I last thought it was cool in… checks notes 2016, when an innocent project to differentiate the content and style of images got turned into a big social media face alteration filter data harvesting thing. Feel kinda guilty about accidentally contributing in whatever small way that was at this point

Only choice, viable choice, what’s the difference?

Hot take: this is their plan to choke out smaller publishers who can’t afford to just eat these losses. Once there’s no more real alternatives they’ll start to squeeze

Work with hands good. Need place, purpose

I was actually thinking about this wrt healthcare access earlier. I have a genuinely religious conviction against the intimate, personal details of my condition being processed by a machine and made available online. That is the business of myself and a professional caregiver, not a tech company and whatever “partners” they feel like sharing it with. You’re supposed to be able to opt out, but practically that’s almost never possible

Anyways I know it’s in an entirely different field, but this felt like a hopeful precedent. Thanks for sharing :)

Everyone isolated behind their screens with every interaction mediated by tech corpos is the worst case scenario. A fully captive population with no chance to relate to one another directly at all. Ingroups and enemies dictated entirely by what is useful to that power structure. Steps toward unity are worth taking. The paranoia that’s been inflicted on you is worth rejecting. A better world is possible, and if you believe that you should try working towards it. At the very least you could stop (consciously or not) reinforcing the us vs us paradigm of your oppressors.

Or keep mocking the concepts of unity, cooperation, and shared purpose themselves. I’m not your real mom. Just don’t think it’ll get you anywhere worth being.

I wouldn’t go out of my way to construct a fearsome other to react to, but “to each their own”. A slavering racist is a freakish anomaly, and you’ve got a lot more in common with even that guy than either of you do with any billionaire. The only thing that will get us anywhere is collective action and a sense of shared humanity, something you seem to be actively propagandizing against for whatever reason. Really don’t love the “so you must be cool with nazis” angle, or much else about your violent, divisive schtick for that matter

“Buy a gun” is good advice. The whole framing where you’re on a team vs other regular people and should be clutching one in fear is fucked. The second amendment exists to prevent a state monopoly on violence. Spreading that power as thinly as possible is the whole point. Worry about what police and military are consistently doing with theirs every day, not the 1:10000 chance of what your shittiest neighbor might do with his in your nightmares

You could at least not be shitty about the people who do bother. Think of fascists kicking down your door as a disease and firearm ownership as a vaccine. Be fuckin grateful for the people around you who exercise that right/responsibility instead of buying a ps5 or whatever. Correlate ICE “enforcement actions” with regional firearm ownership stats some time for a much more compelling argument than I can give here. You’re larping as a helpless bootlicker right now and acting against your own interests in doing so. ~$300 for the ability to defend resist and protect is a pretty good deal.

You’re more than welcome to come pitch in. I feel like it has a lot to do with how someone’s currently handling their burdens. If you’re thriving now, fundamental change is a threat. If you’re struggling, there’s room to see it as salvation. I think it sounds lovely to be warm and have enough to eat, and am quite confident I could find another goal should those suddenly be achieved. Maybe it’s just the grass being greener as usual :p

You should get that looked at

I didn’t mean it as a callout or gotcha, just seemed relevant to the potential appeal of having them met by a machine. I certainly wouldn’t feel lost or directionless in that scenario, there’s so much I want to do but can’t now. Liberation from the chop wood/carry water processes that occupy more time than I’ve got would unlock so much potential

Interesting, thanks for sharing. Would you say most of your material needs are met now? I’m somewhat behind on mine, and freedom from the constant struggle of not quite meeting them sounds (and is) too good to be true. I’m not against offloading that burden to a machine in principle or out of an attachment to want itself, I’m against it because that machine has been well-proven not to be acting in our best interests or capable of shouldering that burden even if its operators would ever allow it

Ok first off “post scarcity” is never going to happen, we are the resource their system extracts from and it will never give anything back. But if it did somehow, if we built a loving god? That’d be dope as hell. If you genuinely don’t have interests beyond your needs to pursue right now I hope you find some. There’s nothing hedonistic or degenerate (nazi buzzword btw) about passion and engagement. What gives your life meaning beyond meeting those needs as-is?

This is the way

Gotcha. I first heard about them through their VPN service, see privacy itself as their core product, and email/storage/calendar etc as very logical ways of delivering that same product that navigation or map data in general would be a great addition to. Being a privacy provider in a system so focused on surveillance and manipulation seems pretty “political” in the way you’re using the term no matter what. A proton abstaining from politics in that sense would just be google. Your definition of political seems to be related to how much friction is generated with the establishment, and imo their willingness to provide that friction is exactly what people are paying them for. If all you care about is a working email service, gmail is great. Better even, not to mention free.

I mean… It’s not “your” money, they didn’t create the map, and it seems pretty relevant to the rest of their services to me. Would be lit if they put out a privacy respecting navigation app with avoiding em as a feature, I’m about it. Kinda hard to see your take here as genuine, not sure what motivates it

How about a privacy company promoting privacy? Whether or not it’s “political” depends entirely on whether or not you choose to apply that perspective. They’re doing the same thing they’ve always done, and I’m pretty sure the motivation is to maintain their rep/get paid rather than exert influence somehow