If there only was a solution…

So we’ve finally landed in the reality of the billionaire class vs. rest of the world.

Yes, it’s by design. You should probably read this https://mullvad.net/en/browser/mullvad-browser

You’re saying Lemmy usage is turn on? I’m not judging, you do you, but that’s a weird fetish

And the absolute shittiest part (apart from loss of life) is that Trump is going find the words to make it all much worse

being shaken down by Proton to pay even more money

Obviously you’re free to do as you please and its not an airport, you don’t have to announce your departure. But there’s no such thing as free service. Posting angry tirades seems counter productive.

I’d recommend self-hosting. Then you don’t have to worry about privacy, getting data hijacked or getting ripped off by sudden cost increases.

Aiming for next years FIFA Peace Prize, no doubt.

You can use Calibre + DeDRM and some jiggery pokery with Windows version of Kindle, but to be honest, that’s just really fucking annoying and it’s just easier to sail the high seas and get already open version of your book.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pensions_in_Germany

I think you want to have all three pillars going, normally you save in some kind of stock market pension fund.

I don’t live in Germany, but lot of countries in EU have similar system. Over here in Sweden, you can easily see an overview and your projected pension at retirement age by logging into one of government offered e-services, maybe Germany has something similar.

What number you need to reach - is completely up to you of course.

Just two short of full Nazgûl party.

I thought the promised plan of making things great again was returning to American isolationism. So seems to be going as planned.

Just keep working harder! It’ll trickle down!

A strange game. Only winning move is not to play.

Ok - so while I’m not ‘boycotting’ America, because I don’t really think that’s going to change anything, I’d much rather spend my energy focusing on my local community. But having said that, I don’t either understand or subscribe to certain U.S American cultural tropes such as:

• Driving oversized gas guzzling cars everywhere and believing it’s freedom.
• Nuclear family values.
• Rampant exceptionalism (granted, I live in Sweden and we have our own flavor of it - hate it here as well)
• Zealous Christianity. Religions should be abolished.
• Out of control late-stage capitalism backed by military. But I’m a anarco-syndicalist so pretty much every country sucks.
• The American Dream. Connected to the above. It’s not going to trickle down. Ever.
• Shitty polyarchical political system designed for the ‘elite’ and ‘weath of the nation’ (but again, I’m an anarchist, so everywhere sucks)
• Obesity and fast food culture.
• Everyday racism. The U.S is supposed to be the New World melting pot of cultures, showing us old world Europeans how it’s done. Seems that didn’t work.
• Enshittification of the Internet. Lack of anti-trust, lack of trade union power and lack of worker agency have all but destroyed the promise of early Internet. We have surveillance capitalism instead.

There’s not much I can do about them though. Except to act in my local community, and to tell my kids and anyone listening: There are better ways to live and better ideals to aim for.

And you’re right, of course. The original American culture is very much worth preserving.

Lemmy is the software. There are many servers with different moderation policies. There are some leftwing servers and there are some rightwing ones. Join a community that fits your personal preference

What is even “American culture” apart from mash-up of worlds immigrant cultures?

You are correct about the awareness part. Sometimes I forget that people make tech choices a big part of their identities (like being an “Apple user”) and fixing problems becomes a social cost, more than a technical or privacy choice.

While I always love a good privacy tantrum and throwing your toys out of the pram, I don’t really get why there has to be a public announcement of ”switching”.

But I guess it’s his blog, so whatever. Wish him the best of luck with the new HP 2-in-1. Hope he remembered to turn off all the tracking features in his Ubuntu.

It’s a fool’s errand unfortunately. Users stay in spaces because their friends and social circles are there. It doesn’t really matter how shitty the platform becomes. The social cost of moving is just too high.

The solution is interoperability and some regulation. Unfortunately we have neither. All you can do is inform your mom about the dangers and teach her to recognise propaganda and abuse.

Would recommend reading Cory Doctorow’s book ”Enshittification”