply to mcv • • •NRC is not Partisan? LOL.
Dutch media copies US media to the tee.
The difference is that it only follows US democrat media,
until far-right movements popped up and one of them
created a 'US republican outlet' show.
There's currently a wave of articles in the NRC going on about feminism,
for the millionth time, about violence against women,
because one teenage girl had been killed.
Meanwhile, in Palestine we have hundreds of thousands of women and children dying of a genocide
and it's being completedly ignored.
And that's deliberate to pull wool over your eyes from the genocide our country is complicit in.
If NRC condemned Israel like it does Russia, we'd have articles like these:
"Name of person is resisting Israel for its human rights violations"
"Israel keeps repeating it's imperialistic tricks"
"Netanyahu's borders doesn't stop at NATO's borders"
"The Liberal Party manoeuvres into the heart of a pro-Israeli network"
etcetera, etcetera, etcetera
And if NRC would be writing about Russia if it were Israel we'd have articles like these:
"Greater-Russia has deep historical roots"
"Russian parlement votes against the establishment of a Ukrainian state"
"Why did Russia attack Ukraine and twelve other question."
"The Netherlands wants Russia to deliver proof that the murdered journalists were Azov nazis"
"Russia air strikes Lithuanian military targets"
"Putin’s long cherished air strike attack on Poland is also a welcoming diversion"
"UK, France and Canada warn Russia that they will take concrete measures if Russia continues this war"
And the problem here is that Russia actually has a legitimate reason for their invasion where Israel does not.
When Ukraine got independent, pieces of Russia that the Soviet Union gave to Ukraine for administrative purposes came with it. It was accepted as Ukraine was thought to be a "sister nation" like Belgium to the Netherlands. Today Ukraine can no longer be trusted to safeguard its Russian population as it tries to join NATO and NATO is anti-Russia. Ukraine has been actively been suppressing its Russian population,
including but not limited to machine gunning civilians trying to enter voting booths for the demand of independence from Ukraine.
Russia's response to that was demilitarization of Ukraine,
targeting military only, with a record low amount of civilians killed per soldier.
That's very different from Netanyahu's "Greater Israel" plan that tries to simply conquer 9 nations, most of them tacit allies, with zero historical roots to them, apart from parts of Palestine, but that already pales in comparison to the area south of Beersheba Israel already occupies that never were historically Israeli.
Hamas did a desperate attack on Israel as Netanyahu publicly displayed part of his Greater Israel plan at the UN.
Israel's response to that is genocing, targeting civilians first and foremost.
Women, children and hospitals first.
mcv
in reply to folaht • • •If you know about the articles in NRC, you also know that they have many articles about Gaza, and yet you choose to lie about that. Why would you even think you can lie about that when I also have access to those articles?
nrc.nl/nieuws/2025/08/23/wanho…
nrc.nl/nieuws/2025/08/21/na-de…
nrc.nl/nieuws/2025/08/21/massa…
nrc.nl/nieuws/2025/07/29/europ…
nrc.nl/nieuws/2025/08/13/worde…
Na de daverende klap van de raket opent Israël het offensief in Gaza-Stad
Stephan Pronk (NRC)folaht
in reply to mcv • • •Because you can do both.
You can ignore and highlight aspects of a story.
Case in point is Donald Trump, the Epstein files and lots of distractions to ignore that, while
still having highlighted a few aspects of it in the past and present.
Just like the NRC highlighting some aspects of Israel's genocide against Palestine,
Donald Trump both can highlight some aspects of the Epstein files multiple times
and still put key story aspects, like the fact that he's in it, on ignore by using distractions.
Stories of releasing Martin Luther King files, threatening Venezuela, Mexico
and invoking national emergencies in cities with mayors or governers not totally aligned with his
political viewpoints, sending the military there to detain and deport innocent civilians, are distractions
to ignore his pedophile crimes.
Or would you say "Why do people keep talking about the Epstein files?"
is enough for a pedophile to get away with his crime and isn't trying to make you ignore it,
just because he mentioned the crime a couple of times?
Because I personally think he's burying one crime with another, dangling shiny keys in front of people in order to hope they'll forget about their heinous crimes and it seems to be working.
