The problem I have with it is that we didn’t get rid of kings.

Moreso that we replaced kings with a new form of ownership, and therefore new owners. And, in every era, the ideas of the ruling class are the ruling ideas - the idea of the divine right of kings seems to have been replaced with the divine right to profit, and to use “earned” money however one wants, with no regard for society.

I know others have already replied with counterarguments, but as a simple partial counterpoint, the fact that everyone alive are decedents of those who survived the hunter-gatherer stages of their society, for a long long time, is evidence that we’re generally capable of learning to be caring, smart and sane, it’s not some utopian advanced stage beyond our grasp. Prior to our technological developments like food preservation, individualistic societies were not viable.

• The most meaningful reforms, like large-scale climate action, won’t happen until citizens present a credible threat to the owning class’s dominance, making reform the appealing compromise.
• The owning class, at least a large section of it, along with loyal reactionaries will wage violent open war before ceding power leftward. They have the option to decide if a peaceful road forward exists, and historically, then tend to mass murder citizens instead.

What’s your most cynical opinion about the world?

The Earth will, eventually, long after we’re all gone, be incinerated by the sun. If life co-exists elsewhere in the universe, I suspect it will be too distant to have much impact on us nor them. So I believe that humanity will inevitably have no meaningful legacy in the long term. And I also believe there is no objective meaning to existence, it’s just a neat little quirk of chaos.

That doesn’t imply I think nothing is meaningful, it doesn’t take long to notice I care deeply about people and what we do. But, ultimately, meaning is temporary and subjective. (I haven’t explored much of formal philosophy but I’ve heard my perspective aligns with absurdism or existentialism)

edit: I didn’t realize this isn’t actually cynicism (a prudent distrust), but more nihlism (a distrust upon belief in meaning)

I believed the first one when I was, idk, 6 years old. No idea if I assumed it myself or was told it from someone.

Some options:

• Hypothetically, […]
• Theoretically, […]
• It’s hypothetically possible
• It’s theoretically possible
• It could be possible
• It’s not impossible

• It’s not mandatory
• It’s optional (only applies to the first example)
• You don’t always need to
• It’s not always necessary
• It might not be necessary

I’m not thinking too hard on this, but since you say each of the words convey distinct meanings, maybe try and find a synonym for each meaning of that word. That could work.

Like some already said, how long ago is “a few years ago”? Because last year my installation had an annoying issue which is now fixed. And maybe five years back, some (newer or rarer) hardware/devices needed a fix through the terminal, but now work perfectly by default.

I haven’t tried Bazzite, but I’ve heard good things about it and what I know about it so far sounds good. Although @jlow mentioned some alternatives which I wonder if they’re even more suitable since you didn’t mention gaming. Out of habit, I still recommend Mint to former Windows users. But I haven’t needed to input a password for web, graphics tools or office apps, only have to type a password when updating, installing new apps or doing special terminal stuff (which I do by choice!)

On one hand, Mint’s default experience (Cinnamon desktop environment) generally resembles Windows which can make the switch smoother. On the other hand, some other ones fix a lot of defaults Windows chose wrong. Even little things, like moving the taskbar to the top (closer to other options) or to the side (takes up less space), so even if you pick a smaller leap to start with, it’s good to casually look around once you’re comfortable.

I’m picturing “Affirmative. Dollar 1299 now proceeding to window, over.”

­

Hold the wealthy accountable and stop letting people get that rich.

Governance is one of the tools we can use to hold the wealthy accountable and stop letting them get that rich. Not the only tool we have, but a powerful one.

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The concerning thing is how many people seem to appeal to the same system that enabled this to happen. It’s a liberalist attitude of looking for legal loopholes, technicalities and abstract contradictions of ideas instead of recognizing real power and fighting it directly.

Recall Trump’s first term, all the comments of endless smug “gotchas” and lists of laws and constitutional laws broken by Trump. How’d that impeachment end up?

Now we see the same nonsense again, people implying that ICE can be defeated by suing them, thinking that the police assisting ICE will be leashed by the mayor, thinking that this time the Democrat Party will do what Biden didn’t and reverse the slide into fascism.

No, the sad fact is that you can’t just let The System solve this one. You can’t vote fascism away at this point. It requires mass community-led solutions, and the sooner that’s organized, the less people die.

Admittedly I often see this discussion through the lens of Internet comment sections so hopefully that’s making this seem worse than it truly is.

I play sport near-daily but I don’t follow professional sports, and I honestly think ideally it should be abolished. It’s exploitative entertainment.

• Athletes often end up with horrible overwork injuries. I remember an interview where a range of former Olympians were asked “Was it worth it?” and the overwhelming answer was no, they now had life-long injury from training.
• Sport doesn’t need to be professional to be enjoyable to play and watch at a high-level.
• Like OP has said, it’s a business. They are parasocial and don’t care to truly involve you. They will platform advertisers who foster addiction, to make money. And I feel disgust every time I see a stadium absolutely covered with ads and uniforms covered in sponsorships. It might as well be a billboard with a patch of grass on it.

I’m obviously not against either sports or high-level competition, but as a profession? No way.

While many existing sports develop some useful life skills (physical skills, communication, decision making, strategy, … ) I have an interest in alternative games that emphasise these. Two of my favorites at the moment are Firefigher’s Olympics and Three-Sided Football.

Paper news subscription or any printed magazine

I’ve only bought printed local zines/papers as a form of donation to alternative media, the same material is published by them online for free anyway.

With the caveat that if it’s small and you pickle it, I’m down.

Good answer.

I gather the hatred some people like me carry for pukecumber has a genetic root.

not g••gling something

If you’re censoring because it’s a horrible company name, I just say “searching”.

Television. It’s like paying to see ads.

+. And the only couple of local channels I’d even consider watching can be viewed online for free anyway.

At some point if you decide you want a significantly newer or more powerful CPU or GPU (for example), there’s a solid chance you’ll need to replace the motherboard or the power supply. At that point, we’re playing Theseus.

Then again, mine was a 10 year old budget build and my hobbies changed significantly, so you might not actually need to upgrade at all if your computing needs aren’t hungry.

Yep. Although…

Is it safe to use the OK hand signal again?

Words and symbols cannot be divorced from context. Like @SineSwiper@discuss.tchncs.de hinted at, putting a date of birth in a username is common and there are so many other meanings for these numbers so it would be ridiculous to jump down someone’s throat for simply using them, or using common gestures. Unless that friend in the story was also saying some reactionary things in their comments, I think it’s silly and careless that someone challenged them on their name.

I been told by some international friends that one of the political flags over in Australia, the Eureka flag, has a similar situation where both trade unions and white nationalists try to claim its legacy, so it’s common to see in both the pro and anti immigration rallies. Context is what makes it either a potential nationalist/racist dogwhistle or a symbol of workers’ rights.

That’s just coincidence, I’ve been using the term for a long time. It’s not new.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypto-fascism