secretfire's recent activity
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Comment on What code editor / IDE do you use (2025)? in ~comp
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Comment on What code editor / IDE do you use (2025)? in ~comp
secretfire LinkI'm very much a hobbyist programmer (and not a very good one to be frank), but I do my programming in Emacs these days, mostly because I happen to already do everything else in Emacs. My config is...I'm very much a hobbyist programmer (and not a very good one to be frank), but I do my programming in Emacs these days, mostly because I happen to already do everything else in Emacs. My config is essentially vanilla Emacs with a few non-programming add-ons, themes, basic stuff. Never bothered setting up LSP or anything fancy like that. Emacs can provide all the features you mention in your post (except for "well-established keyboard shortcuts", in Emacs you cut+paste with Ctrl+W Ctrl+Y but they're called kill+yank because uhhhh history - Those aren't even the weirdest ones), but if you find Vim overwhelming I can't see Emacs being much better!
When nobody's looking I might shamefully open VSCodium to quickly edit a file, mostly when I'm using Windows since Emacs is a pain to run on Windows either natively or through WSL.
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Comment on What have you been eating, drinking, and cooking? in ~food
secretfire (edited )LinkTrying to eat more fermented foods for good gut health, so I've been incorporating kimchi a lot more into my diet. Wouldn't say I've made any "Korean dishes" per say, so much as I've just been...Trying to eat more fermented foods for good gut health, so I've been incorporating kimchi a lot more into my diet. Wouldn't say I've made any "Korean dishes" per say, so much as I've just been throwing Korean things into stir fries and eating it alongside kimchi. It's pretty good! I make a ton of Japanese food already and there's a huge amount of ingredient overlap between the two cuisines, so it's mostly been a lot of rice and kimchi and veg with gochujang and whatever protein I'm bothered with that day (mostly chicken and tofu). Considering making my own kimchi if I can find a way to do so without distressing the rest of my home's occupants.
Also, trying to cut out processed sugars (again), which means no snacking. My diet has always been one where I eat a really healthy breakfast, a really healthy dinner, but I skip lunch half the time and just eat a ton of garbage that ruins everything. So trying to find healthy lunch and snacking options is my goal at the moment. One of my goto lunches is a really simple combination of fried egg, reheated rice, furikake (a Japanese rice seasoning), and whatever sauces and oils I feel like (kecap manis and sambal is excellent). Put it all in a bowl, mix, that's lunch. Sorta healthy if you use brown rice, can stick an avocado in there too.
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Comment on Recommendations for a Linux based job/ticket management system in ~tech
secretfire LinkI'm the Emacs guy, so I'm going to suggest Emacs, specifically the org-mode and org-roam packages. Here's the org-mode website detailing how it works, and here's a pretty good video of one guy's...I'm the Emacs guy, so I'm going to suggest Emacs, specifically the org-mode and org-roam packages. Here's the org-mode website detailing how it works, and here's a pretty good video of one guy's system. It's all text-based so it can be used in a GUI or CLI setting (though I almost exclusively use it in GUI mode just for convenience), it's all local, it's highly extensible, and there are dozens of user-created extensions and premade setups out there.
Emacs on the whole has a steep learning curve, but it's not at all impossible to learn. Personally I got the basics down in less than a week when I started, and there are dozens of packages that make it more modern. If you've a Vim user already then the evil-mode package adds Vim keybindings into Emacs, for instance.
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Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
secretfire LinkHave been playing Enter the Gungeon a lot recently. It's a really fun roguelite (a genre I'm not particularly well-versed in honestly), even though I suck at it. Haven't made it past floor 3 yet....Have been playing Enter the Gungeon a lot recently. It's a really fun roguelite (a genre I'm not particularly well-versed in honestly), even though I suck at it. Haven't made it past floor 3 yet. It's a nice game to pick up for a run or two while
procrastinatingtaking a break. -
Comment on What programming/technical projects have you been working on? in ~comp
secretfire Link ParentNot particularly serious; most of what I'll be storing on there will be downloaded TV shows, books, etc., things that I could fairly easily download again if needed. There'll be important stuff...Not particularly serious; most of what I'll be storing on there will be downloaded TV shows, books, etc., things that I could fairly easily download again if needed. There'll be important stuff backed on it too though, photos, work documents, creative projects, but most of that I'll have on my main computer as well. Considering getting some quality cloud storage to complete the 3-2-1 backup system, but non-Google cloud storage isn't cheap unfortunately.