And NRC is no different.
Like, I don't know about you, but having a pedophile sex offender as your top ally,
should maybe raise some concern about what the Netherlands is allied with,
a pedophile fascist crime lord that takes orders from a genocidal regime,
but it doesn't seem to register with NRC now does it?
I guess since NRC collaborated with Adolf Hitler before, that this stuff only comes natural to them.
I guess their pro-fascism angle hasn't really gone away at all.
When NRC actually writes about the genocides done by Israel, it makes it look like Israel is having a picnic with Palestine.
But there's fully no going around the genocide when Israel is blasting their crimes for the world to hear and see
and so pro-Israeli-fascism newspapers like NRC will try anything to distract the public from its heinous crimes
and that includes pointing towards any domestic murdered woman or girl and calling that femicide
when it's absolutely clear that Isreal is currently conducting femicide as part of its genocide
as it deliberately targets civilians before it targets the Palestinian military.
So no, I'm not lying. NRC is publishing stories to ignore the Palestinian genocide.
I tell the truth because none of those articles you mention comes even close to acknowdleging that a genocide is taken place there, making NRC is complicit in it, because it is complicit in the genocide.
And those articles you posted proves it even further as constantly filters down Netanyahul's heinous crimes
in order to normalize them.
The "feminist one-murder equals femicide" IS a giant and insulting distraction from a genocide that's happening right now.
A GENOCIDE!!!!!
We're not talking about kittens being ignored here,
but hundreds of thousands of human lives being slaughtered like Jews slaughtered by Nazis.
Just to illustrate two common denominators of the articles you posted:
1) None of the articles mention the state of Palestine. They only mention Gaza. Have you noticed that? I have. You'd notice it too if Ukraine would be constantly mentioned as "the Ukraine" in any of the Dutch newspapers.
2) None of these articles even mention Benjamin Netanyahu. Have you noticed that? I have. You'd notice it too if Benjamin Netanyahu would be constantly be referred to as dictator. And no, being elected doesn't count. You can't go "Netanyahu was democratically elected, therefore he's not a dictator" and then turn around and take exception on every other elected leader by a majority of people bombarded as dictator by NRC, e.g. Putin, Maduro, Xi.
Now let's go through the articles you posted individually:
This is just soft pretense of resistance,
when in fact NRC silently endorses the genocide of the Palestinians.
The NRC refuses to give the rounding up of protesters by UK police as:
"UK cracks down peaceful protesters calling for an end to the worst genocide in human history since the holocaust"
Because that would be truthful instead of blaming the protesters for siding against genocide.
They say destruction where they should be saying massacre.
That would be truthful,
but NRC always likes to use soft language to soothe you.
NRC does this deliberately because
NRC is complicit in this genocide.
NRC uses soft language again.
Always does, always will,
because it is complicit in this genocide.
Do you think they would ever write this way when it comes to Russia?
This completely ignoring that Israel is commiting a genocide there.
Why would the EU have patience with a genocide and why does it not seem to bother NRC?
Meanwhile the EU has over a dozen sanctions on Russia and is running out of things to sanction with.
And Russia isn't commiting a genocide or going for "Greater Russia" world conquest.
It is just defending the violent suppression of its own people
that have been locked out of Russia's borders during a collapse.
This type of language NRC uses makes it seem that they want their readers
to convince them that Palestinians should be seen as bargaining chips
and not human beings.
Or else, they would maybe, I don't know, get mad at the people
who told them so and write a little bit different about these diplomatic suggestions.
You keep pretending that the NRC is somehow neutral in this conflict.
It isn't. It supports the Israeli genocide and will keep supporting it in any way possible.
This can and will include distractions because otherwise they'd actually have to write about the truth again.
But I guess you want to keep a blind eye to this and pretend that the NRC is non-partisan,
just like it was "non-partisan" during world war II.
