““A struggle for life is constantly going on amongst the words and grammatical forms in each language. The better, the shorter, the easier forms are constantly gaining the upper hand, and they owe their success to their own inherent virtue””

Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man, 1871.

There was a post on some Lemmy community or other yesterday which stated that most Americnas support ideas like universal healthcare (55%) and getting rid of guns from private ownership (mid 60% IIRC).

In that thread someone said it was awful that even amongst progressives the support for universal healthcare was so low and the very few responses to that were basically - :shrug: we’ve been lied to what are we gonna do about it?

The responses to the gun ownership stat were numerous and declared support for ‘second amendment rights’.

When even US progressives are passionately defending the biggest cause of child death in the USA in 2022 but are apathetic about universal healthcare, that’s a uniquely US problem that speaks very much to the level of thinking power available.

At the moment, apart from Russia, you might’ve noticed the US is going through a bit of a sticky phase with its once-friends.

Which will only matter if those instances are hosted in the US, which a lot aren’t.

In terms of data, put TailsOS on a USB drive, configure persistent storage, download VeraCrypt over TOR, install that, encrypt everything tutorial

What you do with the drive (or drives if you make copies) really depends. If the climate is very wet and warm where you live then storing them outside is going to need very good protection to keep them relatively cool and dry. You’d also have to find somewhere that you can absolutely guarantee isn’t going to get redeveloped or otherwise built on, or conversely, knocked down/demolished for as long as you’re away.

A long term self-storage company might be an idea, or a bank vault, where you’ve paid for (for example) 10 years in advance. Of course that means you have to be absolutely sure the company won’t go bankrupt or be seized by the corrupt regime you’re hiding the data from. You’d also have to have someone else set these up in their name or it could be seized along with you. You then have to hope they don’t get seized, or get dementia or die.

If you have comrades abroad in a safer country, maybe physically mail them the drives before the corrupt regime starts noticing you? Then of course you also have to hope they can return them and haven;t forgotten, died etc.

It’s been a few steps in a concerning direction by them recently. As of right now, it’s still OK to use IMO but I’m sincerely hoping this is the extent of it, or even that they row back some of the recent changes.

However, I still want it to exist because its the only viable alternative at the moment to Google’s dominance. Yes there are plenty of forks (two of which I use) but they still rely on Firefox as the core product. I don’t think any are hard forks (or am I wrong?). I’m very uncomfortable at the thought of using a browser thats based on Chromium and/or unable to run the full version of UBO or have Containerised tabs.

Lemmings have a huge obsession with shit being both free and adfree

Not sure thats very accurate. There’s a healthy percentage who donate to instances and developers, because on open source platforms/services/software you don’t have just trust no ones selling your data for their profit and its good to support that.

If Google open sourced their clients, got rid of adverts and all tracking and stopped selling or giving away user data but charged a reasonable fee I’d happily use YouTube.

Not an American but to be honest, both Google and Apple are appalling. Google openly steal all your data and sell it. Apple do similar but on a smaller scale but also claim they’re all about privacy. Both make it difficult to use alternative app stores but with Apple its actually impossible. Phone vendors can and do install their own awful bloat on Android phones. Apple force you to use webkit for any browsing you might want to do, Android’s native GUI is a mess. Nothing Apple put on their devices is open source so all their claims of privacy can never be verified. Both companies constantly try and impose proprietary standards or charge you a bajillion pounds for a fucking pen or some such bullshit.

The key difference for me is I can put something like Calyx or Graphene on an Android device and use a whole open source ecosystem of alternative apps which vastly improves the privacy of my device.

I get that federation of content is one of the main selling points of the fediverse but doesn’t there also come a point when the format of the content plays a part? Isn’t there an argument to be made that content posted to one type of service (link aggregation) doesn’t need to be shoehorned into the format of an entirely different type of service (microblogging)?

If you’re “very open for all kinds of viewpoints” but simultaneously want to not be where left-wing voices are and also think a lot people aren’t left wing then I question the accuracy of your original statement.