With ECC it's mostly for peace of mind. Yeah the chances of me losing important data from RAM corruption on a non-ECC NAS are extremely low, but if I'm investing the time and money into building a NAS then it seems like it'd be more sensible to go for ECC support just to have it and then not have to worry about it at all. The problem, of course, is that you're vastly more limited with parts in an ECC supported system, and those parts will be more expensive. Realistically it's not an important thing to have, but for every 10 people on the internet saying "it's a tiny thing that makes zero difference for a home server, don't bother", there's someone else saying "I lost a ton of data from RAM corruption, I'm never building a non-ECC system again". It's all a game of risk in the end I suppose, how much money I'm willing to throw at a thing versus the amount I'm willing to risk losing a bunch of files, even from an incredibly unlikely issue.
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Comment on What programming/technical projects have you been working on? in ~comp
secretfire LinkI'm currently researching parts to build a small home server, basically just for Jellyfin (media server) and backing up important stuff. I've built PCs before but servers require a whole different...I'm currently researching parts to build a small home server, basically just for Jellyfin (media server) and backing up important stuff. I've built PCs before but servers require a whole different way of thinking when choosing parts and whatnot; I don't particularly care if my gaming PC isn't the most efficient machine in the world when idling, but for a server running (more or less) 24/7 the difference between 40W idle and 50W idle can be a few bucks a month, and that adds up. So I'm having to find parts that are powerful enough to do what I want with it, but not too powerful (for upfront cost as well as power draw), that are also energy efficient.
Fortunately it takes basically nothing to run a half decent media server; you can make a perfectly functional one with decade-old hardware. But I'm the kind of person who always wants to do things right the first time round, which inevitably leads me to always jumping down enormous rabbitholes of research for meagre levels of optimisation.
Currently my thinking is to make an Intel-based mITX build: Intel for better video transcoding (compared to AMD processors, which kinda suck at it), mITX for convenience and aesthetics and fun. Haven't quite landed on what exact processor to get but I don't think the fine details matter too much honestly, basically any processor made in the last 5 years could do the job here. Will probably get an 11th-12th gen i5, but I'm also thinking about going with ECC-supported parts which would require me to get either a 9th gen or a 14th-15th gen (not to mention trying to find obscure compatible motherboards from the deep recesses of aliexpress). Or I could go with an AMD processor (they're way better with ECC support) and a cheap GPU of some kind, but that's probably way overkill and would make having an energy-efficient build basically impossible. The ECC vs no ECC debate is one of those tech things where a lot of people have extremely strong opinions on either side and idk man im just a guy who doesn't want his data to get destroyed, I have no idea whether or not to bother with it. Forgoing ECC makes picking parts a hell of a lot easier at least, not to mention way cheaper.
Once I've settled on a CPU/motherboard combo everything else just sorta falls into place. I get some half decent memory, a few NAS HDDs, an M.2. SSD, high-quality PSU, etc, etc, and then I move onto software, which is where the fun really begins.
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Comment on Introducing Kagi News in ~tech
secretfire LinkI'm no expert so maybe this is a non-issue, but is this a 'valid' use of RSS from the perspective of the websites offering it? RSS is already poorly supported as is, and I'd worry that companies...Every day, our system reads thousands of community curated RSS feeds from publications across different viewpoints and perspectives. We then use AI to distill this massive information into one comprehensive daily briefing, while clearly citing sources.
