I was raised in the boondocks. You couldn’t get reception there back in the 90’s, and there weren’t any kids or neighbors that I could visit without having to be driven. My parents didn’t have any community at all, so I in turn never learned how to socialize properly. To say the least, I never became comfortable with phones, even after moving into civilization. It just wasn’t part of me.

Isolation from people is a huge disadvantage in life, you don’t get to make friends, network, or learn what it means to be part of society. Here’s hoping that cellphones and whatnot become rights, as you have said.

However, some states might provide SSI recipients a LifeConnect program. You get a free smartphone and low-end plan.

I am still on a flip phone. It is usually silent, and I don’t spend much time with it at all. While I am missing out on discounts and such, I simply hate the idea of constantly using a phone. Email is my telecommunication of choice, but receptionists don’t understand the idea, unfortunately.

My household bought a Rinnai water heater, and the bastard needed a phone to set the temperature. Thing is, it couldn’t communicate with the two or three phones that were used on it. Fortunately, there was an old-school modification for a physical keypad, but that had to be bought separately.

Phones are just not my thing.

I would like them to be imprisoned on a island. It would be a Battle Royal that I can get behind.

Looking up the Vilvaladirt, I am guessing it is a group of Let’s Players who do a Mystery Science Theater 3,000 take on their gameplay? If so, that would be neat.

It is good to hear what a full DeepSeek can do. I am really looking forward to having a better, localized version in 2030. Thank you for relating your experience, it is helpful. :)

Can the full-size DeepSeek handle dice and numbers? I have been using the distilled 70b of DeepSeek, and it definitely doesn’t understand how dice work, nor the ranges I set out in my ruleset. For example, a 1d100 being used to determine character class, with the classes falling into certain parts of the distribution. I did it this way, since some classes are intended to be rarer than others.

May a cleated boot find it. Repeatedly.

Aside from political leanings of services like Protonmail and Kagi, I look at one key thing: where they are headquartered. Kagi is in California, while Protonmail is in Switzerland. IMO, this means that if a civil war breaks out, they are less likely to poison or remove their service.

It is all about whether the workers and leadership are within reach of the law, be it official or the jungle.

You can also use Kagi’s video search AI to vet the political alignment of a video before watching. I don’t want to waste my time on facist-leaning content, be it political or economic.

I am hoping that Google bites the dust from this. Having stuff like Peertube becoming common, would go a long way towards mitigating media moguls from controlling narratives. As we have seen, the media organs of the right are staying silent or downlplaying what has been happening.

Also, it would be nice if the folk didn’t have to deal with baseless copyright takedowns. A lot of culture has been lost to feckless corpotacracy.

Most of the key people behind the Civil War and 1st Business Plot also were excused from justice, for the sake of soothing political tension. IMO, executing them would have been better for curtailing the corrosion of our society.

I used Thunderbird to simultaneously access and download my gmail and protonmail, gradually migrating my ecosystem to the latter. The way I figure, Protonmail would be good, on account of being based in Switzerland. That means assorted EU protections - and now with Vichy America likely to become a thing, having the servers in a safe spot seems really helpful.

The odds of us having military action in our neighborhoods has shot up by a disturbing degree.

At this point, we should ask the patient to write a will, before the dementia fully sets in.

In real world context, that means asking leaders of Blue States to start preparing for the worst - housing, firearms, laws, sanctuaries, whatever it takes to batten down the hatches before the conservative hurricane lands.

I suspect the rise of mental illness has much to do with economy. The more uncertain you are about the future, the easier it becomes to be steeped in resentment.

It is the other end of the wealth horseshoe: The wealthy are free of consequence, and consequence no longer holds meaning among the poor. After all, you don’t have friends, a job, or a future. The only way anyone will remember you is if you leave a mark upon them. You may die, but the living are left with the suffering you have left behind.

…that is my guess about the mindset. :(

Furry hackers, they will be the Alan Turing of our struggle against fascism. May you yiff long and prosper.

I expect Neofascism to weaponize autism in a particular way: “Ah…you had a vaccination as a child. To the gulag with you, autistic.”

By being an invisible and highly variable condition, the brand of autism can be pressed upon anyone the Regime wishes to remove from society. Inconvenient politician? Autism. That pretty girl who spurned you? Threaten them with autism, until they surrender their cherry. Then brand them anyway.

Bluntly, I am very much expecting horrible things to come.

Term limits would be the solution, alongside age limits so that a geronotacracy can’t become a thing. Sucks we have to take away the political keys from grandpa, but the alternative is far worse than bad driving.

Sabin

It ain’t trolling, dude.

Because I usually don’t use forums? I did use the little chainlink thing, but if that isn’t how that works, I will have to try a different approach next time.

Phoenicianpirate is talking about this. :P

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2sDx0Y_I-k