The new extreme right that the NRC is wholly supporting
is now ironically supporting Israelis to commit multiple genocides,
as they've already made clear that they won't stop at Palestine. ___
Dessalines
in reply to mcv • • •The netherlands are absolutely not exempt from this phenomenon. It affects every country where capital stands above political power and the media, including yours.
swprs.org/the-propaganda-multi…
The Propaganda Multiplier
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mcv
in reply to Dessalines • • •don't like this
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BrainInABox
in reply to mcv • • •Please tell me this is a bit
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BrainInABox
in reply to mcv • • •Israel has murdered more journalists than Putin could dream of, with full support of Europe.
mcv
in reply to BrainInABox • • •And the media report it. That is my point.
Western governments are (too) slowly changing their stance on Israel and Gaza because western media keep reporting about it.
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BrainInABox
in reply to mcv • • •Pretty fucked to say that murdering journalists isn't "brutally silencing dissent" just because other sources report on it, sometime. Do you apply the same standard to Russia?
Besides, the western media have done everything they can to downplay it without losing credibility entirely.
Bullshit
mcv
in reply to BrainInABox • • •Yeah. Is that something you wanted to deny? Or are you desperately trying to put words in my mouth when I said the exact opposite?
Then you're reading the wrong media. I've been reading about these atrocities constantly.
It's happening. Dutch government just fell apart over this (and the Dutch government has been pretty awful in their blind support of Israel so far).
You need to come out of your bubble and inform yourself.
BrainInABox
in reply to mcv • • •No, I was just pointing out that it's fucked up that you denied that Israel and the West killing far more journalists than Russia is “brutally silencing dissent”
Really? What have you been reading that has accurately been describing Israel, and the West's, planned extermination of the population of Gaza, including the deliberate killing of journalists, and has been doing it consistently over the last two years?
Really? So Denmark is a governmentless failed state now?
Have you considered that maybe you should come out of your bubble and inform yourself? Do you really think that I, as a westerner, am not exposed to Western Media all the time?
BrainInABox
in reply to mcv • • •☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆ likes this.
mcv
in reply to BrainInABox • • •BrainInABox
in reply to mcv • • •I'm talking about here lemmy.ml/post/35157502/2067587…
So yes, I do know what I'm talking about, and I suspect you know to, and are just pretending not to because you can't actually defend yourself on this.
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mcv
in reply to BrainInABox • • •don't like this
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BrainInABox
in reply to mcv • • •like this
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m532
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BrainInABox
in reply to mcv • • •☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆ likes this.
mcv
in reply to BrainInABox • • •They've got a strict separation between ownership and editors, though. They regularly go against the grain and report deeper than merely repeating the convenient narrative.
Sure, capitalism and independent media don't go together well, but state control and i dependent media are an even worse combination, and on the scale of what's possible, NRC is doing quite well. Certainly much better than Tass.
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BrainInABox
in reply to mcv • • •No they don't. Ultimately ownership chooses who works there.
How did you determine this?
Pure vibes based statement.
How did you determine the this? Because it tells you narratives that agree with your world view?
mcv
in reply to BrainInABox • • •I read and compare. When Maccabi supporters were picking fights with Arab taxi drivers in Amsterdam, they didn't blindly repeat the government story about pogroms but told what really happened, a story that eventually won out. They've never shied away from stories inconvenient to any government or corporate interest, as long as it's based in facts.
They're highly regarded for their objectivity.
If you want to attack them, you've got to come up with more than vibes.
And the fact that you're baselessly attacking them while defending Tass, is outright ridiculous.
BrainInABox
in reply to mcv • • •How did you determine what "really happened"?
How did you determine that? You don't know what stories they elect not to run.
By who? People who agree with their bias?
Mate, you're the one who's been making claims based on vibes. I'm not the one just asserting that they're objective and honest without evidence.
Strawman
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mcv
in reply to BrainInABox • • •Finally a productive question. You listen to all the sides. You listen to independent media on the ground. You don't just cling to whatever story happens to fit your worldview, but you consider the different stories and watch what adds up and what doesn't. Who leaves out what details to better fit their narrative and who tells the whole thing.
And sure, that means you've got to do some work. Put in some actual critical thought. And yes, lots of people don't like that just stick to whatever narrative they prefer, or even whatever is fed to them. But looking critically at media is a vital survival skill these days.
Blindly accepting known partisan media on the very topic you know they can't be objective about, is not that.