I'm no expert so maybe this is a non-issue, but is this a 'valid' use of RSS from the perspective of the websites offering it? RSS is already poorly supported as is, and I'd worry that companies using it as a way to effectively bypass AI scraping detection would result in less sites offering it altogether.
I'm not a big AI guy, but this is a relatively innocuous use of the tech I think, and a fairly useful one. The site News Minimalist already does this exact thing via ChatGPT, though it largely focuses on US news which makes it relatively unhelpful for escaping the omnishambles of the political hellscape (but I suppose that's just what news is nowadays). Plus, OpenAI, ew.
I made a thread a while back asking where Tildes users got their news from; while the post itself went on, what was in hindsight, a rather ill-thought-out spiel about Reddit echo chamber manipulation (though my overall point was valid I think), the responses were really helpful and are worth reading for anyone who feels stuck trying to find news that doesn't try to ruin your brain.
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Comment on Thoughts on making one's own dry mixes? in ~food
secretfire LinkI'm almost certain it'd be fine for things like oats and such, as long as you eat it all before the expiry date of whichever ingredient expires first. The general recipe for bacterial growth is...I'm almost certain it'd be fine for things like oats and such, as long as you eat it all before the expiry date of whichever ingredient expires first. The general recipe for bacterial growth is carbohydrates + water + warmth (and "warmth" here can be anything above freezing really). Dried grains and cereals and such can be incredibly nutrient-dense and long-lasting in spite of it, so long as they're kept dry - Once you soak them in water, bacteria can start eating at the starches and sugars that disperse in the water, and then it becomes a problem. This is also why you shouldn't soak your rice for anything over 24 hours. Even then with dried grains you can tell if they've gone bad via water contamination because they will smell awful and will probably have visible mold spots.
If you're really concerned you might consider pairing the ingredients up or something similar, instead of putting them all together in a single container. Mix your chia seeds and oats, mix your raisins and nuts, make it so you only need to combine 2-3 things instead of 5-6. I'd also recommend getting a set of measuring cups if you don't already have them; I find the less time I have to spend thinking about ingredient ratios and such, the more likely I am to actually go to the kitchen and make my overnight oats. Much easier if I know I only have to take one scoop of x and two scoops of y with z cups of milk, no further thinking required. Plus it allows for better modification if you decide you want more or less of something one day.
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Comment on What have you been watching / reading this week? (Anime/Manga) in ~anime
secretfire LinkRestarted watching One Piece. I'm not a huge fan but people keep telling me gets really good and at this point I'm determined to get to the good part just to know if they're lying or not. I've...Restarted watching One Piece. I'm not a huge fan but people keep telling me gets really good and at this point I'm determined to get to the good part just to know if they're lying or not. I've been intermittently watching for about a year and a half now; I'm about 80 episodes in (Drum Island), but I'm watching the One Pace fan edits which cut down on a ton of filler and such, so really it's like 50 45-minute episodes in. Massive props to everyone who works on One Pace because without them I would absolutely not have had the patience to get even 20 episodes in.
It's pretty mediocre thus far, if nothing else it's something I can stick on when I'm bored. But everyone keeps talking about it like turns into the greatest thing ever animated and I just gotta see for myself, yknow?
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Comment on What are you reading these days? in ~books
secretfire Link ParentIs this your first time reading LotR? If so, welcome to the nerd club! The first 7 or so chapters of Fellowship are tonally much more similar to The Hobbit than to general high fantasy, and to...Is this your first time reading LotR? If so, welcome to the nerd club! The first 7 or so chapters of Fellowship are tonally much more similar to The Hobbit than to general high fantasy, and to that end they can be fairly tedious to read through if you're not up for simply accompanying some hobbits on a jaunt through the countryside. It's slow going, because the hobbits themselves are going at a leisurly hobbit pace,
(very mild spoiler for the first half of the book)
in stark contrast to the overwhelming danger they are really in, a danger that we (and the hobbits) are only given small, unsettling glimpses of throughout their initial journey.
