fair point, but to get there you must go to the comments to begin with, which I believe might be less likely you do when you don't have something to say.

WhatsApp is just one more App for me. There are two people I wish I could convince to use signal but cannot…

Yeah, but Matrix has bridges for almost anything.

And people still use email.

we should be doing something

Ok, let's dive into it. What does "doing something" exactly mean? I've been into this since before I could vote, so I saw quite through it.

"Doing something" means a lot of different things for different people. Signing a petition, going to a march, writing on a wall, you name it. For some people "doing something" means sitting all day discussing about socialism and revolution in a living room. For others it is more biking together with Critical Mass against oil on weekends. There are those seeking small daily actions like recycling, and then there are the activist jumping on a boat with Greenpeace to save the whales, and the terrorists doing anything from damaging something to placing a bomb.

What does it mean for you "doing something"? Once you determine that, determine how much of that something would be adopted by the general population and what level of change could that reasonably achieve. I'll anticipate the result of you exercise: the bigger is your something and the smaller will be the adoption, but the product in terms of impact will be always "very small".

Take Occupy Wall Street to make an example. I loved the whole thing, I love the work of David Graeber, and it was a massive success, but what did they achieve in practice? The expression 99% entered in the general culture and there may be a bit more awareness of the problem of billionaires, but looking at cold metrics it was like a big storm, then the sun came back and a few days later the last puddle evaporated.

you argue that you are not going to do anything just out of spite all because OP personally may not be doing anything but their words are a bit preachy

Who said I'm not doing anything? OP said "You still work. You still buy. You still support the system." to which I replied that I'm no more a naive 16 years old who shouts fuck the system and dreams to live off-the-grid avoiding the rat-race... and then goes back home to have dinner with mum.

If you are an adult and you want to go for it, be my guest! You may become Greta-Thunberg-famous, and people will follow you on social media. You will convince some people that, I don't know, we should buy durable and reparable things to save the planet and fight consumerism. You will have an impact, albeit very small, and that will be a massive achievement if you dedicate your whole life to that.

Just, please, stop with idiotic replies accusing people to be enslaved in the system because it's an insult to anyone who is currently looking for a solution for cancer, saving lives as a firefighter, building houses where people will live, growing crops, and even keeping up internet so people can praise the revolution against the machine from their bedrooms.

Did you read it till the end?

Is this supposed to be satire? How is print media owned by massive conglomerates, flip phones with no OSS firmware, handwritten letters delivered by a literal middleman, avoiding the middlemen??

Yeah, but Matrix has bridges for almost anything.

But then you are simply using Whatsapp with extra steps.

I was with you until 4:3. You should be locked up.

On a more serious note: Framework laptops. More repairable than the laptops of yore, minus the soldered CPUs which seem unavoidable in laptops now.

When ceiling fans and AC units requires an account, yeah, something's wrong.

They're also less safe and efficient. They're fun, but objectively worse cars to run nowadays that parts can also be hard to come by.

I am now using lineage which is fine but still way too restrictive for my tastes. I tried using linux(postmarketos) as I am fine with a lot of inconveniences but was unable to make or take calls, which is kind of a hard line. There should just be an android based phone os which is degoogled and rooted by default, but really the problem lies with the hardware, I think. There need to be more phones with open firmware to make an alternative os really possible.

An inexperienced typer might be slower than 40 wpm. I've seen people type maybe 10 words per minute using only index fingers and looking for every letter. An inexperienced touch typer is maybe 40-60 wpm range though.

I do up to around 140 wpm which many people think is lightning fast but then there's people who can do 250 and I can't even comprehend being that fast. Goddamn Sean Wrona.

Just to give some perspective.

They’re not defining “middleman” in the traditional sense of an intermediary in an economic exchange. The first panel introduces a new definition of the term as a tech bro attempting to insinuate himself into the process of communicating with others. The remedies offered would indeed seem to preclude this type of middleman from interfering with the process.

lol.

To rile you up a bit, I wish I could say it is a subjective thing but 4:3 is the better option for laptops.

More vertical screen estate, given one would mostly be doing their reading, writing and browsing – activities that are traditionally vertically oriented.

Even most websites just centre their content and leave behind swathes of white/empty space on both sides.

Anything beyond those activities, one should be using a bigger screen (desktop or a TV)^^^.

Jokes(?) apart, Framework laptops are the best option for folks like us as it ticks the most boxes. But it is not available in the country where I live, and I don’t want to import it as it would be meaningless without its broader ecosystem. FWIW, I have dropped them emails every year requesting them to expand their presence in more countries.

Till then, old ThinkPads. They are cheap, have enough spare parts on the market even after almost 2 decades, and even come with the kind of keyboards and screens that I like.

---

^^^This, unlike the text above it, is a subjective thing

::: spoiler P.S.
I always wanted to use superscript, subscript and horizontal line. Thanks to you, I got to use 2/3.
:::

Cutting out the middle man does not involve technologically regressing.

Cutting out the middle man means stepping up and learning how the tech you use in your daily lives actually works. The only reason some tech bro can step in and ruin your life is if you let them keep you ignorant through convenience.

You want to cut out the middle man? Use, and support, open source. Fight to make everything that requires a server, be a server that you own in your own home (or is federated and in your local community). Use, and support, repairable technology... And actually repair your technology!

There is no lack of available parts for my 21 year old Chevy.

does not involve technologically regressing.

The fallacy that technological progress is inherently good is simply flawed. You could say "instead of relying on Spotify, and instead of "technologically regressing", learn open source alternatives and host your own Jellyfin server!"

But what was wrong with "technologically regressing" exactly? A MP3, CD or even tape recording player will: always work, sound great, require zero user friction, never receive updates or security flaws, not depend on a convoluted self hosted setup.

Do you want to listen to music or impress Lemmy? There's absolutely no argument to be made that requires accepting all tech simply because it's tech.

Yes: We need structural remedies, not individuals opting out. But please tell me what your implied “gotcha” is supposed to be.

Technological progress isn't inherently anything. It's just technological progress; an inevitability. Fighting against it is like fighting the laws of the universe, if not outright stupidly phobic.

What defines the "goodness" of technology is how people choose to use it.

Everything more said is just pointless philosophical fluff.

That was made this century. To go uncomputerized, we need to be looking at the 80s and back.