I suspect your desire to ‘freely express yourself’ means you want to be a cunt to people in marginalised communities without repercussions.

Weird random mention of CSAM too.

You’re trying to find a rationale for some thing (xenophobia) that is utterly irrational. Some people are just shit humans.

Why did you put “no its not happening” in quotes as though I said that when I said no such thing?

My first comment was made without the benefit of knowing anything at all about the idea that the election was stolen. I am far from unique in that opinion as it seems even some US citizens were unaware of it. Simply posting assertions which, on the face of it, seem improbable, without any kind of source to provide context to those claims isn’t going to inspire trust. If those links had been posted immediately I and others could’ve read them and had a more informed response.

From the moment I was told about this, my response changed to asking for more information - I said that I was clearly ignorant on the subject and asked to be educated on it.

There is a world of difference between someones views being shot down and someone being totally unaware and asking for sources to learn more.

Its a sad truth that there are a substantial amount of US citizens who seem to think that the entire world must know every intricate detail of the US political and legal system because America is the centre of the world. And then, when the rest of us admit we actually don’t, accusations of gaslighting and invalidation. No ones being gaslit or invalidated - we’re just not exposed or familiar with the same level of detail as you because we don’t live there. If you’re going to make a post essentially asking for the outside world to intervene, a good pace to start is by putting all the information there from the start, not going into a massive sulk because we’re not aware of the details.

So your sister, her friends and your friends have an inside joke about someone. An inside joke that you’re not aware of?

Don’t be silly. Where have I denied this is happening? I’ve already said to you I was unaware of what you were talking about and asked you to inform me. Whats all this posturing about? When did Lemmy become a place where anyone has to inform anyone else of what country they do or don’t live in?

You want the outside world to take notice? Maybe a good start would be to help those who are interested but not familiar with the level of detail you are to the knowledge about your country you assume we all already have. By adding context to your original comment you’ve already made it ten times more useful to people like me.

I’m not skeptical at all - I’m simply unaware of what you’re talking about. When I say I’m following the situation pretty closely I mean the political situation as reported in the mainstream press. I don’t think anyone who’s from a country not directly involved is going to be aware of every resource unless its a special interest of theirs or its their job. I wouldn’t expect someone not from the UK to be up to date with the latst developments of the Reform Party and how they’re trying to swing the narrative here. If you have links, link 'em, I will definitely read them all. I’m asking you to lift my ignorance on the subject.

This is literally the first I’ve heard of any of these things and whilst I’m not in North America I follow the political situation pretty closely. I’m not saying your wrong about any of it but who are the people saying this and where are they saying it? Has it been reported on either internally or externally to the US?

The overall playbook is fascist I agree but the situation I was trying to compare was Hitler invading a sovereign nation. Trump hasn’t done that (yet anyway). I’ve got good friends in the US and I am very worried about them, I’m just not sure you’re betting on the right horse by asking for outside nation-state aid. Rightly or wrongly they’ll see that Trump was elected legally and they’re never going to invade a country on that basis. There was zero talk of repercussions for Germany until Hitler invaded Poland because he followed the democratic process (or successfully manipulated it) to get elected and assume total power.

It wasn’t stolen and it wasn’t forced on you. Depressingly enough, turkeys, it seems, do sometimes vote for Christmas. I totally agree with you about the awfulness of the situation but - he told you how he was going to govern, he told you what he was going to do and then he won the election that enables him to do it. You did, as a nation, choose this.

I don’t know how any nation state can really intervene on that basis. Its not like Hitler steam rolling Poland or Putin annexing the Crimea - this isn’t an invasion or a hostile takeover, it’s an elected President carrying out the will of the people that voted for him.

They won’t - that’s why your military will soon be a judicial militia.

No idea but I’d guess armour piercing rounds being commonplace these days?

Masto to Lemmy works OK. Lemmy to Masto not at all. I have a hazy memory of someone posting to Lemmy from a Friendica instance but might be wrong.

Generally, its a bit indifferent.