Chapters 6 and 7 are the most emblematic of this difference, and honestly there's no shame in skimming them or outright skipping them if you find yourself losing interest. Better to skip them than to miss out on the rest of the book, which is, of course, stellar.
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Comment on What are you reading these days? in ~books
secretfire LinkI own a ton of books and I keep wanting to read through them, but 75% of the time when I pick up an unread book from my shelf and start reading it, I find out that it's a depressing book, and I...I own a ton of books and I keep wanting to read through them, but 75% of the time when I pick up an unread book from my shelf and start reading it, I find out that it's a depressing book, and I don't like reading depressing books because the world's depressing enough and I'm trying to read to escape that depression reality. I'm sure Steinbeck's East of Eden is an excellent novel, I gave it a good go, but damn I just want to have a happy time, yknow? I keep thinking "okay, gonna read a comfort book, then after that I'll crack on reading that big allegory on the human condition or whatever", but then I finish the comfort book and need even more comfort and I pick up another comfort book and before I know it I've read half of the Discword novels and my twentieth LotR reread.
To that end I'm re-re-reading The Silmarillion, probably like the fifth time now. Tolkien just too good. Something about a world where there's actually light at the end of the tunnel and the tragedy exists to make the happy moments all the sweeter, rather than just, yknow, more tragedy piled up forever and ever.
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Comment on Bear is now source-available in ~tech
secretfire Link ParentVery true, the Bear developer is free to do whatever they want with the software running on their server. If I were to host my own instance of their FOSS source code, however, they wouldn't have...But this code doesn't run on your computer, it runs on someone else's computer. It's a web service.
Very true, the Bear developer is free to do whatever they want with the software running on their server. If I were to host my own instance of their FOSS source code, however, they wouldn't have any say on what I could do with it either. My point is that by picking the MIT license (which was almost certainly a mistake on the developer's part, one that they chose to not fix for too long) they allowed people to do whatever they wished with that source code. But now that people are doing whatever they want with it, namely modifying and hosting their own instances, the developer is changing things to make sure that can't happen anymore in the future.
That is, of course, well within their right; nobody can force them to run their own code in a certain way. But the vibe being given off by this whole event is one where the dev chose to publish their code under a permissive FOSS license (as you said, FOSS is a spectrum, but the MIT is a very lax license) without understanding the ramifications of doing so, and when faced with those ramifications they got defensive and decided to ensure that nobody else could copy them in the future. There's nothing wrong with that really, it just comes off a bit, I don't know, disingenuous?
Anyways, I've written like 2000 words in this comments section already, over a piece of software I don't even use, so I'll leave it there. But I do agree with the points you've made here, absolutely.
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Comment on Bear is now source-available in ~tech
secretfire Link ParentI have been conflating the two terms here; I figured it wasn't worth getting bogged down with semantics, but you are correct, I've been generally talking about Free Software rather than Open...You are confusing Free Software and Open Source.
I have been conflating the two terms here; I figured it wasn't worth getting bogged down with semantics, but you are correct, I've been generally talking about Free Software rather than Open Source software. Though in retrospect it's probably a safe bet that people on the Tech subforum of Tildes in a thread about code licensing would be able to discern the two terms.
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Comment on Bear is now source-available in ~tech
secretfire Link ParentThis is an excellent point and one that I should have addressed. From an ideological point of view I fully agree: Herman has every right to restrict the usage of his software if he so chooses....If the FOSS philosophy is truly about freedom, it seems odd to deny the creator the freedom to correct what they see as a mistake in their licensing choice for their own future work. Being "stuck" with a poor choice forever doesn't sound like freedom to me.
This is an excellent point and one that I should have addressed. From an ideological point of view I fully agree: Herman has every right to restrict the usage of his software if he so chooses. Just like how nobody can force me to use my computer a certain way, nobody should be able to force him to manage his code in a certain way.
