I agree, I’m saying you need to have a certain acumen to recognize the opportunity for a grift and then keep the plates spinning for a decade.

Intelligence is multidimensional. Musk is obviously great at business, the kind where you stretch the limits of what is allowed to grow your empire, and (I agree) he knows what he’s building and capable of recognizing where he should lead the product next.

His political acumen is gotta be dogshit, with an unlimited money all he managed to do is to destroy the “realworld ironman” image he spent a decade crafting. He has no rizz, especially compared to Trump who is loved by half of the world (and hated by the other).

Also, critically for him IMO, he has no self-reflection. With all that power gassing your ego up, it is crucial to be able to step back and see that you’re just a dumb ape as the rest of us. Recognize things you’re bad at and find good people to field for you, instead of sycophants whispering “it’s the kids who are wrong”

Ublock with firefox. Wasn’t able to set up a filter for the popup, didn’t try very hard though.

Had a “youtube doesnt allow adblock” pop up yesterday, set up freetube. No login required, even has a subscription import tool. So far so great.

opt-in:

Can we take all your stuff?

1. Yes daddy
2. Remind me tomorrow

This isn’t really up to China, NK won’t listen because it’s not really up to them either. Most authoritarians would love to scale the repression down, but you can only do it while political and economic climate is right (without losing your power and your head)

If you signal to your citizens that they can speak more freely, the first thing out of their mouths will be Hey why did you do that fucked up thing?

Thus, you can “loosen the bolts” only when you are safe in your position of power and don’t mind a few concessions to the masses. “Yes we overstepped a few lines, but it was all the fault of this one bad man and also look at all this bread we have now!”

This is why authoritarian countries usually have “seasons”.

A single message now generates 20 different summaries and analyses, requiring a rack of GPUs and a diesel generator.

We’re so lucky that electricity is unlimited and free, otherwise it might’ve caused a serious problem.

If you can’t see what would bother me in that situation, me explaining it further will not help, sorry.

“Hello sorry for calling you, can you repair a part of an electric oven? It looks like a thingy with a couple springs. No I can’t send you a photo on whatsapp, do you mind quickly installing signal? No? What about email? You’re going to respond in 3-5 business day? Yeah sure I can survive that long on raw potatoes”

If you can afford existing without big tech, I’m honestly jealous. I’m willing to go quite far for my principles (like I have a phone with graphene) but at a certain point life just gets too difficult. I’m barely above water on my adult-ing as it is 🤷‍♀️

Sure, if I want to pay per message/call. I could also hire a butler to do all my chores for me, alas I am not a Swedish royalty.

Central Asia, businesses here do not have websites. They put a listing on aggregators with a phone number and may be an instagram account.

The problem is not that I’m not using signal (I am), its that I also have to use telegram and\or whatsapp if I want to contact anyone without sending them an sms, or a pigeon.

So all this bloat still affects me, whether I “just use signal” or not.

I cant schedule an appointment at the vet with signal.

They can have it, crypto is shit at being an actual working currency.

A lot of people from Middle Asia come there for seasonal work (mainly construction and farming). For migrants its good money, for russia it was kind of necessary before the war because of Russia’s aging population, and essential after the war. Like, it will collapse industries if migrants stop coming.

So its strange that putin&co keep stoking xenophobia. Though, when did economic sense stopped a fascist from doing fascism.