This is my setup, and I never actually use ungoogled chromium.

If I have some kind of issue that I need to work around immediately rather then figure out, I usually just open Firefox and try that.

Yeah we’re funny like that. The world’s richest nation which consists solely of immigrants and stolen resources, and everybody always wants to pull the ladder up behind them.

It’s chilling just how accurate that is.

If you showed that image to people in the 80s and 90s, I guess essentially pre-9/11 america, when I was young and taught america was called “the melting pot,” it would feel like a joke rather than a warning.

I can’t disagree with much there!

I just want to point out the sometimes-overlooked fact that we are also here (delivered to hands of fascists) because so god damn many Americans wanted it. Arguably the voting system worked great because most of the voters wanted the guy who promised a racist dictatorship.

That doesn’t necessarily change how we respond to the situation now (I am local focused for sure), and yeah maybe there was election rigging and cheating so it shouldn’t have gone this way… but damn do we have a culture problem moreso than a political system problem.

Granted a lot of the culture problem is the direct result of politics, and all the propaganda and media influence that people don’t even realize is attracting their political beliefs. Stuff us complicated for sure.

This should be a mechanical choice of who to vote for in the general.

This is a very easy point for others to attack, but I want to reiterate its importance and how it relates to what I already said.

GIVEN all the stuff I explained about how the nigh-impossible-to-change voting system enforces the two-party system especially at the federal level, the reasonable pragmatic conclusion is that you always vote blue in the general because it is the only way to vote against the actual far right nazi party, and you work to get progressives elected to local offices and in national Democratic primaries.

Oh I can hear them now:

“Oh sure, and next you’ll be telling me to be nice to my dog and my kids, <slur>!”

Pretending the Democrats will save us as a Fool’s errand. Pretending that trans people wouldn’t be on the chopping block if the Democrats had federal office is naive.

I think both of those sentences are true. But the question for me when choosing isn’t whether or not the Democrats would be acceptably tolerant and inclusive. It is whether their opponents would be WAY fucking worse or not. And hell fucking yes they would be and are!

It comes down to the fact that our flawed voting system causes the dichotomy, but that flawed voting system is next to impossible to change. I could see a legit revolution happening before that ever does. I just made a big comment explaining it on another meme post if you want to check my history.

Thank you for putting that out there. I still cannot see making any other choice when it came time to vote. The too-close death camps you refer to were a very predictable consequence of this administration. I’m just a straight white guy but I really prefer to not add death camps to the world, or to disappear peaceful productive people from their communities, or to significantly harm the lives of millions of young, old, poor, or disabled people. That includes the ones starving overseas because of recent changes.

“But genocide!” we expect to hear in response. And if any dear readers are already thinking that, I want you to take this one fact away from my comment:

The deeply flawed US voting system — the one which forces the two party system on us — is damned near impossible to change via normal legislation and votes.

It’s THE thing. It is that mechanism that lets the red/blue capitalist american machine continue to vacuum up the vast majority of american votes. Go look up just how much agreement there has to be to amend the constitution. And we’re going to ask the people already in charge to get together and agree to kneecap their future political power. You see the issue.

Sure, the media is complicit and most voters are ignorant of the fact that there are better systems in place around the world. It’s true that a lot can be done outside of elected positions. But when it comes to the actual voting ballot, since the system self-corrects (in a bad way) for significant third parties, the expected consequences of each choice were something like:

1. Status quo, including any US resources being used for genocide and other shit.
2. Genocide Max plan, with 4 free years of Death Camp Prime
3. Flip a coin between 1 & 2 above (stay home or vote for a third party hoping it will get them recognition and funding)
4. Revolution and replace the system, like right now!

And I want to add a caveat that I’m not trying to blame the people who chose #3 above. Before the election I would disagree with that choice, but now in retrospect we know those people weren’t the reason Trump and Republicans won. I guess it remains to be seen how much of it was the genuine love for Trump the maniacs in this place have, and how much of it was election rigging and cheating BS.