BrainInABox
in reply to mcv • • •No, I asked how you did it. Because you clearly didn't listen to all sides, and you clearly did just cling to whatever story happens to fit your worldview. You were even at the point of lying to defend your worldview
How do you determine what "the whole thing" is?
Lol, maybe you should try it then.
Then you should stop doing it.
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Infamousblt [any]
in reply to mcv • • •Except sides published by state media in countries you don't like, or media that you personally have determined is false. So no you do not listen to all sides, you listen to all sides that fit your worldview. This isn't complicated for everyone else in this thread but it's apparently quite complicated for you
mcv
in reply to Infamousblt [any] • • •Do you think the state media of a nation committing atrocities is going to tell you the truth about those atrocities? Do you believe Israeli denial of genocide in Gaza?
If you do, you're a naive tool of imperialists.
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Infamousblt [any]
in reply to mcv • • •mcv
in reply to Infamousblt [any] • • •Infamousblt [any]
in reply to mcv • • •mcv
in reply to Infamousblt [any] • • •BrainInABox
in reply to mcv • • •This you?
Infamousblt [any]
in reply to BrainInABox • • •BrainInABox
in reply to mcv • • •Chulk
in reply to mcv • • •You cannot be serious. You know Jeff Bezos owns the Washington Post, right? What do you think is happening here?
The only difference between Russian State media and our media, is that the western ruling class is savvy enough to launder their propaganda through privately owned media.
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mcv
in reply to Chulk • • •It's absolutely terrible that so many American media is owned by billionaires, but that's not all of western media, and it's still not the same as Russian state media.
I still don't get why so many people here are so desperate to defend the state-controlled media of a brutal dictatorship.
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LemmeAtEm
in reply to mcv • • •like this
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mcv
in reply to LemmeAtEm • • •Surely you must recognise how ridiculous that claim is.
Sure, Trump would love for it to be true, and he's certainly trying to, but even in the US, you can still publicly say this, while in Russia, you'd be headed for prison. Putin's political opponents frequently fall out of windows or catch some polonium poisoning.
These things are not the same, and pretending they are, makes you blind to how much worse they can still get. Russia is absolutely more of a brutal dictatorship than even the US, but especially than most European countries.
I'm not denying the toxic influence of money either, but that's still not comparable to the hold Putin has over his country and his media.
BrainInABox
in reply to mcv • • •You seem to endlessly fall back on this, have you noticed? Just raw Appeals to Personal Incredulity.
mcv
in reply to BrainInABox • • •I always start out believing people are capable of critical thought and self awareness, until they prove otherwise. Plenty of that in this discussion, unfortunately.
Should I just accept that you're incapable of critical thought or grasping meaningful nuance?
BrainInABox
in reply to mcv • • •mcv
in reply to BrainInABox • • •BrainInABox
in reply to mcv • • •InternetCitizen2
in reply to mcv • • •BrainInABox
in reply to InternetCitizen2 • • •LemmeAtEm
in reply to mcv • • •Hmm... I wonder what happened to the original leadership of BLM? And hey, what are Fred Hampton and Mark Clark up to these days? Has Gary Webb published any articles recently?
Oh believe me, I am well aware how bad they can get, you're just completely unaware of how bad they've already been. You believe all these lies about how terrible Russia is, looking at it only through the lens that western propagandists have carefully cultivated for you without realizing that every accusation they've levied on their enemies is a confession about what they themselves have been doing all along. You're as intellectually domesticated by US imperialist interests as any diehard Kremlin-supporting Russian citizen, only you have the benefit of being on the side that enjoys global hegemony without even understanding what that word means. You're all up in arms about the lies of the media of an enemy state without having even an ounce of self awareness about the lies of the media you're consuming, the very same media from which you think you've learned how uniquely bad the enemy's media is.
mcv
in reply to LemmeAtEm • • •I don't even live in the US. I live in Europe, and I'm concerned about the freedom and safety of my fellow human beings, and I'm disgusted by how US imperial interests have suddenly decided to embrace Putin and is turning against Europe.
My side is not enjoying global hegemony. I only wish Europe asserted itself against wannabe hegemons like the US and Russia, but political leaders here are too cowardly for that.