On a practical level however, it is an annoying thing to deal with as a user. It's unlikely that every Bear user will notice this change, and a lot of people who do probably won't bother moving their blog someplace else over it. For most this will be an annoying, but ultimately mild issue.
In a Stallman-approved GNU/Hurd ideal world, the whole Bear userbase would jump ship to a fork of the project with a free license, and Bear would be left to die in proprietary shame. In the real world, that obviously won't happen (and that's probably for the best). The practical outcome of this change is likely not going to amount to much. A few people will get mad and leave. Most won't though, because Bear is still a quality blogging platform at the end of the day, ran by someone who does seem to care about their site's users. But most importantly, people won't move because it's a pain in the ass to move to a new platform, and most won't care that much. Apathy is a powerful thing, unfortunately.
Like you said, this change is not a retroactive one; people are free to fork the code and go about their business on another site. But a platform like Bear is not just a bundle of source code: It's a group of creators, a set of domains, a server running somewhere (which, of course, Herman is allowed to use in whatever way he wishes as well, since he owns the computer), an environment to create in. All of those things and more are why people choose to use it. Anyone who cares about this license change now has to contend with leaving all of that, or deciding it's not a huge deal and sticking put. In that sense I do think this is a bit of a "rug pull", so to speak. Not an intentional one by any means, I don't think the devs were planning all along to entrap a userbase by luring them in with the promise of FOSS and then trusting that apathy will keep them onboard once their intentions were revealed. But, well, that is the strategy that gets used by "the bad guys". Start with something great, garner an audience, then chip away at user freedoms bit by bit, enough that people never get enraged, just mildly angry before forgetting, and once they've forgotten, chip away again. We're seeing it play out with privacy laws, desktop/mobile operating systems, voter's rights, and far more.
Is Bear going from a permissive FOSS license to a slightly more restricted source-available one the same thing as Big Tech pushing mass surveillance? Absolutely not, it's nowhere even remotely close. I would still use Bear over an equivalent Google service in a hearbeat if I had to choose one or the other. But it's something where if I had to choose between one or the other (and of course, I don't have to in reality), I would be compromising something in either case. Again, it's an astronomical difference between the two. But as far as a "rigid, absolutist FOSS philosophy" goes, the zealots among us would have to say no to both. I'm not a Free Software fanatic, I'll connect to the wifi in other peoples' houses without inspecting their router, I'll watch Youtube videos occasionally. But I think that FOSS absolutism is something we should, at least, aspire toward when we can, and I think that in situations like this where a service that people use takes a step back from that ideal, they shouldn't simply let it happen.
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Comment on Bear is now source-available in ~tech
secretfire Link ParentI worded that sentence quite poorly, I'll admit. Here's a (hopefully) better-worded elaboration from a reply I made:I worded that sentence quite poorly, I'll admit. Here's a (hopefully) better-worded elaboration from a reply I made:
I agree, and I should say that I think open source projects absolutely have a place in the commercial space, but even then it all comes back to making money at some stage. Big companies can release open source projects for a variety of reasons, but it's always because it works better from a business standpoint, either directly or indirectly. That isn't a problem in and of itself of course, it's just how the world works. But you can only make money in FOSS by having some form of paid product alongside the open source work, whether it be a proprietary application that works in tandem with it (e.g. Microsoft with .NET, VSCodium, etc), distributing the code via CDs or some other medium (which is basically how GNU kept afloat for a long time), or simply asking for donations.
I could have worded my point better here, I think. What I meant was, it's one thing to declare your work as free for all to use and modify how they want; it's another thing to see people actually using and modifying your work how they want. Especially if, as is often the case, people can take your work and make it better than you ever could. But that's just the nature of open source: You can't just own free (libre) software. It's not a product, it belongs to the people. If it doesn't belong to the people, it stops being truly free software.
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Comment on Bear is now source-available in ~tech
secretfire Link ParentI agree, and I should say that I think open source projects absolutely have a place in the commercial space, but even then it all comes back to making money at some stage. Big companies can...Permissive open-source licenses like MIT are often very compatible with a "capitalist commercialism mindset". They allow anyone, this includes large companies, to profit from open-source work without any obligation to contribute back. That's the "free-riding" I believe Herman remarks to.