Suppose I polled the American people’s agreement with the statement “In all of human history there is one politician who is my favorite above all others, and that politician is President Donald Trump.”

We know that I would get tens of millions of people who genuinely and strongly agree with that. It would be depressingly close to, if not over, a hundred million.

Or maybe over 100M before the Epstein revolt and below after, lol.

Also Bernie is great at pointing out the bullshit but never has a plan to replace it.

Is this really the case, or is it that his plans don’t get a lot of analysis and detailed criticism because we all know the rest of the government will never pass it? And I don’t mean this as a Bernie-defending retort — I don’t follow him closely but I thought he’s proposed plenty of legislation and laid out changes in his speeches. His history in defending people that are not white dudes is pretty legit too, of course.

And given that he’s old, rich, and has his heart in the right place, I bet he would instantly jump at the chance to be exiled from washington along with all the other elderly people.

I find myself using desktop Linux more than my mobile device, even on the couch with the family. Monitors on arms that can swing out of the way ftw. No cute advice for keyboards though. We have wireless ones around but I still use my wired Deck Legend on my lap. It’s an old mechanical keyboard that’s built like a tank, with the PCB literally mounted to a sheet of metal that is mounted inside the housing, lol.

It’s almost a shame, because smart phones are still absolutely amazing to me as far as the amount of scientific and technical advancement that can fit in the palm of your hand. But I look forward to the open options various parties are working on.

I’ll add in addition to the “not where I live” replies, I live in pretty textbook white suburban america and I believe I have never seen anything delivered to me or a neighbor or relative by a two-wheeled vehicle of any kind, even motorized. Every single time it is a private 4-seat passenger vehicle or larger.

It is different in other areas of course, like when visiting cities and other countries.

But damn are such vast swaths of suburban and rural america designed so specifically around cars. It would take forever to change even with a progressive culture & government. With the culture and government we have now, I will be stunned if I am not driving my own vehicle for the rest of my life, and I will not be surprised at all if it’s mostly ICE vehicles. I drive a well maintained 13 year old Mazda3 that gets 40mpg, so it’s not ideal versus more efficient and environmentally friendly types of transport, but at least it’s a more efficient use of the existing infrastructure than most americans.

Hear, hear!

There is nothing wrong, and in fact there is something good, with FOSS being polished and user friendly out of the box.

Historically that has not been a priority, because FOSS has been by the computer nerds, for the computer nerds. But if that priority shifts to being a bit more “by the computer nerds, for the normies” then that is a good thing as long as the developers don’t prevent the power users from accessing any part of the system they want. Fortunately that completely against the point of the FOSS world.

I first learned Unix in the 90s, I use my Linux desktop more than my phone, I’m an engineer on embedded systems digging through C and C++ code all day, I have terminals open all day, and… I have Linux Mint Cinnamon installed on all my machines and love it. Change My Mind, lol.

Yeah, even from inside the US it seems more and more iffy to trust our tech giants even as a paying customer. I love reading the stories about groups and governments in Europe adopting Linux/FOSS, but I’m also surprised I don’t see it more.

Everything in the news is so insane that I could see journalists ignoring/missing such mundane events as public sector software choices.

I made the full work + home switch last year. I don’t know which experience is more improved over Windows: Installing the OS or Updating the OS.

The funny thing for me is that my job is like 80% webpages in LibreWolf on my Linux machine. But that’s because the company uses M365 and Github.

I use various different programs for different reasons just like anybody, but I bet browser + vscode + terminal covers 95% of my work day.

Yeah I didn’t say that it was appropriate or welcome.

I wouldn’t be surprised if Clinton was tied up in this awful stuff, sure, but the Biden hair sniffing thing just reeks of the conservatives’ constant focus on sexuality while crying about how it’s actually being shoved down their throats.

And that double entendre wasn’t intentional, but it definitely stays.

Well don’t forget that Walmart itself is literally government subsidized when the people employed there still need food stamps or other welfare programs.

Absolutely. That’s the sound of me pointing out the practical reality that sometimes all the choices are bad and people make up their mind for dumb reasons regardless of what choice they make.