I was thinking Artificer maybe maybe

Wellllll, now I know what my next D&D character will be.

You’re right. It is, at least, something.

My god, that’s brilliant!

At least we know chatgpt wasn’t involved

“One particular point of contention for Downey Jr is Musk’s obsession with Mars colonization. The actor didn’t mince words when he stated, “This idea of, ‘It’s all okay because we’ve gotta get to Mars,’ doesn’t really hold water with me.” It’s a striking criticism that cuts to the heart of Musk’s most ambitious projects.”

Of all of the thing’s Techbro has said and done, his fakey mars ambitions are a particular point of contention for RDJR? The nazi stuff is ok, but him pretending we’re all going to mars so we don’t have to care about Earth that parts the real issue? I hope this is just editorialized and out of context.

In hindsight, the sites and services yahoo offered self imploding before they became fully enshittified is actually not the worst outcome.

Cyberpunk, as a genre of fiction, was supposed to be a warning and not an instruction manual.

It is a nail biter. The conservatives have gone from getting 2% of the popular vote to 44%. There are a lot of grievances right now. And the incumbent party has been in power for a long time and there’s a natural tendency here to alternate between parties so there’s pressure from people who don’t have as much specific desire for any given policy but just sort of vaguely feel like things would be better if we shook things up.

The votes are so close right now that we won’t know the outcome until closer to Oct. 26th when we expect all the mail in ballots to have been received and counted.

I don’t think they care at this point. They can say and do anything and just say it’s a conspiracy.

I’m shocked! SHOCKED! Well not that shocked.

Krita might be able to suit your needs. It’s on par with GIMP, but a lot of people find the interface nicer, and if you are doing any drawing the tablet support is by all reports much nicer.

Jesus…

That’s def a way to get dumber tvs! Though I’m fine buying a smart tv as long as I can keep it 100% isolated from the internet and just use the hdmi inputs and pretend the smart stuff isn’t there. idk if they have gotten quite so malicious yet that you can’t even plug one in without it demanding to be connected to the internet and forcing you to agree to a eula. Roku comes close if I remember. But those shenanigans happened because tv’s were connected and downloaded an update. So whatever is cheaper for the features I care about and I think digital signage you pay a premium for. But I won’t count it out! Thank you

When I block someone I do not care if they see what I post. I just do not want them to be able to interact with it. I don’t want to see them. I don’t want their opinion. But it’s fine if they want to spend their energy fuming about whatever I post. Or more likely, simply who I am.

“The grid needs new electricity sources to support AI technologies,” said Michael Terrell, senior director for energy and climate at Google." The grid needs fewer power hungry grifts.

I honestly don’t think it’s a matter of him not understanding how consent works and more of a matter that he sees consent as something that gets in his way.

Aren’t they already enshittifying FF?

I think I didn’t say the right thing when I wrote it isn’t the end of the world. Because I agree that level of control and surveillance is BAD. I really meant to communicate that it isn’t a future doomer scenario. It’s the world we live in RIGHT NOW. And if you don’t like that, it’s not just cashless society that should concern you. It’s not something we can prevent. It’s something we have to undo.

Ok… but most of those negative points are perfectly doable even with cash.

“EVERY TRANSACTION YOU MAKE WILL BE TRACKED YOUR SPENDING HABITS CAN BE LINKED TO YOUR CARBON FOOTPRINT” True enough.

“YOU WILL ONLY BE PERMITTED TO SPEND ON THINGS THE GOVERNMENT APPROVES OF. THINGS THAT ARE DEEMED TO BE LUXURIES — MEAT, FUEL, TRAVEL — CAN BE RESTRICTED” This is already true. Things that the government deems illegal are… not legal to buy? And luxuries are already taxed higher than necessities. This already exists as written.

“THERE WILL BE NO ‘BLACK’ ECONOMY. IT WILL NOT BE POSSIBLE TO AVOID TAX, BUT THEN YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO GIVE POCKET MONEY TO CHILDREN OR GRANDCHILDREN AND NEITHER WILL YOU BE ABLE TO BORROW OR LEND MONEY TO FRIENDS WITHOUT THAT BEING TAXED BY THE GOVERNMENT” - Avoiding paying your taxes isn’t the gotcha you think it is. This should be lumped in with the pros. And before anyone @'s me over the pocket money thing, at least in my country you don’t need to declare stuff like this on your taxes. There’s a threshold for income that below that it’s a waste of EVERYONE’s time to track. So things like allowances and pocket money between friends is just not affected.

“PARKING AND SPEEDING FINES WILL BE TAKEN AT SOURCE, WITHOUT THE POSSIBILITY OF CHALLENGE AND POSSIBLY EVEN WITHOUT YOUR KNOWLEDGE” Why would they? Even in a cashless society it’s still possible you simply do not have the cash in your account. They would still need to be able to charge you for it later. They would also still need to do due process for fines. If we are not doing due process in the legal system, we have big problems beyond if we are using cash or card.

“IF YOU PROTEST THE ACTIONS OF THE GOVERNMENT, YOUR MONEY CAN BE SWITCHED OFF. IF YOU THINK THAT’S UNLIKELY, IT’S ALREADY HAPPENED TO TENS OF THOUSANDS OF CANADIANS WHEN THEY PROTESTED AND IT ALSO HAPPENED TO A BRITISH JOURNALIST” - Is this about the Flu Trucks Clan? Well the way the Canadian gov’t handled that was pretty shit. I’ll give you that. But um. We still have cash in Canada. And if they can turn off your ability to spend in a cash society then this is at the worst a net zero. Neither better nor worse.

“A CASHLESS SOCIETY MEANS THE END OF HUMAN FREEDOM” What? The onus is on you to explain this one further.

The remainder of points highlighted are a call to action so I don’t have anything to say on that. Protest digital ID if you want. ID is ID though. Even with paper ID it’s still registered and tracked. And if they want to track our movements all they need to do is ask apple and google or buy the data from 3rd parties. It’s easier than implementing all the scary stuff the OP mentioned. It’s cheaper. And you don’t need a warrant to buy data from a broker. Pretty much all the scare mongering here is actually in place already.

All that being said, I don’t think moving to a totally cashless society would be good either. But these talking points aren’t actually the end of the world that OP would like you to believe.