Negative thoughts flooded my mind. The EU is constantly trying to push Chat Control. They’re blocking bootloaders on phones, introducing ID and face scanning everywhere, in the US they’re trying to push system-level verification, corporations are spitting in our faces and don’t even hide it. I know we have to fight. My personal rebellion was joining Fediverse and Lemmy and quitting Reddit. But seriously, boss—I’m tired. Are our attempts to preserve internet freedom futile? Can we win against corporations and politicians who we pay but don’t listen to us?
But seriously, boss—I’m tired
Unfortunately, that’s their game plan: be an unrelenting bureaucracy that grinds you down so you eventually just give in and finally accept it as it is now then passively accept what they come up with next.
Find what and where you can fight best, and throw your weight behind it. Don’t fall into dispair, that’s what they are counting on.
Some fight for better laws, some fight for better politicians, some hack, some donate, some build, some propagandize, some host and archive, some preach and philosophize.
The best often do several of these things. Find what you’re inclined towards and do it. We need every last drop of effort to defeat the corpos and their corrupt political allies.
You can’t stop the signal.
Of course we can win against politicians who we pay but don’t listen to us. At some point, this is not democracy anymore, and if this is not democracy anymore, then the people is going to express itself through non-democratic measures. Just saying.
Until then, we have work to do: convince friends, family, politicians. Expose lobbyist, corporations. Support education, spread knowledge.
Yes, because “The EU” is not a hive mind. There’s politicians on both sides of this. We just need to make sure we back the right ones.
Read the Communist Manifesto. Thank me later
The zillion dollar question. The control freaks do their job and have lots of power, but on the other hand the diversity of responses is immense. Things change: it’s evolution. Be smart, adapt, and don’t forget that a better tomorrow for each and all is possible, day after day.
Yes.
We have to keep fighting, and it isn’t easy but we have been building great things! Look at the growth of the fediverse with projects like mastodon, Lemmy, pixelfed, etc. More and more, people want alternatives to surveillance-capitalist social media platforms. They see the value in privacy as the stakes get higher for activists. Keep fighting, keep sharing.
Now, I also believe that ultimately we cannot solve political problems with technical solutions. We need to organize online and offline to effect real change. This organization must be multifaceted (“diversity of tactics”). A recent success of this type has been rolling back flock surveillance in municipalities around the US. Go to city council meetings with your neighbors. If the council won’t listen, then go out later with a comrade and smash those fucking things.
We dont got good stories. We aint winning the masses. So Id say no.
I’m already tempted to resort to wild violence, since we are being pushed out of the last bit of freedom we have. I’m about to get diagnosed and the business has a good chance of succeeding, at which point I can push peaceful measures. I hope I’m not forced to do what I have to, because if I die, my father is infamous for some things, and I’m fairly sure he will leave far more bodies than I ever could.
He has an actual squad of ex-special force buddies.
Overall, someone is getting fucked, one way or another. We can’t just let them push extralegal bullshit on us with no resistance.
I’m trying to actuate the peaceful plan rn, but I’m squeezed so badly already. No one can do you in as much as your own family, I got into so much debt bailing them, and looking for a second job.
Just do your part and don’t get discouraged. You don’t have to do everything. Walk the walk, talk the talk. If things don’t work out, at least you tried; that’s more than the majority did.
Do what you do no because of some expected local or global outcome, but because it’s right.
i wish i had spent more time on the “pessimism of the spirit; optimism of the will” part before i started to learn about leftism; i’m in a funk rn because there’s a seemingly impenetrable gulf between where we are as a society and where we think we are and it’s making me want to give up.
Do you believe “left-wing” ideologies are more negative?
it’s that society tolerates casual brutalities that are innate to right-wing ideologies that is negative to me.
All things that go up must come down. Icarus’ wings will melt from the sun’s heat. The web will crumble under the weight of llm bots. Markets will crash due to llm’s not living up to their hype. Big tech will be broken up. Billionaires and the trillionaire will be taxed to death. Regulators will lose interest. Let’s have hope.
i think it will get better, but probably not before lobbyists make it worse first. i guess my question about it is: will i still be able to go to lemmy/mastodon/peertube along the way, and what would it take from the instance owner’s part to keep governments from forcing users to relinquish IDs?
This made me so hot. Pure smut.
all long after you die; i wish i could take pleasure from knowing that people that i have zero relation to will get to enjoy this reality.
Oh ye of little faith
pretty much and it makes me wish that i had started with the whole pessimism-of-the-intellect-optimism-of-the-will perspective first.
It has been written! Now we wait
he is no longer a trillionair. Don’t forget that.
Billionaire or trillionaire is irrelevant. He’s still a dumbass
Time to help build a new type of network: https://reticulum.network/
I have experience in programming and building computer systems. 12 years of experience and self-education. The project you linked looks promising. I’m always the first to support and contribute to such projects but we lack infrastructure for this to become a thing
Great! Here’s the thing: power will not build this network, people must. Node by node. You alone can service an decent area with $100 LoRa node and (for bootstrap) an I2P backhaul. I fundamentally believe something like this is essential for a free future — be the change you want to see.
Agreed. And we can easily bridge existing net to alternative transmission mediums while the existing net allows. Providing an easier time for others to adopt. I run a reticulum node as well.
We can even start community VPN and use site to site VPN to build a new internet!
Running a node myself and it’s fun!
The EU isnt trying to push chat control. If it was then the EU wouldn’t have shot it down multiple times like it has been.
Lobbyists are the ones trying to push chat control on the EU.
The EU parliament president is pushing for chat control. “Th EU” you describe is many layers and facets, and apparently one individual can bypass the will of the parliament. If elected representatives are bypassed, then people must represent their own self.
lobbyists need time; the more they have, the more they can do.
In Poland we call it “gotowanie żaby” (eng. boiling a frog). This is a nice idiom for slow action towards a specific goal despite the resistance of reality.
… slow action towards a specific goal despite the resistance of reality.
you just explained project 2025 and neoliberalism in general. lol
Yes and honestly we better learn to enjoy the struggle because it’s never going away. We will always have to push back.