I see American media increasingly parroting Putin's viewpoints, because of this American realignment, and that's what you're asking me to blindly accept? No, fuck that. You talk a lot about others being controlled by propaganda, but I don't see an ounce of self awareness in you.
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m532
in reply to mcv • • •like this
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mcv
in reply to m532 • • •That's certainly what they want you to accept. What Putin wants you to believe. But this is clearly a case where US and European interests diverge. Trump wants to play nice with Putin while waging his economic war on Europe and the rest of the world, while Europe is trying to stop or slow Russian aggression. And degrading itself trying to keep Trump onboard.
It's a mess, but defending against aggression is still better than surrendering to it. Europe needs to learn to stand on its own feet.
Aria
in reply to mcv • • •The USA empire doesn't work by having individual governments enter secret conspiracies to obey the USA in favour of their own interests. The USA government and military are just stewards of the empire, the empire doesn't exist to benefit them.
Ultimately the majority of oligarchs whom the USA empire exists to serve are born in Europe, or they come from European dynasties that happen to live in the USA. It's simply a system of systemically and organically empowering those who benefit capital.
The EU, which has incredible sway over the politics of EEA nations, is explicitly an organisation that exists to create oligarchs out of capitalists. And who are the European capitalists? Are they staunch nationalists? No of course not, they're globalists with huge amounts of wealth tied up in USA stock exchanges. That means that with only one level of separation, the EU's explicit mission becomes an implicit mission to strengthen the USA empire's power over EEA nations.
I would recommend this video to you on the topic: youtu.be/J_4srRdIK4k
It's recent and current, made by a person who supports social democracy, that is to say, he's not a socialist or a Marxist. He doesn't use marxist dialectics in his analysis but still comes to the same conclusions. I think you'll find him more agreeable. He presents clearly without making assumptions about prior knowledge, citing all his claims, as much as possible using Western sources.
- YouTube
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burlemarx
in reply to mcv • • •mcv
in reply to burlemarx • • •burlemarx
in reply to mcv • • •You should definitely elect better leaders. If something is consensus in all so called "democracies", is that everyone thinks everyone else need to elect better leaders. The majority of the working people, which comprises the majority of population of most (pseudo-)democratic countries are mostly unsatisfied with their governments. This is occurs repeatedly and consistently in all liberal democracies, with a few exceptions. If there's something all liberal representative democracies look alike is that most people don't feel their interests are being represented by their government.
There's a reason why this happens in all capitalist societies. Note that it's not an individual issue and the reason is not lack of education and stupidity, as people often say, as even well educated individuals do bad voting decisions. This is a social and systemic issue and it's not a coincidence.
I won't tell you why, I want you to think about it. Then tell my why this happens.
Chulk
in reply to mcv • • •Please, go on. I'd love to hear more.
...or just accuse me of something I wasn't doing. You're definitely someone who approaches things in good faith, unlike the Russians.
mcv
in reply to Chulk • • •Read the rest of the discussion. To me, you come across as part of a mob trying to defend Russian state media. And yes, arguing that all of western media, despite its freedom of the press, diversity of ownership and various degrees of editorial independence, is just as bad as Russian state media, is defending it.
I'm not arguing that all of western media is perfect; much of it is corrupt (especially in the US, but that is not all of the west). But not all of it is that bad. And even the corrupt ones frequently disagree with each other. That gives us access to much more diverse reporting than Russian state media provides.
I am aware that making sense of that diversity requires critical thought, which is in increasingly short supply in recent years.
Also note that the link you shared, of Trump flanked by billionaires, comes from western media.
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Chulk
in reply to mcv • • •And I'm saying that's a problem with your reading comprehension; not the content of my argument. Especially because I never defended Russian state media. I too think state media is bad. The difference between you and I is that I'm not fooled by the corporate proxy that is western media.
Again, go on...
