I would agree with you on the civic duty part if the news was just the news but it has morphed into a amalgamation of ragebait, social media content, and updates so granular to be worthless and just noise. Even the “good” sources of news do this. RSS feeds are nice but not a viable solution to the average person.

At a concept level I think you are right that a well informed population is better. I just don’t think our current handling of news and journalism is at a spot where that is even possible without a ton of extra work (hence this thread).

Choosing a level of engagement that prevents you from turning into a screaming asshole is key and unfortunately that level varies from person to person.

Yes

This is a true statement but it also doesn’t accomplish anything. As much as you want others to care about something, they have quite literally a whole world of stuff going on in their head and these things are not necessarily priorities. They should be, but they aren’t.

We need to keep in mind we are in an echo chamber and as important as these things are for us, we are in the minority. It isn’t because people don’t care, they are just busy with their own gremlins.

It’s a problem but also very human.

Can confirm, there is a world of difference between people who are chatting about switching to Linux and the average computer user.

As much improved as it is, Linux isn’t ready for those people. Not because it is hard or they can’t figure it out but they don’t care or don’t have the energy. Most people don’t even know what Linux is there than a term they might have heard a couple times.

I would love for Linux to take off and Microsoft to feel the sting from abusing their customers.

I have an Nvidia card and run plasma and everything “just worked” for me including the proprietary drivers. Zero configuration (I am using CachyOS but Manjaro was fine as well as mint).

Figured I would add another data point for those thinking about switching but are nervous about the Nvidia support.

I don’t think I’ve actually played any of those so I can’t speak to them but hopefully someone else can. There is a website you can check compatibility on although I don’t know if it includes non-games and/or tools. Arizona Sunshine looks like it’s fine: https://www.protondb.com/search?q=arizona+sunshine

If it’s gold or higher it’ll almost certainly play without issue. Silver will very likely play if you tweak the compatibility settings to change proton versions (go to game options in steam > compatibility > change the version. Bronze is hit or miss, you’ll likely be able to get it to work but it might require more work. Borked is of course…borked.

Anyways, someone else can probably answer those games specifically but if not you can use the website to check.

Switched to Linux a couple years ago and at this point it is rare that a game doesn’t “just work” and even rarer when it still won’t work after trying other versions of proton in the Steam compatibility settings for the game.

Depending on if there is a specific game you know doesn’t work that is a deal breaker for you, it might be fine at this point to switch. Just throwing that out there. You may not need more compatibility than what is available.

This is the proper answer.

“Would I lie??”

That people are inherently good. This not being the case is reinforced near daily by people’s behaviors.

This is the reason.

I agree with everything you said but I think one thing that is often overlooked is how the boomers are virtually all lead poisoned. Gen-X and some Millennials as well but the Boomers took the brunt of it. They grew up with lead gas poisoning the air, lead pipes (well, a bigger percentage anyways) poisoning the water, lead tools poisoning the workers, lead bullets poisoning game, and so forth. Lead poisoning does some fucked up stuff to people’s cognitive abilities. The lead problem still exists but the scale of the problem back when the boomers were growing up was on a whole different level.

Exposure to lead can result in a variety of effects upon cognitive functions including deficits in general intellectual functioning, ability to sustain attention on tasks, organization of thinking and behavior, speech articulation, language comprehension and production, learning and memory efficiency, fine motor skills, high activity level, reduced problem solving flexibility and poor behavioral self-control.

https://www.mwph.org/health-services/lead-treatment/poisoning-effects

Also not saying they have an excuse, just saying I think lead poisoning of > 1 sequential generation affected a lot of decisions. Most probably small but all of them adding up to set the stage for our current situation.