I have. Nothing happened.

The idea that we can even DO anything about capitalism at this point is a forgone fantasy. Not to say we shouldn't keep trying to push for a better, more equitable world until the time becomes more ripe to do away with personal gain above others, but we don't get there all at once. There will be no revolution, nobody is coming.

But if we were to work together and firmly, decisively push actual, selected representatives into power who are committed to getting MOTHERFUCKING MONEY OUT OF POLITICS, that would bring a thousand miles closer to that ideal world we all want. Other countries have done it, but our problem in America is we have a population way too comfortable and atomized to ever band together and do this critically important thing.

I don't have a way to reach enough people without some kind of massive disaster that forces people off their couches and makes food out of reach.

Try to exist in any kind of life above "hippy with hemp clothes living in a yurt on their parent's property and a trust fund" without things like a smartphone, a car and a computer.

The junk products are not the problem, they will be phased out in a few years anyway, like all the ones before them.

The problem is the political system that is completely subservient to corporations that allows them to create accepted social standards like "you have to have the newest phone and a computer to even dream of getting a job interview" or the manufactured consent that much of America adheres to that things like social programs, welfare and universal basic income are tools of the devil.

Or the epidemic of planned-obsolescence that every last democrat and republican representative profits from as much as the tech-barons they work for. Other countries have laws about making products that last so citizens don't have to spend their every last dime to just to keep having basic appliances and connection to the world.

If we made a unified push to install representatives that also want a better world and aren't blithering morons who want to get rich, it would go a long ways to healing the system, but I don't know how that's going to happen since we all allowed our population to also become blithering morons.

With the recent destruction of PBS and their associated programs, this is going to get even worse. But don't worry, kids will be able to ask Grok for history facts.

Cutting out the middle man does not involve technologically regressing.

But then how can you performatively sit in Starbucks with a mechanical typewriter and then post it on social media so everyone knows how progressive and anti-establishment you are???

There’s absolutely no argument to be made that requires accepting all tech simply because it’s tech.

False dichotomy and a stupid comic strip making a stupid point all the way down.

If we cared about this issue we would be pushing for the installation of representatives who want to ban planned obsolescence and systems that require you to have the newest, most expensive vehicles, appliances and gadgets. Our current entire government is subservient to and employed by companies that make billions on this manufactured consent to always "needing" to spend our labor on useless junk.

To say nothing of the inherent, massive problem that we made it legal to buy and own politicians.

Yeah no. You just didn't understand the comic and made a stupid point. It happens.

Okay, ya'll kids keep arguing about "devices" while millions of people are forced to buy the newest phones so they can get their email and attend job interviews, while mountains of money get poured into politicians who are affording their fifth homes because Samsung pays them in wheelbarrows of cash to keep consumer protection agencies neutered or destroyed.

Who needs an iPod clone when you can literally buy an iPod, drop 1Tb of storage in it, and sync it to your library like you always could.

It's stupidly easy to do, and those things are still rock solid. And you can put Rockbox on too, if you don't want iTunes anywhere near your computer. Or you use Linux and can't have iTunes.

Oh well.

Yes, if you leverage the powers of root and you know what you are doing, you can endlessly modify MacOS to your heart's delight.

I find most people don't have that ability. They stick to the Apple app store and color inside of the lines that Apple has put down.

It's no small feat to overcome some of the "safeguards" they have put in your way with modifying the device.

If you use an iPhone and you don't like the Apple way of doing everything, your options are basically: 1. Tough shit, deal with it, or 2. Don't use an iPhone.

Android has a lot of the same protections, but you can still, from the user interface, bypass a lot of it, by design. It's "not recommended", but you can do it.

Microsoft is trying to move towards what Apple is doing. The TPM requirement allows Microsoft to basically hold the keys to the kingdom, so to speak. What they're aiming for is a root of trust (which is naturally, Microsoft), that allows all other things on your PC to run without warnings or dialogs, if they have been blessed by Microsoft's certificate authority for code signing (which is a requirement for drivers, but not nearly as strict of a requirement for applications).

This is the foundation of the "trusted computing" thing that they're pushing forward. The problem I have with "trusted computing" is who is issuing the trust? So far it seems like Microsoft is.... Which is not great IMO.

However, since Windows is only requiring that level of trusted signature on code for drivers, we're not to the same dystopia that MacOS has been "enjoying" for years.

Oh, is that how we beat the Nazis? With half-assed reforms and vote organizing?

Again. It’s not saying there’s nobody else involved in the chain. It’s saying tech bro enshitification doesn’t have a way in. That’s the only problem it’s claiming to solve.

For instance, you don’t open up a paper book and have an AI window pop up on the page and offer to generate a summary of the book. You don’t take an ordinary pen to a sheet of paper and after two paragraphs have the pen say, “Subscribe to ink services to continue writing, start your free trial today?”

Basically how i try to live my life! Buy physical media, setup a nas, unplug from the internet on most weekends (or limit it).

I connected win 98 to the internet yesterday. It was fine, and probably safer than win 11 is now. No built in Spyware either ha!

(Don't use win 98 as your main os. I am partially joking and I only use it for running old programs and games.)

I always say, it peaked about 2010, maybe earlier. Then innovation stopped, and surveillance REALLY took off. All they have left now is your data, and ads, because the iPhone was the last actually innovative useful device.

Its not worth innovating in late stage capitalism when you can make everything a subscription and gouge your customers for life while making your product worse and worse.

Cars with just efi and abs are avilable up to like 2019 before the gov made them put black boxes in.

No they didn't bud. Regular (working class, non tech) people in the 90s had never heard of GPS, had hardly heard of a computer. Outside of super niche luxury brands of cars, it wasn't a thing at all.

Yes but im willing to bet they dont all phone home like cars of today, government has full control of all new vehicles due to regulations. Black boxes, brake control, cameras, your new car is a rolling surveillance tool.