And yet you seem to struggle to explain how it's so "diverse." What's diverse about it? Who are the non-corrupt Western sources? Please tell me, since I'm so stupid 😕
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mcv
in reply to Chulk • • •And that's only something you're reading into this. I'm well aware of the problems with western media. Some of them are notorious for their lies, many are corporate controlled, and especially in the US, refuse to even acknowledge anti corporate sentiment (see how US media struggled to make sense of Luigi Mangione, for example), but they're fairly transparent about it, and and sometimes they really are telling the truth.
With some critical thinking, you can actually discern the truth out of that, without having to resort to Russian state media's reports on the disastrous war Russia is waging.
BrainInABox
in reply to mcv • • •This you?
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mathemachristian[he]
in reply to mcv • • •☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆ likes this.
mcv
in reply to mathemachristian[he] • • •There's tons:
bbc.com/news/world-europe-6723…
newsweek.com/video-shows-russi…
dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1…
kyivpost.com/post/18201
united24media.com/latest-news/…
kyivindependent.com/intercepte…
businessinsider.com/russia-ope…
Russia opened fire on own surrendering soldiers with artillery: Ukraine
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BrainInABox
in reply to mcv • • •☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆ likes this.
mcv
in reply to BrainInABox • • •Are you arguing that all video from a warzone is inherently fake?
While it's true that truth is the first casualty in war, and you've got to apply that filter to all news coming from any warzone (also the Russian side; again, see what you're defending), the reports on Russian atrocities, even against their own soldiers, are overwhelming. They're also coming from Russian sources.
But sure, keep your head in the sand. You probably also don't believe reports about IDF atrocities in Gaza, do you?
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BrainInABox
in reply to mcv • • •You know someone has nothing when they're resorting to "are you saying that [obviously false statement that doesn't actually resemble what they said]?"
You say, having only been able to provide sources from the Ukrainian government.
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mcv
in reply to BrainInABox • • •U see you defend imperialists and deny reports of their atrocities. You may call that "nothing", but I don't.
But sure, let's get some nore sources:
foxnews.com/world/russian-war-… (note: originally reported by a Russian source)
nbcnews.com/news/world/russian… (UN reporting on Russian atrocities)
thehill.com/opinion/internatio… (US and many other sources)
metro.co.uk/2023/06/13/russian… (Ukrainian drone, but it's caught on video. Want to argue that didn't happen?)
guardian.pressreader.com/artic…
Here's Wikipedia on barrier troops: en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrie…
Obviously you're unlikely to see Russian media reporting on how they shoot their own soldiers as a matter of policy, and obviously the only parties close to the front lines as Russian and Ukrainian, but there is a variety of sources reporting on this, and Russia has a known history of using barrier troops.
But if you believe only Russian state media is telling the truth, then no amount of facts will convince you.
type of military unit
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BrainInABox
in reply to mcv • • •Once again: Not believing every single piece of anti Russian propaganda, no matter how silly it is, is not the same as being pro-Russian.
This article literally does not contain your claim! You are just LYING THROUGH YOUR TEETH now.
I'm not going to address the rest of them if you're just deliberately posting unrelated articles and lying about their contents, because at that point it's clear you're just being dishonest and trying to waste time!
Russian war hero 'the Executioner' allegedly ordered troops to shoot him in massive payout scheme: report
Bonny Chu (Fox News)like this
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mcv
in reply to BrainInABox • • •Lying? Because a Russian source talks about Russian soldiers shooting Russian soldiers in a different context than barrier troops? You're just cherry picking so you don't have to address the facts.
Do you seriously want to argue that atrocities don't exist unless the party committing them admits they exist? You live in a very pleasant world.
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BrainInABox
in reply to mcv • • •like this
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mcv
in reply to BrainInABox • • •Ah, you see your precious government defrauded. That's what's upsetting you. I'm pointing out the brutality of the Russian war machine, I'm pointing to a lot of different sources about various kinds of violence, but it's the fraud that gets you.
You haven't even addressed any of the other links I shared, because you're not here to learn, but to spread propaganda.
BrainInABox
in reply to mcv • • •iThinkImDumb [any, hy/hym]
in reply to mcv • • •says the debatebro who has refused to learn anything and keeps trying to spread nato propaganda
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mcv
in reply to iThinkImDumb [any, hy/hym] • • •Learn what? Most people here just repeat shallow dogma. Brainless zingers like that, no actual info. Nothing new at least. Bully people into accepting the propaganda. That's not how people learn.