I agree, and I should say that I think open source projects absolutely have a place in the commercial space, but even then it all comes back to making money at some stage. Big companies can release open source projects for a variety of reasons, but it's always because it works better from a business standpoint, either directly or indirectly. That isn't a problem in and of itself of course, it's just how the world works. But you can only make money in FOSS by having some form of paid product alongside the open source work, whether it be a proprietary application that works in tandem with it (e.g. Microsoft with .NET, VSCodium, etc), distributing the code via CDs or some other medium (which is basically how GNU kept afloat for a long time), or simply asking for donations.
I could have worded my point better here, I think. What I meant was, it's one thing to declare your work as free for all to use and modify how they want; it's another thing to see people actually using and modifying your work how they want. Especially if, as is often the case, people can take your work and make it better than you ever could. But that's just the nature of open source: You can't just own free (libre) software. It's not a product, it belongs to the people. If it doesn't belong to the people, it stops being truly free software.
The problem he described is others taking the code with minimal changes to launch a paid, competing service. That's not community improvement at all. It is just plain commercialization without collaboration.
Like you said I think the big issue here is that they should never have picked the MIT license if they didn't want people to repackage and commercialise their software in this manner. The MIT license allows this sort of thing by design. It's a feature, not a bug. The implication in their blog post is that they feel their code is being stolen by people who want to make a competing service but don't want to put the effort in to make their service good, so they're just hijacking the Bear codebase ("free-riding", as they say). I disagree with the notion that they are being stolen from in any way, or that their work is being exploited. In their own blog post the developer says:
While Bear's code is good, what makes the platform special is the people who use it, and the commitment to longevity.
And I think that this line encapsulates the dissonance in this entire annoucement. The code is only one part of the service. There's no reason why bearblog.dev shouldn't have been able to run perfectly well with the code licensed the way it was, no matter what other sites did with it.
It seems to me that Herman made a site, and the site did well. It was open source and free to use, and he was proud of his work. He wanted open source from the start for its transparency and, presumably, because a lot of people will hold open source projects in higher regard than closed source ones. They didn't consider that their project being open source meant that it stops being their project, one that they alone are in control of. And once people started forking the project and deciding to host their own versions of the site, rather than seeing it as a net positive for the community, where his work was allowing for others to achieve their goals easier, he saw it as people ripping off his work. That, I think, is the sticking point. Whether intentionally or not, they advertised their code as being something that anyone can view, modify, and distribute themselves, and now they're going back on that promise.
In the end this whole thing comes down to the initial choice of license. Licenses are complicated, and I can't entirely fault the developer for picking one at the start without fully understanding the ramifications of it. That being said, the MIT license is short, and they had a long time to figure this stuff out.
But I also feel like we shouldn't put projects like this in the same category as actual open-source rug pulls. Pretending we are living in such a binary reality, I believe strongly to be more hurtful to discourse about open-source.
I don't think the motive matters, whether it's a sole developer feeling overly protective of code they've written, or a big company deciding to lock down a major project once they've cultivated a community that can't easily break out of the ecosystem. In both cases it's a restriction of freedom for the consumer. And perhaps I'm just a FOSS zealot (well, no, I most definitely am, and I imagine we'll have to simply agree to disagree on this point), but I think it matters now more than ever that user freedom is respected to the highest extent, no half measures. We're witnessing everyone in power, governments, corporations, billionaires, all trying to control more and more of our lives, and our computer usage especially. I think it's more important than ever that we fight for our digital freedom, in all its forms.
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Comment on Bear is now source-available in ~tech
secretfire LinkIt sounds like the developer wanted all the benefits they get by saying their project is open source, but didn't actually want to deal with the reality of what it means for a project to be open...- Exemplary
It sounds like the developer wanted all the benefits they get by saying their project is open source, but didn't actually want to deal with the reality of what it means for a project to be open source.
