The problem lies in direction and methods.

Direction: toward greater wealth consolidation.

Methods: fear, lies, fostering ignorance, fostering political disinterest, truth embargo, surveillance, overclassification, embezzlement and other white collar crimes unpunished, eliminating the commons, paywalling all things, etc.

Both of those are huge problems that create unlivable societies.

The only proper direction is toward a legally mandated wealth ceiling plus a wealth floor plus enforced and publicly measured and publicly tested market competition to regulate maximum allowed wealth consolidation.

And of course truth has to be the informational currency. And rights. And privacy for the small players, with heavy oversight for the large players because large is dangerous.

We can’t lose the big picture here. Of course the governments must govern, but toward what ends and with what methods matters hugely.

Hopping from one proprietary platform to the next is like shopping arround for a kinder slaver who doesn’t beat you as much. We can do so much better.

Promote the platforms that respect your rights and freedoms.

Apple and Google are financially wired to squueze you for all you’re worth. You are the product. You are the sheep that needs fleeced.

We need tech platforms and solutions that respect us and that are not incentivized to squueze max profit. We all know where the road to maxxing profits leads.

I’ve been windows-free for more than 5 years, and as soon as I can get a reasonable Motorola Graphene phone, I am out.

I have been deGoogled as much as I reasonably can, and if possible I want to stop rewarding scum companies altogether. I am ever looking for better options.

1. Make laws against chatbots.
2. Demand proof you are not a chatbot.
3. Surveillance capitalism.

The real target here is population control.

The lawmakers, which take billionaire money by the ton, who HAVE NEVER given a shit, suddenly, NOW, they want to protect the vulnerable. Abso fucking lutely laughable on its face.

Fuck all billionaires.

Thanks for explaining all that.

I don’t like being fed conclusions even if in the end I will agree with those conclusions. I need to know all the relevant thinking for the topics with elevated importance to me.

Maybe I can afford a mental shortcut on a topic of little consecuence, or if I have an overwhelmingly good personal relationship and have outsourced 60% of important thinking to this hugely trustworthy person (then I will be in deep shit should something happen to my relationship with that person, not good).

I won’t say I do all my own thinking for myself, but I try. So thank you again for explaining.

Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

Didn’t know. Thanks for saying that.

So it makes even more sense for the small buinesses to organize online under a special coop charter to fight off the icky monopolies.

Like small mom and pop grocers could band together to order in volume to get a similar discount to walmart. It might be hard to organize this for grocers in meat space, but should be more plausible to set up a coop fediverse site with a highly small bis protective charter written by a lawyer.

Maybe the way to handle the members that got too big and too successful for the coop network is to celebrate those members for a month by promoting them in a farewell promotion, then move them to a harder to acess “alumni” section of the site, instead of instantly and totally cutting them off. Someone more business oriented than me should think about the details.

My main point is that small anybodies should organise, and not just the workers. Small businesses are routinely oppressed, and should organize and fight back. If we wait for our billionaire-captured government to bust the trusts, we might have to wait a minute.

You have to do way more marketing since you can’t rely on search result hits, right?

It would be cool if there were a business fediverse type deal where searching worked across all the small business federated web sites. Such a network should putposely exclude or kick out (politely and with a celebration) anyone that got too large, to maintain a small business focus to basically give the little guys a leg up.

It would be like a fediverse small bis cooperative kinda thing. That way there would be a search box for products and services that everyone could use to search the entire small bis network. And this would bypass monopolies like Google or Amazon.

Raise their tariffs to 1000%.

Has Cuba tried wearing a suit?

It’s infuriating, but if it’s your brother, unless he’s jeopardising an important priority in your life in a way that affects your life opportunities and/or wellbeing/health, ya should probably tolerate it somewhat. Like explain why what he did is a bad thing and let it be. Family discount. At least it’s not your parent that’s acting up.

Anyway, I am just talking out of my ass here, free advice, and all that. I don’t blame you at all, I’d be pissed too.

if they are pretending to get it wrong to ban you for other reasons

Oh, this has to be a very common behavior.

Or making overly strict rules because you plan on selective enforcement from the get go.

People will weaponize anything when they are fighting for an advantage.

/s

It’s corporate speak, imo.

I hate it too.

They also like to call everything “assets.” Not a “picture” or an “image” or a “decoration” or a million other descriptive words. It’s all “assets.” When the corporates talk like that they are emphasizing ownership and profitabiliy. “Put that money-making thing we own there.” “Lisa, which folder did you put that money-making thing we own in?”

🤢

Ban spears, knives, pipes, cars, fertilizer, aluminum, bows, blowguns, poison, fists.

Or, just run a decent society where nobody feels opressed, and has no desire to lash out.

Tax the billionaires out of their billions, or put a tight leash on everyone to allow the billionaires to become trillionaires. Which is it?

Let’s not forget how Gavin Newsom vetoed universal healthcare in California. Also, Gavin Newsom gave prepaid phones to a bunch of CEOs and told them to call him if the CEOs need anything. Source: https://www.politico.com/news/2025/03/18/newsom-ceos-burner-phones-00235044

They will need to ban breathing while poor soon the way they are going.

Can’t ban your way out of the greatest wealth inequality since the Great Depression. But they will try, won’t they?

Has anyone tried a Murena (/e/os) phone?

I am thinking about it.

Linux is way more similar and familiar than you likely imagine.

Of course, learning is inevitable going to Linux for the first time. But learning is not scary or bad. There are helpful docs and the community. Everyone here was once where you are now.

Also, try Linux risk-free on Windows in a virtual machine.

Next you can dual boot.

Next, you can resort to running Windows apps via Wine and other virtual evironments.

And only last but not least, can you go 100% pure Linux.

So there is a gentle and gradual migration path available. It’s not an all or nothing commitment right upfront.

You only have your chains to lose.

The irony is that Google uses FOSS software in a huge way since its founding.

Free and Open Source Software for me, but not for thee, Europe.

Fuck Google’s hypocrisy. And fuck Google/Alphabet.

Never forget for a second that it is because of the billionares, free market fundamentalism, private property fetishism, wealth consolidationism/royalism, that the ICE exists (and many other bad agencies).

They want us angry at ICE while the consolidationists are trying to convert the world to rent-only slavery, because they want to be trillionaires and make the line go up forever, no matter what.

Every time I see “ICE” I think fuck all the billionaires.

If only instead of each one micromanaging our purchases there could be a system set up to thwart the bad corporate behavior in a broad and systemic way, with the dedicated pros doing oversight professionally.