I have learned quite a bit here, though.
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BrainInABox
in reply to mcv • • •like this
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mathemachristian[he]
in reply to mcv • • •Watch: Group of Retreating Ukrainian Soldiers Shot by Barrier Troops
Sputnik Internationalfittedsyllabi
in reply to bubblybubbles • • •Aria
in reply to fittedsyllabi • • •like this
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PolandIsAStateOfMind
in reply to Aria • • •Saryn
in reply to bubblybubbles • • •Wow, what's happening here? We don't like Fox news and Newsmax but Tass is acceptable?
Jesus, Lemmy, get a grip.
BrainInABox
in reply to Saryn • • •like this
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bubblybubbles
in reply to Saryn • • •mcv
in reply to bubblybubbles • • •This guy makes one mistake in his reasoning. He's absolutely right about Trump not offering a real peace deal, but he talks about the conflict as if it's something the US forced on Russia, which is of course not true; it's Russia, and specifically Putin, who chose to start this war and invade Ukraine. He talks about NATO expansion as if that's something the US is pushing, but again, countries want to join NATO because they feel threatened by Russia.
Russia started this war because NATO rejected Ukraine's membership, leaving Ukraine vulnerable. But it wasn't a definitive rejection, leaving Putin to think he had a closing window of opportunity to invade Ukraine, which is why he rushed into this foolish war. Harder guarantees for Ukrainian security would have dissuaded Putin.
EU, meanwhile, never wanted anything like this, and even remained in denial after the invasion started. The EU just wants to trade with Russia and treat it as a normal country, a trading partner. Even after Putin invaded, they kept buying Russian gas for quite some time and some countries really didn't want to stop. Because gas is more important than human lives, to some.
Freezing the conflict is a bad idea; there needs to be a permanent peace, but there can only be a permanent peace if Russia stops invading its neighbours (this wasn't the first time), and Putin made it clear he has no plans to stop. He's frequently talking about Lithuania, Moldova, and more recently Azerbaijan.
It's pretty clear what the problem is here. It's Russian imperialism. Putin's dreams of empire. His unwillingness to accept other nations as equals.
burlemarx
in reply to mcv • • •This is a very naive reading of the Ukraine-Russian conflict. First of all, the conflict actually started in 2014 when Russia reacted by annexing Crimea after president Yanukovych was ousted following the Maidan uprising (which was carried out with EU/US support). Since then, there have been many skirmishes between Ukrainian military and pro-Russian separatist groups in the Donbass region, before Russia escalated the conflict in 2022. You should know that Crimea and Donbass are regions of a Russian ethnical majority, and these people didn't support the Maidan uprising.
Secondly, I am tired of people (especially liberals) which talk about laws, agreements and treaties as having some kind of supernatural power to stop things from happening. It's as if treaties, laws, agreements and commitments were never broken in real life, as if there was a supreme mystical power that bounded every party to commit to them.
Ukraine is not under NATO in all but paper. Its troops were trained by NATO countries, they are being supplied by NATO countries, there are mercenaries (and clandestine troops) from NATO fighting in the frontlines, the intelligence provided to Ukraine is from NATO countries. Not only that but the top NATO members are overseeing all Ukraine political decisions. Ukraine is not in NATO today because NATO countries never wanted to be directly involved in the first place and just wanted that Ukraine and Russia to bleed each other for their benefit.
Today NATO is actually a means to make all members fund the US military industrial complex, and provide other material and human resources to US, Germany, France and UK imperialist adventures. To this day NATO was never used as a defensive alliance, but NATO was always used in offensives against other countries. If Russia was weak like Afghanistan, then I'm sure NATO would have advanced in full force, like they did after the 9/11 attacks.
davel
in reply to mcv • • •The US has been pushing that since the Warsaw Pact dissolved, and was planning for it long before. Weaponizing Europe, Countering Eurasia: Mackinder, Brzezinski, Nuland and the Road to the Ukraine War
Next you’re going to tell us that NATO is a defensive alliance.
Previously:
davel
2025-07-24 16:27:53