Other people being able to modify and distribute your code is the entire point.
They claim they "believe in open source" and then got "bitten by it". In actuality it seems like they never believed in open source in the first place. Open source is a philosophy. It's based on the belief that I should be allowed to know what runs on my computer, and I should be allowed to freely modify the behaviour of code running on my computer, because it's MY computer. If there are restrictions on my ability to modify code on my computer, then it stops really being my computer: I am giving the developers of whatever program I'm running power over my computer.
I think what happened here is that the developer realised that the open source philosophy at its core is incompatible with the capitalist commercialism mindset. The notion of writing code, freely sharing it, and letting others modify and contribute so that everyone can benefit, is too socialist. Everyone benefits, but no one person profits. If you see other people improving upon your code as a threat to your status rather than a mutually beneficial development, then you shouldn't make your code open source. It's as simple as that.
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Comment on Germany legal case alleging adblockers violate copyright in ~tech
secretfire Link ParentI'd put that in the realm of political revolution; the culture of the US had changed enough over the decades and generations that it was allowed to happen. Broadly speaking (I'm not a political...I'd put that in the realm of political revolution; the culture of the US had changed enough over the decades and generations that it was allowed to happen. Broadly speaking (I'm not a political scientist, someone smarter than me can probably put this into better words), culture shifts happen between generations, with big changes happening as older generations die out and newer ones come in. Politics follows culture, so as one generation comes in with their beliefs, whether they be more or less progressive than those before, things eventually change. These changes are often, well, generational as a result. I certainly don't think that the west's only way out of anti-surveillance laws is blowing people up or anything, but I also don't think it's something that will realistically change in the coming political cycles without a serious shake-up. And perhaps I'm just pessimistic but I don't see that happening any time soon. Governments around the world are welcoming the Chinese system of authoritarianism with open arms, and the public are broadly ambivalent, unable to see the steady shift, or supportive, seeing how it makes the lives of the woke liberals and trans people that much harder.
But I'll concede that perhaps superlatives like 'always' and 'never' might not be entirely accurate. The world is a big place, after all. But instead of 'never' I might say 'basically never, and if it does eventually happen, it'll only be a generation later'. On a practical lever, they may as well be the same though. Once I give up my privacy to a government, I'm not getting it back. My kids might, or maybe some huge government shakeup might grant it back. But me voting for a politician won't do it, and it's basically impossible to make most people give enough of a shit for something like that to vote specifically for it. 90% of people cast their vote exclusively for reasons of taxes, healthcare, or hatred. Anything beyond those is an afterthought for most, and they only remember what they've lost during the next election season when the politician's promises start coming out.
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Comment on Germany legal case alleging adblockers violate copyright in ~tech
secretfire LinkIt really seems like we've been nosediving towards the cyberpunk ethos in recent months, just without the cool technology. The surveillance state is in and internet freedom is out, we'll watch our...It really seems like we've been nosediving towards the cyberpunk ethos in recent months, just without the cool technology. The surveillance state is in and internet freedom is out, we'll watch our ads and brainrot and nothing else and we'll be happy. It's depressing as hell and I can't see a way out. It's all well and good to vote and contact representatives (things I do and tell my friends to do also) but the strategy seems to be pushing these anti-privacy laws over and over and over again until one day they inevitably succeed, moving the line further and further towards authoritarianism.
Once we give up a freedom to a government, we never, ever get it back without revolution, political or otherwise. Once a law is passed that, say, allows the government to backdoor any and all encryption, there is absolutely no way of convincing any future government to give up that power over us. So the strategy is to strip a little freedom away, wait until people stop caring, then strip another, and another, until they have everything. That's what all of this is. Porn bans, anti-encryption laws, adblock bans. Each thing is a small but permanent step toward authoritarianism. They only have to win once; we have to win every time.
There are dozens of us! Dozens!